# Essays on the Principles of Human Action/Essay 3

ON ABSTRACT IDEAS.
I shall in this essay state Mr. Locke’s account of generalization, abstraction, and reasoning, as contrasted with the modern one, and then endeavour to defend the existence of these faculties, or acts of the mind from the objections urged against them by Hume, Berkeley, Condillac, and others, which are in truth merely repetitions of what Hobbes has said on the subject. I must premise, however, that I do not think it possible ever to arrive at a demonstration of generals or abstractions by beginning in Mr. Locke’s method with particular ones: this faculty of abstraction is by most considered as a sort of artificial refinement upon our other ideas, as an excrescence, no ways contained in the common impressions of things, nor scarcely necessary to the common purposes of life, and it is by Mr. Locke altogether denied to be among the faculties of brutes. It is the ornament and top addition of the mind of man, which proceeding from simple sensations upwards, is gradually sublimed into the abstract notions of things; “from the root springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves more airy, last the bright consummate flower.” on the other hand, I conceive that all our notions from first to last, are, strictly speaking, general and abstract, not absolute and particular; and that to have a perfectly distinct idea of any one individual thing, or concrete existence, either as to the parts of which it is composed, or the differences belonging to it, or the circumstances connected with it, ​would imply an unlimited power of comprehension in the human mind, which is impossible. All particular things consist of, and lead to an infinite number of other things. Abstraction is a consequence of the limitation of the comprehensive faculty, and mixes itself more or less with every act of the mind of whatever kind, and in every moment of its existence. There is no idea of an individual object, which consists of a single impression, but of a number of impressions massed together: there is no idea of a particular quality of an object, which is perfectly simple, or which is not the result of a number of impressions of the same sort classed together by the mind without attending to their particular differences. Every idea of an object is, therefore, in a strict sense an imperfect and general notion of an aggregate: of a house, or tree, as well of a city, or forest: of a grain of sand as well as of the universe. Every idea of a sensible quality, as of the whiteness of the sheet of paper before me, or the hardness of the table on which I lean, implies the same power of generalization, of connecting several impressions into one sort, as the most refined and abstract idea of virtue and justice, of motion, or extension, or space of time, or being itself. This view of the subject is not, I confess, very obvious at first sight, and it will be more easily understood after I have stated the arguments of others on this difficult question. The concise account of the nature of abstract ideas is that which Mr. Locke has given, is as follows. "All things that exist being particular, it may be perhaps thought reasonable that words which ought to be conformed to things should be so too, I mean in their signification: but yet we find the quite contrary. The far greatest part of words that make all languages are general terms, which has not been the ​effect of neglect or chance, but of reason and necessity." First, it is impossible that every particular thing should have a distinct peculiar name. For the signification and use of words depending on that connection which the mind makes between its ideas and the sounds it uses as signs of them, it is necessary in the application of names to things, that the mind should have distinct ideas of the things, and retain also the particular name that belongs to every one, with its peculiar appropriation to that idea. But it is beyond the power of human capacity to frame and retain distinct ideas of all the particular things we meet with; every bird and beast we see, every tree and plant that affect the senses, could not find a place in the most capacious understanding. If it be looked on as an instance of a prodigious memory, that some generals have been able to call every soldier in their army by his proper name, we may easily find a reason why men never attempted to give names to each sheep in their flock, or crow that flies over their heads, much less to call every leaf of plants or grain of sand that came in their way, by a peculiar name. Secondly, if it were possible, it would yet be useless; because it would not serve to the chief end of language. Men would not in vain heap up names of particular things that would not serve them to communicate their thoughts. Men learn names, and use them in talk with others, only that they may be understood, which is then only done, when by use or consent, the sound I make by the organs of speech, excites in another man's mind who hears it, the idea I apply to it in mine when I speak it. This cannot be done by names applied to particular things, whereof I alone have the ideas in my mind, the names of them could not be significant, intelligible to another who was not acquainted with all those very particular things ​which had fallen under my notice. Thirdly, granting this feasible, which I think it is not, yet a distinct name of every particular thing would not be of any great use for the improvement of knowledge; which though founded in particular things, enlarges itself by general views, to which things reduced into sorts under general names are properly subservient. These with the names belonging to them come within some compass, and do not multiply every moment beyond what either the mind can contain, or use requires, and therefore in these men have for the most part stopped. But yet not so, as to hinder themselves from distinguishing particular things by appropriated names, where convenience demands it. And therefore in their own species, which they have to do with, and wherein they have often occasion to mention particular persons, they make use of proper names; and these distinct individuals have distinct denominations. Besides, persons, countries, cities, rivers, mountains, and other like distinctions of place have usually found particular names, and that for the same reason; and I doubt not but if we had reason to mention particular horses, as often as we have to mention particular men, we should have proper names for the one as familiarly as for the other, and Bucephelus would be a word as much in use as Alexander. And therefore we see amongst jockies, horses have their proper names to be known and distinguished by, as commonly as their servants, because amongst them there is often occasion to mention this or that particular horse, when he is out of sight. The next thing to be considered is how general words came to be made. For since all things that exist are only particulars, how come we by general terms, or where find we those general natures they are supposed to stand for? Words become general by ​being made the signs of general ideas, and ideas become general by separating from them the circumstances of time and place, and any other ideas that may determine them to this or that particular existence. By this way of abstraction they are made capable of representing more individuals than one, each of which having in it a conformity to that abstract idea is (as we call it) of that sort.
