118 HUME IT 



of "sweet/' nevertheless is in full possession of 

 that complex idea, which,, when he has learned 

 to employ language, will take the form of the 

 verbal proposition, " A sugar-plum will be sweet." 



Thus, beliefs of expectation, or at any rate their 

 potentialities, are, as much as those of memory, 

 antecedent to speech, and are as incapable of 

 justification by any logical process. In fact, 

 expectations are but memories inverted. The 

 association which is the foundation of expectation 

 must exist as a memory before it can play its part. 

 As Hume says, 



"... it is certain we here advance a very intelligible 

 proposition at least, if not a true one, when we assert that 

 after a constant conjunction of two objects, heat and flame, 

 for instance, weight and solidity, we are determined by 

 custom alone to expect the one from the appearance of the 

 other. This hypothesis seems even the only one which ex- 

 plains the difficulty why we draw from a thousand in- 

 stances, an inference which we are not able to draw from 

 one instance, that is in no respect different from them." . . . 



" Custom, then, is the great guide of human life. It is 

 that principle alone which renders our experience useful to 

 us, and makes us expect, for the future, a similar train of 

 events with those which have appeared in the past." . . . 



" All belief of matter-of-fact or real existence is derived 

 merely from some object present to the memory or senses, 

 and a customary conjunction between that and some other 

 object ; or in other words, having found, in many instances, 

 that any two kinds of objects, flame and heat, snow and 

 cold, have always been conjoined together, if flame or snow 

 be presented anew to the senses, the mind is carried by 

 custom to expect heat or cold, and to believe that such a 

 quality does exist and will discover itself upon a nearer ap- 



