Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/551

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KAXT HAS SOT ANSWERED HUME. 539 may meet ; and there may be Arables the blest where two times two make five ! But to return. I need hardly point out that the remainder of this quotation (1) from Locke might also be quite as well attributed to Hume. That has been already said that for aiiy light on causality, there could be no element appealed to but that of experience. Quotation (2) enunciates what is so prominent in Hume, the distinction between relations of ideas and matters of fact ; while these latter, as particulars, are to both philosophers incompetent to universals. In (3) we have a point which, for the purpose of breaking up syn- thesis, connexion, appears perpetually in the Treatise, as (i., ii., v.), " ever} T idea that is distinguishable is separable," &c. Hume's two classes of relations which, as elsewhere said, I am disposed to name intrinsic and extrinsic, and set side by side with Kant's two classes of categories, mathe- matical and dynamical, as well as the fact that the first class, " depending solely upon ideas," alone " concerns the objects of knowledge and certainty" (T. i., iii., i.) this is accurately the import of (4) ; and there are additional illus- trations to the same effect in (5), (6), (7), (14), and (19) : Hume's phrase " though there never were a true circle or triangle in nature," &c., will be seen to be pretty well lite- rally anticipated here. The quotations (8-18) inclusive, (20), (21), (26), offer to our view a whole body of expressions in regard not only to substance, but even to causality itself, that seem to be literal transcripts from the pages of Hume. The idea, obscure, vague, not due to any impression; no visible necessary connexion ; no discoverable connexion be- tween quality and quality ; in vain shall we endeavour to discover by ideas ; know not the real constitution of the minute parts ; very little farther than experience ; nor did we know, could we discover ; ignorant of powers, efficacies, and ways of operation ; cannot tell what effects, or guess, much less know, the manner of their production ; connexions and dependencies not discoverable ; may by analogy guess what effects the like bodies are like to produce in the future ; cannot affirm that all men sleep by intervals, are poisoned by hemlock, or cannot be nourished by wood and stones ; we only see the effect, not the mode of action : all these phrases, taken just so, are quite as much Hume's as they are Locke's. Lastly, in the remaining quotations, Locke will be found to dwell on custom, and to refer to custom as a principle of explanation, quite as emphatically, and with quite the same significance as David Hume. I think, then, we may be now allowed at least to turn our