There is no such thing as innate knowledge, according to Aristotle; neither opinion, nor art, nor understanding, nor speech, nor reason itself, inhere in us by nature and from our birth; but all of these, as well as the qualities and habitudes, which are believed to be spontaneous, and to lie under the control of our will, are to be regarded as among the number of those things that reach us from without according to nature: such as the virtues and the vices, for which men are either praised and rewarded or reproved and punished. All our knowledge, therefore, of every kind has to be acquired. But this is not the place to inquire into the first principles of knowledge.
I believe, however, that it will not be useless if I premise a few words as to whence and how our knowledge reaches us, both with a view to rendering what I shall say on the subject of generation more readily intelligible, and of removing any doubts that may arise out of this opinion of the Stagirite,[125] who asserts that all doctrine and discipline based on reason are derived from antecedent knowledge; whence it seems to follow that there is either no first knowledge, or that this must be innate, a conclusion which is in contradiction with what has already been stated.
The doubt, however, is by and by resolved by Aristotle[126] himself, when he treats of the mode in which knowledge is acquired: for after he has taught that all certain knowledge is obtained through syllogism and demonstration, and made it manifest that every demonstrative syllogism proceeds from true and necessary first principles; he goes on to inquire how principles become known, and what the faculty is that knows; at the same time, too, he discusses the question, Whether habits, if not innate, are engendered; and whether, being innate, they lie concealed? “We have not,” he says, “these habits; for it happens that they are concealed from those who acquire the most admirable kinds of knowledge through demonstration. If, however, we receive them, not having had them previously, how should we become informed, how learn from non-antecedent knowledge? It is obvious, therefore, that they are neither possessed, nor can they be engendered in the ignorant and those who are endowed with no habit. Whence it is essential that some faculty be possessed, not however any which were more excellent, more exquisite than they. Now it seems a thing common to all animals, that they have a congenital power of judging, which we call sense. Since sense is innate, then, the things perceived by sense remain in some animals; in others they do not remain. Those in whom they do not remain, however, have either no knowledge at all, or at least none beyond the simple perception of the things which do not remain; others, again, when they perceive, retain a certain something in their soul. Now, as there are many animals of this description, there is already a distinction between one animal and another; and to this extent, that in some there is reason from the memory of things; and in others there is none. Memory, therefore, as is said, follows from sense; but from repeated recollection of the same thing springs experience (for repeated acts of memory constitute a single experience). From experience, however, or from the whole and universal stored quietly in the mind, (one, to wit, in place of a multitude—because in the whole crowd of particulars there is one and the same universal,) is derived the principle of art and of science: of art, if it belong to production (i. e. action); of science, if it belong to that which is (i. e. the knowledge of entity). Consequently there are neither any definite habits that are innate, nor any habits that are formed from other and more known habits, but from sense.”
From which words of Aristotle it plainly appears by what order or method any art or science is acquired, viz. The thing perceived by sense remains; from the permanence of the thing perceived results memory; from multiplied memory, experience; from experience, universal reason, definitions, and maxims or common axioms, the most certain principles of knowledge; for example, the same thing under like conditions cannot be and not be; every affirmation or negation is either true or false; and so on.
Wherefore, as we have said above, there is no perfect knowledge which can be entitled ours, that is innate; none but what has been obtained from experience, or derived in some way from our senses; all knowledge, at all events, is examined by these, approved by them, and finally presents itself to us firmly grounded upon some pre-existing knowledge which we possessed: because without memory there is no experience, which is nothing else than reiterated memory; in like manner memory cannot exist without endurance of the things perceived, and the thing perceived cannot remain where it has never been.
The supreme dictator in philosophy again and elsewhere expresses himself very elegantly in the same direction:[127] “All men desire by nature to know; the evidence of this is the pleasure they take in using their senses, among which the sight is that which is particularly preferred, because this especially serves us to acquire knowledge, and informs us of the greatest number of differences. Nature, therefore, endowed animals with sense; some of them, however, have no memory from the operations of their senses; others, again, have memory; and this is the reason wherefore some are more intelligent, and some more capable of receiving instruction than others, those, namely, that want recollection. Some show discretion independently of tuition: inasmuch as there are many that do not hear, such as bees and others of the same kind. But all animals which along with memory have the faculty of hearing are susceptible of education. Other creatures, again, live possessed of fancy and memory, but they have little store of experience; the human kind, however, have both art and reasoning. Now experience comes to man through memory; for many memories of the same thing have the force of a single experience: so that experience appears to be almost identical with certain kinds of art and science;[128] and, indeed, men acquire both art and science by experience: for experience, as Polus rightly remarks, begets art, inexperience is waited on by accident.”
By this he plainly tells us that no one can truly be entitled discreet or well-informed, who does not of his own experience, i. e. from repeated memory, frequent perception by sense, and diligent observation, know that a thing is so in fact. Without these, indeed, we only imagine or believe, and such knowledge is rather to be accounted as belonging to others than to us. The method of investigating truth commonly pursued at this time therefore is to be held as erroneous and almost foolish, in which so many inquire what others have said, and omit to ask whether the things themselves be actually so or not; and single universal conclusions being deduced from several premises, and analogies being thence shaped out, we have frequently mere verisimilitudes handed down to us instead of positive truths. Whence it comes that pretenders to knowledge and sophists, trimming up the discoveries of others, changing the arrangement only, or the language, and adding a few things of no importance, audaciously send them forth as their own, and so render philosophy, which ought to be certain and perspicuous, obscure and intricate. For he who reads the words of an author and fails, through his own senses, to obtain images of the things that are conveyed in these words, derives not true ideas, but false fancies and empty visions; whence he conjures up shadows and chimeras, and his whole theory or contemplation, which, however, he regards as knowledge, is nothing more than a waking dream, or such a delirium as the sick fancy engenders.
I therefore whisper in your ear, friendly reader, and recommend you to weigh carefully in the balance of exact experience all that I shall deliver in these Exercises on the Generation of Animals; I would not that you gave credit to aught they contain save in so far as you find it confirmed and borne out by the unquestionable testimony of your own senses.
The same course is even advised by Aristotle, who, after having gone over a great many particulars about bees, says at length:[129] “That the generation of bees takes place in this way appears both from reason and from those things that are seen to occur in their kind. Still all the incidents have not yet been sufficiently examined. And when the investigation shall be complete, then will sense be rather to be trusted than reason; reason, however, will also deserve credit, if the things demonstrated accord with the things that are perceived by sense.”