There is nothing more visible than that] the mind, without the help of any proof, [or reflection on either of these general propositions,] perceives so clearly, and knows so certainly, that the idea of white is the idea of white, and not the idea of blue; and that the idea of white, when it is in the mind, is there, and is not absent; [that the consideration of these axioms can add nothing to the evidence or certainty of its knowledge.] [Just so it is (as every one may experiment in himself) in all the ideas a man has in his mind: he knows each to be itself, and not to be another; and to be in his mind, and not away when it is there, with a certainty that cannot be greater; and, therefore, the truth of no general proposition can be known with a greater certainty, nor add anything to this.] So that, in respect of identity, our intuitive knowledge reaches as far as our ideas.

And we are capable of making as many self-evident propositions, as we have names for distinct ideas.

And I appeal to every one's own mind, whether this proposition, 'a circle is a circle,' be not as self-evident a proposition as that consisting of more general terms, 'whatsoever is, is'; and again, whether this proposition, 'blue is not red,' be not a proposition that the mind can no more doubt of, as soon as it understands the words, than it does of that axiom, 'it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be ?' And so of all the like.
5.

In Co-existance we have few self-evident Propositions.
II.

SECONDLY, as to CO-EXISTANCE, or such a necessary connexion between two ideas that, in the subject where one of them is supposed, there the other must necessarily be also: of such agreement or disagreement as this, the mind has an immediate perception but in very few of them.