203. The ancient sceptic (at least as represented by the ancient philosophers), finding knowledge on the basis of distinction between the real and apparent to be impossible, discarded the enterprise of arriving at general truth in opposition to what appears to the individual at any particular instant, and satisfied himself with noting such general tendencies of expectation and desire as would guide men in the conduct of life and enable them to get what they wanted by contrivance and persuasion. [1] Such a state of mind excludes all motive to the ‘interrogation of nature,’ for it recognises no ‘nature’ but the present appearance to the individual; and this does not admit of being interrogated. The ‘positive philosopher’ has nothing in common with it but the use, in a different sense, of the word ‘apparent.’ He plumes himself, indeed, on not going in quest of any ‘thing-in-itself’ other than what appears to the senses; but he distinguishes between a real and apparent in the order of appearance, and considers the real order of appearance, having a permanence and uniformity which belong to no feeling as the individual feels it, to be the true object of knowledge. No one is more severe upon ‘propensities to believe,’ however spontaneously suggested by the ordinary sequence of appearances, if they are found to conflict with the order of nature as ascertained by experimental interrogation; _i.e._ with a sequence observed (it may be) in but a single instance. Which of the two attitudes of thought is the more nearly Hume’s, will come out as we proceed. It was just with the distinction between the ‘real and fantastic,’ as Locke had left it, that he had to deal; and, as will appear, it is finally by a ‘propensity to feign,’ not by a uniform order of natural phenomena, that he replaces the real which Locke, according to his first mind, had found in archetypal things and their operations on us. [1] Cf. Plato’s ‘Protagoras,’ 323, and ‘Theaetetus,’ 167, with the concluding paragraphs of the last part of the first book of Hume’s ‘Treatise on Human Nature.’ He adopts Berkeley’s doctrine of ideas, but without Berkeley’s saving suppositions,