Th. [You know, Philalethes, that I have been for a long time of another opinion; that I have always held, as I still hold, to the innate idea of God, which Descartes maintained, and as a consequence to the other innate ideas, which cannot come to us from the senses. Now, I go still farther in con formity to the new system, and I believe even that all the thoughts and acts of our soul come from its own depths, with no possibility of their being given to it by the senses, as you shall see in the sequel. But at present I will put this investi gation aside, and, accommodating myself to the received ex pressions, since in fact they are good and tenable, and one can say in a certain sense that the external senses are in part causes of our thoughts, I shall consider how in my opinion one must say even in the common system (speaking of the action of bodies upon the soul, as the Copernicans speak with other men of the movement of the sun, and with cause), that there are some ideas and some principles which do not come to us from the senses, and which we find in ourselves without form ing them, although the senses give us occasion to perceive them.
en. i] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 71 I imagine that your clever author has remarked that under the name of innate principles one often maintains his prejudices, and wishes to free himself from the trouble of discussion, and that this abuse doubtless has stirred up his zeal against this supposition. He desired, no doubt, to combat the indolence and the superficial manner of thinking of those who, under the specious pretext of innate ideas and of truths naturally en graved upon the mind, to which we readily give our consent, care nothing about investigating or considering the sources, the relations, and the certainty of this knowledge. In that I am entirely agreed with him, and I go even farther. I would that our analysis should not be limited, that definitions should be given of all the terms which are capable of definition, and that one should demonstrate, or give the means of demonstrat ing, all the axioms which are not primitive, without distin guishing the opinions which men have of them, and without caring whether they give their consent or not. There would be more profit in this than one thinks. But it seems that the author has been carried too far on the other side by his zeal, otherwise very praiseworthy. He has not sufficiently distin guished, in my opinion, the origin of the necessary truths, whose source is in the understanding, from that of the truths of fact drawn from the experience of the senses, and even from those confused perceptions which are in us. You see, then, that I do not agree with what you lay down as fact — that we can acquire all our knowledge without the need of innate impressions. And the sequel will show which of us is right.]
§ 2. Ph. We shall see it indeed. I grant you, my dear The- ophilus, that there is no opinion more commonly received than that which establishes the existence of certain principles of truth in which men generally agree; this is why they are called general notions, Koival Ivvoiai; whence it is inferred that these principles must be so many impressions which our minds receive with their existence. § 3. But though it were certain that there are some principles in which the entire human race is agreed, this universal consent would not prove that they are innate if one can show, as I believe he can, an other way through which men have been able to reach this aniformity of opinion. § 4. But, what is much worse, this 72 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. i universal consent is nowhere found, not even with regard to these two celebrated speculative principles (for we shall speak about the practical ones later), that whatever is, is; and that it is impossible for a thing to be and not to be at the same time. For there is a large part of the human race to which these two propositions, which will pass doubtless for neces sary truths and for axioms with you, are not even known.
Th. [I do not ground the certainty of innate principles upon universal consent, for I have already told you, Philalethes, that my opinion is that we ought to labor to be able to demon strate all the axioms which are not primitive. I grant you also that a consent very general, but which is not universal, may come from a tradition diffused throughout the human race, as the practice of smoking tobacco has been received by nearly all nations in less than a century, although some island ers have been found who, not being acquainted with fire even, were unable to smoke. Thus some clever people, even among theologians, but of the party of Arminius,1 have believed that the knowledge of the Deity came from a very ancient and very general tradition; and I believe indeed that instruction has confirmed and rectified this knowledge. It appears, however, that nature has contributed to its attainment without learning; the marvels of the universe have made us think of a superior power. A child born deaf and dumb has been seen to show veneration for the full moon, and nations have been found, who seemed not to have learned anything of other peoples, fearing invisible powers. I grant you, my dear Philalethes, that this is not yet the idea of God that we have and ask for; but this idea itself does not cease to be in the depths of our souls, without being put there, as we shall see, and the eternal laws of God are in part engraved thereon in a manner still more legible and by a species of instinct. But they are practical principles of which we shall also have occasion to speak. It must be admitted, however, that the inclination we have to recognize the idea of God is in human nature. And, even if the first instruction therein should be attributed to revelation, the readiness which men have always shown to receive this doctrine comes from the nature of their souls.2 But we will 1 James Arminius, 15GO-1G09, a distinguished Dutch theologian. — TB.
