by G. J. Mattey
Book 1
Of the UNDERSTANDING
PART 4
Of the sceptical and other systems of philosophy.
Sect. 2. Of scepticism with regard to the senses.
Context
The author has completed in the last section his examination of the first skeptical system, which questions the ability of reason to provide adequate grounding for its conclusions. In the present section, the author turns his attention to the other two faculties of the mind, the senses and the imagination. He asks how they cause us to believe in the existence of external objects, and in the end he finds that the explanation of the role of the imagination reveals grounds for skepticism about whether external objects exist at all.
Background
Descartes had allowed in his Meditations that we are taught by nature that bodies exist externally to the mind. He also attempted to prove philosophically, in the Sixth Meditation, that they do. The argument was that we have a strong natural inclination to believe that bodies exist. Moreover, we are created by an all-powerful God who would not deceive us. If our natural inclination were in error, God would be a deceiver, which he is not. So our natural inclination to believe in bodies is correct.
Locke held on quite different grounds that bodies exist. His claim is that we know of the existence of bodies through our senses, by seeing and feeling them. “It is . . . the actual receiving of ideas from without that gives us notice of the existence of other things, and makes us know, that something doth exist at that time without us, which causes that idea in us; though perhaps we neither know nor consider how it does” (Essay, Book IV, Chapter XI). The testimony of the senses is sufficient to induce certainty beyond doubt. Locke also produced supplementary arguments for the existence of external objects, most notably that sensations of them occur against our will. However, Locke also held that the ideas that we receive from objects are distinct from those objects and merely represent them. Thus, Locke advocated what the author calls below the “philosophical system” regarding the relation between perceptions and objects.
Berkeley rejected Locke“s system in favor of what the author calls the “vulgar system,” according to which objects are not external, but rather are themselves perceptions. In Section 6 of the Principles of Human Knowledge, he wrote that “all the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth, in a word, all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world, have not any subsistence without a mind—that their being is to be perceived or known . . . .” Berkeley produced a number of arguments in support of this claim. Of direct relevance to this section is the argument that one cannot “separate in his own thoughts, the being of a sensible thing from its being perceived” (Section 6).
The Treatise
1. The inability to defend our beliefs by reason does not mean that we cease to believe. In the previous section, the author had noted that even a skeptic will continue to reason even if he has no rational defense of the practice. Similarly, despite the fact that no “arguments of philosophy” can be produced to show the existence of bodies, we by nature believe that they exist. “Nature has not left this to [the skeptic’s] choice, and has doubtless esteem’d it an affair of too great importance to he entrusted to our uncertain reasonings and speculations.” We must take for granted in all of our reasoning that there are bodies and can only ask, “What causes induce us to believe in the existence of bodies?”
2. The author’s account of the causes of the belief in the existence of bodies begins with “a distinction, which at first sight may seem superfluous, but which will contribute very much to the perfect understanding of what follows.” So, although we frequently confuse the following two questions, they ought to be examined independently of each other. The author asks why we attribute to bodies:
3. So we begin with the question of whether the senses are the causes of these beliefs. As far as continued existence is concerned, it is impossible that our belief in this is caused by sense-perception. To do so would mean that the senses are operating when there is no perception, which is a clear contradiction. So the only remaining role for the senses is to support the belief in the distinct existence of bodies. In that case, there are two possibilities. Either the senses present “images and representations” of distinctly existing bodies, or they present the distinct bodies themselves.
4. As for the first option, it is beyond the power of the senses to represent a body as existing distinctly or independently from perception, or as external to perception. Any perception is single, and as such, it cannot be the sole source of the idea of a “double existence,” that of the perception and that of the distinctly existing body. In order to arrive at the idea of a double existence, either reason or the imagination must supply an inference from the perception to the distinct existence of the body. Specifically, the inference would be based on a presumed resemblance of the body to the perception and the causation by the body of the perception.
5. The second option, then, would have to come into play: the senses “convey” their impressions as distinct bodies themselves. But this could only occur “by a kind of fallacy and illusion.” [That is, the impressions somehow appear to be distinct bodies when they are not.] The author here notes that we feel all sensations in our minds as they really are. So if the question is whether they present distinct objects, it must concern “relations and situations” of the impressions and not their very nature. The relation would have to be between the impressions (as distinct objects) and ourselves, in the sense that the impressions are external to ourselves. If the a comparison is to be made between the two relata, the objects and the self, both “must be obvious to our senses.” “The difficulty, then, is how far we are ourselves the objects of our senses.”
6. The first reason to reject the notion that the senses have the power to represent bodies as distinct from ourselves, concerns our inability to understand ourselves in an obvious way. The question of the identity and principle of unity of a person is the most abstruse in all of philosophy, requiring “recourse to the most profound metaphysics” to answer. Moreover, the notion that ordinary people have of the self is “never very fix’ nor determinate.” It would be absurd to allow that the senses can do what common thought and profound metaphysical reasoning have a difficult time doing.
7. The second reason to reject the ability of the senses to represent distinct existences is that perceptions appear to the mind just as they are, “in their true colours.” (This applies to all impressions, not only those of sense.) Since the senses clearly present the nature of their impressions, they should as well present their situations and relations, such as being external to the mind. Such impressions would have to feel different from other perceptions, e.g., passions and pains, which are not, yet all are “originally on the same footing.” “Every thing that enters the mind, being in reality a perception, shoul’d to feeling appear different.” To think otherwise would be to think us capable of error “even where we are most intimately conscious.”
8. The two reasons just given attack the possibility of the senses presenting objects as distinct from (i.e., external to and independent of) the mind. To think that objects are thus presented is an error. This leaves open the question of “whether they really do [represent our perceptions as distinct from ourselves], and whether this error proceeds from an immediate sensation, or from some other source.”
