because he finds the ideas he has in his mind to agree or
disagree, according as the words standing for them are affirmed or
denied one of another in the proposition. But if propositions be
brought to him in words which stand for ideas he has not yet in his
mind, to such propositions, however evidently true or false in
themselves, he affords neither assent nor dissent, but is ignorant.
For words being but empty sounds, any further than they are signs of
our ideas, we cannot but assent to them as they correspond to those
ideas we have, but no further than that. But the showing by what steps
and ways knowledge comes into our minds; and the grounds of several
degrees of assent, being the business of the following Discourse, it
may suffice to have only touched on it here, as one reason that made
me doubt of those innate principles.
24. Not innate, because not universally assented to. To conclude
this argument of universal consent, I agree with these defenders of
innate principles,- that if they are innate, they must needs have
universal assent. For that a truth should be innate and yet not
assented to, is to me as unintelligible as for a man to know a truth
and be ignorant of it at the same time. But then, by these men's own
confession, they cannot be innate; since they are not assented to by
those who understand not the terms; nor by a great part of those who
do understand them, but have yet never heard nor thought of those
propositions; which, I think, is at least one half of mankind.
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