2 From this point on Gerhardt, whose edition, it will be remembered, is the cii. i] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 73 suppose that these ideas which are innate comprehend incom patible notions.
§ 19. Ph. Although you maintain that these particular and self-evident propositions, whose truth is recognized as soon as one hears them stated (as that green is not red), are received as consequences of these other more general propositions, which are regarded as so many innate principles, it seems that you do not at all consider that these particular propositions are received as indubitable truths by those who have no knowl edge of these more general maxims.
Tli. I have already replied to that above. We build on these i general maxims as we build upon the majors, which are sup-/ pressed when we reason by enthymemes; for, although very' often we do not think distinctly of what we do in reasoning any more than of what we do in walking and leaping, it is \ always true that the force of the conclusion consists in part in that which is suppressed and could not elsewhere arise, as you will find should you wish to prove it.
§ 20. Ph. But it seems that general and abstract ideas are more foreign to our mind [than notions and particular truths; consequently particular truths will be more natural to the mind than the principle of contradiction, of which you admit they are only the application].
77i. It is true that we commence sooner to perceive particubasis of the present translation, transposes the text as given by Erdmann and Jacques as follows: "Mais nous jugerons que ces idees qui sont innees, ren- ferment des notions incompatibles," the first three words of which will be found in Erdmann, p. 207, b., about two-thirds down the page, Jacques, Vol. 1, p. 29, about two-thirds down, the remainder in Erdmann, p. 211, a., at the middle of the page, Jacques, p. 3G, first third, just preceding § 19 in each case, whence the three texts go on in agreement until § 20, G., p. 72, E., p. 212, b., J., p. 39. Here the Gerhardt text has the following: " S'il y a des verites inne'es, ne faut il pas qu'il y ait dans la suite, que la doctrine externe ne fait qu'exciter icy ce que est en nous ": taking up with the words " dans la suite," the text as given by E., p. 207, b., J., p. 29, where it previously left it, the three texts continuing again in agreement until the words " des qu'on s'appercoit," G., p. 79, last third, E., 211, a., at the middle, J., 36, first third, whence G. completes his sentence with the last three words of the first sentence of § 26, as given by E., 212, b., J., 39, from which point again the three texts substantially agree to the end of Chap. 1. It may be added that the texts of Erdmann, Jacques, and Janet follow the order of Locke's Essay. Why Gerhardt has transposed the text in his edition, I do not know, as he has not alluded to the matter. From his statement that " the present impression has been newly compared with the original, so far as it is still extant" (Introduction, p. 10), I presume that the transposition is due to his fidelity to this original. — TB.
74 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. i lar truths when we commence with ideas more complex and gross; but that does not prevent the order of nature from com mencing with the most simple, and the proof of the more par ticular truths from depending upon the more general, of which they are only examples. And when we wish to consider what is in us virtually and before all apperception, we are right in commencing with the most simple. For the general principles enter into our thoughts, of which they form the soul and the connection. They are as necessary thereto as the muscles and sinews are for walking, although we do not at all think of them. The mind leans upon these principles every moment, but it does not come so easily to distinguish them and to rep resent them distinctly and separately, because that demands great attention to its acts, and the majority of people, little accustomed to think, has little of it. Have not the Chinese like ourselves articulate sounds? and yet being attached to another manner of writing, they have not yet thought of making an alphabet of these sounds. Thus it is that one possesses many things without knowing it.
§ 21. Ph. If the mind acquiesces so promptly in certain truths, cannot that acquiescence come from the consideration itself of the nature of things, which does not allow it to judge of them otherwise^ rather than from the consideration that these propositions are engraved by nature in the mind?
