Now, in order to prevent these genera and species, and all rational ideas along with them, from being precipitated into the empty abyss of words prepared for them by these philosophers, it may be proper to ask one question, viz. if we have no idea of genera and species, or of what different things have in common or alike, that is, if the idea is nothing but the name, how is it that we know when to apply the same general name to different particulars, which on this principle can have nothing left to connect them in the mind? For example, take the words, a white horse. Now, say they, it is the terms which are general or common, but we have no general or abstract idea corresponding to them. But if we have no general idea of white, nor any general idea of a horse, what have we left to guide us in applying the phrase to any but the first horse, any more than in applying the terms of an unknown tongue to their respective objects? In short, what is it that ‘puts the same common name into a capacity of signifying many particulars,’ but that common nature or kind which is conceived to belong to them? Condillac says, that without general terms, there would be no general ideas; it appears to me, that without general ideas there could be no general terms. Language without this would be reduced to a heap of proper names, and we should be as completely at a loss to class any object generally from its agreement with others, or to say at sight, this is a man, this is a horse, as to know whether we should call the first man we accidentally met in the street by the name of John or Thomas. The very existence of language is alone a sufficient proof of the power of abstraction in the human mind.
It is so far from being true, according to the modern philosophy, that we have neither complex nor general ideas, that, I think, it may be proved to a demonstration that we have and can have no others. I must premise, however, that I do not believe it possible ever to arrive at general or abstract ideas by beginning in Mr. Locke’s method with particular images. This faculty of abstraction is by most writers considered as a sort of artificial refinement upon our other ideas, as an excrescence no ways contained in the common impressions of things, nor necessary to the common purposes of life; and is by Mr. Locke altogether denied to be among the faculties of brutes. It is described as 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:—
‘So from the root
Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves
More airy, last the bright consummate flower.’
On the contrary, I conceive that all our notions, from first to last, are (strictly speaking) general and abstract, not absolute or particular; and that to have a perfectly distinct idea of any one individual object 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 require an unlimited power of comprehension in the human mind, which is impossible. All particular things consist of, and even lead to, an infinite number of other things. Abstraction is therefore a necessary consequence of the limitation of the comprehensive faculty, and mixes itself, more or less, with every act of the understanding, of whatever kind, during every moment of its existence. The same fallacy has led to the rejection of abstract and general ideas which has led to the rejection of complex ones, viz. that of supposing sensible images to be perfectly simple or individual things. But the truth is, that there is no one idea of an individual object which is any thing more than a general and imperfect notion of it: for as there is no such idea which does not relate to a number of complicated impressions and their connections, so we can conceive the whole of no one object. Again, there is no idea of a particular quality of any object, which is perfectly simple and definite, but the result of a number of sensible impressions of the same sort, classed together by the mind under the abstract notion of likeness, or of something common between them, without attending to their difference in other respects.
This view of the subject is not, I confess, very obvious at first sight, and requires strong and clear proof, but it also admits of it. The only way to defend our common sense against the sophisms of the moderns is to retort their own analytical distinctions upon them.
