Page:Treatise of Human Nature (1888).djvu/711

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A TREATISE OF HUMAN NATURE.

complex, 2; opposed to reasoning as passive to active, 'a mere passive admission of the impressions through the organs of sensation,' 73; may be and is caused by matter or motion, 246 f.; includes judgment, 456.

§ 2. Continued and distinct existence of perceptions, 187 f. (cf. 66), (v. Object); belief in this not derived from senses, 188-193; nor reason, 193, but imagination, 194 f.; it is the coherence and constancy of certain perceptions which makes us suppose their continued existence, 194, and distinguish between their existence and appearance, 199; the opinion of their distinct and continued existence is 'contrary to the plainest experience,' 210; the philosophic distinction between perceptions and objects is only 'a palliative remedy' and contains all the faults of the vulgar system with some of its own, 211; impossible to reason from existence of perceptions to that of objects, still more to their resemblance, 216, or to the resemblance of particular objects and perceptions, 217; our senses tell us that perceptions are our only objects, imagination tells us that our perceptions continue to exist even when not perceived, reflection tells us that this is false and yet we continue to believe it, 214; the vulgar make no distinction between perceptions and objects, 193, 202, 206, 209; though they consider that some of their perceptions have a continued and distinct existence and that some have not but are 'merely perceptions,' 192; the externality of our perceptions to ourselves not felt, 190-191; 'our idea of a perception and an object cannot represent what are specifically different from each other,' 241; the interposition of a perception or image necessary to make an external object known to the mind, 239; all discoverable relations of objects apply also to perceptions but not conversely, 242.

§ 3. All perceptions except those of sight and touch 'exist and yet are nowhere,' i.e. are neither figured nor extended and have no place, 236; perceptions do not exist like mathematical points, 239; extension a quality of perception, i.e. some perceptions are themselves extended. 40 (v. Extension, § 3).

§ 4. A perception can very well be separate from the mind, since the mind is only 'a heap or collection of different perceptions united together by certain relations,' 207; our resembling impressions are not really identical nor their existence continued, 210; 'all our perceptions may exist separately and have no need of anything to support their existence, 233, 633; all particular perceptions may exist separately and so are not necessarily related to a self or person, 252; when we look intimately into ourselves we never can find anything but some particular perceptions, 252, 456, 634; a man only a bundle of particular perceptions which succeed one another with an inconceivable rapidity and are in a perpetual flux and movement,' 252; 'they are the successive perceptions which constitute the mind;