that received maxim, nor any other identical proposition, teaches us anything; and though in such kind of propositions this great and magnified maxim, boasted to be the foundation of demonstration, may be and often is made use of to confirm them, yet all it proves amounts to no more than this, That the same word may with great certainty be affirmed of itself, without any doubt of the truth of any such proposition; and let me add, also, without any real knowledge.

3.  Examples.

For, at this rate, any very ignorant person, who can but make a proposition, and knows what he means when he says ay or no, may make a million of propositions of whose truth he may be infallibly certain, and yet not know one thing in the world thereby; v.g. ’what is a soul, is a soul;’ or, ‘a soul is a soul;’ ‘a spirit is a spirit;’ ’a fetiche is a fetiche,’ &c.  These all being equivalent to this proposition, viz.  what is, is; i.e. what hath existence, hath existence; or, who hath a soul, hath a soul.  What is this more than trifling with words?  It is but like a monkey shifting his oyster from one hand to the other:  and had he but words, might no doubt have said, ’Oyster in right hand is subject, and oyster in left hand is predicate:’  and so might have made a self-evident proposition of oyster, i.e. oyster is oyster; and yet, with all this, not have been one whit the wiser or more knowing:  and that way of handling the matter would much at one have satisfied the monkey’s hunger, or a man’s understanding, and they would have improved in knowledge and bulk together.

4.  Secondly, Propositions in which apart of any complex Idea is predicated of the Whole.

II.  Another sort of trifling propositions is, when A part of the COMPLEXIDEA is predicated of the name of the whole; a part of the definition of the word defined.  Such are all propositions wherein the genus is predicated of the species, or more comprehensive of less comprehensive terms.  For what information, what knowledge, carries this proposition in it, viz.  ‘Lead is a metal’ to a man who knows the complex idea the name lead stands for?  All the simple ideas that go to the complex one signified by the term metal, being nothing but what he before comprehended and signified by the name lead.  Indeed, to a man that knows the signification of the word metal, and not of the word lead, it is a shorter way to explain the signification of the word lead, by saying it is a metal, which at once expresses several of its simple ideas, than to enumerate them one by one, telling him it is a body very heavy, fusible, and malleable.

5.  As part of the Definition of the Term Defined.