Yee ot thong 0 We are certainly entitled to regard 
* ‘it as a separate sakes eteatieg It is this alone 
” that gives origin to such terms, and confers on them all 
their meaning and utility. If the present were a pro- 
er occasion for entering on such disquisitions, we might 
w that even the names of concrete objects do not al- 
“ways exeite in the mind the same constant and definite 
ideas which are, on mature consideration, attached to 
them. When a concrete noun implies many ideas, we 
do not think of the whole of them. When it implies 
very few, we think of something else with which we 
them to be in contact. It is seldom that the 
& Seea is bec yied with the full meaning of any word to 
é the total Hog tb of other ideas. Very little difference, 
- therefore, exists betwixt our mode of conceiving the ob- 
jects signified by concrete and those signified by ab- 
‘stract nouns. The comparatively complicated form of 
‘the latter arises from the comparative recency of the 
period at which a distinction becomes requisite for de- 
noting single qualities as the principal subjects of dis- 
course. 
ee 
t 
oe 
Gil (Mack ALI® Paviiehlay and General Nouns. 
_... Nouns are either particular or general. Particular 
nouns, or proper names, are those which are applicable 
only to individuals. General nouns (commonly call- 
‘ed general terms) are those which are applied to a plu- 
of-objects possessing a mutual resemblance. 
of . When human knowledge becomes somewhat ex- 
tended, it is impossible to conduct lan by means 
of proper names alone. Individual objects are too nu- 
» merous to receive distinct names; and, if these were 
imposed, it would be impossible for the most tenacious 
memory to retain the nouns of any language.’ A sense 
of this inconvenience has been supposed by some gram- 
f marians to have given origin to the expedient of arran- 
. ging objects in genera, each genus including all the in 
_~ dividuals which resemble one another in certain parti- 
culars, and which on that account receive one common 
name. Such are the words “tree,’’ “field,” ‘ house,” 
« bird,”  “ horse,” apoureseth “ man,” “ woman.” 
This history of general terms, however, is not agree- 
able to fact. Mankind have a native bias to give the 
‘same name to objects. which are nearly alike. They 
delight to show, in this manner,.that they recognise 
in a new object a character similar to that of some- 
thing previously known, They prefer the use of words 
habitually significant to the coining of terms entirely 
new. This tendency is observed very early in chil- 
en. Théy apply the same words even in cases in 
which the resemblances of objects are not sufficient- 
ly strong to render the general application of a term 
7 b ngetagh _ A. child introduced, for the first time to 
the sight of an uncommon animal, such. asa camel, 
_ gives it an appellation borrowed from some familiar 
~~ + object. First, observing its majestic size, he calls it a 
horse ; next, ‘ot het of its head, he calls ita sheep ; 
a, 
ow 
term, 
GRAMMAR 
401 
other object resembling it, or when an individual so fre- 
os claims our interest, that a name to 
istinguish it from all others is absolutely necessary. 
This last circumstance is the foundation of the app 
Universal 
Grammar. 
lica~ The crea- 
tion’ of proper names from the very beginning to all tion of pro- 
our familiar friends, notwithstanding 
tual resemblances of human beings. Under other cir- 
cumstances, we no sooner perceive resemblances than 
we form general terms, or, which is the same thing, 
ive a general aprecencn to such terms as we possess. 
ith regard to the greater part of nouns, it is probably 
nearer the truth to say that general terms are first 
in order, and that men, finding it convenient to de- 
signate individuals by single terms, subsequently 
create proper names, than to. maintain that a sense of 
the inconyenience arising from the mere multiplicity 
of proper names gives rise to the abridged method 
of forming general terms. By a tenacious disputant, 
it might be contended that .we become aint~ 
ed with objects one by one, and that therefore, if a 
name is given to the first object: of our knowl 
as soon as known, it must be a proper name > but this 
speculation supposes man to form words much soon 
er than it is possible for him to do, that is, before he 
possesses any variety of knowledge ;§a state of things 
which precludes all occasion for lan eas well as 
the possibility of articulation. 
Here it will be requisite to describe the nature of 
general ideas, a subject which has given rise to much 
controversy.. Some have maintained that no such ideas 
exist ; others, that they owe their existence to the pre- 
vious formation of general terms. The chief argument 
— the existence of general ideas is deduced from 
e fact that, when we endeavour to think ‘separately 
of the circumstance which is:common to all the indivi- 
duals of a genus, we can obtain no distinct’ image. 
To think of “ man in general” is said to be impossible, 
The man of whom we think must be tall or short, naked 
or clothed, fair or dark, lively or dull. _ In like manner, 
if we endeavour to form a general idéa of “a tree” by: 
contemplating nothing but what is common to all trees, 
the image no longer resembles any tree. ; 
The denial of the existence of general ideas has some- 
times been accompanied with a misconception: arisin 
from the confounding of two things which are in them- 
selves distinct ; ‘the existence of ideas in the mind, and 
the existence of external objects. It ‘seems to have been 
the obviousmu-~ P* ™*™ . 
General 
ideas. 
Do they 
exist inde~ 
pendently 
of general 
terms ? 
Difference 
betwixt. ex. 
ternal ob- 
jects and 
ideas. 
tacitly taken for granted that the same laws which 
regulate external objects should apply to the ideas which 
the mind entertains concerning them. © All external ob- 
jects are individuals, and:therefore it has been supposed 
that all our ideas of them ought to be- a Ex. 
ternal objects retain during the lapse of time their indi- 
vidual identity... The) names assigned to them have 
‘therefore been supposed to retain one constant mean- 
ing in our minds, and this constancy has been regarded 
as the foundation of our ideas of icularity. Hence 
proper names have been sup to be peculiarly ex- 
act in their meaning. But the fact is, that, even when 
we think of the same individuals in nature, our ideas 
at one time are different from what they are at another, 
They depend on the state of the mind-and on the point 
of view which we take of the object, i y of 
any change tq which its real qualities are liable.) Hf par- 
ticularity ah invariableness, our ideas, as existing 
at a specified instant of time, are the only ones that can 
be regarded as particular, Ideas of the same external 
object existing at —— times, though resembling 
E { s 
