114 HUME iv 



sort of conceptions, yet that general ideas of 

 sensible objects may nevertheless be produced 

 in the way indicated, and may exist independently 

 of language. In dreams, one sees houses, trees 

 and other objects, which are perfectly recognisable 

 as such, but which remind one of the actual ob- 

 jects as seen " out of the corner of the eye," or of 

 the pictures thrown by a badly-focused magic 

 lantern. A man addresses us who is like a figure 

 seen by twilight; or we travel through countries 

 where every feature of the scenery is vague; the 

 outlines of the hills are ill-marked, and the rivers 

 have no defined banks. They are, in short, generic 

 ideas of many past impressions of men, hills, and 

 rivers. An anatomist who occupies himself in- 

 tently with the examination of several specimens 

 of some new kind of animals in course of time 

 acquires so vivid a conception of its form and 

 structure, that the idea may take visible shape and 

 become a sort of waking dream. But the figure 

 which thus presents itself is generic, not specific. 

 It is no copy of any one specimen, but, more or 

 less, a mean of the series; and there seems no 

 reason to doubt that the minds of children before 

 they learn to speak, and of deaf mutes, are people 

 with similarly generated generic ideas of sensible 

 objects. 



It has been seen that a memory is a complex 

 idea made up of at least two constituents. In the 



