“Although we permute and combine ideas in the imagination to form complex ideas of things we haven’t experienced, Hume is adamant that our creative powers extend no farther than “the materials afforded us by the senses and experience.” Complex ideas are composed of simple ideas, which are fainter copies of the simple impressions from which they are ultimately derived, to which they correspond and exactly resemble. Hume offers this “general proposition” as his “first principle…in the science of human nature” (T, 7). Usually called the “Copy Principle,” Hume’s distinctive brand of empiricism is often identified with his commitment to it.”
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