9. The author begins with the question of whether objects are presented as external to the mind. It could be argued that although there are difficulties in understanding the identity of the self over time, there is no such problem with the identity of our body, which “evidently belongs to us.” Since some impressions appear exterior to the body, they therefore appear exterior to ourselves. Examples of objects external to the body are the author’s pen, the table upon which the pen rests, the walls of the room containing the table, and the fields and buildings visible outside the window of the room. All we need to convince ourselves of their externality, the argument concludes, is our senses. The author advances three considerations in rebuttal to this argument. The first is that we do not in fact perceive our bodies but only impressions that enter the mind through the senses. The second is that a number of impressions, such as sounds, tastes, and smells, appear not to exist in external bodies, and so cannot appear to be situated outside our body. The third is that, as “the most rational philosophers” [i.e., Berkeley, in his New Theory of Vision] acknowledge, we do not perceive distance or “outness” by the senses, but only by “a certain reasoning and experience.”
10. So, the senses do not perceive externality of bodies. The notion that objects are independent of ourselves is not due to the senses, but is derived instead from observation and experience. It will be shown later in this section (paragraphs 14, 21 and 44-47) that even experience is inadequate to support the belief in the independent existence of bodies. That aside, talk of real, distinct, existences seems to be about independence from the mind, in the sense of an uninterrupted existence which is unlike the mind’s constantly changing content, which we observe all the time. That is, what we do not so much have in mind is that their relation to us is that of being in a different place.
11. The author now summarizes his position to this point. The senses cannot give us an idea of unperceived continued existence because they can only operate on what is present to them. Nor do they lead us to believe in distinct existence. To do so, they would have to represent distinctness, which would require something besides the impression, or they would have to make the distinctness “appear as original.” They cannot do the latter because they would have to “convey a falsehood,” since they cannot compare the impressions to the object, which they do not, and they cannot deceive us or convey the falsehood that they are distinct bodies. “We may, therefore, conclude with certainty, that the opinion of a continu’d and of a distinct existence never arises from the senses.”
12. The author now cites an observation “to confirm” the conclusion of the previous paragraph [which was itself already certain] that the senses never give rise to the belief in a continued and distinct existence of bodies. The author lists “three different kinds of impressions convey’d by the senses”:
13. The difference between the first two kinds cannot be found in perception, whatever philosophical arguments might be made to prise them apart. In fact, the vulgar belief is so strong that the feeling that the two kinds are the same is taken to be a refutation of the philosophical distinction. But on the side of the philosophers, there is no original difference between the second and third kinds: colors and sounds are “on the same footing with” pains and pleasures. It is only the imagination, not the senses or reason, that distinguish the two. [The claim that the two apparently different kinds are on the same footing was first made by Berkeley.] Both kinds are “nothing but perceptions arising from the particular configurations and motions of parts of the body,” so there is no basis for sorting them into different kinds. Therefore, the senses cannot distinguish between the first two kinds (as reflected in the vulgar opinion) or the second and the third (as the philosophers maintain). “Upon the whole, then, we may conclude, that as far as the senses are judges, all perceptions are the same in the manner of their existence.” [This concludes the discussion of the first option for explaining the origin of the belief in the continued and distinct existence of bodies, that it is based solely on the senses.]
14. The second option is to attribute the belief in continued and distinct existence to reason, “or weighing our opinions by any philosophical principles.” The author here makes short work of this possibility. Any arguments that the philosophers might devise to support this belief are not shared by the unphilosophical mass of mankind. In fact, their opinions are opposed to those of the philosophers. The philosophers note that what appears to the mind is perception only, and that perception is inconstant and interrupted. But the vulgar identify the perception with the object, “and attribute a distinct continu’d existence to the very things they feel or see.” Here, the philosophers have the high ground, and the views of the vulgar are unreasonable. So there must be some faculty other than the understanding to explain their view. A further consideration is that identifying the perceptions and the objects excludes a role for a rational inference from the perceptions to the existence of the objects. As was noted in Part 3, Section 2, the only rational basis for belief in such existence is causal inference, but that is not available if the perceptions and objects are identified. “So that upon the whole our reason neither does, nor is it possible that it ever shoul’d, upon any supposition, give us an assurance of the continu’d and distinct existence of body.” The only power of the mind left to explain this assurance is the imagination. The rest of this section will explain how the imagination gives rise to the belief in the continued and distinct existence of bodies.
15. All impressions exist only internally and temporarily, and they appear to the mind just in this way. So if the imagination is to generate the view that they exist externally and continuously, they must possess some quality or qualities which interact with qualities of the imagination. Moreover, some impressions are thought to be merely internal and temporary, so those thought to be external and continuous must have qualities that distinguish them from the others. If we compare the two, then, it will be “easy” to find the qualities we are looking for.
16. It is commonly held that there are two such qualities: that external and continued impressions appear involuntarily and that they possess a superior degree of force or vivacity. But these cannot be the distinguishing features of the impressions, as admittedly internal and temporary impressions such as “our pains and pleasures, our passions and affections” are involuntary as well, and they are in fact more vivid than “the impressions of figure and extension, colour and sound, which we suppose to be permanent beings.” The moderate heat of a fire is supposed to exist in it, yet the pain of the fire when we approach it closely is thought to be in ourselves. [This observation is found in Berkeley’s Three Dialogues, First Dialogue, to show that great heat and pain are identical and hence both internal.]
17. The common (vulgar) opinion that locates the difference between the two kinds of perception in whether they are voluntary and how strong they are is incorrect, which calls for an explanation of what qualities do mark the difference.
18. The answer is that all objects that are thought to continue to exist when not perceived “have a particular constancy, which distinguishes them from the impressions, whose existence depends upon our perception.” Objects such as trees and mountains appear the same before and after the interruption of the perception of them. But other impressions do not have this quality of constancy, however lively or involuntary they may be.
19. But objects deemed external are often not constant in their appearance: they change and present a different look to us, to the point where sometimes we cannot even tell that they are the same thing after even a little gap in our perception of them. We think that they continue to exist because of a second quality: “even in these changes they preserve a coherence, and have a regular dependence on each other; which is the foundation of a kind of reasoning from causation, and produces the opinion of their continu’d existence.” For example, I have experienced many times the decay of a fire, taking a certain amount of time, in my fireplace. If I leave the room while there is a robust fire and return after an appropriate interval to find flickering ashes, I infer that the customary process of change has taken place, and that the fire has continued to exist.
