Idea A mental event that lingers after impressions or sensations have ceased.
Imagination According to Hume, the power of the mind to arrange and rearrange ideas into countless configurations.
Impressions According to Hume, the relatively strong mental experiences caused by sensory stimulation. For Hume, impression is essentially the same thing as what others called sensation.
La Mettrie, Julien de (1709–1751) Believed humans were machines that differed from other animals only in complexity. La Mettrie believed that so-called mental experiences are nothing but movements of particles in the brain. He also believed that accepting materialism would result in a better, more humane world.
Law of cause and effect According to Hume, if in our experience one event always precedes the occur- rence of another event, we tend to believe that the for- mer event is the cause of the latter.