42 



^0709) : not perceiving indeed that 

 the content of notions is, as Abelard had pointed 

 out plainly, in inverse proportion to their univer- 

 sality. Like Sidney's hooded dove, the blinder 

 they were the higher they strove 1 . For example : 

 from a lump of silver a medal is struck ; from 

 many lumps of silver many medals are struck, 

 each different from the other : let us eliminate as 

 accidents the notions of silver, of the blow of a 

 hammer, even of particular features of the devices, 

 and we shall reach the idea of an agent with a type 

 or seal, or of such an agent with many seals, or ideas, 

 who may thus individualise indifferent matter ; 

 or, to penetrate deeper into abstraction, who may 

 transfer forms of his own activity to motionless 



1 Thus, in ascending from general to more general, in the 

 most general will be sought unique and perfect being; the 

 primary cause and sole object of science the avTowov of the 

 Alexandrians : whereas by successive eliminations utter ab- 

 stractions would become utter vacuity. To such realists all 

 subordinate beings are integral parts of the primary being. 

 It would serve no useful end here to analyse these doctrines, or 

 to indicate the pythagorean or stoical elements of them ; for 

 platonists and realists had their schools and degrees of 

 subtlety ; and Plato himself was inconsistent. Some brought 

 secondary agents demiurges or angels into more creative 

 activity, others carried creative reason back to the ideal good, 

 and so on. 



