ABSTRACT
There are indeed generalities of a certain kind, which diminish in extensiveness as the specialities increase in number—generalities which form the raw material out of which specialities are produced by continual subdivision : the generalities, namely, in virtue of which surrounding objects are distinguished into classes. The growth of an ability displayed in successive orders of inferior organisms, to respond to the distinction between fluid and solid matter; then to the distinctions which respectively mark fluid, inorganic, and organic matters; afterwards to those of fluid, inorganic, vegetable, and animal matters; imply a correspondence to generalities that are step by step less comprehensive. The analysis of attributes having been carried to some considerable extent, there arises, and only then arises, a possibility of advance in generality of correspondence. Relations between properties possessed in common by objects of widely different kinds, can begin to be perceived as soon as these properties are separately cognizable.
