A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge | Page 6

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. [Note.]
[Note: "I look upon this (doctrine) to be one of the greatest and most
valuable discoveries that have been made of late years in the republic
of letters."--Treatise of Human Nature, book i, part i, sect. 7. Also
Stewart's Philosophy of the Mind, part i, chapt. iv. sect. iii. p. 99.]
13. ABSTRACT GENERAL IDEAS NECESSARY, ACCORDING
TO LOCKE.--To give the reader a yet 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, (IV. vii.
9) 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 because 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 offer themselves as we are apt
to imagine. For example, does it not require some pains and skill to
form the general idea of a triangle (which is yet none of the most
abstract, comprehensive, and difficult); for it must be neither oblique
nor rectangle, neither equilateral, equicrural, nor scalenon, but ALL
AND NONE of these at once? In effect, it is something imperfect that
cannot exist, an idea wherein some parts of several different and
INCONSISTENT ideas are put together. It is true the mind in this
imperfect state has need of such ideas, and makes all the haste to them
it can, for the CONVENIENCY OF COMMUNICATION AND
ENLARGEMENT OF KNOWLEDGE, to both which it is naturally
very much inclined. But yet one has reason to suspect such ideas are
marks of our imperfection. 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."--If any man has the faculty of framing in his mind such an idea
of a triangle as is here described, it is in vain to pretend to dispute him
out of it, nor would I go about it. All I desire is that the reader would
fully and certainly inform himself whether he has such an idea or no.
And this, methinks, can be no hard task for anyone to perform. What
more easy than for anyone to look a little into his own thoughts, and
there try whether he has, or can attain to have, an idea that shall
correspond with the description that is here given of the general idea of
a triangle, which is NEITHER OBLIQUE NOR RECTANGLE,
EQUILATERAL, EQUICRURAL NOR SCALENON, BUT ALL
AND NONE OF THESE AT ONCE?
14. BUT THEY ARE NOT NECESSARY FOR
COMMUNICATIOPN.--Much is here said of the difficulty that
abstract ideas carry with them, and the pains and skill requisite to the
forming them. And it is on all hands agreed that there is need of great

toil and labour of the 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
consequence should seem to be, that so DIFFICULT a thing as the
forming abstract ideas was not necessary for COMMUNICATION,
which is so EASY and 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
painstaking; it remains therefore 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 together of their
sugar-plums and rattles and the rest of their little trinkets, till they have
first tacked together numberless inconsistencies, and so framed in their
minds ABSTRACT GENERAL IDEAS, and