…a person is only a particular kind of general idea. Long ago, in the Journal of Speculative Philosophy (Vol. II, p. 156), I pointed out that a person is nothing but a symbol involving a general idea; but my views were, then, too nominalistic to enable me to see that every general idea has the unified living feeling of a person.
http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-mans-glassy-essence-0