h or advancement of knowledge. But of their small use
for the improvement of knowledge I shall have occasion to speak more at
large, l.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