From whence it follows that these were notions not
descending from us, but born with us, not our offspring, but our
brethren; and, as I may so say, such as we were taught without the
help of a teacher.
Now it was Adam's happiness in the state of innocence to have these
clear and unsullied. He came into the world a philosopher, which
sufficiently appeared by his writing the nature of things upon their
names; he could view essences in themselves, and read forms without
the comment of their respective properties; he could see consequents
yet dormant in their principles, and effects yet unborn and in the
womb of their causes; his understanding could almost pierce into
future contingents; his conjectures improving even to prophecy, or the
certainties of prediction; till his fall, it was ignorant of nothing
but sin, or at least it rested in the notion, without the smart of the
experiment. Could any difficulty have been proposed, the resolution
would have been as early as the proposal; it could not have had time
to settle into doubt. Like a better Archimedes, the issue of all his
inquiries was a _eureka_, a _eureka_, the offspring of his
brain without the sweat of his brow.
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