words, or comes to what we commonly call the use of Reason. A child, before it can speak, knows 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 sugar-plumbs are not the same thing. A child knows not that 3 and 4 are equal to 7, till he is able to count seven, and has got the name and idea of equality: but he knows this as soon as he has settled in his mind the clear and distinct Ideas that these names stand for; and he knows it by the same means as he knew before that a rod and a cherry are not the same thing, and as he may know afterwards that it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be. A man knows that 18 and 19 are equal to 37, by the same self-evidence as he knows 1 and 2 to be equal to 3: yet a child knows it not so soon; not for want of the use of Reason, but because the ideas those words stand for are not so soon got as those of one, two, and three.

All the sciences afford propositions that are assented to as soon as understood-that two bodies cannot be in the same place is a truth as readily admitted as that a square is not a circle-and as many distinct Ideas as we have, so many of these pro positions can we make: but the propositions can not be innate, unless the ideas be innate; though they may be self-evident, upon understanding the

terms; else every well-grounded observation drawn from particulars into a general rule, must be innate: whereas only observing men draw these general propositions from particular instances, to which the unobserving cannot refuse their assent.

Nothing is a Truth in the mind, that it has never thought on: whence, if there are any innate truths, they must be the first of any thought on; and should appear most clearly in those persons in whom we find no traces of them: for children, ideots, savages, - and illiterate people, being least corrupted by Custom or borrowed opinions, these innate notions should lie fairly open to our view, as the thoughts of Children really do. But these abstract maxims and reputed principles of science are the language and business of the schools of learned nations, accustomed to that sort of conversation where disputes are frequent; being suited to artificial argumentation, and useful for conviction, but not much conducing to the discovery of Truth or advancement of Knowledge.

CHAP. III.

THERE ARE NO INNATE PRACTICAL PRIN

CIPLES.

MORAL principles have still less title to be considered as native impressions: the speculative maxims before mentioned carry their own evidence with them; but moral rules require reasoning and discourse, and some exercise of the mind to discover the certainty of their truth. They are less evident but not less true; and being capable of demonstration, it is our own fault, if we come not to a certain knowledge of them. The ignorance of them in many, and the slow assent to them in others, proves that they are nor innate.

When Thieves keep the rules of faith and justice with one-another, they do not receive them as innate laws of nature, but practise them as rules of convenience, without which they cannot hold together: but will any one say that those who live by fraud and rapine have innate principles of Truth and Justice, which they assent to? You may say— "their minds assent to what their practice contradicts”—but practical principles derived from Nature must produce conformity of action, 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."

Again, there cannot be any one moral rule proposed, of which a man may not justly demand a reason:

whereas, if it were innate or self-evident, it could not need any proof to ascertain its truth. You cannot without absurdity ask a reason why it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be, as you may of that most unshaken rule of morality, and foundation of all social virtue, that one should do as he would be done unto: the truth of all moral rules plainly depending upon some other antecedent to them, and from which they must be deduced.

"That men should keep their compacts, is certainly a great 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 an 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 Heathen 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.

"Hence naturally flows the great variety of opinions concerning the 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 prin