But to deduce this a little more distinctly, it will not, perhaps, be amiss to trace our notions and names from their beginning, and observe by what degrees we proceed, and by what steps we enlarge our ideas from their first infancy. There is nothing more evident than that the ideas of the persons children converse with, are like the persons themselves, only particulars. The ideas of the nurse and the mother are well framed in the mind and like pictures of them there, represent only those individuals. The names they first give rise to are confined to these individuals, and the names of nurse and mamma which the child uses, determine themselves to those persons. Afterwards when time and a larger acquaintance has made them observe that there are a great many other things in the world, that in some common agreements of shape, and several other properties resemble their father and mother, and those persons they have been used to, they frame an idea which they find those many particulars do partake in, and to that they give with others the name Man, for example And thus they come to have a general name, and a general idea. Wherein they make nothing new, but only leave out of the complex idea they had of Peter and James, Mary and Jane, that which is peculiar to each, and retain what is common to them all. By the same way that they come by the general name and idea of man, they easily advance to more general names and notions. For observing that ​several things that differ from their idea of man, and therefore cannot be comprehended under that name, have yet certain qualities wherein they agree with man, by retaining only those qualities and uniting them into one idea, they have again another and more general idea; to which having given a name, they make a term of a more comprehensive extension; which new idea is made, not by any new addition, but only as before, by leaving out the shape, and some other properties signified by the name man, and retaining only a body with life, sense, and spontaneous motion, comprehended under the name animal. That this is the way that men first formed general ideas and general names to them, I think is so evident that there needs no other proof of it, but the considering of a man's self or others, and the ordinary proceedings of their mind in knowledge; and he that thinks general natures or notions are anything else but such abstract and partial ideas of more complex ones taken at first from particular existencies, will I fear be at a loss where to find them. For let any one reflect and then tell me, wherein does his idea of man differ from that of Paul and Peter, or his idea of horse from that of Bucephalus, but in the leaving out something that is peculiar to each individual, and retaining so much of those particular complex ideas of several particular existencies, as they are found to agree in? Of the complex ideas signified by the names man and horse, leaving out those particulars wherein they differ, and retaining only those wherein they agree, and of those making a new distinct complex idea and giving the name animal to it, one has a more general term that comprehends with man several other creatures.
Leave out of the idea of animal sense and spontaneous motion, and the remaining complex idea, made up of the ​remaining simple ones of body, life, and nourishment, becomes a more general one under the more comprehensive word vivens. And not to dwell upon these particular so evident in itself, by the same way the mind proceeds to body, substance, and at last to being, thing, and such universal terms, which stand for any of our ideas whatsoever. To conclude: this whole mystery of genera and species, which make such a noise in the schools, and are with justice so little regarded out of them, is nothing else but abstract ideas, more or less comprehensive, with names annexed to them. In all which this is constant and invariable, that every more general term stands for such an idea as is but a part of any of those contained under it.
The author adds, "It is plain by what has been said, that general and universal belong not only to the real existence of things, but are the inventions and creatures of the understanding, made by it, for its own use, and concern only signs, whether words or ideas. Words are general, when used for signs of general ideas, and so are applicable indifferently to many particular things; and ideas are general when they are set up as the representatives of many particular things, but universality belongs not to things themselves, which are all of them particular in their existence, even those words and ideas which in their significations are general. When, therefore, we quit particulars, the generals that rest are only creatures of our own making, their general nature being nothing but the capacity they are put in to of signifying many particulars. For the signification they have is nothing but a relation, that by the mind of man is added to them," See p. 15, vol. 2.
Mr. Locke at first here evidently supposes that we have ideas answering to general terms, i.e. certain ideas of such particulars as a number of things are found to agree in, ​or that there are some common qualities by retaining which and only leaving out what is peculiar and foreign, without adding anything new, we get at the general notion. He afterwards to all appearance reduces these general notions to mere signs or sounds with which several particular ideas are associated, but which do not correspond to any common properties or general nature really inhering in these particular things. In the same manner he continues to take different sides of the question, when he comes to treat of genera, and species, when his antipathy to the word essence constantly drives him back into the notion that all our ideas of essences are mere terms, and the want of solidity in that opinion again as constantly disposes him to admit a real difference in the sorts of things, besides the difference of the names we give to them. For immediately after affirming that the abstract essences of things are the workmanship of the understanding, he adds, “I would not here be thought to forget, much less to deny, that nature, in the production of things makes several of them alike: there is nothing more obvious, especially in the races of animals, and all things propagated by seed. But yet, I think we may say, the sorting of them by names is the workmanship of the understanding taking occasion from the similitude it observes amongst them to make abstract general ideas, and set them up as patterns in forms (for in that sense the word form has a very proper signification), to which as particular things existing are found to agree, so they come to be of that species, have that denomination, or are put into that class. For when we say this is a man, that a horse, &c. what do we else but rank things under different specific names, as agreeing to those abstract ideas, of which we have made those names the signs? And what are the essences of those species set out and marked ​by names, but those abstract ideas in the mind, which are as it were the bonds between particular things that exist," &c. For my own part I must confess that I agree with the Bishop of Worcester on this occasion, who asks, "What is it that makes Peter, James, and John real men? Is it the attributing the general name to them? No, certainly, but that the true and real essence of a man is in every one of them. They take their denomination of being men from that common nature or essence which is in them." On the opposite system it is not the nature of the thing which determines the imposition of the name, but the imposition of the name which determines the nature of the thing; or giving them the name makes Peter, James, and John men, as in the opinion of some divines Baptism makes them Christians. That there is a real difference in things and ideas, answering to their general names, appears evident from this single observation, that if it were not so, we could never know how to apply these general names, and we could no more distinguish between a man and a horse than we could tell at first sight, that one man's proper name was John and another's Thomas. The puzzle about genera and species, in this view of the question, seems to arise from a very obvious transposition of ideas. Because the abstracting or separating these general ideas from particular circumstances is the workmanship of the understanding: it has, therefore, been inferred, that the ideas themselves are so too, and that they exist no where but in the mind which perceives them.
But I would fain ask, in the account which Mr. Locke gives of the abstract ideas of animal for example, whether body, sense, and motion, as they exist in different individuals, have not a general nature, or something common in all those individuals. If body in one case expresses the ​same thing, or same idea as body in another, their generals belong to things and ideas, as well as to names; if body in one case expresses quite a different thing in one, what it does in another, then it is not easy to imagine what determines the mind to apply the name to these different things, or on what foundation Mr. Locke's definition rests. Extreme opinions were not in general the side on which Mr. Locke erred; and, on the present occasion, he has qualified his opposition to the prevailing system in such a manner, that it is difficult to say in what point he admitted or rejected it. He evidently, in the general scope of this argument, admits the reality of abstract ideas in the mind, though he denies the existence of real sorts, or nature of things of the mind to correspond to them: for the expressions which intimate any doubt of the former are occasional and parenthetical, and his acknowledgment that there is something in nature which guides and determines the mind in the sorting of things and giving names to them is equally extorted from him. There is none of this doubt and perplexity in the minds of his French commentators; none of this suspicion of error and anxious desire to correct it; no lurking objections arise to stagger their confidence in themselves; it is all the same light airy self-complacency; not a speck is to be seen in the clear sky of their metaphysics, not a cloud obscures the sparkling current of their thoughts. In the logic of Condillac, the whole question of abstract ideas, of genera and species, and of the nature of reasoning as founded upon them, is settled and cleared from all difficulties, past, present, and to come, with as little expence of thought, time, and trouble, as possible. The Abbe demonstrates with ease. "General ideas," he says, "of which we have explained the formation, are a part of the aggregate idea of each of the individuals to which they ​correspond, and they are considered, for this reason, as so many partial or imperfect ideas. The idea of man, for instance, makes part of the complex ideas of Peter and Paul, since it is equally to be found in both. There is no such thing as man in general. This partial idea has then no reality out of the mind, but it has one in the mind, where it exists separately from the aggregate or individual ideas of which it is a part. All our general ideas are then so many abstract ideas, and you see that we form them only in consequence of stating from each individual idea that which is common to all.
