INTRODUCTION
1. An Inquiry into the understanding, pleasant and useful. Since it is
the understanding that sets man above the rest of sensible beings, and
gives him all the advantage and dominion which he has over them; it is
certainly a subject, even for its nobleness, worth our labour to inquire
into. The understanding, like the eye, whilst it makes us see and perceive
all other things, takes no notice of itself; and it requires art and pains
to set it at a distance and make it its own object. But whatever be the
difficulties that lie in the way of this inquiry; whatever it be that keeps
us so much in the dark to ourselves; sure I am that all the light we can
let in upon our minds, all the acquaintance we can make with our own understandings,
will not only be very pleasant, but bring us great advantage, in directing
our thoughts in the search of other things.
2. Design. This, therefore, being my purpose- to inquire into the original,
certainty, and extent of human knowledge, together with the grounds and
degrees of belief, opinion, and assent;- I shall not at present meddle
with the physical consideration of the mind; or trouble myself to examine
wherein its essence consists; or by what motions of our spirits or alterations
of our bodies we come to have any sensation by our organs, or any ideas
in our understandings; and whether those ideas do in their formation, any
or all of them, depend on matter or not. These are speculations which,
however curious and entertaining, I shall decline, as lying out of my way
in the design I am now upon. It shall suffice to my present purpose, to
consider the discerning faculties of a man, as they are employed about
the objects which they have to do with. And I shall imagine I have not
wholly misemployed myself in the thoughts I shall have on this occasion,
if, in this historical, plain method, I can give any account of the ways
whereby our understandings come to attain those notions of things we have;
and can set down any measures of the certainty of our knowledge; or the
grounds of those persuasions which are to be found amongst men, so various,
different, and wholly contradictory; and yet asserted somewhere or other
with such assurance and confidence, that he that shall take a view of the
opinions of mankind, observe their opposition, and at the same time consider
the fondness and devotion wherewith they are embraced, the resolution and
eagerness wherewith they are maintained, may perhaps have reason to suspect,
that either there is no such thing as truth at all, or that mankind hath
no sufficient means to attain a certain knowledge of it.
3. Method. It is therefore worth while to search out the bounds between
opinion and knowledge; and examine by what measures, in things whereof
we have no certain knowledge, we ought to regulate our assent and moderate
our persuasion. In order whereunto I shall pursue this following method:-
First, I shall inquire into the original of those ideas, notions, or
whatever else you please to call them, which a man observes, and is conscious
to himself he has in his mind; and the ways whereby the understanding comes
to be furnished with them.
Secondly, I shall endeavour to show what knowledge the understanding
hath by those ideas; and the certainty, evidence, and extent of it.
Thirdly, I shall make some inquiry into the nature and grounds of faith
or opinion: whereby I mean that assent which we give to any proposition
as true, of whose truth yet we have no certain knowledge. And here we shall
have occasion to examine the reasons and degrees of assent.
4. Useful to know the extent of our comprehension. If by this inquiry
into the nature of the understanding, I can discover the powers thereof;
how far they reach; to what things they are in any degree proportionate;
and where they fail us, I suppose it may be of use to prevail with the
busy mind of man to be more cautious in meddling with things exceeding
its comprehension; to stop when it is at the utmost extent of its tether;
and to sit down in a quiet ignorance of those things which, upon examination,
are found to be beyond the reach of our capacities. We should not then
perhaps be so forward, out of an affectation of an universal knowledge,
to raise questions, and perplex ourselves and others with disputes about
things to which our understandings are not suited; and of which we cannot
frame in our minds any clear or distinct perceptions, or whereof (as it
has perhaps too often happened) we have not any notions at all. If we can
find out how far the understanding can extend its view; how far it has
faculties to attain certainty; and in what cases it can only judge and
guess, we may learn to content ourselves with what is attainable by us
in this state.
5. Our capacity suited to our state and concerns. For though the comprehension
of our understandings comes exceeding short of the vast extent of things,
yet we shall have cause enough to magnify the bountiful Author of our being,
for that proportion and degree of knowledge he has bestowed on us, so far
above all the rest of the inhabitants of this our mansion. Men have reason
to be well satisfied with what God hath thought fit for them, since he
hath given them (as St. Peter says) pana pros zoen kaieusebeian, whatsoever
is necessary for the conveniences of life and information of virtue; and
has put within the reach of their discovery, the comfortable provision
for this life, and the way that leads to a better. How short soever their
knowledge may come of an universal or perfect comprehension of whatsoever
is, it yet secures their great concernments, that they have light enough
to lead them to the knowledge of their Maker, and the sight of their own
duties. Men may find matter sufficient to busy their heads, and employ
their hands with variety, delight, and satisfaction, if they will not boldly
quarrel with their own constitution, and throw away the blessings their
hands are filled with, because they are not big enough to grasp everything.
We shall not have much reason to complain of the narrowness of our minds,
if we will but employ them about what may be of use to us; for of that
they are very capable. And it will be an unpardonable, as well as childish
peevishness, if we undervalue the advantages of our knowledge, and neglect
to improve it to the ends for which it was given us, because there are
some things that are set out of the reach of it. It will be no excuse to
an idle and untoward servant, who would not attend his business by candle
light, to plead that he had not broad sunshine. The Candle that is set
up in us shines bright enough for all our purposes. The discoveries we
can make with this ought to satisfy us; and we shall then use our understandings
right, when we entertain all objects in that way and proportion that they
are suited to our faculties, and upon those grounds they are capable of
being proposed to us; and not peremptorily or intemperately require demonstration,
and demand certainty, where probability only is to be had, and which is
sufficient to govern all our concernments. If we will disbelieve everything,
because we cannot certainly know all things, we shall do muchwhat as wisely
as he who would not use his legs, but sit still and perish, because he
had no wings to fly.
6. Knowledge of our capacity a cure of scepticism and idleness. When
we know our own strength, we shall the better know what to undertake with
hopes of success; and when we have well surveyed the powers of our own
minds, and made some estimate what we may expect from them, we shall not
be inclined either to sit still, and not set our thoughts on work at all,
in despair of knowing anything; nor on the other side, question everything,
and disclaim all knowledge, because some things are not to be understood.
It is of great use to the sailor to know the length of his line, though
he cannot with it fathom all the depths of the ocean. It is well he knows
that it is long enough to reach the bottom, at such places as are necessary
to direct his voyage, and caution him against running upon shoals that
may ruin him. Our business here is not to know all things, but those which
concern our conduct. If we can find out those measures, whereby a rational
creature, put in that state in which man is in this world, may and ought
to govern his opinions, and actions depending thereon, we need not to be
troubled that some other things escape our knowledge.
7. Occasion of this essay. This was that which gave the first rise to
this Essay concerning the understanding. For I thought that the first step
towards satisfying several inquiries the mind of man was very apt to run
into, was, to take a survey of our own understandings, examine our own
powers, and see to what things they were adapted. Till that was done I
suspected we began at the wrong end, and in vain sought for satisfaction
in a quiet and sure possession of truths that most concerned us, whilst
we let loose our thoughts into the vast ocean of Being; as if all that
boundless extent were the natural and undoubted possession of our understandings,
wherein there was nothing exempt from its decisions, or that escaped its
comprehension. Thus men, extending their inquiries beyond their capacities,
and letting their thoughts wander into those depths where they can find
no sure footing, it is no wonder that they raise questions and multiply
disputes, which, never coming to any clear resolution, are proper only
to continue and increase their doubts, and to confirm them at last in perfect
scepticism. Whereas, were the capacities of our understandings well considered,
the extent of our knowledge once discovered, and the horizon found which
sets the bounds between the enlightened and dark parts of things; between
what is and what is not comprehensible by us, men would perhaps with less
scruple acquiesce in the avowed ignorance of the one, and employ their
thoughts and discourse with more advantage and satisfaction in the other.
8. What "Idea" stands for. Thus much I thought necessary to say concerning
the occasion of this Inquiry into human Understanding. But, before I proceed
on to what I have thought on this subject, I must here in the entrance
beg pardon of my reader for the frequent use of the word idea, which he
will find in the following treatise. It being that term which, I think,
serves best to stand for whatsoever is the object of the understanding
when a man thinks, I have used it to express whatever is meant by phantasm,
notion, species, or whatever it is which the mind can be employed about
in thinking; and I could not avoid frequently using it.
I presume it will be easily granted me, that there are such ideas in
men's minds: every one is conscious of them in himself; and men's words
and actions will satisfy him that they are in others.
Our first inquiry then shall be,- how they come into the mind.
BOOK I: Neither Principles nor Ideas Are Innate
Chapter I: No Innate Speculative Principles
1. The way shown how we come by any knowledge, sufficient to prove it not
innate. It is an established opinion amongst some men, that there are in
the understanding certain innate principles; some primary notions, koinai
ennoiai, characters, as it were stamped upon the mind of man; which the
soul receives in its very first being, and brings into the world with it.
It would be sufficient to convince unprejudiced readers of the falseness
of this supposition, if I should only show (as I hope I shall in the following
parts of this Discourse) how men, barely by the use of their natural faculties,
may attain to all the knowledge they have, without the help of any innate
impressions; and may arrive at certainty, without any such original notions
or principles. For I imagine any one will easily grant that it would be
impertinent to suppose the ideas of colours innate in a creature to whom
God hath given sight, and a power to receive them by the eyes from external
objects: and no less unreasonable would it be to attribute several truths
to the impressions of nature, and innate characters, when we may observe
in ourselves faculties fit to attain as easy and certain knowledge of them
as if they were originally imprinted on the mind.
But because a man is not permitted without censure to follow his own
thoughts in the search of truth, when they lead him ever so little out
of the common road, I shall set down the reasons that made me doubt of
the truth of that opinion, as an excuse for my mistake, if I be in one;
which I leave to be considered by those who, with me, dispose themselves
to embrace truth wherever they find it.
2. General assent the great argument. There is nothing more commonly
taken for granted than that there are certain principles, both speculative
and practical, (for they speak of both), universally agreed upon by all
mankind: which therefore, they argue, must needs be the constant impressions
which the souls of men receive in their first beings, and which they bring
into the world with them, as necessarily and really as they do any of their
inherent faculties.
3. Universal consent proves nothing innate. This argument, drawn from
universal consent, has this misfortune in it, that if it were true in matter
of fact, that there were certain truths wherein all mankind agreed, it
would not prove them innate, if there can be any other way shown how men
may come to that universal agreement, in the things they do consent in,
which I presume may be done.
4. "What is, is," and "It is impossible for the same thing to be and
not to be," not universally assented to. But, which is worse, this argument
of universal consent, which is made use of to prove innate principles,
seems to me a demonstration that there are none such: because there are
none to which all mankind give an universal assent. I shall begin with
the speculative, and instance in those magnified principles of demonstration,
"Whatsoever is, is," and "It is impossible for the same thing to be and
not to be"; which, of all others, I think have the most allowed title to
innate. These have so settled a reputation of maxims universally received,
that it will no doubt be thought strange if any one should seem to question
it. But yet I take liberty to say, that these propositions are so far from
having an universal assent, that there are a great part of mankind to whom
they are not so much as known.
