Conclusion of Book 1

The Imagination is the Foundation of the Memory, Senses, and Understanding

I ponder my philosophical voyage.

It requires the utmost art and industry to be concluded happily. I am like a man who:

• has struck on many shoals,
• has narrowly escaped shipwreck,
• has the audacity to:
  • go out to sea in the same leaky weather-beaten vessel, and
  • think of circling the globe under these disadvantageous circumstances.

My memory of past errors and perplexities makes me unsure for the future.

I must employ the wretched condition, weakness, and disorder of the faculties in my inquiries.

• It increases my apprehensions.

The impossibility of amending or correcting these faculties, reduces me almost to despair.

It makes me resolve to perish on the barren rock where I am at present, rather than venture on that boundless ocean. This sudden view of my danger strikes me with sadness.

Sadness usually indulges itself.

I cannot restrain feeding my despair with all those desponding reflections abundantly given by the present subject.

I am first frightened and confounded with that lonely solitude which my philosophy places me in.

I fancy myself as some strange uncivilized monster:

• unable to mingle and unite in society,
• expelled by all human commerce, and
• left abandoned and unhappy.

I would gladly run into the crowd for shelter and warmth.

But I cannot do so with such a deformity.

I call on others to join me to make a separate company.

But no one will listen to me.

Everyone keeps at a distance and dreads that storm, which beats on me from every side.

I have exposed myself to the enmity of all metaphysicians, logicians, mathematicians, and even theologians.

Can I wonder at the insults I must suffer?

I have declared my disapprobation of their systems. Can I be surprised, if they would hate me and my system? I see dispute, contradiction, anger, calumny and detraction on every side. When I look inward, I find nothing but doubt and ignorance. All the world conspires to oppose and contradict me.

Such is my weakness, that I feel all my opinions loosen and fall by themselves, when unsupported by the approbation of others. I take every step with hesitation. Every new reflection makes me dread an error and absurdity in my reasoning. How confident can I be on such bold enterprises, when there are so many infirmities in me and in human nature?

Can I be sure that I am following truth? By what criterion shall I distinguish the truth, even if fortune finally brings me to the truth? After the most accurate and exact of my reasonings, I can give no reason why I should assent to the truth. I feel only a strong propensity to consider objects strongly as they appear to me. Experience is a principle which instructs me in the several conjunctions of past objects.

Habit is another principle, which determines me to expect the same for the future. Both of them conspire to operate on my imagination. They make me create certain ideas in a more intense and lively manner. This quality lets my mind enliven some ideas beyond other ideas. Those other ideas: seem so trivial, and are not so founded on reason. Without this quality, we could never: assent to any argument, nor carry our view beyond those few objects: present to our senses, and which could only exist because of the senses. We must comprehend such objects entirely in that succession of perceptions which make up our self.

We could only admit of those perceptions immediately present to our consciousness. Those lively images presented by our memory could never be received as true pictures of past perceptions. Imagination is so Inconstant that It Leads Us to Errors which We Solve with Reason Therefore, the memory, senses, and understanding are all founded on the imagination, or the vivacity of our ideas.

When implicitly followed (as it must be) in all its variations, this principle is so inconstant and fallacious that is should lead us into errors. This principle makes us reason from causes and effects. It is the same principle which convinces us of the continued existence of external objects, when absent from the senses. These two operations are equally natural and necessary in the human mind, yet in some circumstances they are [Section 4] directly contrary. It is impossible for us: to reason justly and regularly from causes and effects, and to believe the continued existence of matter at the same time. How shall we adjust those principles together? Which of them shall we prefer? Philosophers usually prefer none of them and assent to both. If we do that, how can we attain the truth when we knowingly embrace a manifest contradiction? This contradiction (Part 3, Section 14) would be more excusable, were it compensated by any solidity and satisfaction in the other parts of our reasoning.

But the case is quite contrary. When we trace up the human understanding to its first principles, we find that it leads us into feelings that: ridicule all our past pains and industry, and discourage us from future enquiries. The human mind is curious about the causes of every phenomenon. We are not content with knowing the immediate causes. We push on our enquiries, until we arrive at the original and ultimate principle. We would not stop before we know that energy in the cause. This energy operates on its effect. It connects cause and effect and is dependent on their connection. This is our aim in all our studies and reflections:

We are disappointed when we learn that this connection, tie, or energy: lies merely in ourselves, and is just the mind’s determination, acquired by habit. It causes us to transition: from one object into to its usual attendant, and from the impression of one object to the lively idea of the other object. Such a discovery prevents us from ever being satisfied. When we say we want to know the ultimate and operating principle as something residing in the external object, we contradict ourselves or talk without a meaning.

This deficiency in our ideas is not perceived in common life.

We do not see that we are as ignorant of the ultimate principle which binds cause and effect together. This proceeds merely from an illusion of the imagination. The question is: how far we should yield to these illusions? This question is very difficult. It reduces us to a very dangerous dilemma, no matter how we answer it. Dilemma 1a: If we assent to every trivial suggestion of the fancy, they would lead us into errors, absurdities, and obscurities.