A Treatise of Human Nature

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BOOK I PART IV


ments of the vulgar, than to those of a mistaken
knowledge. It is natural for men, in their com-
mon and care, less way of thinking, to imag-
ine they perceive a connexion betwixt such ob-
jects as they have constantly found united to-
gether; and because custom has rendered it dif-
ficult to separate the ideas, they are apt to fancy
such a separation to be in itself impossible and
absurd. But philosophers, who abstract from
the effects of custom, and compare the ideas
of objects, immediately perceive the falshood
of these vulgar sentiments, and discover that
there is no known connexion among objects.
Every different object appears to them entirely
distinct and separate; and they perceive, that it
is not from a view of the nature and qualities
of objects we infer one from another, but only
when in several instances we observe them
to have been constantly conjoined. But these

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