Truths and Maxims by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The English public is not yet ripe to comprehend the essential difference / between the reason and the understanding -- between a principle and a maxim -- / an eternal truth and a mere conclusion generalized from a great number of / facts. A man, having seen a million moss roses all red, concludes from his / own experience and that of others that all moss roses are red. That is a / maxim with him -- the _greatest_ amount of his knowledge upon the subject. / But it is only true until some gardener has produced a white moss rose, -- / after which the maxim is good for nothing. Again, suppose Adam watching the / sun sinking under the western horizon for the first time; he is seized with / gloom and terror, relieved by scarce a ray of hope that he shall ever see / the glorious light again. The next evening, when it declines, his hopes are / stronger, but still mixed with fear; and even at the end of a thousand / years, all that a man can feel is a hope and an expectation so strong as to / preclude anxiety. Now compare this in its highest degree with the assurance / which you have that the two sides of any triangle are together greater than / the third. This, demonstrated of one triangle, is seen to be eternally true / of all imaginable triangles. This is a truth perceived at once by the / intuitive reason, independently of experience. It is and must ever be so, / multiply and vary the shapes and sizes of triangles as you may.

It used to be said that four and five _make_ nine. Locke says, that four / and five _are_ nine. Now I say, that four and five _are not_ nine, but that / they will _make_ nine. When I see four objects which will form a square, / and five which will form a pentagon, I see that they are two different / things; when combined, they will form a third different figure, which we / call nine. When separate they _are not_ it, but will _make_ it.