Treatise of Human Nature

DAVID HUME

(1711-1776)

Contents

HOW TO READ THE TEXT

Book 1

Part i: Ideas, their origin, composition, connection, abstraction, etc.

1: The origin of our ideas

2: Division of the subject

3: Memory and imagination

4: Association of ideas

5: Relations

6: Modes and substances

7: Abstract ideas

Part ii: The ideas of space and time

1: The infinite divisibility of our ideas of space and time

2: The infinite divisibility of space and time

3: The other qualities of our ideas of space and time

4: Objections answered

5: The same subject continued

6: The ideas of existence and of external existence

Part iii: Knowledge and probability

1: Knowledge

2: Probability, and the idea of cause and effect

3: Why a cause is necessary

4: The component parts of our reasonings about cause and effect

5: The impressions of the senses and memory

6: The inference from the impression to the idea

7: The nature of the idea or belief

8: The causes of belief

9: The effects of other relations and other habits

10: Influence of belief

11: The probability of chances

12: The probability of causes

13: Unphilosophical probability

14: The idea of necessary connection

15: Rules by which to judge of causes and effects

16: The reason of animals

Part iv: The sceptical and other systems of philosophy

1: Scepticism with regard to reason

2: Scepticism with regard to the senses

3: The ancient philosophy

4: The modern philosophy

5: The immateriality of the soul

6: Personal identity

7: Conclusion of this book

Book 2

Part i: Pride and humility

1: Division of the subject

2: Pride and humility—their objects and causes

3: Where these objects and causes come from

4: The relations of impressions and ideas

5: The influence of these relations on pride and humility

6: Qualifications to this system

7: Vice and virtue

8: Beauty and ugliness

9: External advantages and disadvantages

10: Property and riches

11: The love of fame

12: The pride and humility of animals

Part ii: Love and hatred

1: The objects and causes of love and hatred

2: Experiments to confirm this system

3: Difficulties solved

4: Love for people with whom one has some connection

5: Esteem for the rich and powerful

6: Benevolence and anger

7: Compassion

8: Malice and envy

9: The mixture of benevolence and anger with compassion and malice

10: Respect and contempt

11: The amorous passion, or love between the sexes

12: The love and hatred of animals

Part iii: The will and the direct passions

1: Liberty and necessity

2: Liberty and necessity (continued)

3: The influencing motive of the will

4: The causes of the violent passions

5: The effects of custom

6: The imagination’s influence on the passions

7: Closeness and distance in space and time

8: Closeness and distance in space and time (continued)

9: The direct passions

10: Curiosity, or the love of truth

Book 3

Part i: Virtue and vice in general

1: Moral distinctions aren’t derived from reason

2: Moral distinctions are derived from a moral sense

Part ii: Justice and injustice

1: Justice natural or artificial?

2: The origin of justice and property

3: The rules that settle who owns what

4: The transference of property by consent

5: The obligation of promises

6: Further thoughts about justice and injustice

7: The origin of government

8: The source of allegiance

9: The measures of allegiance

10: The objects of allegiance

11: The laws of nations

12: Chastity and modesty

Part iii: The other virtues and vices

1: The origin of the natural virtues and vices

2: Greatness of mind

3: Goodness and benevolence

4: Natural abilities

5. Further thoughts about the natural virtues

6: Conclusion of this book

© Jonathan Bennett 2017

Treatise of Human Nature

DAVID HUME

Early Modern Texts, 2017

COPYRIGHT

Treatise of Human Nature

© Jonathan Bennett, 2017. All rights reserved.

Early Modern Texts

First launched: July 2004 (Book 1), June 2008 (Book 2), October 2008 (Book 3)

Contact: earlymodern31@gmail.com

www.earlymoderntexts.com

HOW TO READ THE TEXT

[Brackets] enclose editorial explanations. Small ·dots· enclose material that has been added, but can be read as though it were part of the original text. Occasional •bullets, and also indenting of passages that are not quotations, are meant as aids to grasping the structure of a sentence or a thought. Every four-point ellipsis . . . . indicates the omission of a brief passage that seems to present more difficulty than it is worth. Longer omissions are reported between brackets in normal-sized type.

Book 1

Part i: Ideas, their origin, composition, connection, abstraction, etc.

1: The origin of our ideas

2: Division of the subject

3: Memory and imagination

4: Association of ideas

5: Relations

6: Modes and substances

7: Abstract ideas

Part ii: The ideas of space and time

1: The infinite divisibility of our ideas of space and time

2: The infinite divisibility of space and time

3: The other qualities of our ideas of space and time

4: Objections answered

5: The same subject continued

6: The ideas of existence and of external existence

Part iii: Knowledge and probability

1: Knowledge

2: Probability, and the idea of cause and effect

3: Why a cause is necessary

4: The component parts of our reasonings about cause and effect

5: The impressions of the senses and memory

6: The inference from the impression to the idea

7: The nature of the idea or belief

8: The causes of belief

9: The effects of other relations and other habits

10: Influence of belief

11: The probability of chances

12: The probability of causes

13: Unphilosophical probability

14: The idea of necessary connection

15: Rules by which to judge of causes and effects

16: The reason of animals

Part iv: The sceptical and other systems of philosophy

1: Scepticism with regard to reason

2: Scepticism with regard to the senses

3: The ancient philosophy

4: The modern philosophy

5: The immateriality of the soul

6: Personal identity

7: Conclusion of this book

Part i: Ideas, their origin, composition, connection, abstraction, etc.