But what, in truth, is the reality which a general and abstract idea has in the mind. It is nothing but a name: or, if it is any thing more, it necessarily ceases to be abstract, and general. When, for example, I think of a man, I consider this word as a common denomination, in which case, it is very evident, that my idea is in some sort circumscribed within this name, that it does not extend to anything beyond it, and that consequently it is nothing but the name itself. If, on the contrary, thinking of man in general, I contemplate any thing in this word, besides the mere denomination, it can only be by representing myself to some one man; and a man can no more be man in general, or in the abstract in my mind, than in nature. Abstract ideas are therefore only denominations. If we will absolutely think that they are something else, we shall only resemble a painter who should obstinately persist in painting the figure of a man in general, and who would still paint only individuals. This observation concerning abstract and general ideas, demonstrates that their clearness depends entirely on the order in which we have arranged the denominations of classes; and that, consequently, to de​termine this sort of ideas, there is only one means, which is to construct a language properly.
This confirms what we have already demonstrated how necessary words are to us: for if we had no general terms, we should have no abstract ideas, we should have neither genera, or species, and without genera and species, we could reason upon nothing. But if we reason only by means of words this is a new proof that we can only reason well or ill, according as the language, in which we reason is well or ill made. The analysis of our thoughts can only enable us to reason in proportion as by instructing us how to class our abstract ideas, it enables us how to form our language correctly, and the whole art of reasoning is thus reduced to the art of well speaking.”
What in this supremacy of words is to be the criterion of well speaking the Abbé does not say.
To speak, to reason, to form general or abstract ideas, are then in fact the same thing: and this truth, simple as it is, might pass for a discovery. Certainly, men in general have not had any notion of it; this is evident from the manner in which they speak and reason; it is evident from the abuse which they make of abstract ideas; finally, it is evident from the difficulties which those persons confessedly find in conceiving of abstract ideas who have so little in speaking of them.
The art of reasoning resolves into the construction of languages, only because the order of our ideas itself depends entirely on the subordination that subsists between the names given to genera and species; and as we arrive at new ideas only by forming new classes, it follows that we can only determine or define our ideas by determining their classes. In this case we should reason well, because ​we should be guided by analogy in our conclusions as well as in the acceptation of words.
Convinced, therefore, that classes or sorts of things are pure denominations, we shall never think of supposing that there exist in nature genera or species; and we shall understand by these words nothing but a certain mode of classing things according to the relations which they have to ourselves and to one another. We shall be sensible that we can only discover those relations, and not what the things truly are."
Berkeley handled his subjects with little tenderness, and he has perfectly anatomised this subject of abstract ideas. In choosing to answer the objections to this doctrine as stated by him, I shall not be accused of wishing to encounter a mean adversary. I can only trust to the goodness of my cause. I hope I shall be excused for going at some length into the argument, because it is one of the most difficult and complicated in itself, and is of the most extensive application to other questions relating to the human understanding. If we can come to any satisfactory issue to it, it will be worth the pains of enquiry.
"It is agreed on all hands," says this author, "that the quantities or modes of things do never really exist in each of them, apart by itself, and separated from all others, but are mixed, as it were, and blended together, several in the same object. But we are told the mind being able to consider each quality singly, or abstracted from those other qualities with which it is united, does by that means frame to itself abstract ideas. For example, there is perceived by sight, an object, extended, coloured, and moved. This mixed idea the mind resolving into its simple constituent parts, and viewing each by itself exclusive of the rest, does frame the abstract ideas of extension, colour, and motion. ​Not that it is possible for colour or motion to exist without extension, but only that the mind can frame to itself by abstraction the idea of colour, exclusive of extension, and of motion exclusive both of colour and extension. Again, the mind having observed that in the particular extensions perceived by sense, there is something common and alike in all, and some other things peculiar, as this or that figure, or magnitude, which distinguish them one from another, it considers apart, or singles out by itself that which is most common, making thereof a most abstract idea of extension, line, surface, or solid, nor has any figure or magnitude, but is an idea prescinded from all these. So likewise the mind by leaving out of the particular colours perceived by sense, that which distinguishes them one from another, and retaining that which only is common to all, makes an idea of colour in abstract, which is neither red, nor blue, nor white, &c. And in like manner by considering motion abstractedly, not only the body moved, but likewise from the figure it describes, and all particular directions and velocities, the abstract idea of motion is framed, which equally corresponds to all particular motions whatsoever that may be perceived by sense.
And as the mind frames to itself abstract ideas of qualities, or modes, so does it by the precision or mental separation, attain abstract ideas of the more compound beings, which include several co-existent qualities:–for example, the mind having observed, that Peter, James, John, &c. resemble each other in certain common agreements of shape, and other qualities, leaves out of the complex or compounded idea it has of Peter, James, &c. that which is peculiar to each, retaining only what is common to all; and so makes an abstract idea wherein the particulars equally partake, abstracting entirely, and cutting off all ​those circumstances and differences which might determine it, to any particular existence. And after this manner it is said, we come by the abstract idea of man, or if you please humanity, or human nature; 'tis true, there is included colour, because there is no man but has some colour, but then it can be neither white nor black, nor any particular colour, because there is no one particular colour, wherein all men partake; so there is included stature, but then it is neither tall stature, nor low stature, nor yet middle stature, but something abstracted from all these; and so of the rest. Moreover, there being a great variety of other creatures that partake in some parts, not all, of the complex idea, man, the mind leaving out those parts which are peculiar to men, and retaining those only which are common to all living creatures, frames the idea of animals, which abstracts not only from all particular men, but also, all birds, beasts, fishes; and insects. By Body is meant body without any particular shape, or figure, there being no one shape or figure common to all animals, without covering of hair, feathers, or scales, &c. nor yet naked; hair, feathers, scales, and nakedness, being the distinguishing properties of particular animals, and for that reason left out of the abstract idea; upon the same account the spontaneous motion must be neither in walking, nor flying, nor creeping, it is nevertheless a motion, but what that motion is, it is not easy to conceive.
