able verities, they on occasion made use of, to convince them of truths in particular instances that were not so familiar to their minds as those general axioms which had before been inculcated to them, and carefully settled in their minds. Though these particular instances, when well reflected on, are no less self-evident to the understanding than the general maxims brought to confirm them and it was in those particular instances that the first discoverer found the truth, without the help of the general maxims : and so may any one else do, who with attention considers them. To come, therefore, to the use that is made of maxims. 1. They are of use, as has been observed, in the ordinary metheds of teaching sciences as far as they are advanced, but of little or none in advancing them farther. 2. They are of use in disputes, for the silencing of obstinate wranglers, and bringing those contests to some conclusion. Whether a need of them to that end came not in, in the manner following, I crave leave to inquire. The schools having made disputation the touchstone of men's abilities, and the criterion of knowledge, adjudged victory to him that kept the field; and he that had the last word, was concluded to have the better of the argument, if not of the cause. But because by this means there was like to be no decision between skilful combatants, whilst one never failed of a medius terminus to prove any proposition, and the other could as constantly, without or with a distinction, deny the major or minor; to prevent, as much as could be, the running out of disputes into an endless train of syllogisms, certain general propositions, most of them indeed self-evident, were introduced into the schools; which being such as all men allowed and agreed in, were looked on as general measures of truth, and served instead of principles (where the disputants had not laid down any other between them) beyond which there was no going, and which must not be receded from by either side. And thus these maxims getting the name of principles, beyond which men in dispute could not retreat, were by mistake taken to be the originals and sources from whence all knowledge began, and the foundations whereon the sciences were built. Because, when in their disputes they came to any of these, they stopped there, and went no farther, the matter was determined. But how much this is a mistake hath been already shown. This method of the schools, which have been thought the fountains of knowledge, introduced, as I suppose, the like use of these maxims into a great part of conversation out of the schools, to stop the mouths of cavillers, whom any one is excused from arguing any longer with, when they deny these general self-evident principles received by all reasonable men, who have once thought of them but yet their use herein is but to put an end to wrangling. They in truth, when urged in such cases, teach nothing: that is already done by the intermediate ideas made use of in the debate, whose connection may be seen without the help of those maxims, and so the truth known before the maxim is produced, and the argument brought to a first principle. Men would give off a wrong argument before it came to that, if in their disputes they proposed to themselves the finding and embracing of truth, and not a contest for victory. And thus maxims have their use to put a stop to their perverseness, whose ingenuity should have yielded sooner. But the method of the schools having allowed and encouraged men to oppose and resist evident truth till they are baffled, i. e. till they are reduced to contradict themselves or some established principle; it is no wonder that they should not in civil conversation be ashamed of that, which in the schools is counted a virtue and a glory; viz. obstinately to maintain that side of the question they have chosen, whether true or false, to the last extremity; even after conviction. A strange way to attain truth and knowledge: and that which I think the rational part of mankind, not corrupted by education, could scarce believe should ever be admitted amongst the lovers of truth, and students of religion or nature; or introduced into the seminaries of those who are to propagate the truths of religion or philosophy amongst the ignorant and unconvinced. How much such a way of learning is likely to turn young men's minds from the sincere search and love of truth; nay, and to make them doubt whether there is any such thing, or at least worth the adhering to, I shall not now inquire. This I think, that bating those places, which brought the peripatetic philosophy into their schools, where it continued many ages, without teaching the world any thing but the art of wrangling; these maxims were no where thought the foundations on which the sciences were built, nor the great helps to the advancement of knowledge. As to these general maxims, therefore, they are, as I have said, of great use in disputes to stop the mouths of wrangiers; but not of much use to the discovery of unknown truths, or to help the mind forwards in its search after knowledge. For whoever be gan to build his knowledge on this general proposition, what is, is : or, it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to bex and from either of these, as from a principle of science, deduced a system of useful knowledge? Wrong opinions often involving contradictions, one of these maxims, as a touchstone, may serve well to show whither they lead. But yet, however fit to lay open the absurdity or mistake of a man's reasoning or opinion, they are of very little use for enlightening the understanding and it will not be found, that the mind receives much help from them in its progress in knowledge; which would be neither less, nor less certain, were these two general propositions never thought on. It is true, as I have said, they sometimes serve in argumentation to stop a wrangler's mouth, by showing the absurdity of what he saith, and by exposing him to the shame of contradicting what all the world knows, and he himself cannot but own to be true. But it is one thing to show a man that he is in an error, and another to put him in possession of truth: and I would fain know what truths these two propositions are able to teach, and by their influence make us know, which we did not know before, or could not know without them. Let us reason from them as well as we can, they are only about identical predications, and