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1690
AN ESSAY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING
by John Locke
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
LORD THOMAS, EARL OF PEMBROKE AND MONTGOMERY,
BARRON HERBERT OF CARDIFF,
LORD ROSS, OF KENDAL, PAR, FITZHUGH, MARMION, ST. QUINTIN,
AND SHURLAND; LORD PRESIDENT OF HIS MAJESTY'S MOST
HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL; AND LORD LIEUTENANT OF
THE COUNTY OF WILTS, AND OF SOUTH WALES.
MY LORD,
THIS Treatise, which is grown up under your lordship's eye, and
has ventured into the world by your order, does now, by a natural kind
of right, come to your lordship for that protection which you
several years since promised it. It is not that I think any name,
how great soever, set at the beginning of a book, will be able to
cover the faults that are to be found in it. Things in print must
stand and fall by their own worth, or the reader's fancy. But there
being nothing more to be desired for truth than a fair unprejudiced
hearing, nobody is more likely to procure me that than your
lordship, who are allowed to have got so intimate an acquaintance with
her, in her more retired recesses. Your lordship is known to have so
far advanced your speculations in the most abstract and general
knowledge of things, beyond the ordinary reach or common methods, that
your allowance and approbation of the design of this Treatise will
at least preserve it from being condemned without reading, and will
prevail to have those parts a little weighted, which might otherwise
perhaps be thought to deserve no consideration, for being somewhat out
of the common road. The imputation of Novelty is a terrible charge
amongst those who judge of men's heads, as they do of their perukes,
by the fashion, and can allow none to be right but the received
doctrines. Truth scarce ever yet carried it by vote anywhere at its
first appearance: new opinions are always suspected, and usually
opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already
common. But truth, like gold, is not the less so for being newly
brought out of the mine. It is trial and examination must give it
price, and not any antique fashion; and though it be not yet current
by the public stamp, yet it may, for all that, be as old as nature,
and is certainly not the less genuine. Your lordship can give great
and convincing instances of this, whenever you please to oblige the
public with some of those large and comprehensive discoveries you have
made of truths hitherto unknown, unless to some few, from whom your
lordship has been pleased not wholly to conceal them. This alone
were a sufficient reason, were there no other, why I should dedicate
this Essay to your lordship; and its having some little correspondence
with some parts of that nobler and vast system of the sciences your
lordship has made so new, exact, and instructive a draught of, I think
it glory enough, if your lordship permit me to boast, that here and
there I have fallen into some thoughts not wholly different from
yours. If your lordship think fit that, by your encouragement, this
should appear in the world, I hope it may be a reason, some time or
other, to lead your lordship further; and you will allow me to say,
that you here give the world an earnest of something that, if they can
bear with this, will be truly worth their expectation. This, my
lord, shows what a present I here make to your lordship; just such
as the poor man does to his rich and great neighbour, by whom the
basket of flowers or fruit is not ill taken, though he has more plenty
of his own growth, and in much greater perfection. Worthless things
receive a value when they are made the offerings of respect, esteem,
and gratitude: these you have given me so mighty and peculiar
reasons to have, in the highest degree, for your lordship, that if
they can add a price to what they go along with, proportionable to
their own greatness, I can with confidence brag, I here make your
lordship the richest present you ever received. This I am sure, I am
under the greatest obligations to seek all occasions to acknowledge
a long train of favours I have received from your lordship; favours,
though great and important in themselves, yet made much more so by the
forwardness, concern, and kindness, and other obliging
circumstances, that never failed to accompany them. To all this you
are pleased to add that which gives yet more weight and relish to
all the rest: you vouchsafe to continue me in some degrees of your
esteem, and allow me a place in your good thoughts, I had almost
said friendship. This, my lord, your words and actions so constantly
show on all occasions, even to others when I am absent, that it is not
vanity in me to mention what everybody knows: but it would be want
of good manners not to acknowledge what so many are witnesses of,
and every day tell me I am indebted to your lordship for. I wish
they could as easily assist my gratitude, as they convince me of the
great and growing engagements it has to your lordship. This I am sure,
I should write of the Understanding without having any, if I were
not extremely sensible of them, and did not lay hold on this
opportunity to testify to the world how much I am obliged to be, and
how much I am,
MY LORD,
Your Lordship's most humble and most obedient servant,
JOHN LOCKE
Dorset Court,
24th of May, 1689
EPISTLE TO THE READER
I HAVE put into thy hands what has been the diversion of some of
my idle and heavy hours. If it has the good luck to prove so of any of
thine, and thou hast but half so much pleasure in reading as I had
in writing it, thou wilt as little think thy money, as I do my
pains, ill bestowed. Mistake not this for a commendation of my work;
nor conclude, because I was pleased with the doing of it, that
therefore I am fondly taken with it now it is done. He that hawks at
larks and sparrows has no less sport, though a much less
considerable quarry, than he that flies at nobler game: and he is
little acquainted with the subject of this treatise- the
UNDERSTANDING- who does not know that, as it is the most elevated
faculty of the soul, so it is employed with a greater and more
constant delight than any of the other. Its searches after truth are a
sort of hawking and hunting, wherein the very pursuit makes a great
part of the pleasure. Every step the mind takes in its progress
towards Knowledge makes some discovery, which is not only new, but the
best too, for the time at least.
For the understanding, like the eye, judging of objects only by
its own sight, cannot but be pleased with what it discovers, having
less regret for what has escaped it, because it is unknown. Thus he
who has raised himself above the alms-basket, and, not content to live
lazily on scraps of begged opinions, sets his own thoughts on work, to
find and follow truth, will (whatever he lights on) not miss the
hunter's satisfaction; every moment of his pursuit will reward his
pains with some delight; and he will have reason to think his time not
ill spent, even when he cannot much boast of any great acquisition.
This, Reader, is the entertainment of those who let loose their
own thoughts, and follow them in writing; which thou oughtest not to
envy them, since they afford thee an opportunity of the like
diversion, if thou wilt make use of thy own thoughts in reading. It is
to them, if they are thy own, that I refer myself: but if they are
taken upon trust from others, it is no great matter what they are;
they are not following truth, but some meaner consideration; and it is
not worth while to be concerned what he says or thinks, who says or
thinks only as he is directed by another. If thou judgest for
thyself I know thou wilt judge candidly, and then I shall not be
harmed or offended, whatever be thy censure. For though it be
certain that there is nothing in this Treatise of the truth whereof
I am not fully persuaded, yet I consider myself as liable to
mistakes as I can think thee, and know that this book must stand or
fall with thee, not by any opinion I have of it, but thy own. If
thou findest little in it new or instructive to thee, thou art not
to blame me for it. It was not meant for those that had already
mastered this subject, and made a thorough acquaintance with their own
understandings; but for my own information, and the satisfaction of
a few friends, who acknowledged themselves not to have sufficiently
considered it.
Were it fit to trouble thee with the history of this Essay, I should
tell thee, that five or six friends meeting at my chamber, and
discoursing on a subject very remote from this, found themselves
quickly at a stand, by the difficulties that rose on every side. After
we had awhile puzzled ourselves, without coming any nearer a
resolution of those doubts which perplexed us, it came into my
thoughts that we took a wrong course; and that before we set ourselves
upon inquiries of that nature, it was necessary to examine our own
abilities, and see what objects our understandings were, or were
not, fitted to deal with. This I proposed to the company, who all
readily assented; and thereupon it was agreed that this should be
our first inquiry. Some hasty and undigested thoughts, on a subject
I had never before considered, which I set down against our next
meeting, gave the first entrance into this Discourse; which having
been thus begun by chance, was continued by intreaty; written by
incoherent parcels; and after long intervals of neglect, resumed
again, as my humour or occasions permitted; and at last, in a
retirement where an attendance on my health gave me leisure, it was
brought into that order thou now seest it.
This discontinued way of writing may have occasioned, besides
others, two contrary faults, viz., that too little and too much may be
said in it. If thou findest anything wanting, I shall be glad that
what I have written gives thee any desire that I should have gone
further. If it seems too much to thee, thou must blame the subject;
for when I put pen to paper, I thought all I should have to say on
this matter would have been contained in one sheet of paper; but the
further I went the larger prospect I had; new discoveries led me still
on, and so it grew insensibly to the bulk it now appears in. I will
not deny, but possibly it might be reduced to a narrower compass
than it is, and that some parts of it might be contracted, the way
it has been writ in, by catches, and many long intervals of
interruption, being apt to cause some repetitions. But to confess
the truth, I am now too lazy, or too busy, to make it shorter.