Whether others have this wonderful faculty of abstracting their ideas, they best can tell: for myself I dare be confident I have it not. I have a faculty of imagining or representing to myself the ideas of those particular things I have perceived, and of variously compounding and dividing them. I can imagine a man with two heads or the upper part of a man joined to the body of a horse; I can consider the hand, ​the eye, the nose, each by itself, abstracted or separated from the rest of the body. But then, whatever hand or eye, I imagine, it must have some particular shape, and colour. Likewise, the idea of man that I frame to myself must be either of a white, or a black, or a tawny; a strait, or a crooked; a tall, or a low, or a middle sized man. I cannot by any effort of thought conceive the abstract idea above-described: and it is equally impossible for me to form the abstract idea of motion distinct from the body moving, and which is neither swift nor slow, curvilinear nor rectilinear, and the like may be said of other abstract general ideas whatsoever: to be plain, I own myself able to abstract in one sense, as when I consider some particular parts or qualities separated from others, with which, though they are united in some objects, yet it is possible they may really exist without them. But I deny that I can abstract from one another, or conceive separately those qualities, which it is impossible should exist so separated:—or that I can frame a general notion by abstracting from particulars in the manner aforesaid, which two last are the proper acceptation of abstraction; and there is ground to think most men will acknowledge themselves to be in my case.
The generality of men, which are simple and illiterate, never pretend to abstract notions. It is said they are difficult and not to be attained without pains and study; we may therefore reasonably conclude that, if such there be, they are confined only to the learned. I proceed to examine what can be alleged in defence of the doctrine of abstraction, and try if I can discover what it is that inclines the man of speculation to embrace an opinion so remote from common sense as that seems to be. There has been a late excellent and deservedly esteemed philosopher, who no doubt has given it very much, by seeming to think ​the having abstract general ideas is what puts the difference in point of understanding betwixt man and beast.
The author here quotes a passage from Mr. Locke on the subject, which it is not necessary to give, and afterwards his opinion that words become general by being made signs of general ideas. He then proceeds:—To this I cannot assent, being of opinion that a word becomes general by being made the sign, not of an abstract general idea, but of several particular ideas, any one of which it indifferently suggests to the mind.
If we will annex a meaning to our words and speak only of what we can only conceive, I believe we shall acknowledge that an idea, which considered in itself is particular, becomes general, by being made to represent or stand for all other particular ideas of the same sort. To make this plain by example, suppose a geometrician is demonstrating the method of cutting a line in two equal parts. He draws for instance a black line of an inch in length: this which is in itself a particular line, is nevertheless, with regard to its signification, general, since, as it is there used, it represents all particular lines whatsoever, so that what is demonstrated of it is demonstrated of all lines, or in other words of a line in general; and, as that particular line becomes general, by being made a sign, so the name line, which taken absolutely, is particular, by being a sign, is made general. And as the former owes its generality not to its being the sign of an abstract or general line, but of all particular right lines that may possibly exist, so the latter must be thought to derive its generality from the same cause, namely, the various particular lines which it indifferently, denotes.
To give the reader a clearer view of the nature of abstract ideas, and the uses they are thought necessary to, ​I shall add one more passage out of the Essay on Human Understanding, which is as follows:—"Abstract ideas are not so obvious or easy to children, or the yet unexercised mind as particular ones. If they seem so to grown men, it is only by constant and familiar use they are made so. For when we nicely reflect upon them, we shall find that general ideas are fictions and contrivances of the mind, that carry difficulty with them, and do not so easily of themselves as we are apt to imagine. For example, does it not require some skill and pains to form the general idea of a triangle, (which is yet none of the abstract, comprehensive, and difficult), for it must be neither oblique nor rectangle, neither equilateral, equicrural, nor scalenor, but all and none of these at once. In effect it is something imperfect that cannot exist, an idea wherein some parts of different and inconsistent ideas are put together. 'Tis true the mind in this imperfect state has need of such ideas, and makes all the haste it can to them, for the convenience of communication and enlargement of knowledge, to both of which it is naturally very much inclined. But yet one has reason to suspect such ideas are marks of our imperfections, at least this is enough to show that the most abstract and general ideas are not those that the mind is first and most easily acquainted with, nor such as its earliest knowledge is conversant about.—After laughing at this description of the general idea of a triangle, which is neither oblique nor rectangle, equilateral, equicrural, nor scalenor, but all and none of these at once, Berkeley adds, much is here said of the difficulty that abstract ideas carry with them, and the pains and skill requisite to the forming of them. And it is on all hands agreed that there is need of great toil and labour of mind, to emancipate our thoughts from particular objects, and raise them to those sublime speculations that ​are conversant about abstract ideas. From all which the natural consequences should seem to be, that so difficult a thing as forming abstract ideas was not necessary for communication, which is so familiar to all sorts of men. But, we are told, if they seem obvious and easy to grown men, it is only because by constant and familiar use they are made so. Now I would fain know at what time it is, men are employed in surmounting that difficulty and furnishing themselves with those necessary helps for discourse. It cannot be when they are grown up, for then it seems they are not conscious of any such pains-taking; it therefore remains to be the business of their childhood. And surely the great and multiplied labour of framing abstract notions will be found a hard task for that tender age. Is it not a hard thing to imagine that a couple of children cannot prate of their sugar plums, and rattles, and the rest of their little trinkets, till they have first packed together numberless inconsistencies, and so framed in their minds general abstract ideas, and annexed them to every common name they make use of.
It is I know a point much insisted on that all knowledge and demonstration are about universal notions, to which I fully assent. But then it does not appear to me that those notions are formed by abstraction, in the manner premised; universality, so far as I can comprehend, not consisting in the absolute, positive nature and conception of any thing, but in the relation it bears to the particulars signified, or represented by it. But here it will be demanded, how we can know any proposition to be true of all particular triangles, except we have seen it first demonstrated of the abstract idea of a triangle which equally agrees to all?
