Chap. I. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 175 



To add to their difcoveries upon this fubjed, even after the mofl: di- 

 ligent ftudy of their writings, I hold to be very difficult. But, with- 

 out fuch fludy, I think it is, by the nature of things, impoffible that 

 a fingle man, in the fpace of a fhort life, fhould, by his own abili- 

 ties merely, and fuperiority of genius, have difcovered what had 

 not been difcovered by the labours of fo many eminent men in E- 

 gypt, Greece, and Italy, through a fucceffion of thoufands of 

 years. 



This great difcovery of Mr Locke, fo celebrated by his admirers, is 

 fhortly as follows :We have perceptions of the operations of external 

 objects upon our organs of fenfe ; or, in other words, we have percep- 

 tions of Senfe : We havealfo perceptions of the operations of our own 

 Minds, fuch as perceiving, thinkingy believing, &c. The percep- 

 tion of individual objeds by the Senfc, Mr Locke calls Ideas of 

 Senfation : The perceptions of the individual operations of our own 

 Minds, he calls alfo Ideas, and diftinguiflies them from the other, 

 by the name of Ideas of Reflexion. Thofe fmgle perceptions, 

 whether of the objeds of Senfe or of the operations of our ov^n, 

 Mind, when generalized, he calls General Ideas ; and they are ge- 

 neralized by the Mind's comparing together particular Senfations 

 with one another and alfo particular Refledions with one another, 

 and obferving what they have in common, and feparating or ab- 

 flrading that which they have particular or peculiar. And thus is 

 formed the Idea, which, from having what is common to fo many 

 of them, is called a General Idea ; and, from being feparated or 

 abftradcd from what is peculiar to each of them, is likewife called, 

 in the language of Mr Locke's School, an Abftrad Idea. And all 

 Ideas, according to Mr Locke, by which he means all appearances 

 in the Human Mind, of whatever kind, (for in that Senfe he has told 



us- 



