ABSTRACT
David Hume's positive theory of causation gives an account of how the mind comes to mistake the idea of necessity it derives from an impression of reflection for an idea of that 'quality, which binds the effect to the cause, and renders the one an infallible consequence of the other'. It is difficult to know what to make of this conclusion, or how one is to reconcile it with the causal investigations of the science of man, of which scepticism appears the inevitable upshot. Hume is not concerned with what people ought to believe. He seeks to contrast what he sees as the legitimate causal explanation of belief with the vain endeavours of the total sceptic, who finds that he must assent to the belief, in spite of his philosophy. Having established that the idea of distinct and continued existence arises neither from the senses, nor from reason, Hume concludes that it must arise from the imagination.