1: The origin of our ideas

All the perceptions of the human mind fall into two distinct kinds, which I shall call ‘impressions’ and ‘ideas’. These differ in the degrees of force and liveliness with which they strike upon the mind and make their way into our thought or consciousness. The perceptions that enter with most force and violence we may name ‘impressions’; and under this name I bring all our sensations, passions, and emotions, as they make their first appearance in the soul [= ‘mind’; no religious implications]. By ‘ideas’ I mean the faint images of the others in thinking and reasoning: for example, all the perceptions aroused by your reading this book—apart from perceptions arising from sight and touch, and apart from the immediate pleasure or uneasiness your reading may cause in you. I don’t think I need to say much to explain this distinction: everyone will readily perceive for himself the difference between feeling (·impressions·) and thinking (·ideas·). The usual degrees ·of intensity· of these are easily distinguished, though there may be particular instances where they come close to one another. Thus, in sleep, in a fever, in madness, or in any very violent emotions of soul, our ideas may become like our impressions; as on the other hand it sometimes happens that our impressions are so faint and low that we can’t distinguish them from our ideas. But although ideas and impressions are fairly similar in a few cases, they are in general so very different that no-one can hesitate to classify them as different and to give to each a special name to mark the difference.[1]

[In this work, ‘name’ is often used to cover not only proper names but also general terms such as ‘idea’.]

Another division of our perceptions should be noted; this one cuts across the line between impressions and ideas. It is the division into simple and complex. Simple perceptions— that is, simple impressions and ideas—are ones that don’t allow any distinction or separation ·among their parts·. Complex perceptions, on the contrary, can be distinguished into parts. Though a particular colour, taste, and smell, are qualities all united together in this apple, it’s easy to perceive that they aren’t the same as one another and can least be distinguished from each other—·and so one’s total perception of the apple is complex·.

Having through these divisions ordered and arranged our subject-matter (·perceptions·), we can now set ourselves to consider more accurately their qualities and relations. The first fact that springs to my attention is that our impressions greatly resemble our ideas in every respect except their degree of force and liveliness. Perceptions of one kind seem to be, in a way, reflections of perceptions of the other kind; so that all the perceptions of the mind do double duty, appearing both as impressions and as ideas. When I shut my eyes and think of my study, the ideas I form are exact representations of the impressions I felt ·when I was in my study·; every detail in one is to be found in the other. And I find the same resemblance and representation when I survey my other perceptions: ideas and impressions seem always to correspond to each other. This remarkable fact holds my attention for a moment.

Surveying the field more accurately, I find I have been swept along by how things first appeared to me, and that I must—with help from the simple/complex distinction—limit this general thesis that all our ideas and impressions are resembling. I observe that •many of our complex ideas never had impressions that corresponded to them: I can imagine a city such as the New Jerusalem, with golden pavements and ruby walls, though I never saw such a thing. And I observe that •many of our complex impressions are never exactly copied by ideas: I have seen Paris, but I can’t form an idea of that city that perfectly represents all its streets and houses in all their detail.

So I perceive that although there is in general a great resemblance between our •complex impressions and ideas, it is not true across the board that they are exact copies of each other. Now let us consider how the case stands with our •simple perceptions. After the most accurate examination I am capable of, I venture to say that here the rule holds without exception: that every simple idea has a simple impression that resembles it, and every simple impression has a corresponding idea. The idea of red that we form in the dark differs only in •degree ·of intensity·, not in •nature, from the impression ·of red· that strikes our eyes in sunshine. You can satisfy yourself that I am right about this by going over as many of your simple impressions and ideas as you like; it’s impossible to prove my point by going over all of them! But if anyone should deny this universal resemblance ·between simple impressions and simple ideas·, I don’t know how to convince him except by asking him to show •a simple impression that doesn’t have a corresponding idea, or •a simple idea that has no corresponding impression. If he doesn’t answer this challenge—and it’s certain that he can’t—then his silence and our own observation will suffice to establish our conclusion.

Thus we find that all simple ideas and impressions resemble each other; and as the complex are formed from simple ones we can say generally that these two sorts of perception exactly correspond. Having uncovered this relation, which requires no further examination, I am curious to find some of the other qualities ·of impressions and ideas·. Let us consider what brings them into existence: as between impressions and ideas, which are causes and which are effects?

The full examination of this question is the subject of this book; so I shall here content myself with establishing one general proposition:

All our simple ideas, when they first appear, are derived from simple impressions which correspond to them and which they exactly represent.

In looking for phenomena to support this proposition, I can find only two kinds; but the phenomena of each kind are obvious, numerous, and conclusive.

·As a preliminary to the first kind of phenomenon·, I first go over again in my mind, and make myself certain, of the proposition that I have already asserted, that every simple impression is •attended with a corresponding idea, and every simple idea is •attended with a corresponding impression. From this •constant conjunction of resembling perceptions I immediately conclude that there is a great connection between our corresponding impressions and ideas, and that the existence of the one has a considerable influence on the existence of the other. Such a constant conjunction in such an infinite number of instances can’t arise from chance, but clearly proves a dependence of the impressions on the ideas or of the ideas on the impressions. Wanting to know which way the dependence runs, I consider the order in which these ·simple impressions and ideas· first appear; and I find by constant experience that the simple impressions always come first—it is never the other way around. To give a child an idea of scarlet or orange, of sweet or bitter, I present objects ·that are that colour or taste·—that is, I give him those impressions. I don’t do anything as absurd as trying to give the child the impression by arousing in him the idea! When our ideas occur they don’t produce the corresponding impressions; we don’t see any colour or feel any sensation merely by thinking of them. On the other hand we find that every impression— whether of mind or body—is followed by an idea that resembles it in every way except its degree of force and liveliness. The •constant conjunction of our resembling perceptions is a convincing proof that the one are the •causes of the other; and the fact that the impression always comes first is an equal proof that impressions are the causes of our ideas, not vice versa.

