That the mind remains a blank tablet when one is a child is not acceptable to the Vedanta, for the mind of even a child is filled with several impressions of past lives, though dormant and unexpressed. We have examples of child-geniuses, which defy Locke's theory of crass empiricism. If we understand by innate ideas those lying latent in the mind, being results of experiences one had in previous lives, we cannot deny that innate ideas are present even in the mind of a child. Not only this; we have innate ideas of a different kind, too. The conviction that we have in regard to the existence of an experiencing self and as its implication the existence of God is certainly not derived from sense-experience. It is embedded in our minds as a necessary and universal truth. Even the truths of mathematics and logic are not exclusively derived from sense-experience. Though the material necessary for the formulation of mathematical and logical laws is received by us through sensations, the laws themselves are not got from empirical observation; they are inherent in the mind itself as its essential make-up and method of working. Kant has shown how empiricism does not give us the whole of truth.

Locke merely states that matter exists, though it cannot be known independent of the primary and the secondary qualities. It only means that we know only these qualities and to posit a matter beyond them is unwarranted. It would mean that we know the existence of substances through inference and not perception. The secondary qualities are the effects of a mutual interaction of the perceiving subject and the perceived object and thus do not form properties of matter. The same thing can be said of the primary qualities, for they too are known to us only through the senses. Thus even the primary qualities would not give us a true representation of things as such. If it is said that extension, solidity etc. are universally perceived, we may say that colours, sounds etc. are too perceived universally. And if it is said that colours, sounds etc. are not perceived to be the essential properties of things, we add that there is no warrant whatsoever to consider even the primary qualities as the essential properties of things. The primary qualities too are just reactions produced by the interaction of the subject and the object. We never perceive the primary qualities without the secondary qualities. By this it would mean that we cannot make a distinction between the primary and the secondary qualities, which means that we know nothing real in itself, and that we cannot know anything beyond these qualities. Locke could not anticipate the consequences of his suppositions; we notice these when his views are carried to their logical limits by Berkeley and Hume.

Locke thinks that the moral ideas come to us from outside, and that there is no absolute necessity or universality about them. As with the knowledge of objects outside, so with the moral commands. They do not come from within but from without. Locke says that we teach moral precepts to children who, when they grow up, think that these precepts are received from God or from the inner conscience. Right and wrong are notions framed in accordance with the laws learnt form outside. People frame these rules keeping in view the acquisition of happiness and the avoidance of pain. Locke's view is that what tends to pleasure is called by us good and what brings pain evil. Public happiness and the happiness of oneself determine goodness. Locke says that God has so arranged things that virtue and happiness go together, so that virtue is necessary for the attainment of happiness. When the public approve of an act we call it virtuous. The Vedanta, on the other hand, tells us that ethics is based on the metaphysics of reality. Morality is not what is sanctioned by public opinion or what is conducive to mere pleasure or happiness. The right is that which directly or indirectly becomes conducive to the realisation of the Absolute and has nothing to do with the social position of man. It may be true that we learn many of the moral principles by receiving instructions from others, but this does not mean in any way that these principles are just conventional rules and have no absolute validity. What is taught as a moral precept is expected to conform to the law of the Self-realisation of the individual. Moreover, there are certain moral principles which present themselves as inner commands, though these commands can be known only by a highly cultured and purified conscience and understanding. To the Vedanta, what is good or virtuous is not what is merely considered to be in accordance with the methods of acquiring social happiness. The Vedanta would agree with the view that virtue is that which tends to happiness only when happiness is understood in the sense of the beatitude of the Absolute. Human happiness is not the goal of virtue or goodness. The Vedanta notices that man is never satisfied with anything that is provided to him in this world, and so there is no such thing as a real happiness which he may seek after. The right or the good has therefore to be defined as that which is conducive to unsurpassed happiness, which is the bliss of God-Being. Even the public good should be in conformity with this highest good, which can be realised only in the Divine. It is needless to say that one's own good is non-different from this. The concomitance of virtue with happiness is not an accidental happening or the result of an arbitrary decree from God outside. Virtue is the name we give to the nature of our thoughts, words and actions when they conform to the law of the attainment of real happiness, which is the centre of Absolute-Experience. It is not fear of punishment that determines virtue or goodness but a higher need, which is a manifestation of the supreme urge for Self-realisation. We may have individual morality, social morality, political morality or different provinces of application of the moral principles, but all these have to be in perfect agreement with the universal law of the Absolute. What we call virtue, goodness or a moral law is not a creature of man's mind, but the very form that is taken in this world by the universal law of the Divine. All crave for unlimited happiness, though it cannot be had in this world. This eternal longing points to the existence of a Supreme Being in which all our aspirations find their consummation.