The vital Union of the Soul to the Body confifts in this: That in this State of Union it cannot act without the Body, nor feparately from it. This is plain with refpect to Senfe; for will any Man fay, that the Soul of a blind Man has no feeing Faculty, or of a deaf Man has no hearing Faculty? and yet he cannot fee nor hear without Eyes and Ears; and if he were born blind and deaf, can have no Imagination of Light and Sounds. And thus it is as to the intellectual Powers; the Quicknefs of Perception, the Strength of Memory, and the Vigor of Fancy, the Exercife of Reafon and Judgment, increase and decay with Men's Age, and alter with the different Temperature of the Brain, the Fineness of Spirits, the Configuration of the Organs, and the Conftitution of the whole Body; which make Men as much differ from themselves in Health and Sickness, as if they were not the fame Perfons: And yet it is evident, that the Change is not in the Soul, but in the Body; but the Soul cannot exercise its Powers without the Body, nor move otherwife than the Body will move: Which gives a reasonable Account of Men's different Abilities, and different Apprehenfions of Things, and how they come for fo long a time. not to perceive those Ideas and Characters imprinted on their Minds; though we should allow them to be as much innate, as the Senfe of Seeing and Hearing is.

But Mr. Lock objects, That if there are Ideas in the Mind, which are not, and never were, perceived; all that can be meant by fuch Ideas being in the Mind, is only this, That the Mind is capable of knowing them. And if the Capacity of knowing, be the Impreffion contended for, all the Truths a P. 5. Man ever comes to know, will by this Account be every one of them innate.

As for the Capacity of knowing, I have already obferv'd, that it is impoffible to conceive what this Capacity fhould be, without innate Ideas. We are indeed at a great Lofs when we talk of Faculties and Powers, which belong to the Effences of Things which we know nothing of: But yet we muft conceive the Capacity and the Faculty of Knowing to be diftinct from thofe Ideas which are known, as we always diftinguish between the Faculty and the Object. And Mr. Lock's Argument does not prove, that Ideas which are not actually known and perceiv'd, can be nothing else but a Capacity of knowing; becaufe, as I have already prov'd, there may be, and always are, Ideas actually in the Mind without being perceiv'd; as all those Ideas are, which at any time we don't think of; as when we are asleep, or employed about fome particular Ideas, without attending to any other Notions; or have loft the actual Perceptions of our Ideas by Sickness or Age. Now if Mr. Lock will in thefe Cafes diftinguish between the Capacity of Knowing, and the Ideas, he may do so alfo, if he pleafes, with respect to innate Ideas. And this he muft do, or muft fay, That no Man has any Ideas at any time in his Mind, but what he actually thinks of; which is fo abfurd, that I'm fure he will not fay it. And this I fuppofe will fatisfy him, that there may be innate Ideas, and yet all Knowledge not innate: For if we diftinguish the Capacity and the Ideas, the Capacity of knowing may extend both to innate and to acquir'd Ideas.

But the great Difficulty of all is, What are innate Ideas, and how to diftinguish them from acquir'd Knowledge. Mr. Lock tells us, That 'tis ufually anfwer'd, That all Men know and affent to them, when they come to the Ufe of Reafon; and this is fufficient to prove them innate. Now I grant that this is too loofly worded, if any Men ufe to word

