Locke, John, 1632-1704 / 2008-11-05 00:00:00

But yet
I take liberty to say, that these propositions are so far from having an
universal assent, that there are a great part of mankind to whom they
are not so much as known.

5. Not on Mind naturally imprinted, because not known to Children,
Idiots, &c.
For, first, it is evident, that all children and idiots have not the
least apprehension or thought of them. And the want of that is enough
to destroy that universal assent which must needs be the necessary
concomitant of all innate truths: it seeming to me near a contradiction
to say, that there are truths imprinted on the soul, which it perceives
or understands not: imprinting, if it signify anything, being nothing
else but the making certain truths to be perceived. For to imprint
anything on the mind without the mind's perceiving it, seems to me
hardly intelligible. If therefore children and idiots have souls, have
minds, with those impressions upon them, THEY must unavoidably perceive
them, and necessarily know and assent to these truths; which since they
do not, it is evident that there are no such impressions. For if they
are not notions naturally imprinted, how can they be innate? and if
they are notions imprinted, how can they be unknown? To say a notion is
imprinted on the mind, and yet at the same time to say, that the mind
is ignorant of it, and never yet took notice of it, is to make this
impression nothing.
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