Page:Essays on the Principles of Human Action (1835).djvu/183

 must represent to ourselves the features, form, complexion, size, posture, and dress, with every other circumstance belonging to each individual.

We must admit the notion of abstraction, first or last, unless any one will contend for this infinite refinement in our ideas of things, or assert that we have no idea at all. For the same process takes place in it, and is absolutely necessary to our most particular notions of things, as well as our most general, namely, that of abstracting from particulars, or of passing over the minute differences of things, taking them in the gross, and attending to the general effect of a number of distinguished and distinguishable impressions. It is thus we arrive at our first notion of things, and thus that all our after knowledge is acquired. The knowledge upon which our ideas rest is general, and the only difference between abstract and particular, is that of being more or less general, of leaving out more or fewer circumstances, and more or fewer objects, perceived either at once or in succession, and forming either a particular whole, aggregate, or a class of things. It may be asked farther whether our ideas of things, however abstract in general, with respect to the objects they represent, are not in their own nature, and absolute existence particular. To this hard question I shall return the best answer I can.

1. It is sufficient to the present purpose that ideas are general in their representation, however particular in themselves. Each idea is something in itself, and not another idea. This is equally true of the most abstract or particular ideas of things. The abstract idea of a man is the abstract idea of a man, not the abstract idea of a horse, nor the particular one of any given individual man. It is characterized by general properties, and distinguished by general