For because a property may be demonstrated to agree to some particular triangle, it will not thence follow that it ​equally belongs to every other with it. For example, having demonstrated that the three angles of an isosceles, rectangular triangle, are equal to two right ones, I cannot therefore conclude this affection argues to all other triangles, which have neither a right angle, nor two equal sides. It seems, therefore, that to be certain this proposition is universally true we must either make a particular demonstration for every particular triangle, which is impossible, or once for all demonstrate it of the abstract idea of a triangle, in which all the particulars do indifferently partake, and by which they are all equally represented." To which I answer, that though the idea I have in view, whilst I make the demonstration, be, for instance, that of an isosceles, not a regular triangle, whose sides are of a determinate length, I may nevertheless be certain it extends to all other rectilinear triangles of what sort or bigness soever. And that neither because the right angle, nor the equality, nor determinate length of the sides are at all concerned in the demonstration. It is true, the diagram I have in view includes all these particulars, but then there is not the least mention made of them in the proofs of the proposition. It is not said the three angles are equal to two right ones, because one of these is a right angle, or because the sides comprehending it are of the same length. Which sufficiently shews that the right angle might have been oblique and the sides unequal, and for all the others the demonstrations have held good. And for this reason it is that I conclude that to be true of any oblique angular, or scalenon, which I had demonstrated of a particular right angled, equicrural, triangle, and not because I demonstrated the proposition of the abstract idea of a triangle. The author then adds some further remarks on the use of abstract terms, and concludes—"May we not, for example, be affected ​with the promise of a good thing, though we have not an idea of what it is? or is not the being threatened with danger sufficient to excite a dread, though we think not of a particular evil likely to befal us, and yet frame to ourselves an idea of danger in abstract?" Introduction to Principles of Human Knowledge, p. 31.
Hume, who has taken up Berkeley's arguments on this subject, and affirms that the doctrine of abstract ideas applies the flattest of all contradictions, that it is possible for the same thing to be and not to be, has enlarged a good deal on this last topic of the manner in which words may be supposed to excite general ideas. His words are these: "Where we have found a resemblance between any two objects that often occur to us, we apply the same name to all of them, whatever differences we may observe in the degrees of their quantity and quality, and whatever differences may appear among them. After we have acquired a custom of this kind, the hearing of that name revives the idea of one of these objects, and makes the imagination conceive it with its particular circumstances and proportions. But as the same word is supposed to have been frequently applied to other individuals that are different in many respects from the idea which is immediately present to the mind, the word not being able to revive the idea of all these individuals, only touches the soul, if I may be allowed so to speak, and revives that custom, which we have acquired by surveying them. They are not in reality present to the mind, but only in power, nor do we draw them out distinctly in the imagination, but keep ourselves in readiness to survey any of them, as we may be prompted by a present design or necessity. The word raises up an individual idea, along with a certain custom; and that custom produces any other individual one, for which we may ​have occasion." Treatise of Human Nature, p. 43, 4. The author afterwards adds, with his usual candour, that this account does not perfectly satisfy him, but he relies principally on the logical demonstration of the impossibilities of abstract ideas just before given.
I confess it does not seem an easy matter to recover the argument in this state of it; however, I will attempt it. What I shall endeavour will not be so much to answer the *foregoing reasoning as to prove that in a strict sense all ideas whatever are mere abstractions and can be nothing else; that some of the most clear, distinct, and positive ideas of particular objects are made up of numberless inconsistencies; and that as Hume expresses it, they do touch the soul, and are not drawn distinctly in the imagination, &c. Though I shall not be able to point out distinctly the fallacy of the foregoing reasonings, I hope to make it appear that there must be something wrong in the premises, and that the nature of thought and ideas is quite different from what is here supposed. I may be allowed to set off one paradox against another, and as these writers affirm that all abstract ideas are particular images, so I shall try to prove that all particular images are abstract ideas. If it can be made to appear that our ideas of particular things themselves are not particular, it may be easily granted that those which are in general allowed to be abstract are all so. The existence of abstract and complex ideas in the mind has been disputed for the same reason, that is, in falsely attributing individuality, or absolute unity to the objects of sense. While each thing or object was said to be absolutely one and simple, there was found to be no reach, compass, or expansion of mind, to comprehend it; and, on the other hand, there was no room on the same supposition for the doctrine of abstraction, for there is no abstracting from absolute unity. ​That which is one positive, indivisible thing, must remain entire as this, or cease to exist. There is no alternative between individuality and nothing. As long as we are determined to consider any one thing or idea, as the knot of a chain, or the figure of a man, or any thing else, as one individual, it must, as it were, go together: we can take nothing away without destroying it altogether. I have already shewn that there is no one object which does not consist of a number of parts and relations, or which does not require a comprehensive facility in the mind in order to conceive of it. Now abstraction is a necessary consequence of the limitation of this power of the mind, and if it were a previous condition of our having the ideas of things that we should comprehend distinctly all the particulars of which they are composed, we could have no ideas at all. An imperfectly comprehended is a general idea. But the mind perfectly comprehends the whole of no one object. That is, it has not an absolute and distinct knowledge of all its parts or differences, and consequently all our ideas are abstractions, that is a general and confused result from a number of undistinguished, and undistinguishable impressions, for there is no possible medium between a perfectly distinct comprehension of all the particulars, which is impossible, or that imperfect and confused one, that properly constitutes a general notion in the one case or the other. To explain this more particularly. In looking at any object, as a house on the opposite side of the way, it is supposed that the impression I have of it is a perfectly distinct, precise, or definite idea, in which abstraction has no concern. And the general idea of a house, it is said, is rather a mere word, or must reduce itself to some such positive, individual image as that conveyed by the sight of a particular house, it being impossible that ​it should be made up of the confused, imperfect, and undisguishable impressions of several different objects of the same kind. Now it appears to me the easiest thing in the world to shew that this sensible image of a particular house, into which the general is to be resolved for greater clearness, is itself but a confused and vague notion, or numberless inconsistencies packed together; not one precise individual thing, or any number of things, distinctly perceived. For I would ask of any one who thinks his senses furnish him with these infallible and perfect conceptions of things, free from all contradiction and perplexity, whether he has a precise knowledge of all the circumstance of the object prescribed to him. For instance, is the knowledge which he has that the house before him is larger than another near it, in consequence of his intentively considering all the bricks of which it is composed, or can he