I am not ignorant how little I herein consult my own reputation,
when I knowingly let it go with a fault, so apt to disgust the most
judicious, who are always the nicest readers. But they who know
sloth is apt to content itself with any excuse, will pardon me if mine
has prevailed on me, where I think I have a very good one. I will
not therefore allege in my defence, that the same notion, having
different respects, may be convenient or necessary to prove or
illustrate several parts of the same discourse, and that so it has
happened in many parts of this: but waiving that, I shall frankly avow
that I have sometimes dwelt long upon the same argument, and expressed
it different ways, with a quite different design. I pretend not to
publish this Essay for the information of men of large thoughts and
quick apprehensions; to such masters of knowledge I profess myself a
scholar, and therefore warn them beforehand not to expect anything
here, but what, being spun out of my own coarse thoughts, is fitted to
men of my own size, to whom, perhaps, it will not be unacceptable that
I have taken some pains to make plain and familiar to their thoughts
some truths which established prejudice, or the abstractedness of
the ideas themselves, might render difficult. Some objects had need be
turned on every side; and when the notion is new, as I confess some of
these are to me; or out of the ordinary road, as I suspect they will
appear to others, it is not one simple view of it that will gain it
admittance into every understanding, or fix it there with a clear
and lasting impression. There are few, I believe, who have not
observed in themselves or others, that what in one way of proposing
was very obscure, another way of expressing it has made very clear and
intelligible; though afterwards the mind found little difference in
the phrases, and wondered why one failed to be understood more than
the other. But everything does not hit alike upon every man's
imagination. We have our understandings no less different than our
palates; and he that thinks the same truth shall be equally relished
by every one in the same dress, may as well hope to feast every one
with the same sort of cookery: the meat may be the same, and the
nourishment good, yet every one not be able to receive it with that
seasoning; and it must be dressed another way, if you will have it
go down with some, even of strong constitutions. The truth is, those
who advised me to publish it, advised me, for this reason, to
publish it as it is: and since I have been brought to let it go
abroad, I desire it should be understood by whoever gives himself
the pains to read it. I have so little affection to be in print,
that if I were not flattered this Essay might be of some use to
others, as I think it has been to me, I should have confined it to the
view of some friends, who gave the first occasion to it. My
appearing therefore in print being on purpose to be as useful as I
may, I think it necessary to make what I have to say as easy and
intelligible to all sorts of readers as I can. And I had much rather
the speculative and quick-sighted should complain of my being in
some parts tedious, than that any one, not accustomed to abstract
speculations, or prepossessed with different notions, should mistake
or not comprehend my meaning.
It will possibly be censured as a great piece of vanity or insolence
in me, to pretend to instruct this our knowing age; it amounting to
little less, when I own, that I publish this Essay with hopes it may
be useful to others. But, if it may be permitted to speak freely of
those who with a feigned modesty condemn as useless what they
themselves write, methinks it savours much more of vanity or insolence
to publish a book for any other end; and he fails very much of that
respect he owes the public, who prints, and consequently expects men
should read, that wherein he intends not they should meet with
anything of use to themselves or others: and should nothing else be
found allowable in this Treatise, yet my design will not cease to be
so; and the goodness of my intention ought to be some excuse for the
worthlessness of my present. It is that chiefly which secures me
from the fear of censure, which I expect not to escape more than
better writers. Men's principles, notions, and relishes are so
different, that it is hard to find a book which pleases or
displeases all men. I acknowledge the age we live in is not the
least knowing, and therefore not the most easy to be satisfied. If I
have not the good luck to please, yet nobody ought to be offended with
me. I plainly tell all my readers, except half a dozen, this
Treatise was not at first intended for them; and therefore they need
not be at the trouble to be of that number. But yet if any one
thinks fit to be angry and rail at it, he may do it securely, for I
shall find some better way of spending my time than in such kind of
conversation. I shall always have the satisfaction to have aimed
sincerely at truth and usefulness, though in one of the meanest
ways. The commonwealth of learning is not at this time without
master-builders, whose mighty designs, in advancing the sciences, will
leave lasting monuments to the admiration of posterity: but every
one must not hope to be a Boyle or a Sydenham; and in an age that
produces such masters as the great Huygenius and the incomparable
Mr. Newton, with some others of that strain, it is ambition enough
to be employed as an under-labourer in clearing the ground a little,
and removing some of the rubbish that lies in the way to knowledge;-
which certainly had been very much more advanced in the world, if
the endeavours of ingenious and industrious men had not been much
cumbered with the learned but frivolous use of uncouth, affected, or
unintelligible terms, introduced into the sciences, and there made
an art of, to that degree that Philosophy, which is nothing but the
true knowledge of things, was thought unfit or incapable to be brought
into well-bred company and polite conversation. Vague and
insignificant forms of speech, and abuse of language, have so long
passed for mysteries of science; and hard and misapplied words, with
little or no meaning, have, by prescription, such a right to be
mistaken for deep learning and height of speculation, that it will not
be easy to persuade either those who speak or those who hear them,
that they are but the covers of ignorance, and hindrance of true
knowledge. To break in upon the sanctuary of vanity and ignorance will
be, I suppose, some service to human understanding; though so few
are apt to think they deceive or are deceived in the use of words;
or that the language of the sect they are of has any faults in it
which ought to be examined or corrected, that I hope I shall be
pardoned if I have in the Third Book dwelt long on this subject, and
endeavoured to make it so plain, that neither the inveterateness of
the mischief, nor the prevalency of the fashion, shall be any excuse
for those who will not take care about the meaning of their own words,
and will not suffer the significancy of their expressions to be
inquired into.
I have been told that a short Epitome of this Treatise, which was
printed in 1688, was by some condemned without reading, because innate
ideas were denied in it; they too hastily concluding, that if innate
ideas were not supposed, there would be little left either of the
notion or proof of spirits. If any one take the like offence at the
entrance of this Treatise, I shall desire him to read it through;
and then I hope he will be convinced, that the taking away false
foundations is not to the prejudice but advantage of truth, which is
never injured or endangered so much as when mixed with, or built on,
falsehood.
In the Second Edition I added as followeth:-
The bookseller will not forgive me if I say nothing of this New
Edition, which he has promised, by the correctness of it, shall make
amends for the many faults committed in the former. He desires too,
that it should be known that it has one whole new chapter concerning
Identity, and many additions and amendments in other places. These I
must inform my reader are not all new matter, but most of them
either further confirmation of what I had said, or explications, to
prevent others being mistaken in the sense of what was formerly
printed, and not any variation in me from it.
I must only except the alterations I have made in Book II. chap.
xxi.
What I had there written concerning Liberty and the Will, I
thought deserved as accurate a view as I am capable of; those subjects
having in all ages exercised the learned part of the world with
questions and difficulties, that have not a little perplexed
morality and divinity, those parts of knowledge that men are most
concerned to be clear in. Upon a closer inspection into the working of
men's minds, and a stricter examination of those motives and views
they are turned by, I have found reason somewhat to alter the thoughts
I formerly had concerning that which gives the last determination to
the Will in all voluntary actions. This I cannot forbear to
acknowledge to the world with as much freedom and readiness as I at
first published what then seemed to me to be right; thinking myself
more concerned to quit and renounce any opinion of my own, than oppose
that of another, when truth appears against it. For it is truth
alone I seek, and that will always be welcome to me, when or from
whencesoever it comes.
But what forwardness soever I have to resign any opinion I have,
or to recede from anything I have writ, upon the first evidence of any
error in it; yet this I must own, that I have not had the good luck to
receive any light from those exceptions I have met with in print
against any part of my book, nor have, from anything that has been
urged against it, found reason to alter my sense in any of the
points that have been questioned. Whether the subject I have in hand
requires often more thought and attention than cursory readers, at
least such as are prepossessed, are willing to allow; or whether any
obscurity in my expressions casts a cloud over it, and these notions
are made difficult to others' apprehensions in my way of treating
them; so it is, that my meaning, I find, is often mistaken, and I have
not the good luck to be everywhere rightly understood.
Of this the ingenious author of the Discourse Concerning the
Nature of Man has given me a late instance, to mention no other. For
the civility of his expressions, and the candour that belongs to his
order, forbid me to think that he would have closed his Preface with
an insinuation, as if in what I had said, Book II. ch. xxvii,
concerning the third rule which men refer their actions to, I went
about to make virtue vice and vice virtue unless he had mistaken my
meaning; which he could not have done if he had given himself the
trouble to consider what the argument was I was then upon, and what
was the chief design of that chapter, plainly enough set down in the
fourth section and those following. For I was there not laying down
moral rules, but showing the original and nature of moral ideas, and
enumerating the rules men make use of in moral relations, whether
these rules were true or false: and pursuant thereto I tell what is
everywhere called virtue and vice; which "alters not the nature of
things," though men generally do judge of and denominate their actions
according to the esteem and fashion of the place and sect they are of.
