Hume, proceeding from a starting-point essentially similar to that of Locke and Berkeley, arrived at conclusions so sceptical that all subsequent philosophers have shied away from them. He denied the existence of the Self, questioned the validity of induction, and doubted whether causal laws could be applied to anything except our own mental processes. He is one of the very few philosophers not concerned to establish any positive conclusions. To a great extent, I think, we must admit the validity of his reasons for refusing to feel the usual certainties. As regards the Self, he was almost certainly right. As we have already argued, a person is not a single entity, but a series of events linked together by peculiar causal laws. As regards induction, the question is very difficult, and I shall devote a subsequent chapter to it. As regards causal laws, the question, as we shall find later, is the same as the question of induction. On both points Hume’s doubts are not to be lightly dismissed. The usual modern criticism of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume is that they were unduly “atomistic”. They thought of the mind as a collection of “ideas”, each as hard and separate as a billiard-ball. They had not the conception of continuous change or of integral processes; their causal units were too small. As we have already seen in connection with _Gestaltpsychologie_ and with sentences, the causal unit is often a configuration which cannot be broken up without losing its distinctive causal properties. In this sense, it is true that the traditional British philosophy was too atomistic. But in another sense I do not think it is true, and I think much modern philosophy is confused on this point. Although a configuration may lose its _causal_ properties when broken up into its elements, it nevertheless does consist of these elements related in certain ways; analysis into “atoms” is perfectly valid, so long as it is not assumed that the causal efficacy of the whole is compounded out of the separate effects of the separate atoms. It is because I hold this view that I call the philosophy which I advocate “logical atomism”. And to this extent I regard Locke, Berkeley, and Hume as in the right as against their modern critics. But this also is a topic which will be resumed in a later chapter. Hume’s criticism of the notion of cause was what led Kant to his new departure. Kant’s philosophy is difficult and obscure, and philosophers still dispute as to what he meant. Those who disagree with him are held by his supporters to have misunderstood him; I must therefore warn the reader that what follows is my view of what he meant, and that there is no agreed view.