  Looking at Locke as the voice for the other side of the controversy, we find a very different set of motivations. Nativism makes understanding seem too much like inherited wealth. It suggests that without our innate legacy we would not have the resources to understand the world we live in. To this extent, Nativism stands against the ethos of individual initiative. It can also be too easily abused as a tool of intellectual authoritarianism, because those who are not up to the task of uncovering these rarified innate truths must take their lead from those who are. For the Empiricist this is an invitation to superstition, obscurity, and abuse. The Empiricist does not see our understanding as in any way given to us as a gift. It is the product of our individual labor. God has given all of us the general ability to reason, and this includes the ability to acquire knowledge from experience; it is our job to exercise that ability. We fully own our knowledge: we collect the raw materials and add our mental labor to create it. Locke is more drawn to the dignity of the worker than to the status of the aristocrat who has received a special inherited honor.