wledge 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 other 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, t