[19] As this has been denied, it may be as well to give Descartes's words: "Par le mot de penser, j'entends tout ce que se fait dans nous de telle sorte que nous l'apercevons immediatement par nous-memes: c'est pourquoi non-seulement entendre, vouloir, imaginer, mais aussi sentir, c'est le meme chose ici que penser."--_Principes de Philosophie_. Ed. Cousin. 57. "Toutes les proprietes que nous trouvons en la chose qui pense ne sont que des facons differentes de penser."--_Ibid._ 96. [20] On the whole, it is pleasant to find satisfactory evidence that Hume knew nothing of the works of Spinoza; for the invariably abusive manner in which he refers to that type of the philosophic hero is only to be excused, if it is to be excused, by sheer ignorance of his life and work. [21] For example, in discussing pride and humility, Hume says:-- "According as our idea of ourselves is more or less advantageous, we feel either of these opposite affections, and are elated by pride or dejected with humility ... when self enters not into the consideration there is no room either for pride or humility." That is, pride is pleasure, and humility is pain, associated with certain conceptions of one's self; or, as Spinoza puts it:--"Superbia est de se prae amore sui plus justo sentire" ("amor" being "laetitia concomitante idea causae externae"); and "Humilitas est tristitia orta ex eo quod homo suam impotentiam sive imbecillitatem contemplatur." CHAPTER III. THE ORIGIN OF THE IMPRESSIONS. Admitting that the sensations, the feelings of pleasure and pain, and those of relation, are the primary irresolvable states of consciousness, two further lines of investigation present themselves. The one leads us to seek the origin of these "impressions;" the other, to inquire into the nature of the steps by which they become metamorphosed into those compound states of consciousness, which so largely enter into our ordinary trains of thought. With respect to the origin of impressions of sensation, Hume is not quite consistent with himself. In one place (I. p. 117) he says, that it is impossible to decide "whether they arise immediately from the object, or are produced by the creative power of the mind, or are derived from the Author of our being," thereby implying that realism and idealism are equally probable hypotheses. But, in fact, after the demonstration by Descartes, that the immediate antecedents of sensations are changes in the nervous system, with which our feelings have no sort of resemblance, the hypothesis that sensations "arise immediately from the object" was out of court; and that Hume fully admitted the Cartesian doctrine is apparent when he says (I. p. 272):-- "All our perceptions are dependent on our organs and the disposition of our nerves and animal spirits." And again, though in relation to another question, he observes:--