Innate idea

“ And this tendency, this actual inclination of intelligence in one way rather than another, so that it is not a matter of indifference to intelligence what it produces, is precisely what constitutes an innate idea. ”

“ Now, these philosophers, while denying that we have any innate idea, admit at the same time that our soul is a special substance and is immortal, and show that the human intellect can easily form a concept of God as a supreme cause, and ascertain his [pg 184] existence without need of innate intuitions. This might convince you that your chapter on innate ideas has no bearing on the questions concerning the nature of the soul and the notion of a God. ”

“ And as the objective growth means an accidental acquisition of knowledge without any substantial change of the soul, hence nothing that you may say in refutation of innate ideas can have the least weight or afford the least ground against the doctrine of the immortality and substantiality of the soul.
XVII. The Idea Of A God. Reader. From the non-existence of innate ideas you infer, doctor, that “the idea of a God, or the conception of a supreme personal being, who created, who governs and preserves the world, is not innate in the human mind, and therefore is not incontrovertible” (p. 184) . ”

“ If the innate ideas be represented as mere elements of cognition, a perfectly correct and intelligible and impregnable psychology of innate ideas may, I conceive, be set on foot. But if the innate ideas be regarded as cognition, that is, as completed cognitions, nothing but an untrue doctrine, a doctrine of the most unintelligible and most bewildering character, can emerge. ”

“ That which is not born, which the mind possesses, not acquired by its own labor, nor by impressions coming from the exterior, but by the immediate gift of the author of its nature; the innate is opposed to the acquired, and to inquire if there are innate ideas is to inquire if we have in our mind ideas, before receiving any impressions or doing any act. ”

“ I am not a profound believer in innate ideas, if they are such ridiculous ones as metaphysicians talk of—namely, that two and two make four, and such sort of nonsense—but I do believe in certain innate principles and feelings, that govern our thoughts and actions as powerfully and irresistibly as instinct impels the brute creation ”

“ The extreme doctrine of innate ideas allows nothing to foreign sources, but finds the origin of all cognition in the mind itself; the extreme doctrine of sensation allows nothing to the mind itself, but finds the origin of all cognition in foreign sources. ”

“ These concepts are not innate; because no idea can be innate, for the reason that several peripheral impressions are necessary for the formation of even a single perception. They are, however, inherited. ”

“ If it be impossible to think without the idea of being, it exists prior to any reflex act, and it cannot have sprung from reflection. The idea of being must therefore be innate. Let us investigate this question. ”

“ Above all, the advocates of an innate morality have failed to note the very important part which thought or reason plays in the construction of our moral sentiments. They have not explained or comprehended the exact nature of thought, this being indeed rather a psychological than a moral research, and one which has been left very much in arrear by the psychology of innate ideas. ”

“ There has been much speculation on the question as to whether the mind possesses any ideas entirely independent of the senses, which were gained without any aid or influence from them. Many have maintained the existence of some ideas, which they denominate innate ideas, which they suppose were originally implanted in the mind, and not at all dependent on sensation. ”

“ As to the principle or hypothesis of innate ideas, which in truth requires to be kept perfectly distinct from the one previously considered, it is quite conceivable that it may be a right method for the artist, who is ever in pursuit of the ideal, and in some cases also for the thinker, to present to his mind the object of his conception, and which he is seeking ideally to manifest, such as with a similar end it would appear before and be contemplated by the divine mind. ”

“ If it be meant that the use of reason assists us in the knowledge of these maxims, it would prove them not to be innate.” Reason is said to be the deriving from principles already known unknown truths. How then should the application of reason be required to discover supposed innate principles? This is a weak objection, for it assumes that by innate ideas we understand those which man possesses in consciousness as immediately present. ”

“ Then your labor is all in vain. For you must know that we do not base our demonstration of the substantiality and immortality of the soul on the doctrine of innate ideas, nor do we assume that the notion of a God is an “innate intuition.” Had you been even superficially acquainted with the works of our scholastic philosophers, you would have known that innate ideas are totally foreign to their psychological and theological doctrines. ”

“ The doctrine of Innate Ideas having been deservedly exploded, it follows that these Ideas must be derived from our intercourse with the world we inhabit. For this purpose we are furnished with five senses, from each of which we obtain a separate and different kind of intelligence, which is denominated Perception. ”

“ For the supposing the understanding to be a distinct faculty of the mind no more proves our ideas to be innate, than the allowing perception to be a distinct original faculty of the mind, which everybody does, proves that there must be innate sensations. ”

“ There are neither innate ideas nor innate propositions; but there is an innate power of understanding that shows itself in primitive notions, which, when put into speech, are expressed in propositions, which propositions, decomposed, produce, under the influence of abstraction and analysis, distinct ideas. ”

“ If innate be equivalent to natural, then all the perceptions and ideas of the mind must be allowed to be innate or natural, in whatever sense we take the latter word, whether in opposition to what is uncommon, artificial, or miraculous. If by innate be meant contemporary with our birth, the dispute seems to be frivolous; nor is it worth while to inquire at what time thinking begins, whether before, at, or after our birth. ”

“ If any can be thought to be naturally imprinted, none, I think, can have a fairer Pretence to be innate, than this; Parents preserve and cherish your Children. When therefore you say, That this is an innate Rule, What do you mean? Either, that it is an innate Principle; which upon all Occasions, excites and directs the Actions of all Men: Or else, that it is a Truth, which all Men have imprinted on their Minds, and which therefore they know, and assent to. ”

“ Instead of abandoning ourselves to similar suppositions, it would seem that we ought to recognize in the mind an innate activity, subject to the laws imposed upon it by its Creator, the infinite intelligence. ”

