And therefore it is the most
intimate to our thoughts, as well as it is, in its agreement to all
other things, the most universal idea we have. For number applies itself
to men, angels, actions, thoughts; everything that either doth exist or
can be imagined.
2. Its Modes made by Addition.
By repeating this idea in our minds, and adding the repetitions
together, we come by the COMPLEX ideas of the MODES of it. Thus, by
adding one to one, we have the complex idea of a couple; by putting
twelve units together we have the complex idea of a dozen; and so of a
score or a million, or any other number.
3. Each Mode distinct.
The SIMPLE MODES of NUMBER are of all other the most distinct; every the
least variation, which is an unit, making each combination as clearly
different from that which approacheth nearest to it, as the most remote;
two being as distinct from one, as two hundred; and the idea of two as
distinct from the idea of three, as the magnitude of the whole earth is
from that of a mite. This is not so in other simple modes, in which it
is not so easy, nor perhaps possible for us to distinguish betwixt
two approaching ideas, which yet are really different.
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