CHAPTER III.

OF GENERAL TERMS.

The greatest part of words general.-All things that exist being particulars, it may perhaps be thought reasonable that Words, which ought to be conformed to things, should be so too-I mean in their signification; but yet we find quite the contrary. The greatest part of Words that make all Languages are general Terms: which has not been the effect of neglect or chance, but of Reason and necessity.

For every particular thing to have a name is impossible.-First, It is impossible that every particular thing should have a distinct peculiar name. For, the signification and use of Words depending on that connexion which the mind makes between its ideas and the sounds it uses as signs of them, it is necessary, in the application of names to things, that the mind should [1.] have distinct ideas of the things, and [2.] retain also the particular name that belongs to every one, with its peculiar appropriation to that idea. But it is beyond the power of human capacity to frame and retain distinct ideas of all the particular things we meet with: every bird and beast men saw-every tree and plant that affected the senses-could not find a place in the most capacious understanding. If it be looked on as an instance of a prodigious memory, that some generals have been able to call every soldier in their army by his proper name, we may easily find a reason [a fortiore] why

men have never attempted to give names to each sheep in their flock, or crow that flies over their heads; much less to call every leaf of plants or grain of sand that came in their way by a peculiar name.

And useless.—Secondly, If it were possible, it would yet be useless; because it would not serve to the chief end of Language. Men would in vain heap up names of particular things, that would not serve them to communicate their thoughts. Men learn names, and use them in talk with others, only that they may be understood: which is then only done when, by use or consent, the sound I make by the organs of speech excites, in another man's mind who hears it, the idea I apply it to in mine when I speak. This cannot be done by names applied to particular things whereof-I alone having the ideas in my mind—the names could not be significant or intelligible to another, who was not acquainted with all those very particular things which had fallen under my notice.

Thirdly, But yet, granting this also feasible (which I think is not), a distinct name for every particular thing would not be of any great use for the improvement of Knowledge: which, though founded in particular things, enlarges itself by general views, to which things reduced into sorts under general names are properly subservient. These, with the names belonging to them,

come within some compass; and do not multiply, every moment, beyond what either the mind can contain or [what] use requires. And therefore in these, men have for the most part stopped: but yet not so as to hinder themselves from distinguishing particular things by appro

priated names, where convenience demands it. And therefore, in their own species which they have most to do with, and wherein they have often occasion to mention particular persons, they make use of Proper Names; and there distinct individuals have distinct denominations.

What things have proper names. Besides persons— countries also, cities, rivers, mountains, and other the like distinctions of Place, have usually found peculiar names, and that for the same reason; they being such as men have often an occasion to mark particularly, and, as it were, set before others in their discourses with them. And I doubt not but, if we had reason to mention particular horses as often as we have to mention particular men, we should have proper names for the one as familiar as for the other; and Bucephalus would be a word as much in use as Alexander. And therefore we see that amongst jockeys horses have their proper names to be known and distinguished by, as commonly as their servants; because amongst them there is often occasion to mention this or that particular horse when he is out of sight.

How general words are made.—The next thing to be considered is, how general Words come to be made. For, since all things that exist are only particulars, how come we by general terms, or where find we those general natures they are supposed to stand for? Words become general by being made the signs of general ideas: and Ideas become general by separating from them the circumstances of time and place, and any other ideas that may determine them to particular existence.

By this

way of Abstraction-they are made capable of representing more individuals than one; each of which, having in it a conformity to that abstract idea, is (as we call it) of that sort.

But, to deduce this a little more distinctly-it will not perhaps be amiss to trace our notions and names from their beginning, and observe by what degrees 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 [similarly] confined to these individuals; and the names of 'nurse' and 'mamma' [which] 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 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 that which is peculiar to each [person], and retain only what is common to them all.

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 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 a 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.'

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General natures are nothing but abstract ideas. 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 reflect, 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? 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 [in]variable—that every more general Term stands