Sect. XV. i. 6. GLASSES GF IDEAS, 9 * 



perfect reprefentations of the objects they were received from ; 

 for here we abftract the material parts, and recoil eel: only the 



qualities. 



Thus we abftract fo much from fome of our complex ideas* 

 that at length it becomes difficult to determine of what percep- 

 tion they partake ; and in many inftances our idea feems to be 

 no other than of the found or letters of the word, that ftands 

 for the collective tribe, of which we are faid to have an abftracted 

 idea, as noun, verb, chimaera, apparition. 



Mr. Home Tooke alfo, in his Diverfiohs of Purley, has very 

 ingenioufly (hewn, that what were called general ideas, are iri 

 reality only general terms ; or words which fignify any part3 of 

 a complex object. Whence arifes much error in our verbal 

 reafoning, as the fame word has different fignifxeations. And 

 hence thofe, who can think without words, reafon more accu- 

 rately than thofe, who only compare the ideas fuggefted by 

 words ; a rare faculty, which diftinguifhes the writers of phi- 

 lofophy from thofe of fophiftry. See Clafs III. 2. 2. 3. 



6. Ideas have been divided into thofe of perception and thofe 

 of reflection, but as whatever is perceived muft be external td 

 the organ that perceiyes it, all our ideas muit originally oe ideas 

 of perception. 



7. Others have divided our ideas into thofe of memory and 

 thofe of imagination 5 they have faid that a recollection of ideas 

 in the order they were received conftitutes memory, and with- 

 out that order imagination •, but all the ideas of imagination, ex- 

 cepting the few that are termed fimple ideas, are parts of trains 

 or tribes in the order they were received j as if I think of a 

 fphinx, or a griffin, the fair face, befom, wings, claws, tail, are 

 all complex ideas in the order they were received : and it be- 

 hoves the writers, who adhere to this definition, to determine, 

 how fmall the trains muft be* that fhall be called imagination j 

 and how great thofe, that fhall be called memory. 



Others have thought that the ideas of memory have a greater 

 toivacity than thofe of imagination : but the ideas of a perlbn in 

 fleep, or in a waking reverie, where the trains connected with 

 fenfation are uninterrupted, are more vivid and diftinct than 

 thofe of memory, fo that they cannot be diflinguiflied by this 

 criterion. 



The very ingenious author of the Elements of Criticifra has 

 defcribed what he conceives to be a fpecies of memory, and call? 

 it ideal prefence ; but the inftances he produces are the reveries 

 of ienfation, and are therefore in truth connexions of the imag- 

 ination, though they are recalled iri the order they were received , 

 Fae ideas connected by aflbciation are in common difcourfe 



Vol. I, O attribtoteel 



