CHAP. XXXII.

OF TRUE AND FALSE IDEAS.

§ 1. Truth and Falsehood properly belong to Propofitions. HOUGH truth and falfehood belong, in proprie

THO

ty of speech, only to propofitions; yet ideas are oftentimes termed true or falfe (as what words are there, that are not used with great latitude, and with fome deviation from their ftrict and proper fignifications ?) Though, I think, that when the ideas themselves are termed true or falfe, there is ftill fome fecret or tacit propofition, which is the foundation of that denomination; as we shall see, if we examine the particular occafions wherein they come to be called true or false: In all which, we shall find fome kind of affirmation or negation, which is the reafon of that denomination : For our ideas being nothing but bare appearances or perceptions in our minds, cannot properly and fimply in themselves be faid to be true or falfe, no more than a fingle name of any thing can be faid to be true or false.

2. Metaphyfical Truth contains a tacit Propofition. INDEED both ideas and words may be faid to be true in a metaphyfical fenfe of the word truth, as all other things, that any way exift, are faid to be true; i. e. really to be fuch as they exift: Though in things called true, even in that fenfe, there is perhaps a fecret reference to our ideas, looked upon as the ftandards of that truth, which amounts to a mental propofition, though it be ufually not taken notice of.

§ 3. No Idea, as an Appearance in the mind, true or false. BUT it is not in that metaphyfical fenfe of truth which we inquire here, when we examine whether our ideas are capable of being true or falfe, but in the more ordinary acceptation of thofe words: And fo I fay, that the ideas in our minds being only fo many perceptions, or appearances there, none of them are false; the idea of a centaur having no more falfehood in it, when it appears in our minds, than the name centaur has falfehood

n it, when it is pronounced by our mouths or written on paper: For truth or falfehood lying always in fome affirmation, or negation, mental or verbal, our ideas are not capable, any of them, of being falfe, till the mind paffes fome judgment on them; that is, affirms or denies fomething of them.

4. Ideas referred to any thing, may be true or falfe. WHENEVER the mind refers any of its ideas to any thing extraneous to them, they are then capable to be called true or false; because the mind in fuch a reference makes a tacit fuppofition of their conformity to that thing; which fuppofition, as it happens to be true or falfe, fo the ideas themselves come to be denominated. The most usual cafes wherein this happens, are these following:

§ 5. Other Mens Ideas, real Exiflence, and fuppofed real Effences, are what men ufually refer their Ideas to. First, When the mind fuppofes any idea it has conformable to that in other mens minds, called by the fame common name; v. g. when the mind intends or judges its ideas of juftice, temperance, religion, to be the fame with what other men give thofe names to.

Secondly, When the mind fuppofes any idea it has in itself, to be conformable to fome real exiftence. Thus the two ideas of a man and a centaur, fuppofed to be the ideas of real fubftances, are the one true, and the other false; the one having a conformity to what has really exifted, the other not.

Thirdly, When the mind refers any of its ideas to that real conftitution and effence of any thing, whereon all its properties depend; and thus the greateft part, if not all our ideas of fubftances, are falfe.

$6. The Caufe of fuch References.

THESE fuppofitions the mind is very apt tacitly to make concerning its own ideas: But yet if we will examine it, we fhall find it is chiefly, if not only, concerning its abstract complex ideas: For the natural tendency of the mind being towards knowledge, and finding that, if it fhould proceed by and dwell upon only particular things, its progrefs would be very flow, and its work endless; therefore, to fhorten its way to knowledge, and make

each perception more comprehenfive, the first thing it does, as the foundation of the eafier enlarging its knowledge, either by contemplation of the things themselves that it would know, or conference with others about them, is to bind them into bundles, and rank them fo into forts, that what knowledge it gets of any of them, it may thereby with affurance extend to all of that fort; and fo advance by larger fteps in that, which is its great bufinefs, knowledge. This, as I have elsewhere fhowed, is the reason why we collect things under comprehenfive ideas, with names annexed to them, into genera and fpecies, i. e. into kinds and forts.

§ 7.

IF therefore we will warily attend to the motions of the mind, and obferve what course it ufually takes in its way to knowledge, we fhall, I think, find that the mind having got any idea, which it thinks it may have use of, either in contemplation or difcourfe, the first thing it - does, is to abstract it, and then get a name to it, and fo lay it up in its storehouse, the memory, as containing the effence of a fort of things, of which that name is always to be the mark. Hence it is, that we may often obferve, that when any one fees a new thing of a kind that he knows not, he presently asks what it is, meaning by that inquiry nothing but the name; as if the name carried with it the knowledge of the fpecies, or the effence of it; whereof it is indeed ufed as the mark, and is generally supposed annexed to it.