“ But, in whatever way we make the analysis of thought, we always end with one or several general categories, of which the mind possesses innate knowledge since it makes a natural use of them. Let us say, therefore, that whatever, in instinct and intelligence, is innate knowledge, bears in the first case on things and in the second on relations. ”

“ Now, if I claim that the conception of the universe is innate in us, the reader must not conclude that I believe in the old prejudice of the human intellect being like a receptacle filled with ideas of the true, the beautiful, the good, and so forth. No, the intellect can create its ideas and concepts only by self-production and the world around it must furnish the materials for this purpose. But such a production presupposes an innate faculty. Consciousness, the knowledge of being, must be present, before any special knowledge can be acquired. Consciousness signifies the knowledge of being. ”

“ We shall, perhaps to our surprise, reach the seemingly paradoxical and essentially idealistic thesis that no being in heaven or in earth, or in the waters under the earth, has power to give to an idea any purpose unless, the idea itself, as idea, as a fragment of life, as a conscious thrill, so to speak, of inner meaning, first somehow truly learns so to develope its internal meaning as to assign to itself just that specific purpose. ”

“ The adventitious have crept into the minds of men either from the dogmas and sects of philosophers, or the perverted rules of demonstration. But the innate are inherent to the very nature of the understanding, which appears to be much more prone to error than the senses. ”

“ Hence the orbits of thought, so to speak, must differ among themselves as the initiative ideas differ.”
Have we not here the corollary to, and the explanation of, that law of unconscious cerebration which results in our “ways of thinking,” which shapes our character, rules our destiny? Thoughtful minds consider that the new light which biology is throwing upon the laws of mind is bringing to the front once more the Platonic doctrine, that “An idea is a distinguishable power, self-affirmed, and seen in its unity with the Eternal Essence.” ”

“ Assuming it to be innate, it is an open question to what objects it naturally attaches itself; for the philosophic supporters of that theory are now agreed that the intuitive perception is of principles of morality, and not of the details. If there be anything innate in the matter, I see no reason why the feeling which is innate should not be that of regard to the pleasures and pains of others. If there is any principle of morals which is intuitively obligatory, I should say it must be that. ”

“ But, in fact, the knowledge of the causality of all things is innate wisdom the same as that of the color of all white and black horses. At the same time it must be observed that every innate knowledge is in part acquired, and every acquired knowledge in part innate, so that both kinds intermingle and form one category. ”

“ Since if they are innate truths, they must be innate thoughts; there being nothing a truth in the mind which it has never thought on.
‘That the general maxims we are discoursing of, are not known to children, idiots, and a great part of mankind, we have already sufficiently proved. But there is this farther argument against their being innate, that these characters, if they were native and original impressions, should appear fairest and clearest in those persons in whom yet we find no footsteps of them. ”

“ I call this consciousness innate, although it is acquired. The point that I wish to impress on the reader is that the difference generally made between innate and acquired qualities is not so extraordinary that the innate need not to be acquired and the acquired does not presuppose something innate. The one contradicts the other only in those brains who do not understand the positive outcome of philosophy. Such thinkers do not know how to make reasonable distinctions and exaggerate in consequence. ”

“ Such glaringly artificial views can only come from fantastic metaphysics or from the ambiguity of the word 'idea,' which, standing sometimes for mental state and sometimes for thing known, leads men to ascribe to the thing, not only the unity which belongs to the mental state, but even the simplicity which is thought to reside in the Soul. ”

“ In order to prove this latter assertion, I refer to the fact that this conception, this consciousness of the infinite in the developed intellect, is in a manner innate. If the reader wishes to object to my indiscriminately mixing the innate faculty with the acquired understanding, I beg him to consider that I am endeavoring to prove that any and all distinction made by the intellect refers in reality to the inseparable parts of the one undivided universe. ”

“ The attraction it has for us proves well enough that it gives satisfaction to an innate inclination. But, as will be seen further on, the intellectual tendencies innate to-day, which life must have created in the course of its evolution, are not at all meant to supply us with an explanation of life: they have something else to do. ”

“ It has tended, in a word, to assimilate nature to human nature, to identify things with the values of things, to envisage the world in the image of man. To it, the world is all spirit, ego, or idea; and if not such through and through, then entirely subservient, in its unhumanized parts, to the purposes and interests of ego, idea, or spirit. Why, is obvious. A world of which the One substance is such constitutes a totality of interest and purpose which faces no conflict and has no enemy. It is fulfilment even before it is need, and need, indeed, is only illusion. ”

“ If you can absolutely control your thought, can you stop thinking?
The question is, Has the will any power over the thought? What is thought? It is the result of nature—of the outer world—first upon the senses—those impressions left upon the brain as pictures of things in the outward world, and these pictures are transformed into, or produce, thought; and as long as the doors of the senses are open, thoughts will be produced. Whoever looks at anything in nature, thinks. Whoever hears any sound—or any symphony—no matter what—thinks. ”

“ When we become Spirit we shall have but one mind, for there is no room for more if that One is infinite. Do we yet understand that saying, “I and Father are one”? We must reckon the I from the stand-point of a Principle, and leave the form, as it is the reflection of life and intelligence. The identity or idea of all that really is continues, but there is no Soul or Principle in the idea. Close your eyes and dream you see a flower; then learn that a flower is a product of mind, one of the forms of thought. ”

“ And Spirit causes the idea of creative power to reflect its Principle or Life and reproduce the images of Mind in all its multitudinous forms. But intelligence governs this multiplication of ideas; the seed or the herb yields not because of a propagating principle of its own, for it has none. Infinite Mind governs every thought, from an integral to an infinite. ”