When we read in the Analysis (p. 265) that "the word _man_ is not a word having a very simple idea, as was the opinion of the Realists; nor a word having no idea at all, as was that of the Nominalists" this language seems to me not well-chosen. {282} As to the Realists--the Platonic Ideas are conceived as eternal, immutable, grand, dignified, &c., but Aristotle[l] contends that they cannot all be simple: for the Idea of Man (e.g.) can hardly be simple, when there exists distinct Ideas of Animal and of Biped. As to the Nominalists--we cannot surely say that they conceived the universal term as "having no idea at all." A doctrine something like this is ascribed (on no certain testimony) to Stilpon, in the generation succeeding Aristotle: the word Man (Stilpon is said to have affirmed[m]) did not mean John more than William or Thomas or Richard, &c., therefore it did not mean either one of them: therefore it had no meaning at all. So also William of Ockham is said to have declared that Universal Terms were mere "flatus vocis:" but this (as Prantl has shewn[n]) was a phrase fastened upon him by his opponents, not employed by himself. Still less can it be admitted that Hobbes and Berkeley conceived the Universal Term as "having no idea at all." They denied indeed Universal Ideas in the Realistic sense: they also denied what Berkeley calls "determinate abstract Ideas:" but both of them explained (Berkeley especially) that the Universal term meant, any particular idea, considered as representing or standing for all other particular ideas of the same sort.[o] Whether this be the best and most complete explanation or not, it can hardly have been present to Mr. James Mill's mind, when he said that the Universal term had no idea at all in the opinion of the Nominalists. [Footnote l: Aristot. Metaphys. Z. 1039, a. 27, 1040, a. 23.] [Footnote m: See Grote, Plato and the other Companions of Sokrates, Vol. III., ch. 38, p. 523.] [Footnote n: Prantl, Geschichte der Logik, Vol. III., Sect. 19, p. 327.] [Footnote o: Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge, Introduction, Sect. 12, 15, 16.]