Whoever goes beyond this measure of assent, it is plain,
receives not the truth in the love of it; loves not truth for
truth's sake, but for some other bye-end. For the evidence that any
proposition is true (except such as are self-evident) lying only in
the proofs a man has of it, whatsoever degrees of assent he affords it
beyond the degrees of that evidence, it is plain that all the
surplusage of assurance is owing to some other affection, and not to
the love of truth: it being as impossible that the love of truth
should carry my assent above the evidence there is to me that it is
true, as that the love of truth should make me assent to any
proposition for the sake of that evidence which it has not, that it is
true: which is in effect to love it as a truth, because it is possible
or probable that it may not be true. In any truth that gets not
possession of our minds by the irresistible light of self-evidence, or
by the force of demonstration, the arguments that gain it assent are
the vouchers and gage of its probability to us; and we can receive
it for no other than such as they deliver it to our understandings.
Whatsoever credit or authority we give to any proposition more than it
receives from the principles and proofs it supports itself upon, is
owing to our inclinations that way, and is so far a derogation from
the love of truth as such: which, as it can receive no evidence from
our passions or interests, so it should receive no tincture from them.
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