5. Not on the mind naturally imprinted, because not known to children,
idiots, &c. For, first, it is evident, that all children and idiots
have not the least apprehension or thought of them. And the want of that
is enough to destroy that universal assent which must needs be the necessary
concomitant of all innate truths: it seeming to me near a contradiction
to say, that there are truths imprinted on the soul, which it perceives
or understands not: imprinting, if it signify anything, being nothing else
but the making certain truths to be perceived. For to imprint anything
on the mind without the mind's perceiving it, seems to me hardly intelligible.
If therefore children and idiots have souls, have minds, with those impressions
upon them, they must unavoidably perceive them, and necessarily know and
assent to these truths; which since they do not, it is evident that there
are no such impressions. For if they are not notions naturally imprinted,
how can they be innate? and if they are notions imprinted, how can they
be unknown? To say a notion is imprinted on the mind, and yet at the same
time to say, that the mind is ignorant of it, and never yet took notice
of it, is to make this impression nothing. No proposition can be said to
be in the mind which it never yet knew, which it was never yet conscious
of. For if any one may, then, by the same reason, all propositions that
are true, and the mind is capable ever of assenting to, may be said to
be in the mind, and to be imprinted: since, if any one can be said to be
in the mind, which it never yet knew, it must be only because it is capable
of knowing it; and so the mind is of all truths it ever shall know. Nay,
thus truths may be imprinted on the mind which it never did, nor ever shall
know; for a man may live long, and die at last in ignorance of many truths
which his mind was capable of knowing, and that with certainty. So that
if the capacity of knowing be the natural impression contended for, all
the truths a man ever comes to know will, by this account, be every one
of them innate; and this great point will amount to no more, but only to
a very improper way of speaking; which, whilst it pretends to assert the
contrary, says nothing different from those who deny innate principles.
For nobody, I think, ever denied that the mind was capable of knowing several
truths. The capacity, they say, is innate; the knowledge acquired. But
then to what end such contest for certain innate maxims? If truths can
be imprinted on the understanding without being perceived, I can see no
difference there can be between any truths the mind is capable of knowing
in respect of their original: they must all be innate or all adventitious:
in vain shall a man go about to distinguish them. He therefore that talks
of innate notions in the understanding, cannot (if he intend thereby any
distinct sort of truths) mean such truths to be in the understanding as
it never perceived, and is yet wholly ignorant of. For if these words "to
be in the understanding" have any propriety, they signify to be understood.
So that to be in the understanding, and not to be understood; to be in
the mind and never to be perceived, is all one as to say anything is and
is not in the mind or understanding. If therefore these two propositions,
"Whatsoever is, is," and "It is impossible for the same thing to be and
not to be," are by nature imprinted, children cannot be ignorant of them:
infants, and all that have souls, must necessarily have them in their understandings,
know the truth of them, and assent to it.
6. That men know them when they come to the use of reason, answered.
To avoid this, it is usually answered, that all men know and assent to
them, when they come to the use of reason; and this is enough to prove
them innate. I answer:
7. Doubtful expressions, that have scarce any signification, go for
clear reasons to those who, being prepossessed, take not the pains to examine
even what they themselves say. For, to apply this answer with any tolerable
sense to our present purpose, it must signify one of these two things:
either that as soon as men come to the use of reason these supposed native
inscriptions come to be known and observed by them; or else, that the use
and exercise of men's reason, assists them in the discovery of these principles,
and certainly makes them known to them.
8. If reason discovered them, that would not prove them innate. If they
mean, that by the use of reason men may discover these principles, and
that this is sufficient to prove them innate; their way of arguing will
stand thus, viz. that whatever truths reason can certainly discover to
us, and make us firmly assent to, those are all naturally imprinted on
the mind; since that universal assent, which is made the mark of them,
amounts to no more but this,- that by the use of reason we are capable
to come to a certain knowledge of and assent to them; and, by this means,
there will be no difference between the maxims of the mathematicians, and
theorems they deduce from them: all must be equally allowed innate; they
being all discoveries made by the use of reason, and truths that a rational
creature may certainty come to know, if he apply his thoughts rightly that
way.
9. It is false that reason discovers them. But how can these men think
the use of reason necessary to discover principles that are supposed innate,
when reason (if we may believe them) is nothing else but the faculty of
deducing unknown truths from principles or propositions that are already
known? That certainly can never be thought innate which we have need of
reason to discover; unless, as I have said, we will have all the certain
truths that reason ever teaches us, to be innate. We may as well think
the use of reason necessary to make our eyes discover visible objects,
as that there should be need of reason, or the exercise thereof, to make
the understanding see what is originally engraven on it, and cannot be
in the understanding before it be perceived by it. So that to make reason
discover those truths thus imprinted, is to say, that the use of reason
discovers to a man what he knew before: and if men have those innate impressed
truths originally, and before the use of reason, and yet are always ignorant
of them till they come to the use of reason, it is in effect to say, that
men know and know them not at the same time.
10. No use made of reasoning in the discovery of these two maxims. It
will here perhaps be said that mathematical demonstrations, and other truths
that are not innate, are not assented to as soon as proposed, wherein they
are distinguished from these maxims and other innate truths. I shall have
occasion to speak of assent upon the first proposing, more particularly
by and by. I shall here only, and that very readily, allow, that these
maxims and mathematical demonstrations are in this different: that the
one have need of reason, using of proofs, to make them out and to gain
our assent; but the other, as soon as understood, are, without any the
least reasoning, embraced and assented to. But I withal beg leave to observe,
that it lays open the weakness of this subterfuge, which requires the use
of reason for the discovery of these general truths: since it must be confessed
that in their discovery there is no use made of reasoning at all. And I
think those who give this answer will not be forward to affirm that the
knowledge of this maxim, "That it is impossible for the same thing to be
and not to be," is a deduction of our reason. For this would be to destroy
that bounty of nature they seem so fond of, whilst they make the knowledge
of those principles to depend on the labour of our thoughts. For all reasoning
is search, and casting about, and requires pains and application. And how
can it with any tolerable sense be supposed, that what was imprinted by
nature, as the foundation and guide of our reason, should need the use
of reason to discover it?
11. And if there were, this would prove them not innate. Those who will
take the pains to reflect with a little attention on the operations of
the understanding, will find that this ready assent of the mind to some
truths, depends not, either on native inscription, or the use of reason,
but on a faculty of the mind quite distinct from both of them, as we shall
see hereafter. Reason, therefore, having nothing to do in procuring our
assent to these maxims, if by saying, that "men know and assent to them,
when they come to the use of reason," be meant, that the use of reason
assists us in the knowledge of these maxims, it is utterly false; and were
it true, would prove them not to be innate.
12. The coming to the use of reason not the time we come to know these
maxims. If by knowing and assenting to them "when we come to the use of
reason," be meant, that this is the time when they come to be taken notice
of by the mind; and that as soon as children come to the use of reason,
they come also to know and assent to these maxims; this also is false and
frivolous. First, it is false; because it is evident these maxims are not
in the mind so early as the use of reason; and therefore the coming to
the use of reason is falsely assigned as the time of their discovery. How
many instances of the use of reason may we observe in children, a long
time before they have any knowledge of this maxim, "That it is impossible
for the same thing to be and not to be?" And a great part of illiterate
people and savages pass many years, even of their rational age, without
ever thinking on this and the like general propositions. I grant, men come
not to the knowledge of these general and more abstract truths, which are
thought innate, till they come to the use of reason; and I add, nor then
neither. Which is so, because, till after they come to the use of reason,
those general abstract ideas are not framed in the mind, about which those
general maxims are, which are mistaken for innate principles, but are indeed
discoveries made and verities introduced and brought into the mind by the
same way, and discovered by the same steps, as several other propositions,
which nobody was ever so extravagant as to suppose innate. This I hope
to make plain in the sequel of this Discourse. I allow therefore, a necessity
that men should come to the use of reason before they get the knowledge
of those general truths; but deny that men's coming to the use of reason
is the time of their discovery.
13. By this they are not distinguished from other knowable truths. In
the mean time it is observable, that this saying, that men know and assent
to these maxims "when they come to the use of reason," amounts in reality
of fact to no more but this,- that they are never known nor taken notice
of before the use of reason, but may possibly be assented to some time
after, during a man's life; but when is uncertain. And so may all other
knowable truths, as well as these; which therefore have no advantage nor
distinction from others by this note of being known when we come to the
use of reason; nor are thereby proved to be innate, but quite the contrary.
14. If coming to the use of reason were the time of their discovery
it would not prove them innate. But, secondly, were it true that the precise
time of their being known and assented to were, when men come to the use
of reason; neither would that prove them innate. This way of arguing is
as frivolous as the supposition itself is false. For, by what kind of logic
will it appear that any notion is originally by nature imprinted in the
mind in its first constitution, because it comes first to be observed and
assented to when a faculty of the mind, which has quite a distinct province,
begins to exert itself? And therefore the coming to the use of speech,
if it were supposed the time that these maxims are first assented to, (which
it may be with as much truth as the time when men come to the use of reason,)
would be as good a proof that they were innate, as to say they are innate
because men assent to them when they come to the use of reason. I agree
then with these men of innate principles, that there is no knowledge of
these general and self-evident maxims in the mind, till it comes to the
exercise of reason: but I deny that the coming to the use of reason is
the precise time when they are first taken notice of, and if that were
the precise time, I deny that it would prove them innate. All that can
with any truth be meant by this proposition, that men "assent to them when
they come to the use of reason," is no more but this,- that the making
of general abstract ideas, and the understanding of general names, being
a concomitant of the rational faculty, and growing up with it, children
commonly get not those general ideas, nor learn the names that stand for
them, till, having for a good while exercised their reason about familiar
and more particular ideas, they are, by their ordinary discourse and actions
with others, acknowledged to be capable of rational conversation. If assenting
to these maxims, when men come to the use of reason, can be true in any
other sense, I desire it may be shown; or at least, how in this, or any
other sense, it proves them innate.
15. The steps by which the mind attains several truths. The senses at
first let in particular ideas, and furnish the yet empty cabinet, and the
mind by degrees growing familiar with some of them, they are lodged in
the memory, and names got to them. Afterwards, the mind proceeding further,
abstracts them, and by degrees learns the use of general names. In this
manner the mind comes to be furnished with ideas and language, the materials
about which to exercise its discursive faculty. And the use of reason becomes
daily more visible, as these materials that give it employment increase.
