XVIII 



THE ORIGIN OF OUR IDEAS 



THE ideas of gravitation, of "art for art's sake," 

 of the rights of a minority to choose the first 

 examples that suggest themselves are obviously 

 acquired. Most of us can remember when first 

 these and a myriad other complex ideas were first 

 learned or presented to us. We may not similarly 

 be able to remember our acquirement of the idea 

 of God, which was early instilled ; but some of us 

 may remember instilling this idea into a child, and 

 would not question that the child acquired the 

 idea, and was not born with it, or with any innate 

 necessity to form it. Yet it has been maintained 

 that this is a necessary and, essentially, an innate 

 idea. 



If we take, however, the acquired idea of grav- 

 itation, and proceed to analyze it, we immediate- 

 ly discover therein certain elements the origin of 

 which is by no means so evident. Such ideas, 

 implicit in that of gravitation, and necessary ante- 

 cedents of it, are those of number, space, motion, 

 and time. None of us remembers an occasion on 

 which these ideas were acquired, or on which we 