20. Now the author asks how it is that these two qualities of impressions, constancy and coherence, could give rise to “so extraordinary an opinion” that body continues to exist when unperceived. The first point he makes concerns coherence. Some of our impressions that we acknowledge to be internal, and transitory, such as “[o]ur passions,” have themselves “a certain coherence or regularity in their appearances.” But this kind of coherence is different from the coherence that bodies are supposed to have. Despite the fact that the internal impressions are dependent upon and connected with one another, we need never suppose “that they have existed and operated, when they were not preceiv’d, in order to preserve the same dependence and connexion, of which we have had experience.” But with external objects, if they did not continue to exist, they would lose, or lose much of, their regularity. The author illustrates the point with an example. Suppose he is sitting in his room, looking at the fire and seeing only what is fairly close to it. He remembers a number of things, but they are in the past, and his senses and memory cannot guarantee their present existence. Then he hears what sounds like a door turning on his hinges, and a moment later, he sees a porter approaching him. “This gives occasion to many new reflections and reasonings.” The first reflection is that he has never experienced that particular sound except upon the motion of the door. He concludes that all this past experience would be contradicted if the door, which he remembers to be on the other side of the room, did not continue to exist and something else made the sound. Similar reflections apply to the appearance of the porter. The author’s exceptionless experience of human bodies is that they have “gravity,” which prevents them from rising in the air. If the stairs did not continue to exist and provide a means for the porter’s ascending them, his experience again would be contradicted. A third example is the arrival of a letter, which he can tell by its appearance came from a friend who says he is a very considerable distance away. The only explanation of this arrival is that the existence of the sea and land between them, as well as the existence of postal stations, etc. that he has observed has continued when he has not observed them. Looked at in one way, these examples are puzzling, in that they require an inference beyond what is perceived and which at first appears to be “entirely arbitrary and hypothetical.” What dissolves the puzzle is that the gap between our perception and the supposed unperceived object is filled by the recognition that only its continued existence can explain what he has perceived and presently perceives. In fact, we suppose the continued existence of bodies in this way in almost everything we do, “in order to connect [objects’] past and present appearances, and give them such an union with each other, as I have found by experience to be suitable to their particular natures and circumstances. Here then I am naturally led to regard the world, as something real and durable, and as preserving its existence, even when it is no longer present to my perception.”
21. The inference to the continued existence of unperceived objects relies on past experience and custom. In this sense, it is like the inference from cause to effect or from effect to cause. But when we examine the matter, we find that the two kinds of inference “are at bottom considerably different from each other.” The inference from coherence, unlike that from cause or effect, arises indirectly. Before describing how the inference arises, the author notes that it cannot be based on habit. A habit requires a regular succession of perceptions (as perceptions are the only things present to the mind). Moreover, the result of a habit cannot be more regular than the successions that caused it in the first place. But the regularity of external objects is far greater than the regularity in our perceptions, which are quite inconstant. So it cannot be habit that accounts for our supposition of the continuing existence of unperceived bodies, because that would “bestow on the objects a greater regularity than what is observ’d in our mere perceptions.” The perception of continued existence is broken by the mere turn of the head or shutting of the eyes, yet we still suppose that the objects continue to exist in “their usual connexion, notwithstanding their apparent interruption, and that the irregular appearances are join’d by something, of which we are insensible.” The negative conclusion is that because custom is repetition of what has been perceived, we cannot by means of it extend our perceptions to the kind of thing that we do not perceive, so some principle other than custom is required to explain why we attribute continued existence to unperceived bodies.
22. To introduce this missing principle, the author refers to a mechanism he had invoked in Part II, Section 4. There he had argued that the precision demanded by mathematics cannot be attained given the nature of our perceptions, but that nonetheless we suppose an imaginary standard of perfect equality which we try to approach, though never with complete success. This striving for perfection has a kind of inertial quality: new attempts do not require further stimulus, but rather “like a galley put in motion by the oars, carries on its course without any new impulse.” And the inertial quality of the striving then explains why we suppose that a precise standard exists. “The same principle makes us easily entertain this opinion of the continu’d existence of body.” We find a certain amount of uniformity in the perception of objects, which can be described as a “train” of observations, which, inertially, continues beyond the perceptions themselves “till it renders the uniformity as compleat as possible.” What makes the uniformity complete is “[t]he simple supposition of a continu’d existence,” which gives a greater notion of uniformity than can be had from the actual perceptions we have had.
23. The inertial principle, applied to the quality of coherence of our perceptions, cannot by itself explain our belief in continued existence of unperceived bodies, which extends to all unperceived bodies and thus constitutes a “vast edifice.” Constancy must be added to coherence to get a complete explanation. The explanation will be very lengthy, so the author will begin with a summary of the explanation and then describe its components in detail. He notes that at this point, he is considering the belief in the continued existence of unperceived bodies, but this is of interest because it is the basis for the belief in existence of bodies distinct from perception.
24. The explanation is as follows. An object looks the same when we perceive it at one time, cease to perceive it, and then perceive it again. Although the perceptions are numerically different, their perfect resemblance leads us to consider them as being the same. When we recognize that the earlier and later perceptions lack “perfect identity,” “we find ourselves somewhat at a loss, and are involv’d in a kind of contradiction.” We gloss this inconsistency over by disguising or completely removing the interruption, “by supposing that these interrupted perceptions are connected by a real existence, of which we are insensible.” Although it is only a supposition, it becomes a belief by virtue of its vivacity. The vivacity is due to the influence of remembering the “broken impressions” and the tendency to suppose them to be the same. As belief is a vivid idea (as argued in Part III, Section 7), the supposition of a continuing object is converted to a belief.
25. Having sketched his “system,” the author proceeds to its defense. He claims that this requires four things:
26. [Explanation of the first part of the system.] If we are to have a principled reason to believe that an object at one time is the same as an object at another time, we require a “principle of individuation” (principium individuationis). The first observation is that a view of a single object informs it only of its unity, not its identity. To say that a single object is the same as itself is to say nothing informative if there is no distinction between the reference of ‘object’ and ‘itself.’. There is, to put it another way, no real predicate expressed by ’itself” in the proposition that everything is the same as itself, only a repetition of the subject.
