The collected works of William Hazlitt, Vol. 11 (of 12)

by William Hazlitt

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 as 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, 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 quite the 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 applications 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 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 Bucephalus 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 abstracts 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 these 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 to 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 Abbé 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 taking 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 determine 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.