If he had been at the pains to reflect on what I had said, Bk. I.
ch. ii. sect. 18, and Bk. II. ch. xxviii. sects. 13, 14, 15 and 20, he
would have known what I think of the eternal and unalterable nature of
right and wrong, and what I call virtue and vice. And if he had
observed that in the place he quotes I only report as a matter of fact
what others call virtue and vice, he would not have found it liable to
any great exception. For I think I am not much out in saying that
one of the rules made use of in the world for a ground or measure of a
moral relation is- that esteem and reputation which several sorts of
actions find variously in the several societies of men, according to
which they are there called virtues or vices. And whatever authority
the learned Mr. Lowde places in his Old English Dictionary, I
daresay it nowhere tells him (if I should appeal to it) that the
same action is not in credit, called and counted a virtue, in one
place, which, being in disrepute, passes for and under the name of
vice in another. The taking notice that men bestow the names of
"virtue" and "vice" according to this rule of Reputation is all I have
done, or can be laid to my charge to have done, towards the making
vice virtue or virtue vice. But the good man does well, and as becomes
his calling, to be watchful in such points, and to take the alarm even
at expressions, which, standing alone by themselves, might sound ill
and be suspected.
'Tis to this zeal, allowable in his function, that I forgive his
citing as he does these words of mine (ch. xxviii. sect. II): "Even
the exhortations of inspired teachers have not feared to appeal to
common repute, Philip. iv. 8"; without taking notice of those
immediately preceding, which introduce them, and run thus: "Whereby
even in the corruption of manners, the true boundaries of the law of
nature, which ought to be the rule of virtue and vice, were pretty
well preserved. So that even the exhortations of inspired teachers,"
&c. By which words, and the rest of that section, it is plain that I
brought that passage of St. Paul, not to prove that the general
measure of what men called virtue and vice throughout the world was,
the reputation and fashion of each particular society within itself;
but to show that, though it were so, yet, for reasons I there give,
men, in that way of denominating their actions, did not for the most
part much stray from the Law of Nature; which is that standing and
unalterable rule by which they ought to judge of the moral rectitude
and gravity of their actions, and accordingly denominate them
virtues or vices. Had Mr. Lowde considered this, he would have found
it little to his purpose to have quoted this passage in a sense I used
it not; and would I imagine have spared the application he subjoins to
it, as not very necessary. But I hope this Second Edition will give
him satisfaction on the point, and that this matter is now so
expressed as to show him there was no cause for scruple.
Though I am forced to differ from him in these apprehensions he
has expressed, in the latter end of his preface, concerning what I had
said about virtue and vice, yet we are better agreed than he thinks in
what he says in his third chapter (p. 78) concerning "natural
inscription and innate notions." I shall not deny him the privilege he
claims (p. 52), to state the question as he pleases, especially when
he states it so as to leave nothing in it contrary to what I have
said. For, according to him, "innate notions, being conditional
things, depending upon the concurrence of several other
circumstances in order to the soul's exerting them," all that he
says for "innate, imprinted, impressed notions" (for of innate ideas
he says nothing at all), amounts at last only to this- that there
are certain propositions which, though the soul from the beginning, or
when a man is born, does not know, yet "by assistance from the outward
senses, and the help of some previous cultivation," it may
afterwards come certainly to know the truth of; which is no more
than what I have affirmed in my First Book. For I suppose by the
"soul's exerting them," he means its beginning to know them; or else
the soul's "exerting of notions" will be to me a very unintelligible
expression; and I think at best is a very unfit one in this, it
misleading men's thoughts by an insinuation, as if these notions
were in the mind before the "soul exerts them," i.e. before they are
known;- whereas truly before they are known, there is nothing of
them in the mind but a capacity to know them, when the "concurrence of
those circumstances," which this ingenious author thinks necessary "in
order to the soul's exerting them," brings them into our knowledge.
P. 52 I find him express it thus: "These natural notions are not
so imprinted upon the soul as that they naturally and necessarily
exert themselves (even in children and idiots) without any
assistance from the outward senses, or without the help of some
previous cultivation." Here, he says, they exert themselves, as p. 78,
that the "soul exerts them." When he has explained to himself or
others what he means by "the soul's exerting innate notions," or their
"exerting themselves"; and what that "previous cultivation and
circumstances" in order to their being exerted are- he will I
suppose find there is so little of controversy between him and me on
the point, bating that he calls that "exerting of notions" which I
in a more vulgar style call "knowing," that I have reason to think
he brought in my name on this occasion only out of the pleasure he has
to speak civilly of me; which I must gratefully acknowledge he has
done everywhere he mentions me, not without conferring on me, as
some others have done, a title I have no right to.
There are so many instances of this, that I think it justice to my
reader and myself to conclude, that either my book is plainly enough
written to be rightly understood by those who peruse it with that
attention and indifferency, which every one who will give himself
the pains to read ought to employ in reading; or else that I have
written mine so obscurely that it is in vain to go about to mend it.
Whichever of these be the truth, it is myself only am affected
thereby; and therefore I shall be far from troubling my reader with
what I think might be said in answer to those several objections I
have met with, to passages here and there of my book; since I persuade
myself that he who thinks them of moment enough to be concerned
whether they are true or false, will be able to see that what is
said is either not well founded, or else not contrary to my
doctrine, when I and my opposer come both to be well understood.
If any other authors, careful that none of their good thoughts
should be lost, have published their censures of my Essay, with this
honour done to it, that they will not suffer it to be an essay, I
leave it to the public to value the obligation they have to their
critical pens, and shall not waste my reader's time in so idle or
ill-natured an employment of mine, as to lessen the satisfaction any
one has in himself, or gives to others, in so hasty a confutation of
what I have written.
The booksellers preparing for the Fourth Edition of my Essay, gave
me notice of it, that I might, if I had leisure, make any additions or
alterations I should think fit. Whereupon I thought it convenient to
advertise the reader, that besides several corrections I had made here
and there, there was one alteration which it was necessary to mention,
because it ran through the whole book, and is of consequence to be
rightly understood. What I thereupon said was this:-
Clear and distinct ideas are terms which, though familiar and
frequent in men's mouths, I have reason to think every one who uses
does not perfectly understand. And possibly 'tis but here and there
one who gives himself the trouble to consider them so far as to know
what he himself or others precisely mean by them. I have therefore
in most places chose to put determinate or determined, instead of
clear and distinct, as more likely to direct men's thoughts to my
meaning in this matter. By those denominations, I mean some object
in the mind, and consequently determined, i.e. such as it is there
seen and perceived to be. This, I think, may fitly be called a
determinate or determined idea, when such as it is at any time
objectively in the mind, and so determined there, it is annexed, and
without variation determined, to a name or articulate sound, which
is to be steadily the sign of that very same object of the mind, or
determinate idea.
To explain this a little more particularly. By determinate, when
applied to a simple idea, I mean that simple appearance which the mind
has in its view, or perceives in itself, when that idea is said to
be in it: by determined, when applied to a complex idea, I mean such
an one as consists of a determinate number of certain simple or less
complex ideas, joined in such a proportion and situation as the mind
has before its view, and sees in itself, when that idea is present
in it, or should be present in it, when a man gives a name to it. I
say should be, because it is not every one, nor perhaps any one, who
is so careful of his language as to use no word till he views in his
mind the precise determined idea which he resolves to make it the sign
of The want of this is the cause of no small obscurity and confusion
in men's thoughts and discourses.
I know there are not words enough in any language to answer all
the variety of ideas that enter into men's discourses and
reasonings. But this hinders not but that when any one uses any
term, he may have in his mind a determined idea, which he makes it the
sign of, and to which he should keep it steadily annexed during that
present discourse. Where he does not, or cannot do this, he in vain
pretends to clear or distinct ideas: it is plain his are not so; and
therefore there can be expected nothing but obscurity and confusion,
where such terms are made use of which have not such a precise
determination.
Upon this ground I have thought determined ideas a way of speaking
less liable to mistakes, than clear and distinct: and where men have
got such determined ideas of all that they reason, inquire, or argue
about, they will find a great part of their doubts and disputes at
an end; the greatest part of the questions and controversies that
perplex mankind depending on the doubtful and uncertain use of
words, or (which is the same) indetermined ideas, which they are
made to stand for. I have made choice of these terms to signify, (1)
Some immediate object of the mind, which it perceives and has before
it, distinct from the sound it uses as a sign of it. (2) That this
idea, thus determined, i.e. which the mind has in itself, and knows,
and sees there, be determined without any change to that name, and
that name determined to that precise idea. If men had such
determined ideas in their inquiries and discourses, they would both
discern how far their own inquiries and discourses went, and avoid the
greatest part of the disputes and wranglings they have with others.
