a, 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.

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