74 HUME 



II 



consciousness, 1 Descartes gave the name of 

 " thoughts," 2 while Locke and Berkeley termed 

 them " ideas." Hume, regarding this as an im- 

 proper use of the word " idea," for which he 

 proposes another employment, gives the general 

 name of " perceptions " to all states of conscious- 

 ness. Thus, whatever other signification we may 

 see reason to attach to the word " mind," it is cer- 

 tain that it is a name which is employed to denote 

 a series of perceptions ; just as the word " tune," 

 whatever else it may mean, denotes, in the first 

 place, a succession of musical notes. Hume, 

 indeed, goes further than others when he says 

 that 



" What we call a mind is nothing but a heap or collection of 

 different perceptions, united together by certain relations, and 

 supposed, though falsely, to be endowed with a perfect simplicity 

 and identity. "(I- P- 268.) 



With this " nothing but," however, he obviously 

 falls into the primal and perennial error of 

 philosophical speculators dogmatising from nega- 

 tive arguments. He may be right or wrong ; but 



1 "Consciousnesses" would be a better name, but it is 

 awkward. I have elsewhere proposed psychoses as a substantive 

 name for mental phenomena. 



2 As this has been denied, it may be as well to give 

 Descartes's words : Par le mot de penser, j'entends tout ce 

 que se fait dans nous de telle sorte que nous 1'apercevons 

 immediatement par nousmemes : c'est pourquoi non-seulement 

 entendre, vouloir, imaginer, mais aussi sentir, c'est le meme 

 chose ici que penser. " Principes de Philosophic. Ed. Cousin, 57. 



"Toutes les proprietes que nous trouvons en la chose qui 

 pense ne sont que des fagons diffe'rentes de penser." Ibid. 96. 



