An Antidote Against Atheism/Appendix/Chapter II
Chap. II.
1. That the force of his Argument for the Existence of God from his Idea, does not lye in this, that there are Innate Ideas in the Mind of man. 2. That the force of arguing from the Idea of a thing, be it innate or not innate, is the same, proved by several instances. 3. The reason why he contends for Innate Ideas. 4. The seeming accuracy of a Triangle to outward sense no disproof but that the exact Idea thereof is from the Soul her self. 5. That it doth not follow that, if there be Innate Ideas, a Blind man may discourse of Colours. 6. That Brutes have not the Knowledge of any Logical or Mathematical Notions. 7. Why Zeno’s Asse goes in a right line to the bottle of Hay. 8. That those actions and motions in things that are according to Reason and Mathematicks, do not prove any Logical or Mathematical Notions in the things thus acting or moving.
1. That some have excepted against our Demonstration of the Existence of God from his Idea, in that they have conceived that it is founded upon this Principle, That there are Innate Ideas in the Soul of Man; I can impute the mistake not so much to Ignorance as Inadvertency. For no mans parts can be so weak, but that if he attend to what we have written,See Book I. ch. 7. sect. 2, 3. he must plainly see that the stress of our Argument is not laid upon this Notion of Innate Ideas, but upon that confessed Truth, That there are some things so plain, that however the Soul came to the knowledge of them, she cannot but assent to them, and acknowledge them to be undeniably true.
2. Now the Idea of a Being absolutely Perfect being such, that it must needs be acknowledged according to the light of Nature to be indeed the true Idea of such a Being, call it Innate or not, it is all one, the Demonstration will as inevitably follow as if it were acknowledged an Innate Idea; as we shall more plainly discern if we instance in other Ideas; as for example, in the Idea of a Triangle, of a regular Geometrical body, and of a round Solid. For the nature of these Ideas is such, that the Mind of man cannot possibly deny but that they are such and such distinct Ideas, and that such and such affections belong unto them. As for example, That every Triangle is either Isopleuron, Isosceles, or Scalenum; so that there are just Three kinds of them in reference to their sides, and no more: That there are [w:Platonic solid|Five regular Bodies]] in Geometry, neither more nor less, viz., the Cube, the Tetraedrum, the Octaedrum, the Dodecaedrum and the Eicosaedrum: That there is one onely kind of round Solid, viz. the Sphere or Globe. And so contemplating the Idea of a Being absolutely Perfect (be the Idea innate or not innate, it is all one) we cannot but conclude that there can be but one onely such in number, and that That one also cannot fail to be, as we have demonstrated at large.
3. But however, though we need no such Principle for the carrying on of our Demonstration as this of Innate Ideas, yet because I thought it true, and of concernment to animate the Reader to attend the Notions of his own Mind, and relish the excellency of that Judge we are to appeal to, I held it not unfit to insist something upon it: And I am ready now to make it good, that this Principle is true, notwithstanding any thing that I find alledged against it.
4. For what I contend for in the sixth Chapter of this first Book, That the exact Idea of a Circle or a Triangle is rather hinted to us from those describ'd in Matter then taught us by them, is still true notwithstanding that Objection, that they seem exist to our outward Senses carelessly perusing them, though they be not so. For we plainly afterward correct our selves, not onely by occasion of the figure, which we may ever discern imperfect, but by our Innate knowledge, which tells us that the outward Senses cannot see an exact Triangle, because that an Indivisible point, in which the Angles are to be terminated, is to the outward Sense utterly invisible.
Besides, it is to be considered, that though we should admit that a Triangle could be so drawn that to our outward Sense, look on it as narrowly as we could, even through Microscopes, it would ever seem exact; yet they that never saw or took notice of any such accurate delineation, do of themselves upon the intimation of ruder draughts frame to themselves the exact Idea of a Triangle, which they having not learned from any outward Object, must needs be the inward representation of their own Minds.
5. But now for other Objections, That a Blind man would be able to discourse of Colours, if there were any Innate ideas in his Soul, I say, it does not at all follow; because these Ideas that I contend to be in the Soul, are not Sensible, but Intellectual, such as are those many Logical, Metaphysical, Mathematical, and some Moral Notions. All which we imploy as our own Modes of considering sensible Objects, but are not the sensible Objects themselves, of which we have no Idea, but onely a capacity, by reason of the Organs of our Body, to be affected by them. The reason therefore of a blind man's inability of discoursing of Colours, is onely that he has no Substratum or Phantasm of the Subject of the discourse, upon which he would use these innate Modes or frame of Notions that are naturally in his Mind, and which he can make use of in the speculation of sundry other sensible Objects.
See Book I. ch. 6. sect. 3.6. And whereas it is further Objected, That these Logical and Mathematical Notions came in also at the Senses, because Brutes have the knowledge of them, upon whom we will not bestow so rich an inward furniture as these Innate Ideas; I answer, that Brutes have not the knowledge of any such Notion, but what they act is from a mere Concatenation of sensible Phantasms representing things grateful or ungrateful to the Sense: as to instance in those particulars that are objected, That a Dog will bark at one noise, suppose the knocking at the door, and not at another, as the falling of a stool or of a dish from off a shelf; that he will follow one sent, as that of the Hare, and neglect another, and the like; these are all done, not that he has any Notion of Effect and Cause, but by mere Concatenation of Phantasms representing things as gratefull or ungratefull, or neither gratefull nor ungratefull to his Sense, in which case he is not mov'd at all. And if a Dog chop at the bigger morsel, it is not that he considers the notion of inequality; but because that sensible Object does more powerfully move his appetite. So if he take one single side of a Triangle to come to the corner of it, where a piece of bread may be placed, it is not because he considers that a straight line is the shortest betwixt the same terms, but he sensibly feels that going directly to it he shall be sooner at it then if he went about: as Zeno instances well in an Ass one corner of a Pasture & the fodder in the other, that he would goe directly to that corner the fodder lay in; which as he thought was a marvellous witty jeer to Euclide his Demonstration, that any two sides of a Triangle are bigger then the third, as being so plain a Truth that no Ass could miss of it.
7. But by the favour of so Critical a Philosopher, we may very well suspect that neither Dog nor Ass, that makes toward any Object, goes directly in a straight line to it because he considers that a crooked one is further about, but because the visual line guides him straight to the Object he looks at, in which he goes as naturally, without any reflexion upon Mathematical notions, as a stone cast out of a sling of it self endeavours to steer its course with a Motion rectilinear; which having not so much as Sense, we can in no wise suspect to be capable of the rudest Notion in Geometry.
8. Wherefore it is a mere fallacy, to argue that Brutes, because they doe such things as are reasonable or Mathematical, therefore they doe them from Notions of Logick or Mathematicks; whenas in creatures inanimate that can think of nothing, we may read the footsteps of Reason and Geometry in their Motions and Figurations, as in the drops of Rain that fall downwards in the form of Hailstones, and in the beauty and symmetry of the leaves and flowers of Herbs and Plants: Which Objects while we contemplate, we apply to them the Innate modes of our own Mind, which the uses in the speculation even of those things that themselves are dead and thoughtless.