Title:  An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
Author:  John Locke

Based on the 2nd Edition
Electronic version excerpted from the Project Gutenberg edition
http://www.gutenberg.net

BOOK I. OF INNATE NOTIONS.

CHAPTER II. 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,
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.


...

5. Not on 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? ...

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 certainly 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.


...


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 ground and by the same means, that he
knew before that a rod and a cherry are not the same thing; and upon
the same ground 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 generic 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
supposed 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 if 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 proposition
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.


...

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 propositions can be found that receives general assent
as soon as heard 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.

...

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 IV.

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING INNATE PRINCIPLES, BOTH SPECULATIVE AND
PRACTICAL.

...

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, 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.

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 xvii. 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 greatest part of
mankind, had such ideas of God in their minds as he himself, out of care
that they should not be mistaken about him, was author of. And this
universality of consent, so much argued, if it prove any native
impressions, it will be only this:--that God imprinted on the minds of
all men speaking the same language, a NAME for himself, but not any
IDEA; since those people who agreed in the name, had, at the same time,
far different apprehensions about the thing signified. If they say
that the variety of deities worshipped by the heathen world were
but figurative ways of expressing the several attributes of that
incomprehensible Being, or several parts of his providence, I answer:
what they might be in the original I will not here inquire; but that
they were so in the thoughts of the vulgar I think nobody will affirm.
And he that will consult the voyage of the Bishop of Beryte, c. 13,
(not to mention other testimonies,) will find that the theology of the
Siamites professedly owns a plurality of gods: or, as the Abbe de Choisy
more judiciously remarks in his Journal du Voyage de Siam, 107/177, it
consists properly in acknowledging no God at all.

16. Idea of God not
innate although wise men of all nations come to have it.

If it be said, that wise men of all nations came to have true
conceptions of the unity and infinity of the Deity, I grant it. But then
this,

First, excludes universality of consent in anything but the name;
for those wise men being very few, perhaps one of a thousand, this
universality is very narrow.

Secondly, it seems to me plainly to prove, that the truest and best
notions men have of God were not imprinted, but acquired by thought
and meditation, and a right use of their faculties: since the wise and
considerate men of the world, by a right and careful employment of their
thoughts and reason, attained true notions in this as well as other
things; whilst the lazy and inconsiderate part of men, making far the
greater number, took up their notions by chance, from common tradition
and vulgar conceptions, without much beating their heads about them. And
if it be a reason to think the notion of God innate, because all wise
men had it, virtue too must be thought innate; for that also wise men
have always had.


17. Odd, low, and pitiful ideas of God common among men.

This was evidently the case of all Gentilism. Nor hath even amongst
Jews, Christians, and Mahometans, who acknowledged but one God, this
doctrine, and the care taken in those nations to teach men to have true
notions of a God, prevailed so far as to make men to have the same and
the true ideas of him. How many even amongst us, will be found upon
inquiry to fancy him in the shape of a man sitting in heaven; and to
have many other absurd and unfit conceptions of him? Christians as
well as Turks have had whole sects owning and contending earnestly for
it,--that the Deity was corporeal, and of human shape: and though we
find few now amongst us who profess themselves Anthropomorphites,
(though some I have met with that own it,) yet I believe he that will
make it his business may find amongst the ignorant and uninstructed
Christians many of that opinion. Talk but with country people, almost
of any age, or young people almost of any condition, and you shall find
that, though the name of God be frequently in their mouths, yet the
notions they apply this name to are so odd, low, and pitiful, that
nobody can imagine they were taught by a rational man; much less that
they were characters written by the finger of God himself. Nor do I see
how it derogates more from the goodness of God, that he has given us
minds unfurnished with these ideas of himself, than that he hath sent us
into the world with bodies unclothed; and that there is no art or skill
born with us. For, being fitted with faculties to attain these, it is
want of industry and consideration in us, and not of bounty in him, if
we have them not. It is as certain that there is a God, as that the
opposite angles made by the intersection of two straight lines are
equal. There was never any rational creature that set himself sincerely
to examine the truth of these propositions that could fail to assent to
them; though yet it be past doubt that there are many men, who, having
not applied their thoughts that way, are ignorant both of the one and
the other. If any one think fit to call this (which is the utmost of
its extent) UNIVERSAL CONSENT, such an one I easily allow; but such an
universal consent as this proves not the idea of God, any more than it
does the idea of such angles, innate.


18. If the Idea of God be not innate, no other can be supposed innate.

Since then though the knowledge of a God be the most natural discovery
of human reason, yet the idea of him is not innate, as I think is
evident from what has been said; I imagine there will be scarce any
other idea found that can pretend to it. Since if God hath set any
impression, any character, on the understanding of men, it is most
reasonable to expect it should have been some clear and uniform idea
of Himself; as far as our weak capacities were capable to receive so
incomprehensible and infinite an object. But our minds being at first
void of that idea which we are most concerned to have, it is a strong
presumption against all other innate characters. I must own, as far as
I can observe, I can find none, and would be glad to be informed by any
other.


19. Idea of Substance not innate.

I confess there is another idea which would be of general use for
mankind to have, as it is of general talk as if they had it; and that is
the idea of SUBSTANCE; which we neither have nor can have by sensation
or reflection. If nature took care to provide us any ideas, we might
well expect they should be such as by our own faculties we cannot
procure to ourselves; but we see, on the contrary, that since, by those
ways whereby other ideas are brought into our minds, this is not, we
have no such clear idea at all; and therefore signify nothing by the
word SUBSTANCE but only an uncertain supposition of we know not what,
i. e. of something whereof we have no idea, which we take to be the
substratum, or support, of those ideas we do know.

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