BOOK I PART IV
these interrupted images we ascribe a perfect
identity. But as the interruption of the appear-
ance seems contrary to the identity, and natu-
rally leads us to regard these resembling per-
ceptions as different from each other, we here
find ourselves at a loss how to reconcile such
opposite opinions. The smooth passage of the
imagination along the ideas of the resembling
perceptions makes us ascribe to them a perfect
identity. The interrupted manner of their ap-
pearance makes us consider them as so many
resembling, but still distinct beings, which ap-
pear after certain intervals. The perplexity aris-
ing from this contradiction produces a propen-
sion to unite these broken appearances by the
fiction of a continued existence, which is the
third part of that hypothesis I proposed to ex-
plain.