But though the having of general ideas and the use of general words and
reason usually grow together, yet I see not how this any way proves them
innate. The knowledge of some truths, I confess, is very early in the mind
but in a way that shows them not to be innate. For, if we will observe,
we shall find it still to be about ideas, not innate, but acquired; it
being about those first which are imprinted by external things, with which
infants have earliest to do, which make the most frequent impressions on
their senses. In ideas thus got, the mind discovers that some agree and
others differ, probably as soon as it has any use of memory; as soon as
it is able to retain and perceive distinct ideas. But whether it be then
or no, this is certain, it does so long before it has the use of words;
or comes to that which we commonly call "the use of reason." For a child
knows as certainly before it can speak the difference between the ideas
of sweet and bitter (i.e. that sweet is not bitter), as it knows afterwards
(when it comes to speak) that wormwood and sugarplums are not the same
thing.
16. Assent to supposed innate truths depends on having clear and distinct
ideas of what their terms mean, and not on their innateness. A child knows
not that three and four are equal to seven, till he comes to be able to
count seven, and has got the name and idea of equality; and then, upon
explaining those words, he presently assents to, or rather perceives the
truth of that proposition. But neither does he then readily assent because
it is an innate truth, nor was his assent wanting till then because he
wanted the use of reason; but the truth of it appears to him as soon as
he has settled in his mind the clear and distinct ideas that these names
stand for. And then he knows the truth of that proposition upon the same
grounds and by the same means, that he knew before that a rod and a cherry
are not the same thing; and upon the same grounds also that he may come
to know afterwards "That it is impossible for the same thing to be and
not to be," as shall be more fully shown hereafter. So that the later it
is before any one comes to have those general ideas about which those maxims
are; or to know the signification of those general terms that stand for
them; or to put together in his mind the ideas they stand for; the later
also will it be before he comes to assent to those maxims;- whose terms,
with the ideas they stand for, being no more innate than those of a cat
or a weasel, he must stay till time and observation have acquainted him
with them; and then he will be in a capacity to know the truth of these
maxims, upon the first occasion that shall make him put together those
ideas in his mind, and observe whether they agree or disagree, according
as is expressed in those propositions. And therefore it is that a man knows
that eighteen and nineteen are equal to thirty-seven, by the same self-evidence
that he knows one and two to be equal to three: yet a child knows this
not so soon as the other; not for want of the use of reason, but because
the ideas the words eighteen, nineteen, and thirty-seven stand for, are
not so soon got, as those which are signified by one, two, and three.
17. Assenting as soon as proposed and understood, proves them not innate.
This evasion therefore of general assent when men come to the use of reason,
failing as it does, and leaving no difference between those suppose innate
and other truths that are afterwards acquired and learnt, men have endeavoured
to secure an universal assent to those they call maxims, by saying, they
are generally assented to as soon as proposed, and the terms they are proposed
in understood: seeing all men, even children, as soon as they hear and
understand the terms, assent to these propositions, they think it is sufficient
to prove them innate. For since men never fail after they have once understood
the words, to acknowledge them for undoubted truths, they would infer,
that certainly these propositions were first lodged in the understanding,
which, without any teaching, the mind, at the very first proposal immediately
closes with and assents to, and after that never doubts again.
18. If such an assent be a mark of innate, then "that one and two are
equal to three, that sweetness is not bitterness," and a thousand the like,
must be innate. In answer to this, I demand whether ready assent given
to a proposition, upon first hearing and understanding the terms, be a
certain mark of an innate principle? If it be not, such a general assent
is in vain urged as a proof of them: if it be said that it is a mark of
innate, they must then allow all such propositions to be innate which are
generally assented to as soon as heard, whereby they will find themselves
plentifully stored with innate principles. For upon the same ground, viz.
of assent at first hearing and understanding the terms, that men would
have those maxims pass for innate, they must also admit several propositions
about numbers to be innate; and thus, that one and two are equal to three,
that two and two are equal to four, and a multitude of other the like propositions
in numbers, that everybody assents to at first hearing and understanding
the terms, must have a place amongst these innate axioms. Nor is this the
prerogative of numbers alone, and propositions made about several of them;
but even natural philosophy, and all the other sciences, afford propositions
which are sure to meet with assent as soon as they are understood. That
"two bodies cannot be in the same place" is a truth that nobody any more
sticks at than at these maxims, that "it is impossible for the same thing
to be and not to be," that "white is not black," that "a square is not
a circle," that "bitterness is not sweetness." These and a million of such
other propositions, as many at least as we have distinct ideas of, every
man in his wits, at first hearing, and knowing what the names stand for,
must necessarily assent to. If these men will be true to their own rule,
and have assent at first hearing and understanding the terms to be a mark
of innate, they must allow not only as many innate propositions as men
have distinct ideas, but as many as men can make propositions wherein different
ideas are denied one of another. Since every proposition wherein one different
idea is denied of another, will as certainly find assent at first hearing
and understanding the terms as this general one, "It is impossible for
the same thing to be and not to be," or that which is the foundation of
it, and is the easier understood of the two, "The same is not different";
by which account they will have legions of innate propositions of this
one sort, without mentioning any other. But, since no proposition can be
innate unless the ideas about which it is be innate, this will be to suppose
all our ideas of colours, sounds, tastes, figure, &c., innate, than
which there cannot be anything more opposite to reason and experience.
Universal and ready assent upon hearing and understanding the terms is,
I grant, a mark of self-evidence; but self-evidence, depending not on innate
impressions, but on something else, (as we shall show hereafter,) belongs
to several propositions which nobody was yet so extravagant as to pretend
to be innate.
19. Such less general propositions known before these universal maxims.
Nor let it be said, that those more particular self-evident propositions,
which are assented to at first hearing, as that "one and two are equal
to three," that "green is not red," &c., are received as the consequences
of those more universal propositions which are looked on as innate principles;
since any one, who will but take the pains to observe what passes in the
understanding, will certainly find that these, and the like less general
propositions, are certainly known, and firmly assented to by those who
are utterly ignorant of those more general maxims; and so, being earlier
in the mind than those (as they are called) first principles, cannot owe
to them the assent wherewith they are received at first hearing.
20. "One and one equal to Two, &c., not general nor useful," answered.
If it be said, that these propositions, viz. "two and two are equal to
four," "red is not blue," &c., are not general maxims, nor of any great
use, I answer, that makes nothing to the argument of universal assent upon
hearing and understanding. For, if that be the certain mark of innate,
whatever proposition can be found that receives general assent as soon
as heard and understood, that must be admitted for an innate proposition,
as well as this maxim, "That it is impossible for the same thing to be
and not to be," they being upon this ground equal. And as to the difference
of being more general, that makes this maxim more remote from being innate;
those general and abstract ideas being more strangers to our first apprehensions
than those of more particular self-evident propositions; and therefore
it is longer before they are admitted and assented to by the growing understanding.
And as to the usefulness of these magnified maxims, that perhaps will not
be found so great as is generally conceived, when it comes in its due place
to be more fully considered.
21. These maxims not being known sometimes till proposed, proves them
not innate. But we have not yet done with "assenting to propositions at
first hearing and understanding their terms." It is fit we first take notice
that this, instead of being a mark that they are innate, is a proof of
the contrary; since it supposes that several, who understand and know other
things, are ignorant of these principles till they are proposed to them;
and that one may be unacquainted with these truths till he hears them from
others. For, if they were innate, what need they be proposed in order to
gaining assent, when, by being in the understanding, by a natural and original
impression, (if there were any such,) they could not but be known before?
Or doth the proposing them print them clearer in the mind than nature did?
If so, then the consequence will be, that a man knows them better after
he has been thus taught them than he did before. Whence it will follow
that these principles may be made more evident to us by others' teaching
than nature has made them by impression: which will ill agree with the
opinion of innate principles, and give but little authority to them; but,
on the contrary, makes them unfit to be the foundations of all our other
knowledge; as they are pretended to be. This cannot be denied, that men
grow first acquainted with many of these self-evident truths upon their
being proposed: but it is clear that whosoever does so, finds in himself
that he then begins to know a proposition, which he knew not before, and
which from thenceforth he never questions; not because it was innate, but
because the consideration of the nature of the things contained in those
words would not suffer him to think otherwise, how, or whensoever he is
brought to reflect on them. And if whatever is assented to at first hearing
and understanding the terms must pass for an innate principle, every well-grounded
observation, drawn from particulars into a general rule, must be innate.
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.
23. The argument of assenting on first hearing, is upon a false supposition
of no precedent teaching. There is, I fear, this further weakness in the
foregoing argument, which would persuade us that therefore those maxims
are to be thought innate, which men admit at first hearing; because they
assent to propositions which they are not taught, nor do receive from the
force of any argument or demonstration, but a bare explication or understanding
of the terms. Under which there seems to me to lie this fallacy, that men
are supposed not to be taught nor to learn anything de novo; when, in truth,
they are taught, and do learn something they were ignorant of before. For,
first, it is evident that they have learned the terms, and their signification;
neither of which was born with them. But this is not all the acquired knowledge
in the case: the ideas themselves, about which the proposition is, are
not born with them, no more than their names, but got afterwards. So that
in all propositions that are assented to at first hearing, the terms of
the proposition, their standing for such ideas, and the ideas themselves
that they stand for, being neither of them innate, I would fain know what
there is remaining in such propositions that is innate. For I would gladly
have any one name that proposition whose terms or ideas were either of
them innate. We by degrees get ideas and names, and learn their appropriated
connexion one with another; and then to propositions made in such terms,
whose signification we have learnt, and wherein the agreement or disagreement
we can perceive in our ideas when put together is expressed, we at first
hearing assent; though to other propositions, in themselves as certain
and evident, but which are concerning ideas not so soon or so easily got,
we are at the same time no way capable of assenting. For, though a child
quickly assents to this proposition, "That an apple is not fire," when
by familiar acquaintance he has got the ideas of those two different things
distinctly imprinted on his mind, and has learnt that the names apple and
fire stand for them; yet it will be some years after, perhaps, before the
same child will assent to this proposition, "That it is impossible for
the same thing to be and not to be"; because that, though perhaps the words
are as easy to be learnt, yet the signification of them being more large,
comprehensive, and abstract than of the names annexed to those sensible
things the child hath to do with, it is longer before he learns their precise
meaning, and it requires more time plainly to form in his mind those general
ideas they stand for. Till that be done, you will in vain endeavour to
make any child assent to a proposition made up of such general terms; but
as soon as ever he has got those ideas, and learned their names, he forwardly
closes with the one as well as the other of the forementioned propositions:
and with both for the same reason; viz. 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.