Tli. Both are true. The nature of things and the nature of mind agree. And since you oppose the consideration of the thing to the apperception of that which is engraven in the mind, this objection itself shows, sir, that those whose side you take understand by innate truths only those which would be approved naturally as by instinct, and even without knowing it, unless confusedly. There are some of this nature, and we shall have occasion to speak of them. But what is called nat ural light supposes a distinct knowledge, and very often the consideration of the nature of things is nothing else than the knowledge of the nature of our mind, and of these innate ideas which we have no need to seek outside. Thus I call innate the truths which need only this consideration for their verifi cation. I have already replied (§ 5) to the objection (§ 22) which claimed that when it is said that innate notions are implicitly in the mind, the statement must mean simply that CH. i] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 75 it has the faculty of knowing theni; for I have pointed out that besides this it has the faculty; of finding them in itself, and the disposition to approve them when it thinks of them as it should.
§ 23. Ph. It seems, then, that you claim that those to whom these general maxims are proposed for the first time learn nothing which is entirely new to them. But it is clear that they learn first the names, then the truths, and even the ideas upon which these truths rest.
Th. The question here is not of names, which are in some sense arbitrary, while ideas and truths are natural. But, with respect to these ideas and truths, you attribute to us, sir, a doctrine which we have strongly repudiated; for I agree that we learn ideas and innate truths either in considering their source, or in verifying them through experience. Thus I do not make the supposition which you aver, as if, in the case of which you speak, we learned nothing new. And I cannot admit this proposition: all that one learns is not innate. The truths of numbers are in us, and we are not left to learn them, either by drawing them from their source when we learn them through demonstrative proof (which shows that they are in nate), or by testing them in examples, as do ordinary arithme ticians, who, in default of a knowledge of the proofs, learn their rules only by tradition, and, at most, before teaching them, justify them by experience, which they continue as far as they think expedient. And sometimes even a very skilful mathematician, not knowing the source of another's discovery, is obliged to content himself with this method of induction in examining it; as did a celebrated writer at Paris, when I was there, who continued a tolerably long time the examination of my arithmetical tetragonism, comparing it with the numbers of Ludolphe,1 believing he had found therein some error; and he had reason to doubt until some one communicated to him the demonstration, which, for us dispenses with these tests, which could always continue without ever being perfectly certain. And it is this very thing, namely, the imperfection of inductions, which may yet be verified by instances of expe rience. For there are progressions in which one can go very 1 John Job Ludolphe, 10-19-1711: his Tetragonometria Tabularia, Frank 70 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [me. i far before noticing the changes and the laws that are found there.
Ph. But is it not possible that not only the terms or words which we use, but even the ideas, come to us from without?
Th. It would then be necessary that we should be ourselves outside of ourselves, for the intellectual or reflective ideas are derived from our mind; and I should much like to know how we could have the idea of being if we were not beings our selves, and did not thus find being in ourselves.
Ph. But what do you say, sir, to this challenge of one of my friends? If any one, says he, can find a proposition whose ideas are innate, that he can name to me, he would do me a very great favor.
Th. I would name the propositions of arithmetic and geome try, Avhich are all of this nature; and, as regards necessary truths, no others could be found.
§ 25. Ph. That will appear strange to most people. Can it be said that the most difficult and the most profound sciences are innate?
Th. Their actual knowledge is not, but much that may be called virtual knowledge is innate, as the figure traced by the veins of the marble is in the marble, before one discovers them in working.
Ph. But is it possible that children, while receiving notions that come to them from without, and giving them their con sent, may have no knowledge of those which you suppose to be inborn with them, and to make, as it were, a part of their mind, in which they are, you say, imprinted in ineffaceable characters in order to serve as a foundation? If that were so, nature would have taken trouble for nothing, or, at least, she would have badly engraved their characters, since they cannot be perceived by the eyes which see very well other things.
Th. The apperception of that which is in us depends upon attention and order. Now, not only is it possible, but it is also proper, that children give more attention to the ideas of the senses, because the attention is regulated by the need. The outcome, however, shows in the sequel that nature has not uselessly given herself the trouble of impressing upon us in nate knowledge, since without it there would be no means of attaining actual knowledge of the truths necessary in the CH. i] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 77 demonstrative sciences, and the reasons of facts; and we should possess nothing above the beasts.