Besides this, the bookseller will think it necessary I should
advertise the reader that there is an addition of two chapters
wholly new; the one of the Association of Ideas, the other of
Enthusiasm. These, with some other larger additions never before
printed, he has engaged to print by themselves, after the same manner,
and for the same purpose, as was done when this Essay had the second
impression.
In the Sixth Edition there is very little added or altered. The
greatest part of what is new is contained in the twenty-first
chapter of the second book, which any one, if he thinks it worth
while, may, with a very little labour, transcribe into the margin of
the former edition.
INTRODUCTION
AN ESSAY
CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING
As thou knowest not what is the way of the Spirit, nor how the bones
do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest
not the works of God, who maketh all things.- Eccles. 11. 5.
Quam bellum est velle confiteri potius nescire quod nescias, quam
ista effutientem nauseare, atque ipsum sibi displicere.- Cicero, de
Natur. Deor. l. i.
INTRODUCTION
1. An Inquiry into the understanding, pleasant and useful. Since
it is the understanding that sets man above the rest of sensible
beings, and gives him all the advantage and dominion which he has over
them; it is certainly a subject, even for its nobleness, worth our
labour to inquire into. The understanding, like the eye, whilst it
makes us see and perceive all other things, takes no notice of itself;
and it requires art and pains to set it at a distance and make it
its own object. But whatever be the difficulties that lie in the way
of this inquiry; whatever it be that keeps us so much in the dark to
ourselves; sure I am that all the light we can let in upon our
minds, all the acquaintance we can make with our own understandings,
will not only be very pleasant, but bring us great advantage, in
directing our thoughts in the search of other things.
2. Design. This, therefore, being my purpose- to inquire into the
original, certainty, and extent of human knowledge, together with
the grounds and degrees of belief, opinion, and assent;- I shall not
at present meddle with the physical consideration of the mind; or
trouble myself to examine wherein its essence consists; or by what
motions of our spirits or alterations of our bodies we come to have
any sensation by our organs, or any ideas in our understandings; and
whether those ideas do in their formation, any or all of them,
depend on matter or not. These are speculations which, however curious
and entertaining, I shall decline, as lying out of my way in the
design I am now upon. It shall suffice to my present purpose, to
consider the discerning faculties of a man, as they are employed about
the objects which they have to do with. And I shall imagine I have not
wholly misemployed myself in the thoughts I shall have on this
occasion, if, in this historical, plain method, I can give any account
of the ways whereby our understandings come to attain those notions of
things we have; and can set down any measures of the certainty of
our knowledge; or the grounds of those persuasions which are to be
found amongst men, so various, different, and wholly contradictory;
and yet asserted somewhere or other with such assurance and
confidence, that he that shall take a view of the opinions of mankind,
observe their opposition, and at the same time consider the fondness
and devotion wherewith they are embraced, the resolution and eagerness
wherewith they are maintained, may perhaps have reason to suspect,
that either there is no such thing as truth at all, or that mankind
hath no sufficient means to attain a certain knowledge of it.
3. Method. It is therefore worth while to search out the bounds
between opinion and knowledge; and examine by what measures, in things
whereof we have no certain knowledge, we ought to regulate our
assent and moderate our persuasion. In order whereunto I shall
pursue this following method:-
First, I shall inquire into the original of those ideas, notions, or
whatever else you please to call them, which a man observes, and is
conscious to himself he has in his mind; and the ways whereby the
understanding comes to be furnished with them.
Secondly, I shall endeavour to show what knowledge the understanding
hath by those ideas; and the certainty, evidence, and extent of it.
Thirdly, I shall make some inquiry into the nature and grounds of
faith or opinion: whereby I mean that assent which we give to any
proposition as true, of whose truth yet we have no certain
knowledge. And here we shall have occasion to examine the reasons
and degrees of assent.
4. Useful to know the extent of our comprehension. If by this
inquiry into the nature of the understanding, I can discover the
powers thereof; how far they reach; to what things they are in any
degree proportionate; and where they fail us, I suppose it may be of
use to prevail with the busy mind of man to be more cautious in
meddling with things exceeding its comprehension; to stop when it is
at the utmost extent of its tether; and to sit down in a quiet
ignorance of those things which, upon examination, are found to be
beyond the reach of our capacities. We should not then perhaps be so
forward, out of an affectation of an universal knowledge, to raise
questions, and perplex ourselves and others with disputes about things
to which our understandings are not suited; and of which we cannot
frame in our minds any clear or distinct perceptions, or whereof (as
it has perhaps too often happened) we have not any notions at all.
If we can find out how far the understanding can extend its view;
how far it has faculties to attain certainty; and in what cases it can
only judge and guess, we may learn to content ourselves with what is
attainable by us in this state.
5. Our capacity suited to our state and concerns. For though the
comprehension of our understandings comes exceeding short of the
vast extent of things, yet we shall have cause enough to magnify the
bountiful Author of our being, for that proportion and degree of
knowledge he has bestowed on us, so far above all the rest of the
inhabitants of this our mansion. Men have reason to be well
satisfied with what God hath thought fit for them, since he hath given
them (as St. Peter says) pana pros zoen kaieusebeian, whatsoever is
necessary for the conveniences of life and information of virtue;
and has put within the reach of their discovery, the comfortable
provision for this life, and the way that leads to a better. How short
soever their knowledge may come of an universal or perfect
comprehension of whatsoever is, it yet secures their great
concernments, that they have light enough to lead them to the
knowledge of their Maker, and the sight of their own duties. Men may
find matter sufficient to busy their heads, and employ their hands
with variety, delight, and satisfaction, if they will not boldly
quarrel with their own constitution, and throw away the blessings
their hands are filled with, because they are not big enough to
grasp everything. We shall not have much reason to complain of the
narrowness of our minds, if we will but employ them about what may
be of use to us; for of that they are very capable. And it will be
an unpardonable, as well as childish peevishness, if we undervalue the
advantages of our knowledge, and neglect to improve it to the ends for
which it was given us, because there are some things that are set
out of the reach of it. It will be no excuse to an idle and untoward
servant, who would not attend his business by candle light, to plead
that he had not broad sunshine. The Candle that is set up in us shines
bright enough for all our purposes. The discoveries we can make with
this ought to satisfy us; and we shall then use our understandings
right, when we entertain all objects in that way and proportion that
they are suited to our faculties, and upon those grounds they are
capable of being proposed to us; and not peremptorily or intemperately
require demonstration, and demand certainty, where probability only is
to be had, and which is sufficient to govern all our concernments.
If we will disbelieve everything, because we cannot certainly know all
things, we shall do muchwhat as wisely as he who would not use his
legs, but sit still and perish, because he had no wings to fly.
6. Knowledge of our capacity a cure of scepticism and idleness. When
we know our own strength, we shall the better know what to undertake
with hopes of success; and when we have well surveyed the powers of
our own minds, and made some estimate what we may expect from them, we
shall not be inclined either to sit still, and not set our thoughts on
work at all, in despair of knowing anything; nor on the other side,
question everything, and disclaim all knowledge, because some things
are not to be understood. It is of great use to the sailor to know the
length of his line, though he cannot with it fathom all the depths
of the ocean. It is well he knows that it is long enough to reach
the bottom, at such places as are necessary to direct his voyage,
and caution him against running upon shoals that may ruin him. Our
business here is not to know all things, but those which concern our
conduct. If we can find out those measures, whereby a rational
creature, put in that state in which man is in this world, may and
ought to govern his opinions, and actions depending thereon, we need
not to be troubled that some other things escape our knowledge.
7. Occasion of this essay. This was that which gave the first rise
to this Essay concerning the understanding. For I thought that the
first step towards satisfying several inquiries the mind of man was
very apt to run into, was, to take a survey of our own understandings,
examine our own powers, and see to what things they were adapted. Till
that was done I suspected we began at the wrong end, and in vain
sought for satisfaction in a quiet and sure possession of truths
that most concerned us, whilst we let loose our thoughts into the vast
ocean of Being; as if all that boundless extent were the natural and
undoubted possession of our understandings, wherein there was
nothing exempt from its decisions, or that escaped its
comprehension. Thus men, extending their inquiries beyond their
capacities, and letting their thoughts wander into those depths
where they can find no sure footing, it is no wonder that they raise
questions and multiply disputes, which, never coming to any clear
resolution, are proper only to continue and increase their doubts, and
to confirm them at last in perfect scepticism. Whereas, were the
capacities of our understandings well considered, the extent of our
knowledge once discovered, and the horizon found which sets the bounds
between the enlightened and dark parts of things; between what is
and what is not comprehensible by us, men would perhaps with less
scruple acquiesce in the avowed ignorance of the one, and employ their
thoughts and discourse with more advantage and satisfaction in the
other.
