These general rules are but the comparing our more
general and abstract ideas, which are the workmanship of the mind,
made, and names given to them for the easier dispatch in its
reasonings, and drawing into comprehensive terms and short rules its
various and multiplied observations. But knowledge began in the
mind, and was founded on particulars; though afterwards, perhaps, no
notice was taken thereof: it being natural for the mind (forward still
to enlarge its knowledge) most attentively to lay up those general
notions, and make the proper use of them, which is to disburden the
memory of the cumbersome load of particulars. For I desire it may be
considered, what more certainty there is to a child, or any one,
that his body, little finger, and all, is bigger than his little
finger alone, after you have given to his body the name whole, and
to his little finger the name part, than he could have had before;
or what new knowledge concerning his body can these two relative terms
give him, which he could not have without them? Could he not know that
his body was bigger than his little finger, if his language were yet
so imperfect that he had no such relative terms as whole and part? I
ask, further, when he has got these names, how is he more certain that
his body is a whole, and his little finger a part, than he was or
might be certain before he learnt those terms, that his body was
bigger than his little finger? Any one may as reasonably doubt or deny
that his little finger is a part of his body, as that it is less
than his body.
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