Appendix 5. - (154)

A common noun, even before it becomes proper by convention, is occasionally used to refer to individuals. When this happens, the indetermination of the noun is usually corrected by external circumstances connected with the act to which it is referred. Meeting someone by himself on the road and wishing to talk to him, I shout across to him: 'Man, listen to me'! Upon hearing my voice, he stops and turns towards me, rightly applying to himself the common noun man because there is no-one else on the road. If there were, others perhaps would have turned towards me because the noun was common to them all. However, if this had happened, I would soon specify the man to whom I was speaking by waving my hand, or merely by the way I projected my voice, or by other signs suitable for restricting the common noun to one individual.

Now the first names given to things must, in fact, have been essentially common, though used and considered by those who uttered them as proper. In other words, nouns, although they indicated only a common feature, were always taken as united with individuals to which they were tacitly referred. Our spirit, in its primal state, is still not accustomed to dwell on abstractions and goes directly to the reality of objects.

The order of ideas pondered by the human mind is as follows: 1. The mind has the idea of being but neither reflects upon it nor gives it any thought until it has considered everything else. The series of ideas dependent on reflection does not start here. 2. Next the spirit acquires perceptions of individual through the senses. These perceptions consist of a) common notions (ideas) and b) the proper, real, sensible element. Human attention dwells and focuses on this twofold term of perception. 3. Abstraction, whereby human attention focuses solely on more common notions, begins only later.

We name only the idea on which we reflect, not the idea to which we give no attention. Thus, our first named ideas are those applied to individuals. It was this, I think, which led to Smith's error. He inferred that our first words must have been proper nouns, which history and, therefore, reason shows not to be the case. He had not observed the nature of ideas applied to individuals and presumed that we think of individuality with the aid of simple ideas alone. Instead, the ideas by means of which we think of individuals are common notions linked to the proper, real element. I maintain that, although the first named ideas are not simple but applied to individuals (perceptions or memories of perceptions), this naming is referred to the common notions included in them. These are, therefore, common names which, as a result of their users' intention and external circumstances, are made suitable for naming individuals.
If the first named ideas are individuated, the second are abstractions, that is, ideas of common notions included in individuated ideas. The next operation of the human spirit is to separate these common notions, isolate them and finally give them a name.

As I said, individuated ideas are named after their common content, and as common refer to individuals solely because of what is implied by the spirit of their user who does not employ them without mentally referring them to individuals. This means seeing what is common in individuals. We now need to see what is common in isolation from individuals and name it in this state.
Two questions therefore: 'How can the spirit carry out our first abstractions?' and 'How can it name them?'

Obviously, if we assume the power of abstraction to be present in the spirit as it operates (in other words, if we assume that the first difficulty is solved) there is no longer any difficulty in understanding how the human spirit can name the abstractions it has conceived.
It can name them both by using common nouns such as man, animal etc. and by using nouns indicating abstractions such as mankind, animality etc.
Relative to common nouns, which it already possesses, the whole difficulty for the spirit consists in finding out how it begins to use them as merely common nouns, that is, without referring them to determined individuals. Knowing how the spirit can do this means knowing how it is roused to its first abstractions. It therefore depends entirely upon the first of our two questions.

Once we suppose that the spirit has managed to reflect upon the abstract qualities of things envisaged in isolation from their proper qualitiesj,. there is no difficulty in forming nouns referring to abstraction. In fact, a person can name any idea whatsoever provided he grasps it by concentrating his attention on it. Everything depends, then, on the first question: 'How is the human spirit moved to carry out its first abstractions?'
To do this, a person needs assistance from some external sign (language) which indicates the abstract thing separate from everything else. This sign must be suitable for focusing its attention and concentrating it purely on the abstract quality. It is thus impossible for an isolated person to invent a language to serve that purpose merely by thinking it out.