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.