This is confirmed by another plain and convincing phenomenon, namely: whenever someone happens to lack the faculty that gives rise to impressions of some kind—e.g. when someone is born blind or deaf—he lacks not only impressions of that kind but also the corresponding ideas; so that his mind never shows the least traces of either of them. This holds not only where the relevant organs of sensation are entirely destroyed, but also when they haven’t yet been put into action to produce a particular impression; we can’t form an accurate idea of the taste of a pineapple without having actually tasted it.

But there is one phenomenon that goes the other way, and may prove that it is not absolutely impossible for ideas to occur in advance of their corresponding impressions. I think you’ll agree that the various ideas of colours that enter by the eyes are really different from each other, though there are resemblances amongst them; similarly for ideas of sounds that are conveyed by the ·sense of· hearing. If this is true of •different colours, it must equally hold for the •different shades of the same colour that each of them produces a distinct idea that is independent of the others. (If not, then it is possible by the continual gradation of shades to run a colour imperceptibly into what is most remote from it. ·We can create a sequence of colours, each barely perceptibly different from its neighbours, with some colour at the start of the sequence and a totally different one at the end·. If you won’t allow any of the intervening pairs of neighbours to be different, you can’t without absurdity say that the colours at the ends of the sequence are different—·which they patently are·.) Now take the case of someone who has had the use of his eyesight for thirty years, and has become perfectly well acquainted with colours of all kinds except for one particular shade of blue, which he happens never to have encountered. Let all the different shades of blue except that single one be placed before him, descending gradually from the deepest to the lightest. Obviously, he will perceive a blank ·in the sequence· where that shade is missing, and will be aware that the qualitative gap between neighbours is greater at that place than anywhere else in the sequence. Now I ask:

Can he fill this gap from his own imagination, raising up in his mind the idea of that particular shade, even though ·an impression of· it had never been conveyed to him by his senses?

I think most people will agree that he can; and this may serve as a proof that simple ideas are not always derived from corresponding impressions. But this instance is so particular and singular [those are Hume’s adjectives] that it is hardly worth noticing, and isn’t enough on its own to require us to alter our general maxim.

But I ought to mention that the principle that impressions come before ideas is subject not only to the exception (·about the missing shade of blue·) that I have just sketched but also to another limitation, namely: just as our ideas are images [= ‘copies’] of our impressions, so we can form secondary ideas that are images of primary ones; and my own theory allows for this. This is not strictly speaking an exception to the rule ·that impressions come first·, but rather an explanation of it. Ideas produce the images of themselves in new ·secondary· ideas; but as the first ·or primary· ideas are derived from impressions, it still remains true that all our simple ideas come from their corresponding impressions—either immediately or ·as secondary ideas· through the mediation of primary ideas.

This, then, is the first principle I establish in the science of human nature. Don’t despise it because it looks simple. It is a remarkable fact that the present question about •which comes first, impressions or ideas, is the very one that has created so much noise when expressed as the question of •whether there are any innate ideas, or whether all ideas are derived from sensation and reflection. Notice that when philosophers want to show the ideas of extension and colour not to be innate, all they do is to show that those ideas are conveyed by our senses. To show that the ideas of passion and desire are not innate they observe that we have a prior experience of these emotions in ourselves. Now, if we carefully examine these arguments we shall find that they prove only that ideas are preceded by other more lively perceptions, from which they are derived and which they represent. I hope this clear statement of the question will remove all disputes about it, and will render this principle of more use in our reasonings than it seems to have been up to now.

2: Division of the subject

Since it appears that our simple impressions come before their corresponding ideas, and that the exceptions to this are very rare, it seems that the methodical procedure would be to examine our impressions before turning to our ideas. Impressions can be divided into two kinds, those of sensation and those of reflection. •Impressions of sensation arise in the soul itself, from unknown causes. •Impressions of reflection are largely derived from our ideas, in the following way. An impression first strikes on the senses and makes us perceive heat or cold, thirst or hunger, pleasure or pain, of some kind or other. Of this impression the mind makes a copy which remains after the impression ceases; and we call this copy an ‘idea’. When this idea of pleasure or pain recurs in the soul, it produces new impressions of desire and aversion, hope and fear, which may properly be called ‘impressions of reflection’ because they are derived from reflection. These impressions are in turn copied by the memory and imagination and become ·sources of· ideas, which in their turn may give rise to yet other impressions and ideas. Thus the impressions of reflection come before their corresponding ideas but come after impressions of sensation and are derived from them. The study of our sensations belongs more to anatomists and natural philosophers than to moral philosophers [= ‘belongs more to anatomists and natural scientists than to philosophers and scientists interested in the human condition’]; so I shan’t go into it here. And as the impressions of reflection—that is, the passions, desires, and emotions— that mainly deserve our attention arise mostly from ideas, we must reverse the method that seems most natural at first sight: in explaining the nature and principles of the human mind, we must deal in detail with ideas before we proceed to impressions. That is why I have chosen to begin with ideas.

[Important note: Most of Hume’s uses of ‘principle’ in Treatise I, including the one we have just met, give it a meaning that it often had in his day, namely that of ‘source’, ‘cause’, ‘drive’, ‘mechanism’ or the like. From now on, every occurrence of the word in that sense will be written as ‘principlec, suggesting ‘principle = cause’. A ‘principle’ without the subscript is a proposition, usually a premise but sometimes a conclusion.]

