12. The coming to the use of reason not the time we come to know
these maxims. If by knowing and assenting to them "when we come to the
use of reason," be meant, that this is the time when they come to be
taken notice of by the mind; and that as soon as children come to
the use of reason, they come also to know and assent to these
maxims; this also is false and frivolous. First, it is false;
because it is evident these maxims are not in the mind so early as the
use of reason; and therefore the coming to the use of reason is
falsely assigned as the time of their discovery. How many instances of
the use of reason may we observe in children, a long time before
they have any knowledge of this maxim, "That it is impossible for
the same thing to be and not to be?" And a great part of illiterate
people and savages pass many years, even of their rational age,
without ever thinking on this and the like general propositions. I
grant, men come not to the knowledge of these general and more
abstract truths, which are thought innate, till they come to the use
of reason; and I add, nor then neither. Which is so, because, till
after they come to the use of reason, those general abstract ideas are
not framed in the mind, about which those general maxims are, which
are mistaken for innate principles, but are indeed discoveries made
and verities introduced and brought into the mind by the same way, and
discovered by the same steps, as several other propositions, which
nobody was ever so extravagant as to suppose innate.
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