the interruption and the identity of perceptions. What power is there in the word 'object' that the supposition of an unperceived existence of perceptions, continued while their appearance is broken, should be an unavoidable fiction of the imagination, while that of the double existence of perceptions and objects' is a gratuitous fiction of philosophers, of which vulgar' thinking is entirely innocent?

.

not all in volved in

309. That it is gratuitous we may readily admit, but only Are they because a recognition of the function of the Ego in the primary constitution of the qualified individual object-this the simpen or this paper-renders it superfluous. To the philosophy, plest per however, in which Hume was bred, the perception of a qualified object was simply a feeling. No intellectual synthesis of successive feelings was recognized as involved in it. It was only so far as the dependence of the feeling on our organs, in the absence of any clear distinction between feeling and felt thing, seemed to imply a dependent and broken existence of the thing, that any difficulty arose a difficulty met by the supposition that the felt thing, whose existence was thus broken and dependent, represented an unfelt and permanent thing of which it is a copy or effect. To the Berkeleian objectious, already fatal to this supposition, Hume has his own to add, viz. that we can have no idea of relation in the way of cause and effect except as between objects which we have observed, and therefore can have no idea of it as existing between a perception and an object of which we can only say that it is not a perception. Is all existence then broken and dependent'? That is the sceptical' conclusion which Hume professes to adopt-subject, however, to the condition of accounting for the contrary supposition (without which, as he has to admit, we could not thinkor speak, and which alone gives a meaning to his own phraseology about impressions and ideas) as a fiction of the imagination. He does this, as we have seen, by tracing a series of contradictions, with corresponding hypotheses invented, either instinctively or upon reflection, in order to escape the uneasiness which they cause, all ultimately due to our mistaking similar successive feelings for an identical object. Of such an object, then, we must have an idea to begin with, and it is an object permanent throughout a variation of time, which means a succession of feelings; in other words, it is a felt thing, as distinct from feelings but to which feelings are referred as

Yet they are not

possible ideas, be

cause

copied

from no impressions.

its qualities. Thus the most primary perception-that in default of which Hume would have no reality to oppose to fiction, nor any point of departure for the supposed construction of fictions--already implies that transformation of feelings into changing relations of a thing which, preventing any incompatibility between the perpetual brokenness of the feeling and the permanence of the thing, eludes' by anticipation all the contradictions which, according to Hume, we only 'elude' by speaking as if we had ideas that we have not. 310. 'Ideas that we have not ;' for no one of the fictions by which we elude the contradictions, nor indeed any one of the contradictory judgments themselves, can be taken to represent an idea' according to Hume's account of ideas. He allows himself indeed to speak of our having ideas of identical objects, such as this table while I see or touch it-though in this case, as has been shown, either the object is not identical or the idea of it cannot be copied from an impression-and of our transferring this idea to resembling but interrupted perceptions. But the supposition to which the contradiction involved in this transference gives rise-the supposition that the perception continues to exist when it is not perceived-is shown by the very statement of it to be no possible copy of an impression. Yet according to Hume it is a 'belief,' and a belief is 'a lively idea associated with a present impression.' What then is the impression and what the associated idea? As the propensity to feign the continued existence of sensible objects arises from some lively impressions of the memory, it bestows a vivacity on that fiction; or, in other words, makes us believe the continued existence of body." Well and good: but this only answers the first part of our question. It tells us what are the impressions in the supposed case of belief, but not what is the associated idea to which their liveliness is communicated. To say that it arises from a propensity to feign, strong in proportion to the liveliness of the supposed impressions of memory, does not tell us of what impression it is a copy. Such a propensity indeed would be an impression of reflection,' but the fiction itself is neither the propensity nor a copy of it. The only possible supposition left for Hume would be that it is a 'compound idea;' but what combination

I P, 496.

of perceptions' can amount to the existence of perceptions when they are not perceived ?

