23 Feb. 1815

Didacologia

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Ch. Art & Science division

Generals or Particulars - Abstractions or Concretions which first -

In the field of Eudaemonics and Pantognosy the field of abstractions or the field of concretions - to which of these two compartments shall the surveying eye apply itself ?

In the whole human race considered at all periods of its history the knowledge of particulars has preceded that of generals. Abstraction, a branch of Logic, is an art that has been learned by slow degrees.

But, when general conceptions have once been attained, the communication of them is performed with much more despatch, even to the most unfurnished and uninformed minds, than that of particulars; i.e. in a given time, much more knowledge may be communicated by the use of more general terms in company with less general terms, than by the use of less general terms alone.

True it is, without the use of particular terms, and even according to the nature of the subject, i.e. as it belongs to somatics or psychology, no clear knowledge can be conveyed by general ones, but by a single individual or species, exhibited in the character of a specimen or sample, for the explanation and illustration of a generic term, the exhibition of all the other individuals or particulars contained in the genus of which it is the name, may be saved.

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