changeling is a man, has a rational foul, though it appear not; this is past doubt, say you. Make the ears a little longer, and more pointed, and the nose a little flatter than ordinary, and then you begin to boggle: make the face yet narrower, flatter and longer, and then you are at a stand: add ftill more and more of the likeness of a brute to it, and let the head be perfectly that of fome other animal, then presently it is a monster; and it is demonstration with you that it hath no rational foul, and must be deftroyed. Where now (I afk) fhall be the just measure of the utmost bounds of that shape, that carries with it a rational foul? For fince there have been human fetus's produced, half beaft and half man; and others three parts one, and one part the other; and fo it is poffible they may be in all the variety of approaches to the one or the other fhape, and may have feveral degrees of mixture of the likeness of a man or a brute; I would gladly know what are thofe precife lineaments, which according to this hypothefis, are or are not capable of a rational foul to be joined to them? What fort of outfide is the certain fign that there is or is not fuch an inhabitant within? for till that be done, we talk at random of man, and shall always, I fear, do fo, as long as we give ourselves up to certain founds, and the imaginations of fettled and fixed fpecies in nature, we know not what. But after all, I defire it may be confidered, that those who think they have answered the difficulty by telling us, that a mishaped fœtus is a monster, run into the fame fault they are arguing against, by confiituting a fpecies between man and beaft; for what elfe, I pray, is their monster in the cafe (if the word monster fignifies any thing at all), but fomething neither man nor beaft, but partaking fomewhat of either? And just fo is the changeling before-mentioned. So neceffary is it to quit the common notion of fpecies and effences, if we will truly look into the nature of things, and examine them, by what our faculties can discover in them as they exift, and not by

groundless fancies, that have been taken up about them.

17. Words and Species.

I HAVE mentioned this here, because I think we cannot be too cautious that words and fpecies, in the ordinary notions which we have been used to of them, impofe not upon us. For I am apt to think, therein lies one great obftacle to our clear and diftinct knowledge, especially in reference to fubftances; and from thence has rofe a great part of the difficulties about truth and certainty. Would we accuftom ourfelves to separate our contemplations and reafonings from words, we might, in a great meafure, remedy this inconvenience within our own thoughts; but yet it would ftill disturb us in our difcourfe with others, as long as we retained the opinion, that species and their effences were any thing else but our abstract ideas (such as they are) with names annexed to them, to be the figns of them.

$ 18. Recapitulation.

WHEREVER we perceive the agreement or difagreement of any of our ideas, there is certain knowledge; and wherever we are fure thofe ideas agree with the reality of things, there is certain real knowledge. Of which agreement of our ideas with the reality of things, having here given the marks, I think I have fhown wherein it is, that certainty, real certainty confifts; which, whatever it was to others, was, confefs, to me heretofore, one of thofe defiderata which I found great want of.

WH

CHAP. V.

OF TRUTH IN GENERAL.

§. 1. What Truth is.

THAT is truth, was an inquiry many ages. fince; and it being that which all mankind either do or pretend to fearch after, it cannot but be worth our while carefully to examine wherein it con

fifts, and fo acquaint ourselves with the nature of it, as to obferve how the mind diftinguishes it from falfehood.

§ 2. A right joining or feparating of Signs; i. e.

Ideas or Words.

TRUTH then seems to me, in the proper import of the word, to fignify nothing but the joining or feparating of figns, as the things fignified by them do agree or difagree one with another. The joining or feparating of figns here meant, is what by another name we call propofition; so that truth properly belongs only to propofitions; whereof there are two forts, vix. mental and verbal, as there are two forts of figns commonly made use of, viz. ideas and words.

§3. Which make mental or verbal Propofitions. To form a clear notion of truth, it is very neceffary to confider truth of thought, and truth of words, diflinctly one from another; but yet it is very difficult to treat of them afunder; because it is unavoidable, in treating of mental propofitions, to make ufe of words; and then the instances given of mental propofi tions ceafe immediately to be barely mental, and become verbal. For a mental propofition being nothing but a bare confideration of the ideas, as they are in our minds stripped of names, they lose the nature of purely mental propofitions, as soon as they are put into

words.

§ 4. Mental Propofitions are very hard to be treat

ed of.

AND that which makes it yet harder to treat of mental and verbal propofitions feparately, is, that moft men, if not all, in their thinking and reafonings within themselves, make use of words inftead of ideas; at least when the fubject 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, ferve for a mark to fhow us what are thofe 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 fhall find, I fuppofe, that when we make any propofitions within our own thoughts about white or black, fweet 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 confider, or make propofitions about the more complex ideas, as of a man, vitriol, fortitude, glory, we ufually put the name for the idea; because the ideas thefe names ftand for being for the most part imperfect, confufed, and undetermined, we reflect on the names themselves, because they are more clear, certain and diftinct, and readier occur to our thoughts than the pure ideas; and so we make use of these words inftead of the ideas themfelves, even when we would meditate and reafon within ourselves, and make tacit mental propofitions. In fubftances, as has been already noted, this is occafioned by the imperfection of our ideas; we making the name ftand for the real effence, of which we have no idea at all. In modes, it is occafioned by the great number of fimple ideas that go to the making them up; for many of them being compounded, the name occurs much eafier than the complex idea itself, which requires time and attention to be recollected, and exactly represented to the mind, even in those men who have formerly been at the pains to do it; and is utterly impoffible to be done by thofe, who, though they have ready in their memory the greatest part of the common words of their language, yet perhaps never troubled themfelves in all their lives to confider what precise ideas the most of them ftood for. Some confufed or obfcure notions have ferved their turns; and many who talk very much of religion and conScience, of church and faith, of power and right, of obftructions and humours, melancholy and choler, would perhaps have little left in their thoughts and meditations, if one should defire them to think only of the things themselves, and lay by those words, with which they fo often confound others, and not feldom themselves alfo.

$5. Being nothing but the joining or feparating Ideas without Words.

Bur to return to the confideration of truth; we muft, I say, obferve two forts of propofitions that we are capable of making.

Firft, Mental, wherein the ideas in our understandings are without the use of words put together, or feparated by the mind, perceiving or judging of their agreement or disagreement.

Secondly, Verbal propofitions, which are words, the figns of our ideas, put together or Separated in affirmative or negative fentences. By which way of affirming or denying, these figns, made by founds, are as it were put together or feparated one from another. So that propofition confifts in joining or feparating figns, and truth confists in the putting together or feparating thofe figns, according as the things which they stand for agree or disagree.

§ 6. When mental Propofitions contain real Truth, and when verbal.

EVERY one's experience will fatisfy him, that the mind, either, by perceiving or fuppofing the agreement or difagreement of any of its ideas, does tacitly within itself put them into a kind of propofition affirmative or negative, which I have endeavoured to exprefs by the terms, putting together and feparating; but this action of the mind, which is fo familiar to every think, ing and reafoning man, is eafier to be conceived by reflecting on what paffes in us when we affirm or deny, than to be explained by words. When a man has in his mind the idea of two lines, viz. the fide and diagonal of a square, whereof the diagonal is an inch long, he may have the idea alfo of the divifion of that line into a certain number of equal parts; v. g. into five, ten, an hundred, a thousand, or any other number, and may have the idea of that inch-line being divifible or not divifible, into fuch equal parts, as a certain number of them will be equal to the fide-line. Now, whenever he perceives, believes, or fuppofes fuch a kind of divifibility to agree or difagree to his idea of