Affirmative and negative.
6. The second distinction is into affirmative and negative, and is called the distinction of quality. An affirmative proposition is that whose predicate is a positive name, as man is a living creature. Negative, that whose predicate is a negative name, as man is not a stone.
True & false.
7. The third distinction is, that one is true, another false. A true proposition is that, whose predicate contains, or comprehends its subject, or whose predicate is the name of every thing, of which the subject is the name; as man is a living creature is therefore a true proposition, because whatsoever is called man, the same is also called living creature; and some man is sick, is true, because sick is the name of some man. That which is not true, or that whose predicate does not contain its subject, is called a false proposition, as man is a stone.
Now these words true, truth, and true proposition, are equivalent to one another; for truth consists in speech, and not in the things spoken of; and though true be sometimes opposed to apparent or feigned, yet it is always to be referred to the truth of proposition; for the image of a man in a glass, or a ghost, is therefore denied to be a very man, because this proposition, a ghost is a man, is not true; for it cannot be denied but that a ghost is a very ghost. And therefore truth or verity is not any affection of the thing, but of the proposition concerning it. As for that which the writers of metaphysics say, that a thing, one thing, and a very thing, are equivalent to one another, it is but trifling and childish; for who does not know, that a man, one man, and a very man, signify the same.
True & false belongs to speech, and not to things.
8. And from hence it is evident, that truth and falsity have no place but amongst such living creatures as use speech. For though some brute creatures, looking upon the image of a man in a glass, may be affected with it, as if it were the man himself, and for this reason fear it or fawn upon it in vain; yet they do not apprehend it as true or false, but only as like; and in this they are not deceived. Wherefore, as men owe all their true ratiocination to the right understanding of speech; so also they owe their errors to the misunderstanding of the same; and as all the ornaments of philosophy proceed only from man, so from man also is derived the ugly absurdity of false opinions. For speech has something in it like to a spider's web, (as it was said of old of Solon's laws) for by contexture of words tender and delicate wits are ensnared and stopped; but strong wits break easily through them.
From hence also this may be deduced, that the first truths were arbitrarily made by those that first of all imposed names upon things, or received them from the imposition of others. For it is true (for example) that man is a living creature, but it is for this reason, that it pleased men to impose both those names on the same thing.
Proposition, primary, not primary, definition, axiom, petition.
9. Fourthly, propositions are distinguished into primary and not primary. Primary is that wherein the subject is explicated by a predicate of many names, as man is a body, animated, rational; for that which is comprehended in the name man, is more largely expressed in the names body, animated, and rational, joined together; and it is called primary, because it is first in ratiocination; for nothing can be proved, without understanding first the name of the thing in question. Now primary propositions are nothing but definitions, or parts of definitions, and these only are the principles of demonstration, being truths constituted arbitrarily by the inventors of speech, and therefore not to be demonstrated. To these propositions, some have added others, which they call primary and principles, namely, axioms, and common notions; which, (though they be so evident that they need no proof) yet, because they may be proved, are not truly principles; and the less to be received for such, in regard propositions not intelligible, and sometimes manifestly false, are thrust on us under the name of principles by the clamour of men, who obtrude for evident to others, all that they themselves think true. Also certain petitions are commonly received into the number of principles; as, for example, that a straight line may be drawn between two points, and other petitions of the writers of geometry; and these are indeed the principles of art or construction, but not of science and demonstration.