An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Abstract

between the perceptions of the mind when a man feels the pain of excessive heat or the pleasure of moderate warmth, and when he afterwards recalls to his memory this sensation or anticipates it by his imagination. These faculties may mimic or copy the perceptions of the senses, but they never can entirely reach the force and vivacity of the original sentiment. . . . We may observe a like distinction to run through all the other perceptions of the mind. A man in a fit of anger is actuated in a very different manner from one who only thinks of that emotion. If you tell me that any person is in love, I easily understand your meaning and form a just conception of his situation, but never can mistake that conception for the real disorders and agitations of the passion. . . . Here, therefore, we may divide all the perceptions of the mind into two classes or species, which are distinguished by their different degrees of force and vivacity. The less forcible and lively are commonly denominated “thoughts” or “ideas.” The other species want a name in our language, and in most others. . . . Let us, therefore, use a little freedom and call them “impressions,” employing that word in a sense somewhat different from the usual. By the term “impression,” then, I mean all our more lively perceptions, when we hear, or see, or feel, or love, or hate, or desire, or will. . . . AN INQUIRY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING