Just so it is (as every
one may experiment in himself) in all the ideas a man has in his mind:
he knows each to be itself, and not to be another; and to be in his
mind, and not away when it is there, with a certainty that cannot be
greater; and, therefore, the truth of no general proposition can be
known with a greater certainty, nor add anything to this. So that,
in respect of identity, our intuitive knowledge reaches as far as
our ideas. And we are capable of making as many self-evident
propositions, as we have names for distinct ideas. And I appeal to
every one's own mind, whether this proposition, "a circle is a
circle," be not as self-evident a proposition as that consisting of
more general terms, "whatsoever is, is"; and again, whether this
proposition, "blue is not red," be not a proposition that the mind can
no more doubt of, as soon as it understands the words, than it does of
that axiom, "it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be?"
And so of all the like.
5. II. In co-existence we have few self-evident propositions.
Secondly, as to co-existence, or such a necessary connexion between
two ideas that, in the subject where one of them is supposed, there
the other must necessarily be also: of such agreement or
disagreement as this, the mind has an immediate perception but in very
few of them.
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