But
were the number far less, it would be enough to destroy universal
assent, and thereby show these propositions not to be innate, if
children alone were ignorant of them.
25. These maxims not the first known. But that I may not be
accused to argue from the thoughts of infants, which are unknown to
us, and to conclude from what passes in their understandings before
they express it; I say next, that these two general propositions are
not the truths that first possess the minds of children, nor are
antecedent to all acquired and adventitious notions: which, if they
were innate, they must needs be. Whether we can determine it or no, it
matters not, there is certainly a time when children begin to think,
and their words and actions do assure us that they do so. When
therefore they are capable of thought, of knowledge, of assent, can it
rationally be supposed they can be ignorant of those notions that
nature has imprinted, were there any such? Can it be imagined, with
any appearance of reason, that they perceive the impressions from
things without, and be at the same time ignorant of those characters
which nature itself has taken care to stamp within? Can they receive
and assent to adventitious notions, and be ignorant of those which are
supposed woven into the very principles of their being, and
imprinted there in indelible characters, to be the foundation and
guide of all their acquired knowledge and future reasonings? This
would be to make nature take pains to no purpose; or at least to write
very ill; since its characters could not be read by those eyes which
saw other things very well: and those are very ill supposed the
clearest parts of truth, and the foundations of all our knowledge,
which are not first known, and without which the undoubted knowledge
of several other things may be had.
Pages:
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67