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Hume sought to found an empirical science of the mind, based on experience and observation. He noted that the application of the experimental method to "moral subjects" necessarily differed from its use in natural philosophy, because it was impossible to conduct experiments "purposely, with premeditation". Instead, knowledge would be gained "from cautious observation of human life...by men's behaviour in company, in affairs, and in pleasures". [[CiteRef::Biro (2009)|p. 42]] Experimental psychology in the modern sense, with controlled experiments in the laboratory, would not make its appearance until the late 19th century. [[CiteRef::Leary (1979)]]
By the time Hume started work on his ''Treatise'' the notion that an idea was the primary sort of mental content dominated European philosophy, due, in part, to the works of Descartes and Locke. Hume instead used the term ''''perceptions'''' to designate mental content of any sort. He supposed there are two sorts of perceptions, '''impressions''' and '''ideas''', which was a new distinction. Impressions include feelings we get from our senses, such as of a red tomato currently in front of me, as well as desires, emotions, passions, and sentiments, such as my current hunger for the tomato. Hume distinguished impressions from ideas by their degree of vivacity or force. Thus, I have an impression of the tomato that is currently present, and an idea of a tomato I ate last week. Hume supposed our ideas are faint copies of our impressions. [[CiteRef::Owen (2009)]][[CiteRef::Morris and Brown (2016)]][[CiteRef::Biro (2009)]]
Noting that there is a regular order to our thoughts, he asserted that the mind has the power to associate ideas. Hume’s concepts about the association of ideas were novel. He posited three associative principles; '''resemblance''' (as when I recognize that the tomato currently before me resembles the one in my garden), '''contiguity''' in time and place (as when I notice that the tomato is on the table to my left) and '''causation''' (as when I notice that bumping the table causes the tomato to tumble to the floor). Hume believed that by thus anatomizing human nature, its laws of operation could be discovered. [[CiteRef::Morris and Brown (2016)]][[CiteRef::Biro (2009)]] [[CiteRef::Owen (2009)]] Hume argued that the mind could not be an immaterial substance, though he was also critical of materialism. Regarding personal identity, he wrote that “what we call a ''mind'' is nothing but a heap or collection of different perceptions, united together by certain relations, and supos’d, tho’ falsly, to be endow’d with perfect simplicity and identity”. [[CiteRef::McIntyre (2009) | p. 182]] It was Hume's careful analysis of the mind that led to insights relevant to scientific methodology.
