Thomas Jefferson’s Big Three

As cultures evolved, thinkers found answers to perplexing problems and concepts in groupings of three ideas or principles, first in science, then in social systems.  The concept of gravity remained a challenge until philosopher, astronomer and physicist Isaac Newton declared in the late 1600s there were three laws of motion.  More than 300 years later there are still three laws of motion.  No one has uncovered a fourth. 

Attorney, statesman and philosopher Francis Bacon wrote about inductive reasoning in the pursuit of scientific knowledge.  He formalized a method for investigating the natural world 400 years ago.  The method that’s still used today begins with the collection of data from which comes the formation of a hypothesis to explain the data.  Finally, the third step is the testing of the hypothesis, which if it holds up under scrutiny can become a theory.  He “argued that although philosophy at the time used the deductive syllogism to interpret nature, the philosopher should instead proceed through inductive reasoning from fact to axiom to law.”  Induction, deduction and analogy are considered to be the three forms of classical reasoning.       

Former U.S. president, statesman, inventor, attorney and author Thomas Jefferson, borrowing from British philosopher and physician John Locke, who followed in the empiricist tradition of Francis Bacon, declared “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as those “unalienable rights” in the U.S. Declaration of Independence.  Jefferson drafted the Declaration at age 33.  He was the third U.S. president.  His writing inspired French citizens to seek their own independence using the rallying cry of “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.”  Jefferson called John Locke one of his three heroes.  The other two were Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton.    

from Threes, Chapter 1, “The Wonder of Threes”

Also included in my new Kindle mini-e-book, Threes in Government and Politics, available now from Amazon.