implanted tendencies, native propensities, roots or seeds of vice; and it would not perhaps be difficult to take the other side and shew, how early children discover the buddings from the native seeds of virtue.

But, it must be observed, that although we use the words seeds of vice and virtue, as being naturally in the mind, we speak only of propensities to action; and it is not meant that the seeds or principles which lead to vice, do therefore constitute vice; or that the seeds and principles which lead to virtue consti, tute virtue. It is the fruit and not the seed that degrades or dignifies; for due care may correct or extirpate what is hurtful, as it may train and strengthen what is good.

CHAP. V.

OF FIRST PRINCIPLES AND INNATE IDEAS.

We shall now consider more particularly the First Principles from which all Knowledge and Moral Feeling spring. We have concluded from analogy, as well as from the phenomena, that the intellectual and moral powers are at first in an undeveloped state. In conformity, therefore, with this view of the mind, we might be prepared to expect that these powers should at first only be capable to receive the simplest truths, and comprehend the plainest axioms. We find this, accordingly, to be the case. In every branch of human knowledge, the rudiments or elements can only at first be acquired, because the capacity is small; and the expansion or progress from Truth to Truth is afterwards as imperceptible, and I may add as unintelligible, as the evolution of a germ into its leaf and blossom.

Now, as far as regards the origin of our knowledge and the question of Innate Ideas, about which so

much has been written, it would seem incongruous to suppose that any truths, involving the least abstract notion, should be imprinted upon an undeveloped power; or that they should discover themselves in situations, where no outward object existed to call forth the exercise of that power to which these truths or principles specifically belonged. It would be as reasonable to expect that a plant should grow and bring forth fruit, where it had neither earth and water nor light and air; or that the body should be enlarged in the dimensions of its limbs and organs without a supply of food. Yet it would not follow, but that the laws of its developement might give rise to these first principles or primary truths in the mind, as determinately and universally, as if they were originally in existence and absolutely innate.

The discussion then about Innate Ideas seems to reduce itself to a narrow compass. If the capacities of the mind open as a bud (and it is matter of experience that different mental powers are unfolded in succession) we might as well look for fruit, and leaves, and branches, in the seed, as, for the evidence of an innate idea of a Supreme Being, or of any other sacred truth, imprinted on the understanding of an infant. Indeed it is almost an abuse of terms to speak of an understanding where there is no power to comprehend, or to speak of an original implanted Truth, laid up in a faculty which has no capacity to conceive or entertain a thought! And, therefore, whatever rudiment of such a conception might be

supposed naturally to exist, must needs have the same relation to mental power and its modifications, that the speck of living matter has to the animal to which it grows.

Whence, then, do First Principles arise? We can scarcely conceive that they have any other source than the native tendencies and original laws of the mental constitution.

And, though we should consider these truths or first principles in Science and Religion, as forming an essential part of the mental constitution, when it is fully expanded, and fairly awakened; it would not be necessary to suppose them innate. For if the mind is placed in a situation favourable to the developement of its powers, it will naturally form to itself and embrace these principles.

But what are these First Principles? What is their number, and in what form or terms can they be announced?

We might as well inquire what is the Faculty of Reason in its original state, or the Moral Principle? The attempt to give form and precision to any Truth in its elementary state, would, I apprehend, be as unavailing as to embody the make and constitution of the mind itself, and to give it tangible shape. Locke, therefore, in his laudable zeal after certainty of knowledge, while he insists upon the necessity of putting every thing that is in the mind into some intelligible form, without doubt, assumes more than

is capable of proof, when he asserts, that, if it cannot be reduced to an intelligible form, it can have no existence; though, at the same time, he may be justified in censuring those who contend for the existence of innate maxims and formal Truths in the unfurnished intellect.

In the strict sense of the words, and in fact, the mind, cannot have original and innate impressions, except they be those which belong to its infant state, appropriate to its mere sensitive existence, when it is no more capable of thought than a plant or shellfish.

But, although this concession be made, and we may admit that there are no innate ideas, according to the strict meaning of the term, and no formally inscribed truths, like established propositions, to be discovered in early life; for as much as every process of growth and expansion is from small beginnings in the mind as well as the body; yet it is fair to presume that the rudiments or inherent propensities leading to mental and corporeal perfection are still essentially in existence. For, if we cannot find the matured Idea-the perfect proposition in the unfurnished intellect; such as an imprinted truth, that might be expected to show itself immediately and universally, and in a determinate form of words, would imply; yet we may reasonably conclude that the element of that idea,-in short, the element of all knowledge and all good, belongs to the mind intrinsically as part of its essence;