he 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 il