influence, if any at all, none but such. Each particular proposition concerning identity or diversity, is as clearly and certainly known in itself, if attended to, as either of these general ones: only these general ones, as serving in all cases, are therefore more inculcated and insisted on. As to other less general maxims, many of them are no more than bare verbal propositions, and teach us nothing but the respect and import of names one to another. The whole is equal to all its parts: what real truth, I beseech you, does it teach us? What more than what the signification of the word totum, or the whole, does of itself import? And he that knows that the word whole stands for what is made up of all its parts, knows very little less, thàn that the whole is equal to all its parts. And upon the same ground, I think that this proposition, a hill is higher than a valley, and several the like, may also pass for maxims. But yet masters of mathematics, when they would, as teachers of what they know, initiate others in that science, do not without reason place this, and some other such maxims, at the entrance of their systems : that their scholars, having in the beginning perfectly acquainted their thoughts with these propositions made in such general is contained in that maxim terms, may be used to make such reflections, and have these more general propositions, as formed rules and sayings, ready to apply to all particular cases. Not that if they be equally weighed, they are more clear and evident than the particular instances they are brought to confirm; but that being more familiar to the mind, the very naming them is enough to satisfy the understanding. But this, I say, is more from our custom of using them, and the establishment they have got in our minds by our often thinking of them, than from the different evidence of the things. But before custom has settled methods of thinking and reasoning in our minds, I am apt to imagine it is quite otherwise; and that the child, when a part of his apple is taken away, knows it better in that particular instance, than by this general proposition, the whole is equal to all its parts; and that if one of these have need to be confirmed to him by the other, the general has more need to be let into his mind by the particular, than the particular by the general. For in particulars our knowledge begins, and so spreads itself by degrees to generals. Though afterwards the mind takes the quite contrary course, and having drawn his knowledge into as general propositions as it can, makes those familiar to its thoughts, and accustoms itself to have recourse to them, as to the standards of truth and falsehood. By which familiar use of them, as rules to measure the truth of other propositions, it comes in time to be thought, that more particular propositions have their truth and evidence from their conformity to these more general ones, which in discourse and argumentation, are so frequently urged, and constantly admitted. And this I think to be the reason why amongst so many self-evident propositions, the most general only have had the title of maxims. § 12. Maxims, if care be not taken in the use of words, may prove contradictions. ONE thing farther, I think, it may not be amiss to observe concerning these general maxims, that they are so far from improving or establishing our minds in true knowledge, that if our notions be wrong, loose, or unsteady, and we resign up our thoughts to the sound of words, rather than fix them on settled determined ideas of things I say these general maxims will serve to confirm us in mistakes; and in such a way of use of words, which is most common, will serve to prove contradictions: v. g. he that, with Des Cartes, shall frame in his mind an idea of what he calls body, to be nothing but extension, may easily demonstrate that there is no vacuum, i. e. no space void of body, by this maxim, what is is. For the idea to which he annexes the name body, being bare extension, his knowledge, that space cannot be without body, is certain. For he knows his own idea of extension clearly and distinctly, and knows that it is what it is, and not another idea, though it be called by these three names, extension, body, space. Which three words, standing for one and the same idea, may no doubt, with the same evidence and certainty, be affirmed one of another, as each of itself: and it is as certain, that whilst I use them all to stand for one and the same idea, this predication is as true and identical in its signification, that space is body, as this predication is true and identical, that body is body, both in signification and sound. § 13. Instance in vacuum. But if another shall come, and make to himself another idea different from Des Cartes's, of the thing, which yet, with Des Cartes, he calls by the same name body; and make his idea, which he expresses by the word body, to be of a thing that hath both extension and solidity together; he will as easily demonstrate, that there may be a vacuum, or space without a body, as Des Cartes demonstrated the contrary. Because the idea, to which he gives the name space, being barely the simple one of extension; and the idea, to which he gives the name body, being the complex idea of extension and resistibility, or solidity, together in the same subject, these two ideas are not exactly one and the same, but in the understanding as distinct as the ideas of one and two, white and black, or as of corporeity and humanity, if I may use those barbarous terms: and therefore the predication of them in our minds, or in words standing for them is not identical, but the negation of them one of another: viz. this proposition, extension or space is not body, is as true, and evidently certain, as this maxim, it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be, can make any proposition. § 14. They prove not the existence of things without us. BUT yet, though both these propositions (as you see) may be equally demonstrated, viz. that there may be a vacuum, and that there cannot be a vacuum, by these two certain principles, viz. what is is; and the same thing cannot be and not be: yet neither of these principles will serve to prove to us, that any, or what bodies do exist for that we are left to our senses, to discover to us as far as they can. Those universal and self-evident principles, being only our constant, clear, and distinct knowledge of our own ideas, : |