# Endnotes explained — An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding > Chapter companion for An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume. ## What happens The endnotes provide supplementary arguments and references that reinforce the text's core skeptical and empiricist positions. They discuss Berkeley's skepticism, the nature of abstract ideas, the definition of miracles, and the role of experience in reasoning about human affairs, concluding with reflections on the origin of the idea of power. ## Themes in this chapter ### Skepticism and the Limits of Human Understanding The endnotes endorse Berkeley's arguments as the best lessons of skepticism, noting they admit of no answer and produce no conviction, only momentary amazement. ### Critique of Miracles and Superstition The notes define miracles as violations of natural laws and discuss the Jansenist miracles, questioning the strength of human testimony in such cases. ### Custom and Habit as Guides The endnotes argue that all reasoning about human affairs ultimately rests on observation and experience, with custom and habit guiding inference. ## Character check-ins ### Narrator The narrator presents and comments on the philosophical arguments in the endnotes. ### Pierre Bayle Mentioned as a modern philosopher whose writings, like Berkeley's, form lessons of skepticism. ### John Locke Referenced for his division of arguments into demonstrative and probable, and for his chapter on power. ### Mademoiselle Thibaut Cited in the discussion of Jansenist miracles, where her case was examined by the physician De Sylva. ### Quintus Curtius Referenced in a historical note about Vespasian's miracle. ## Key lines > But that all his arguments, though otherwise intended, are, in reality, merely sceptical, appears from this, that they admit of no answer and produce no conviction. Their only effect is to cause that momentary amazement and irresolution and confusion, which is the result of scepticism. Berkeley's arguments, despite his stated aims, are purely skeptical because they cannot be refuted and do not persuade; they only create temporary confusion and doubt. _The narrator characterizes Berkeley's philosophy as fundamentally skeptical in its effect._ > It seems to me not impossible to avoid these absurdities and contradictions, if it be admitted, that there is no such thing as abstract or general ideas, properly speaking; but that all general ideas are, in reality, particular ones, attached to a general term, which recalls, upon occasion, other particular ones, that resemble, in certain circumstances, the idea, present to the mind. The contradictions about infinite divisibility can be avoided by denying abstract general ideas; instead, general terms refer to particular ideas that can call to mind similar ones. _The narrator proposes a nominalist solution to mathematical paradoxes about infinity._ > The raising of a house or ship into the air is a visible miracle. The raising of a feather, when the wind wants ever so little of a force requisite for that purpose, is as real a miracle, though not so sensible with regard to us. A miracle is defined by its violation of natural law, not by its perceptibility; even a small event like a feather rising without sufficient wind is a true miracle. _The narrator clarifies the nature of miracles, emphasizing their essence over their visibility._ ## Links - HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/an_enquiry_concerning_human_understanding_se/chapters/endnotes - Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/an_enquiry_concerning_human_understanding_se - All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/an_enquiry_concerning_human_understanding_se/chapters