102 HUME 



III 



his famous polemic against innate ideas are totally 

 irrelevant. 



It has been shown that Hume practically, if 

 not in so many words, admits the justice of 

 Descartes' assertion that, strictly speaking, sensa- 

 tions are innate ; that is to say, that they are the 

 product of the reaction of the organ of the mind 

 on the stimulus of an " unknown cause," which is 

 Descartes' "je ne sais quoi." Therefore, the 

 difference between Descartes' opinion and that of 

 Hume resolves itself into this : Given sensation- 

 experiences, can all the contents of consciousness 

 be derived from the collocation and metamorphosis 

 of these experiences? Or, are new elements of 

 consciousness, products of an innate potentiality 

 distinct from sensibility, added to these ? Hume 

 affirms the former position, Descartes the latter. 

 If the analysis of the phenomena of consciousness 

 given in the preceding pages is correct, Hume is 

 in error ; while the father of modern philosophy 

 had a truer insight, though he overstated the case. 

 For want of sufficiently searching psychological 

 investigations, Descartes was led to suppose that 

 innumerable ideas, the evolution of which in the 

 course of experience can be demonstrated, were 

 direct or innate products of the thinking faculty. 



As has been already pointed out, it is the great 

 merit of Kant that he started afresh on the track 

 indicated by Descartes, and steadily upheld the 

 doctrine of the existence of elements of conscious- 



