Why We Assign a Continued Existence to Things

Justification 3:

Any contradiction to our feelings gives us an uneasiness, whether it comes externally or internally as

• the opposition of external objects
• the combat of internal principles

On the contrary, we get pleasure from whatever matches our natural propensities as to:

• externally forward their satisfaction or
• internally concurs with their movements

Here, there is an opposition between:

• the resemblance of past and present perceptions
• the gap of time between them

The mind feels uneasy about the gap and the difference.

The smooth passage of our mind between the past perception and the present perception relieves this uneasiness.

And so we assign a single identity to both perceptions.

This makes both perceptions continue interrupted.*

I shall explain this more fully afterwards in Section 6.

The difficulty here is not on whether the mind creates such a conclusion on the continued existence of its perceptions.

The difficulty comes only from:

• the way the conclusion is formed, and
• the principles it is derived from.

Almost all men and even philosophers, for most of their lives, take their perceptions to be their only objects.

They suppose that the very being intimately present to the mind, is the real body or material existence.

This very perception or object is supposed to:

• have a continued uninterrupted being,
• not be annihilated by our absence,
• nor be brought into existence by our presence.

When we are absent from it, we say it still exists, but that we do not feel, we do not see it.

When we are present, we say we feel, or see it.

This leads to 2 questions:

1. How can we suppose that a perception is absent from the mind without being annihilated?
2. How can we conceive an object to become present to the mind, without some new creation of a perception or image?

What do we mean by seeing, feeling, and perceiving?

Here are 2 answers:

1. The mind is nothing but a heap or collection of different perceptions united by certain relations and falsely supposed to be endowed with a perfect simplicity and identity.

Every perception:

• is distinguishable from another perception, and
• may be considered as separately existent.

It follows that there is no absurdity in separating any particular perception from the mind.

We can break off all its relations from that connected mass of perceptions, which constitute a thinking being.

2. The same reasoning answers the second question.

The word ‘perception’ does not render this separation from a mind absurd and contradictory.

The word ‘object’ means the very same thing as ‘perception’.

It can never render their conjunction impossible.

External objects are seen, felt, and become present to the mind.

They acquire a relation to a connected heap of perceptions which influences them very considerably in:

• adding their number by present reflections and passions, and
• storing the memory with ideas.

The same continued and uninterrupted Being may, therefore, be sometimes present to the mind and sometimes absent from it, without any real or essential change in the Being itself.

An interrupted appearance to the senses does not necessarily imply an interruption in the existence.

The supposition of the continued existence of sensible objects or perceptions involves no contradiction.

We may easily indulge our inclination to that supposition.

When the exact resemblance of our perceptions makes us ascribe to them an identity, we may remove the seeming interruption by feigning a continued being.

This being may:

• fill those intervals, and
• preserve a perfect and entire identity to our perceptions.

We here feign and believe this continued existence.

The question is, from whence arises such a belief?

This question leads us to part 4 of my system.