8. What "Idea" stands for. Thus much I thought necessary to say
concerning the occasion of this Inquiry into human Understanding. But,
before I proceed on to what I have thought on this subject, I must
here in the entrance beg pardon of my reader for the frequent use of
the word idea, which he will find in the following treatise. It
being that term which, I think, serves best to stand for whatsoever is
the object of the understanding when a man thinks, I have used it to
express whatever is meant by phantasm, notion, species, or whatever it
is which the mind can be employed about in thinking; and I could not
avoid frequently using it.
I presume it will be easily granted me, that there are such ideas in
men's minds: every one is conscious of them in himself; and men's
words and actions will satisfy him that they are in others.
Our first inquiry then shall be,- how they come into the mind.
BOOK I
Neither Principles nor Ideas Are Innate
Chapter I
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, koinai ennoiai, 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.
4. "What is, is," and "It is impossible for the same thing to be and
not to be," not universally assented to. But, which is worse, this
argument of universal consent, which is made use of to prove innate
principles, seems to me a demonstration that there are none such:
because there are none to which all mankind give an universal
assent. I shall begin with the speculative, and instance in those
magnified principles of demonstration, "Whatsoever is, is," and "It is
impossible for the same thing to be and not to be"; which, of all
others, I think have the most allowed title to innate. These have so
settled a reputation of maxims universally received, that it will no
doubt be thought strange if any one should seem to question it. But
yet I take liberty to say, that these propositions are so far from
having an universal assent, that there are a great part of mankind
to whom they are not so much as known.
5. Not on the 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? To say a notion is imprinted on
the mind, and yet at the same time to say, that the mind is ignorant
of it, and never yet took notice of it, is to make this impression
nothing. No proposition can be said to be in the mind which it never
yet knew, which it was never yet conscious of. For if any one may,
then, by the same reason, all propositions that are true, and the mind
is capable ever of assenting to, may be said to be in the mind, and to
be imprinted: since, if any one can be said to be in the mind, which
it never yet knew, it must be only because it is capable of knowing
it; and so the mind is of all truths it ever shall know. Nay, thus
truths may be imprinted on the mind which it never did, nor ever shall
know; for a man may live long, and die at last in ignorance of many
truths which his mind was capable of knowing, and that with certainty.
So that if the capacity of knowing be the natural impression contended
for, all the truths a man ever comes to know will, by this account, be
every one of them innate; and this great point will amount to no more,
but only to a very improper way of speaking; which, whilst it pretends
to assert the contrary, says nothing different from those who deny
innate principles. For nobody, I think, ever denied that the mind
was capable of knowing several truths. The capacity, they say, is
innate; the knowledge acquired. But then to what end such contest
for certain innate maxims? If truths can be imprinted on the
understanding without being perceived, I can see no difference there
can be between any truths the mind is capable of knowing in respect of
their original: they must all be innate or all adventitious: in vain
shall a man go about to distinguish them. He therefore that talks of
innate notions in the understanding, cannot (if he intend thereby
any distinct sort of truths) mean such truths to be in the
understanding as it never perceived, and is yet wholly ignorant of.
For if these words "to be in the understanding" have any propriety,
they signify to be understood. So that to be in the understanding, and
not to be understood; to be in the mind and never to be perceived,
is all one as to say anything is and is not in the mind or
understanding. If therefore these two propositions, "Whatsoever is,
is," and "It is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be,"
are by nature imprinted, children cannot be ignorant of them: infants,
and all that have souls, must necessarily have them in their
understandings, know the truth of them, and assent to it.
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 certainty 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.
10. No use made of reasoning in the discovery of these two maxims.
It will here perhaps be said that mathematical demonstrations, and
other truths that are not innate, are not assented to as soon as
proposed, wherein they are distinguished from these maxims and other
innate truths. I shall have occasion to speak of assent upon the first
proposing, more particularly by and by. I shall here only, and that
very readily, allow, that these maxims and mathematical demonstrations
are in this different: that the one have need of reason, using of
proofs, to make them out and to gain our assent; but the other, as
soon as understood, are, without any the least reasoning, embraced and
assented to. But I withal beg leave to observe, that it lays open
the weakness of this subterfuge, which requires the use of reason
for the discovery of these general truths: since it must be
confessed that in their discovery there is no use made of reasoning at
all. And I think those who give this answer will not be forward to
affirm that the knowledge of this maxim, "That it is impossible for
the same thing to be and not to be," is a deduction of our reason. For
this would be to destroy that bounty of nature they seem so fond of,
whilst they make the knowledge of those principles to depend on the
labour of our thoughts. For all reasoning is search, and casting
about, and requires pains and application. And how can it with any
tolerable sense be supposed, that what was imprinted by nature, as the
foundation 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 to 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 knowledge 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 others 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, till, having for a good while exercised their
reason about familiar and more particular ideas, they are, by their
ordinary discourse and actions with others, acknowledged to be capable
of rational conversation. If assenting to these maxims, when men
come to the use of reason, can be true in any other sense, I desire it
may be shown; or at least, how in this, or any other sense, it
proves them innate.
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 grounds and by the same means, that he knew before
that a rod and a cherry are not the same thing; and upon the same
grounds 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 general 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 suppose 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 is 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 propositions 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.
19. Such less general propositions known before these universal
maxims. Nor let it be said, that those more particular self-evident
propositions, which are assented to at first hearing, as that "one and
two are equal to three," that "green is not red," &c., are received as
the consequences of those more universal propositions which are looked
on as innate principles; since any one, who will but take the pains to
observe what passes in the understanding, will certainly find that
these, and the like less general propositions, are certainly known,
and firmly assented to by those who are utterly ignorant of those more
general maxims; and so, being earlier in the mind than those (as
they are called) first principles, cannot owe to them the assent
wherewith they are received at first hearing.
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 proposition can be found that
receives general assent as soon as heard and 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.
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 ill supposed the
clearest parts of truth, and the foundations of all our knowledge,
which are not first known, and without which the undoubted knowledge
of several other things may be had. The child certainly knows, that
the nurse that feeds it is neither the cat it plays with, nor the
blackmoor it is afraid of: that the wormseed or mustard it refuses, is
not the apple or sugar it cries for: this it is certainly and
undoubtedly assured of: but will any one say, it is by virtue of
this principle, "That it is impossible for the same thing to be and
not to be," that it so firmly assents to these and other parts of
its knowledge? Or that the child has any notion or apprehension of
that proposition at an age, wherein yet, it is plain, it knows a great
many other truths? He that will say, children join in these general
abstract speculations with their sucking-bottles and their rattles,
may perhaps, with justice, be thought to have more passion and zeal
for his opinion, but less sincerity and truth, than one of that age.
26. And so not innate. Though therefore there be several general
propositions that meet with constant and ready assent, as soon as
proposed to men grown up, who have attained the use of more general
and abstract ideas, and names standing for them; yet they not being to
be found in those of tender years, who nevertheless know other things,
they cannot pretend to universal assent of intelligent persons, and so
by no means can be supposed innate;- it being impossible that any
truth which is innate (if there were any such) should be unknown, at
least to any one who knows anything else. Since, if they are innate
truths, they must be innate thoughts: there being nothing a truth in
the mind that it has never thought on. Whereby it is evident, if there
by any innate truths, they must necessarily be the first of any
thought on; the first that appear.
27. Not innate, because they appear least where what is innate shows
itself clearest. That the general maxims we are discoursing of are not
known to children, idiots, and a great part of mankind, we have
already sufficiently proved: whereby it is evident they have not an
universal assent, nor are general impressions. But there is this
further argument in it against their being innate: that these
characters, if they were native and original impressions, should
appear fairest and clearest in those persons in whom yet we find no
footsteps of them; and it is, in my opinion, a strong presumption that
they are not innate, since they are least known to those in whom, if
they were innate, they must needs exert themselves with most force and
vigour. For children, idiots, savages, and illiterate people, being of
all others the least corrupted by custom, or borrowed opinions;
learning and education having not cast their native thoughts into
new moulds; nor by super-inducing foreign and studied doctrines,
confounded those fair characters nature had written there; one might
reasonably imagine that in their minds these innate notions should lie
open fairly to every one's view, as it is certain the thoughts of
children do. It might very well be expected that these principles
should be perfectly known to naturals; which being stamped immediately
on the soul, (as these men suppose,) can have no dependence on the
constitution or organs of the body, the only confessed difference
between them and others. One would think, according to these men's
principles, that all these native beams of light (were there any such)
should, in those who have no reserves, no arts of concealment, shine
out in their full lustre, and leave us in no more doubt of their being
there, than we are of their love of pleasure and abhorrence of pain.
