Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2025
Hume writes that it is “no inconsiderable part of science barely to know the different operations of the mind, to separate them from each other, to class them under their proper heads, and to correct all that seeming disorder, in which they lie involved, when made the object of reflection and enquiry.” He describes this branch of knowledge as “mental geography.” Yet while his mental geography of thought is now well understood, his mental geography of feeling—specifically, of the non-sensory “secondary impressions” or “impressions of reflection” that he discusses in Books 2 and 3 of A Treatise of Human Nature—has not been. This essay seeks to clarify Hume’s doctrines in these two Books by explaining the nature and classification of the five kinds of secondary impressions that Hume distinguishes: (1) sensible agitations (i.e., “emotions” in one sense of that term); (2) feelings of or from mental operations; (3) volitions; (4) passions (both calm and violent); and (5) sentiments of taste.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.