§ 26. Ph. If there are innate truths, does it not necessarily follow that the external doctrine only stirs up here what is in us? I conclude that a consent sufficiently general among men is an indication, and not a demonstration, of an innate princi ple; but that the exact and decisive proof of these principles consists in showing that their certitude comes only from what is in us. To reply further to what you say against the general approbation which is given to the twq_great speculative prin ciples, which are, nevertheless, the best established, I may say to you that even if they were not known they would not cease to be innate, because they are recognized as soon as heard; but I will add further that at bottom everybody knows them, and makes use at every moment of the principle of contradic tion (for example) without considering it distinctly; and there is no barbarian who, in an affair of any moment, is not offended by the conduct of a liar who contradicts himself. Thus, these maxims are employed without an express consid eration of them. And in nearly the same way we have virtu ally in the mind the propositions suppressed in enthymemes, Avhich are set aside not only externally, but further in our thought.
§ 5. Ph. [What you say of this virtual knowledge and of these internal suppressions surprises me]; for to say that there are truths imprinted upon the soul which it does not perceive is, it seems to me, a veritable contradiction.
Th. [If you are thus prejudiced, I am not astonished that you reject innate knowledge. But I am astonished that the thought has not occurred to you that we have an infinite amount of knowledge of which we are not always conscious, not even when we need it. It is for the memory to preserve this, and for the reminiscence to represent it to us, as it often, but not always, does at need. That is very well called remembrance (subvenire), for reminiscence needs some aid. And it must certainly be that in this multiplicity of our knowledge we are determined by something to renew one part rather than another, since it is impossible to think distinctly and at once of every thing we know.]
Ph. In that I believe you are right; and this too general 78 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [BK. i affirmation, that we always perceive all the truths which are in our soul, escaped me without my having given it sufficient attention. But you will have a little more trouble in reply ing to what I am going to show you. That is, that if you can say of some particular proposition that it is innate, you could maintain by the same reasoning that all propositions which are reasonable, and which the mind could always regard as such, are already impressed upon the soul.
Th. I agree with you in regard to, pure ideas^ which I oppose to the phantoms of the senses, ^nd in regard to necessary truths, or those of the reason, which I oppose to truths of fact. In this sense it must be said that all arithmetic and all geometry are innate, and are in us virtually, so that we can find them there if we consider attentively and set in order what we already have in the mind, without making use of any truth learned through experience or through the tradition of another, as Plato has shown in a dialogue 1 in which he intro duces Socrates leading a child to abstract truths by questions alone without giving him any information. We can then make for ourselves these sciences in our study, and even with closed eyes, without learning through sight or even through touch the truths which we need; although it is true that we would not consider the ideas in question if we had never seen or touched anything. For through an admirable economy of nature we cannot have abstract thoughts which have no need whatever of anything sensible, when that would only be of such a character as are the forms of the letters and the sounds, although there is no necessary connection between such arbi trary characters and such thoughts. And if the sensible out lines were not requisite, 'the pre-established harmony between soul and body, of which I shall have occasion to speak more fully, would have no place. But that does not prevent the mind from taking necessary ideas from itself. You see also sometimes how it can go far without any aid, by a logic and arithmetic purely natural, as that Swedish youth who, in culti vating his own (mind), went so far as to make great calcula tions immediately in his head without having learned the common method of computation, or even to read and write, if I remember correctly what has been told me of him. It is en. i] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 79 true that he cannot work out intricate problems, such as those which demand the extraction of roots. But that does not at all prevent him from being able still to draw them from its depths by some new turn of mind. Thus that proves only that there are degrees in the difficulty of perceiving what is in us. There are innate principles which are common and very easy to all; there are theorems which are discovered likewise at once, and which compose the natural sciences, which are more understood in one case than in another^ ' Finally, in a larger sense, which it is well to employ in order to have notions more comprehensive and more determinate, all truths which can be drawn from primitive innate knowledge can still be called innate, because the mind can draw them from its own depths, although often it would not be an easy thing so to do. But, if any one gives another meaning to the terms, I do not wish to dispute about words.
Ph. [I have agreed with you that we can have in the soul what we do not perceive there, for we do not always remem ber at once all that we know, but it must be always what we have learned or have known in former times expressly. Thus] if we can say that a thing is in the soul, although the soul has not yet known it, this can only be because it has the capacity or faculty of knowing it.
