and quality, and yet is possest of no precise degree of either; it follows that there is an equal impossibility of forming an idea, that is not limited and confined in both these particulars.  Abstract ideas are therefore in themselves individual, however they may become general in their representation.  The image in the mind is only that of a particular object, though the application of it in our reasoning be the same, as if it were universal.

This application of ideas beyond their nature proceeds from our collecting all their possible degrees of quantity and quality in such an imperfect manner as may serve the purposes of life, which is the second proposition I proposed to explain.  When we have found a resemblance [Footnote 2.] among several objects, that often occur to us, we apply the same name to all of them, whatever differences we may observe in the degrees of their quantity and quality, and whatever other differences may appear among them.  After we have acquired a custom of this kind, the hearing of that name revives the idea of one of these objects, and makes the imagination conceive it with all its particular circumstances and proportions.  But as the same word is supposed to have been frequently applied to other individuals, that are different in many respects from that idea, which is immediately present to the mind; the word not being able to revive the idea of all these individuals, but only touches the soul, if I may be allowed so to speak, and revives that custom, which we have acquired by surveying them.  They are not really and in fact present to the mind, but only in power; nor do we draw them all out distinctly in the imagination, but keep ourselves in a readiness to survey any of them, as we may be prompted by a present design or necessity.  The word raises up an individual idea, along with a certain custom; and that custom produces any other individual one, for which we may have occasion.  But as the production of all the ideas, to which the name may be applied, is in most eases impossible, we abridge that work by a more partial consideration, and find but few inconveniences to arise in our reasoning from that abridgment.

[Footnote 2.  It is evident, that even different simple ideas may have a similarity or resemblance to each other; nor is it necessary, that the point or circumstance of resemblance shoud be distinct or separable from that in which they differ.  Blue and green are different simple ideas, but are more resembling than blue and scarlet; tho their perfect simplicity excludes all possibility of separation or distinction.  It is the same case with particular sounds, and tastes and smells.  These admit of infinite resemblances upon the general appearance and comparison, without having any common circumstance the same.  And of this we may be certain, even from the very abstract terms simple idea.  They comprehend all simple ideas under them.  These resemble each other in their simplicity.  And yet from their very nature, which excludes all composition, this circumstance, In which they resemble, Is not distinguishable nor separable from the rest.  It is the same case with all the degrees In any quality.  They are all resembling and yet the quality, In any individual, Is not distinct from the degree.]