that we regard objects as distinguished from each other, as belonging to this class of things and not to that. So that our general knowledge is the means of setting the objects of our experience in the precise light of individual objects, as special instances of general notions.

§ 109. In reply, accordingly, to the question now proposed of the primum cognitum-I agree with those who hold, in opposition to a certain class of philosophers, that we do not at first know individual objects in their true character as individuals. Our knowledge of all objects is at first vague and indefinite; and the first step towards clear or definite knowledge is when we attend to the striking feature of an object, when, in a word, we begin to abstraet. The knowledge we gain by abstraction is further transformed into the general by an increasing experience of new objects with a feature similar to that in the object we originally observed. Having reached the point of a general idea, we now have a clear and distinct apprehension of objects as individuals,— as the members of different and definite classes. So that our knowledge may be viewed as progressing from the dimness. of the indefinite, through the abstract, to the clearness of general and individual vision.

§ 110. This view, however, is not less opposed to the doctrine which makes our knowledge begin with the definitely general, and which has been attributed to Leibnitz, among other philosophers. It seems to me impossible, from the nature of the case, to maintain with truth that our knowledge begins with the general idea. This involves the conception of a plurality of individual objects, possessing a common feature. These objects are necessarily already in our experience, and intelligence, dealing with them, forms the general idea. It would, indeed, I believe, be more correct to say that in a sense our thought begins at once with the general and the individual, that the two dawn on consciousness together; that as we are elaborating the concept out of individuals, we are also making these themselves distinct objects of consciousness. In truth, as we do not think the individual apart from the general, or the general apart from the individual, this process of a double or twofold evolution of intelligence really takes place. Perfected or matured thought really commences with the general idea and the individual instance of it at one and the same time.

§ 111. The doctrine now advanced thus supersedes the whole of the old controversy regarding the primum cognitum. And I hold that this view applies very emphatically, not only to our general ideas but to our universal ideas as well. We have no universal ideas in any proper sense of the word before the particular. We have no idea of Being before we apprehend some being, or being in a definite form. Nor have we the universal ideas of unity, identity, quantity, quality, relation, and so on, before the particulars or perceptions in which they are embodied. Chronologically, these, the universal and the particular, are realised together, and each is necessary to the other, though they have different sources in the mind. And I hold it especially wrong to say that the universal develops into the particular, or that the particular is evolved out of it. This is a meaningless statement. It supposes the universal to be first in thought, whereas it has no meaning at all, unless it is along with the particular in thought. There is a logical concomitance between the two, but there is no logical or ideal priority; and this is needed for evolution. A theory of this sort which constantly charges abstraction on the opposite view, is itself abstraction run mad.

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CHAPTER X.

THE CONCEPT-ITS CHARACTERISTICS SPECIALLY CONSIDERed.

§ 112. The general characteristics of the Concept or Notion, viewed as the product of Abstraction and Generalisation, may be stated as follows:

(1.) The Concept is Representative.

(2.) It is Partial or Inadequate.

(3.) It is a knowledge of Relation, which is not picturable. (4.) It has two sides or aspects-that of Comprehension and that of Extension.

(5.) It is perfected by being expressed in a Term.

§ 113. As the sum of notes or marks in which a plurality of objects agree, it is a Notion; as that by means of which several are grasped as one, or as the ideal unity of several objects, it is a Concept-holding in one through the common. quality or qualities. Its first and essential function is, therefore, the power of representing any one of the individual objects, actual or possible, which may possess the quality or qualities it contains.

§ 114. To this it should be added, as Esser has observed, that a concept is properly the representation of an object not merely through marks which distinguish it from other objects in general, but through its distinctive marks, that is, those marks which distinguish it from the objects which come nearest to it. The distinctive marks of an object are those which make it to be this, not that-that is, they are peculiar and essential. E.g., the concept of a square is not simply that of a four-sided figure, for this does not distinguish it from an oblong or a rhombus; but of a four-sided figure which has all its sides equal, and all its angles right angles.

