[A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume]@TWC D-Link book
A Treatise of Human Nature

PART IV
83/144

This is another principle.

My conclusion from both is, that since all our perceptions are different from each other, and from every thing else in the universe, they are also distinct and separable, and may be considered as separately existent, and may exist separately, and have no need of any thing else to support their existence.

They are, therefore, substances, as far as this definition explains a substance.
Thus neither by considering the first origin of ideas, nor by means of a definition are we able to arrive at any satisfactory notion of substance; which seems to me a sufficient reason for abandoning utterly that dispute concerning the materiality and immateriality of the soul, and makes me absolutely condemn even the question itself.

We have no perfect idea of any thing but of a perception.

A substance is entirely different from a perception.


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