1. What Truth is.
WHAT is truth? was an inquiry many ages since; and it being that which
all mankind either do, or pretend to search after, it cannot but be
worth our while carefully to examine wherein it consists; and so
acquaint ourselves with the nature of it, as to observe how the mind
distinguishes it from falsehood.
2. A right joining or separating of signs, i.e. either Ideas or Words.
Truth, then, seems to me, in the proper import of the word, to signify
nothing but THE JOINING OR SEPERATING OF SIGNS, AS THE THINGS SIGNIFIED
BY THEM DO AGREE OR DISAGREE ONE WITH ANOTHER. The joining or separating
of signs here meant, is what by another name we call PROPOSITION. So
that truth properly belongs only to propositions: whereof there are two
sorts, viz. mental and verbal; as there are two sorts of signs commonly
made use of, viz. ideas and words.
3. Which make mental or verbal Propositions.
To form a clear notion of truth, it is very necessary to consider truth
of thought, and truth of words, distinctly one from another: but yet it
is very difficult to treat of them asunder. Because it is unavoidable,
in treating of mental propositions, to make use of words: and then the
instances given of mental propositions cease immediately to be barely
mental, and become verbal. For a MENTAL PROPOSITION being nothing but a
bare consideration of the ideas, as they are in our minds, stripped of
names, they lose the nature of purely mental propositions as soon as
they are put into words.
4. Mental Propositions are very hard to be treated of.
And that which makes it yet harder to treat of mental and verbal
propositions separately is, that most men, if not all, in their thinking
and reasonings within themselves, make use of words instead of ideas; at
least when the subject of their meditation contains in it complex ideas.
Which is a great evidence of the imperfection and uncertainty of our
ideas of that kind, and may, if attentively made use of, serve for
a mark to show us what are those things we have clear and perfect
established ideas of, and what not. For if we will curiously observe the
way our mind takes in thinking and reasoning, we shall find, I suppose,
that when we make any propositions within our own thoughts about WHITE
or BLACK, SWEET or BITTER, a TRIANGLE or a CIRCLE, we can and often
do frame in our minds the ideas themselves, without reflecting on the
names. But when we would consider, or make propositions about the more
complex ideas, as of a MAN, VITRIOL, FORTITUDE, GLORY, we usually put
the name for the idea: because the ideas these names stand for, being
for the most part imperfect, confused, and undetermined, we reflect
on the names themselves, because they are more clear, certain, and
distinct, and readier occur to our thoughts than the pure ideas: and so
we make use of these words instead of the ideas themselves, even when
we would meditate and reason within ourselves, and make tacit mental
propositions. In substances, as has been already noticed, this is
occasioned by the imperfections of our ideas: we making the name stand
for the real essence, of which we have no idea at all. In modes, it is
occasioned by the great number of simple ideas that go to the making
them up. For many of them being compounded, the name occurs much easier
than the complex idea itself, which requires time and attention to be
recollected, and exactly represented to the mind, even in those men who
have formerly been at the pains to do it; and is utterly impossible
to be done by those who, though they have ready in their memory the
greatest part of the common words of that language, yet perhaps never
troubled themselves in all their lives to consider what precise ideas
the most of them stood for. Some confused or obscure notions have served
their turns; and many who talk very much of RELIGION and CONSCIENCE,
of CHURCH and FAITH, of POWER and RIGHT, of OBSTRUCTIONS and HUMOURS,
MELANCHOLY and CHOLER, would perhaps have little left in their thoughts
and meditations, if one should desire them to think only of the things
themselves, and lay by those words with which they so often confound
others, and not seldom themselves also.
5. Mental and Verbal Propositions contrasted.
But to return to the consideration of truth: we must, I say, observe two
sorts of propositions that we are capable of making:--
First, MENTAL, wherein the ideas in our understandings are without the
use of words put together, or separated, by the mind perceiving or
judging of their agreement or disagreement.
Secondly, VERBAL propositions, which are words, the signs of our ideas,
put together or separated in affirmative or negative sentences. By which
way of affirming or denying, these signs, made by sounds, are, as it
were, put together or separated from another. So that proposition
consists in joining or separating signs; and truth consists in the
putting together or separating those signs, according as the things
which they stand for agree or disagree.
