These readings include chapters 3 and 4 of Locke's famous work, An Essay on Human Understanding. Chapter 3 talks about the impossibility of having innate practical principles. It is important to distinguish that this chapter is very different from the previous one, which was chapter 2. Chapter 2 talked about the impossibility of having innate speculative principles. This refers to a speculative reason. Speculative reason is theoretical, certain and does not actually depend on life. It is the one that gives an individual the universal truths of life and the principles of logic. This chapter, on the other hand, talks about practical reason. This type of reason is active, involved and dependent on a human's life. It is the one that guides a human and helps them decide what to do with things. So, in a sense, speculative principles are those that speak to theory in general and practical principles, as their name indicates, are those that put those principles into practice in life. As Locke said in the previous chapter, it is completely impossible for us to be born with these innate principles in our minds. Locke gives 27 statements in this chapter to defend his point of view. Reviewing them all would not be of much use as this presentation would amount to a reduced and compressed version of the readings. Instead, we will see the main points of his argument. Locke begins by asserting that if speculative principles are not innate and accepted by all humanity, it follows that the moral principles of the world are not accepted by all humanity. It is then obvious that they are not innate in humans. Further still, he explains that speculative maxims do indeed contain some truth in themselves, but in the middle of the article there is an argument which states that the differences between men's discoveries depend on the application of their faculties. . It's really self-explanatory. This simply means that the reason men make different discoveries is that each applies his faculty to what pleases him most. They decide where to apply their skills and knowledge. The chapter ends by saying that men should think for themselves and apply reason to their lives. This means questioning principles, not taking everything for granted and not believing that they are born with innate ideas. For this reason, Locke ends his readings by telling the reader not to assume that the ideas presented are not true. It encourages the reader to draw their own conclusions and determine for themselves whether Locke's ideas are absolutely true or not.