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. The child certainly knows, that the nurse
that feeds it is neither the cat it plays with, nor the blackmoor it is
afraid of: that the wormseed or mustard it refuses, is not the apple or
sugar it cries for: this it is certainly and undoubtedly assured of: but
will any one say, it is by virtue of this principle, "That it is impossible
for the same thing to be and not to be," that it so firmly assents to these
and other parts of its knowledge? Or that the child has any notion or apprehension
of that proposition at an age, wherein yet, it is plain, it knows a great
many other truths? He that will say, children join in these general abstract
speculations with their sucking-bottles and their rattles, may perhaps,
with justice, be thought to have more passion and zeal for his opinion,
but less sincerity and truth, than one of that age.
26. And so not innate. Though therefore there be several general propositions
that meet with constant and ready assent, as soon as proposed to men grown
up, who have attained the use of more general and abstract ideas, and names
standing for them; yet they not being to be found in those of tender years,
who nevertheless know other things, they cannot pretend to universal assent
of intelligent persons, and so by no means can be supposed innate;- it
being impossible that any truth which is innate (if there were any such)
should be unknown, at least to any one who knows anything else. Since,
if they are innate truths, they must be innate thoughts: there being nothing
a truth in the mind that it has never thought on. Whereby it is evident,
if there by any innate truths, they must necessarily be the first of any
thought on; the first that appear.
27. Not innate, because they appear least where what is innate shows
itself clearest. That the general maxims we are discoursing of are not
known to children, idiots, and a great part of mankind, we have already
sufficiently proved: whereby it is evident they have not an universal assent,
nor are general impressions. But there is this further argument in it against
their being innate: that these characters, if they were native and original
impressions, should appear fairest and clearest in those persons in whom
yet we find no footsteps of them; and it is, in my opinion, a strong presumption
that they are not innate, since they are least known to those in whom,
if they were innate, they must needs exert themselves with most force and
vigour. For children, idiots, savages, and illiterate people, being of
all others the least corrupted by custom, or borrowed opinions; learning
and education having not cast their native thoughts into new moulds; nor
by super-inducing foreign and studied doctrines, confounded those fair
characters nature had written there; one might reasonably imagine that
in their minds these innate notions should lie open fairly to every one's
view, as it is certain the thoughts of children do. It might very well
be expected that these principles should be perfectly known to naturals;
which being stamped immediately on the soul, (as these men suppose,) can
have no dependence on the constitution or organs of the body, the only
confessed difference between them and others. One would think, according
to these men's principles, that all these native beams of light (were there
any such) should, in those who have no reserves, no arts of concealment,
shine out in their full lustre, and leave us in no more doubt of their
being there, than we are of their love of pleasure and abhorrence of pain.
But alas, amongst children, idiots, savages, and the grossly illiterate,
what general maxims are to be found? What universal principles of knowledge?
Their notions are few and narrow, borrowed only from those objects they
have had most to do with, and which have made upon their senses the frequentest
and strongest impressions. A child knows his nurse and his cradle, and
by degrees the playthings of a little more advanced age; and a young savage
has, perhaps, his head filled with love and hunting, according to the fashion
of his tribe. But he that from a child untaught, or a wild inhabitant of
the woods, will expect these abstract maxims and reputed principles of
science, will, I fear, find himself mistaken. Such kind of general propositions
are seldom mentioned in the huts of Indians: much less are they to be found
in the thoughts of children, or any impressions of them on the minds of
naturals. They are the language and business of the schools and academies
of learned nations, accustomed to that sort of conversation or learning,
where disputes are frequent; these maxims being suited to artificial argumentation
and useful for conviction, but not much conducing to the discovery of truth
or advancement of knowledge. But of their small use for the improvement
of knowledge I shall have occasion to speak more at large, 1. 4, c. 7.
28. Recapitulation. I know not how absurd this may seem to the masters
of demonstration. And probably it will hardly go down with anybody at first
hearing. I must therefore beg a little truce with prejudice, and the forbearance
of censure, till I have been heard out in the sequel of this Discourse,
being very willing to submit to better judgments. And since I impartially
search after truth, I shall not be sorry to be convinced, that I have been
too fond of my own notions; which I confess we are all apt to be, when
application and study have warmed our heads with them.
Upon the whole matter, I cannot see any ground to think these two speculative
Maxims innate: since they are not universally assented to; and the assent
they so generally find is no other than what several propositions, not
allowed to be innate, equally partake in with them: and since the assent
that is given them is produced another way, and comes not from natural
inscription, as I doubt not but to make appear in the following Discourse.
And if these "first principles" of knowledge and science are found not
to be innate, no other speculative maxims can (I suppose), with better
right pretend to be so.
Chapter II: No Innate Practical Principles
1. No moral principles so clear and so generally received as the forementioned
speculative maxims. If those speculative Maxims, whereof we discoursed
in the foregoing chapter, have not an actual universal assent from all
mankind, as we there proved, it is much more visible concerning practical
Principles, that they come short of an universal reception: and I think
it will be hard to instance any one moral rule which can pretend to so
general and ready an assent as, "What is, is"; or to be so manifest a truth
as this, that "It is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be."
Whereby it is evident that they are further removed from a title to be
innate; and the doubt of their being native impressions on the mind is
stronger against those moral principles than the other. Not that it brings
their truth at all in question. They are equally true, though not equally
evident. Those speculative maxims carry their own evidence with them: but
moral principles require reasoning and discourse, and some exercise of
the mind, to discover the certainty of their truth. They lie not open as
natural characters engraven on the mind; which, if any such were, they
must needs be visible by themselves, and by their own light be certain
and known to everybody. But this is no derogation to their truth and certainty;
no more than it is to the truth or certainty of the three angles of a triangle
being equal to two right ones: because it is not so evident as "the whole
is bigger than a part," nor so apt to be assented to at first hearing.
It may suffice that these moral rules are capable of demonstration: and
therefore it is our own faults if we come not to a certain knowledge of
them. But the ignorance wherein many men are of them, and the slowness
of assent wherewith others receive them, are manifest proofs that they
are not innate, and such as offer themselves to their view without searching.
2. Faith and justice not owned as principles by all men. Whether there
be any such moral principles, wherein all men do agree, I appeal to any
who have been but moderately conversant in the history of mankind, and
looked abroad beyond the smoke of their own chimneys. Where is that practical
truth that is universally received, without doubt or question, as it must
be if innate? Justice, and keeping of contracts, is that which most men
seem to agree in. This is a principle which is thought to extend itself
to the dens of thieves, and the confederacies of the greatest villains;
and they who have gone furthest towards the putting off of humanity itself,
keep faith and rules of justice one with another. I grant that outlaws
themselves do this one amongst another: but it is without receiving these
as the innate laws of nature. They practise them as rules of convenience
within their own communities: but it is impossible to conceive that he
embraces justice as a practical principle, who acts fairly with his fellow-highwayman,
and at the same time plunders or kills the next honest man he meets with.
Justice and truth are the common ties of society; and therefore even outlaws
and robbers, who break with all the world besides, must keep faith and
rules of equity amongst themselves; or else they cannot hold together.
But will any one say, that those that live by fraud or rapine have innate
principles of truth and justice which they allow and assent to?
3. Objection: "though men deny them in their practice, yet they admit
them in their thoughts," answered. Perhaps it will be urged, that the tacit
assent of their minds agrees to what their practice contradicts. I answer,
first, I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of
their thoughts. But, since it is certain that most men's practices, and
some men's open professions, have either questioned or denied these principles,
it is impossible to establish an universal consent, (though we should look
for it only amongst grown men,) without which it is impossible to conclude
them innate. Secondly, it is very strange and unreasonable to suppose innate
practical principles, that terminate only in contemplation. Practical principles,
derived from nature, are there for operation, and must produce conformity
of action, not barely speculative assent to their truth, or else they are
in vain distinguished from speculative maxims. Nature, I confess, has put
into man a desire of happiness and an aversion to misery: these indeed
are innate practical principles which (as practical principles ought) do
continue constantly to operate and influence all our actions without ceasing:
these may be observed in all persons and all ages, steady and universal;
but these are inclinations of the appetite to good, not impressions of
truth on the understanding. I deny not that there are natural tendencies
imprinted on the minds of men; and that from the very first instances of
sense and perception, there are some things that are grateful and others
unwelcome to them; some things that they incline to and others that they
fly: but this makes nothing for innate characters on the mind, which are
to be the principles of knowledge regulating our practice. Such natural
impressions on the understanding are so far from being confirmed hereby,
that this is an argument against them; since, if there were certain characters
imprinted by nature on the understanding, as the principles of knowledge,
we could not but perceive them constantly operate in us and influence our
knowledge, as we do those others on the will and appetite; which never
cease to be the constant springs and motives of all our actions, to which
we perpetually feel them strongly impelling us.
4. Moral rules need a proof, ergo not innate. Another reason that makes
me doubt of any innate practical principles is, that I think there cannot
any one moral rule be proposed whereof a man may not justly demand a reason:
which would be perfectly ridiculous and absurd if they were innate; or
so much as self-evident, which every innate principle must needs be, and
not need any proof to ascertain its truth, nor want any reason to gain
it approbation. He would be thought void of common sense who asked on the
one side, or on the other side went to give a reason why "it is impossible
for the same thing to be and not to be." It carries its own light and evidence
with it, and needs no other proof: he that understands the terms assents
to it for its own sake or else nothing will ever be able to prevail with
him to do it. But should that most unshaken rule of morality and foundation
of all social virtue, "That one should do as he would be done unto," be
proposed to one who never heard of it before, but yet is of capacity to
understand its meaning; might he not without any absurdity ask a reason
why? And were not he that proposed it bound to make out the truth and reasonableness
of it to him? Which plainly shows it not to be innate; for if it were it
could neither want nor receive any proof; but must needs (at least as soon
as heard and understood) be received and assented to as an unquestionable
truth, which a man can by no means doubt of. So that the truth of all these
moral rules plainly depends upon some other antecedent to them, and from
which they must be deduced; which could not be if either they were innate
or so much as self-evident.
5. Instance in keeping compacts. That men should keep their compacts
is certainly a great and undeniable rule in morality. But yet, if a Christian,
who has the view of happiness and misery in another life, be asked why
a man must keep his word, he will give this as a reason:- Because God,
who has the power of eternal life and death, requires it of us. But if
a Hobbist be asked why? he will answer:- Because the public requires it,
and the Leviathan will punish you if you do not. And if one of the old
philosophers had been asked, he would have answered:- Because it was dishonest,
below the dignity of a man, and opposite to virtue, the highest perfection
of human nature, to do otherwise.
6. Virtue generally approved, not because innate, but because profitable.
Hence naturally flows the great variety of opinions concerning moral rules
which are to be found among men, according to the different sorts of happiness
they have a prospect of, or propose to themselves; which could not be if
practical principles were innate, and imprinted in our minds immediately
by the hand of God. I grant the existence of God is so many ways manifest,
and the obedience we owe him so congruous to the light of reason, that
a great part of mankind give testimony to the law of nature: but yet I
think it must be allowed that several moral rules may receive from mankind
a very general approbation, without either knowing or admitting the true
ground of morality; which can only be the will and law of a God, who sees
men in the dark, has in his hand rewards and punishments and power enough
to call to account the proudest offender. For, God having, by an inseparable
connexion, joined virtue and public happiness together, and made the practice
thereof necessary to the preservation of society, and visibly beneficial
to all with whom the virtuous man has to do; it is no wonder that every
one should not only allow, but recommend and magnify those rules to others,
from whose observance of them he is sure to reap advantage to himself He
may, out of interest as well as conviction, cry up that for sacred, which,
if once trampled on and profaned, he himself cannot be safe nor secure.
