Ideas are said to be things internal and present, which have no existence but during the moment they are in the mind. The objects of sense are things external, which have a continued existence. When it is maintained that all that we immediately perceive is only ideas or phantasms, how can we, from the existence of those phantasms, conclude the existence of an external world corresponding to them?.

This difficult question seems not to have occurred to the Peripatetics. Des Cartes saw the difficulty, and endeavoured to find out arguments by which, from the existence of our phantasms or ideas, we might infer the existence of external objects. [351] The same course was followed by Malebranche, Arnauld, and Locke; but Berkeley and Hume easily refuted all their arguments, and demonstrated that there is no strength in them.

The same difficulty with regard to memory naturally arises from the system of ideas; and the only reason why it was not observed by philosophers, is, because they give less attention to the memory than to the senses; for, since ideas are things present, how can we, from our having a certain idea presently in our mind, conclude that an event really happened ten or twenty years ago, corresponding to it?

There is the same need of arguments to prove, that the ideas of memory are pictures of things that really did happen, as that the ideas of sense are pictures of external objects which now exist. In both cases, it will be impossible to find any argument that has real weight. So that this hypothesis leads us to absolute scepticism, with regard to those things which we most distinctly remember, no less than with regard to the external objects of sense.

It does not appear to have occurred either to Locke or to Berkeley, that their system has the same tendency to overturn the testimony of memory as the testimony of the

senses.

Mr Hume saw farther than both, and found this consequence of the system of ideas perfectly corresponding to his aim of establishing universal scepticism. His sysstem is therefore more consistent than theirs, and the conclusions agree better with the premises.

But, if we should grant to Mr Hume that our ideas of memory afford no just ground to believe the past existence of things which we remember, it may still be asked, How it❘

This is not correct. See above, p. 285, note t. To that note I may add, that no orthodox Catholic could be an Idealist. It was only the doctrine of

transsubstantiation that prevented Malebranche from pre-occupying the theory of Berkeley and Collier, which was in fact his own, with the transcendent reality of a material world left out, as a Protestant hors d'œuvre. This, it is curious, has never been observed. See Note P.-H.

comes to pass that perception and memory are accompanied with belief, while bare imagination is not? Though this belief cannot be justified upon his system, it ought to be accounted for as a phænomenon of human nature. [352]

This he has done, by giving us a new theory of belief in general; a theory which suits very well with that of ideas, and seems to be a natural consequence of it, and which, at the same time, reconciles all the belief that we find in human nature to perfect scepticism.

What, then, is this belief? It must either be an idea, or some modification of an idea; we conceive many things which we do not believe. The idea of an object is the same whether we believe it to exist, or barely conceive it. The belief adds no new idea to the conception; it is, therefore, nothing but a modification of the idea of the thing believed, or a different manner of conceiving it. Hear himself :

"All the perceptions of the mind are of two kinds, impressions and ideas, which differ from each other only in their different degrees of force and vivacity. Our ideas are copied from our impressions, and represent them in all their parts. When you would vary the idea of a particular object, you can only increase or diminish its force and vivacity. If you make any other change upon it, it represents a different object or impression. The case is the same as in colours. A particular shade of any colour may acquire a new degree of liveliness or brightness, without any other variation; but, when you produce any other variation, it is no longer the same shade or colour. So that, as belief does nothing but vary the manner in which we conceive any object, it can only bestow on our ideas an additional force and vivacity. An opinion, therefore, or belief, may be most accurately defined a lively idea, related to or associated with a present impression."

This theory of belief is very fruitful of consequences, which Mr Hume traces with his usual acuteness, and brings into the service of his system. [353] A great part of his system, indeed, is built upon it; and it is of itself sufficient to prove what he calls his hypothesis, "that belief is more properly an act of the sensitive than of the cogitative part of our natures."

It is very difficult to examine this account of belief with the same gravity with which it is proposed. It puts one in mind of the ingenious account given by Martinus Scriblerus of the power of syllogism, by making the major the male, and the minor the female, which, being coupled by the middle term, generate the conclusion. There is surely no science in which men of great parts and ingenuity have fallen into

such gross absurdities as in treating of the powers of the mind. I cannot help thinking that never anything more absurd was gravely maintained by any philosopher, than this account of the nature of belief, and of the distinction of perception, memory, and imagination.

The belief of a proposition is an operation of mind of which every man is conscious, and what it is he understands perfectly, though, on account of its simplicity, he cannot give a logical definition of it. If he compares it with strength or vivacity of his ideas, or with any modification of ideas, they are so far from appearing to be one and the same, that they have not the least similitude.

That a strong belief and a weak belief differ only in degree, I can easily comprehend; but that belief and no belief should differ only in degree, no man can believe who understands what he speaks. For this is, in reality, to say that something and nothing differ only in degree; or, that nothing is a degree of something.

