Page:Symbolism, Its Meaning and Effect.pdf/45

Rh ready referred, is in its earlier chapters a vigorous and thorough insistence, by every manner of beautiful illustration, that with Hume’s premises there is no manner of escape from this dismissal of identity, time, and place from having any reference to a real world. There remains only what Santayana calls ‘Solipsism of the Present Moment.’ Even memory goes: for a memory-impression is not an impression of memory. It is only another immediate private impression.

It is unnecessary to cite Hume on Causation; for the preceding quotation carries with it his whole sceptical position. But a quotation on substance is necessary to explain the ground of his explicit—as distinct from sporadic implicit presuppositions—doctrine on this point:—“I would fain ask those philosophers, who found so much of their reasonings on the distinction of substance and accident, and imagine we have clear ideas of each, whether the idea of substance be derived from the impressions of sensation or reflection? If it be conveyed to us by our senses, I ask, which of them, and after what manner? If it be perceived by the eyes, it must be a colour; if by the ears, a sound; if by the palate, a taste; and so of the other senses. But