And
therefore it is that a man knows that eighteen and nineteen are
equal to thirty-seven, by the same self-evidence that he knows one and
two to be equal to three: yet a child knows this not so soon as the
other; not for want of the use of reason, but because the ideas the
words eighteen, nineteen, and thirty-seven stand for, are not so
soon got, as those which are signified by one, two, and three.
17. Assenting as soon as proposed and understood, proves them not
innate. This evasion therefore of general assent when men come to
the use of reason, failing as it does, and leaving no difference
between those suppose innate and other truths that are afterwards
acquired and learnt, men have endeavoured to secure an universal
assent to those they call maxims, by saying, they are generally
assented to as soon as proposed, and the terms they are proposed in
understood: seeing all men, even children, as soon as they hear and
understand the terms, assent to these propositions, they think it is
sufficient to prove them innate. For since men never fail after they
have once understood the words, to acknowledge them for undoubted
truths, they would infer, that certainly these propositions were first
lodged in the understanding, which, without any teaching, the mind, at
the very first proposal immediately closes with and assents to, and
after that never doubts again.
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