TNH 1.3.09.06

But though I can’t entirely exclude the relations of resemblance and contiguity from operating on the imagination in this way, it is observable that when they occur on their own their influence is very feeble and uncertain. The cause-effect relation is needed to persuade us of any real existence, and its persuasion is also needed to give power to these other relations. ·Here is why·. Take a case where the appearance of an impression leads us not only •to feign another object but quite arbitrarily •to give the latter a particular relation to the impression: this can’t have any great effect on the mind, and there is no reason why if the same impression returns we should be led to place the same object in the same relation to it. [The word ‘feign’ comes from a Latin word that is also the source for ‘fiction’. Hume is talking about fictions, inventions, stories we tell ourselves.] It is in no way necessary for the mind to feign any resembling or contiguous objects; and if it does feign them it needn’t always do it in the same way. Indeed, such a fiction is based on so little reason that nothing but pure whim can lead the mind to form it; and whim being fluctuating and uncertain, it can’t possibly operate with any considerable degree of force and constancy… . The relation of cause and effect has all the opposite advantages. The objects it presents are fixed and unalterable. The impressions of memory never change in any considerable degree; and each impression draws along with it a precise idea, which takes its place in the imagination as something solid and real, certain and invariable. The thought is always made to pass from the impression to the idea—and from that particular impression to that particular idea—without any choice or hesitation.

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