Tli. [Why could not this have still another cause, such as the soul's being able to have this thing within it without its being perceived? for since an acquired knowledge can be con cealed therein by the memory, as you admit, why could not nature have also concealed therein some original knowledge? Must everything that is natural to a substance which knows itself be known by it actually at once? Cannot and must not this substance (such as our soul) have many properties and affections which it is impossible to consider all at once and all together? It was the opinion of the Platonists that all our knowledge was reminiscence, and that thus the truths which the soul has brought with the birth of the man, and which are called innate, must be the remains of an express anterior knowledge. But this opinion has no foundation; and it is easy to believe that the soul must already have innate knowl edge in the precedent state (if there were any pre-existence), however remote it might be, entirely as here: it would then 80 LEIBNITZ'S CRITIQUE OF LOCKE [UK. i have to come also from another precedent state, or 1 it would be finally innate, or at least concreate; or else it would be needful to go to infinity and to make souls eternal, in which case this knowledge would be innate in fact, because it would never have commenced in the soul; and if any one claimed that each anterior state has had something from another more anterior, which it has not left to the succeeding, the reply will be made that it is manifest that certain evident truths must have been in all these states; and in whatever manner it may be taken, it is always clear in all states of the soul that neces sary truths are innate, and are proved by what is within, it not being possible to establish them through experience, as we establish truths of fact. Why should it be necessary also that we could have no possession in the soul of which we had never made use? And is it the same thing to have a thing without using it as to have only the faculty of acquiring it? If that were so, we should never possess anything but the things which we enjoy; instead of which, we know that, be sides the faculty and the object, some disposition in the fac ulty or in the object, t>T in both, is often necessary, that the faculty may exercise itself upon the object.]
Ph. Taking it in that way, we could say that there are truths written in the soul which the soul has, however, never known, and which, indeed, it will never know. This appears to me strange.
Th. [I see there no absurdity, although in that case you could not be assured that there are such truths. For things more exalted than those which we can know in this present course of life may be developed some time in our souls, when they are in another state.]
Ph. But suppose there are truths which could be imprinted upon the understanding without its perceiving them; I do not see how, in relation to their origin, they could differ from the tmths which it is only capable of knowing.
Th. The mind is not only capable of knowing them, but further of finding them in itself; and, if it had only the sim ple capacity of receiving knowledge, or the passive power there for, as indeterminate as that which the wax has for receiving figures and the blank tablet for receiving letters, it would not 1 The reading of Gerhardt and Erdmann; Jacques has " oil," where. — TR.
en. i] ON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING 81 be the source of necessary truths, as I have just shown that it is; for it is incontestable that the senses do not suffice to show their necessity, and that thus the mind has a disposition (active as well as passive) to draw them itself from its own depths; although the senses are necessary to give it the occa sion and attention for this, and to carry it to some rather than to others. You see, then, sir, that these elsewhere very clever persons who are of another opinion appear not to have thought enough upon the consequences of the difference which there is between necessary or eternal truths and the truths of experi ence, as I have already observed, and as all our discussion shows. The original proof of the necessary truths comes from the understanding alone, and the other truths come from experience or from the observation of the senses. Our mind is capable of knowing both; but it is the source of the former, and, whatever number of particular experiences we may have of a universal truth, we could not be asstired of it forever by induction without knowing its necessity through the reason.
Ph. But is it not true that if the words, to be in the under standing, involve something positive, they signify to be per ceived and comprehended by the understanding?
Tli. They signify to us wholly another thing. It is enough that what is in the understanding can be found there, and that the sources or original proofs of the triiths which are in ques tion are only in the understanding; the senses can hint at, justify, and confirm these truths, but cannot demonstrate their infallible and perpetual certainty.
§ 11. Ph. Nevertheless, all those who will take the trouble to reflect with a little attention upon the operations of the understanding will find that this consent, which the mind gives without difficulty to certain truths, depends upon the faculty of the human mind.
Th. Very well. But it is this particular relation of the human mind to these truths which renders the exercise of the faculty easy and natural in respect to them, and which causes them to be called innate. It is not, then, a naked faculty which consists in the mere possibility of understanding them; it is a disposition, an aptitude, a preformation, which determines our soul and which makes it possible for them to be derived from it. Just as there is the difference between the figures G