“ For abstract ideas are not so obvious or easy to children, or the yet unexercised mind, as particular ones. If they seem so to grown men, it is only because by constant and familiar use they are made so. ”
John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689). copy citation
| Author | John Locke |
|---|---|
| Source | An Essay Concerning Human Understanding |
| Topic | mind ideas |
| Date | 1689 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/10616/pg10616-images.html |
Context
“And the ideas first in the mind, it is evident, are those of particular things, from whence by slow degrees, the understanding proceeds to some few general ones; which being taken from the ordinary and familiar objects of sense, are settled in the mind, with general names to them. Thus PARTICULAR IDEAS are first received and distinguished, and so knowledge got about them; and next to them, the less general or specific, which are next to particular. For abstract ideas are not so obvious or easy to children, or the yet unexercised mind, as particular ones. If they seem so to grown men, it is only because by constant and familiar use they are made so. For, when we nicely reflect upon them, we shall find that GENERAL IDEAS are fictions and contrivances of the mind, that carry difficulty with them and do not so easily offer themselves as we are apt to imagine.”
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