3: Memory and imagination

We find by experience that when an impression has been present to the mind, it re-appears there later as an idea; and it can do this in either of two ways: •when in its new appearance it retains a good deal of its first liveliness and is intermediate between an impression and an idea; or •when it entirely loses that liveliness and is a perfect idea. The faculty by which we repeat our impressions in the first manner is called the ‘memory’, and the other the ‘imagination’. You can see at a glance that the ideas of the memory are much livelier and stronger than those of the imagination, and that the memory paints its objects in sharper colours than the imagination uses. When we remember a past event, the idea of it flows in on the mind in a forcible manner; whereas in the imagination the perception is faint and languid, and the mind can’t easily keep it steady and uniform for any considerable time. Here, then, is a noticeable difference between one species of ideas and another. But of this more fully hereafter, in I.iii.5.

Another, equally obvious, difference between these two kinds of ideas is this: though neither the ideas of the memory nor those of imagination— neither the lively ideas nor the faint ones—can appear in the mind unless their corresponding impressions have gone before to prepare the way for them, the imagination isn’t bound to keep the same order and form as the original impressions had, whereas the memory is in a way tied down in that respect, without any power of variation.

It is evident that the memory preserves the form in which its objects were originally presented, and that when we depart from that form in recollecting something, this comes from some defect or imperfection in that faculty. An historian may find it more convenient to relate one event before another which in fact occurred before it, but then, if he is careful, he comments on this re-ordering, and thereby puts the relevant ideas back in their right order. Similarly with our recollection of places and persons with which we were formerly acquainted: the chief exercise of the memory is not to preserve the simple ideas, but to preserve their order and ·temporal· position. In short, this principle is supported by so many common and everyday phenomena that I needn’t trouble to insist on it any further.

Equally evident is the second principle, of the imagination’s liberty to transpose and change its ideas. The fables we meet with in poems and romances put this quite beyond doubt. Nature there is totally confounded, with stories full of winged horses, fiery dragons, and monstrous giants. This liberty of the fancy [= ‘imagination’] won’t appear strange when we consider that all our ideas are copied from our impressions, and that no two impressions are perfectly inseparable; ·so that there are no constraints on how freely ideas may be assembled and re-arranged·. Not to mention that this is an evident consequence of the division of ideas into simple and complex. Wherever the imagination perceives a difference among ideas it can easily produce a separation.

4: Association of ideas

The imagination, then, can separate ideas and then re-unite them in whatever form it pleases; so its operations would be perfectly inexplicable—·a meaningless jumble of random events·—if it weren’t guided by some universal principlesc that give some uniformity to its doings at different times. If ideas were entirely loose and unconnected, they would be joined ·in the imagination· purely by chance; and in that case it couldn’t happen—as in fact it often does—that the same simple ideas regularly came together into complex ones. For that there needs to be some •bond of union among them, some •associating quality by which one idea naturally introduces another. This •uniting principlec among ideas is not an unbreakable connection, for that has been already excluded from the imagination; nor should we conclude that the mind cannot join two ideas without this uniting principlec, for nothing is more free than the imagination, ·which can join any two ideas it pleases·. We should regard the uniting principlec only as •a gentle force that •usually dominates, ·not as an •irresistibly strong one that •always dominates·. Among the things it explains is the fact that languages so nearly correspond to one another: it is because Nature has (in a way) pointed out to everyone the simple ideas that are most suitable for being united into a complex one.

The relations that give rise to this association ·of ideas·, in this way carrying the mind from one idea to another, are these three: •resemblance, •contiguity [= ‘nextness’] in time or place, and •cause and effect. [Hume calls the three relations ‘qualities’, but only in this paragraph.] I don’t think I have much need to show that these ·three· relations produce an association between ideas such that when one appears it is naturally followed by another. It is plainly the case that in the course of our thinking and in the constant turn-over of our ideas our imagination runs easily from one idea to any other that •resembles it, and that this quality alone is for the imagination a sufficient bond and association. It is likewise evident that as the senses have to move from object to object in a regular manner, taking them as they lie •contiguous to each other, so the imagination also must become accustomed to following the same pattern in its thinking, and run along the parts of space and time in conceiving its objects. The •relation of cause and effect will be thoroughly examined later, so I shan’t say much now about its role in creating associations of ideas. I merely say that there is no relation that produces a stronger connection in the fancy, and makes one idea more readily recall another, than the relation of cause and effect between their objects.

To understand the full extent of these ·three· relations, we must grasp that two objects are connected together in the imagination not only when •one is immediately related to the other by resemblance or contiguity or cause-effect, but also when •a third object comes between them and is related in one of the ways to them both. This can be carried on to a great length, though each lengthening of the chain considerably weakens ·the association of ideas that comes from· the relation. Fourth-cousins are connected by causation (if I may so express myself), but not as closely as brothers are, let alone children and their parents. In general all the bloodrelationships depend on cause and effect, and are regarded as close or distant according to how many connecting causes are interposed between the persons.

Of the three relations above mentioned, causation is the most extensive. Two objects can be considered as related by it not only when one is the cause of •the existence of the other but also when one is the cause of •some action or motion of the other. . . . This line of thought goes further: two objects are connected by the cause- effect relation not only when one •does produce a motion or action in the other but also when it •has the power to produce it. This, we can see, is the source of all the relations of ·self·-interest and duty by which men influence each other in society, leading to some being governors and others subordinates. A master is someone whose situation gives him—whether by force or by prior agreement—a power of directing some of the actions of someone else whom we call servant. A judge is one who can by his opinion settle questions of ownership that are disputed between members of the society. When someone has a power, all that is needed to turn it into action is the exercise of his will; and his exercising it is in every case regarded as possible, and in many cases as probable—especially in ones where there is authority, where the subject’s obedience will bring pleasure and advantage to the master.

