of their resemblance to each other, will also entitle us to speak of their carrying with them a reference to that which is not itself any single impression, but is permanent throughout the impressions; and the whole ground of Hume’s polemic against the idea of self or spirit is removed. [2] [1] It is, of course, quite a different thing to say that the brain (or, more properly, the whole body) is organic to it. [2] See above, paragraph 205. Distinction between resembling feelings and idea of resemblance. 213. The above admission, however, does not dispose of the question about ideas of resemblance. A feeling qualified by relation of resemblance to other feelings is a different thing from an idea of that relation--different with all the difference which Hume ignores between feeling and thought, between consciousness and self-consciousness. The qualification of successive feelings by mutual relation implies, indeed, the presence to them of a subject permanent and immaterial (_i.e._ not in time or space); but it does not imply that this subject presents them to itself as related objects, permanent with its own permanence, which abide and may be considered apart from ‘the circumstances in time’ of their occurrence. Yet such presentation is supposed by all language other than interjectional. It is it alone which can give us names of things, as distinct from noises prompted by the feelings as they occur. Of course it is open to any one to say that by an idea of resemblance he does not mean any thought involving the self-conscious presentation spoken of, but merely a feeling qualified by resemblance, and not at its liveliest stage. Thus Hume tells us that by ‘idea’ he merely means a feeling less lively than it has been, and that by idea _of anything_ he implies no reference to anything other than the idea, [1] but means just a related idea, _i.e._ a feeling qualified by ‘natural relation’ to other feelings. It is by this thoughtful abnegation of thought, as we shall find, that he arrives at his sceptical result. But language (for the reason mentioned) would not allow him to be faithful to the abnegation. He could not make such a profession without being false to it. This appears already in his account of ‘complex’ and ‘abstract’ ideas. [1] See above, paragraph 208. Substances = collections of ideas.