An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. | Page 6

we proceed, and by what steps we enlarge our ideas from
our first infancy. There is nothing more evident, than that the ideas of
the persons children converse with (to instance in them alone) are, like
the persons themselves, only particular. The ideas of the nurse and the
mother are well framed in their minds; and, like pictures of them there,
represent only those individuals. The names they first gave to them are
confined to these individuals; and the names of NURSE and MAMMA,
the child uses, determine themselves to those persons. Afterwards,
when time and a larger acquaintance have made them observe that there
are a great many other things in the world, that in some common
agreements of shape, and several other qualities, 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
only what is common to them all.
8. And further enlarge our complex ideas, by still leaving out properties
contained in them.
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 cannot
therefore be comprehended out 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.
9. General natures are nothing but abstract and partial ideas of more
complex ones.
That this is the way whereby 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 minds in knowledge. And he that thinks
GENERAL NATURES or NOTIONS are anything else but such
abstract and partial ideas of more complex ones, taken at first from
particular existences, will, I fear, be at a loss where to find them. For let
any one effect, and then tell me, wherein does his idea of MAN differ
from that of PETER and PAUL, 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 existences as they are found to agree in? Of
the complex ideas signified by the names MAN and HORSE, leaving
out but 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 term, VIVENS. And, not to dwell longer upon this
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
unvariable, That every more general term stands for such an idea, and
is but a part of any of those contained under it.
10. Why the Genus is ordinarily made Use of in Definitions.

This may show us the reason why, in the defining of words, which is
nothing but declaring their signification, we make use of the GENUS,
or next general word that comprehends it. Which is not out of necessity,
but only to save the labour of enumerating the several simple ideas
which the next general word or GENUS stands for; or, perhaps,
sometimes the