tell that it contains a greater number of windows than another, without distinctly counting them? Let us suppose, however, that he does. But this will not be enough unless he has also a distinct perception of the numbers and the size of the panes of glass in each window, or of any mark, stain, or dirt in each separate brick? Otherwise his idea of each of these particulars will still be general, and his most substantial knowledge built on shadows; that is composed of a number of parts of the parts of which he has no knowledge. If objects were what mankind in general suppose them, single things, we could have no notion of them but what was particular, for by leaving out any thing we should leave out the whole object, which is but one thing. We may also be said to have a particular knowledge of things in proportion to the number of parts we distinguish in them. But the real foundation of all our knowledge, is and must be general, that is, a mere confused impression or effect of ​feeling produced by a number of things, for there is no object which does not consist of an infinite number of parts, and we have not an infinite number of distinct ideas answering to them. Yet it cannot be denied that we have some knowledge of things, that they make some impression on us, and this knowledge, this impression, must therefore be an abstract one, the natural result of a limited understanding, which is variously affected by a number of things at the same time, but which is not susceptible of itself to infinite number of modifications. If it should be said that the sensible image of the house is still one, as being one impression, or given result, I answer that the most abstract ideas of a house, and the imperfect recollection of a number of houses is in the same sense one, and a real idea, distinct from that of a tree, though far from being a particular image. Again, it is said, that in conceiving of the idea of man in general, we must conceive a man a particular sign or figure. I would ask first is this to be understood merely of his height, or of his form in general? If the latter, it would imply that we have, wherever we pronounce the word man, no ideas at all, or a distinct conception of a man with a head and limbs of a certain extent and proportion, of every turn in each feature, of every variety in the formation of each part, as well as of its distance from every other part, a knowledge which no sculptor or painter ever had of any one figure of which he was the most perfect master, for it would be a knowledge of an infinite number of lines drawn in all directions from every part of the body, with their precise length and terminations. Those who have consigned this business of abstraction over to the senses with a view to make the whole matter plain and easy, have not been aware what they have been doing. They sup​posed with the vulgar that it was only necessary to open the eyes in order to see, and that the images produced by outward objects are completely defined, and unalterable things, in which there can be no dimness and confusion. These speculators had no thought but they saw as much of a landscape as Poussin, and knew as much about a face that was before them as Titian or Vandyke would have done. This is a great mistake; the having particular and absolute ideas of things is not only difficult, but impos⇗sible. The ablest painters have never been able to give more than one part of nature, in abstracted views of things. The most laborious artists never finished to perfection any one part of an object, or had ever any more than a confused, vague, uncertain notion of the shape of the mouth or nose, or the colour of an eye. Ask a logician, or any common man, and he will no doubt tell you that a face is a face, a nose is a nose, a tree is a tree, and that he can see what it is as well as another. Ask a painter and he will tell you otherwise. Secondly, when it is asserted that we must necessarily have the idea of a particular sign, when we think of any in general, all that is intended by it is, I believe, that we must think of a particular height. This idea it is supposed must be particular and determinate, just as we must draw a line with a piece of chalk, or make a mark with the slides of a measuring rule, in one place and not in the other. I think it may be shewn that this view of the question is also utterly fallacious, and out of the order of our ideas. The height of the individual is thus resolved with the ideas of the lines terminating or defining it, and the intermediate space of which it properly consists is entirely forgotten. For let us take any given height of a man, whether tall, short, or middle-sized, and let that height be as visible as you ​please, I would ask whether the actual height to which it amounts, does not consist of a number of other lengths: as if it be a tall man, the length will be six feet, and each of these feet will consist of so many inches, and those inches will be again made up of decimals, and those decimals of other subordinate parts, which must be all distinctly placed, and added together before the sum total, which they compose, can be pretended to be a distinct particular, or individual idea; I can only understand by a particular thing either one precise individual, or a precise number of individuals.
Instead of its being true that all general ideas of extension are deducible to particular positive extension, the reverse proportion is I think demonstrable: that all particular extensions, the most positive and distinct, are never any thing else than a more or less vague notion of extension in general. In any given visible object we have always the general idea of something extended, and never of the precise length; for the precise length as it is thought to be is necessarily composed of a number of lengths too many, and too minute to be necessarily attended to, or jointly conceived by the mind, and at last loses itself in the infinite divisibility of matter. What sort of distinctness or individual can therefore be found in any visible image, or object of sense, I cannot well conceive: it seems to me like seeking for certainty in the dancing of insects in the evening sun, or for fixedness or rest in the motions of the sea. All particulars are thought nothing but generals, more or less defined by circumstances, but never perfectly so; in this all our knowledge both begins and ends, and if we think to exclude all generality from our ideas of things, we must be content to remain in utter ignorance. The proof that our ideas of particular things are not themselves ​particular, is the uncertainty and difficulty we have only in comparing them with one another. In looking at a line an inch long, I have a certain general impression of it, so that I can tell it is shorter than another, three or four times as long, drawn on the same sheet of paper, but I cannot immediately tell that it is shorter than one only a tenth or twentieth of an inch longer. The idea which I have of it is therefore not an exact one. In looking at a window I cannot precisely tell the number of panes of glass it contains, yet I can easily say whether they are few or many, whether the window is large or small. Now if all our ideas were made up of particulars, we never could pronounce generally whether there were few or many of these panes of glass, but we should know the precise number, or at least pitch on some precise number in our minds, and this we could not help knowing. There must be either 5, 10, 20, or 30; for it is in vain to urge that the idea in my mind is a floating one, and shifts from one of them to another, so that I cannot tell the moment after which it was; but what is this imperfect recollection but a confused contradictory and abstract idea? Here is a plain dilemma: it is a fact that we have some idea of a number of objects presented to us. It is also a fact that we do not know the precise number, nor can we assign any number confidently whether right or wrong. Whether this idea is but an abstract and general one it seems hard to say. Those who contend that we cannot have an idea of a man in general, without conceiving of some particular man, seem to have little reason, since the most particular idea we can form of a man, either in imagination or from the actual impression, is but a general idea. Those who say we cannot conceive of an army of men without conceiving of the individuals composing it, ought to go a step further, and affirm that we ​must represent to ourselves the features, form, complexion, size, posture, and dress, with every other circumstance belonging to each individual.
