and existed before; but because, being once made about Abstract ideas so as to be true, they will, whenever they can be supposed to be made again, at any time past or to come, by a mind having those ideas, always actually be true. For, Names being supposed to stand perpetually for the same ideas, and the same ideas having immutably the same habitudes one to another, propositions concerning any Abstract ideas that are once true must needs be eternal verities.

CHAPTER XII.*

OF THE IMPROVEMENT OF OUR KNOWLEDGE.

Knowledge is not from maxims.-It having been the common received opinion amongst men of letters, that Maxims were the foundation of all Knowledge; and that the sciences were each of them built upon certain præcognita, these doctrines thus laid down for foundations of any science were called 'principles,' as the beginnings from which we must set out, and look no farther backwards in our inquiries, as we have already observed.

(The occasion of that opinion.)-One thing which might probably give an occasion to this way of proceeding in other sciences was, as I suppose, the good success it seemed to have in Mathematics, wherein men

Almost the whole of the twelfth Chapter is recapitulation. But as it is a good practical summing up, the amount of matter is not here reduced by more than about one-fourth.-ED.

being observed to attain a great certainty of Knowledge, these sciences came by pre-eminence to be called μaluara, and μános-learning,' or 'things learned' thoroughly learned,' as having, of all others, the greatest certainty, clearness, and evidence in them.

But from comparing clear* and distinct ideas.—But if any one will consider, he will find that the great advancement and certainty of Real Knowledge, which men arrived to in these sciences, was not owing to the influence of these principles,' nor derived from any peculiar advantage they received from two or three general Maxims laid down in the beginning; but from the clear, distinct, complete ideas [which] their thoughts were employed about, and the relation of equality and excess so clear between some of them, that they had an Intuitive Knowledge, and by that a way to discover it in others, and this without the help of those Maxims. These general rules are but the comparing our more general and Abstract ideas, which are the workmanship of the mind-made, and [having] names given to them, for the easier despatch in its reasonings and drawing into comprehensive terms and short rules its various and multiplied observations. But Knowledge began in the mind: and was founded on particulars, though afterwards, perhaps, no notice be taken thereof; it being natural for the mind (forward still to enlarge its knowledge) most attentively to lay up those general notions, and make the proper use of them, which is to dis

The word 'principles' is sometimes found here, as the noun joined with clear.'-ED.

burthen the memory of the cumbersome load of particulars.

Dangerous to build upon precarious principles.-That which I have here to do is-to inquire whether, [even] if it be [granted that] the readiest way to knowledge [is] to begin with general Maxims and build upon them, it be yet a safe way to take the 'principles' which are laid down in any other science as unquestionable truths; and so receive them without examination, and adhere to them without suffering [them] to be doubted, because mathematicians have been so happy, or so fair, [as] to use none but self-evident and undeniable. If this be so, I know not what may not pass for truth in Morality—what may not be introduced and proved in Natural Philosophy.

Let any one (with Polemo) take the world—or (with the Stoics) the æther or the sun-or (with Anaximenes) the air-to be God, and what a divinity, religion, and worship must we needs have! Nothing can be so dangerous as principles thus taken up without questioning or examination: especially if they be such as concern morality; which influence* men's lives, and give* a bias to all their actions. Who might not justly expect another kind of life in Aristippus, who placed happiness in bodily pleasure,' [than] in Antisthenes, who made virtue' sufficient to felicity? And he, who, with Plato, shall place beatitude in the knowledge of

*

The readings here are indifferently influence' and 'influences, 'give' and 'gives.' The argument, however, seems to be more assisted by referring the verbal-notion to 'principles' than to morality :' and the punctuation is adjusted accordingly.—ED.

God,' will have his thoughts raised to other contemplations than those who look not beyond this spot of earth, and those perishing things which are to be had in it. He that, with Archelaus, shall lay it down as a principle, that right and wrong, honest and dishonest, are defined only by laws, and not by nature,' will have other measures of moral rectitude and pravity than those who take it for granted that 'we are under obligations antecedent to all human constitutions.'

This is no certain way to truth. If therefore those that pass for 'principles' are not certain (which we must have some way to know, that we may able to distinguish them from those that are doubtful), but are only made so to us by our blind assent, we are liable to be misled by them; and, instead of being guided into truth, we shall, by principles,' be only confirmed in mistake and error.

6

But to compare clear, complete ideas under steady names. -But since the knowledge of the certainty of principles,' as well as of all other truths, depends only upon the perception we have of the agreement or disagreement of our ideas, the way to improve our Knowledge is not, I am sure, blindly, and with an implicit faith, to receive and swallow 'principles;' but is, I think-[1.] to get and fix in our minds clear, distinct, and complete ideas, as far as they are to be had, and annex to them proper and constant Names. And thus, perhaps, without any other 'principles,' but barely considering those ideas, and by comparing them one with another, finding their agreement and disagreement, and their several relations and habitudes, [i. e. chiefly by studying [2.]

to discover proofs*] we shall get more true and clear Knowledge by the conduct of this one rule, than by taking up 'principles,' and thereby putting our minds [at] the disposal of others.

The true method of advancing knowledge is, by considering our abstract ideas.—We must therefore, if we will proceed as Reason advises, adapt our methods of inquiry to the nature of the ideas we examine, and the truth we search after. General and certain Truths are only founded in the habitudes and relations of Abstract ideas. A sagacious and methodical application of our thoughts, for the finding out these Relations, is the only way to discover all that can be put, with truth and certainty, concerning them, into General Propositions. By what steps we are to proceed in these is to be learned in the schools of the mathematicians, who, from very plain and easy beginnings, by gentle degrees, and a continued chain of reasonings, proceed to the discovery and demonstration of truths that appear at first sight beyond human capacity. The art of finding proofs, and the admirable methods they have invented for the singling out and laying in order those intermediate ideas that demonstratively show the equality or inequality of inapplicable quantities is that which has carried them so far, and produced such wonderful and unexpected discoveries: but whether something like this, in respect of other ideas, as well as those of magnitude, may not in time be found out, I will not determine. This, I think I may say that if other ideas, that are the Real as well as Nominal Essences of their

* See page 309.