ent 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 l