But alas, amongst children, idiots, savages, and the grossly
illiterate, what general maxims are to be found? What universal
principles of knowledge? Their notions are few and narrow, borrowed
only from those objects they have had most to do with, and which
have made upon their senses the frequentest and strongest impressions.
A child knows his nurse and his cradle, and by degrees the
playthings of a little more advanced age; and a young savage has,
perhaps, his head filled with love and hunting, according to the
fashion of his tribe. But he that from a child untaught, or a wild
inhabitant of the woods, will expect these abstract maxims and reputed
principles of science, will, I fear, find himself mistaken. Such
kind of general propositions are seldom mentioned in the huts of
Indians: much less are they to be found in the thoughts of children,
or any impressions of them on the minds of naturals. They are the
language and business of the schools and academies of learned nations,
accustomed to that sort of conversation or learning, where disputes
are frequent; these maxims being suited to artificial argumentation
and useful for conviction, but not much conducing to the discovery
of truth or advancement of knowledge. But of their small use for the
improvement of knowledge I shall have occasion to speak more at large,
1. 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 truth.
They lie not open as natural characters engraven on the mind; which,
if any such were, they must needs be visible by themselves, and by
their own light be certain and known to everybody. But this is no
derogation to their truth and certainty; no more than it is to the
truth or certainty of the three angles of a triangle being equal to
two right ones: because it is not so evident as "the whole is bigger
than a part," nor so apt to be assented to at first hearing. It may
suffice that these moral rules are capable of demonstration: and
therefore it is our own faults if we come not to a certain knowledge
of them. But the ignorance wherein many men are of them, and the
slowness of assent wherewith others receive them, are manifest
proofs that they are not innate, and such as offer themselves to their
view without searching.
2. Faith and justice not owned as principles by all men. Whether
there be any such moral principles, wherein all men do agree, I appeal
to any who have been but moderately conversant in the history of
mankind, and looked abroad beyond the smoke of their own chimneys.
Where is that practical truth that is universally received, without
doubt or question, as it must be if innate? Justice, and keeping of
contracts, is that which most men seem to agree in. This is a
principle which is thought to extend itself to the dens of thieves,
and the confederacies of the greatest villains; and they who have gone
furthest towards the putting off of humanity itself, keep faith and
rules of justice one with another. I grant that outlaws themselves
do this one amongst another: but it is without receiving these as
the innate laws of nature. They practise them as rules of
convenience within their own communities: but it is impossible to
conceive that he embraces justice as a practical principle, who acts
fairly with his fellow-highwayman, and at the same time plunders or
kills the next honest man he meets with. Justice and truth are the
common ties of society; and therefore even outlaws and robbers, who
break with all the world besides, must keep faith and rules of
equity amongst themselves; or else they cannot hold together. But will
any one say, that those that live by fraud or rapine have innate
principles of truth and justice which they allow and assent to?
3. Objection: "though men deny them in their practice, yet they
admit them in their thoughts," answered. Perhaps it will be urged,
that the tacit assent of their minds agrees to what their practice
contradicts. I answer, first, I have always thought the actions of men
the best interpreters of their thoughts. But, since it is certain that
most men's practices, and some men's open professions, have either
questioned or denied these principles, it is impossible to establish
an universal consent, (though we should look for it only amongst grown
men,) without which it is impossible to conclude them innate.
Secondly, it is very strange and unreasonable to suppose innate
practical principles, that terminate only in contemplation.
Practical principles, derived from nature, are there for operation,
and must produce conformity of action, not barely speculative assent
to their truth, or else they are in vain distinguished from
speculative maxims. Nature, I confess, has put into man a desire of
happiness and an aversion to misery: these indeed are innate practical
principles which (as practical principles ought) do continue
constantly to operate and influence all our actions without ceasing:
these may be observed in all persons and all ages, steady and
universal; but these are inclinations of the appetite to good, not
impressions of truth on the understanding. I deny not that there are
natural tendencies imprinted on the minds of men; and that from the
very first instances of sense and perception, there are some things
that are grateful and others unwelcome to them; some things that
they incline to and others that they fly: but this makes nothing for
innate characters on the mind, which are to be the principles of
knowledge regulating our practice. Such natural impressions on the
understanding are so far from being confirmed hereby, that this is
an argument against them; since, if there were certain characters
imprinted by nature on the understanding, as the principles of
knowledge, we could not but perceive them constantly operate in us and
influence our knowledge, as we do those others on the will and
appetite; which never cease to be the constant springs and motives
of all our actions, to which we perpetually feel them strongly
impelling us.
4. Moral rules need a proof, ergo not innate. Another reason that
makes me doubt of any innate practical principles is, that I think
there cannot any one moral rule be proposed whereof a man may not
justly demand a reason: which would be perfectly ridiculous and absurd
if they were innate; or so much as self-evident, which every innate
principle must needs be, and not need any proof to ascertain its
truth, nor want any reason to gain it approbation. He would be thought
void of common sense who asked on the one side, or on the other side
went to give a reason why "it is impossible for the same thing to be
and not to be." It carries its own light and evidence with it, and
needs no other proof: he that understands the terms assents to it
for its own sake or else nothing will ever be able to prevail with him
to do it. But should that most unshaken rule of morality and
foundation of all social virtue, "That one should do as he would be
done unto," be proposed to one who never heard of it before, but yet
is of capacity to understand its meaning; might he not without any
absurdity ask a reason why? And were not he that proposed it bound
to make out the truth and reasonableness of it to him? Which plainly
shows it not to be innate; for if it were it could neither want nor
receive any proof; but must needs (at least as soon as heard and
understood) be received and assented to as an unquestionable truth,
which a man can by no means doubt of. So that the truth of all these
moral rules plainly depends upon some other antecedent to them, and
from which they must be deduced; which could not be if either they
were innate or so much as self-evident.
5. Instance in keeping compacts. That men should keep their compacts
is certainly a great and undeniable rule in morality. But yet, if a
Christian, who has the view of happiness and misery in another life,
be asked why a man must keep his word, he will give this as a reason:-
Because God, who has the power of eternal life and death, requires
it of us. But if a Hobbist be asked why? he will answer:- Because
the public requires it, and the Leviathan will punish you if you do
not. And if one of the old philosophers had been asked, he would
have answered:- Because it was dishonest, below the dignity of a
man, and opposite to virtue, the highest perfection of human nature,
to do otherwise.
6. Virtue generally approved, not because innate, but because
profitable. Hence naturally flows the great variety of opinions
concerning moral rules which are to be found among men, according to
the different sorts of happiness they have a prospect of, or propose
to themselves; which could not be if practical principles were innate,
and imprinted in our minds immediately by the hand of God. I grant the
existence of God is so many ways manifest, and the obedience we owe
him so congruous to the light of reason, that a great part of
mankind give testimony to the law of nature: but yet I think it must
be allowed that several moral rules may receive from mankind a very
general approbation, without either knowing or admitting the true
ground of morality; which can only be the will and law of a God, who
sees men in the dark, has in his hand rewards and punishments and
power enough to call to account the proudest offender. For, God
having, by an inseparable connexion, joined virtue and public
happiness together, and made the practice thereof necessary to the
preservation of society, and visibly beneficial to all with whom the
virtuous man has to do; it is no wonder that every one should not only
allow, but recommend and magnify those rules to others, from whose
observance of them he is sure to reap advantage to himself He may, out
of interest as well as conviction, cry up that for sacred, which, if
once trampled on and profaned, he himself cannot be safe nor secure.
This, though it takes nothing from the moral and eternal obligation
which these rules evidently have, yet it shows that the outward
acknowledgment men pay to them in their words proves not that they are
innate principles: nay, it proves not so much as that men assent to
them inwardly in their own minds, as the inviolable rules of their own
practice; since we find that self-interest, and the conveniences of
this life, make many men own an outward profession and approbation
of them, whose actions sufficiently prove that they very little
consider the Lawgiver that prescribed these rules; nor the hell that
he has ordained for the punishment of those that transgress them.
7. Men's actions convince us that the rule of virtue is not their
internal principle. For, if we will not in civility allow too much
sincerity to the professions of most men, but think their actions to
be the interpreters of their thoughts, we shall find that they have no
such internal veneration for these rules, nor so full a persuasion
of their certainty and obligation. The great principle of morality,
"To do as one would be done to," is more commended than practised. But
the breach of this rule cannot be a greater vice, than to teach
others, that it is no moral rule, nor obligatory, would be thought
madness, and contrary to that interest men sacrifice to, when they
break it themselves. Perhaps conscience will be urged as checking us
for such breaches, and so the internal obligation and establishment of
the rule be preserved.
