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النشر الإلكتروني

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.

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§. 2. Truth then seems to me, in the Aright join proper import of the word, to signify no- ing or sepa thing but the joining or separating of signs, rating signs, i. e, as the things signified by them do agree or ideas or 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 be longs 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.

§. 3. To form a clear notion of truth, it Whichmake 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

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much easier than the use of nonzogong. 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 forend merly been at the pains to do it, and is utterly impos sible to be done by those, who, though they have ready in their memory the greatest part of the common words 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 con 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 ot seldom themselves also, fou the bus to anobi bədaild But to return to the consideration Being nodo of truth; if we must, I say, observe two sorts thing but the of propositions that we are capable of mak joining or

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in mental, wherein the ideas our out words

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ideas understandings are without the use of words tod put together, or separated by the mind, perceiving or judging of their agreement or disagreement. as sobi 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 or separated one from another. So that proposition consists in joining or separating signs, and Truth consists in the putting together or separating those sneto pres Pas the things, according which they stand for, agree or disagree.

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20021 20219540 ybesile mood and au tonusledua nl 8.6. Every one's experience will satisfy when mens him, that the mind, either by perceiving on tal proposier supposing the agreement or disagreement of tions contain any of its ideas, does ovogreement

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to express by the terms putting together and separa But this action of the mind, which is so familiar to every thinking and reasoning man, is easier to be conceived by reflecting on what passes in us when we affirm or deny, than to be explained by words. When a man has in his head the idea of two lines, viz. the side and diagonal of a square, whereof the diagonal is an inch long, he may have the idea also of the division 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 divisible, or not divisible, into such equal parts, as a certain number of them will be equal to the side-line. Now when ever he perceives, believes, or supposes such a kind of divisibility to agree or disagree to his idea of that line, he, as or separates those two ideas, viz. the it were, joins idea of that line, and the idea of that kind of divisibility; and so makes a mental proposition, which is true or false, according as such a kind of divisibility, a divi sibility into such aliquot parts, does really agree to that line or no. When ideas are so put together, or sepa rated in the mind, as they or the things they stand for do agree or not, as I may call it, mental truth. But truth of words is something more; and that is the affiming or denying of words one of another, as the ideas they or and this again is twofold; either purely verbal and trifling, which I shall speak of, chap. viii. or real and instructive, which is the object of that real knowledge which we have spoken of already. Homeogo already.neogr

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you migBut here again will be apt to occur Objection to against ver- the same doubt about truth, that did about bal truth. knowledge and it will be objected, that that thus it if truth be nothing but the joining and sepamaylall be chimerical rating of words in propositions, as the ideas they stand for agree or disagree in minds, the knowledge of truth is not so valuable a thing, as it is taken to be, nor worth the pains and time men employ in the search in the search of it; since by this account it amounts to no more than the conformity of words to

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the chimeras of men's brains. Who knows not what odd notions many men's heads are filled with, and what strange ideas all men's brains are capable of? But if we rest here, we know the truth of nothing by this rule, but of the visionary words in our own imaginations. nor have other truth, but what as much concerns harpies and and centaurs, as men and h and horses. For those, and the like, may be ideas in our heads, and have their agreement and disagreement there, as well as the ideas of real beings, and so have as true propositions made about them. And it will be altogether as true a proposition to say all centaurs are e animals, as that all men are animals; and the certainty of one as great as the other. For in both the propositions, the words are put together ac cording to the agreement of the ideas in our minds: and the agreement of the idea of animal with that of centaur is as clear and visible to the mind, as the agree ment of the idea of animal with that of man; and so these two propositions are equally true, equally certain. But of what use is all such truth to us?

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