(a) The representative function of the Concept was indicated in the doctrine of úróbeσis, or Suppositio, due apparently to the Byzantine logicians. Suppositio means positio pro alio or aliis—Supponere pro alio --putting in the place of. The word stands in the place of the thing, or of the modification of the mind (passio anima), and this conventionally (ex institutione, ad placitum). The passio animæ, the intentio, whether intuitio or conceptus, stands naturally in place of the thing. But the singular impression, as a passio animæ, is an intention, as much as the concept proper, which represents in one what is common to many. (Cf. Occam, Summa Logica, c. xii. et passim.) The Greeks subdivided úrótesis, or Suppositio, into common, and discrete (Kown, dipioμévn). The common is, through a common term, as man—the discrete, through an individual name, as Socrates, or of the demonstrative pronoun-This is the man.-(Cf. Michael Psellus, in Prantl, ii. 280.) For the scholastic distinctions of Suppositio, Personalis, Simplex, and Materialis, see Occam, Sum. Log., i. 70.

§ 115. A notion or concept, as founded on abstraction, is necessarily a partial and inadequate representation of the individual, at least in so far as the individual of sense embodies a plurality of qualities. For the notion is but the sum of the common qualities, and this implies leaving out the individual ones.

Where the individual is a singular impression, as in the case of a definite colour-say red or white, or where there is a simple notion, as resistance the concept entirely represents the individual, except as to definite time or space. There is nothing more in the notion of a definite colour than there is in the percept, except the apprehension of similarity to other colours. So it is in the case of the concepts of definite sounds, tastes, &c.

But a concept, in so far as it relates to a complexus of qualities apprehended at the same time and in the unity of an object, is partial and inadequate, for it only brings before us the object in so far as it possesses a quality or qualities common to others. In this respect the contrast of Memory and Thought is complete. The representation of memory is perfect in proportion as it gives us all the features of the object, that is, the scene or definite sum of experience apprehended in a given time. In memory, our effort is to bring back every feature of what made up a past whole of experience. Given but a part of it, we try to recall the other parts, one after another, until the whole scene flashes again upon us, as we knew it in its actual past reality. It is the

nature of memory to totalise, and thus to individualise. The nature of thought is the very opposite. Thought leaves out all the special individual features or circumstances in its single act; it gives us the result, the picture of generalisation. Notional or conceptual knowledge, viewed in relation to the complex individual, is thus necessarily inadequate, incomplete. It gives us a part only of the real individual, the individual of experience. "We sacrifice completeness of view to obtain universality."

(a) Hamilton states as a general characteristic of the concept, that it is a representation of a part only of the various attributes or characters of which an individual object is the sum; and consequently affords only "one-sided and inadequate knowledge of the things which are thought under it."-(Logic, L. vii.)

He illustrates this by reference to the individual-Socrates. We may think him by any one of the concepts-Athenian, Greek, European, Man, Biped, Animal, Being; but in doing so we throw out of view the far greater number of characters of which Socrates is the complement. (Ibid.) Mr Mansel accepts this doctrine when he says that "a concept is not the adequate and actual representative of any single object, but an inadequate and potential representative of many.

If, however, we apply this general statement of the nature of the concept to that of a single attribute, or to an abstract attribute which may represent the whole nature of a thing, as lineal extension, time, resistance, it will require modification. The concept in this instance represents the attribute (or attributes) of the thing in its entireness; and yet it does not cease to be a concept-that is, to be applicable to an indefinite plurality of individuals, and realisable in each. If there be, as there is, the concept.of abstract attributes, the concept can afford complete knowledge, though it does not usually do so,especially in the case of concrete and individual objects of time and space. With this is closely connected the question, Can there be a Concept of the Individual? Hamilton has repeatedly restricted concept to the common quality or qualities of individual objects, and the relation which this implies, as more than can be represented in imagination. It indicates the thought suggested by a general term. Yet he speaks of "the concept or notion" of Socrates-meaning the whole attributes" which distinguish him from all other men, and together make up my notion or concept of him."-(Logic, L. v.) He speaks also of the concept when at its greatest comprehension as "being a complement of the whole attributes of an individual object, which by these attributes it thinks and discriminates from every other."-(L. viii.) Again, however, he says, speaking of the limits of division: "If a concept be an individual, that is, only a bundle of individual qualities, it is indivisible, is, in fact, not a proper or abstract concept at all, but only a concrete representation of imagination."—(L. viii.)

The solution of this apparent discrepancy may be sought in the following note to the Discussions, p. 13. "The understanding, thought