APPENDIX. 



335 



form a genus or a fpecies, this coUedion and arrangement of 

 them being all the work of man, for the purpofe of his more eoiily 

 apprehending them and retaining them in his memory. In fhorr, 

 they fay that though there be a particular idea, that is an immaterial 

 fubftance, which exlfts in every particular fubjedb, and makes it 

 what it is, yet there is not any colleclion of thofe ideas, making 

 what we call a general idea, fuch as that of genus or fpecies. 



But though it may feem fufficient that thofe likenefles and dif- 

 ferences of things, from which we form the general idea of genufes 

 and fpeciefcs, do actually exift in particular fubjeds, and though in 

 that way things be conneded together in the univerfe, yet the fyf- 

 tem is more uniform, if we can difcover that, as all things proceed 

 from one Being aihially exifting, and are not a fidion merely of 

 our minds, fo there are under him, and in fubordination to him, 

 other individual beings, from which other things proceed, and 

 that in this way the fyftem of the univerfe is formed. That thefe 

 fubordinate beings muft be ideas, that is immaterial fubftances, 

 which can only be fuppofed produdive of fo many things, is evi- 

 dent ; and the only queftion is, whether fuch general ideas have 

 any real exiftence, or are no more than the creatures of our 

 mind. And this leads to the famous controverfy betwixt Plato 

 and Ariftotle concerning ideas, of which I have faid a good 

 deal elfewhere *, but to which I will add fomething here, as it is a 

 moft important queftion with refped to the conftitution and fyftem 

 of the univerfe. 



That there are particular ideas which animate the bodies here be- 

 low, not only animals and vegetables, but bodies unorganized, froni 

 which proceed all their qualities, and among others their motions 

 up or down, to or from one another, every man muft admit who 



is 

 * Vol. V. p. 187. 



