An essay concerning humane understanding ... / written by John Locke.

  • John Locke
Date:
1695
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay concerning humane understanding ... / written by John Locke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    25/474
    L STbe Epijlle to the Reader. p. 78. Concerning Natural Inscription and Innate Notions. I fhall not deny him the Privilege, he claims p. 5 2. to ftate the queftion as he pleafes, efpecially when he ftates it fo, as to leave nothing in it, contrary to what I have faid : For accord¬ ing to him, Innate Notions, being conditional things, depending upon the concurrence of feveral other circumflances in order to the Soul's exerting them ; all that he fays for innate, imprinted, preffed Notions (for of Innate Ideas he fays nothing at all) amounts at laft only to this, That there are certain Proportions, which though the Soul, from the beginning, or when a Man is born, does not know ; yet by afpflance from the outward Senfes and the help of fome previous Cultivation, it may after¬ wards come certainly to know the truth of j which is no more than what I have affirm’d in my firft Book. For I fuppofe by the Soul's exerting them, he means its beginning to know them, or elfe the Soul's Exerting of Notions will be to me a very unin¬ telligible expreflion, and I think at beft is a very unfit one in this, it mifleading Mens thoughts by an infinuation, as if thefe Noti¬ ons were in the Mind before the Soul exerts them, i. e. before they are known; whereas truly beford they are known, there is nothing of them in the mind, but a capacity to know them, when the concurrence of thofe circumflances, which this ingeni¬ ous Author thinks neceflary, in order to the Soul’s exerting them, brings them into our Knowledge P. 52. I find him exprefs it thus, Thefe natural Notions are not fo imprinted upon the Soul, as that they naturally and neceffa- rily exert themfelves (even in Children and Ideots) without any affifiance from the outward Senfes, or without the help of fome pre¬ vious cultivation. Here he fays they exert themfelves, as p, 78. that the Soul exerts them. When he has explain’d to himfelf or others, what he means by the Soul's exerting Innate Notions, or their exerting themfelves, and what that previous cultivation and circumflances in order to their being exerted are, he will I fuppole find, there is fo little of Controverfie between him and me in the point, bating that he calls that exerting of Notions, which I in a more vulgar ftile call knowing, that I have reafon to think he brought in my name upon this occafion only, out of the pleafure he has to fpeak civilly of me, which I muft gratefully acknowledge he has done every where he mentions me, not without conferring on me, as fome others have done, a title I have no right to. If any other Authors, careful that none of their gobd thoughts fhould be loft, have publiflb’d their cenfures of my Effay, with this honour done to it, that they will not fuffer it to be an Efay>