THE ORIGIN OF OUR IDEAS 



regard the mind of the new-born child as a sheet 

 of blank, smooth, unruled paper, destitute of even 

 grain or watermark. I do not propose here to 

 rehearse Locke s demonstration that there are no 

 innate ideas, for his book may be had for a shilling 

 or two anywhere, and its dignified and lucid style, 

 such as no mere artist in words has ever surpassed, 

 makes it a permanent delight even to those who 

 might fancy that its matter includes nothing 

 with which they are unacquainted. But we may 

 contemplate the doctrine of innate ideas in the 

 light of modern embryology, of which Locke, of 

 course, knew nothing. Every human being be 

 gins as a single microscopic cell, and whoso can 

 conceive that such a cell is possessed of even one 

 simple idea need fear no intellectual problem the 

 inconceivable docs not exist for him. 



Yet we have said that it is impossible to refer 

 to individual experience the origin of our funda 

 mental ideas. This has been shown beyond dis 

 pute by many lines of argument which this is not 

 the place to rehearse; but, for myself, I am even 

 content to justify this contention by what I con 

 ceive to be a reductio ad absiirduni of the tabula 

 rasa theory. If the mind be nothing but a struct 

 ureless sheet of white paper, pray what difference 

 is there between the mind of a Shakespeare, an 

 idiot, a baby, and a cat? &quot;One thing happeneth 

 to them all&quot; each experiences the phenomena 

 which we express in terms of space and time and 

 motion and number ; why are not the results iden- 



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