We must admit the notion of abstraction, first or last, unless any one will contend for this infinite refinement in our ideas of things, or assert that we have no idea at all. For the same process takes place in it, and is absolutely necessary to our most particular notions of things, as well as our most general, namely, that of abstracting from particulars, or of passing over the minute differences of things, taking them in the gross, and attending to the general effect of a number of distinguished and distinguishable impressions. It is thus we arrive at our first notion of things, and thus that all our after knowledge is acquired. The knowledge upon which our ideas rest is general, and the only difference between abstract and particular, is that of being more or less general, of leaving out more or fewer circumstances, and more or fewer objects, perceived either at once or in succession, and forming either a particular whole, aggregate, or a class of things. It may be asked farther whether our ideas of things, however abstract in general, with respect to the objects they represent, are not in their own nature, and absolute existence particular. To this hard question I shall return the best answer I can.
1. It is sufficient to the present purpose that ideas are general in their representation, however particular in themselves. Each idea is something in itself, and not another idea. This is equally true of the most abstract or particular ideas of things. The abstract idea of a man is the abstract idea of a man, not the abstract idea of a horse, nor the particular one of any given individual man. It is characterized by general properties, and distinguished by general ​circumstances, and is neither a mere word without any idea, nor a particular image of one thing; so the idea of a particular man, though still only a general result from a number of particulars is sufficiently positive for the actual purposes of thought, and distinguishable from that other general result or impression which institutes the idea of a particular horse, for instance.
2. That our general notions are any otherwise particular than as they are the same with themselves, and different from one another, is more than I know. I must demur on this question, whatever others may do. Whatever contradictions are involved in the one side of it, those on the other seem as great. For it is not easy to imagine any thing more absurd than the supposition that the idea of a line for instance is precisely, and to a hair's breadth or to the utmost possible exactness, of a certain length, when neither the precise number nor the precise proportion of the parts composing this line are at all known. It is like saying that we cast up an account to the utmost degree of nicety, when not one of the items is known, but as of an average conjecture or in round numbers. We generally estimate our notion of a particular extension by the point or matter at all terminating it, and it seems as if this did not admit of an ambiguity, or variation. But in fact all ideas are a calculation of particulars, and when the parts are only known in gross, the sum total, or resulting idea can only be so too. The smallest division of which our notions are susceptible is a general idea. In the progress of the understanding, we never begin from absolute unity but always from something that is more. How then is it possible that these general conceptions should form a whole always commensurate to a precise number of absolute unity I cannot conceive, any more than how it is possible to express a ​fraction in whole numbers. The two things are incompatible. As to any thing like conscious individuality, i. e. that which assigneth limits to our ideas we know they have it not.
3. I would observe that ideas, as far as they are distinct and particular, seem to involve a greater contradiction than when they are confused and general. For, in proportion to their distinctness, must be the number of different acts of the mind excited at the same time; i. e. in proportion to the individuality of the image or idea, if I may so express myself, the thought ceases to be individual, inasmuch as the simplicity of the attention is thus necessarily broken and divided into a number of different actions, which yet are all united in the same conscious feeling, or there could be no connection between them. How then we should ever be able to conceive of things distinctly, clearly, and particularly, seems the wonder: not how different impressions acting at once on the mind should be confused, and as it were massed together, in a general feeling, for want of sufficient activity in the intellectual faculties to give form and a distinct place to all that throng of objects which at all times solicit the attention. Let any one make the experiment of counting a flock of sheep driven fast by him, and he will soon find his imagination unable to keep pace with the rapid succession of objects, and his idea of particular number slide into the general idea of multitude; not that because there are more objects than he possibly can count, he will think there are many, or that the word flock will present to his mind a mere name, without any particulars corresponding to it. Every act of the attention, every object we see or think of, presents a proof of the same kind.
4. I conceive that the mind has not been fairly dealt ​with in this and other similar questions of the same sort. Matter alone seems to have the privilege of presenting difficulties, and contradictions at every turn; but the moment any thing of this kind is observed in the understanding, all the petulance of logicians is up in arms, and the mind is made the mark on which they vent all the modes and figures of their impertinence. Let us take an example from some of these self-evident matters of fact, which contain at least as many, and as great contradictions, as any in the most abstruse metaphysical doctrine, such as in extension, motion, and the curve of lines. Now as to the first of these, extension: if we suppose it to be made up of points, which are in themselves without extension, but by their combination produce it, we must suppose two unextended things, when joined together, to become extended, which is like supposing, that by adding together several nothings, we can arrive at something. On the other hand, if we suppose the ultimate parts of which extension is composed, to be themselves extended, we then attribute extension to that which is indivisible, or affirm a thing to consist of parts, and to have none, at the same time. The old argument against the possibility of motion is well known: it was said that the body moving must either be in the place where it was, or in that into which it was passing. Now, if it was in either of these, or in any one place, it must be at rest; and as it could not be in both at once, it followed that a body moving could exist no where, or that there was no such thing as motion in nature. Again, a curve line is described mathematically by a point moving, but always out of a strait line. Now, a strait line is the nearest between any two points. But that a body should move forward, and not move strait forward to the next point to which it is going, seems to imply no less an absurdity ​than the affirming that a thing never moves in the direction in which it is going, but always out of it; for, if it moves in the same direction, the smallest moment of time, this is not a curve, but a strait line; and if it does not continue to move in the same direction at all, it seems utterly inconceivable that it should make any progress, or move either in a curve or a strait line. Yet any one who, on the strength of the contradiction involved in the ideas of extension, motion, or curve lines, should severally deny or disbelieve any one of them, would be thought to want common sense. I think there are certain facts of the mind which are equally evident and unaccountable. Those who contend that the one are to be admitted, and the other not, because the one are the objects of sense, and the other not, do not deserve any serious answer. It is as much a fact, that I remember having seen the sun yesterday, as that I see it to-day, and both of them are much more certain facts, than that there is any such body as the sun really existing out of the mind.