In looking at any object, as at St. James’s Palace, for example, it is taken for granted that the impression I have of it is a perfectly distinct, precise, and definite idea, in which abstraction or generalisation has no concern. Now it appears to me an easy matter to shew that this sensible image of a particular building is itself but a vague and confused notion, not one precise, individual impression, or any number of impressions, distinctly perceived. For I would demand of any one who thinks his senses furnish him with these infallible and perfect images of things, free from all contradiction and perplexity, what is the amount of the knowledge which he has of the object before him? For instance, is the knowledge which he has that St. James’s Palace is larger than the houses which are near it, owing to his perceiving, with a glance of the eye, all the bricks of which the front is composed, or can he not tell that it contains a number of windows of different sizes, without distinctly counting them? Let us even suppose that he has this exact knowledge, yet this will not be enough unless he has also a distinct perception of the number and size of the panes of glass in each window, and of every mark, stain, or dent in each 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. In the same manner that I form an idea of St. James’s Palace, I can form an idea of Pall-Mall, of the adjoining streets, of Westminster, and London, of Paris, of France, and England, and of the different cities and kingdoms of the world. At least, I do not see the point of separation in this progressive scale of our ideas. May I not be able, in looking out of my window, to distinguish, first, a certain object in the distance, then that it is a man, then that it is a person whom I know, and all this before I can distinguish his particular features; and after I can distinguish those features, what do I know or see of them, except their general form, expression, and effect? Little or nothing. Let any one, who is not an artist, or let any one who is, attempt to give an outline from memory of the features of his most intimate friend, and he will feel the truth of this remark. Yet though he does not know the exact turn of any one feature, he will instantly, and without fail, recognise the person the moment he meets him in the street, and that often, merely from catching a glimpse of some part of his dress, or from peculiarity of motion, though he may be quite at a loss to define in what this peculiarity consists, or to account for its impression on him. We may be said to have a particular knowledge of things, in proportion to the number of parts which we distinguish in them. But the real ultimate foundation of all our knowledge is and must be general, that is, made up of masses, not of points, a mere confused result of a number of impressions, not analysed by the mind, since 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. The knowledge of every finite being rests in generals, and if we think to exclude all generality from our ideas of things, as implying a want of perfect truth and clearness, it will be impossible for the mind to form an idea of any one object whatever. Let any person try 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 a positive number slide into the general notion of multitude. But because there are more objects passing before him than he can possibly count, he will not, therefore, think that there are none, nor will the word, flock, present to his mind a mere name without any idea corresponding to it. Every act of the attention, every object we see or think of, offers a proof of the same kind.
These remarks will be found to contain the answer to the common argument used on this subject, that in thinking of a man in general, we must always conceive of a man of a particular size and figure. Now if it be meant that when we pronounce the word man, we have either no idea at all, or a distinct and perfect one of an entire figure of a man with all its parts and proportions, it would amount to a knowledge, which no sculptor or painter ever had of any one figure of which he was the most thorough master, and which he had immediately before him. Or if it be only meant that we think of a particular height, which must be a precise, positive, determinate idea, even this supposition may in the same way be shewn to be exceedingly fallacious, and an inversion of the natural order of our ideas. For take any given height of a man, whether tall, short, or middle-sized, and let that height be as visible as you please, yet the actual height to which it amounts must be made up of the length of the different parts, the head, the face, the neck, the body, limbs, &c. all which must be distinctly added together by the mind, before the sum total which they compose can be pretended to be a precise, definite, individual idea. In the impression then of a given visible object, we have only a general idea of something more or less extended, and never of the precise length itself, for this precise length (as it is thought to be) is necessarily composed of a number of subordinate lengths, too many and too minute to be separately attended to, or jointly conceived by the mind, and at last loses itself in the infinite divisibility of matter. What sort of absolute certainty can therefore be found in any such image or ideas, I cannot well conceive: it seems to me like seeking for distinctness in the dancing of insects in the evening sun, or for fixedness and rest in the motion of the sea. All particulars are nothing but generals, more or less defined according to circumstances, but never perfectly so.
Lastly, as the ideas of sensible objects can only be general notions, so the ideas of sensible qualities are properly abstract ideas of likeness or of something common between a number of sensible impressions of the same class or sort. For example, the idea I have of the whiteness of a marble statue is not the idea of a point, nor of any number of points, with all their differences and circumstances, but a relative idea of the colour of the whole statue. Now in arriving at this general result, or in classing its sensible impressions together as of the same sort or quality, the mind certainly is not conscious of every stain in the colour of the marble, or streak that may happen to vary it, or of its shape or size, or of every difference of light and shade, arising from inequality of surface, &c. Yet if the idea falls any thing short of this minute and absolute knowledge, it can only be an imperfect and abstract one. The idea of whiteness in the same object (or as a sensible quality) necessarily implies the same power of abstracting from particulars in the mind, as the general idea of whiteness taken from different objects, from a white horse, a white cloud, a white wall, a white lily, or from all the other white objects I have ever seen. The precise differences of form, size, and every other actual circumstance in these particular images, are as little necessary to be attended to in forming the general idea of whiteness, as the differences of shape, size, and colour in every particle of the statue of white marble are to the general impression of colour in the whole object.