to this proposition, "That an apple is not fire," when by familiar
acquaintance he has got the ideas of those two different things
distinctly imprinted on his mind, and has learnt that the names apple
and fire stand for them; yet it will be some years after, perhaps,
before the same child will assent to this proposition, "That it is
impossible for the same thing to be and not to be"; because that, though
perhaps the words are as easy to be learnt, yet the signification of
them being more large, comprehensive, and abstract than of the names
annexed to those sensible things the child hath to do with, it is longer
before he learns their precise meaning, and it requires more time
plainly to form in his mind those general ideas they stand for. Till
that be done, you will in vain endeavour to make any child assent to a
proposition made up of such general terms; but as soon as ever he has
got those ideas, and learned their names, he forwardly closes with the
one as well as the other of the forementioned propositions: and with
both for the same reason; viz. because he finds the ideas he has in his
mind to agree or disagree, according as the words standing for them
are affirmed or denied one of another in the proposition. But if
propositions be brought to him in words which stand for ideas he has not
yet in his mind, to such propositions, however evidently true or false
in themselves, he affords neither assent nor dissent, but is ignorant.
For words being but empty sounds, any further than they are signs of our
ideas, we cannot but assent to them as they correspond to those ideas we
have, but no further than that. But the showing by what steps and ways
knowledge comes into our minds; and the grounds of several degrees of
assent, being; the business of the following Discourse, it may suffice
to have only touched on it here, as one reason that made me doubt of
those innate principles.