other place,[1] so that nothing more needs here to be said of those matters.
6. Principles.― There is another fault that stops or misleads men in their knowledge which I have also spoken something of, but yet is necessary to mention here again, that we may examine it to the bottom and see the root it springs from, and that is, a custom of taking up with principles[2] that are not self-evident, and very often not so much as true. It is not unusual to see men rest their opinions upon foundations that have no more certainty and solidity than the propositions built on them and embraced for their sake. Such foundations are these and the like, viz., the founders or leaders of my party are good men, and therefore their tenets are true; it is the opinion of a sect that is erroneous, therefore it is false; it hath been long received in the world, therefore it is true; or, it is new, and therefore false.
These, and many the like, which are by no means the measures of truth and falsehood, the generality of men make the standards by which they accustom their understanding to judge. And thus, they[3] falling into a habit of determining of truth and falsehood by such
- ↑ In another place. See note 1, page 21; also, for a discussion of “Words,” the “Essay on the Human Understanding,” Bk. III. chs. ix., x., and xi. Cf. Bacon’s “Novum Organum,” Bk. I, Aphs., 43, 59, 60.
- ↑ Principles. The major premises from which all reasoning proceeds. There can be no innate principles, according to Locke, since there are no innate ideas. An elaborate discussion of Locke’s opinion as to innate principles is to he found in Bk. 1. of the “Essay on the Human Understanding.”
- ↑ And thus they, etc. Reconstruct this sentence so as to make it grammatical.