This, though it takes nothing from the moral and eternal obligation which
these rules evidently have, yet it shows that the outward acknowledgment
men pay to them in their words proves not that they are innate principles:
nay, it proves not so much as that men assent to them inwardly in their
own minds, as the inviolable rules of their own practice; since we find
that self-interest, and the conveniences of this life, make many men own
an outward profession and approbation of them, whose actions sufficiently
prove that they very little consider the Lawgiver that prescribed these
rules; nor the hell that he has ordained for the punishment of those that
transgress them.
7. Men's actions convince us that the rule of virtue is not their internal
principle. For, if we will not in civility allow too much sincerity to
the professions of most men, but think their actions to be the interpreters
of their thoughts, we shall find that they have no such internal veneration
for these rules, nor so full a persuasion of their certainty and obligation.
The great principle of morality, "To do as one would be done to," is more
commended than practised. But the breach of this rule cannot be a greater
vice, than to teach others, that it is no moral rule, nor obligatory, would
be thought madness, and contrary to that interest men sacrifice to, when
they break it themselves. Perhaps conscience will be urged as checking
us for such breaches, and so the internal obligation and establishment
of the rule be preserved.
8. Conscience no proof of any innate moral rule. To which I answer,
that I doubt not but, without being written on their hearts, many men may,
by the same way that they come to the knowledge of other things, come to
assent to several moral rules, and be convinced of their obligation. Others
also may come to be of the same mind, from their education, company, and
customs of their country; which persuasion, however got, will serve to
set conscience on work; which is nothing else but our own opinion or judgment
of the moral rectitude or pravity of our own actions; and if conscience
be a proof of innate principles, contraries may be innate principles; since
some men with the same bent of conscience prosecute what others avoid.
9. Instances of enormities practised without remorse. But I cannot see
how any men should ever transgress those moral rules, with confidence and
serenity, were they innate, and stamped upon their minds. View but an army
at the sacking of a town, and see what observation or sense of moral principles,
or what touch of conscience for all the outrages they do. Robberies, murders,
rapes, are the sports of men set at liberty from punishment and censure.
Have there not been whole nations, and those of the most civilized people,
amongst whom the exposing their children, and leaving them in the fields
to perish by want or wild beasts has been the practice; as little condemned
or scrupled as the begetting them? Do they not still, in some countries,
put them into the same graves with their mothers, if they die in childbirth;
or despatch them, if a pretended astrologer declares them to have unhappy
stars? And are there not places where, at a certain age, they kill or expose
their parents, without any remorse at all? In a part of Asia, the sick,
when their case comes to be thought desperate, are carried out and laid
on the earth before they are dead; and left there, exposed to wind and
weather, to perish without assistance or pity. It is familiar among the
Mingrelians, a people professing Christianity, to bury their children alive
without scruple. There are places where they eat their own children. The
Caribbees were wont to geld their children, on purpose to fat and eat them.
And Garcilasso de la Vega tells us of a people in Peru which were wont
to fat and eat the children they got on their female captives, whom they
kept as concubines for that purpose, and when they were past breeding,
the mothers themselves were killed too and eaten. The virtues whereby the
Tououpinambos believed they merited paradise, were revenge, and eating
abundance of their enemies. They have not so much as a name for God, and
have no religion, no worship. The saints who are canonized amongst the
Turks, lead lives which one cannot with modesty relate. A remarkable passage
to this purpose, out of the voyage of Baumgarten, which is a book not every
day to be met with, I shall set down at large, in the language it is published
in. Ibi (sc. prope Belbes in AEgypto) vidimus sanctum unum Saracenicum
inter arenarum cumulos, ita ut ex utero matris prodiit nudum sedentem.
Mos est, ut didicimus, Mahometistis, ut eos, qui amentes et sine ratione
sunt, prosanctis colant et venerentur. Insuper et eos, qui cum diu vitam
egerint inquinatissimam, voluntariam demum poenitentiam et paupertatem,
sanctitate venerandos deputant. Ejusmodi vero genus hominum libertatem
quandam effrenem habent, domos quos volunt intrandi, edendi, bibendi, et
quod majus est, concumbendi; ex quo concubitu, si proles secuta fuerit,
sancta similiter habetur. His ergo hominibus dum vivunt, magnos exhibent
honores; mortuis vero vel templa vel monumenta extruunt amplissima, eosque
contingere ac sepelire maximae fortunae ducunt loco. Audivimus haec dicta
et dicenda per interpretem a Mucrelo nostro. Insuper sanctum illum, quem
eo loco vidimus, publicitus apprime commendari, eum esse hominem sanctum,
divinum ac integritate praecipuum; eo quod, nec foeminarum unquam esset,
nec puerorum, sed tantummodo asellarum concubitor atque mularum. (Peregr.
Baumgarten, 1. ii. c. I. p. 73.) More of the same kind concerning these
precious saints amongst the Turks may be seen in Pietro della Valle, in
his letter of the 25th of January, 1616.
Where then are those innate principles of justice, piety, gratitude,
equity, chastity? Or where is that universal consent that assures us there
are such inbred rules? Murders in duels, when fashion has made them honourable,
are committed without remorse of conscience: nay, in many places innocence
in this case is the greatest ignominy. And if we look abroad to take a
view of men as they are, we shall find that they have remorse, in one place,
for doing or omitting that which others, in another place, think they merit
by.
10. Men have contrary practical principles. He that will carefully peruse
the history of mankind, and look abroad into the several tribes of men,
and with indifferency survey their actions, will be able to satisfy himself,
that there is scarce that principle of morality to be named, or rule of
virtue to be thought on, (those only excepted that are absolutely necessary
to hold society together, which commonly too are neglected betwixt distinct
societies,) which is not, somewhere or other, slighted and condemned by
the general fashion of whole societies of men, governed by practical opinions
and rules of living quite opposite to others.
11. Whole nations reject several moral rules. Here perhaps it will be
objected, that it is no argument that the rule is not known, because it
is broken. I grant the objection good where men, though they transgress,
yet disown not the law; where fear of shame, censure, or punishment carries
the mark of some awe it has upon them. But it is impossible to conceive
that a whole nation of men should all publicly reject and renounce what
every one of them certainly and infallibly knew to be a law; for so they
must who have it naturally imprinted on their minds. It is possible men
may sometimes own rules of morality which in their private thoughts they
do not believe to be true, only to keep themselves in reputation and esteem
amongst those who are persuaded of their obligation. But it is not to be
imagined that a whole society of men should publicly and professedly disown
and cast off a rule which they could not in their own minds but be infallibly
certain was a law; nor be ignorant that all men they should have to do
with knew it to be such: and therefore must every one of them apprehend
from others all the contempt and abhorrence due to one who professes himself
void of humanity: and one who, confounding the known and natural measures
of right and wrong, cannot but be looked on as the professed enemy of their
peace and happiness. Whatever practical principle is innate, cannot but
be known to every one to be just and good. It is therefore little less
than a contradiction to suppose, that whole nations of men should, both
in their professions and practice, unanimously and universally give the
lie to what, by the most invincible evidence, every one of them knew to
be true, right, and good. This is enough to satisfy us that no practical
rule which is anywhere universally, and with public approbation or allowance,
transgressed, can be supposed innate.- But I have something further to
add in answer to this objection.
12. The generally allowed breach of a rule, proof that it is not innate.
The breaking of a rule, say you, is no argument that it is unknown. I grant
it: but the generally allowed breach of it anywhere, I say, is a proof
that it is not innate. For example: let us take any of these rules, which,
being the most obvious deductions of human reason, and comformable to the
natural inclination of the greatest part of men, fewest people have had
the impudence to deny or inconsideration to doubt of. If any can be thought
to be naturally imprinted, none, I think, can have a fairer pretence to
be innate than this: "Parents, preserve and cherish your children." When,
therefore, you say that this is an innate rule, what do you mean? Either
that it is an innate principle which upon all occasions excites and directs
the actions of all men; or else, that it is a truth which all men have
imprinted on their minds, and which therefore they know and assent to.
But in neither of these senses is it innate. First, that it is not a principle
which influences all men's actions, is what I have proved by the examples
before cited: nor need we seek so far as Mingrelia or Peru to find instances
of such as neglect, abuse, nay, and destroy their children; or look on
it only as the more than brutality of some savage and barbarous nations,
when we remember that it was a familiar and uncondemned practice amongst
the Greeks and Romans to expose, without pity or remorse, their innocent
infants. Secondly, that it is an innate truth, known to all men, is also
false. For, "Parents preserve your children," is so far from an innate
truth, that it is no truth at all: it being a command, and not a proposition,
and so not capable of truth or falsehood. To make it capable of being assented
to as true, it must be reduced to some such proposition as this: "It is
the duty of parents to preserve their children." But what duty is, cannot
be understood without a law; nor a law be known or supposed without a lawmaker,
or without reward and punishment; so that it is impossible that this, or
any other, practical principle should be innate, i.e. be imprinted on the
mind as a duty, without supposing the ideas of God, of law, of obligation,
of punishment, of a life after this, innate: for that punishment follows
not in this life the breach of this rule, and consequently that it has
not the force of a law in countries where the generally allowed practice
runs counter to it, is in itself evident. But these ideas (which must be
all of them innate, if anything as a duty be so) are so far from being
innate, that it is not every studious or thinking man, much less every
one that is born, in whom they are to be found clear and distinct; and
that one of them, which of all others seems most likely to be innate, is
not so, (I mean the idea of God,) I think, in the next chapter, will appear
very evident to any considering man.