These, then, are the principlesc of union or cohesion among our simple ideas, providing in our imagination a substitute for the tighter links that ideas have in our memory. This ·association of ideas· is a kind of attraction, which in the mental world will be found to have effects as extraordinary as ·those of attraction or gravity· in the physical world, and to show itself in as many and as various forms. Its effects are everywhere conspicuous; but its causes are mostly unknown, and must be assigned to basic qualities of human nature that I don’t claim to explain. What a true philosopher needs most is to restrain the immoderate desire to search into causes; and, having established a doctrine on the basis of a sufficient number of experiments, to rest content with that when he sees that a further enquiry ·into its causes· would lead him into obscure and uncertain speculations. In that case he would spend his time and energy better in examining the •effects of his principle than in examining its •causes.

Among the effects of this union or association of ideas, none are more remarkable than the complex ideas that are the common subjects of our thoughts and reasoning, and that generally arise from some principlec of union among our simple ideas. These complex ideas can be divided into •relations, •modes, and •substances. I shall briefly examine these in order; and shall ·in section 7· add some considerations about our general and particular ideas. That will bring me to the end of ·Part i and of· the present subject, which can be considered as the elements of this philosophy.

5: Relations

The word ‘relation’ is commonly used in two senses considerably different from each other: either for a •quality by which two ideas are connected in the imagination so that one naturally introduces the other, in the way I have explained; or for a •particular basis on which we may see fit to compare two ideas which we choose to bring together in the fancy (·without either of them naturally leading to the other·).

[In Hume’s time, ‘comparing’ two things could be simply bringing them together in a single thought, not necessarily a thought about their being alike. (We still have that usage in the expression ‘Let’s get together and compare notes’.) That broader, weaker sense of ‘compare’ seems clearly to be sometimes at work in the present section, but in the paragraph labelled ‘1.’ our more usual narrower sense seems to be assumed.]

What is called a ‘relation’ in common speech is always the former; only in philosophy do we extend the word to cover any particular basis of comparison when there is no connecting principlec. For example, distance will be classified by philosophers as a true relation, because we acquire an idea of it by comparing objects; but in everyday speech we say things like ‘Nothing can be more distant than the furthest star and the earth; no two things can have less relation’, as if distance and relation were incompatible.

[For Hume, relations don’t divide into •philosophical and •natural; and when he writes as though they do, he is using ‘philosophical’ as short-hand for ‘only philosophical’ or ‘philosophical and not natural’.]

It may be thought an endless task to enumerate all the qualities that make objects admit of comparison, and by which the ideas of philosophical relation are produced. But if we look carefully we shall find that they can easily be put into seven kinds, which can be considered as the sources of all philosophical relation ·and thus of all relation·.

1. The first is •resemblance. This is a relation without which no philosophical relation can exist, for no objects can be compared unless they have some degree of resemblance. But though resemblance is necessary for all philosophical relation, it doesn’t follow that it always produces a connection or association of ideas. When a quality becomes very general, and is common to a great many individuals, it doesn’t lead the mind directly to any one of them, because there is too great a choice for the imagination to fix on any single object.

2. •Identity can be counted as a second kind of relation. This relation I here consider as applied in its strictest sense to constant and unchanging objects, without examining the nature and foundation of personal identity, which will be discussed later (·in I.iv.6·). Identity is the most universal of all relations, because it is common to every thing that stays in existence for any period of time.

3. The next most universal and comprehensive relations,after identity, are those of •space and time, which are the sources of an infinite number of comparisons, such as distant, contiguous, above, below, before, after, etc.

4. All objects that admit of •quantity or number can be compared in that respect, which is another very fertile source of relation.

5. When two objects have a quality in common, the •degrees to which they have it form a fifth species of relation. Thus, of two objects that both have weight, one may be lighter or heavier than the other. Two colours of the same kind may be of different shades, and in that respect admit of comparison.

6. The relation of •contrariety might at first be regarded as an exception to the rule that no relation of any kind can hold between two things without some degree of resemblance between them. But bear in mind that no two ideas are in themselves ·flatly and absolutely· contrary except those of existence and non-existence; and it is clear that ·even· these—·contrary though they are·—are resembling, because each of them conveys an idea of the object, though the latter excludes the object from times and places at which it is supposed not to exist.

7. All other objects—such as fire and water, heat and cold—are found to be contrary only by experience, and from the contrariety of their causes or effects; and this relation of •cause and effect is a seventh philosophical relation, as well as a natural one. The resemblance implied in this relation will be explained later.

You might naturally have expected me to include difference among the relations; but I regard difference as a negation of relation rather than as anything real or positive. Difference is of two kinds, as opposed either to identity or resemblance. The first is called difference of number, the other difference of kind.

6: Modes and substances

I have a question for those philosophers who base so much of their reasoning on the distinction between substance and accident [= ‘quality’], and who imagine that we have clear ideas of each. Is the idea of substance—I ask—derived from impressions of sensation or of reflection? If ·the former, that is, if· it is conveyed to us by our senses, I ask: Which of our senses, and how? If it is perceived by the eyes, it must be a colour; if by the ears, a sound; if by the palate, a taste; and so on with the other senses. But I don’t think anyone will say that substance is a colour, a sound, or a taste! So the idea of substance must be derived from an impression of reflection, if it really exists. But the impressions of reflection come down to our passions and emotions, and none of those can possibly represent a substance. So we have no idea of substance other than the idea of a collection of particular qualities, and such collections are all we can meaningfully refer to when we talk or think about ‘substance’.

