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.