I will now return to Berkeley, and endeavour to answer his chief objections to the doctrine of abstract ideas. First, then, I conceive that he has himself virtually given up the question, when he allows that the mind may be affected with the promise of a good thing, or terrified by the apprehension of danger, without thinking of any particular good or evil that is likely to befal us. What this idea of good or evil, which is not particular, can be, other than abstract, I cannot conceive; and to say that it is not an idea, but a mere feeling excited by custom, is an answer very little to the purpose. For this feeling, this custom, is itself a general impression, and could not, without a power of abstraction in the mind, think, without a power of being acted upon by a number of different impulses of pleasure and pain, concurring ​to produce a general effect, abstracted from the particular feelings themselves, or the objects first exciting them. All abstract ideas are several impressions of the same kind, and are merely customary affections of the mind, not distinct images of things. But if it be said that the word idea properly signifies an image, and must be something distinct, then I answer, first, that this would only restrict the use of the word idea to particular things, and not affect the real question in dispute, and secondly, that there is no such thing as a distinct and particular image in the mind. The manner in which Berkeley explains the nature of mathematical demonstrations, according to his system, shew its utter inadequateness to any purposes of general reasoning, and is a plain confession of the necessity of abstract ideas. For all the answer he gives to the question, how can we know any proposition to be true in general, from having found it so in a particular instance, comes to this, that though the diagram we have in view includes a number of particulars, yet we know the principle to be true generally, because there is not the least mention made of these particulars in the proof of the proposition. But I would ask also, whether there is not the least thought of them in the mind? The truth is, that the mind upon Berkeley's principle must think of the particular right angled, isosceles, triangle in question, or it can have no idea at all, for it has no general idea of a triangle to which it can apply the name generally. If we suppose that there is any such general form, or notion to which the other particular circumstances are merely superadded, and which may be left standing, though they are taken away, we then run immediately to all the absurdities of abstraction, which he so much wishes to avoid. If we then demonstrate the proposition of the particular diagram before us, as of a determinate size, shape, &c., this demonstration cannot hold ​good generally. If we are supposed to omit all these particular circumstances in our minds, then we either demonstrate the proposition of the general and abstract idea of a triangle, or of no idea at all; for after the particulars are omitted, or not attended to by the mind, the only idea remaining must be a general one. Farther, that on which I am willing to rest the whole controversy, is the following remark, viz., that without the general idea of a line or triangle, there could be no particular one; that is, no idea of any one line or triangle, as of the same form, or as any way related to any other, so that there could be no common measure or line to correct any of our thoughts or reasoning together into a general conclusion. For to take the former instance as the most simple. When we speak of any particular extension, it is evident that we understand something which is not particular. Besides what is peculiar to it, it must have something which is not peculiar to it, but general, to merit the common appellation. Berkeley says, "An idea which in itself is particular, becomes general, by being made to represent or stand for all other particular ideas of the same sort." I do request that the import of these last words may be attended to. Do they suggest any idea or none; if they mean any thing, it must be something more than the particular ideas which are said to be of the same sort, i. e. some general notion of them. But this will involve all the absurdities of abstraction. If there is any thing in the mind besides these particular ideas themselves—any thing that compares or contrasts them, that refers to this or that belief, this comparison or classifying can be nothing but a perception of a general nature in which these things agree, or the general resemblance which the mind perceives between the several impressions. If there is no such comparison or perception of ​resemblance, or idea of abstract qualities, then there can be no idea answering to the words "of the same sort;" but these particular ideas will be left standing by themselves, absolutely unconnected. As far as our ideas are merely particular, i. e. are negations of other ideas, so far they must be perfectly distinct from each other; there can be nothing between them to blend or associate them together. Each separate idea would be surrounded with a chevaux de frise of its own, in a state of irreconcilable antipathy to every other idea, and the fair form of nature would present nothing but a number of discordant atoms. A particular line would no more represent another line, than it would represent a point: one colour could no more resemble another colour, or suggest its idea, than it could that of a sound, or a smell: there could be no clue to make us class different shades of the same colour under one general name, any more than the most opposite: one triangle would be as distinct from another, as from a square or a cube, and so through the whole system of art and nature. There must be a mutual leaning, a greater proximity between some ideas than others: a common point to which they tend, that is a common quality: a general nature, in which they are identified: or there could not be in the mind more ideas of same or like, or different, or judgment, or reasoning, or truth, or falsehood, than in the stones in the fields, or the sands of the sea-shore. The idea of classing things implies only the same sort of general comparison, or abstract idea of likeness, that is necessary to the idea of any simple sensible quality of an object. In both cases, we only contemplate a number of things as alike or under the same general notion, without attending to their actual differences. Take the idea, for instance, of a slab of white marble. As long as only one such piece of marble is considered, it is ​supposed to be a particular object, and its whiteness is supposed to be perceived by the mind as a simple sensible quality. If, on the contrary, several such slabs of marble are presented to the mind, this is commonly considered as producing a general idea of marble and of whiteness. But this idea of whiteness, not as a quality of a particular thing, but as a common quality of different things, is rejected by the moderns as implying the supposition, that several different ideas can coalesce in the same general notion, which amounts, they say, to the contradiction, that a thing may be the same, and different at the same time. Now I would affirm whatever there is absurd or inconceivable in this latter case applies equally to the former. For what possible idea can any man form of a slab of white marble, in any other way than that of abstraction? Is the idea of its whiteness as a sensible quality the idea of a point? Is it one single impression? This Berkeley and others deny, for they say there can be no idea of colour without extension, or of quality without quantity. If there are in this object several impressions of colour, I would ask are they all distinctly perceived? Are they all the same? Or if not, are all their differences perceived by the mind, before it possibly can be impressed with the general idea of a certain sensible quality, or that the object before it is white? Is the mind aware of even the slightest stain in this object, of everything that may happen to vary it? Yet, if the idea falls any thing short of this minute and perfect knowledge, it can only be an imperfect and general notion. That is, a number of differences must be massed together in a common feeling of likeness, and a number of separate parts make up the idea of a given object. Yet this is all that is implied in forming the ideas of whiteness in general, as belonging to several objects, or ​of colour, or extension, or any other idea whatever, drawn from numberless objects, impressed at numberless times. If particular objects or qualities were single things, there would then be some precise limit between them and abstract or general ideas, but as the most particular object, or qualities, as well as the most general combinations and classes of things are necessarily confused and mixed results, and nothing more than a number of impressions, never distinctly analyzed by the mind, there can be no general reasoning to disprove abstracted ideas in the common sense of the word.
THE END.
WALTER SPIERS, PRINTER, 399, OXFORD STREET.
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