The organ of thought, prior to experience, may be compared to an untouched piano, in which it may be properly said that music is innate, inasmuch as its mechanism contains, potentially, so many octaves of musical notes.

The unknown cause of sensation which Descartes calls the "je ne sais quoi dans les objets" or "choses telles qu'elles sont," and Kant the "Noumenon" or "Ding an sich," is represented by the musician; who, by touching the keys, converts the potentiality of the mechanism into actual sounds.

A note so produced is the equivalent of a single experience.
All the melodies and harmonies that proceed from the piano depend upon the action of the musician upon the keys.

There is no internal mechanism which, when certain keys are struck, gives rise to an accompaniment of which the musician is only indirectly the cause.

According to Descartes, however--and this is what is generally fixed upon as the essence of his doctrine of innate ideas--the mind possesses such an internal mechanism, by which certain classes of thoughts are generated, on the occasion of certain experiences.