Page:Nature and Life (1934).pdf/21

 another source. The conclusion that I draw is that sense-perception, for ail its practical importance, is very superficial in its disclosure of the nature of things. This conclusion is supported by the chatacter of delusiveness — that is, of illusion — which persistently clings to sense-perception. For example, our perception of stars which years ago may have vanished, our perceptions of images in mirrors or by refraction, our doubie vision, our visions under the influence of drugs. My quarrel with modern epistemology concerns its exclusive stress upor sense-perception for the provision of data respecting Nature. Sense-perception does not provide the data in terins of which we interpret it.

This conclusion that pute sense-perception does not provide the data for its own interpretation was the great discovery embodied in Hume’s philosophy. This discovery is the reason why Hume’s treatise