Every proposition that may be the object of belief, has a contrary proposition that may be the object of a contrary belief. The ideas of both, according to Mr Hume, are the same, and differ only in degrees of vivacity—that is, contraries differ only in degree; and so pleasure may be a degree of pain, and hatred a degree of love. [354] But it is to no purpose to trace the absurdities that follow from this doctrine, for none of them can be more absurd than the doctrine itself.

Every man knows perfectly what it is to see an object with his eyes, what it is to remember a past event, and what it is to conceive a thing which has no existence. That these are quite different operations of his mind, he is as certain as that sound differs from colour, and both from taste; and I can as easily believe that sound, and colour, and taste differ only in degree, as that seeing, and remembering, and imagining, differ only in degree.

Mr Hume, in the third volume of his "Treatise of Human Nature," is sensible that his theory of belief is liable to strong objections, and seems, in some measure, to retract it; but in what measure, it is not easy to say. He seems still to think that belief is only a modification of the idea; but that vivacity is not a proper term to express that modification. Instead of it, he uses some analogical phrases, to explain that modification, such as "apprehending the idea more strongly, or taking faster hold of it."

There is nothing more meritorious in a philosopher than to retract an error upon conviction; but, in this instance, I humbly apprehend Mr Hume claims that merit

upon too slight a ground. For I cannot perceive that the apprehending an idea more strongly, or taking faster hold of it, expresses any other modification of the idea than what was before expressed by its strength and vivacity, or even that it expresses the same modification more properly. Whatever modification of the idea he makes belief to be, whether its vivacity, or some other without a name, to make perception, memory, and imagination to be the different degrees of that modification, is chargeable with the absurdities we have mentioned.

Before we leave this subject of memory, it is proper to take notice of a distinction which Aristotle makes between memory and reminiscence, because the distinction has a real foundation in nature, though in our language, I think, we do not distinguish them by different names. [355]

Memory is a kind of habit which is not always in exercise with regard to things we remember, but is ready to suggest them when there is occasion. The most perfect degree of this habit is, when the thing presents itself to our remembrance spontaneously, and without labour, as often as there is occasion. A second degree is, when the thing is forgot for a longer or shorter time, even when there is occasion to remember it; yet, at last, some incident brings it to mind without any search. A third degree is, when we cast about and search for what we would remember, and so at last find it out. It is this last, I think, which Aristotle calls reminiscence, as distinguished from memory.

Reminiscence, therefore, includes a will to recollect something past, and a search for it. But here a difficulty occurs. It may be said, that what we will to remember we must conceive, as there can be no will without a conception of the thing willed. A will to remeinber a thing, therefore, seems to imply that we remember it already, and have no occasion to search for it. But this difficulty is easily removed. When we will to remember a thing, we must remember something relating to it, which gives us a relative conception of it; but we may, at the same time, have no conception what the thing is, but only what relation it bears to something else. Thus, I remember that a friend charged me with a commission to be executed at such a place; but I have forgot what the commission was. By applying my thought to what I remember concerning it, that it was given by such a person, upon such an occasion, in consequence of such a conversation, I am led, in a train of thought, to the very thing I had forgot, and recollect distinctly what the commission was. [356]

Aristotle says, that brutes have not re

miniscence; and this I think is probable; but, says he, they have memory. It cannot, indeed, be doubted but they have something very like to it, and, in some instances, in a very great degree. A dog knows his master after long absence.

A horse will trace back

a road he has once gone, as accurately as a man; and this is the more strange, that the train of thought which he had in going must be reversed in his return. It is very like to some prodigious memories we read of, where a person, upon hearing an hundred names or unconnected words pronounced, can begin at the last, and go backwards to

the first, without losing or misplacing one. Brutes certainly may learn much from experience, which seems to imply memory.

Yet, I see no reason to think that brutes measure time as men do, by days, months, or years; or that they have any distinct knowledge of the interval between things which they remember, or of their distance from the present moment If we could not record transactions according to their dates, human memory would be something very different from what it is, and, perhaps, resemble more the memory of brutes. [357]

CHAPTER I.

OF CONCEPTION, OR SIMPLE APPREHENSION IN GENERAL.

Conceiving, imagining,+ apprehending, understanding, having a notion of a thing, are common words, used to express that operation of the understanding which the logicians call simple apprehension. The having an idea of a thing, is, in common language, used in the same sense, chiefly, I think, since Mr Locke's time.+

remembered that the most simple operations of the mind cannot be logically defined. To have a distinct notion of them, we must attend to them as we feel them in our own minds. He that would have a distinct notion of a scarlet colour, will never attain it by a definition; he must set it before his eye, attend to it, compare it with the colours that come nearest to it, and observe the specific difference, which he will in vain attempt to define.* [358]

Every man is conscious that he can conceive a thousand things, of which he believes nothing at all-as a horse with wings, a mountain of gold; but, although conception may be without any degree of belief, even the smallest belief cannot be without conception. He that believes must have some conception of what he believes.