§ 8.

BUT this abstract idea being fomething in the mind between the thing that exifts, and the name that is given it, it is in our ideas, that both the rightnefs of our knowledge, and the propriety or intelligiblenefs of our

fpeaking confifts. And hence it is, that men are so forward to fuppofe, that the abstract ideas they have in their minds, are fuch as agree to the things exifting without them, to which they are referred, and are the fame alfo, to which the names they give them do, by the ufe and propriety of that language, belong: For without this double conformity of their ideas, they find

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they should both think amifs of things in themselves, and talk of them unintelligibly to others.

§9. Simple Ideas may be falfe, in reference to others the fame Name, but are leaft liable to be fo.

FIRST, then, I fay, That when the truth of cur ideas is judged of, by the conformity they have to the ideas which other men have, and commonly fignify by the fame name, they may be any of them falfe: But yet fimple ideas are leaft of all liable to be fo mistaken; because a man by his fenfes, and every day's obfervation, may eafily fatisfy himself what the fimple ideas are, which their several names that are in common ufe ftand for, they being but few in number, and fuch as, if he doubts or mistakes in, he may easily rectify by the objects they are to be found in. Therefore it is feldom that any one miftakes in his names of fimple ideas, or applies the name red to the idea green, or the name feet to the idea bitter ; much lefs are men apt to confound the names of ideas belonging to different fenfes, and call a colour by the name of a tafte, &c. whereby it is evident, that the fimple ideas they call by any name, are commonly the fame that others have and mean when they use the fame names.

10. Ideas of mixed Modes moft liable to be falfe in this

Senfe.

COMPLEX ideas are much more liable to be falfe in this reSpect; and the complex ideas of mixed modes, much more than thofe of fubftances; because in fubftances (especially thofe which the common and unborrowed names of any language are applied to) fome remarkable sensible qualities, ferving ordinarily to diftinguish one fort from another, eafily preferve thofe, who take any care in the ufe of their words, from applying them to forts of subftances, to which they do not at all belong: But in mixed modes we are much more uncertain; it being not so easy to determine of several actions, whether they are to be called juftice or cruelty, liberality or prodigality. And fo in referring our ideas to thofe of other men, called by the fame names, ours may be falfe; and the idea. in our minds, which we exprefs by the word juftice, may perhaps be that which ought to have another name.

§ 11. Or at least to be thought falfe.

BUT whether or no our ideas of mixed modes are more liable than any fort to be different from those of other men, which are marked by the fame names; this at least is certain, That this fort of falsehood is much more familiarly attributed to our ideas of mixed modes, than to any ether. When a man is thought to have a falfe idea of juftice, or gratitude, or glory, it is for no other reafon, but that his agrees not with the ideas which each of those names are the figns of in other men.

§ 12. And why.

THE reafon whereof feems to me to be this; That the abstract ideas of mixed modes, being mens voluntary combinations of fuch a precife colle tion of fimple ideas; and fo the effence of each fpecies being made by men alone, whereof we have no other fenfible standard exifting any where, but the name itself, or the definition of that name; we have nothing else to refer thefe our ideas of mixed modes to, as a standard to which we would conform them, but the ideas of thofe who are thought to use those names in their most proper fignifications; and fo as our ideas conform or differ from them, they pafs for true or falfe. And thus much concerning the truth and falsehood of our ideas, in reference to their names.

13. As referred to real Exiflences, none of our Ideas can be falfe, but thofe of Subftances.

SECONDLY, As to the truth and falfehood of our ideas, in reference to the real exiflence of things, when that is made the standard of their truth, none of them can be termed falfe, but only our complex ideas of fubftances. §14. First, Simple Ideas in this fenfe not falfe, and why. FIRST, Our fimple ideas being barely fuch perceptions as God has fitted us to receive, and given power to external objects to produce in us by eftablifhed laws and ways, fuitable to his wifdom and goodness, though incomprehenfible to us, their truth confifts in nothing else but in fuch appearances as are produced in us, and must be fuitable to thofe powers he has placed in external objects, or else they could not be produced in us; and