date

9 Nov. 1811 Jug. [...?] Evidence
9 Nov. 1811

Jug. [...?]

Evidence or rather Antimir

1. Theoretical

Ch [...?] Causes

1

§ 2 Hume vividness

§. 2

David Hume's theory—Sole Causes of belief and disbelief, vividness and faintness of ideas.

In the character of materials constituting the foundation of persuasion affirmative and disaffirmative—in other words in the character of causes of belief and disbelief—belief and disbelief in general and therefore in particular as applied to testimony, other principles, differing from this and from one another have been presented by other hands. Of each of them, for the purpose of illustration, viz for the purpose to plan the above account in the clearer point of view, some account of each of them may have its use: some account and in each instance in very brief one, it is supposed may suffice.
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    The idea or image—lodged by a matter of fact in the mind may to any degree be faint, and at the same time the belief of its existence of its first existence at the time and place in question be of the firmest texture. When for this or any other purpose the memory is employed to bring back into the mind such of the incidents of his life for which this sort of occasional [...?] has been provided, the degrees of vividness in which they present themselves vary upon a long scale of gradation terminating in 0 yet all of them equally accompanied with the persuasion of their existence: or if in this or that instance a doubt of the accuracy of the memory in this respect happen[s] to present itself it is not by the comparative vividness of the impression but by something very different that the doubt is suggested. Of the same matter of fact any given recollection will sometimes present itself as correct at other times as incorrect, i.e. as conformable to the original conception which formed the pattern to it, but when it presents itself as correct the impression in the mind will not be more vivid that in the opposite case.