Page:Of the conduct of the understanding (IA ofconductofunder00lock).pdf/87

Rh, or probable connection of the ideas made use of in his reasonings, the reader’s knowledge is no further increased than he perceives that; so much as he sees of this connection, so much he knows of the truth or probability of that author’s opinions.

All that he relies on without this perception he takes upon trust, upon the author’s credit, without any knowledge of it at all. This makes me not at all wonder to see some men so abound in citations and build so much upon authorities, it being the sole foundation on which they bottom most of their own tenets; so that in effect they have but a second-hand or implicit knowledge, i. e., are in the right if such an one from whom they borrowed it were in the right in that opinion which they took from him; which indeed is no knowledge at all. Writers of this or former ages may be good witnesses of matters of fact which they deliver, which we may do well to take upon their authority; but their credit can go no further than this; it cannot at all affect the truth and falsehood of opinions which have no other sort of trial but reason and proof, which they themselves made use of to make themselves knowing; and so must others too that will partake in their knowledge. Indeed it is an advantage that they have been at the pains to find out the proofs and lay them in that order that may show the truth or probability of their conclusions, and for this we owe them great acknowledgments for saving us the pains in searching out those proofs which they have collected for us, and which possibly after all our pains we might not have found nor been able to have set them in so good a light as that which they left them us in. Upon this account we are mightily beholden to judicious writers