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. VI. Intuitive ideas of the intellectual order are not innate, because they are nothing else than the acts of the understanding or will, presented to our perception in reflex consciousness. VII. General determinate ideas are not innate, since they are the representation of intuitions, upon which some act has of necessity been performed. VIII. There is no ground of affirming that general indeterminate ideas, which seem to be acts of the faculty perceptive of objects under a general reason, are innate. IX. All that there is of innate in our mind is sensitive and intellectual activity; but both to be put into motion, require objects to affect them. X. The development of this activity begins with organic affections; and although it goes far beyond the sphere of sensibility, it always remains more or less subject to the conditions imposed by the union of the soul and body. XI. The intellectual activity has _a priori_ conditions totally independent of sensibility, and applicable to all objects, no matter what impressions may have been their cause. The principle of contradiction figures as the first among these conditions.