6. When Mental Propositions contain real Truth, and when Verbal.
Every one's experience will satisfy him, that the mind, either by
perceiving, or supposing, the agreement or disagreement of any of its
ideas, does tacitly within itself put them into a kind of proposition
affirmative or negative; which I have endeavoured to express by the
terms putting together and separating. But this action of the mind,
which is so familiar to every thinking and reasoning man, is easier to
be conceived by reflecting on what passes in us when we affirm or deny,
than to be explained by words. When a man has in his head the idea of
two lines, viz. the side and diagonal of a square, whereof the diagonal
is an inch long, he may have the idea also of the division of that line
into a certain number of equal parts; v.g. into five, ten, a hundred, a
thousand, or any other number, and may have the idea of that inch line
being divisible, or not divisible, into such equal parts, as a certain
number of them will be equal to the sideline. Now, whenever he
perceives, believes, or supposes such a kind of divisibility to agree or
disagree to his idea of that line, he, as it were, joins or separates
those two ideas, viz. the idea of that line, and the idea of that kind
of divisibility; and so makes a mental proposition, which is true or
false, according as such a kind of divisibility, a divisibility into
such ALIQUOT parts, does really agree to that line or no. When ideas are
so put together, or separated in the mind, as they or the things they
stand for do agree or not, that is, as I may call it, MENTAL TRUTH. But
TRUTH OF WORDS is something more; and that is the affirming or denying
of words one of another, as the ideas they stand for agree or disagree:
and this again is two-fold; either purely verbal and trifling, which I
shall speak of, (chap. viii.,) or real and instructive; which is the
object of that real knowledge which we have spoken of already.
7. Objection against verbal Truth, that thus it may all be chimerical.
But here again will be apt to occur the same doubt about truth, that did
about knowledge: and it will be objected, that if truth be nothing but
the joining and separating of words in propositions, as the ideas they
stand for agree or disagree in men's minds, the knowledge of truth is
not so valuable a thing as it is taken to be, nor worth the pains and
time men employ in the search of it: since by this account it amounts to
no more than the conformity of words to the chimeras of men's brains.
Who knows not what odd notions many men's heads are filled with, and
what strange ideas all men's brains are capable of? But if we rest here,
we know the truth of nothing by this rule, but of the visionary words in
our own imaginations; nor have other truth, but what as much concerns
harpies and centaurs, as men and horses. For those, and the like, may be
ideas in our heads, and have their agreement or disagreement there, as
well as the ideas of real beings, and so have as true propositions made
about them. And it will be altogether as true a proposition to say ALL
CENTAURS ARE ANIMALS, as that ALL MEN ARE ANIMALS; and the certainty of
one as great as the other. For in both the propositions, the words are
put together according to the agreement of the ideas in our minds: and
the agreement of the idea of animal with that of centaur is as clear and
visable to the mind, as the agreement of the idea of animal with that of
man; and so these two propositions are equally true, equally certain.
But of what use is all such truth to us?
8. Answered, Real Truth is about Ideas agreeing to things.
Though what has been said in the foregoing chapter to distinguish real
from imaginary knowledge might suffice here, in answer to this doubt,
to distinguish real truth from chimerical, or (if you please) barely
nominal, they depending both on the same foundation; yet it may not be
amiss here again to consider, that though our words signify things, the
truth they contain when put into propositions will be only verbal, when
they stand for ideas in the mind that have not an agreement with the
reality of things. And therefore truth as well as knowledge may well
come under the distinction of verbal and real; that being only
verbal truth, wherein terms are joined according to the agreement or
disagreement of the ideas they stand for; without regarding whether our
ideas are such as really have, or are capable of having, an existence
in nature. But then it is they contain REAL TRUTH, when these signs are
joined, as our ideas agree; and when our ideas are such as we know are
capable of having an existence in nature: which in substances we cannot
know, but by knowing that such have existed.
9. Truth and Falsehood in general.
Truth is the marking down in words the agreement or disagreement of
ideas as it is. Falsehood is the marking down in words the agreement or
disagreement of ideas otherwise than it is. And so far as these ideas,
thus marked by sounds, agree to their archetypes, so far only is the
truth real. The knowledge of this truth consists in knowing what ideas
the words stand for, and the perception of the agreement or disagreement
of those ideas, according as it is marked by those words.
10. General Propositions to be treated of more at large.
But because words are looked on as the great conduits of truth and
knowledge, and that in conveying and receiving of truth, and commonly in
reasoning about it, we make use of words and propositions, I shall more
at large inquire wherein the certainty of real truths contained in
propositions consists, and where it is to be had; and endeavour to show
in what sort of universal propositions we are capable of being certain
of their real truth or falsehood.
I shall begin with GENERAL propositions, as those which most employ our
thoughts, and exercise our contemplation. General truths are most looked
after by the mind as those that most enlarge our knowledge; and by their
comprehensiveness satisfying us at once of many particulars, enlarge our
view, and shorten our way to knowledge.
11. Moral and Metaphysical Truth.
Besides truth taken in the strict sense before mentioned, there are
other sorts of truths: As, 1. Moral truth, which is speaking of things
according to the persuasion of our own minds, though the proposition we
speak agree not to the reality of things; 2. Metaphysical truth, which
is nothing but the real existence of things, conformable to the ideas to
which we have annexed their names. This, though it seems to consist in
the very beings of things, yet, when considered a little nearly, will
appear to include a tacit proposition, whereby the mind joins that
particular thing to the idea it had before settled with the name to
it. But these considerations of truth, either having been before taken
notice of, or not being much to our present purpose, it may suffice here
only to have mentioned them.