27. So it is a necessary condition of an identity claim that there be a view of two objects. But now a new question arises, as to whether it is possible to discover any identity in them, as they must be conceived as two, and therefore as distinct and not identical. What we have instead of an idea of identity is an idea of number.
28. This raises a real puzzle, since “both number and unity are incompatible with the relation of identity, it must lie in something that is neither of them.” Yet this seems impossible, at least at first sight. There can be no more medium between unity and number than there can between existence and non-existence. “After one object is suppos’d to exist, we must either suppose another also to exist; in which case we have the idea of number: Or we must suppose it not to exist, in which case the first object remains at unity.”
29. The dilemma may be addressed by consideration of the idea of time or duration. In Part 2, Section 5, the author had described that time “in a strict sense” implies succession. So we can only apply the idea of time to an unchangeable object “by a fiction of the imagination, by which the unchangeable object is suppos’d to participate of the changes of the co-existent objects, and in particular of that of our perceptions.” So, if our perception of surrounding things changes, we view the object as if it were changing as well, although in reality it is not. [For example, the face of a clock does not change, but the hands of the clock move.] It is this nearly ubiquitous fiction that allows us to have a notion of the identity of an object in which no change is perceived over a period of time. Now suppose that there are successive perceptions from t1 to t2, in which the perceptions are perfectly resembling. There are two “different lights” in which t1 and t2 may be placed. One way is to view them in the instants at which each occurs, in which case both the times themselves and the object perceived will be viewed as two in number. The reason the object will have to be counted as two is that it “must be multiply’d” in order to place it at two different times. The other way to view the matter is to take into account the succession of the times, in which case we can think of the object as being unvaried or uninterrupted through that stretch. This is what accounts for the idea of identity. So identity is in fact a medium between unity and number, or more properly speaking, identity (invariableness and uninterruptedness over time) is either unity or number, depending on how the identical object is viewed. To say properly that an object is identical to itself must only mean that the object at one time is the same as the object at another time. Then there actually is a difference in the referents of ‘object’ and ‘itself.’ We avoid the uninformativeness of the idea of unity, which we must use when considering the object at a single time. And we avoid contradiction between identity and number by making number relative to time while making invariableness and uninterruptedness the basis of identity.
30. “Thus the principle of individuation is nothing but the invariableness and uninterruptedness of any object, thro’ a suppos’d variation of time.” These two qualities of the object allow the mind to trace the existence of the object over time “and without being oblig’d to form the idea of multiplicity or number.”
31. [Explanation of the second part of the system.] The first part of the system explained how we attribute identity over time to objects that are perceived without variation or interruption. The second part is to explain how we attribute such identity to what is perceived without variation but with interruption. The perception is qualitatively the same before and after a time-gap in the perception, which could be very long, but its being interrupted deprives it of “one of the essential qualities of identity, viz, invariableness.” Before entering into his explanation, the author attempts to head off any “ambiguity and confusion on this head” it by assuming, with the vulgar, that there is no difference between the perception and the object perceived. Each of the expressions ‘perception’ and ‘object’ will be deployed as best suits the context of explanation. The reason that they can be used indifferently is that both of them signify “what any common man means by a hat, or shoe, or stone, or any other impression, convey’d to him by his senses.” The author shall later describe the way philosophers distinguish between perception and object, “which they suppose co-existent and resembling.” The discussion of the philosophers’ distinction begins in paragraph 46. In the meantime, it will suffice to say that all the rest of humanity does not make this distinction and would not even understand it. Ordinary people “perceive only one being,” not both a perception and an object, and for them, sensations entering by the senses are the objects. They cannot conceive readily that “this pen or paper, which is immediately perceiv’d, represents another, which is different from, but resembling it.”
32. The attribution of identity to resembling but interrupted perceptions is an “error and deception,” the source of which is to be explained. To this end, the author turns to “an observation, which I have already prov’d and explain’d” in Part II, Section 5. In paragraph 19 of that section he had announced the establishment of “a general maxim in this science of human nature, that wherever there is a close relation betwixt two ideas, the mind is very apt to mistake them, and in all its discourses and reasonings to use the one for the other.” Resemblance is identified as the relation that is “most efficacious” in this respect. The reason that it brings about an aptness to conflate ideas is the ease of transition in the imagination between ideas that are closely resembling. As stated in paragraph 22 of Section 5 of Part II, the principle is that, “Resembling ideas are not only related together, but the actions of the mind, which we employ in considering them, as so little different, that we are not able to distinguish them.” These actions (also called in this section, “operations,”) are due to “dispositions” of the mind to conceive things in a certain way. In Section 5 of Part II, the author had announced that this fact is “of great consequence,” and in the present section he states that it is “of great moment.” He then lays down “a general rule, that whatever ideas place the mind in the same disposition or in similar ones, are very apt to be confounded.” The reason for this aptness is the easy passage from one idea to the other. Perception of the difference in the ideas would require a “strict attention” by the mind, “of which, generally speaking, “’tis wholly incapable.”
33. The principle that similar dispositions lead to the confounding of ideas is now applied to the case of temporarily constant perceptions, taken to be identical to later ones that are temporarily constant. The author takes this confusion to be the result of the similarity in the dispositions that are caused by the two experiences of constancy. When we contemplate an object and suppose it to be identical over a period of time, we attribute the change from the first time to the last to time only, “and never exert ourselves to produce any new image or idea of the object.” The mind takes the easy course by doing only what “is necessary to continue that idea, of which we were formerly possest, and which subsists without variation or interruption.” We hardly feel any difference, as there is no new idea that would cause is to think in a different way [literally, to redirect “the spirits” which are presumed to account for changes in thought].
