Now, whenever he
perceives, believes, or supposes such a kind of divisibility to
agree or disagree to his idea of that line, he, as it were, joins or
separates those two ideas, viz. the 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
divisibility into such aliquot parts, does really agree to that line
or no. When ideas are so put together, or separated in the mind, as
they or the things they stand for do agree or not, that is, as I may
call it, mental truth. But truth of words is something more; and
that is the affirming or denying of words one of another, as the ideas
they stand for agree or disagree: and this again is two-fold; 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.
7. Objection against verbal truth, that "thus it may all be
chimerical." But here again will be apt to occur the same doubt
about truth, that did about knowledge: and it will be objected, that
if truth be nothing but the joining and separating of words in
propositions, as the ideas they stand for agree or disagree in men's
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
of it: since by this account it amounts to no more than the conformity
of words to the chimeras of men's brains.
Pages:
842
843
844
845
846
847
848
849
850
851
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859
860
861
862
863
864
865
866