in THE ORIGIN OF THE IMPRESSIONS 97 



machinery by which the material universe 

 becomes conscious of itself. But it is important 

 to notice that, even if this conception of the 

 universe and of the relation of consciousness to its 

 other components should be true, we should, 

 nevertheless, be still bound by the limits of 

 thought, still unable to refute the arguments of 

 pure idealism. The more completely the material- 

 istic position is admitted, the easier is it to show 

 that the idealistic position is unassailable, if the 

 idealist confines himself within the limits of posi- 

 tive knowledge. 



Hume deals with the questions whether all our \ 

 ideas are derived from experience, or whether, on ^ 

 the contrary, more or fewer of them are innate, S 

 which so much exercised the mind of Locke, after 

 a somewhat summary fashion, in a note to the 

 second section of the " Inquiry ": 



" It is probable that no more was meant by those who 

 denied innate ideas, than that all ideas were copies of our 

 impressions; though it must be confessed that the terms 

 which they employed were not chosen with such caution, 

 nor so exactly defined, as to prevent all mistakes about 

 their doctrine. For what is meant by innate ? If innate 

 be equivalent to natural, then all the perceptions and ideas 

 of the mind must be allowed to be innate or natural, in 

 whatever sense we take the latter word, whether in oppo- 

 sition to what is uncommon, artificial, or miraculous. If 

 by innate be meant contemporary with our birth, the dis- 

 pute seems to be frivolous ; nor is it worth while to inquire 

 at what time thinking begins, whether before, at, or after 

 our birth. Again, the word idea seems to be commonly 



