able to admit of it.

Yet still reason must remain restless, and unquiet, even with regard to
that scepticism, to which she is driven by these seeming absurdities and
contradictions. How any clear, distinct idea can contain circumstances,
contradictory to itself, or to any other clear, distinct idea, is
absolutely incomprehensible; and is, perhaps, as absurd as any
proposition, which can be formed. So that nothing can be more
sceptical, or more full of doubt and hesitation, than this scepticism
itself, which arises from some of the paradoxical conclusions of
geometry or the science of quantity.[33]

[33] It seems to me not impossible to avoid these absurdities
and contradictions, if it be admitted, that there is no such
thing as abstract or general ideas, properly speaking; but that
all general ideas are, in reality, particular ones, attached to
a general term, which recalls, upon occasion, other particular
ones, that resemble, in certain circumstances, the idea,
present to the mind. Thus when the term Horse is pronounced, we
immediately figure to ourselves the idea of a black or a white
animal, of a particular size or figure: But as that term is
also usually applied to animals of other colours, figures and
sizes, these ideas, though not actually present to the imagination,
are easily recalled; and our reasoning and conclusion proceed
in the same way, as if they were actually present. If this be
admitted (as seems reasonable) it follows that all the ideas of
quantity, upon which mathematicians reason, are nothing but
particular, and such as are suggested by the senses and
imagination, and consequently, cannot be infinitely divisible.
It is sufficient to have dropped this hint at present, without