But that we may
comprehend the duration of all things under a common measure, we
compare their duration with that of the greatest and most regular
motions that give rise to years and days, and which we call time;
hence what is so designated is nothing superadded to duration, taken
in its generality, but a mode of thinking.
LVIII. That number and all universals are only modes of thought.
In the same way number, when it is not considered as in created
things, but merely in the abstract or in general, is only a mode of
thinking; and the same is true of all those general ideas we call
universals.
LIX. How universals are formed; and what are the five common, viz.,
genus, species, difference, property, and accident.
Universals arise merely from our making use of one and the same idea
in thinking of all individual objects between which there subsists a
certain likeness; and when we comprehend all the objects represented
by this idea under one name, this term likewise becomes universal.
For example, when we see two stones, and do not regard their nature
farther than to remark that there are two of them, we form the idea
of a certain number, which we call the binary; and when we
afterwards see two birds or two trees, and merely take notice of
them so far as to observe that there are two of them, we again take
up the same idea as before, which is, accordingly, universal; and we
likewise give to this number the same universal appellation of
binary.
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