I affirm them to be truths, self-evident truths; and so cannot be laid
aside. As far as their influence will reach, it is in vain to
endeavour, nor will I attempt, to abridge it. But yet, without any
injury to truth or knowledge, I may have reason to think their use
is not answerable to the great stress which seems to be laid on
them; and I may warn men not to make an ill use of them, for the
confirming themselves in errors.
15. They cannot add to our knowledge of substances, and their
application to complex ideas is dangerous. But let them be of what use
they will in verbal propositions, they cannot discover or prove to
us the least knowledge of the nature of substances, as they are
found and exist without us, any further than grounded on experience.
And though the consequence of these two propositions, called
principles, be very clear, and their use not dangerous or hurtful,
in the probation of such things wherein there is no need at all of
them for proof, but such as are clear by themselves without them, viz.
where our ideas are [determined] and known by the names that stand for
them: yet when these principles, viz. what is, is, and it is
impossible for the same thing to be and not to be, are made use of
in the probation of propositions wherein are words standing for
complex ideas, v.g. man, horse, gold, virtue; there they are of
infinite danger, and most commonly make men receive and retain
falsehood for manifest truth, and uncertainty for demonstration:
upon which follow error, obstinacy, and all the mischiefs that can
happen from wrong reasoning.
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