It is well to begin with an axiom. As all word-lovers know, an axiom is an agreed upon truth or principle, a proposition from which starts a chain of reasoning or argument. The framers of the U.S. Declaration of Independence began with an axiom — “We hold these truths to be self-evident” — and from those “self-evident truths” proceeded to the whole of their historic assertion.
Today’s axiom, as opposed to Thomas Jefferson’s simple assertion of “self-evident” (axioms do not need to be true, just agreed upon), has to its advantage that it accords with logic and can actually claim to be a, or the, truth.
