This answer does not appear to me satisfactory. It amounts to this, that though the diagram we have in view includes a number of particular circumstances, not applicable to other cases, yet we know the principle to be true generally, because _there is not the least mention made of these particulars in the proof of the proposition_. When it is asserted that we must necessarily have the idea of a particular size whenever we think of a man in general, all that is intended I believe is that we must think of a particular height. This idea it is supposed must be particular and determinate, just as we must draw a line with a piece of chalk, or make a mark with the slider of a measuring instrument in one place and not in another. I think it may be shown that this view of the question is also extremely fallacious and an inversion of the order of our ideas. The height of the individual is thus resolved into the consideration of the lines terminating or defining it, and the intermediate space of which it properly consists is entirely overlooked. For let us take any given height of a man, whether tall, short, or middle-sized, and let that height be as visible as you please, I would ask whether the actual length to which it amounts does not consist of a number of other lengths, as if it be a tall man, the length will be six feet, and each of these feet will consist of as many inches, and those inches will be again made up of decimals, and those decimals of other subordinate and infinitesimal parts, which must be all distinctly perceived and added together before the sum total which they compose can be pretended to be a distinct, particular, or individual idea. In any given visible object we have always a gross, general idea of something extended, and never of the precise length; for this precise length as it is thought to be is necessarily composed of a number of lengths too many, and too minute to be separately attended to or jointly conceived by the mind, and at last loses itself in the infinite divisibility of matter. What sort of distinctness or individuality can therefore be found in any visible image or object of sense, I cannot well conceive: it seems to me like seeking for certainty in the dancing of insects in the evening sun, or for fixedness and rest in the motions of the sea. All particulars are nothing but generals, more or less defined according to circumstances, but never perfectly so. The knowledge of any finite being rests in generals, and if we think to exclude all generality from our ideas of things, as implying a want of perfect truth and clearness, we must be constrained to remain in utter ignorance. Let any one try the experiment of counting a flock of sheep driven fast by him, and he will soon find his imagination unable to keep pace with the rapid succession of objects; and his idea of a particular number slide into the general notion of multitude: not that because