100 HUME 



III 



But if all the contents of the mind are innate, 

 what is meant by experience ? 



It is the conversion, by unknown causes, of these 

 innate potentialities into actual existences. The 

 organ of thought, prior to experience, may be 

 compared to an untouched piano, in which it may 

 be properly said that music is innate, inasmuch as 

 its mechanism contains, potentially, so many 

 octaves of musical notes. The unknown cause of 

 sensation which Descartes calls the "je ne sais 

 quoi dans les objets " or " choses telles qu'elles 

 sont," and Kant the " Noumenon " or " Ding an 

 sich," is represented by the musician ; who, by 

 touching the keys, converts the potentiality of the 

 mechanism into actual sounds. A note so pro- 

 duced is the equivalent of a single experience. 



All the melodies and harmonies that proceed 

 from the piano depend upon the action of the 

 musician upon the keys. There is no internal 

 mechanism which, when certain keys are struck, 

 gives rise to an accompaniment of which the 

 musician is only indirectly the cause. According 

 to Descartes, however and this is what is gener- 

 ally fixed upon as the essence of his doctrine of 

 innate ideas the mind possesses such an internal 

 mechanism, by which certain classes of thoughts 

 are generated, on the occasion of certain experiences. 

 Such thoughts are innate, just as sensations are 

 innate ; they are not copies of sensations, any more 

 than sensations are copies of motions; they are 



