1. Particles connect parts, or whole sentences together. Besides words which are names of ideas in
the mind, there are a great many others that are made use of to signify the connexion that the mind
gives to ideas, or to propositions, one with another. The mind, in communicating its thoughts to
others, does not only need signs of the ideas it has then before it, but others also, to show or
intimate some particular action of its own, at that time, relating to those ideas. This it does several
ways; as Is, and Is not, are the general marks, of the mind, affirming or denying. But besides
affirmation or negation, without which there is in words no truth or falsehood, the mind does, in
declaring its sentiments to others, connect not only the parts of propositions, but whole sentences
one to another, with their several relations and dependencies, to make a coherent discourse.
2. In right use of particles consists the art of well-speaking. The words whereby it signifies what
connexion it gives to the several affirmations and negations, that it unites in one continued
reasoning or narration, are generally called particles: and it is in the right use of these that more
particularly consists the clearness and beauty of a good style. To think well, it is not enough that a
man has ideas clear and distinct in his thoughts, nor that he observes the agreement or
disagreement of some of them; but he must think in train, and observe the dependence of his
thoughts and reasonings upon one another. And to express well such methodical and rational
thoughts, he must have words to show what connexion, restriction, distinction, opposition, emphasis
etc., he gives to each respective part of his discourse. To mistake in any of these, is to puzzle
instead of informing his hearer: and therefore it is, that those words which are not truly by
themselves the names of any ideas are of such constant and indispensable use in language, and do
much contribute to men's well expressing themselves.
3. They show what relation the mind gives to its own thoughts. This part of grammar has been
perhaps as much neglected as some others over-diligently cultivated. It is easy for men to write, one
after another, of cases and genders, moods and tenses, gerunds and supines: in these and the like
there has been great diligence used; and particles themselves, in some languages, have been, with
great show of exactness, ranked into their several orders. But though prepositions and conjunctions,
etc., are names well known in grammar, and the particles contained under them carefully ranked
into their distinct subdivisions; yet he who would show the right use of particles, and what
significancy and force they have, must take a little more pains, enter into his own thoughts, and
observe nicely the several postures of his mind in discoursing.
4. They are all marks of some action or intimation of the mind. Neither is it enough, for the
explaining of these words, to render them, as is usual in dictionaries, by words of another tongue
which come nearest to their signification: for what is meant by them is commonly as hard to be
understood in one as another language. They are all marks of some action or intimation of the mind;
and therefore to understand them rightly, the several views, postures, stands, turns, limitations, and
exceptions, and several other thoughts of the mind, for which we have either none or very deficient
names, are diligently to be studied. Of these there is a great variety, much exceeding the number of
particles that most languages have to express them by: and therefore it is not to be wondered that
most of these particles have divers and sometimes almost opposite significations. In the Hebrew
tongue there is a particle consisting of but one single letter, of which there are reckoned up, as I
remember, seventy, I am sure above fifty, several significations.
5. Instance in "but." "But" is a particle, none more familiar in our language: and he that says it is a
discretive conjunction, and that it answers to sed Latin, or mais in French, thinks he has sufficiently
explained it. But yet it seems to me to intimate several relations the mind gives to the several
propositions or parts of them which it joins by this monosyllable.
First, "But to say no more": here it intimates a stop of the mind in the course it was going, before it
came quite to the end of it.
Secondly, "I saw but two plants"; here it shows that the mind limits the sense to what is expressed,
with a negation of all other.
Thirdly, "You pray; but it is not that God would bring you to the true religion."
Fourthly, "But that he would confirm you in your own." The first of these buts intimates a supposition
in the mind of something otherwise than it should be: the latter shows that the mind makes a direct
opposition between that and what goes before it.
Fifthly, "All animals have sense, but a dog is an animal": here it signifies little more but that the latter
proposition is joined to the former, as the minor of a syllogism.
6. This matter of the use of particles but lightly touched here. To these, I doubt not, might be added
a great many other significations of this particle, if it were my business to examine it in its full
latitude, and consider it in all the places it is to be found: which if one should do, I doubt whether in
all those manners it is made use of, it would deserve the title of discretive, which grammarians give
to it. But I intend not here a full explication of this sort of signs. The instances I have given in this
one may give occasion to reflect on their use and force in language, and lead us into the
contemplation of several actions of our minds in discoursing, which it has found a way to intimate to
others by these particles, some whereof constantly, and others in certain constructions, have the
sense of a whole sentence contained in them.