3. But from comparing clear and distinct ideas.
But if any one will consider, he will (I guess) find, that the great
advancement and certainty of real knowledge which men arrived to in these sciences, was not owing to the
influence of these principles, nor derived from any peculiar advantage they received from two or three general
maxims, laid down in the beginning; but from the clear, distinct, complete ideas their thoughts were employed
about, and the relation of equality and excess so clear between some of them, that they had an intuitive
knowledge, and by that a way to discover it in others; and this without the help of those maxims. For I ask, Is it
not possible for a young lad to know that his whole body is bigger than his little finger, but by virtue of this
axiom, that the whole is bigger than a part; nor be assured of it, till he has learned that maxim? Or cannot a
country wench know that, having received a shilling from one that owes her three, and a shilling also from
another that owes her three, the remaining debts in each of their hands are equal? Cannot she know this, I say,
unless she fetch the certainty of it from this maxim, that if you take equals from equals, the remainder will be
equals, a maxim which possibly she never heard or thought of? I desire any one to consider, from what has been
elsewhere said, which is known first and clearest by most people, the particular instance, or the general rule; and
which it is that gives life and birth to the other. 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. And he that can doubt whether it be less, will as certainly doubt whether it be a part. So that the maxim,
the whole is bigger than a part, can never be made use of to prove the little finger less than the body, but when it
is useless, by being brought to convince one of a truth which he knows already. For he that does not certainly
know that any parcel of matter, with another parcel of matter joined to it, is bigger than either of them alone, will
never be able to know it by the help of these two relative terms, whole and part, make of them what maxim you
please.
