‘If you burn yourself on a hot oven, you get an immediate “impression.” Afterward you can recollect that you burned yourself. That impression insofar as it is recalled is what Hume calls an “idea.” The difference is that an impression is stronger and livelier than your reflective memory of that impression. You could say that the sensation is the original and that the idea, or reflection, is only a pale imitation. It is the impression which is the direct cause of the idea stored in the mind.’
