When yet it is certain that not all, but only
sagacious heads, light at first on these observations, and reduce them
into general propositions: not innate, but collected from a
preceding acquaintance and reflection on particular instances.
These, when observing men have made them, unobserving men, when they
are proposed to them, cannot refuse their assent to.
22. Implicitly known before proposing, signifies that the mind is
capable of understanding them, or else signifies nothing. If it be
said, the understanding hath an implicit knowledge of these
principles, but not an explicit, before this first hearing (as they
must who will say "that they are in the understanding before they
are known,") it will be hard to conceive what is meant by a
principle imprinted on the understanding implicitly, unless it be
this,- that the mind is capable of understanding and assenting
firmly to such propositions. And thus all mathematical demonstrations,
as well as first principles, must be received as native impressions on
the mind; which I fear they will scarce allow them to be, who find
it harder to demonstrate a proposition than assent to it when
demonstrated. And few mathematicians will be forward to believe,
that all the diagrams they have drawn were but copies of those
innate characters which nature had engraven upon their minds.
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