Elements of the philosophy of the human mind. By Dugald Stewart. Rev. and abridged, with critical and explanatory notes, for the use of colleges and schools. By Francis Bowen ...

CONCEPTION. 77
should wish to limit the application of the word conception to
our sensations, and the objects of our perceptions. Dr. Reid,
in his Inquiry, substitutes the word conception instead of the
simple apprehension of the schools, and employs it in the same
extensive signification. I think it may contribute to make our
ideas more distinct, to restrict its meaning: — and for such a
restriction, we have the authority of philosophers in a case perfectly analogous. In ordinary language, we apply the same
word, perception, to the knowledge which we have by our senses
of external objects, and to our knowledge of speculative truth:
and yet an author would be justly censured, who should treat
of these two operations of the mind under the same article of
perception. I apprehend there is as wide a difference between
the conception of a truth, and the conception of an absent object
of sense, as between the perception of a tree, and the perception
of a mathematical theorem. I have therefore taken the liberty
to distinguish also the two former operations of the mind; and
under the article of conception, shall confine myself to that faculty whose province it is to enable us to form a notion of our
past sensations, or of the objects of sense that we have formerly
perceived.?
x [Stewart, who is a strict Nominalist, maintains that we can form a
conception only of an individual object that can be perceived by the senses,
- as of a particular house or tree. Reid and all other metaphysicians, ex'
cept the Nominalists, maintain that we may have conceptions also of what
abstract and general terms stand for; that is, they say we can apprehend
the meaning of such words as wisdom, virtue, courage, etc., and also of triangle, man, tiger,- understanding thereby, not any particular triangle, or
man, but the general idea answering to any or all triangles, any or all men,
etc. If we did not apprehend their meaning, we could not argue about
them, or use their names intelligibly. But the doctrine of the Nominalists
is, that when we use these abstract, general terms, the mere words are our
only objects of thought, and that we limit and fix the meaning of those
words by calling up, when necessary, the image or conception of a particular thing comprehended under them. If I speak of a triangle in general,
and wish to have something more definite before the mind than the mera
word "triangle," they say that I call up the image of some particular triangle, and limit my attention, in considering it, to those qualities which it
possesses in common with all triangles. According to the Nominalists,
7X