If Hume's "impressions of reflection" are excluded from among the
primary elements of consciousness, nothing is left but the impressions
afforded by the five senses, with pleasure and pain. Putting aside the
muscular sense, which had not come into view in Hume's time, the
questions arise whether these are all the simple undecomposable
materials of thought? or whether others exist of which Hume takes no
cognizance.
Kant answered the latter question in the affirmative, in the _Kritik der
reinen Vernunft_, and thereby made one of the greatest advances ever
effected in philosophy; though it must be confessed that the German
philosopher's exposition of his views is so perplexed in style, so
burdened with the weight of a cumbrous and uncouth scholasticism, that
it is easy to confound the unessential parts of his system with those
which are of profound importance. His baggage train is bigger than his
army, and the student who attacks him is too often led to suspect he has
won a position when he has only captured a mob of useless
camp-followers.
In his _Principles of Psychology_, Mr. Herbert Spencer appears to me to
have brought out the essential truth which underlies Kant's doctrine in
a far clearer manner than any one else; but, for the purpose of the
present summary view of Hume's philosophy, it must suffice if I state
the matter in my own way, giving the broad outlines, without entering
into the details of a large and difficult discussion.
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