34. The author notes that the identical objects can place the mind in the same disposition when considering them and can cause “the same uninterrupted passage of the imagination from one idea to another.” He asks rhetorically what other objects can do this, which is a question “of last importance.” Any such objects would put the mind in a similar disposition to that into which it is put by identical objects, and by the principle of the preceding paragraphs, the mind would be apt to confuse those ideas with identical ones. The question is easily answered, despite its importance. Related objects can ease the transition from ideas to ideas similarly to the way in which invariable objects [or perceptions] can. “The very nature and essence of relation is to connect our ideas with each other, and upon the appearance of one, to facilitate the transition to its correlative.” The smoothness and easiness of the transition changes the mind very little and seems like a continuation of the action that produced the original idea to which a subsequent idea is related. But the effect of a continued view of the same object is the continuation of the same action by the mind. So, because the mechanisms in the cases of identical and interrupted but related perceptions is similar, “we attribute sameness to every succession of related objects.” The author describes the action in this case as the thought’s sliding “along the succession with equal facility, as if it consider’d only one object; and therefore confounds the succession with the identity.”
35. In Sections 3 and 6 of this Part, the author will consider further cases in which relations between ideas lead us to identify what is different. In the present case of the identity of objects over time, the mechanism works as follows. Experience finds that “there is such a constancy in almost all the impressions of the senses, that their interruption produces no alteration in them, and hinders them not from returning the same in appearance and in situation as at their first existence.” For example, if I look at my desk and shut my eyes, when I open them again, I have perfectly resembling impressions of the desk. Because this kind of resemblance repeats itself “in a thousand instances,” it connects the ideas before and after the interruption with “the strongest relation, and conveys the mind with an easy transition from one to the other.” This ease of transition is almost the same as that with constant, uninterrupted perceptions. Given the above principle, because the two dispositions are so similar, “’[t]is therefore very natural for us to mistake the one for the other.”
[Footnote. The author recognizes the abstruseness and difficulty of this argument, but he takes this apparent problem with the argument to be the basis of another argument for his explanation of how resemblance is converted erroneously into identity. We are apt to confuse two elements of the explanation: the resemblance of the perceptions which we take to be identical, and the resemblance of the acts of the mind when it considers an uninterrupted train of perfectly resembling perceptions and when it considers an interrupted train. The reasoning above explains why the confusion is natural. [That is, there is a close relation of resemblance between the relation of the ideas and the relation of the acts of the mind. So, the explanatory principle used to explain the confusion of perfect resemblance and identity also explains the difficulty of the argument.] However, if we distinguish between the related ideas and the related acts of the mind, “we shall find no difficulty in conceiving the precedent argument.” End Footnote.]
36. [The author has now shown how it is that perfectly resembling perceptions are confused with identical perceptions. This cannot completely explain why it is that we believe that the two are the same, since it implies that interrupted perceptions continue to exist despite the interruption. If we believe that objects continue to exist when unperceived, and that the objects are the same as the perceptions, then our belief in the continued existence of objects is the same as our belief in the continued existence in uninterrupted perceptions.] The mistaken ascription of identity to interrupted resembling impressions is something done by “in general all the unthinking and unphilosophical part of mankind, (that is, all of us, at one time or another).” As shown in the last paragraph, we are naturally led to take interrupted perceptions to be identical. But [as is revealed by reflection] the interruption of the perceptions is contrary to the nature of identity, which requires their continued existence. As a result, we are led to think that the perceptions are, in fact, distinct, appearing at different times. So, “we here find ourselves at a loss how to reconcile such opposite opinions.” (The philosophers, on the other hand, think that the perceptions are representations of separately existing objects and not subject to this problem, since objects may continue to exist when not perceived. But the author is here operating with the vulgar opinion.) Are the perceptions identical (over time) or distinct? “The perplexity arising from this contradiction produces a propension to unite these broken appearances by the fiction of a continu’d existence.” This takes us to the third part of the author’s system.
37. [Explanation of the third part of the system.] The author begins with two principles, derived from experience, and as certain as anything that can be derived from experience. A contradiction to the sentiments or passions causes uneasiness, while what concurs with “the natural propensities” gives a sensible pleasure. Either one may be external or internal. The contradiction may proceed from without (“the opposition of external objects,”) or within (“the combat of internal principles”). The concurrence can be either the external promotion of the satisfaction of the dispositions or the internal facilitation of their movements. The opposition between the perishing life of interrupted impressions and their identity thus will cause uneasiness, and the mind will seek relief from that uneasiness. But relief is not obviously available. On the one hand, the smoothness of the transition of perceptions makes their identification hard to resist. But on the other hand, the unquestionable fact that the perceptions are different, especially after they have been separated by a long period of time and occur so frequently, cannot be overlooked. This is reinforced by the fact that there is no difference between the appearance of a perception and its existence, so that if it ceases to appear, it ceases to exist. The author proposes to “clear up the matter” by showing “the interruption in the appearance of a perception implies not necessarily an interruption in its existence.” To do this, he must appeal to principles that will not be explained fully until Section 6.
38. The author begins by stating that he is only trying to describe how, and by what principles, the belief in the identity of interrupted perceptions arises, as he considers it a fact that this belief does exist. He reiterates his view about our ordinary understanding of objects: “’Tis certain, that almost all mankind, and even philosophers themselves, for the greatest part of their lives, take their perceptions to be their only objects, and suppose, that the very being, which is intimately present to the mind, is the real body or material existence.” Another certainty is the supposition we have that the “perception or object” continues to exist whether or not it is being perceived, “and neither to be annihilated by our absence, nor to be brought into existence by our presence.” Absent objects are thought to exist, only not to be seen or felt, while we do see and feel them when they are present. The author now poses two questions: (1) “How can we satisfy ourselves in supposing a perception to be absent from the mind without being annihilated?” (2) How can an object become present to the mind without the creation of a new perception? A subsidiary question is what is meant by ‘seeing,’ ‘feeling,’ ‘perceiving’?