*This is a question which may be differently an swered, according as we attribute a different meaning to the terms employed.-H.

Imagining should, not be confounded with Conceiving, &c.; though some philosophers, as Gassendi, have not attended to the distinction. The words

Conception, Concept, Notion, should be limited to the thought of what cannot be represented in the imagin. ation, as, the thought suggested by a general term. The Leibnitzians call this symbolical in contrast to intuitive knowledge. This is the sense in which conceptio and conceptus have been usually and cor. rectly employed. Mr Stewart, on the other hand, arbitrarily limits Conception to the reproduction, in imagination, of an object of sense as actually per ceived. See Elements, vol. I., ch. iii. I cannot enter on a general criticism of Reid's nomenclature, though I may say something more of this in the sequel. See below, under pp. 371, 482.-H.

In this country should be added. Locke only

introduced into English philosophy the term idea in its Cartesian universality. Prior to him, the word was only used with us in its Platonic signification. Before Des Cartes, David Buchanan, a Scotch philo. sopher, who sojourned in France, had, however, em. ployed Idea in an equal latitude. See Note G.-H.

explain some of its properties; consider the theories about it; and take notice of some mistakes of philosophers concerning it.

1. It may be observed that conception enters as an ingredient in every operation of the mind. Our senses cannot give us the belief of any object, without giving some conception of it at the same time. No man can either remember or reason about things of which he hath no conception. When we will to exert any of our active powers, there must be some conception of what we will to do. There can be no desire nor aversion, love nor hatred, without some conception of the object. We cannot feel pain without conceiving it, though we can conceive it without feeling it. These things

are self-evident.

In every operation of the mind, there

*We do not define the specific difference, but we define by it.-H.

fore, in everything we call thought, there must be conception. When we analyse the various operations either of the understanding or of the will, we shall always find this at the bottom, like the caput mortuum of the chemists, or the materia prima of the Peripatetics; but, though there is no operation of mind without conception, yet it may be found naked, detached from all others, and then it is called simple apprehension, or the bare conception of a thing.

As all the operations of our mind are expressed by language, every one knows that it is one thing to understand what is said, to conceive or apprehend its meaning, whether it be a word, a sentence, or a discourse; it is another thing to judge of it, to assent or dissent, to be persuaded or moved. The first is simple apprehension, and may be without the last; but the last cannot be without the first. [359]

2. In bare conception there can neither be truth nor falsehood, because it neither affirms nor denies. Every judgment, and every proposition by which judgment is expressed, must be true or false; and the qualities of true and false, in their proper sense, can belong to nothing but to judgments, or to propositions which express judgment. In the bare conception of a thing there is no judgment, opinion, or belief included, and therefore it cannot be either true or false.

But it may be said, Is there anything more certain than that men may have true or false conceptions, true or false apprehensions, of things? I answer, that such ways of speaking are indeed so common, and so well authorized by custom, the arbiter of language, that it would be presumption to censure them. It is hardly possible to avoid using them. But we ought to be upon our guard that we be not misled by them, to confound things which, though often expressed by the same words, are really different. We must therefore remember what was before observed, Essay I. chap. 1-that all the words by which we signify the bare conception of a thing, are likewise used to signify our opinions, when we wish to express them with modesty and diffidence. And we shall always find, that, when we speak of true or false conceptions, we mean true or false opinions. An opinion, though ever so wavering, or ever so modestly expressed, must be either true or false; but a bare conception, which expresses no opinion or judgment, can be neither.

If we analyse those speeches in which men attribute truth or falsehood to our conceptions of things, we shall find in every case, that there is some opinion or judgment implied in what they call conception. [360] A child conceives the moon to be flat, and a

foot or two broad—that is, this is his opinion: and, when we say it is a false notion or a false conception, we mean that it is a false opinion. He conceives the city of London to be like his country village-that is, he believes it to be so, till he is better instructed. He conceives a lion to have horns; that is, he believes that the animal which men call a lion, has horns. Such opinions language authorizes us to call conceptions; and they may be true or false. But bare conception, or what the logicians call simple apprehension, implies no opinion, however slight, and therefore can neither be true nor false.

What Mr Locke says of ideas (by which word he very often means nothing but conceptions) is very just, when the word idea is so understood. Book II., chap. xxxii., § 1. "Though truth and falsehood belong in propriety of speech only to propositions, yet ideas are often termed true or false (as what words are there that are not used with great latitude, and with some deviation from their strict and proper signification?) though I think that when ideas themselves are termed true or false, there is still some secret or tacit proposition, which is the foundation of that denomination : as we shall see, if we examine the particular occasions wherein they come to be called true or false; in all which we shall find some kind of affirmation or negation, which is the reason of that denomination; for our ideas, being nothing but bare appearances, or perceptions in our minds, cannot properly and simply in themselves be said to be true or false, no more than a simple name of anything can be said to be true or false."