8. Conscience no proof of any innate moral rule. To which I
answer, that I doubt not but, without being written on their hearts,
many men may, by the same way that they come to the knowledge of other
things, come to assent to several moral rules, and be convinced of
their obligation. Others also may come to be of the same mind, from
their education, company, and customs of their country; which
persuasion, however got, will serve to set conscience on work; which
is nothing else but our own opinion or judgment of the moral rectitude
or pravity of our own actions; and if conscience be a proof of
innate principles, contraries may be innate principles; since some men
with the same bent of conscience prosecute what others avoid.
9. Instances of enormities practised without remorse. But I cannot
see how any men should ever transgress those moral rules, with
confidence and serenity, were they innate, and stamped upon their
minds. View but an army at the sacking of a town, and see what
observation or sense of moral principles, or what touch of
conscience for all the outrages they do. Robberies, murders, rapes,
are the sports of men set at liberty from punishment and censure. Have
there not been whole nations, and those of the most civilized
people, amongst whom the exposing their children, and leaving them
in the fields to perish by want or wild beasts has been the
practice; as little condemned or scrupled as the begetting them? Do
they not still, in some countries, put them into the same graves
with their mothers, if they die in childbirth; or despatch them, if
a pretended astrologer declares them to have unhappy stars? And are
there not places where, at a certain age, they kill or expose their
parents, without any remorse at all? In a part of Asia, the sick, when
their case comes to be thought desperate, are carried out and laid
on the earth before they are dead; and left there, exposed to wind and
weather, to perish without assistance or pity. It is familiar among
the Mingrelians, a people professing Christianity, to bury their
children alive without scruple. There are places where they eat
their own children. The Caribbees were wont to geld their children, on
purpose to fat and eat them. And Garcilasso de la Vega tells us of a
people in Peru which were wont to fat and eat the children they got on
their female captives, whom they kept as concubines for that
purpose, and when they were past breeding, the mothers themselves were
killed too and eaten. The virtues whereby the Tououpinambos believed
they merited paradise, were revenge, and eating abundance of their
enemies. They have not so much as a name for God, and have no
religion, no worship. The saints who are canonized amongst the
Turks, lead lives which one cannot with modesty relate. A remarkable
passage to this purpose, out of the voyage of Baumgarten, which is a
book not every day to be met with, I shall set down at large, in the
language it is published in. Ibi (sc. prope Belbes in AEgypto) vidimus
sanctum unum Saracenicum inter arenarum cumulos, ita ut ex utero
matris prodiit nudum sedentem. Mos est, ut didicimus, Mahometistis, ut
eos, qui amentes et sine ratione sunt, prosanctis colant et
venerentur. Insuper et eos, qui cum diu vitam egerint inquinatissimam,
voluntariam demum poenitentiam et paupertatem, sanctitate venerandos
deputant. Ejusmodi vero genus hominum libertatem quandam effrenem
habent, domos quos volunt intrandi, edendi, bibendi, et quod majus
est, concumbendi; ex quo concubitu, si proles secuta fuerit, sancta
similiter habetur. His ergo hominibus dum vivunt, magnos exhibent
honores; mortuis vero vel templa vel monumenta extruunt amplissima,
eosque contingere ac sepelire maximae fortunae ducunt loco.
Audivimus haec dicta et dicenda per interpretem a Mucrelo nostro.
Insuper sanctum illum, quem eo loco vidimus, publicitus apprime
commendari, eum esse hominem sanctum, divinum ac integritate
praecipuum; eo quod, nec foeminarum unquam esset, nec puerorum, sed
tantummodo asellarum concubitor atque mularum. (Peregr. Baumgarten, 1.
ii. c. I. p. 73.) More of the same kind concerning these precious
saints amongst the Turks may be seen in Pietro della Valle, in his
letter of the 25th of January, 1616.
Where then are those innate principles of justice, piety, gratitude,
equity, chastity? Or where is that universal consent that assures us
there are such inbred rules? Murders in duels, when fashion has made
them honourable, are committed without remorse of conscience: nay,
in many places innocence in this case is the greatest ignominy. And if
we look abroad to take a view of men as they are, we shall find that
they have remorse, in one place, for doing or omitting that which
others, in another place, think they merit by.
10. Men have contrary practical principles. He that will carefully
peruse the history of mankind, and look abroad into the several tribes
of men, and with indifferency survey their actions, will be able to
satisfy himself, that there is scarce that principle of morality to be
named, or rule of virtue to be thought on, (those only excepted that
are absolutely necessary to hold society together, which commonly
too are neglected betwixt distinct societies,) which is not, somewhere
or other, slighted and condemned by the general fashion of whole
societies of men, governed by practical opinions and rules of living
quite opposite to others.
11. Whole nations reject several moral rules. Here perhaps it will
be objected, that it is no argument that the rule is not known,
because it is broken. I grant the objection good where men, though
they transgress, yet disown not the law; where fear of shame, censure,
or punishment carries the mark of some awe it has upon them. But it is
impossible to conceive that a whole nation of men should all
publicly reject and renounce what every one of them certainly and
infallibly knew to be a law; for so they must who have it naturally
imprinted on their minds. It is possible men may sometimes own rules
of morality which in their private thoughts they do not believe to
be true, only to keep themselves in reputation and esteem amongst
those who are persuaded of their obligation. But it is not to be
imagined that a whole society of men should publicly and professedly
disown and cast off a rule which they could not in their own minds but
be infallibly certain was a law; nor be ignorant that all men they
should have to do with knew it to be such: and therefore must every
one of them apprehend from others all the contempt and abhorrence
due to one who professes himself void of humanity: and one who,
confounding the known and natural measures of right and wrong,
cannot but be looked on as the professed enemy of their peace and
happiness. Whatever practical principle is innate, cannot but be known
to every one to be just and good. It is therefore little less than a
contradiction to suppose, that whole nations of men should, both in
their professions and practice, unanimously and universally give the
lie to what, by the most invincible evidence, every one of them knew
to be true, right, and good. This is enough to satisfy us that no
practical rule which is anywhere universally, and with public
approbation or allowance, transgressed, can be supposed innate.- But I
have something further to add in answer to this objection.
12. The generally allowed breach of a rule, proof that it is not
innate. The breaking of a rule, say you, is no argument that it is
unknown. I grant it: but the generally allowed breach of it
anywhere, I say, is a proof that it is not innate. For example: let us
take any of these rules, which, being the most obvious deductions of
human reason, and comformable to the natural inclination of the
greatest part of men, fewest people have had the impudence to deny
or inconsideration to doubt of. If any can be thought to be
naturally imprinted, none, I think, can have a fairer pretence to be
innate than this: "Parents, preserve and cherish your children." When,
therefore, you say that this is an innate rule, what do you mean?
Either that it is an innate principle which upon all occasions excites
and directs the actions of all men; or else, that it is a truth
which all men have imprinted on their minds, and which therefore
they know and assent to. But in neither of these senses is it
innate. First, that it is not a principle which influences all men's
actions, is what I have proved by the examples before cited: nor
need we seek so far as Mingrelia or Peru to find instances of such
as neglect, abuse, nay, and destroy their children; or look on it only
as the more than brutality of some savage and barbarous nations,
when we remember that it was a familiar and uncondemned practice
amongst the Greeks and Romans to expose, without pity or remorse,
their innocent infants. Secondly, that it is an innate truth, known to
all men, is also false. For, "Parents preserve your children," is so
far from an innate truth, that it is no truth at all: it being a
command, and not a proposition, and so not capable of truth or
falsehood. To make it capable of being assented to as true, it must be
reduced to some such proposition as this: "It is the duty of parents
to preserve their children." But what duty is, cannot be understood
without a law; nor a law be known or supposed without a lawmaker, or
without reward and punishment; so that it is impossible that this,
or any other, practical principle should be innate, i.e. be
imprinted on the mind as a duty, without supposing the ideas of God,
of law, of obligation, of punishment, of a life after this, innate:
for that punishment follows not in this life the breach of this
rule, and consequently that it has not the force of a law in countries
where the generally allowed practice runs counter to it, is in
itself evident. But these ideas (which must be all of them innate,
if anything as a duty be so) are so far from being innate, that it
is not every studious or thinking man, much less every one that is
born, in whom they are to be found clear and distinct; and that one of
them, which of all others seems most likely to be innate, is not so,
(I mean the idea of God,) I think, in the next chapter, will appear
very evident to any considering man.