present

with past,

which

of cause

supposes

311. From this long excursion into Hume's doctrine of Comrelation in the way of identity-having found him admitting parison of explicitly that it is only by a 'fiction of the imagination' experience that we identify this table as now seen with this table as seen an hour ago, and implicitly that the same fiction is in- yields volved in the perception of this table as an identical object relation even when hand or eye is kept upon it, while yet he says and effect, not a word to vindicate the possibility of such a fiction for prea faculty which can merely reproduce and combine perish- judgment ing impressions'-we return to consider its bearing upon of identity his doctrine of relation in the way of cause and effect. According to him, as we saw,' that relation, considered as a philosophical' one, is founded on a comparison of present experience with past, in the sense that we regard an object, precedent and contiguous to another, as its cause when all like objects have been found similarly related. The question then arises whether the experiences compared-the present and the past alike-do not involve the fiction of identity along with the whole family of other fictions which Hume affiliates to it? Does the relation of precedence and sequence, which, if constant, amounts to that of cause and effect, merely mean precedence and sequence of two feelings, indefinitely like an indefinite number of other feelings that have thus the one preceded and the other followed; or is it a relation between one qualified thing or definite fact always the same with itself, and another such thing or fact always the same with itself? The question carries its own answer. If in the definition quoted Hume used the phrase all like objects' instead of the same object,' in order to avoid the appearance of introducing the 'fiction' of identity into the definition of cause, the device does not avail him much. The effect of the 'like' is neutralized by the 'all.' A uniform relation is impossible except between objects of which each has a definite identity.

there could

312. When Hume has to describe the experience which without gives the idea of cause and effect, he virtually admits this. which The nature of experience,' he tells us, is this. We re- be no remeinber to have had frequent instances of the existence of cognition

1 Above, pars. 298 and 299.

of an

object as

one

observed before.

one species of objects, and also remember that the individuals
of another species of objects have always attended them, and
have existed in a regular order of contiguity and succession
with regard to them. Thus we remember to have seen that
species of object we call flame, and to have felt that species of
sensation we call heat. We likewise call to mind their con-
stant conjunction in all past instances. Without any farther
ceremony we call the one cause, and the other effect, and
infer the existence of the one from the other.'' It appears,
then, that upon experiencing certain sensations of sight and
touch, we recognize each as 'one of a species of objects' which
we remember to have observed in certain constant relations
before. In virtue of the recognition the sensations become
severally this flame and this heat; and in virtue of the remem-
brance the objects thus recognized are held to be related in
the
way of cause and effect. Now it is clear that though the
recognition takes place upon occasion of a feeling, the object
recognized-this flame or this heat-is by no means the feel-
ing as a perishing existence.' Unless the feeling were
taken to represent a thing, conceived as permanently existing
under certain relations and attributes-in other words, unless
it were identified by thought-it would be no definite object,
not this flame or this heat, at all. The moment it is named,
it has ceased to be a feeling and become a felt thing, or, in
Hume's language, an individual of a species of objects.' And
just as the present perception' is the recognition of such an
individual, so the remembrance which determines the recog-
nition is one wholly different from the return with lessened
liveliness of a feeling more strongly felt before. According
to Hume's own statement, it consists in recalling frequent
instances of the existence of a species of objects.' It is remem-
brance of an experience in which every feeling, that has been
attended to, has been interpreted as a fresh appearance of
some qualified object that 'exists' throughout its appear-
ances-an experience which for that reason forms a con-
nected whole. If it were not so, there could be no such
comparison of the relations in which two objects are now
presented with those in which they have always been pre-
sented, as that which according to Hume determines us to
regard them as cause and effect. The condition of our so

1 P. 388.

regarding them is that we suppose the objects now presented to be the same with those of which we have had previous experience. It is only on supposition that a certain sensation of sight is not merely like a multitude of others, but represents the same object as that which I have previously known as flame, that I infer the sequence of heat and, when it does follow, regard it as an effect. If I thought that the sensation of sight, however like those previously referred to flame, did not represent the same object, I should not infer heat as effect; and conversely, if, having identified the sensation of sight as representative of flame, I found that the inferred heat was not actually felt, I should judge that I was mistaken in the identification. It follows that it is only an experience of identical, and by consequence related and qualified, objects, of which the memory can so determine a sequence of feelings as to constitute it an experience of cause and effect. Thus the perception and remembrance upon which, according to Hume, we judge one object to be the cause of another, alike rest on the fictions of identity and continued existence.' Without these no present experience would, in his language, be an instance of an individual of a certain species existing in a certain relation, nor would there be a past experience of individuals of the same species, by comparison with which the constancy of the relation might be ascertained.

...

Hume

makes conceptions of identity

and cause each come

other.

313. Against this derivation of the conception of cause and effect, as implying that of identity, may be urged the fact that when we would ascertain the truth of any identification we do so by reference to causes and effects. As Hume himself puts it at the outset of his discussion of causation, an before the inference of identity beyond the impressions of our senses can be founded only on the connexion of cause and effect.' . 'Whenever we discover a perfect resemblance between a new object and one which was formerly present to the senses, we consider whether it be common in that species of objects; whether possibly or probably any cause could operate in producing the change and resemblance; and according as we determine concerning these causes and effects, we form our judgment concerning the identity of the object.' This admission, it may be said, though it tells against Hume's own

J P. 376.