10. Traditional testimonies, the farther removed, the less their 11. Yet history is of great use. 12. In things, which sense cannot discover, analogy is the 13. One case, where contrary experience lessens not the testi- 14. The bare testimony of revelation is the highest certainty. 4. Syllogism, not the great instrument of reason. 5. Helps little in demonstration, less in probability. 6. Serves not to increase our knowledge, but fence with it. 7. Other helps should be sought. 8. We reason about particulars. 9. First, reason fails us for want of ideas. 10. Secondly, because of obscure and imperfect ideas. 11. Thirdly, for want of intermediate ideas. 12. Fourthly, because of wrong principles. 13. Fifthly, because of doubtful terms. 14. Our highest degree of knowledge is intuitive, without 15. The next is demonstration by reasoning. 16. To supply the narrowness of this, we have nothing but judgment upon probable reasoning. 17. Intuition, demonstration, judgment. 18. Consequences of words, and consequences of ideas. 19. Four sorts of arguments, first, ad verecundiam. 8. Or not contrary to reason, if revealed, are matter of faith. 9. Revelation in matters where reason cannot judge, or but probably, ought to be hearkened to. 10. In matters, where reason can afford certain knowledge, 11. If the boundaries be not set between faith and reason, no 8, 9. Enthusiasm mistaken for seeing and feeling. 10. Enthusiasm, how to be discovered. 11. Enthusiasm fails of evidence, that the proposition is from 12. Firmness of persuasion, no proof that any proposition is 3. Obj. What shall become of those who want them, answered. 4. People hindered from inquiry. 5. Secondly, want of skill to use them. 6. Thirdly, want of will to use them. 7. Fourthly, wrong measures of probability; whereof, 8-10. First, doubtful propositions, taken from principles. 11. Secondly, received hypotheses. 12. Thirdly, predominant passions. 13. The means of evading probabilities, 1st, supposed fallacy. OF HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. BOOK IV. CONTINUED. CHAPTER V. Of Truth in General. § 1. WHAT is truth was an inquiry What truth many ages since; and it being that which is. all mankind either do, or pretend to search after, it cannot but be worth our while carefully to examine wherein it consists, and so acquaint ourselves with the nature of it, as to observe how the mind distinguishes it from falsehood. A right ideas or § 2. Truth then seems to me, in the proper import of the word, to signify nothing but the joining or separating of signs, as the things signified by them do agree or disagree one with another. The joining or separating of signs, here meant, is what by another name we call proposition. So that truth properly belongs only to propositions: whereof there are two sorts, viz. mental and verbal; as there are two sorts of signs commonly made use of, viz. ideas and words. Which make men tal or verbal § 3. To form a clear notion of truth, it is very necessary to consider truth of thought, and truth of words, distinctly one from another but yet it is very difficult to treat of them asunder; because it is unavoidable, in treating of mental propositions, to make VOL. III. proposi tions. B use of words; and then the instances given of mental propositions cease immediately to be barely mental, and become verbal. For a mental proposition being nothing but a bare consideration of the ideas, as they are in our minds stripped of names, they lose the nature of purely mental propositions as soon as they are put into words. Mental propositions are § 4. And that which makes it yet harder to treat of mental and verbal propositions very hard to separately is, that most men, if not all, be treated of. in their thinking and reasonings within themselves, make use of words instead of ideas; at least when the subject of their meditation contains in it complex ideas. Which is a great evidence of the imperfection and uncertainty of our ideas of that kind, and may, if attentively made use of, serve for a mark to show us, what are those things we have clear. and perfect established ideas of, and what not. For if we will curiously observe the way our mind takes in thinking and reasoning, we shall find, I suppose, that when we make any propositions within our own thoughts about white or black, sweet or bitter, a triangle or a circle, we can and often do frame in our minds the ideas themselves, without reflecting on the names. But when we would consider, or make propositions about the more complex ideas, as of a man, vitriol, fortitude, glory, we usually put the name for the idea: because the ideas these names stand for being for the most part imperfect, confused, and undetermined, we reflect on the names themselves, because they are more clear, certain, and distinct, and readier occur to our thoughts than the pure ideas; and so we make use of these words instead of the ideas themselves, even when we would meditate and reason within ourselves, and make tacit mental propositions. In substances, as has been already noticed, this is occasioned by the imperfection of our ideas; we making the name stand for the real essence, of which we have no idea at all. In modes, it is occa |