{Maxims of use in the exposition of what has been discovered, and in silencing obstinate wranglers.}

To come, therefore, to the use that is made of maxims. (1) They are of use, as has been observed, in the ordinary methods of teaching sciences as far as they are advanced:  but of little or none in advancing them further. (2) They are of use in disputes, for the silencing of obstinate wranglers, and bringing those contests to some conclusion.  Whether a need of them to that end came not in the manner following, I crave leave to inquire.  The Schools having made disputation the touchstone of men’s abilities, and the criterion of knowledge, adjudged victory to him that kept the field:  and he that had the last word was concluded to have the better of the argument, if not of the cause.  But because by this means there was like to be no decision between skilful combatants, whilst one never failed of a MEDIUS Terminus to prove any proposition; and the other could as constantly, without or with a distinction, deny the major or minor; to prevent, as much as could be, running out of disputes into an endless train of syllogisms, certain general propositions—­most of them, indeed, self-evident—­were introduced into the Schools:  which being such as all men allowed and agreed in, were looked on as general measures of truth, and served instead of principles (where the disputants had not lain down any other between them) beyond which there was no going, and which must not be receded from by either side.  And thus these maxims, getting the name of principles, beyond which men in dispute could not retreat, were by mistake taken to be the originals and sources from whence all knowledge began, and the foundations whereon the sciences were built.  Because when in their disputes they came to any of these, they stopped there, and went no further; the matter was determined.  But how much this is a mistake, hath been already shown.

{How Maxims came to be so much in vogue.}

This method of the Schools, which have been thought the fountains of knowledge, introduced, as I suppose, the like use of these maxims into a great part of conversation out of the Schools, to stop the mouths of cavillers, whom any one is excused from arguing any longer with, when they deny these general self-evident principles received by all reasonable men who have once thought of them:  but yet their use herein is but to put an end to wrangling.  They in truth, when urged in such cases, teach nothing:  that is already done by the intermediate ideas made use of in the debate, whose connexion may be seen without the help of those maxims, and so the truth known before the maxim is produced, and the argument brought to a first principle.  Men would give off a wrong argument before it came to that, if in their disputes they proposed to themselves the finding and embracing of truth, and not a contest for victory.  And thus maxims have their use to put a stop to their