naturally imprinted on the mind; since that universal assent, which is
made the mark of them, amounts to no more but this,--that by the use of
reason we are capable to come to a certain knowledge of and assent to
them; and, by this means, there will be no difference between the maxims
of the mathematicians, and theorems they deduce from them: all must be
equally allowed innate; they being all discoveries made by the use of
reason, and truths that a rational creature may certainly come to know,
if he apply his thoughts rightly that way.


9. It is false that Reason discovers them.

But how can these men think the use of reason necessary to discover
principles that are supposed innate, when reason (if we may believe
them) is nothing else but the faculty of deducing unknown truths from
principles or propositions that are already known? That certainly can
never be thought innate which we have need of reason to discover;
unless, as I have said, we will have all the certain truths that reason
ever teaches us, to be innate. We may as well think the use of reason
necessary to make our eyes discover visible objects, as that there
should be need of reason, or the exercise thereof, to make the
understanding see what is originally engraven on it, and cannot be in
the understanding before it be perceived by it. So that to make reason
discover those truths thus imprinted, is to say, that the use of reason
discovers to a man what he knew before: and if men have those innate
impressed truths originally, and before the use of reason, and yet are
always ignorant of them till they come to the use of reason, it is in
effect to say, that men know and know them not at the same time.