39. The first question asked how a perception can continue to exist even when it is absent to the mind. To answer this question, we must first understand what the mind is. Contrary to the prevailing, but false, supposition that the mind is “endow’d with a perfect simplicity and identity,” the author claims that it “is nothing but a heap or collection of different perceptions, united together by certain relations.” [This claim is developed in Section 6.] Next, the author appeals to his oft-repeated principle that what is distinguishable can be considered to exist separately. So, since perceptions are distinguishable from one another, they can be thought of as existing separately. Since the mind is nothing more than a related collection of perceptions, if a perception can exist separately from other perceptions, it can exist separately from the mind as well, by “ breaking off all its relations, with that connected mass of perceptions, which constitute a thinking being.” Thus, there is no absurdity in the continued existence of an interrupted perception, as it at least could continue to exist unperceived by a mind, in the sense that it is not a part of the connected perceptions that constitute a mind.
40. The second question may be answered by “the same reasoning.” Just as perception separated from the mind is conceivable, so an object (which is the same as a perception) may be conjoined with a mind. A perception that existed detached from the heap of perceptions making up the mind, but by being seen and felt, they become present to the mind, which is to say that external objects are seen, felt, and present to the mind. To say that they are present to the mind is to say that they become related to the mind (connected heap of perceptions) by increasing the number of perceptions making up the mind, either by reflections upon them, passions which they occasion, or supplying ideas (copies of the impressions of sight, touch, etc.) to the memory. Putting the two answers together, the author concludes, “The same continu’d and uninterrupted being may, therefore, be sometimes present to the mind, and sometimes absent from it, without any real or essential change in the being itself.” Appearances to the senses may be interrupted, but the existence of the object may not be. And it is easy to suppose that in fact the existence of the object continues. So, we have a propensity to treat resembling but interrupted perceptions as identical, “we may remove the seeming interruption by feigning a continu’d being, which may fill those intervals, and preserve a perfect and entire identity to our perception.” [That is, the author has shown that there is no contradiction in attributing identity to the interrupted perceptions, and the mind has a strong tendency to do just that.]
41. [Explanation of the fourth part of the system.] The continued existence of interrupted perceptions is not only supposed (or “feigned”), but it is believed. So it must be asked what is the origin of this belief. The author had already argued (or in his eyes, proved) that belief is nothing but a forceful and vivid idea, which may acquire its force and vivacity by being related to a present impression [Part III, Section 7]. He repeats his claim of Part I, Section 1 in these terms: “Impressions are naturally the most vivid perceptions of the mind.” Some share of this vivacity is transmitted from an impression to an idea by a relation between them that “causes either a smooth passage” from the former to the latter or a propensity for there to be a smooth passage. The passage is so smooth, in fact, that the mind hardly notices it, but the idea does greatly increase in vivacity due to its connection to the impression.
42. The source of the propensity of the imagination to transfer vivacity from impression to idea does not have to be a relation between the two. Even if the cause of the propensity is different, the effect will be the same, the conveyance of vivacity. “Now this is exactly the present case.” Memory supplies us with thousands of cases of perfect resemblance between perceptions that are interrupted over periods of time, which may be quite great. The resemblance gives the mind a propensity to regard the perceptions as identical. Moreover, it results in the belief that the perception continued to exist even when interrupted, which is required to avoid the apparent contradiction developed in paragraph 37 (that an unperceived perception cannot exist). The author’s position is summarized as follows: “Here then we have a propensity to feign the continu’d existence of all sensible objects; and as this propensity arises from some lively impressions of the memory, it bestows a vivacity on that fiction; or in other words, makes us believe the continu’d existence of body.” [Strictly speaking, there are “ideas” which are said in Book III, Section 4, to be “equivalent” to impressions.] In some cases, we meet with new objects without the benefit of having experienced the qualities of constancy and coherence by which we distinguish external objects from internal impressions. But if they are presented to the senses in a way that resembles what has been found to be constant and coherent, we may exploit this resemblance through the use of “reasoning and analogy,” which “leads us to attribute the same qualities [of constancy and coherence] to the similar objects.” [This completes the detailed exposition of the system for explaining our belief in the continued existence of unperceived objects.]
43. In this section, the author argues that each part of his system “is supported by the strongest proofs, and that all of them together form a consistent system, which is perfectly convincing.” In fact, the author speculates that accepting the proof of the system will be easier for the reader than “to comprehend it fully and distinctly.” He then recounts the major parts of the system and the support that they have. The first is the supposition by the vulgar that external objects are identical to perceptions. The next is the belief by the vulgar that matter continues to exist when unperceived. So why do we form the belief when we make the supposition? It cannot be reason that takes us from the supposition to the belief, because it is literally false that perceptions that are interrupted by a period of not being perceived are identical. So, the move from the supposition to the belief must have its seat in the imagination. And in fact, it is the resemblance of the perceptions that seduces the imagination into forming a propensity to suppose that they are the same. That propension then leads to the creation of the fiction that the object continues to exist. But this fiction is false, as the philosophers recognize. Its only function is to fill the gap between interrupted, resembling, perceptions so that the object can be called identical. The belief is formed from impressions of the memory of constancy, which in turn is needed to give a basis for believing the present object is a continuing one. In many cases, a present impression can produce a belief from a propensity alone, without a present impression. “How much more when aided by that circumstance [of a present impression]?”
44. Despite the natural tendency to believe in the continued existence in object, a “very little reflection and philosophy” will show that the belief cannot be true. It was noted in paragraph 2 that there is an intimate connection between the proposition that objects continue to exist when not perceived and the proposition that the existence of objects does not depend on the mind: “we no sooner establish the one than the other follows, as a necessary consequence.” The former becomes a belief in the manner described above, and “without much study or reflection [that opinion] draws the other with it, whenever the mind follows its first and most natural tendency.” But there are “experiments” [described in the next paragraph] which, combined with some reasoning, shows us quickly “that the doctrine of the independent existence of our sensible perceptions is contrary to the plainest experience.” Since the latter doctrine is false, the belief in continued existence must be erroneous. So we need to look back at the origin of the belief in continued existence to discover our error. In the meantime, we will find that this belief “is the origin of many curious opinions, which we shall here endeavour to account for.”
