Composition

” The mind is a kind of theatre , where several perceptions successively make their appearance ; pass , repass , glide away , and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations. There is properly no simplicity in it at one time , nor identity in different ; whatever natural propension we may have to imagine that simplicity and identity. The comparison of the theatre must not mislead us , they are successive perceptions only , that constitute the mind ; nor have we the most distant notion of the place , where these scenes are represented , or of the materials , of which it is composed. “

– David Hume