2. Wherein reasoning con- SECT.

OF

HUMAN UNDERSTANDING.

BOOK IV. CHAP. V.

Of Truth in General.

§. 1. WHAT is truth was an inquiry many What truth ages since; and it being that which all man- is. kind 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.

§. 2. Truth then seems to me, in the A right joinproper import of the word, to signify no- ing or sepathing but the joining or separating of signs, rating of as the things signified by them do agree or ideas or signs, i. e. disagree one with another. The joining or words. 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. f. 3. To form a clear notion of truth, it is very necessary to consider truth of thought, mental or and truth of words, distinctly one from an- verbal proother: but yet it is very difficult to treat of positions. them asunder. Because it is unavoidable, in treating

VOL. III.

B

Whichmake

of mental propositions, to make 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 pro §. 4. And that which makes it yet harder positions are to treat of mental and verbal propositions very hard to separately, is, that most men, if not all, in be treated of. their thinking and reasonings, within them

selves, 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 occasioned by the great number of simple ideas, that go to the making them up. For many of them being compounded, the name occurs

much easier than the complex idea itself, which requires time and attention to be recollected, and exactly repre sented to the mind, even in those men who have formerly been at the pains to do it; and is utterly impossible to be done by those, who, though they have ready in their memory the greatest part of the common words of that language, yet perhaps never troubled themselves in all their lives to consider what precise ideas the most of them stood for. Some confused or obscure notions have served their turns, and many who talk very much of religion and conscience, of church and faith, of power and right, of obstructions and humours, melancholy and choler, would perhaps have little left in their thoughts and meditations, if one should desire them to think only of the things themselves, and lay by those words, with which they so often confound others, and not seldom themselves also.

§. 5. But to return to the consideration Being noof truth; we must, I say, observe two sorts thing but the of propositions that we are capable of mak- joining or ing.

separating ideas withFirst, mental, wherein the ideas in our out words. understandings are without the use of words put together, or separated by the mind, perceiving or judging of their agreement or disagreement.

Secondly, verbal propositions, which are words, the signs of our ideas, put together or separated in affirma tive or negative sentences. By which way of affirming or denying, these signs, made by sounds, are as it were put together or separated one from another. So that proposition consists in joining or separating signs, and truth consists in the putting together or separating those signs, according as the things, which they stand for, agree or disagree.

§. 6. Every one's experience will satisfy When menhim, that the mind, either by perceiving or tal proposisupposing the agreement or disagreement of tions contain any of its ideas, does tacitly within itself real truth, put them into a kind of proposition affirmative or negative, which I have endeavoured

and when verbal.