It may be here observed, by the way, that, in this passage, as in many others, Mr Locke uses the word perception, as well as the word idea, to signify what I call conception, or simple apprehension. And in his chapter upon perception, Book II., chap. ix., he uses it in the same sense. Perception, he says, as it is the first faculty of the mind, exercised about our ideas, so it is the first and simplest idea we have from reflection, and is by some called thinking in general. [361] It seems to be that which puts the distinction betwixt the animal kingdom and the inferior parts of nature. It is the first operation of all our faculties, and the inlet of all knowledge into our minds."

Mr Hume, and many late philosophers, | when they treat of ideas. They have probably been led into this impropriety, by the common doctrine concerning ideas, which teaches us, that conception, perception by the senses, and memory, are only different ways of perceiving ideas in our own minds." If that theory be well founded, it will indeed be very difficult to find any specific distinction between conception;and perception. But there is reason to distrust any philosophical theory when it leads men to corrupt language, and to confound, under one name, operations of the mind which common sense and common language teach them to distinguish.

I grant that there are some states of the mind, wherein a man may confound his conceptions with what he perceives or remembers, and mistake the one for the other; as in the delirium of a fever, in some cases of lunacy and of madness, in dreaming, and perhaps in some momentary transports of devotion, or of other strong emotions, which cloud his intellectual faculties, and, for a time, carry a man out of himself, as we usually express it.

Even in a sober and sound state of mind, the memory of a thing may be so very weak that we may be in doubt whether we only dreamed or imagined it.

It may be doubted whether children, when their imagination first begins to work, can distinguish what they barely conceive from what they remember. [362] I have been told, by a man of knowledge and observation, that one of his sons, when he began to speak, very often told lies with great assurance, without any intention, as far as appeared, or any consciousness of guilt. From which the father concluded, that it is natural to some children to lie. I am rather inclined to think that the child had no intention to deceive, but mistook the rovings of his own fancy for things which he remembered. This, however, I take to be very uncommon, after children can communicate their sentiments by language, though perhaps not so in a more early period.

Granting all this, if any man will affirm that they whose intellectual faculties are sound, and sober, and ripe, cannot with certainty distinguish what they perceive or remember, from what they barely conceive, when those operations have any degree of strength and distinctness, he may enjoy his

*But see above, p. 280, a, note* et alibi.-H. Yet Reid himself defines Perception, a Conception (imagination) accompanied with a belief in the existence of its object; and Mr Stewart reduces the specific difference, at best only a concomitant, to an accidental circumstance, in holding that our imaginations are themselves conjoined with a temporary belief in their objective reality.-H.

But compare above, p. 340, col. a.-H.

opinion; I know not how to reason with him. Why should philosophers confound those operations in treating of ideas, when they would be ashamed to do it on other occasions? To distinguish the various powers of our minds, a certain degree of understanding is necessary. And if some, through a defect of understanding, natural or accidental, or from unripeness of understanding, may be apt to confound different powers, will it follow that others cannot clearly distinguish them?

To return from this digression-into which the abuse of the word perception, by philosophers, has led me-it appears evident that the bare conception of an object, which includes no opinion or judgment, can neither be true nor false. Those qualities, in their proper sense, are altogether inapplicable to this operation of the mind.

3. Of all the analogies between the operations of body and those of the mind, there is none so strong and so obvious to all mankind as that which there is between painting, or other plastic arts, and the power of conceiving objects in the mind. Hence, in all languages, the words by which this power of the mind and its various modifications are expressed, are analogical, and borrowed from those arts. [363] We consider this power of the mind as a plastic power, by which we form to ourselves images of the objects of thought.

In vain should we attempt to avoid this analogical language, for we have no other language upon the subject; yet it is dangerous, and apt to mislead. All analogical and figurative words have a double meaning; and, if we are not very much upon our guard, we slide insensibly from the borrowed and figurative meaning into the primitive. We are prone to carry the parallel between the things compared farther than it will hold, and thus very naturally to fall into error.

To avoid this as far as possible in the present subject, it is proper to attend to the dissimilitude between conceiving a thing in the mind, and painting it to the eye, as well as to their similitude. The similitude strikes and gives pleasure. The dissimilitude we are less disposed to observe; but the philosopher ought to attend to it, and to carry it always in mind, in his reasonings on this subject, as a monitor, to warn him against the errors into which the analogical language is apt to draw him.

When a man paints, there is some work done, which remains when his hand is taken off, and continues to exist though he should think no more of it. Every stroke of his pencil produces an effect, and this effect is different from his action in making it; for it remains and continues to exist when the action ceases. The action of painting is