10. Brutes abstract not.
If it may be doubted whether beasts compound and enlarge their ideas that way to any
degree; this, I think, I may be positive in,--that the power of abstracting is not at all in them; and that the having
of general ideas is that which puts a perfect distinction betwixt man and brutes, and is an excellency which the
faculties of brutes do by no means attain to. For it is evident we observe no footsteps in them of making use of
general signs for universal ideas; from which we have reason to imagine that they have not the faculty of
abstracting, or making general ideas, since they have no use of words, or any other general signs.
