The term 'representation,' which Hegel employs to name these picture-thoughts or figurate conceptions, corresponds to the facts of their nature. A 'representation' is one of two things: either a particular thing sent out accredited with general functions, or a universal narrowed down into a particular thing. Thus, as it has been seen, a general name implies or connotes a universal relation or attribute, but confines it to denote a particular object or class. 'Swift,' for example, was an epithet tied down to express the horse. In the first instance we may suppose the name to be a sort of metaphor: differing only by its simplicity and frequency of suggestion from those endless epithets, which in Norse or Arabic poetry veil and adorn the object which they are meant to designate. That is, we conceive the object as an embodiment or representation of the quality, as an eagle is the emblem of strength: only in the latter case we distinguish between the object and its metaphorical signification. In the second place, however, the object of experience is allowed completely to coincide with the aspect discriminated by the selective epithet, and we can no longer in ordinary thought separate the imaging object from the general relation which it images forth. This is the level of thought to which Hegel appropriates the term 'representation.' It includes under it the three fallacies of thought already noted and saves the trouble of comprehending the reality. In the Hegelian sense, a representation is abstract; because it solidifies, hardens, and isolates the term of thought, makes it a particular, and never rises above the single case to the general notion embodied in it.