'Tis to this zeal, allowable in his function, that I forgive his
citing as he does these words of mine (ch. xxviii. sect. II): "Even
the exhortations of inspired teachers have not feared to appeal to
common repute, Philip. iv. 8"; without taking notice of those
immediately preceding, which introduce them, and run thus: "Whereby
even in the corruption of manners, the true boundaries of the law of
nature, which ought to be the rule of virtue and vice, were pretty
well preserved. So that even the exhortations of inspired teachers,"
&c. By which words, and the rest of that section, it is plain that I
brought that passage of St. Paul, not to prove that the general
measure of what men called virtue and vice throughout the world was,
the reputation and fashion of each particular society within itself;
but to show that, though it were so, yet, for reasons I there give,
men, in that way of denominating their actions, did not for the most
part much stray from the Law of Nature; which is that standing and
unalterable rule by which they ought to judge of the moral rectitude
and gravity of their actions, and accordingly denominate them
virtues or vices. Had Mr. Lowde considered this, he would have found
it little to his purpose to have quoted this passage in a sense I used
it not; and would I imagine have spared the application he subjoins to
it, as not very necessary. But I hope this Second Edition will give
him satisfaction on the point, and that this matter is now so
expressed as to show him there was no cause for scruple.

  Though I am forced to differ from him in these apprehensions he
has expressed, in the latter end of his preface, concerning what I had
said about virtue and vice, yet we are better agreed than he thinks in
what he says in his third chapter (p. 78) concerning "natural
inscription and innate notions." I shall not deny him the privilege he
claims (p. 52), to state the question as he pleases, especially when
he states it so as to leave nothing in it contrary to what I have
said. For, according to him, "innate notions, being conditional
things, depending upon the concurrence of several other
circumstances in order to the soul's exerting them," all that he
says for "innate, imprinted, impressed notions" (for of innate ideas
he says nothing at all), amounts at last only to this- that there
are certain propositions which, though the soul from the beginning, or
when a man is born, does not know, yet "by assistance from the outward
senses, and the help of some previous cultivation," it may
afterwards come certainly to know the truth of; which is no more
than what I have affirmed in my First Book. For I suppose by the
"soul's exerting them," he means its beginning to know them; or else
the soul's "exerting of notions" will be to me a very unintelligible
expression; and I think at best is a very unfit one in this, it
misleading men's thoughts by an insinuation, as if these notions
were in the mind before the "soul exerts them," i.e. before they are
known;- whereas truly before they are known, there is nothing of
them in the mind but a capacity to know them, when the "concurrence of
those circumstances," which this ingenious author thinks necessary "in
order to the soul's exerting them," brings them into our knowledge.

  P. 52 I find him express it thus: "These natural notions are not
so imprinted upon the soul as that they naturally and necessarily
exert themselves (even in children and idiots) without any
assistance from the outward senses, or without the help of some
previous cultivation." Here, he says, they exert themselves, as p. 78,
that the "soul exerts them." When he has explained to himself or
others what he means by "the soul's exerting innate notions," or their
"exerting themselves"; and what that "previous cultivation and
circumstances" in order to their being exerted are- he will I
suppose find there is so little of controversy between him and me on
the point, bating that he calls that "exerting of notions" which I
in a more vulgar style call "knowing," that I have reason to think
he brought in my name on this occasion only out of the pleasure he has
to speak civilly of me; which I must gratefully acknowledge he has
done everywhere he mentions me, not without conferring on me, as
some others have done, a title I have no right to.

  There are so many instances of this, that I think it justice to my
reader and myself to conclude, that either my book is plainly enough
written to be rightly understood by those who peruse it with that
attention and indifferency, which every one who will give himself
the pains to read ought to employ in reading; or else that I have
written mine so obscurely that it is in vain to go about to mend it.
Whichever of these be the truth, it is myself only am affected
thereby; and therefore I shall be far from troubling my reader with
what I think might be said in answer to those several objections I
have met with, to passages here and there of my book; since I persuade
myself that he who thinks them of moment enough to be concerned
whether they are true or false, will be able to see that what is
said is either not well founded, or else not contrary to my
doctrine, when I and my opposer come both to be well understood.

  If any other authors, careful that none of their good thoughts
should be lost, have published their censures of my Essay, with this
honour done to it, that they will not suffer it to be an essay, I
leave it to the public to value the obligation they have to their
critical pens, and shall not waste my reader's time in so idle or
ill-natured an employment of mine, as to lessen the satisfaction any
one has in himself, or gives to others, in so hasty a confutation of
what I have written.

  The booksellers preparing for the Fourth Edition of my Essay, gave
me notice of it, that I might, if I had leisure, make any additions or
alterations I should think fit. Whereupon I thought it convenient to
advertise the reader, that besides several corrections I had made here
and there, there was one alteration which it was necessary to mention,
because it ran through the whole book, and is of consequence to be
rightly understood. What I thereupon said was this:-