The idea of a •substance, as well as that of a •mode, is nothing but a collection of simple ideas that are united by the imagination and assigned a particular name by which we can recall that collection to ourselves or to others. But the difference between these two sorts of ideas comes from the following facts about the ideas of •substances. The particular qualities that form a substance are commonly referred to an unknown ·and fictional· something in which they are supposed to inhere; or, when this fiction doesn’t occur, the qualities in the collection are at least supposed to be closely and inseparably connected by the relations of contiguity and causation. The effect of this is that when we discover some new simple quality to have the same connection with the rest ·as they have with one another·, we immediately include it among them, even though it didn’t enter into our first conception of the substance. Thus our idea of gold may at first be a yellow colour, weight, malleableness, and fusibility; but when we learn that it is soluble in aqua regia we join that to the other qualities and suppose it to belong to the substance as much as if its idea had been part of the compound one from the outset. The uniting force of the qualities is regarded as the chief part of the complex idea, so it provides a way into the complex idea for any quality that turns up later— letting that quality in along with the ones that first presented themselves.

To see that this can’t happen with •modes, consider their nature. The simple ideas out of which modes are formed either represent

qualities that are not united by contiguity and causation, but are scattered through different subjects;

or, if they are all united together,

the uniting principlec is not regarded as the foundation of the complex idea.

The idea of a dance is an instance of the first kind of mode; the idea of beauty an example of the second. It is obvious why complex ideas of this kind can’t admit any new idea without changing the name that has been given to the mode.

7: Abstract ideas

An important question has been raised about abstract or general ideas, namely: Are they general or particular in the mind’s conception of them? A great philosopher—Dr Berkeley—has challenged the usual opinion about this, and has asserted that a general idea is nothing but a particular idea attached to a certain word that gives it a wider application and makes it recall (when needed) other individuals that are similar to it. As I regard this as one of the greatest and most valuable scholarly discoveries that has been made in recent years, I shall try here to confirm it by some arguments that I hope will put it beyond all doubt and controversy.

It is evident that in forming most (if not all) of our general ideas we abstract from every particular degree of quantity and quality, and that objects aren’t prevented from belonging to the same species by small differences in size, duration, or other properties. It might be thought that we are here confronted by a plain dilemma, which will let us settle the nature of those ‘abstract ideas’ that philosophers have speculated about so much. ·Here is how the argument runs·:

The abstract idea of man represents men of all sizes and all qualities, and there are only two ways it might do that: by •representing all possible sizes and all possible qualities at once, or by •representing no particular sizes or qualities at all. The former of these is absurd, because it implies an infinite capacity in the mind. So we must opt for the latter, and suppose that our abstract ideas represent no particular degree of quantity or quality.

I shall try to show that this inference is erroneous, by arguing •that it is utterly impossible to conceive any quantity or quality without forming a precise notion of its degrees; and secondly •that though the capacity of the mind is not infinite we can form—all at once—a notion of all possible degrees of quantity and quality. However imperfect our way of doing this may be, it may at least ·be good enough to· serve all the purposes of thought and conversation. (·My first point challenges the argument’s conclusion; my second undercuts one of its premises·.)

To begin with the first proposition, that the mind can’t form any notion of quantity or quality without forming a precise notion of degrees of each, we can prove this by the following three arguments. Firstly, I have observed that

whatever objects are different are distinguishable, and that whatever objects are distinguishable are separable by the thought and imagination.

Now we should bring in the converse propositions:

whatever objects are separable are also distinguishable, and whatever objects are distinguishable are also different.

For how could we separate what is not distinguishable, or distinguish what is not different? With this in hand, let us examine whether all the circumstances that we abstract out of a general idea are distinguishable and different from those that we retain as essential parts of the idea. It is clear straight off that •the precise length of a line is not different or distinguishable from •the line itself; ·and more generally that· the precise degree of any quality is not different or distinguishable from the quality. Since these don’t admit of distinction and difference, they don’t admit of separation either (·following the second of the propositions displayed above·). So they are ·inseparably· conjoined with each other in the conception: our general idea of a line, notwithstanding all our abstractions and refinements, has in its appearance in the mind a precise degree of quantity and quality. Even if it is made to represent other lines that have different degrees of both, ·it doesn’t do this by not having any degree of either·.

Secondly, it is admitted that no object can appear to the senses— i.e. that no impression can become present to the mind—without being determinate in its degrees both of quantity and quality. Impressions are sometimes confused, but only because they are faint or unsteady, not because the mind can receive any impression that in itself has no particular degree nor proportion! Such an impression would be a contradiction in terms, and even implies the flattest of all contradictions, namely that it is possible for something both to be and not to be.

Now, since all ideas are •derived from impressions and are nothing but •copies and •representations of them, whatever is true of the one must be admitted to hold also for the other. Impressions and ideas differ only in their strength and liveliness. What I have said ·about impressions’ having to be determinate in quantity and quality· wasn’t based on their having a certain degree of liveliness, so it must hold equally for perceptions that are less lively. So: an idea is a weaker impression; and, as a strong impression must necessarily have a determinate quantity and quality, the same must hold for its copy or representative.

