Philosophical Works, v. 1 (of 4): Including All the Essays, and Exhibiting the More Important Alterations and Corrections in the Successive Editions Published by the Author
David Hume · en
Though an extended object be incapable of a conjunction in place
with another that exists without any place or extension, yet are
they susceptible of many other relations. Thus the taste and smell
of any fruit are inseparable from its other qualities of colour and
tangibility; and whichever of them be the cause or effect, 'tis certain
they are always co-existent. Nor are they only co-existent in general,
but also cotemporary in their appearance in the mind; and 'tis upon
the application of the extended body to our senses we perceive its
particular taste and smell. These relations, then, of _causation, and
contiguity in the time of their appearance_, betwixt the extended
object and the quality, which exists without any particular place,
must have such an effect on the mind, that, upon the appearance of
one, it will immediately turn its thought to the conception of the
other. Nor is this all. We not only turn our thought from one to the
other upon account of their relation, but likewise endeavour to give
them a new relation, viz. that of _a conjunction in place_, that we
may render the transition more easy and natural. For 'tis a quality,
which I shall often have occasion to remark in human nature, and shall
explain more fully in its proper place, that, when objects are united
by any relation, we have a strong propensity to add some new relation
to them, in order to complete the union. In our arrangement of bodies,
we never fail to place such as are resembling in contiguity to each
other, or, at least, in correspondent points of view: why? but because
we feel a satisfaction in joining the relation of contiguity to that
of resemblance, or the resemblance of situation to that of qualities.
The effects of this propensity have been already observed[10] in that
resemblance, which we so readily suppose betwixt particular impressions
and their external causes. But we shall not find a more evident effect
of it than in the present instance, where, from the relations of
causation and contiguity in time betwixt two objects, we feign likewise
that of a conjunction in place, in order to strengthen the connexion.