15. Lord Herbert's innate principles examined. When I had written
this, being informed that my Lord Herbert had, in his book De
Veritate, assigned these innate principles, I presently consulted him,
hoping to find in a man of so great parts, something that might
satisfy me in this point, and put an end to my inquiry. In his chapter
De Instinctu Naturali, p. 72, ed. 1656, I met with these six marks
of his Notitiae, Communes:- 1. Prioritas. 2. Independentia. 3.
Universalitas. 4. Certitudo. 5. Necessitas, i.e. as he explains it,
faciunt ad hominis conservationem. 6. Modus conformationis, i.e.
Assensus mulla interposita mora. And at the latter end of his little
treatise De Religione Laici, he says this of these innate
principles: Adeo ut non uniuscujusvis religionis confinio arctentur
quae ubique vigent veritates. Sunt enim in ipsa mente caelitus
descriptae, nullisque traditionibus, sive scriptis, sive non scriptis,
obnoxiae, p. 3. And Veritates nostrae catholicae, quae tanquam indubia
Dei emata inforo interiori descriptae.
Thus, having given the marks of the innate principles or common
notions, and asserted their being imprinted on the minds of men by the
hand of God, he proceeds to set them down, and they are these: 1. Esse
aliquod supremum numen. 2. Numen illud coli debere. 3. Virtutem cum
pietate conjunctam optimam esse rationem cultus divini.
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