Oiap. L ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 17 



life the faculty of abftradlion and feparatlon, which is peculiar to 

 the intelle£lual nature, and without which we never could have 

 formed ideas of any kind. For in this material world, as fome of 

 the antient philofophers have obferved, paiticularly Anaxagoras, as 

 I remember, all things are fo mixt with all things, that unlefs we 

 can make that feparatlon and difcrimination, which is made by ab- 

 ftradion, we cannot have any diftind notion of any thing, but mud 

 perceive all things, together with all their qualities, as the brutes 

 perceive them. Now even abftradion cannot be without compari- 

 fon ; for we muft compare the thing we abftradl with that from 

 which we abftrad: it. Another thing to be obferved is, that in 

 forming the particular idea, as well as the general, we difcover the 

 cne in the many ; for we difcover that there is one things or a cer- 

 tain determinate number of things, which make the objeds, that 

 we perceive by our fenfes, what they are and nothing elfe. Here, 

 too, there is comparifon ; for we muft compare the one with the 

 many^ by which compariloa we difcover that the one contains the 

 many. 



The next ftep in this progreffion, and by which we are ftill more 

 diftinguifhed from the brute than by the former, is that by which 

 we difcover that the one, which we have found in one individual, is 

 to be found in many. And thus we form the idea of a fpecies, then 

 of a genus, and fo on till we afcend to the higheft genufes, explain- 

 ed by Ariftotle in his Categories. And in this progreffion we may 

 obferve, that we ftill ufe thofe two great inftruments of human 

 knowledge, Generalization and Abftradlion ; for we muft both ge- 

 neralize the fpecies, and abftrafl from it the fpecific differences, in 

 order to form the idea of the genus ; and both thefe operations, as 

 I have faid, cannot be without comparifon. In this manner wc 

 form ideas fuperior and fubordinate. 



Vol. IV. C The 



