things were related in time, in such a way that they could be supposed
to reveal a single object able to endure in spite of surface changes,
and to manifest the identity of its sensory 'qualities.' Similarly, the
succession of ideas within the mind was for it supported by the inward
unity of the soul within which they arose. Moreover, Hume's analysis
made havoc of all idea, of 'causation.' If every sensation was a
separate being, how was it to be connected with any other in any regular
or necessary connection? Two events related as 'cause' and 'effect' must
be a myth.

These subversive consequences of his theory Hume did not conceal, though
he did not push his mental 'atomism' to its logical extreme. When he
defined material objects as 'coloured points disposed in a certain
order,' he was in fact admitting space as a relating factor; when he
spoke of the succession of impressions and ideas in experience, he was
tacitly assuming that what was apprehended was not a bare succession of
sensations, but _also_ the fact that they were succeeding one another,
and so allowing a sense of temporal relation. But further than this he
refused to go. The idea of a continuous self was fantastic. There was
nothing beneath the ideas to connect them. The notion of causal
connection was equally chimerical. Each sensation was distinct and
existed in its own right. It could therefore occur alone. There was
nothing to link together the distinct impressions. Hence necessary
connection in events could not be more than a fiction of the mind based
on expectation of customary sequences; how the mind he had described as
non-existent could form an expectation or observe a sequence was calmly
left a mystery.

Hume, then, seemed to leave to his successors in philosophy a task of
synthesis. He had tumbled the soul off her high watch-tower, but how to