45. In this section, the author recounts “a few of those experiments, which convince us, that our perceptions are not possest of any independent existence.” Press your eyeball, and you will find that the number of objects doubles, and half of them are displaced from their original position. Clearly, the extra perceptions cannot be taken as having continuing existence. But what is more, they are clearly dependent on the body (“our organs, and the dispositions of our animal spirits”). Because both perceptions are “of the same nature,” we can see clearly that both depend on the body, and hence are not independent existences. Confirming cases are the apparent change in the size of objects depending on their distance from the perceiver, the changes in the apparent color of objects when we are ill [as with jaundice], and “an infinite number of other experiments of the same kind; from all of which we learn, that our sensible perceptions are not possest of any distinct or independent existence.”
46. Given the intimate connection between independent and continued existence, the “natural consequence of this reasoning” ought to be that object have no continued existence independently of perception. Philosophers recognize these results and as a result distinguish between the perception,which is temporary and dependent, and object, which is continuing and independent, as the author will from this point forward. Here the author responds that this distinction does not solve the problem inherent in identifying perception and object, and that in fact it brings new problems with it. He claims that there is no direct basis in either reason or the understanding for believing that perception and object are separate existences. The indirect basis for the hypothesis is that the result of the naïve belief that we see and feel the objects themselves, which requires that our interrupted perceptions be identical and continuing. “Were we not first perswaded, that our perceptions are our only objects, and continue to exist even when they no longer make their appearances to the senses, we shou’d never be led to think that our perceptions and objects are different, and that our objects alone preserve a continu’d existence.” So the hypothesis of the philosophers has no “primary recommendation either to reason or the imagination, and its only influence on the imagination is from the supposition of the vulgar. The author will now try to prove these claims “as distinctly and clearly, as such abstruse subjects will permit.”
47. First, the author depends the claim that the philosophical hypothesis of double existence has no primary recommendation to reason. If reason is to give us a basis for belief in the existence of objects that continue to exist when not perceived and are not dependent on the mind, it must begin with perceptions. These are the only things of whose existence we are certain because they are immediately present to consciousness and therefore “command our strongest assent, and are the first foundation for all our conclusions. Then how are we to conclude from perceptions to the existence of unperceived objects? The only avenue for such an inference is through the relation of cause and effect: unperceived objects cause the perceptions we have. But causal reasoning is based on experience of constant conjunction of ideas that are present to the mind. The only things present to the mind are perceptions, so we never observe a conjunction between perceptions and objects. “’Tis impossible, therefore, that from the existence or any of the qualities of the former, we can ever form any conclusion concerning the existence of the latter, or ever satisfy our reason in this particular.”
48. The second claim to be proved is the imagination would never have come upon the double-existence hypothesis “of itself, and by its original tendency.” The author admits that it is difficult to prove a negative thesis, but he challenges anyone to come up with an explanation of how this might happen. If we take for granted that our perceptions are broken off from one another, however much alike they are, how could we explain why the imagination would then postulate a non-perceptual existence that resembles perceptual in its nature, yet is at the same time unlike perceptions in being continued, uninterrupted, and identical over time? [Note: the author has explained in paragraphs 31 to 36 how the imagination does on its own confuse resemblance and identity.] The author offers to renounce his opinion if anyone could can show how this could happen. Another consideration is that the philosophical hypothesis is so abstract and difficult that it is not the proper material for the work of the fancy. The common opinion of the continued and independent existence and objects is based only upon the common opinion of the identity of perception and object; it may be false, but “’tis the most natural of any, and has alone any primary recommendation to the fancy.”
49. Having made his case for the negative claim about the origin of the philosophical hypothesis, the author turns to the positive thesis that “the philosophical system acquires all its influence on the imagination from the vulgar one.” This is claimed to be a direct consequence of the negative thesis: it has no authority of its own. We do find that the philosophical thesis has a hold on the minds of those who reflect on the subject of the independent existence of bodies. How these two systems are related is to be explained in what follows.
50. This section recapitulates the earlier line of reasoning. Our perceptions are the only objects for us. Perceptions that resemble one another are the same, despite interruptions in their appearance to the mind. But interruption is contrary to identity, so the perception must continue to exist only when its appearance is interrupted. So, sensible perceptions exist continuously and uninterruptedly. But reflection shows that objects do not have an independent existence, so they do not have a continuous and uninterrupted existence, either. One conclusion that could be drawn is simply that there are no perceptions that exist continuously and without interruption. But this conclusion is embraced only by skeptics, and even they do so in name only and do not sincerely believe it. All other philosophers continue to defend the claim of independent and continuing existence of objects.
51. The reason everyone but nominal skeptics hang on to the independent and continuing existence of objects is that the opinion is deeply rooted in the imagination, to the extent that it is “impossible ever to eradicate it, nor will any strain’d metaphysical conviction of the dependence of our perceptions be sufficient for that purpose. Nature, which operates by “instinct or natural impulse,” always carries the day against speculation based on inference when there is a conflict between them. Any victory by speculative reasoning is only temporary, and as soon as we “relax our thoughts, nature will display herself, and draw us back to our former opinion. In fact, nature may even stop the course of reflection before we can grasp all of its consequences. So, despite the fact that we recognize philosophically that our perceptions are discontinuous and dependent, we hang onto a belief in the separate and independent existence of objects.
52. But the victory of nature over reflection does not take place without a struggle, so long as our reflections have some force. In the present case, reason seeks a way out of the dilemma by contriving “a new hypothesis, which seems to comprehend both these principles of reason and imagination.” This is the hypothesis that perceptions and objects are distinct existences, the former being dependent and discontinuous (as is recognized by reason) and the latter being independent and continuous (as insisted upon by the understanding). Because the imagination and reason are at an impasse with each other, they have created a “monstrous offspring” in the philosophical hypothesis. It is a “new fiction, which is conformable to the hypotheses both of reflection and fancy, by ascribing these contrary qualities [interrupted and continued existence] to different existences: the interruption to perceptions, and the continuance to objects.” This compromise is the result of the insistence of nature and the clarity of reason each providing a strong reason to believe. If we were firmly convinced of either side, we would have little inclination to accept the double-existence hypothesis. “’Tis therefore from the intermediate situation of the mind, that this opinion arises, and from such an adherence to these two contrary principles, as makes us seek some pretext to justify our receiving both; which happily at last is found in this system of double existence.”
