9 Nov r 1811

Evidence

1. Theoretic

Ch Persuasive Causes

§.2 Hume's vividness

4

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.