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===Impressions and ideas===
A central doctrine of Hume's philosophy, stated in the very first lines of the ''[[A Treatise of Human Nature|Treatise of Human Nature]]'', is that the mind consists of perceptions, or the mental objects which are present to it, and which divide into two categories: "All the perceptions of the human mind resolve themselves into two distinct kinds, which I shall call {{smallcaps|impressions}} and {{smallcaps|ideas}}." Hume believed that it would "not be very necessary to employ many words in explaining this distinction", which commentators have generally taken to mean the distinction between ''[[feeling]]'' and ''[[Thought|thinking]]''.[Garrett, Don. 2002. ''Cognition and Commitment in Hume's Philosophy''. Oxford: [[Oxford University Press]]. {{ISBN|9780195159592}}.] Controversially, Hume, in some sense, may regard the distinction as a matter of degree, as he takes ''impressions'' to be distinguished from ideas on the basis of their force, liveliness, and vivacity{{mdash}}what [[Henry E. Allison]] (2008) calls the "FLV criterion."[[[Henry E. Allison|Allison, Henry E.]] 2008. ''Custom and Reason in Hume: A Kantian Reading of the First Book of the Treatise''. Oxford: [[Oxford University Press]]. {{ISBN|9780199532889}}.] ''Ideas'' are therefore "faint" impressions. For example, experiencing the painful sensation of touching a hot pan's handle is more forceful than simply thinking about touching a hot pan. According to Hume, ''impressions'' are meant to be the original form of all our ideas. From this, Don Garrett (2002) has coined the term ''copy principle,[Hume, David. 1739. [https://web.archive.org/web/20180712120258/http://www.davidhume.org/texts/thn.html ''A Treatise of Human Nature'' 1]. London: John Noon. Retrieved 19 May 2020.] When looking at an apple, a person experiences a variety of colour-sensations{{mdash}}what Hume notes as a complex impression. Similarly, a person experiences a variety of taste-sensations, tactile-sensations, and smell-sensations when biting into an apple, with the overall sensation{{mdash}}again, a complex impression. Thinking about an apple allows a person to form complex ideas, which are made of similar parts as the complex impressions they were developed from, but which are also less forceful. Hume believes that complex perceptions can be broken down into smaller and smaller parts until perceptions are reached that have no parts of their own, and these perceptions are thus referred to as simple.
==== Principles of association ====
Regardless of how boundless it may seem, a person's imagination is confined to the mind's ability to recombine the information it has already acquired from the body's sensory experience (the ideas that have been derived from impressions). In addition, "as our imagination takes our most basic ideas and leads us to form new ones, it is directed by three principles of association, namely, resemblance, contiguity, and cause and effect":[Fieser, James. 2011. "[https://www.iep.utm.edu/hume/ David Hume (1711—1776)]." ''[[Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]''. Retrieved 19 May 2020.]
* The '''principle of resemblance''' refers to the tendency of ideas to become associated if the objects they represent resemble one another. For example, someone looking at an illustration of a flower can conceive an idea of the physical flower because the idea of the illustrated object is associated with the physical object's idea.
* The '''principle of contiguity''' describes the tendency of ideas to become associated if the objects they represent are near to each other in time or space, such as when the thought of a crayon in a box leads one to think of the crayon contiguous to it.
* The '''principle of cause''' '''and effect''' refers to the tendency of ideas to become associated if the objects they represent are causally related, which explains how remembering a broken window can make someone think of a ball that had caused the window to shatter.
Hume elaborates more on the last principle, explaining that, when somebody observes that one object or event consistently produces the same object or event, that results in "an expectation that a particular event (a 'cause') will be followed by another event (an 'effect') previously and constantly associated with it".[Norton, David Fate. 1999 [1993]. "[https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=GVRL&u=redm07619&id=GALE%7CCX3450000731&v=2.1&it=r&sid=GVRL&asid=628c8aaa Hume, David]." Pp. 398–403 in ''[[The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy|Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy]]'' (2nd ed.), edited by [[Robert Audi|R. Audi]]. Cambridge: [[Cambridge University Press]]. Retrieved 18 May 2020. – via [[Gale (publisher)|Gale]].] Hume calls this principle ''custom'', or ''habit'', saying that "custom...renders our experience useful to us, and makes us expect, for the future, a similar train of events with those which have appeared in the past".[Hume, David. 1990 [1748]. ''[[An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding]]''. New York: [[Anchor Books|Anchor]]/[[Doubleday (publisher)|Doubleday]].] However, even though custom can serve as a guide in life, it still only represents an expectation. In other words:[Drefcinski, Shane. (1998). "[http://people.uwplatt.edu/~drefcins/humeencyclopediaentry.html A Very Brief Summary of David Hume]." ''Dr. Shane Drefcinski''. US: [[University of Wisconsin–Platteville]]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170509231819/http://people.uwplatt.edu/~drefcins/humeencyclopediaentry.html|date=9 May 2017}}. Retrieved 19 May 2020.] Experience cannot establish a necessary connection between cause and effect, because we can imagine without contradiction a case where the cause does not produce its usual effect…the reason why we mistakenly infer that there is something in the cause that necessarily produces its effect is because our past experiences have habituated us to think in this way.
Continuing this idea, Hume argues that "only in the pure realm of ideas, logic, and mathematics, not contingent on the direct sense awareness of reality, [can] causation safely…be applied—all other sciences are reduced to probability".[Hume, David. 2010 [1778]. ''[[An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding]]''. In ''[[Masterplots]]'' (4th ed.). pp. 1–3.]