Page:An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - Hume (1748).djvu/37

 ties of Goodness and Wisdom, without Bound or Limit. We may prosecute this Enquiry to what Length we please; where we shall always find, that every Idea we examine is copy'd from a similar Impression. Those, who would assert, that this Position is not absolutely universal and without Exception, have only one, and that an easy Method of refuting it, by producing that Idea, which, in their Opinion, is not deriv'd from this Source. It will then be incumbent on us, if we would maintain our Doctrine, to produce the Impression or lively Perception, that corresponds to it.

. If it happen, from a Defect of the Organ, that a Man is not susceptible of any Species of Sensations, we always find, that he is as little susceptible of the correspondent Ideas. A blind Man can form no Notion of Colours; a deaf Man of Sounds. Restore either of them that Sense, in which he is deficient; by opening this new Inlet for his Sensations, you also open an Inlet for the Ideas, and he finds no Difficulty of conceiving these Objects. The Case is the same if the Object, proper for exciting any Sensation, has never been apply'd to the Organ. A Laplander or Negro has no Notion of the Relish of Wine. And tho' there are few or no Instances of a like Deficiency in the Mind, where a Person has never felt or is altogether incapable of a Sentiment or Passion, that belongs to his Species; yet we find the same Observa-