96 HUME m 



motion is nothing but that of a change in the 

 place and order of our sensations; just as our 

 knowledge of matter is restricted to those feelings 

 of which we assume it to be tKe cause. 



It has already been pointed out, that Hume 

 must have admitted, and in fact does admit, the 

 possibility that the mind is a Leibnitzian monad, 

 or a Fichtean world-generating Ego, the universe 

 of things being merely the picture produced by 

 the evolution of the phenomena of consciousness. 

 For any demonstration that can be given to the 

 contrary effect, the " collection of perceptions " 

 which makes up our consciousness may be an 

 orderly phantasmagoria generated by the Ego, un- 

 folding its successive scenes on the background of 

 the abyss of nothingness; as a firework, which is 

 but cunningly arranged combustibles, grows from a 

 spark into a coruscation, and from a coruscation 

 into figures, and words, and cascades of devouring 

 fire, and then vanishes into the darkness of the 

 night. 



On the other hand, it must no less readily be 

 allowed that, for anything that can be proved 

 the contrary, there may be a real something which 

 is the cause of all our impressions; that sensa- 

 tions, though not likenesses, are symbols of that 

 something; and that the part of that something, 

 which we call the nervous system, is an apparatus 

 for supplying us with a sort of algebra of fact, 

 based on those symbols. A brain may be the 



