The Contents of

A Treatise of Human Nature

BOOK I.

OF THE UNDERSTANDING.

PART I.

Of ideas; their origin, composition, abstraction connexion, &c.

SECT.

I. Of the origin of our ideas

II. Division of the subject

III. Of the ideas of the memory and imagination

IV. Of the connexion or association of ideas

V. Of relations .

VI. Of modes and substances

PAGE

227

Of the ideas of space and time.

I. Of the infinite divisibility of our ideas of space

II. Of the infinite divisibility of space and time

III. Of the other qualities of our ideas of space and time
IV. Objections answer'd

V. The same subject continu'd

* VI. Of the idea of existence and of external existence

PART III.

229

Of knowledge and probability.

*

I. Of knowledge

185

*

II. Of probability; and of the idea of cause and effect.
* III. Why a cause is always necessary? .

190

197

*Only the sections thus indicated are here reproduced.

SECT.

IV. Of the component parts of our reasonings concerning

V. Of the impressions of the senses and memory.

VI. Of the inference from the impression to the idea
VII. "Of the nature of the idea, or belief

VIII. Of the causes of belief.

IX. Of the effects of other relations, and other habits

X. Of the influence of belief

XI. Of the probability of chances XII. Of the probability of causes

PAGE

XIII. Of unphilosophical probability

*XIV. Of the idea of necessary connexion

XV. Rules by which to judge of causes and effects
XVI. Of the reason of animals

PART IV.

Of the sceptical and other systems of philosophy

202

*Only the sections thus indicated are here reproduced.

THE DOCTRINE OF CAUSALITY

SELECTIONS FROM

BOOK I., PART III.

ΒΟΟΚ Ι.

PART III.

OF KNOWLEDGE AND PROBABILITY.

SECTION I.

Of knowledge.

There are seven different kinds of philosophical relation, viz. resemblance, identity, relations of time and place, proportion in quantity or number, degrees in any quality, contrariety, and causation. These relations may be divided into two classes; into such as depend entirely on the ideas, which we compare together, and such as may be chang'd without any change in the ideas. 'Tis from the idea of a triangle, that we discover the relation of equality, which its three angles bear to two right ones; and this relation is invariable, as long as our idea remains the same. On the contrary, the relations of contiguity and distance betwixt two objects may be chang'd merely by an alteration of their place, without any change on the objects themselves or on their ideas; and the place depends on a hundred different accidents, which cannot be foreseen by the mind. 'Tis the same case with identity and causation. Two objects, tho' perfectly resembling each other, and even appearing in the same place at different times, may be numerically different: And as the power, by which one object produces another, is never discoverable merely from their idea, 1 Part I., Sect. V.