Thirdly, it is a principle generally accepted in philosophy that every thing in Nature is individual, and that it is utterly absurd to suppose (for instance) a really existent triangle that has no precise proportion of sides and angles. If this is absurd in fact and reality, therefore, it must also be absurd in idea, since nothing of which we can form a clear and distinct idea is absurd and impossible. But forming the idea of an object and forming an idea is the same thing; describing the idea as ‘of an object’ merely relates it to something outside it and says nothing about its own character. Now, as it is impossible to

form an idea of an object that has quantity and quality but no precise degree of either,

it follows that it is equally impossible to

form an idea that itself has quantity and quality but no precise degree of either.

So abstract ideas are •in themselves individual, even when they become •general in their representation. The image in the mind is only that of a particular object, though the application of it in our reasoning may be the same as if it were universal. ·Now I turn to the question of how we apply such ideas in our reasoning·.

This application of ideas beyond their nature—·that is, their being used universally although in their own nature they are particular·—comes from our bundling together all their possible degrees of quantity and quality, in a rough and ready way that serves for everyday purposes. This is the second proposition I proposed to explain ·in my initial criticism of the ‘dilemma’ argument· . When we have found a resemblance among a number of objects that we often encounter, we apply a single name to all of them, whatever differences we may observe in the degrees of their quantity and quality, and whatever other differences may appear among them.[2]

After we have become accustomed to using the word in that way, the hearing of it revives ·in our mind· the idea of one of these objects, and makes the imagination conceive it in all its particular detail. But the same word is supposed to have been frequently applied to other individuals that are different in many respects from the idea that is immediately present to the mind, and the word can’t revive the idea of all these individuals; so all it does is to touch the soul (if I may put it like that) and revive the custom that we have acquired by surveying them. Those individuals are present to the mind not •actually but •only potentially. We don’t portray them all distinctly in the imagination, but keep ourselves ready to survey any of them when we are so prompted by a present plan or by necessity. The word raises up an •individual idea along with a certain •custom, and that custom produces any other individual idea that comes to be appropriate. But as the production of all the ideas to which the name may be applied is in most cases impossible, we shorten the work by a more partial consideration, and we find few inconveniences arising in our reasoning from that abridgment.

For this is one of the most extraordinary aspects of this business, that after we have done some reasoning with an individual idea in our mind, the associated custom—revived by the general or abstract word ·that we use to name the original idea·—readily brings to mind any other individual ·to which the word also applies·, if by chance we have gone wrong in our reasoning. For example, if we used the word ‘triangle’ and formed the idea of a particular equilateral one to correspond to it, and if we went on to assert that the three angles of a triangle are equal to each other, all the individual triangles that we have overlooked—the ones that are not equilateral—would immediately crowd in on us and make us see the falsehood of what we had just said, even though it was true in relation to the idea we ·first· formed. If the mind doesn’t always suggest these ideas when it would be appropriate to do so, that comes from some imperfection in its faculties—an imperfection that is often the source of false reasoning and sophistry. But this is principally the case with ideas that are abstruse and compounded. On other occasions the custom is more entire [= ‘holds together more firmly’], and we don’t often run into such errors.

Indeed, so entire is the custom that the very same idea may be attached to several different words and used in different reasonings, with no danger of mistake. Thus the idea of an equilateral triangle of an inch perpendicular may serve us when we are talking of a

‘figure’,

‘rectilinear figure’,

‘regular figure’,

‘triangle’, or

‘equilateral triangle’.

In this case all these terms are associated with the same idea; but as the terms are standardly applied to smaller or larger ranges of particulars, each arouses its special habit ·and no confusion need arise·. . . . Before those habits have become entirely perfect, the mind may sometimes not be content with forming the idea of only one individual, and may instead run over several ideas so as to make itself grasp its own meaning and the range of the collection that it intends to express by the general term. Wanting to fix the meaning of the word ‘shape’, we may revolve in our mind the ideas of circles, squares, parallelograms, triangles of different sizes and proportions, not resting on one image or idea. Still, it is certain that •when we use any general term we form the idea of individuals, that •we can seldom if ever bring all these individuals to mind, and that •the ones we don’t bring to mind are represented only by means of the habit by which we recall them when there is a need to. This then is the nature of our abstract ideas and general terms; and this is how I deal with the foregoing paradox, that some ideas are particular in their nature but general in their representation. A particular idea becomes general by being attached to a general term; i.e. to a term that is related by a customary conjunction to many other particular ideas which it readily recalls in the imagination.

If there remains any difficulty in this subject, it must concern the custom that so readily recalls every particular idea for which we may have need, and is triggered by any word or sound to which we commonly attach it. The most proper method of explaining this act of the mind, I think, is by producing other instances that are analogous to it, and other forces that help it to operate. It is impossible to explain the ultimate causes of our mental actions; it’s enough to give a satisfactory account of them from experience and analogy. First, then, I observe that when we mention any great number, such as a thousand, the mind has generally no adequate idea of it but only a power of producing such an idea through its adequate idea of the decimals under which the number is comprehended. This imperfection in our ideas, however, never affects our reasonings; so this seems to be an instance parallel to the one about universal ideas that I have been discussing.

Secondly, we have several instances of habits that can be revived by a single word; as when a person who has learned by rote a speech or poem, and then can’t remember it, will call the whole thing to mind once he is given the single word or phrase with which it begins.

Thirdly, if you examine what goes on in your mind in reasoning, I think will agree with me that we don’t attach distinct and complete ideas to every term we use: in talking of ‘government’, ‘church’, ‘negotiation’, ‘conquest’, we seldom spread out in our minds all the simple ideas of which these complex ones are composed. Despite this imperfection, however, we can avoid talking nonsense on these subjects and can perceive any conflicts among the ideas as well as if we had them fully in our minds. Thus, if instead of saying that in war the weaker always have recourse to negotiation we should say that they always have recourse to conquest, the custom we have acquired of attributing certain relations to ideas still follows the words and makes us immediately perceive the absurdity of that proposition. This is like the way in which one particular idea can serve us in reasoning concerning other ideas, however much they differ from it in some respects.

