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 proposition 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.