But yet they cannot but
be counted trifling, when made use of as principles of instruction,
and stress laid on them as helps to knowledge; since they teach
nothing but what every one who is capable of discourse knows without
being told, viz. that the same term is the same term, and the same
idea the same idea. And upon this account it was that I formerly
did, and do still think, the offering and inculcating such
propositions, in order to give the understanding any new light, or
inlet into the knowledge of things, no better than trifling.
Instruction lies in something very different; and he that would
enlarge his own or another's mind to truths he does not yet know, must
find out intermediate ideas, and then lay them in such order one by
another, that the understanding may see the agreement or
disagreement of those in question. Propositions that do this are
instructive; but they are far from such as affirm the same term of
itself; which is no way to advance one's self or others in any sort of
knowledge. It no more helps to that than it would help any one in
his learning to read, to have such propositions as these inculcated to
him- "An A is an A," and "a B is a B"; which a man may know as well as
any schoolmaster, and yet never be able to read a word as long as he
lives. Nor do these, or any such identical propositions help him one
jot forwards in the skill of reading, let him make what use of them he
can.
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