220
THE STAR IN THE WEST
HUME
Hume , at heart a thoroughgoing
agnostic
and
man
of
the
world , saw
the
practical
falsity
of abstruse
philosophy ,
the
conclusions
of which
were
at
once
dissipated
by the
“ feelings
of our
heart,” which
re
duced
“
the
profound philosopher
to
a
mere plebeian
.'
He forcibly
asserts
,
that
ideas
of
primary
qualities
are attained
by
abstraction—
"
an
opinion which
if
we
examine
it
accurately
,
we shall find
to
be
unintelligible
,
and
even absurd
.”
He further
agrees with Berkeley
in
stating that
:
“
An extension that
is
neither tangible
nor visible
,
cannot possibly
be
conceived
,”
and
that
,
“
The mind
has never anything present
to
it
but the
perceptions
,
and cannot possibly reach any experience
of
their connexion with objects
."'
And again that the
"
... universal and primary opinion
of
all
men
is
soon
destroyed
by
the slightest
philosophy
,
which teaches
us
,
that nothing
can
ever
be
present
to
the mind but
an
image
or
perception
,
and that the senses
are only
the inlets through which
these images are conveyed
,
without
being
able
to
produce
any immediate inter
course between
the mind and the object
.”.
However
,
the
great unknown
waste
of
this
“
immediate
inter
course
”
Hume bravely sets out
to
explore
.
As Berkeley had
previously got hopelessly bogged
in
the swamps
of
God
,
so
Hume
,
avoiding
the shore
line
,
set out
on
the
same quest
by
way
of
the desert
of
Scepticism
,
without
the chart
of
so
divine
a
know
ledge
,
but with
the
compass
of
a
more
certain direc
tion
;
nevertheless
,
soon
losing
his way
in
the
arid
1
An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding
,
p
.
163
.
2
Ibid
.
p
.
161
.