 Hume’s own conclusion, quoted above, is that we perceive only an image of the table. This conclusion arises from the larger context in which our immediate experiences are sense impressions (a version of  item 1).  Because the object seen diminishes but the real table does not, our sensory experience does not acquaint us with the table but with something else, a mental or phenomenal  impression.[9]  As a result, Hume held that we cannot know an external world of mind-independent objects, such as the purported “real table”, but must restrict our sensory knowledge to sequences of sense impressions.