from their faintness and unsteadiness, not from any capacity in the mind
to receive any impression, which in its real existence has no particular
degree nor proportion. That is a contradiction in terms; and even implies
the flattest of all contradictions, viz. that it is possible for the same
thing both to be and not to be.

Now since all ideas are derived from impressions, and are nothing but
copies and representations of them, whatever is true of the one must be
acknowledged concerning the other. Impressions and ideas differ only in
their strength and vivacity. The foregoing conclusion is not founded on
any particular degree of vivacity. It cannot therefore be affected by any
variation in that particular. An idea is a weaker impression; and as a
strong impression must necessarily have a determinate quantity and
quality, the case must be the same with its copy or representative.

Thirdly, it is a principle generally received in philosophy that
everything in nature is individual, and that it is utterly absurd to
suppose a triangle really existent, which has no precise proportion of
sides and angles. If this therefore be absurd in fact and reality, it
must also be absurd in idea; since nothing of which we can form a clear
and distinct idea is absurd and impossible. But to form the idea of an
object, and to form an idea simply, is the same thing; the reference of
the idea to an object being an extraneous denomination, of which in
itself it bears no mark or character. Now as it is impossible to form an
idea of an object, that is possest of quantity 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