24. Not innate, because not universally assented to.
To conclude this argument of universal consent, I agree with
these defenders of innate principles,--that if they are innate, they must needs have universal assent. For that a
truth should be innate and yet not assented to, is to me as unintelligible as for a man to know a truth and be
ignorant of it at the same time. But then, by these men's own confession, they cannot be innate; since they are not
assented to by those who understand not the terms; nor by a great part of those who do understand them, but have
yet never heard nor thought of those propositions; which, I think, is at least one half of mankind. But were the
number far less, it would be enough to destroy universal assent, and thereby show these propositions not to be
innate, if children alone were ignorant of them.
