perception
of relations, and finding themselves, like mere common-sense folks, very
much disposed to call sensation knowledge, they at once gratify that
disposition and save their consistency, by declaring that even the
simplest act of sensation contains two terms and a relation--the
sensitive subject, the sensigenous object, and that masterful entity,
the Ego. From which great triad, as from a gnostic Trinity, emanates an
endless procession of other logical shadows and all the _Fata Morgana_
of philosophical dreamland.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] "Consciousnesses" would be a better name, but it is awkward. I have
elsewhere proposed _psychoses_ as a substantive name for mental
phenomena.

[19] 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 l'apercevons immediatement par nous-memes: c'est
pourquoi non-seulement entendre, vouloir, imaginer, mais aussi sentir,
c'est le meme chose ici que penser."--_Principes de Philosophie_. Ed.
Cousin. 57.

"Toutes les proprietes que nous trouvons en la chose qui pense ne sont
que des facons differentes de penser."--_Ibid._ 96.

[20] On the whole, it is pleasant to find satisfactory evidence that
Hume knew nothing of the works of Spinoza; for the invariably abusive
manner in which he refers to that type of the philosophic hero is only
to be excused, if it is to be excused, by sheer ignorance of his life
and work.

[21] For example, in discussing pride and humility, Hume says:--

"According as our idea of ourselves is more or less advantageous, we
feel either of these opposite affections, and are elated by pride or
dejected with humility ... when self enters not into the consideration
there is no room either for pride or humility." That is, pride is
pleasure, and humility is pain, associated with certain conceptions of
one's self; or, as Spinoza puts it:--"Superbia est de se prae amore sui
plus justo sentire" ("amor" being "laetitia concomitante idea causae
externae"); and "Humilitas est tristitia orta ex eo quod homo suam
impotentiam sive imbecillitatem contemplatur."

CHAPTER III.

THE ORIGIN OF THE IMPRESSIONS.

Admitting that the sensations, the feelings of pleasure and pain, and
those of relation, are the primary irresolvable states of consciousness,
two further lines of investigation present themselves. The one leads us
to seek the origin of these "impressions;" t