1562. CONCERNING A COMMON [OR GENERAL] IDEA INTO WHICH FLOWED THE DISTINCT IDEAS OF OTHERS. Being in a common [or general] idea, which was, as it were, the idea of all, without determination to anything definite, there appeared to me [an idea] which I am unable to describe, inasmuch as it is only in the spiritual world that such an idea can be perceived. It may exist, indeed, with some men [in this world], but it is not perceived. Into this idea there flowed the particular or singular ideas of spirits, which I understood with considerable distinctness in general, remaining myself meanwhile in a general idea. In this way singular ideas from others would flow in, and I could understand them. It was said to me that such is the idea of certain spirits. - 1748, March 20. ((((Hence it may appear that general ideas are in themselves distinct from singular ones, and yet the singular exist in the general, though singulars do not know that they are in the general. This general idea was not sufficiently determinate for singular things to apply themselves to it.))))