MILL'S PHENOMENALISM
looking for something on a desk, we are presented with a series of new sensations. Certain sensations which were possible come about. I could move this piece of paper, and experience the colour of the surface beneath it. There are all sorts of possible sensations that would occur under certain conditions And so we come to think of certain possibilities for sensation as being permanently available, under certain conditions. Material objects are 'permanent possibilities of sensation , We associate certain sensations, and the possibilities of other sensations, together, since whenever I have one sensation, the conditions of having another associated with it are to hand. We derive the complexity of ideas of space, distance, perspective from the complex associations between sensations that we make (automatically – none of this need be thought through!)