13. If men can be ignorant of what is innate, certainty is not described
by innate principles. From what has been said, I think we may safely conclude,
that whatever practical rule is in any place generally and with allowance
broken, cannot be supposed innate; it being impossible that men should,
without shame or fear, confidently and serenely, break a rule which they
could not but evidently know that God had set up, and would certainly punish
the breach of, (which they must, if it were innate,) to a degree to make
it a very ill bargain to the transgressor. Without such a knowledge as
this, a man can never be certain that anything is his duty. Ignorance or
doubt of the law, hopes to escape the knowledge or power of the law-maker,
or the like, may make men give way to a present appetite; but let any one
see the fault, and the rod by it, and with the transgression, a fire ready
to punish it; a pleasure tempting, and the hand of the Almighty visibly
held up and prepared to take vengeance, (for this must be the case where
any duty is imprinted on the mind,) and then tell me whether it be possible
for people with such a prospect, such a certain knowledge as this, wantonly,
and without scruple, to offend against a law which they carry about them
in indelible characters, and that stares them in the face whilst they are
breaking it? Whether men, at the same time that they feel in themselves
the imprinted edicts of an Omnipotent Law-maker, can, with assurance and
gaiety, slight and trample underfoot his most sacred injunctions? And lastly,
whether it be possible that whilst a man thus openly bids defiance to this
innate law and supreme Lawgiver, all the bystanders, yea, even the governors
and rulers of the people, full of the same sense both of the law and Law-maker,
should silently connive, without testifying their dislike or laying the
least blame on it? Principles of actions indeed there are lodged in men's
appetites; but these are so far from being innate moral principles, that
if they were left to their full swing they would carry men to the overturning
of all morality. Moral laws are set as a curb and restraint to these exorbitant
desires, which they cannot be but by rewards and punishments that will
overbalance the satisfaction any one shall propose to himself in the breach
of the law. If, therefore, anything be imprinted on the minds of all men
as a law, all men must have a certain and unavoidable knowledge that certain
and unavoidable punishment will attend the breach of it. For if men can
be ignorant or doubtful of what is innate, innate principles are insisted
on, and urged to no purpose; truth and certainty (the things pretended)
are not at all secured by them; but men are in the same uncertain floating
estate with as without them. An evident indubitable knowledge of unavoidable
punishment, great enough to make the transgression very uneligible, must
accompany an innate law; unless with an innate law they can suppose an
innate Gospel too. I would not here be mistaken, as if, because I deny
an innate law, I thought there were none but positive laws. There is a
great deal of difference between an innate law, and a law of nature; between
something imprinted on our minds in their very original, and something
that we, being ignorant of, may attain to the knowledge of, by the use
and due application of our natural faculties. And I think they equally
forsake the truth who, running into contrary extremes, either affirm an
innate law, or deny that there is a law knowable by the light of nature,
i.e. without the help of positive revelation.
14. Those who maintain innate practical principles tell us not what
they are. The difference there is amongst men in their practical principles
is so evident that I think I need say no more to evince, that it will be
impossible to find any innate moral rules by this mark of general assent;
and it is enough to make one suspect that the supposition of such innate
principles is but an opinion taken up at pleasure; since those who talk
so confidently of them are so sparing to tell us which they are. This might
with justice be expected from those men who lay stress upon this opinion;
and it gives occasion to distrust either their knowledge or charity, who,
declaring that God has imprinted on the minds of men the foundations of
knowledge and the rules of living, are yet so little favourable to the
information of their neighbours, or the quiet of mankind, as not to point
out to them which they are, in the variety men are distracted with. But,
in truth, were there any such innate principles there would be no need
to teach them. Did men find such innate propositions stamped on their minds,
they would easily be able to distinguish them from other truths that they
afterwards learned and deduced from them; and there would be nothing more
easy than to know what, and how many, they were. There could be no more
doubt about their number than there is about the number of our fingers;
and it is like then every system would be ready to give them us by tale.
But since nobody, that I know, has ventured yet to give a catalogue of
them, they cannot blame those who doubt of these innate principles; since
even they who require men to believe that there are such innate propositions,
do not tell us what they are. It is easy to foresee, that if different
men of different sects should go about to give us a list of those innate
practical principles, they would set down only such as suited their distinct
hypotheses, and were fit to support the doctrines of their particular schools
or churches; a plain evidence that there are no such innate truths. Nay,
a great part of men are so far from finding any such innate moral principles
in themselves, that, by denying freedom to mankind, and thereby making
men no other than bare machines, they take away not only innate, but all
moral rules whatsoever, and leave not a possibility to believe any such,
to those who cannot conceive how anything can be capable of a law that
is not a free agent. And upon that ground they must necessarily reject
all principles of virtue, who cannot put morality and mechanism together,
which are not very easy to be reconciled or made consistent.
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. 4. Resipiscendum esse a peccatis. 5. Dari
praemium vel paenam post hanc vitam transactam. Though I allow these to
be clear truths, and such as, if rightly explained, a rational creature
can hardly avoid giving his assent to, yet I think he is far from proving
them innate impressions in foro interiori descriptae. For I must take leave
to observe:-
16. These five either not all, or more than all, if there are any. First,
that these five propositions are either not all, or more than all, those
common notions written on our minds by the finger of God; if it were reasonable
to believe any at all to be so written. Since there are other propositions
which, even by his own rules, have as just a pretence to such an original,
and may be as well admitted for innate principles, as at least some of
these five he enumerates, viz. "Do as thou wouldst be done unto." And perhaps
some hundreds of others, when well considered.
17. The supposed marks wanting. Secondly, that all his marks are not
to be found in each of his five propositions, viz. his first, second, and
third marks agree perfectly to neither of them; and the first, second,
third, fourth, and sixth marks agree but ill to his third, fourth, and
fifth propositions. For, besides that we are assured from history of many
men, nay whole nations, who doubt or disbelieve some or all of them, I
cannot see how the third, viz. "That virtue joined with piety is the best
worship of God," can be an innate principle, when the name or sound virtue,
is so hard to be understood; liable to so much uncertainty in its signification;
and the thing it stands for so much contended about and difficult to be
known. And therefore this cannot be but a very uncertain rule of human
practice, and serve but very little to the conduct of our lives, and is
therefore very unfit to be assigned as an innate practical principle.
18. Of little use if they were innate. For let us consider this proposition
as to its meaning, (for it is the sense, and not sound, that is and must
be the principle or common notion,) viz. "Virtue is the best worship of
God," i.e. is most acceptable to him; which, if virtue be taken, as most
commonly it is, for those actions which, according to the different opinions
of several countries, are accounted laudable, will be a proposition so
far from being certain, that it will not be true. If virtue be taken for
actions conformable to God's will, or to the rule prescribed by God- which
is the true and only measure of virtue when virtue is used to signify what
is in its own nature right and good- then this proposition, "That virtue
is the best worship of God," will be most true and certain, but of very
little use in human life: since it will amount to no more but this, viz.
"That God is pleased with the doing of what he commands;"- which a man
may certainly know to be true, without knowing what it is that God doth
command; and so be as far from any rule or principle of his actions as
he was before. And I think very few will take a proposition which amounts
to no more than this, viz. "That God is pleased with the doing of what
he himself commands," for an innate moral principle written on the minds
of all men, (however true and certain it may be,) since it teaches so little.
Whosoever does so will have reason to think hundreds of propositions innate
principles; since there are many which have as good a title as this to
be received for such, which nobody yet ever put into that rank of innate
principles.
19. Scarce possible that God should engrave principles in words of uncertain
meaning. Nor is the fourth proposition (viz."Men must repent of their sins")
much more instructive, till what those actions are that are meant by sins
be set down. For the word peccata, or sins, being put, as it usually is,
to signify in general ill actions that will draw punishment upon the doers,
what great principle of morality can that be to tell us we should be sorry,
and cease to do that which will bring mischief upon us; without knowing
what those particular actions are that will do so? Indeed this is a very
true proposition, and fit to be incated on and received by those who are
supposed to have been taught what actions in all kinds are sins: but neither
this nor the former can be imagined to be innate principles; nor to be
of any use if they were innate, unless the particular measures and bounds
of all virtues and vices were engraven in men's minds, and were innate
principles also, which I think is very much to be doubted. And, therefore,
I imagine, it will scarcely seem possible that God should engrave principles
in men's minds, in words of uncertain signification, such as virtues and
sins, which amongst different men stand for different things: nay, it cannot
be supposed to be in words at all, which, being in most of these principles
very general, names, cannot be understood but by knowing the particulars
comprehended under them. And in the practical instances, the measures must
be taken from the knowledge of the actions themselves, and the rules of
them,- abstracted from words, and antecedent to the knowledge of names;
which rules a man must know, what language soever he chance to learn, whether
English or Japan, or if he should learn no language at all, or never should
understand the use of words, as happens in the case of dumb and deaf men.
When it shall be made out that men ignorant of words, or untaught by the
laws and customs of their country, know that it is part of the worship
of God, not to kill another man; not to know more women than one; not to
procure abortion; not to expose their children; not to take from another
what is his, though we want it ourselves, but on the contrary, relieve
and supply his wants; and whenever we have done the contrary we ought to
repent, be sorry, and resolve to do so no more;- when I say, all men shall
be proved actually to know and allow all these and a thousand other such
rules, all of which come under these two general words made use of above,
viz. virtutes et peccata, virtues and sins, there will be more reason for
admitting these and the like, for common notions and practical principles.
Yet, after all, universal consent (were there any in moral principles)
to truths, the knowledge whereof may be attained otherwise, would scarce
prove them to be innate; which is all I contend for.
20. Objection, "innate principles may be corrupted," answered. Nor will
it be of much moment here to offer that very ready but not very material
answer, viz. that the innate principles of morality may, by education,
and custom, and the general opinion of those amongst whom we converse,
be darkened, and at last quite worn out of the minds of men. Which assertion
of theirs, if true, quite takes away the argument of universal consent,
by which this opinion of innate principles is endeavoured to be proved;
unless those men will think it reasonable that their private persuasions,
or that of their party, should pass for universal consent;- a thing not
unfrequently done, when men, presuming themselves to be the only masters
of right reason, cast by the votes and opinions of the rest of mankind
as not worthy the reckoning. And then their argument stands thus:- "The
principles which all mankind allow for true, are innate; those that men
of right reason admit, are the principles allowed by all mankind; we, and
those of our mind, are men of reason; therefore, we agreeing, our principles
are innate;"- which is a very pretty way of arguing, and a short cut to
infallibility. For otherwise it will be very hard to understand how there
be some principles which all men do acknowledge and agree in; and yet there
are none of those principles which are not, by depraved custom and ill
education, blotted out of the minds of many men: which is to say, that
all men admit, but yet many men do deny and dissent from them. And indeed
the supposition of such first principles will serve us to very little purpose;
and we shall be as much at a loss with as without them, if they may, by
any human power- such as the will of our teachers, or opinions of our companions-
be altered or lost in us: and notwithstanding all this boast of first principles
and innate light, we shall be as much in the dark and uncertainty as if
there were no such thing at all: it being all one to have no rule, and
one that will warp any way; or amongst various and contrary rules, not
to know which is the right. But concerning innate principles, I desire
these men to say, whether they can or cannot, by education and custom,
be blurred and blotted out; if they cannot, we must find them in all mankind
alike, and they must be clear in everybody; and if they may suffer variation
from adventitious notions, we must then find them clearest and most perspicuous
nearest the fountain, in children and illiterate people, who have received
least impression from foreign opinions. Let them take which side they please,
they will certainly find it inconsistent with visible matter of fact and
daily observation.
