A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge | Page 4

shape and other qualities, leaves out
of the complex or compounded idea it has of Peter, James, and any
other particular man, that which is peculiar to each, retaining only what
is common to all, and so makes an abstract idea wherein all the
particulars equally partake--abstracting entirely from 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;
wherein it is 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 likewise 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, their being a
great variety of other creatures that partake in some parts, but not all, of
the complex idea of MAN, the mind, leaving out those parts which are
peculiar to men, and retaining those only which are common to all the
living creatures, frames the idea of ANIMAL, which abstracts not only
from all particular men, but also all birds, beasts, fishes, and insects.
The constituent parts of the abstract idea of animal are body, life, sense,
and spontaneous motion. By BODY is meant body without any
particular shape or figure, there being no one shape or figure common
to all animals, without covering, either of hair, or 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 walking, nor flying, nor creeping; it is
nevertheless a motion, but what that motion is it is not easy to
conceive[Note.]. [Note: Vide Hobbes' Tripos, ch. v. sect. 6.]
10. TWO OBJECTIONS TO THE EXISTENCE OF ABSTRACT
IDEAS.--Whether others have this wonderful faculty of
ABSTRACTING THEIR IDEAS, they best can tell: for myself, I find
indeed 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 parts 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
straight, 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 all 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
object, 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 last are the two proper acceptations of
ABSTRACTION. And there are grounds 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.
11. 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 men of speculation to embrace an opinion so remote
from common sense as that seems to be. There has been a late
deservedly esteemed philosopher who, no doubt, has given it very
much countenance, by seeming to think the having abstract general
ideas is what puts the widest difference in point of understanding
betwixt man and beast. "The having of general ideas," saith he, "is that
which puts a perfect distinction betwixt man and brutes, and is an
excellency which