Neoplatonism perceived that neither sense perception nor rational cognition is a sufficient basis or justification for religious ethics; consequently it broke away from rationalistic ethics as decidedly as from utilitarian morality.
To take one's watch from the pocket and look at it when from a familiar clock-tower a familiar bell strikes a familiar hour, is an instance of a habitual action initiated by a sense perception outside attentive consciousness.
When Berkeley has eliminated the literal materialism of Locke's metaphors of sense-perception, Hume finds no difficulty in accepting the sensations as present virtually in their own right, any nonsensible ground being altogether unknown.
This faculty is a priori, transcendental, and entirely separate from all the data of experience and sense-perception.
His psychological doctrine explained all the functions of the soul as modes of motion, and denied any separation of the reason from the faculties of sense-perception.
