But such an assent upon hearing, no more
proves the ideas to be innate, than it does that one born blind
(with cataracts which will be couched to-morrow) had the innate
ideas of the sun, or light, or saffron, or yellow; because, when his
sight is cleared, he will certainly assent to this proposition,
"That the sun is lucid, or that saffron is yellow." And therefore,
if such an assent upon hearing cannot prove the ideas innate, it can
much less the propositions made up of those ideas. If they have any
innate ideas, I would be glad to be told what, and how many, they are.
21. No innate ideas in the memory. To which let me add: if there
be any innate ideas, any ideas in the mind which the mind does not
actually think on, they must be lodged in the memory; and from
thence must be brought into view by remembrance; i.e. must be known,
when they are remembered, to have been perceptions in the mind before;
unless remembrance can be without remembrance. For, to remember is
to perceive anything with memory, or with a consciousness that it
was perceived or known before. Without this, whatever idea comes
into the mind is new, and not remembered; this consciousness of its
having been in the mind before, being that which distinguishes
remembering from all other ways of thinking. Whatever idea was never
perceived by the mind was never in the mind.
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