203. Hence it may be inferred that no intuitive idea is innate, since intuition supposes an object presented to the faculty of perception.
204. General determinate ideas are those which refer to an intuition: they cannot, therefore, exist before it: and since, on the other hand, intuition is impossible without an act, it follows that these ideas cannot be innate.
205. Last of all remain general indeterminate ideas, that is to say, those which of themselves alone offer to the mind, nothing either existing or possible.[17] If we observe carefully the nature of these ideas, we shall see that they are nothing else than perceptions of one aspect of an object considered under a general reason. It cannot be doubted, that one of the characteristics of intelligence is the perception of these aspects; and it is no less indubitable, that it does not thence follow, that we must imagine these ideas to a kind of forms pre-existing in our mind, and distinct from the acts by which it exercises its perceptive faculty. We do not see what ground there can be for affirming these ideas to be innate, and to have lain hidden in our mind previously to the development of all activity, just like things stowed away in the corners of a museum, closed however to the curiosity of spectators.
206. 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. Even granting ideas to be distinct from perceptive acts, it is not necessary to admit them as pre-existing. True, that in such a case it would be necessary to recognize in the mind a faculty productive of the representative species, from which, however, we should not escape by identifying ideas with perceptions. These last are acts springing, so to speak, from the very bottom of our soul, and which appear and disappear like the flowers of a plant: and thus we must in every way recognize in ourselves a power which in due circumstances will not fail to produce what before did not exist. Without this it is impossible to form any idea of what activity is.
207. Resuming the doctrine thus far delivered upon innate ideas, we can reduce it to a formula in the following manner:
I. There are in us sensitive faculties which are developed by organic impressions, either as cause or occasion.
II. We perceive nothing by the senses not subject to the laws of organism.
III. Internal sensible representations cannot be formed of other elements than those furnished by sensations.
IV. Whatever is said concerning the pre-existence of sensible representations to organic impressions, besides being said without any reason, is in contradiction with experience.
V. Geometrical ideas, or ideas relating to sensible intuitions, are not innate; since they are the acts of the understanding which operates upon materials provided by the sensibility.