To return to general words: it is plain, by what has been said, that
GENERAL and UNIVERSAL belong not to the real existence of things; but
are the inventions and creatures of the understanding, made by it for
its own use, and concern only signs, whether words or ideas. Words are
general, as has been said, when used for signs of general ideas, and so
are applicable indifferently to many particular things; and ideas are
general when they are set up as the representatives of many particular
things: but universality belongs not to things themselves, which are all
of them particular in their existence, even those words and ideas which
in their signification are general. When therefore we quit particulars,
the generals that rest are only creatures of our own making; their
general nature being nothing but the capacity they are put into, by the
understanding, of signifying or representing many particulars. For the
signification they have is nothing but a relation that, by the mind of
man, is added to them.


12. Abstract Ideas are the Essences of Genera and Species.

The next thing therefore to be considered is, What kind of signification
it is that general words have. For, as it is evident that they do not
signify barely one particular thing; for then they would not be general
terms, but proper names, so, on the other side, it is as evident they do
not signify a plurality; for MAN and MEN would then signify the same;
and the distinction of numbers (as the grammarians call them) would be
superfluous and useless. That then which general words signify is a SORT
of things; and each of them does that, by being a sign of an abstract
idea in the mind; to which idea, as things existing are found to agree,
so they come to be ranked under that name, or, which is all one, be of
that sort. Whereby it is evident that the ESSENCES of the sorts, or, if