rally, because there is not the least mention made of these particulars in the proof of the proposition. When it is asserted that we must necessarily have the idea of a particular size whenever we think of a man in general, all that is intended I believe is 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 slider of a measuring instrument in one place and not in another. I think it may be shown that this view of the question is also extremely fallacious and an inversion of the order of our ideas. The height of the individual is thus resolved into the consideration of the lines terminating or defining it, and the intermediate space of which it properly consists is entirely overlooked. For let us take any given height of a man, whether tall, short, or middlesized, and let that height be as visible as you please, I would ask whether the actual length 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 as many inches, and those inches will be again made up of decimals, and those decimals of other subordinate and infinitesimal parts, which must be all distinctly perceived

and added together before the sum total which
they compose can be pretended to be a dis-
tinct, particular, or individual idea.
In any

given visible object we have always a gross,
general idea of something extended, and
never of the precise length; for this precise
length as it is thought to be is neces-
sarily composed of a number of 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 distinctness or individuality 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 and rest in the motions of the sea.

All particulars are nothing but generals, more or less defined according to circumstances, but never perfectly so. The knowledge of any 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, we must be constrained to remain. in utter ignorance. Let any one 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

し

of objects; and his idea of a particular number slide into the general notion of multitude: not that because there are more objects than he can possibly count he will think there are none, or that the word flock will 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.

The application of this view of the subject to explain the difference between the synthetical and analytical faculties, between generalization and abstraction in the proper acceptation of this last word, between common sense or feeling and understanding or reason, demands a separate

essay.

I do not think it possible ever to arrive at the truth upon these, or to prove the existence of general or abstract ideas, by beginning in Mr Locke's method with particular ones. This faculty of abstraction or generalization (to use the words indifferently) is indeed 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 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 sensation 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 other hand, I imagine that all our notions from first to last are, strictly speaking, general and abstract, not absolute and particular, and that this faculty mixes itself more or less with every act of the mind, and in every moment of its existence.

Lastly, I conceive that the mind has not been fairly dealt with in this and other questions of the same kind. The difficulty belonging to the notion of abstraction or comprehension it is perhaps impossible ever to clear up: but that is no reason why we should discard those operations from the human mind any more than we should deny the existence of motion, extension, or curved lines in nature, because we cannot explain them. Matter alone seems to have the privilege of presenting difficulties and contradictions at any time, which pass current under the name of facts; but the moment any thing of this kind is observed in the understanding, all the petulance of logicians is up in arms. The mind is made the mark on which they

vent all the

modes and figures of their impertinence; and

VOL. I.

B B

८

362 ON TOOKE'S DIVERSIONS OF PURLEY.

metaphysical truth has in this respect fared like the milk-white hind, the emblem of pure faith, in Dryden's fable, which

"Has oft been chased

With Scythian shafts and many winged wounds
Aimed at her heart, was often forced to fly,
And doomed to death, though fated not to die."

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

LONDON:
PRINTED BY C. AND W. REYNELL,

LITTLE PULTENEY STREET.