‘If we will annex a meaning to our words and speak only of what we can only conceive, I believe we shall acknowledge that an idea, which considered in itself is particular, becomes general, by being made to represent or stand for all other particular ideas _of the same sort_. To make this plain by example, suppose a geometrician is demonstrating the method of cutting a line in two equal parts. He draws for instance a black line of an inch in length: this which is in itself a particular line, is nevertheless, with regard to its signification, general, since, as it is there used, it represents all particular lines whatsoever, so that what is demonstrated of it is demonstrated of all lines, or in other words of a line in general; and, as that particular line becomes general, by being made a sign, so the name _line_, which taken absolutely, is particular, by being a sign, is made general. And as the former owes its generality not to its being the sign of an abstract or general line, but of all particular right lines that may possibly exist, so the latter must be thought to derive its generality from the same cause, namely, the various particular lines which it indifferently denotes.’ ‘To give the reader a clearer view of the nature of abstract ideas, and the uses they are thought necessary to, I shall add one more passage out of the Essay on Human Understanding, which is as follows:—“Abstract ideas are not so obvious or easy to children, or the yet unexercised mind as particular ones. If they seem so to grown men, it is only by constant and familiar use they are made so. For when we nicely reflect upon them, we shall find that general ideas are fictions and contrivances of the mind, that carry difficulty with them, and do not so easily offer themselves as we are apt to imagine. For example, does it not require some skill and pains to form the general idea of a triangle (which is yet none of the abstract, comprehensive, and difficult), for it must be neither oblique nor rectangle, neither equilateral, equicrural, nor scalenon, but all and none of these at once. In effect it is something imperfect that cannot exist, an idea wherein some parts of different and inconsistent ideas are put together. ’Tis true the mind in this imperfect state has need of such ideas, and makes all the haste it can to them, for the convenience of communication and enlargement of knowledge, to both of which it is naturally very much inclined. But yet one has reason to suspect such ideas are marks of our imperfections, at least this is enough to show that the most abstract and general ideas are not those that the mind is first and most easily acquainted with, nor such as its earliest knowledge is conversant about.”‘—After laughing at this description of the general idea of a triangle, which is neither oblique nor rectangle, equilateral, equicrural, nor scalenon, but all and none of these at once, Berkeley adds, ‘much is here said of the