Note 3 — DISSERTATION I.

This disposition is taken notice of by Dr. Blair, Lect. 8. Where he observes, "that tho the formation of abstract or general conceptions is supposed to be a difficult operation of the mind, yet such conceptions must have entered into the first formation of languages"—"this invention of abstract terms requires no great exertion of metaphysical capacity"—"Men are naturally inclined to call all those objects which resemble each other by one common name—We may daily observe this practised by children, in their first attempts towards acquiring language."

I cannot, with this great critic, call the process by which similar objects acquire the same name, an act of abstraction, or the name an abstract term. Logical distinctions may lead us astray. There is in the mind an instinctive disposition, or principle of association, which will account for all common names and the analogies in language.