16. Wherein lies the general certainty of propositions.
To conclude: general propositions, of what kind soever, are
then only capable of certainty, when the terms used in them stand for such ideas, whose agreement or
disagreement, as there expressed, is capable to be discovered by us. And we are then certain of their truth or
falsehood, when we perceive the ideas the terms stand for to agree or not agree, according as they are affirmed or
denied one of another. Whence we may take notice, that general certainty is never to be found but in our ideas.
Whenever we go to seek it elsewhere, in experiment or observations without us, our knowledge goes not beyond
particulars. It is the contemplation of our own abstract ideas that alone is able to afford us general knowledge.