13. If men can be ignorant of what is innate, certainty is not
described by innate principles. From what has been said, I think we
may safely conclude, that whatever practical rule is in any place
generally and with allowance broken, cannot be supposed innate; it
being impossible that men should, without shame or fear, confidently
and serenely, break a rule which they could not but evidently know
that God had set up, and would certainly punish the breach of,
(which they must, if it were innate,) to a degree to make it a very
ill bargain to the transgressor. Without such a knowledge as this, a
man can never be certain that anything is his duty. Ignorance or doubt
of the law, hopes to escape the knowledge or power of the law-maker,
or the like, may make men give way to a present appetite; but let
any one see the fault, and the rod by it, and with the
transgression, a fire ready to punish it; a pleasure tempting, and the
hand of the Almighty visibly held up and prepared to take vengeance,
(for this must be the case where any duty is imprinted on the mind,)
and then tell me whether it be possible for people with such a
prospect, such a certain knowledge as this, wantonly, and without
scruple, to offend against a law which they carry about them in
indelible characters, and that stares them in the face whilst they are
breaking it? Whether men, at the same time that they feel in
themselves the imprinted edicts of an Omnipotent Law-maker, can,
with assurance and gaiety, slight and trample underfoot his most
sacred injunctions? And lastly, whether it be possible that whilst a
man thus openly bids defiance to this innate law and supreme Lawgiver,
all the bystanders, yea, even the governors and rulers of the
people, full of the same sense both of the law and Law-maker, should
silently connive, without testifying their dislike or laying the least
blame on it? Principles of actions indeed there are lodged in men's
appetites; but these are so far from being innate moral principles,
that if they were left to their full swing they would carry men to the
overturning of all morality. Moral laws are set as a curb and
restraint to these exorbitant desires, which they cannot be but by
rewards and punishments that will overbalance the satisfaction any one
shall propose to himself in the breach of the law. If, therefore,
anything be imprinted on the minds of all men as a law, all men must
have a certain and unavoidable knowledge that certain and
unavoidable punishment will attend the breach of it. For if men can be
ignorant or doubtful of what is innate, innate principles are insisted
on, and urged to no purpose; truth and certainty (the things
pretended) are not at all secured by them; but men are in the same
uncertain floating estate with as without them. An evident indubitable
knowledge of unavoidable punishment, great enough to make the
transgression very uneligible, must accompany an innate law; unless
with an innate law they can suppose an innate Gospel too. I would
not here be mistaken, as if, because I deny an innate law, I thought
there were none but positive laws. There is a great deal of difference
between an innate law, and a law of nature; between something
imprinted on our minds in their very original, and something that
we, being ignorant of, may attain to the knowledge of, by the use
and due application of our natural faculties. And I think they equally
forsake the truth who, running into contrary extremes, either affirm
an innate law, or deny that there is a law knowable by the light of
nature, i.e. without the help of positive revelation.
14. Those who maintain innate practical principles tell us not
what they are. The difference there is amongst men in their
practical principles is so evident that I think I need say no more
to evince, that it will be impossible to find any innate moral rules
by this mark of general assent; and it is enough to make one suspect
that the supposition of such innate principles is but an opinion taken
up at pleasure; since those who talk so confidently of them are so
sparing to tell us which they are. This might with justice be expected
from those men who lay stress upon this opinion; and it gives occasion
to distrust either their knowledge or charity, who, declaring that God
has imprinted on the minds of men the foundations of knowledge and the
rules of living, are yet so little favourable to the information of
their neighbours, or the quiet of mankind, as not to point out to them
which they are, in the variety men are distracted with. But, in truth,
were there any such innate principles there would be no need to
teach them. Did men find such innate propositions stamped on their
minds, they would easily be able to distinguish them from other truths
that they afterwards learned and deduced from them; and there would be
nothing more easy than to know what, and how many, they were. There
could be no more doubt about their number than there is about the
number of our fingers; and it is like then every system would be ready
to give them us by tale. But since nobody, that I know, has ventured
yet to give a catalogue of them, they cannot blame those who doubt
of these innate principles; since even they who require men to believe
that there are such innate propositions, do not tell us what they are.
It is easy to foresee, that if different men of different sects should
go about to give us a list of those innate practical principles,
they would set down only such as suited their distinct hypotheses, and
were fit to support the doctrines of their particular schools or
churches; a plain evidence that there are no such innate truths.
Nay, a great part of men are so far from finding any such innate moral
principles in themselves, that, by denying freedom to mankind, and
thereby making men no other than bare machines, they take away not
only innate, but all moral rules whatsoever, and leave not a
possibility to believe any such, to those who cannot conceive how
anything can be capable of a law that is not a free agent. And upon
that ground they must necessarily reject all principles of virtue, who
cannot put morality and mechanism together, which are not very easy to
be reconciled or made consistent.
15. Lord Herbert's innate principles examined. When I had written
this, being informed that my Lord Herbert had, in his book De
Veritate, assigned these innate principles, I presently consulted him,
hoping to find in a man of so great parts, something that might
satisfy me in this point, and put an end to my inquiry. In his chapter
De Instinctu Naturali, p. 72, ed. 1656, I met with these six marks
of his Notitiae, Communes:- 1. Prioritas. 2. Independentia. 3.
Universalitas. 4. Certitudo. 5. Necessitas, i.e. as he explains it,
faciunt ad hominis conservationem. 6. Modus conformationis, i.e.
Assensus mulla interposita mora. And at the latter end of his little
treatise De Religione Laici, he says this of these innate
principles: Adeo ut non uniuscujusvis religionis confinio arctentur
quae ubique vigent veritates. Sunt enim in ipsa mente caelitus
descriptae, nullisque traditionibus, sive scriptis, sive non scriptis,
obnoxiae, p. 3. And Veritates nostrae catholicae, quae tanquam indubia
Dei emata inforo interiori descriptae.
Thus, having given the marks of the innate principles or common
notions, and asserted their being imprinted on the minds of men by the
hand of God, he proceeds to set them down, and they are these: 1. Esse
aliquod supremum numen. 2. Numen illud coli debere. 3. Virtutem cum
pietate conjunctam optimam esse rationem cultus divini. 4.
Resipiscendum esse a peccatis. 5. Dari praemium vel paenam post hanc
vitam transactam. Though I allow these to be clear truths, and such
as, if rightly explained, a rational creature can hardly avoid
giving his assent to, yet I think he is far from proving them innate
impressions in foro interiori descriptae. For I must take leave to
observe:-
16. These five either not all, or more than all, if there are any.
First, that these five propositions are either not all, or more than
all, those common notions written on our minds by the finger of God;
if it were reasonable to believe any at all to be so written. Since
there are other propositions which, even by his own rules, have as
just a pretence to such an original, and may be as well admitted for
innate principles, as at least some of these five he enumerates,
viz. "Do as thou wouldst be done unto." And perhaps some hundreds of
others, when well considered.
17. The supposed marks wanting. Secondly, that all his marks are not
to be found in each of his five propositions, viz. his first,
second, and third marks agree perfectly to neither of them; and the
first, second, third, fourth, and sixth marks agree but ill to his
third, fourth, and fifth propositions. For, besides that we are
assured from history of many men, nay whole nations, who doubt or
disbelieve some or all of them, I cannot see how the third, viz. "That
virtue joined with piety is the best worship of God," can be an innate
principle, when the name or sound virtue, is so hard to be understood;
liable to so much uncertainty in its signification; and the thing it
stands for so much contended about and difficult to be known. And
therefore this cannot be but a very uncertain rule of human
practice, and serve but very little to the conduct of our lives, and
is therefore very unfit to be assigned as an innate practical
principle.
18. Of little use if they were innate. For let us consider this
proposition as to its meaning, (for it is the sense, and not sound,
that is and must be the principle or common notion,) viz. "Virtue is
the best worship of God," i.e. is most acceptable to him; which, if
virtue be taken, as most commonly it is, for those actions which,
according to the different opinions of several countries, are
accounted laudable, will be a proposition so far from being certain,
that it will not be true. If virtue be taken for actions conformable
to God's will, or to the rule prescribed by God- which is the true and
only measure of virtue when virtue is used to signify what is in its
own nature right and good- then this proposition, "That virtue is
the best worship of God," will be most true and certain, but of very
little use in human life: since it will amount to no more but this,
viz. "That God is pleased with the doing of what he commands;"-
which a man may certainly know to be true, without knowing what it
is that God doth command; and so be as far from any rule or
principle of his actions as he was before. And I think very few will
take a proposition which amounts to no more than this, viz. "That
God is pleased with the doing of what he himself commands," for an
innate moral principle written on the minds of all men, (however
true and certain it may be,) since it teaches so little. Whosoever
does so will have reason to think hundreds of propositions innate
principles; since there are many which have as good a title as this to
be received for such, which nobody yet ever put into that rank of
innate principles.
19. Scarce possible that God should engrave principles in words of
uncertain meaning. Nor is the fourth proposition (viz."Men must repent
of their sins") much more instructive, till what those actions are
that are meant by sins be set down. For the word peccata, or sins,
being put, as it usually is, to signify in genera