21. Contrary principles in the world. I easily grant that there are
great numbers of opinions which, by men of different countries, educations,
and tempers, are received and embraced as first and unquestionable principles;
many whereof, both for their absurdity as well as oppositions to one another,
it is impossible should be true. But yet all those propositions, how remote
soever from reason, are so sacred somewhere or other, that men even of
good understanding in other matters, will sooner part with their lives,
and whatever is dearest to them, than suffer themselves to doubt, or others
to question, the truth of them.
22. How men commonly come by their principles. This, however strange
it may seem, is that which every day's experience confirms; and will not,
perhaps, appear so wonderful, if we consider the ways and steps by which
it is brought about; and how really it may come to pass, that doctrines
that have been derived from no better original than the superstition of
a nurse, or the authority of an old woman, may, by length of time and consent
of neighbours, grow up to the dignity of principles in religion or morality.
For such, who are careful (as they call it) to principle children well,
(and few there be who have not a set of those principles for them, which
they believe in,) instil into the unwary, and as yet unprejudiced, understanding,
(for white paper receives any characters,) those doctrines they would have
them retain and profess. These being taught them as soon as they have any
apprehension; and still as they grow up confirmed to them, either by the
open profession or tacit consent of all they have to do with; or at least
by those of whose wisdom, knowledge, and piety they have an opinion, who
never suffer those propositions to be otherwise mentioned but as the basis
and foundation on which they build their religion and manners, come, by
these means, to have the reputation of unquestionable, self-evident, and
innate truths.
23. Principles supposed innate because we do not remember when we began
to hold them. To which we may add, that when men so instructed are grown
up, and reflect on their own minds, they cannot find anything more ancient
there than those opinions, which were taught them before their memory began
to keep a register of their actions, or date the time when any new thing
appeared to them; and therefore make no scruple to conclude, that those
propositions of whose knowledge they can find in themselves no original,
were certainly the impress of God and nature upon their minds, and not
taught them by any one else. These they entertain and submit to, as many
do to their parents with veneration; not because it is natural; nor do
children do it where they are not so taught; but because, having been always
so educated, and having no remembrance of the beginning of this respect,
they think it is natural.
24. How such principles come to be held. This will appear very likely,
and almost unavoidable to come to pass, if we consider the nature of mankind
and the constitution of human affairs; wherein most men cannot live without
employing their time in the daily labours of their callings; nor be at
quiet in their minds without some foundation or principle to rest their
thoughts on. There is scarcely any one so floating and superficial in his
understanding, who hath not some reverenced propositions, which are to
him the principles on which he bottoms his reasonings, and by which he
judgeth of truth and falsehood, right and wrong; which some, wanting skill
and leisure, and others the inclination, and some being taught that they
ought not to examine, there are few to be found who are not exposed by
their ignorance, laziness, education, or precipitancy, to take them upon
trust.
25. Further explained. This is evidently the case of all children and
young folk; and custom, a greater power than nature, seldom failing to
make them worship for divine what she hath inured them to bow their minds
and submit their understandings to, it is no wonder that grown men, either
perplexed in the necessary affairs of life, or hot in the pursuit of pleasures,
should not seriously sit down to examine their own tenets; especially when
one of their principles is, that principles ought not to be questioned.
And had men leisure, parts, and will, who is there almost that dare shake
the foundations of all his past thoughts and actions, and endure to bring
upon himself the shame of having been a long time wholly in mistake and
error? Who is there hardy enough to contend with the reproach which is
everywhere prepared for those who dare venture to dissent from the received
opinions of their country or party? And where is the man to be found that
can patiently prepare himself to bear the name of whimsical, sceptical,
or atheist; which he is sure to meet with, who does in the least scruple
any of the common opinions? And he will be much more afraid to question
those principles, when he shall think them, as most men do, the standards
set up by God in his mind, to be the rule and touchstone of all other opinions.
And what can hinder him from thinking them sacred, when he finds them the
earliest of all his own thoughts, and the most reverenced by others?
26. A worship of idols. It is easy to imagine how, by these means, it
comes to pass than men worship the idols that have been set up in their
minds; grow fond of the notions they have been long acquainted with there;
and stamp the characters of divinity upon absurdities and errors; become
zealous votaries to bulls and monkeys, and contend too, fight, and die
in defence of their opinions. Dum solos credit habendos esse deos, quos
ipse colit. For, since the reasoning faculties of the soul, which are almost
constantly, though not always warily nor wisely employed, would not know
how to move, for want of a foundation and footing, in most men, who through
laziness or avocation do not, or for want of time, or true helps, or for
other causes, cannot penetrate into the principles of knowledge, and trace
truth to its fountain and original, it is natural for them, and almost
unavoidable, to take up with some borrowed principles; which being reputed
and presumed to be the evident proofs of other things, are thought not
to need any other proof themselves. Whoever shall receive any of these
into his mind, and entertain them there with the reverence usually paid
to principles, never venturing to examine them, but accustoming himself
to believe them, because they are to be believed, may take up, from his
education and the fashions of his country, any absurdity for innate principles;
and by long poring on the same objects, so dim his sight as to take monsters
lodged in his own brain for the images of the Deity, and the workmanship
of his hands.
27. Principles must be examined. By this progress, how many there are
who arrive at principles which they believe innate may be easily observed,
in the variety of opposite principles held and contended for by all sorts
and degrees of men. And he that shall deny this to be the method wherein
most men proceed to the assurance they have of the truth and evidence of
their principles, will perhaps find it a hard matter any other way to account
for the contrary tenets, which are firmly believed, confidently asserted,
and which great numbers are ready at any time to seal with their blood.
And, indeed, if it be the privilege of innate principles to be received
upon their own authority, without examination, I know not what may not
be believed, or how any one's principles can be questioned. If they may
and ought to be examined and tried, I desire to know how first and innate
principles can be tried; or at least it is reasonable to demand the marks
and characters whereby the genuine innate principles may be distinguished
from others: that so, amidst the great variety of pretenders, I may be
kept from mistakes in so material a point as this. When this is done, I
shall be ready to embrace such welcome and useful propositions; and till
then I may with modesty doubt; since I fear universal consent, which is
the only one produced, will scarcely prove a sufficient mark to direct
my choice, and assure me of any innate principles.
From what has been said, I think it past doubt, that there are no practical
principles wherein all men agree; and therefore none innate.
Chapter III: Other considerations concerning Innate
Principles, both Speculative and Practical
1. Principles not innate, unless their ideas be innate. Had those who would
persuade us that there are innate principles not taken them together in
gross, but considered separately the parts out of which those propositions
are made, they would not, perhaps, have been so forward to believe they
were innate. Since, if the ideas which made up those truths were not, it
was impossible that the propositions made up of them should be innate,
or our knowledge of them be born with us. For, if the ideas be not innate,
there was a time when the mind was without those principles; and then they
will not be innate, but be derived from some other original. For, where
the ideas themselves are not, there can be no knowledge, no assent, no
mental or verbal propositions about them.
2. Ideas, especially those belonging to principles, not born with children.
If we will attentively consider new-born children, we shall have little
reason to think that they bring many ideas into the world with them. For,
bating perhaps some faint ideas of hunger, and thirst, and warmth, and
some pains, which they may have felt in the womb, there is not the least
appearance of any settled ideas at all in them; especially of ideas answering
the terms which make up those universal propositions that are esteemed
innate principles. One may perceive how, by degrees, afterwards, ideas
come into their minds; and that they get no more, nor other, than what
experience, and the observation of things that come in their way, furnish
them with; which might be enough to satisfy us that they are not original
characters stamped on the mind.
3. "Impossibility" and "identity" not innate ideas. "It is impossible
for the same thing to be, and not to be," is certainly (if there be any
such) an innate principle. But can any one think, or will any one say,
that "impossibility" and "identity" are two innate ideas? Are they such
as all mankind have, and bring into the world with them? And are they those
which are the first in children, and antecedent to all acquired ones? If
they are innate, they must needs be so. Hath a child an idea of impossibility
and identity, before it has of white or black, sweet or bitter? And is
it from the knowledge of this principle that it concludes, that wormwood
rubbed on the nipple hath not the same taste that it used to receive from
thence? Is it the actual knowledge of impossible est idem esse, et non
esse, that makes a child distinguish between its mother and a stranger;
or that makes it fond of the one and flee the other? Or does the mind regulate
itself and its assent by ideas that it never yet had? Or the understanding
draw conclusions from principles which it never yet knew or understood?
The names impossibility and identity stand for two ideas, so far from being
innate, or born with us, that I think it requires great care and attention
to form them right in our understandings. They are so far from being brought
into the world with us, so remote from the thoughts of infancy and childhood,
that I believe, upon examination it will be found that many grown men want
them.
4. "Identity," an idea not innate. If identity (to instance that alone)
be a native impression, and consequently so clear and obvious to us that
we must needs know it even from our cradles, I would gladly be resolved
by any one of seven, or seventy years old, whether a man, being a creature
consisting of soul and body, be the same man when his body is changed?
Whether Euphorbus and Pythagoras, having had the same soul, were the same
men, though they lived several ages asunder? Nay, whether the cock too,
which had the same soul, were not the same with both of them? Whereby,
perhaps, it will appear that our idea of sameness is not so settled and
clear as to deserve to be thought innate in us. For if those innate ideas
are not clear and distinct, so as to be universally known and naturally
agreed on, they cannot be subjects of universal and undoubted truths, but
will be the unavoidable occasion of perpetual uncertainty. For, I suppose
every one's idea of identity will not be the same that Pythagoras and thousands
of his followers have. And which then shall be true? Which innate? Or are
there two different ideas of identity, both innate?
5. What makes the same man? Nor let any one think that the questions
I have here proposed about the identity of man are bare empty speculations;
which, if they were, would be enough to show, that there was in the understandings
of men no innate idea of identity. He that shall with a little attention
reflect on the resurrection, and consider that divine justice will bring
to judgment, at the last day, the very same persons, to be happy or miserable
in the other, who did well or ill in this life, will find it perhaps not
easy to resolve with himself, what makes the same man, or wherein identity
consists; and will not be forward to think he, and every one, even children
themselves, have naturally a clear idea of it.
6. Whole and part, not innate ideas. Let us examine that principle of
mathematics, viz. that the whole is bigger than a part. This, I take it,
is reckoned amongst innate principles. I am sure it has as good a title
as any to be thought so; which yet nobody can think it to be, when he considers
[that] the ideas it comprehends in it, whole and part, are perfectly relative;
but the positive ideas to which they properly and immediately belong are
extension and number, of which alone whole and part are relations. So that
if whole and part are innate ideas, extension and number must be so too;
it being impossible to have an idea of a relation, without having any at
all of the thing to which it belongs, and in which it is founded. Now,
whether the minds of men have naturally imprinted on them the ideas of
extension and number, I leave to be considered by these who are the patrons
of innate principles.
