22. In Respect of the Object Abstracted by the Intelligence, ideas are divided (1) into transcendental, generic, specific, singular ideas.

This classification is based on the degrees of abstraction of the intellectual cognition.

The idea which represents all the determinations of the object, including those which make it an individuality, is singular. Ex.: the ideas of Caesar, of Napoleon, etc.

The idea which represents the thing in a more indeterminate manner, offering to the mind only those notes which belong in common to individuals of the same species, or to several species of the same genus, is either specific or generic, as the case may be, but in either case is universal.

When the idea is still more indeterminate, and the intelligence represents things by means of certain characteristics common to all being in nature, the idea is called transcendental, because it transcends every genus, every category"; the extension ot this idea goes beyond all the categories. We distinguish six transcendental notions : being (ens), thing, one, something, trite, good.^{1}

Remark: When several individual things are considered as forming one whole, the idea which represents them is called collective; such, e. g., is the idea of a people, an army. The collective idea must never be confounded with the universal.

(2) Into adequate and inadequate ideas. The former make known to us all the characteristics which belong to the object -- all those, at least, which are within the natural range of the intelligence. The latter does not attain this degree of completeness.

The inadequate idea is confused, indeterminate, indistinct or it is clear, determinate, distinct. The confused idea shows us the object by means of notes which are insufficient to let us distinguish it from every other object, as when I conceive of a fish as a creature that swims. The clear and distinct idea may include certain notes which are common to several objects. but it contains some which belong exclusively to the object to be known, and which therefore distinguish it from every other object; e. g., when I define the fish as the living creature which breathes only through gills.

(3) Into complex and simple. The idea is complex when it embraces several parts each of which by itself can be a predicate, as the idea just man. The ideas just and man are simple.

{1} See General Metaph., no. 39.