(11) When the images become
quite confused in the body, the mind also imagines all bodies confusedly
without any distinction, and will comprehend them, as it were, under one
attribute, namely, under the attribute of Being, Thing, &c. (12) The same
conclusion can be drawn from the fact that images are not always equally
vivid, and from other analogous causes, which there is no need to explain
here; for the purpose which we have in view it is sufficient for us to
consider one only. (40:13) All may be reduced to this, that these terms
represent ideas in the highest degree confused. (14) From similar causes
arise those notions, which we call general, such as man, horse, dog, &c.
(40:15) They arise, to wit, from the fact that so many images, for
instance, of men, are formed simultaneously in the human mind, that the
powers of imagination break down, not indeed utterly, but to the extent
of the mind losing count of small differences between individuals (e.g.
colour, size, &c.) and their definite number, and only distinctly imagining
that, in which all the individuals, in so far as the body is affected by
them, agree; for that is the point, in which each of the said individuals
chiefly affected the body; this the mind expresses by the name man, and
this it predicates of an infinite number of particular individuals.
(40:16) For, as we have said, it is unable to imagine the definite number
of individuals.
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