tion 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 of 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 kno