14. And all general propositions that are known to be true concern
abstract ideas. In the former case, our knowledge is the consequence
of the existence of things, producing ideas in our minds by our
senses: in the latter, knowledge is the consequence of the ideas (be
they what they will) that are in our minds, producing there general
certain propositions. Many of these are called aeternae veritates, and
all of them indeed are so; not from being written, all or any of them,
in the minds of all men; or that they were any of them propositions in
any one's mind, till he, having got the abstract ideas, joined or
separated them by affirmation or negation. But wheresoever we can
suppose such a creature as man is, endowed with such faculties, and
thereby furnished with such ideas as we have, we must conclude, he
must needs, when he applies his thoughts to the consideration of his
ideas, know the truth of certain propositions that will arise from the
agreement or disagreement which he will perceive in his own ideas.
Such propositions are therefore called eternal truths, not because
they are eternal propositions actually formed, and antecedent to the
understanding that at any time makes them; nor because they are
imprinted on the mind from any patterns that are anywhere out of the
mind, and existed before: but because, being once made about
abstract ideas, so as to be true, they will, whenever they can be
supposed to be made again at any time, past or to come, by a mind
having those ideas, always actually be true.
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