"There are three different kinds of impressions conveyed by the
senses. The first are those of the figure, bulk, motion, and
solidity of bodies. The second those of colours, tastes, smells,
sounds, heat, and cold. The third are the pains and pleasures that
arise from the application of objects to our bodies, as by the
cutting of our flesh with steel, and such like. Both philosophers
and the vulgar suppose the first of these to have a distinct
continued existence. The vulgar only regard the second as on the
same footing. Both philosophers and the vulgar again esteem the
third to be merely perceptions, and consequently interrupted and
dependent beings.
"Now 'tis evident that, whatever may be our philosophical opinion,
colour, sounds, heat, and cold, as far as appears to the senses,
exist after the same manner with motion and solidity; and that the
difference we make between them, in this respect, arises not from
the mere perception. So strong is the prejudice for the distinct
continued existence of the former qualities, that when the contrary
opinion is advanced by modern philosophers, people imagine they can
almost refute it from their reason and experience, and that their
very senses contradict this philosophy. 'Tis also evident that
colours, sounds, &c., are originally on the same footing with the
pain that arises from steel, and pleasure that proceeds from a
fire; and that the difference betwixt them is founded neither on
perception nor reason, but on the imagination. For as they are
confessed to be, both of them, nothing but perceptions arising from
the particular configurations and motions of the parts of body,
wherein possibly can their difference consist? Upon the whole,
then, we may conclude that, as far as the senses are judges, all
perceptions are the same in the manner of their existence."--(I. p.
250, 251.)
The last words of this passage are as much Berkeley's as Hume's. But,
instead of following Berkeley in his deductions from the position thus
laid down, Hume, as the preceding citation shows, fully adopted the
conclusion to which all that we know of psychological physiology tends,
that the origin of the elements of consciousness, no less than that of
all its other states, is to be sought in bodily changes, the seat of
which can only be placed in the brain. And, as Locke had already done
with less effect, he states and refutes the arguments commonly brought
against the possibility of a causal connexion between the modes of
motion of the cerebral substance and states of consciousness, with great
clearness:--