know any of the qualities, are nullities; or at least they do not exist
for him.

It will be asserted, perhaps, that the universal consent of man, upon
certain propositions, such as _the whole is greater than its part_, upon
all geometrical demonstrations, appear to warrant the supposition of
certain primary notions that are innate, not acquired. It may be
replied, that these notions are always acquired; that they are the fruit
of an experience more or less prompt; that it is requisite to have
compared the whole with its part, before conviction can ensue, that the
whole is the greater of the two. Man when he is born, does not bring
with him the idea that two and two make four; but he is, nevertheless,
speedily convinced of its truth. Before forming any judgment whatever,
it is absolutely necessary to have compared facts.

It is evident, that those who have gratuitously supposed innate ideas,
or notions inherent in man, have confounded his organization, or his
natural dispositions, with the habit by which he is modified; with the
greater or less aptitude he has of making experience, and of applying it
in his judgment. A man who has taste in painting, has, without doubt,
brought with him into the world eyes more acute, more penetrating than
another; but these eyes would by no means enable him to judge with
promptitude, if he had never had occasion to exercise them; much less,
in some respects, can those dispositions which are called _natural_, be
regarded as innate. Man is not, at twenty years of age, the same as he
was when he came into the world; the physical causes that are
continually acting upon him, necessarily have an influence upon his
organization, and so modify it, that his natural dispositions themselves
are not at one period what they are at another. La Motte Le Vayer says,
"We think quite otherwise of things at one time than at another; when