THEORY OF KNOWING.
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PROP. VI.————
or more which are merely particular. Thus, all our cognitions from first to last are particular—the only difference between those which are particular, and those which are called general, being that the latter are accepted as types or samples of all similar cognitions.
Nominalism is annihilated by Proposition VI.30. The error into which nominalism runs is the assumption that all or any of our cognitions are merely particular. If conceptualism is wrong in holding that any general conception by itself can be an object of the mind, nominalism is equally wrong in holding that any particular cognition by itself can be an object of the mind. Whether anything that exists is merely particular, we do not at present inquire; but it is certain that nothing which is known is merely particular, because all knowledge, as has been proved by this sixth proposition, is of necessity a synthesis of the particular and the universal. Particular cognitions (the cognition, for example, of this pen absolutely by itself) are mere words, just as much as the general ideas expressed by tree, man, animal, and so forth, taken absolutely by themselves, are mere words. Particular cognition; which involve no generality, are not conceivable, any more than general cognitions are conceivable which involve no particularity. For every cognition (see Demonstration VI.) must have an element common to all cognition, and also an ele-