Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1820 Excerpt: ... something distinct from and exclusive of blue, red, green, yellow, and ever other particular colour, including only that general essence in which they all agree. And what has been said of these three general names, and the abstract general ideas they stand for, may be applied to all others. For you must know, that particular things or ideas being infinite, if each were marked or signified by a distinct proper name, words must have been innumerable, and language an endless impossible thing. Hence it comes to pass, that appellative or general names stand, immediately and properly, not for particular but for abstract general ideas, which they never fail to excite in the mind, as oft as they are used to any significant purpose. And without this, there could be no communication or enlargement of knowledge, no such thing as universal science or theorems of any kind. Now for understanding any proposition or discourse, it is sufficient that distinct ideas are thereby raised in your mind, correspondent to those in the speaker's, whether the ideas so raised are particular, or only abstract and general ideas. Forasmuch, nevertheless, as these are not so obvious and familiar to vulgar minds, it happens that some men may think they have no idea at all, when they have not a particular idea; but the truth is, you had the abstract general idea of man, in the instance assigned, wherein Sec Locke on Human Understanding, book iv. cap. vii. you thought you had none. After the same manner, when it is said, that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right ones; or that colour is the object of sight, it is evident the words do not stand for this or that triangle or colour, but for abstract general ideas, excluding every thing peculiar to the individuals, and including ...
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About the Author
George Berkeley (1685-1753) was one of the three great British empiricist philosophers; his best known works include An Essay towards a New Theory of Vision and A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge.
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