53. Not only does the philosophical hypothesis apparently make concessions to both reason and the imagination, but it also bears a strong resemblance to the hypothesis of the vulgar (which identifies perception and object). So when reason becomes bothersome by pointing out the inconsistency between continued and interrupted existence, it is mollified by the hypothesis of double existence. And when we neglect reason in the slightest, we can slip back into the vulgar hypothesis. “Accordingly we find, that philosophers neglect not this advantage; but immediately upon leaving their closets, mingle with the rest of mankind in those exploded opinions, that our perceptions are our only objects, and continue identically and uninterruptedly the same in all their interrupted appearances.”
54. The thesis that the philosophical system depends on the vulgar system, and hence on the imagination, is confirmed by two further observations. The first is that the hypothesis is not only that objects exist independently of our perceptions, but also that our perceptions resemble those objects. The author has pointed out in paragraph 47 that causal reasoning cannot be the basis of an inference to the existence of unperceived objects. But even if it could, there would be no basis for an inference to the resemblance of those objects to what is perceived. [The same problem would arise: we have no perception of them, and hence there is no constant conjunction upon which a causal inference could be based.] So why would a philosopher think that there is resemblance? Only because of the quality of the imagination, that all of its ideas are copies of precedent perceptions. Since all we can conceive is perceptions, our alleged ideas of unperceived objects must resemble them.
55. The second observation confirming the dependence of the philosophical system upon the vulgar is that it takes for granted that every particular perception resembles its cause. [In the philosophical system, the objects are postulated as the causes of our perceptions.] When we relate objects by cause and effect, we join that relation to the relation of resemblance. So if we take the object to be the cause of the perception, the imagination has us “compleat the union” between the two by adding the relation of resemblance. “We have a strong propensity to compleat every union by joining new relations to those which we have before observ“d betwixt any two ideas, as we shall have occasion to observe presently [in Section 5].“
56. With these two observations, the author’s examination of the vulgar and philosophical systems regarding what exists externally to the mind is completed. He now makes a comment on the examination itself. It began with the presumption that the belief in the existence of external object should be maintained, that our faith in the senses should remain intact. But at this point he honestly feels no faith in his senses (or properly, his imagination) at all. Our belief is based on two “trivial qualities of the imagination” (constancy and coherence), that are “conducted by such false supposition” (the numerical identity of interrupted perceptions). How can a “solid and rational system” result from these? Constancy is the fundamental quality, but it is presented with the gravest problem. Constancy ends when interruption begins, but we perpetrate an illusion whereby it does not, and we believe that our perceptions continue to exist when not perceived any more. So the popular system ends in illusion. The philosophical system is subject to the same problems and another one besides: “it at once denies and establishes the vulgar supposition.” It denies that resembling perceptions are the same after an interruption. But so strong is the hold of the vulgar system that objects just are perceptions, that the philosopher, under the name ’object” arbitrarily invents a new set of perceptions. “I say, a new set of perceptions: For we may well suppose in general, but ’tis impossible for us distinctly to conceive, objects to be in their nature any thing but exactly the same with perceptions.” [See Part II, Section 6 for the argument for this claim.] All we can find, then, in these two accounts of objects, is “confusion of groundless and extraordinary opinions,” which must be seen as containing only “error and falsehood.”
57. The last two sections have developed skeptical doubts, about reason in Section 1 and about the senses in the present section. The author describes this skepticism as “a malady, which can never be radically cur’d, but must return upon every moment, however we may chace it away, and sometimes seem entirely free from it.” Not only do we fail to defend reason and the senses, our efforts actually leave us in worse shape than we were when we began the defense. It is “a profound and intense reflection” on reason and the senses that led to skepticism, no matter whether we are attacking or defending beliefs based on them. The only remedy is “carelessness and in-attention.” The author professes to rely on them completely, taking it for granted soon enough that there are internal and external objects. He will examine ancient and modern systems of both kinds of objects in the upcoming sections, and in so doing he will assume what we all believe about these objects. After this examination, he will turn to a discussion of impressions, which was put off, in Section 2, until after the examination of ideas. [This will be the subject of Book II.] And he suggests that the present examination of ideas will be relevant to the subsequent examination of impressions.
Part One of Section IX of the Enquiry, entitled “Of the Academic or Sceptical Philosophy,” takes a similar approach to the question of the existence of external objects. Hume begins by noting how there is a “blind and powerful instinct of nature” that induces faith in the senses. But he adds that there is a further belief that images are the same as objects, never suspecting that the images are only representations of objects. And we believe that the objects exist independently of our perceptions. This “universal and primary opinion of all men is soon destroyed by the slightest philosophy.” Philosophy teaches us that the perceptions and objects cannot be identical, but that the perceptual images only represent the external objects. But this departure from nature comes at a price, because philosophy cannot then appeal to natural instincts in support of its hypotheses. Nor can we produce a cogent argument through reason. We cannot prove that our perceptions are caused by external objects rather than by our own minds, some other, unknown, mind, or some other cause even less known. After all, we produce dreams and hallucinations in ourselves. Further, we do not know how bodies can cause perceptions in minds. We would have to determine the cause through experience, but our only experience is of perceptions and not of causal connections to objects. Hume also criticizes the Cartesian argument that our belief in external objects is grounded in our knowledge of God. The skeptics will always win out here, because neither nature nor reason can present an adequate defense. A further problem is that certain ideas, such as colors and sounds, are acknowledge to be subjective (by Locke, for example), but no clear distinction can be made between their nature and that of other qualities that are supposed to be objective (as Berkeley pointed out). If might be thought that it is abstraction, rather than ideas of particular, that grounds belief in external objects. But Berkeley showed that there are no abstract ideas. So with this set of arguments, not only is reason opposed to nature, but it is in fact opposed to itself, given the rationality of believing that all sensible qualities reside in the mind. The only thing left to defend as external would be an unknown something, and even the skeptics find this to empty a notion to bother with.
[ Previous Section | Next Section | Treatise Contents | Text of the Treatise ]