7. Idea of worship not innate. That God is to be worshipped, is, without
doubt, as great a truth as any that can enter into the mind of man, and
deserves the first place amongst all practical principles. But yet it can
by no means be thought innate, unless the ideas of God and worship are
innate. That the idea the term worship stands for is not in the understanding
of children, and a character stamped on the mind in its first original,
I think will be easily granted, by any one that considers how few there
be amongst grown men who have a clear and distinct notion of it. And, I
suppose, there cannot be anything more ridiculous than to say, that children
have this practical principle innate, "That God is to be worshipped," and
yet that they know not what that worship of God is, which is their duty.
But to pass by this.
8. Idea of God not innate. If any idea can be imagined innate, the idea
of God may, of all others, for many reasons, be thought so; since it is
hard to conceive how there should be innate moral principles, without an
innate idea of a Deity. Without a notion of a law-maker, it is impossible
to have a notion of a law, and an obligation to observe it. Besides the
atheists taken notice of amongst the ancients, and left branded upon the
records of history, hath not navigation discovered, in these later ages,
whole nations, at the bay of Soldania, in Brazil, [in Boranday,] and in
the Caribbee islands, &c., amongst whom there was to be found no notion
of a God, no religion? Nicholaus del Techo, in Literis ex Paraquaria, de
Caiguarum Conversione, has these words: Reperi eam gentem nullum nomen
habere quod Deum, et hominis animam significet; nulla sacra habet, nulla
idola. These are instances of nations where uncultivated nature has been
left to itself, without the help of letters and discipline, and the improvements
of arts and sciences. But there are others to be found who have enjoyed
these in a very great measure, who yet, for want of a due application of
their thoughts this way, want the idea and knowledge of God. It will, I
doubt not, be a surprise to others, as it was to me, to find the Siamites
of this number. But for this, let them consult the King of France's late
envoy thither, who gives no better account of the Chinese themselves. And
if we will not believe La Loubere, the missionaries of China, even the
Jesuits themselves, the great encomiasts of the Chinese, do all to a man
agree, and will convince us, that the sect of the literari, or learned,
keeping to the old religion of China, and the ruling party there, are all
of them atheists. Vid. Navarette, in the Collection of Voyages, vol. i.,
and Historia Cultus Sinensium. And perhaps, if we should with attention
mind the lives and discourses of people not so far off, we should have
too much reason to fear, that many, in more civilized countries, have no
very strong and clear impressions of a Deity upon their minds, and that
the complaints of atheism made from the pulpit are not without reason.
And though only some profligate wretches own it too barefacedly now; yet
perhaps we should hear more than we do of it from others, did not the fear
of the magistrate's sword, or their neighbour's censure, tie up people's
tongues; which, were the apprehensions of punishment or shame taken away,
would as openly proclaim their atheism as their lives do.
9. The name of God not universal or obscure in meaning. But had all
mankind everywhere a notion of a God, (whereof yet history tells us the
contrary,) it would not from thence follow, that the idea of him was innate.
For, though no nation were to be found without a name, and some few dark
notions of him, yet that would not prove them to be natural impressions
on the mind; no more than the names of fire, or the sun, heat, or number,
do prove the ideas they stand for to be innate; because the names of those
things, and the ideas of them, are so universally received and known amongst
mankind. Nor, on the contrary, is the want of such a name, or the absence
of such a notion out of men's minds, any argument against the being of
a God; any more than it would be a proof that there was no loadstone in
the world, because a great part of mankind had neither a notion of any
such thing nor a name for it; or be any show of argument to prove that
there are no distinct and various species of angels, or intelligent beings
above us, because we have no ideas of such distinct species, or names for
them. For, men being furnished with words, by the common language of their
own countries, can scarce avoid having some kind of ideas of those things
whose names those they converse with have occasion frequently to mention
to them. And if they carry with it the notion of excellency, greatness,
or something extraordinary; if apprehension and concernment accompany it;
if the fear of absolute and irresistible power set it on upon the mind,-
the idea is likely to sink the deeper, and spread the further; especially
if it be such an idea as is agreeable to the common light of reason, and
naturally deducible from every part of our knowledge, as that of a God
is. For the visible marks of extraordinary wisdom and power appear so plainly
in all the works of the creation, that a rational creature, who will but
seriously reflect on them, cannot miss the discovery of a Deity. And the
influence that the discovery of such a Being must necessarily have on the
minds of all that have but once heard of it is so great, and carries such
a weight of thought and communication with it, that it seems stranger to
me that a whole nation of men should be anywhere found so brutish as to
want the notion of a God, than that they should be without any notion of
numbers, or fire.
10. Ideas of God and idea of fire. The name of God being once mentioned
in any part of the world, to express a superior, powerful, wise, invisible
Being, the suitableness of such a notion to the principles of common reason,
and the interest men will always have to mention it often, must necessarily
spread it far and wide; and continue it down to all generations: though
yet the general reception of this name, and some imperfect and unsteady
notions conveyed thereby to the unthinking part of mankind, prove not the
idea to be innate; but only that they who made the discovery had made a
right use of their reason, thought maturely of the causes of things, and
traced them to their original; from whom other less considering people
having once received so important a notion, it could not easily be lost
again.
11. Idea of God not innate. This is all could be inferred from the notion
of a God, were it to be found universally in all the tribes of mankind,
and generally acknowledged, by men grown to maturity in all countries.
For the generality of the acknowledging of a God, as I imagine, is extended
no further than that; which, if it be sufficient to prove the idea of God
innate, will as well prove the idea of fire innate; since I think it may
be truly said, that there is not a person in the world who has a notion
of a God, who has not also the idea of fire. I doubt not but if a colony
of young children should be placed in an island where no fire was, they
would certainly neither have any notion of such a thing, nor name for it,
how generally soever it were received and known in all the world besides;
and perhaps too their apprehensions would be as far removed from any name,
or notion, of a God, till some one amongst them had employed his thoughts
to inquire into the constitution and causes of things, which would easily
lead him to the notion of a God; which having once taught to others, reason,
and the natural propensity of their own thoughts, would afterwards propagate,
and continue amongst them.
12. Suitable to God's goodness, that all men should have an idea of
Him, therefore naturally imprinted by Him, answered. Indeed it is urged,
that it is suitable to the goodness of God, to imprint upon the minds of
men characters and notions of himself, and not to leave them in the dark
and doubt in so grand a concernment; and also, by that means, to secure
to himself the homage and veneration due from so intelligent a creature
as man; and therefore he has done it.
This argument, if it be of any force, will prove much more than those
who use it in this case expect from it. For, if we may conclude that God
hath done for men all that men shall judge is best for them, because it
is suitable to his goodness so to do, it will prove, not only that God
has imprinted on the minds of men an idea of himself, but that he hath
plainly stamped there, in fair characters, all that men ought to know or
believe of him; all that they ought to do in obedience to his will; and
that he hath given them a will and affections conformable to it. This,
no doubt, every one will think better for men, than that they should, in
the dark, grope after knowledge, as St. Paul tells us all nations did after
God (Acts 17. 27); than that their wills should clash with their understandings,
and their appetites cross their duty. The Romanists say it is best for
men, and so suitable to the goodness of God, that there should be an infallible
judge of controversies on earth; and therefore there is one. And I, by
the same reason, say it is better for men that every man himself should
be infallible. I leave them to consider, whether, by the force of this
argument, they shall think that every man is so. I think it a very good
argument to say,- the infinitely wise God hath made it so; and therefore
it is best. But it seems to me a little too much confidence of our own
wisdom to say,- "I think it best; and therefore God hath made it so." And
in the matter in hand, it will be in vain to argue from such a topic, that
God hath done so, when certain experience shows us that he hath not. But
the goodness of God hath not been wanting to men, without such original
impressions of knowledge or ideas stamped on the mind; since he hath furnished
man with those faculties which will serve for the sufficient discovery
of all things requisite to the end of such a being; and I doubt not but
to show, that a man, by the right use of his natural abilities, may, without
any innate principles, attain a knowledge of a God, and other things that
concern him. God having endued man with those faculties of knowledge which
he hath, was no more obliged by his goodness to plant those innate notions
in his mind, than that, having given him reason, hands, and materials,
he should build him bridges or houses,- which some people in the world,
however of good parts, do either totally want, or are but ill provided
of, as well as others are wholly without ideas of God and principles of
morality, or at least have but very ill ones; the reason in both cases,
being, that they never employed their parts, faculties, and powers industriously
that way, but contented themselves with the opinions, fashions, and things
of their country, as they found them, without looking any further. Had
you or I been born at the Bay of Soldania, possibly our thoughts and notions
had not exceeded those brutish ones of the Hottentots that inhabit there.
And had the Virginia king Apochancana been educated in England, he had
been perhaps as knowing a divine, and as good a mathematician as any in
it; the difference between him and a more improved Englishman lying barely
in this, that the exercise of his faculties was bounded within the ways,
modes, and notions of his own country, and never directed to any other
or further inquiries. And if he had not any idea of a God, it was only
because he pursued not those thoughts that would have led him to it.
13. Ideas of God various in different men. I grant that if there were
any ideas to be found imprinted on the minds of men, we have reason to
expect it should be the notion of his Maker, as a mark God set on his own
workmanship, to mind man of his dependence and duty; and that herein should
appear the first instances of human knowledge. But how late is it before
any such notion is discoverable in children? And when we find it there,
how much more does it resemble the opinion and notion of the teacher, than
represent the true God? He that shall observe in children the progress
whereby their minds attain the knowledge they have, will think that the
objects they do first and most familiarly converse with are those that
make the first impressions on their understandings; nor will he find the
least footsteps of any other. It is easy to take notice how their thoughts
enlarge themselves, only as they come to be acquainted with a greater variety
of sensible objects; to retain the ideas of them in their memories; and
to get the skill to compound and enlarge them, and several ways put them
together. How, by these means, they come to frame in their minds an idea
men have of a Deity, I shall hereafter show.
14. Contrary and inconsistent ideas of God under the same name. Can
it be thought that the ideas men have of God are the characters and marks
of himself, engraven in their minds by his own finger, when we see that,
in the same country, under one and the same name, men have far different,
nay often contrary and inconsistent ideas and conceptions of him? Their
agreeing in a name, or sound, will scarce prove an innate notion of him.
15. Gross ideas of God. What true or tolerable notion of a Deity could
they have, who acknowledged and worshipped hundreds? Every deity that they
owned above one was an infallible evidence of their ignorance of Him, and
a proof that they had no true notion of God, where unity, infinity, and
eternity were excluded. To which, if we add their gross conceptions of
corporeity, expressed in their images and representations of their deities;
the amours, marriages, copulations, lusts, quarrels, and other mean qualities
attributed by them to their gods; we shall have little reason to think
that the heathen world, i.e. the grea