John Locke - An Essay Concerning Human Understanding / Ein Versuch über den menschlichen Verstand. Auswahlausgabe

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§ 27. […] And, indeed, if it be the privilege of innate Principles, to be received upon their own Authority, without examination, I know not what may not be believed, or how any one’s Principles can be questioned. If they may, and ought to be examined , and tried, I desire to know how first and innate Principles can be tried; or at least it is reasonable to demand the marks and characters, whereby the genuine, innate Principles, may be distinguished from others; […] When this is done, I shall be ready to embrace such welcome, and useful, Propositions; and till then I may with modesty doubt, since I fear universal Consent, which is the only one produced, will scarce prove a sufficient mark to direct my Choice, and assure me of any innate Principles. From what has been said, I think it is past doubt, that there are no practical Principles wherein all Men agree; and therefore none innate.

Other Considerations concerning innate Principles, both speculative and practical

§ 1. HAD those, who would perswade us, that there are innate Principles, not taken them together in gross; but considered, separately, the parts, out of which those Propositions are made, [70]they would not, perhaps, have been so forward to believe they were innate. Since, if the Ideas , which made up those Truths, were not, it was impossible, that the Propositions, made up of them, should be innate, or our Knowledge of them be born with us. For if the Ideas be not innate , there was a time, when the Mind was without those Principles; and then, they will not be innate, but be derived from some other Original. For, where the Ideas themselves are not, there can be no Knowledge, no Assent, no Mental or Verbal Propositions about them.

§ 2. If we will attentively consider newborn Children , we shall have little Reason, to think, that they bring many Ideas into the World with them. For, bating, perhaps, some faint Ideas , of Hunger, and Thirst, and Warmth, and some Pains, which they may have felt in the Womb, there is not the least appearance of any setled Ideas at all in them; especially of Ideas , answering the Terms, which make up those universal Propositions , that are esteemed innate Principles. One may perceive how, by degrees, afterwards, Ideas come into their Minds; and that they get no more, nor no other, than what Experience, and the Observation of things, that come in their way, furnish them with; which might be enough to satisfy us, that they are not Original Characters, stamped on the Mind.

§ 3. It is impossible for the same thing to be, and not to be , is certainly (if there be any such) an innate Principle. But can any one think, or will any one say, that Impossibility and Identity , are two innate Ideas ? Are they such as all Mankind have, and [72]bring into the World with them? And are they those, that are the first in Children, and antecedent to all acquired ones? If they are innate, they must needs be so. Hath a child an Idea of Impossibility and Identity , before it has of White or Black; Sweet or Bitter ? And is it from the Knowledge of this Principle, that it concludes, that Wormwood rubb’d on the Nipple, hath not the same Taste, that it used to receive from thence? Is it the actual Knowledge of impossibile est idem esse, et non esse , that makes a Child distinguish between its Mother and a Stranger; or, that makes it fond of the one, and fly the other? […] The Names Impossibility and Identity , stand for two Ideas , so far from being innate , or born with us, that I think it requires great Care and Attention, to form them right in our Understandings. […]

§ 4. If Identity (to instance that alone) be a native Impression; and consequently so clear and obvious to us, that we must needs know it even from our Cradles; I would gladly be resolved, by one of Seven, or Seventy Years old, Whether a Man, being a Creature, consisting of Soul and Body, be the same Man, when his Body is changed? Whether Euphorbus and Pythagoras , having had the same Soul, were the same Man, though they lived several Ages asunder? Nay, Whether the Cock too, which had the same Soul, were not the same with both of them? Whereby, perhaps, it will appear, that our Idea of sameness , is not so settled and clear, as to deserve to be thought innate in us. For if those innate Ideas , are not clear and distinct, so as to be universally known, and naturally agreed [74]on, they cannot be Subjects of universal, and undoubted Truths; but will be the unavoidable Occasion of perpetual Uncertainty. For, I suppose, every one’s Idea of Identity , will not be the same, that Pythagoras , and Thousands others of his Followers, have: And which then shall be true? Which innate? Or are there two different Ideas of Identity , both innate?

§ 5. Nor let any one think, that the Questions, I have here proposed, about the Identity of Man, are bare, empty Speculations; which if they were, would be enough to shew, That there was in the Understandings of Men no innate Idea of Identity. He, that shall, with a little Attention, reflect on the Resurrection, and consider, that Divine Justice shall bring to Judgment, at the last Day, the very same Persons, to be happy or miserable in the other, who did well or ill in this Life, will find it, perhaps, not easy to resolve with himself, what makes the same Man, or wherein Identity consists: And will not be forward to think he, and every one, even Children themselves, have naturally a clear Idea of it.

§ 6. Let us examine that Principle of Mathematicks, viz . That the whole is bigger than a part . This, I take it, is reckon’d amongst innate Principles. I am sure it has as good a Title, as any, to be thought so; which yet, no Body can think it to be, when he considers the Ideas it comprehends in it, Whole and Part , are perfectly Relative; but the Positive Ideas , to which they properly and immediately belong, are Extension and Number, of which alone, Whole and Part , are Relations. So that if Whole and Part are innate Ideas , Extension and Number must be so too, it being impossible to have an Idea of a [76]Relation, without having any at all of the thing to which it belongs, and in which it is founded. Now, Whether the Minds of Men have naturally imprinted on them the Ideas of Extension and Number, I leave to be considered by those, who are the Patrons of innate Principles.

§ 7. That God is to be worshipped , is, without doubt, as great a Truth as any that can enter into the mind of Man, and deserves the first place amongst all practical Principles. But yet, it can by no means be thought innate, unless the Ideas of God and Worship , are innate. That the Idea , the Term Worship stands for, is not in the Understanding of Children, and a Character stamped on the Mind in its first Original, I think, will be easily granted, by any one, that considers how few there be, amongst grown Men, who have a clear and distinct Notion of it. […]

§ 8. If any Idea can be imagin’d innate , the Idea of God may, of all others, for many Reasons be thought so; since it is hard to conceive, how there should be innate Moral Principles, without an innate Idea of a Deity : Without a Notion of a Law-maker, it is impossible to have a Notion of a Law, and an Obligation to observe it. Besides the Atheists, taken notice of amongst the Ancients, and left branded upon the Records of History, hath not Navigation discovered, in these latter Ages, whole Nations, […] amongst whom there was to be found no Notion of a God, no Religion. […] These are Instances of Nations where uncultivated Nature has been left to it self, without the help of Letters, and Discipline, and the Improvements of Arts and Sciences. But there are others to be found, who have enjoy’d [78]these in a very great measure, who yet, for want of a due application of their thoughts this way, want the Idea , and Knowledge of God. […] And, perhaps, if we should, with attention, mind the Lives, and Discourses of People not so far off, we should have too much Reason to fear, that many, in more civilized Countries, have no very strong, and clear Impressions of a Deity upon their Minds; and that the Complaints of Atheism, made from the Pulpit, are not without Reason. […]