Caelile. — On Necessary Trutli. 647 



generic as that a man seen in dreams like a figure by 

 twilight is generic. The fact is that the abstraction " man " 

 must cover both men dimly perceptible and men pal- 

 pably obtruded in broad sunlight under our very eyes. It 

 must comprise contradictions ; hence it is that no image can 

 possibly be made of it. It may not be vyithout interest to 

 turn to a discussion on the same subject about two hundred 

 years old. In treating of the formation of general ideas Locke 

 says, "For example, does it not require some pains and skill 

 to form the general idea of a triangle (which is yet none of the 

 most abstract, comprehensive, or difficult) ? for it must neither 

 be oblique nor rectangle, neither equilateral, equicrural, nor 

 scalenon, but all and none of these at once." Bishop Berkeley, 

 in his gravely sarcastic fashion, takes him to task over this 

 description of the general idea of a triangle. "If any man," 

 says he, " has the faculty of framing in his mind such an idea 

 of a triangle as is here described, it is vain to dispute him out 

 of it, nor would I go about it. All I desire is that the reader 

 would certainly inform himself whether he has such an idea 

 or not. And this, methinks, can be no hard task for any one to 

 perform. What more easy than for any one to look a little 

 into his own thoughts and then try whether he has, or can 

 attain to have, an idea that shall correspond with the descrip- 

 tion that is here given of the general idea of a triangle — neither 

 equilateral, equicrural, nor scalenon, hut all and none of these 

 at once!" Locke might possibly have answered that he did 

 not mean by an idea precisely what we mean by a mental 

 image ; but this answer cannot be put forward on behalf of 

 Professor Huxley with his compound-photograph and dream- 

 representation theories. The difficulty did not escape Kant."^' 

 "No image," he observes, "could ever be adequate to our 

 conception of a triangle in general. For the generalness of 

 the conception it never could attain to, as this includes under 

 itself all triangles, whether right-angled, acute-angled, &c., 

 while the image would always be limited to a single part of 

 this sphere." Kant is of opinion, therefore, that it is not 

 images, but what he calls schemata, that lie at the foundation 

 of general conceptions, and his theory, I think, accords with 

 the facts of consciousness. At the same time it must be ob- 

 served that there is no doubt that when we think of " triangle," 

 "man," or "river" in the abstract the image of some indi- 

 vidual triangle, man, or river passes before our mind. We 

 know, when we consider the matter, that this image does not 

 cover the contents of the general conception. We use it 

 merely as a specimen. At the same time we can very readily 



* " Critique of Pure Reason : " " Of the Schemata of the Cate- 

 gories." 



