62 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION 



representative theory (so far as empiricism could countenance it) 

 is thus swept away. Nevertheless Hume is not able to rest 

 content with Berkeley's idealism. That real things, or, if you 

 please, our impressions of sensation, do exist while we are un- 

 conscious of them, is, he declares, the universal belief of unsophis- 

 ticated men an instinctive faith which no scepticism can weaken 

 and a necessary assumption for the scientific explanation of the 

 world. The mere condition contrary to fact will not suffice. 

 The ashes are real; and to explain them a real fire is requi- 

 site. At the same time, Hume can no more than Berkeley 

 give - an intelligible meaning to the existence of a thing ex- 

 cept as a content of consciousness, but sets it down as a sheer 

 absurdity. 



There can be little doubt, that, upon his own principles, Hume 

 is in error in thinking this 'realistic' theory absurd. In the first 

 place, he does not, like Berkeley, feel the need of a spiritual 

 substance in which ideas shall inhere. To him, substances are 

 but a class of complex ideas, and the conscious self is no exception. 

 Instead of the self's being necessary to the existence of ideas 

 (or sensations), the contrary is clearly the case. In the second 

 place, there is no force in the objection, that ideas are only 

 known to us as connected in individual 'streams of consciousness.' 

 For each of us has direct experience of only one such stream. 

 And if for the understanding of the world he is obliged to assume 

 the existence of other streams of consciousness, connected with 

 the bodies of other men and animals, and must, indeed, often 

 ascribe to these consciousnesses elements which he himself does 

 not possess ; there is at least no prima facie reason why equally 

 cogent intellectual needs should not, with perfect legitimacy, 

 lead him to the assumption of the existence of simple or complex 

 sensations not connected with any consciousness whatsoever. At 

 the same time, Hume clearly underestimates the resources of 

 Berkeley's position; and, indeed, the considerations which he 

 advances are all answered by Berkeley in advance. That a so- 

 called real existence should be analyzed into a relation between 