it fo: And yet it may be true, for any thing he has faid against it. For all his Arguments are founded in very great Miftakes of the Nature and Ufe of innate Ideas. He fuppofes, that these innate Ideas must be first known, and must be known by their own Light, without being taught, without any Labour or Search of the Mind, without the Ufe of Reafon, Experience, or Obfervation, or any external Notices to bring them into View; and therefore must be as perfectly known to Children, to Idiots, to Savages, as to the wifeft Men; nay, much better, because they have no Prejudices or Prepoffeffions to tincture and difcolour their Minds. Such innate Notions as thefe, I grant we have none, and I never thought that we had; nor do I believe, did ever any Man of Senfe think fo; and therefore Mr. Lock has no Adverfary here. I do believe that most of the certain and useful Notions we have, are innate; and yet I doubt not but our actual Knowledge is acquir'd, and poffibly much in the fame way that Mr. Lock reprefents it: For 1 fuppose he does not think, that either he himself, or any Body elfe, did at firft form their Notions of Things in fuch an artificial Manner as he has defcribed. But then this acquir'd Knowledge, as far as it relates to inward Ideas, is not forming and making Notions, but finding them: They were in the Mind before, though not seen and discovered; but by Reasoning, Experience, and Obfervation, and by a diligent Search of our Minds, we bring them into view; and then we can discover by what Train of Thoughts, and by what external Notices we found them. And this Mr. Lock miftakes for making Ideas; and thinks it a fufficient Confutation of their being innate, if he can fhew by what Means we may come to know them: Whereas those who affert innate Ideas, may allow of much the fame Methods for the Discovery of them, as he

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does to make them. And therefore if he would have carried his Point, he was concern'd to prove, that if there be innate Ideas, they must be known by their own Light, without Study, Reasoning, Obfervation, or any external Notices; and that if the Mind had no innate Ideas, yet it could furnish itfelf with fuch Ideas by the Method he has prefcribed. Both which he takes for granted, without one Word of Proof; though he knows we deny them both.

This is Matter of greater Confequence, than Perfons unacquainted with the Secret would apprehend; and therefore I fhall ftate it as plainly as poffibly I can, and fhew what I mean by innate Ideas, and for what Reasons I believe them to be innate.

Now I confess I am of Opinion, that the Mind is fo far from being a Raja Tabula, that it is plentifully furnished with all Ideas of Truth, which are the Seeds and Principles of all the Knowledge we have, or ever shall have; that we cannot form any one true Notion, but what is founded in fome connate Ideas.

But that which I fhall infift on at prefent, is this, That all eternal Verities, which have a neceffary and immutable Truth, whether they be firft Principles and Maxims of Reason, or abstracted and intelligible Ideas of fome real Things, or the neceffary and unavoidable Conclufions of Reafon, are innate: And my Reasons for it are these.

1. That thefe eternal Truths were never made, and therefore not made by the Mind. 2. That thefe universal Maxims, and abftracted Ideas, have no other Existence, but in a Mind. 3. That if they were not originally in the Mind, they can never be imprinted on the Mind from without.

1. As for the first, I fuppofe no Man will fay, that the Mind will make an eternal Truth; for what is eternal can't be made; and therefore the Mind can only fee and find out eternal Truths; and when it has found them out, fees that they are no Fictions of its own, but that they are eternal, that they always were true, and always will be fo, before the Mind knew them, and tho' there were no created Mind to fee them. So that all Men are fenfible, that they do not make fuch Notions, as always were, and always will be true; and yet in these confifts the Certainty of our Knowledge, and that univerfal Confent which is among Mankind; both which would be impoffible, had Men the making of their own Notions. No Man could be certain that he form'd his Notions right, because there would be no certain Marks and Criterions of Truth: And it is not probable, were this the Cafe, that two Men would form their Notions in all Things alike to one a.nother. We all know fuch Truths as foon as we see them, as the Eye knows Light and Colours; we know them only by feeing them, and by having a clear and diftinct Perception of them, which fatisfies us that they are fo, and cannot be otherwife: And all Men who fee them, fee them the fame; which is the only univerfal Confent we urge, to prove any Thing natural or innate. Not that all Men fee and know them, much lefs Idiots, and Children, and Savages; but that all Men who do see them, have the fame Conceptions of them, and agree in their Truth and Certainty; nay, that all Men, to whom they are fairly propofed, if their Minds be not prepoffeffed, muft fee and own them for eternal Truths. All eternal Truths then had a Being, before our Minds did fee or

discover