Fourthly, when the individuals are collected together and put under a general term on the basis of their resemblance to one another, this relation must •make it easier for them to enter the imagination, and •make them more likely to be suggested when there is a need for them. And, indeed, if we consider the usual way our thoughts move in private thought and in conversation, we shall find good reason to be convinced of this. The imagination has an admirable readiness to suggest its ideas and to present them at the very instant when they are necessary or useful. In collecting the ideas that belong to a subject, the fancy runs from one end of the universe to the other: one might think that we could see the whole intellectual world of ideas all at once, and that all we did was to pick out the ideas that best suited our purpose. But it may be that really the only ideas that we have ·at such a moment· are the ·seemingly ‘picked out’ ones·—the very ideas that are thus collected by a kind of magical faculty in the soul. This faculty is always most perfect in the greatest geniuses—and is properly what we call ‘genius’—but it can’t be explained by the utmost efforts of human understanding.

Perhaps these four reflections will help to remove the obstacles to accepting my hypothesis about abstract ideas, contrary as it is to what has previously prevailed in philosophy. But to tell the truth, my chief source of confidence lies in what I have already proved about the impossibility of general ideas according to the usual account of them. ·Because of that proof·, we have to look for some other account of general ideas, and clearly mine is the only candidate. If ideas are •particular in their nature and •finite in their number, the only way they can become•general in their representation and •contain infinitely many other ideas under them is through custom.

Before I leave this subject, I shall employ the same principles to explain that ‘distinction of reason’ that is so much talked of, and so little understood, in the schools [= (roughly) ‘philosophy departments dominated by Aristotelian ideas’]. Examples of this are the distinctions •between shape and the body that has the shape, and •between motion and the body that moves. It is hard to make sense of this ‘distinction’ in light of the principle— explained above—that all ideas that are different are separable. For it implies that if the shape is different from the body ·that has it·, their ideas must be separable as well as distinguishable, ·which plainly they are not·. . . . What then is meant by a ‘distinction of reason’, since it implies neither a difference nor separation? To remove this difficulty, we must rely on the account I have given of abstract ideas. It is certain that nobody would ever have dreamed of distinguishing a shape from the shaped body— from which it is in reality not distinguishable or different or separable—if it hadn’t been noticed that even this simple shaped body (·which is ‘simple’ in the sense that it can’t be divided into two elements, the shape and the body·) has many different resemblances and relations ·to other things·. For example, when we see a globe of white marble, we receive only the impression of a white colour laid out in a certain shape, and we can’t separate and distinguish the colour from the shape. But when we later see a globe of black marble and a cube of white, and compare them with our former object, we find two separate resemblances in something that formerly seemed, and really was, quite incapable of being separated out into two components. After a little more practice of this kind, we begin to distinguish the shape from the colour by a distinction of reason; that is, we consider the shape and colour together, since they are in effect the same and undistinguishable; but still we view them in different aspects, according to the resemblances they can enter into. Wanting to consider only the shape of the globe of white marble, we actually form an idea of both the shape and the colour, but we have our eye on its resemblance to the globe of black marble; and when we want to consider its colour only, we look to its resemblance to the cube of white marble. In this way we accompany our ideas with a kind of reflection of which custom makes us largely unaware. Someone who asks us to consider the shape of a globe of white marble without thinking of its colour is asking for an impossibility; but what he means to ask is that we consider the colour and shape together, but still keep our eye on the resemblance to the globe of black marble or to any other globe of whatever colour or substance.

NOTES

[1] I hope you will allow me to use the words ‘impression’ and ‘idea’ in senses different from their usual ones. Perhaps, indeed, I am restoring ‘idea’ to its original sense, from which Mr Locke has perverted it by making it stand for all our perceptions. By the term ‘impression’ I don’t mean anything about how our lively perceptions are produced in the soul; I merely label the perceptions themselves; and for this I don’t know any particular name, in English or any other language.

[2] It is obvious that different ideas—even simple ones—can have a similarity or resemblance to each other; and the respect in which they are alike need not be distinct or separable from respects in which they differ. Blue and green are different simple ideas, but they are more alike than are blue and scarlet; though their perfect simplicity makes it impossible to separate or distinguish their respect of similarity. The same holds for particular sounds, tastes, and smells. These can be alike in countless ways, taking them as wholes, without having any ·separable· feature in common. And we can be sure of this general point by considering the very abstract phrase ‘simple idea’. This covers all simple ideas, and these •resemble each other in that they are all simple. Yet precisely because they are simple, and thus have no complexity or compoundedness about them, this •respect in which they are all alike is not distinguishable or separable from the rest. It is the same case with the different degrees of a quality: they are all alike, yet the quality in any individual is not distinct from the degree—·we can’t, even in thought, separate a thing’s bright-blueness into two components of which one is mere blueness·.

Part ii: The ideas of space and time

1: The infinite divisibility of our ideas of space and time

When a philosopher comes up with something that looks like a paradox and is contrary to basic beliefs of ordinary folk, ·it often fares better than it deserves, for two reasons·. •It is greedily embraced by philosophers, who think it shows the superiority of their discipline that could discover opinions so far from common beliefs. •When something surprising and dazzling confronts us, it gives our minds a pleasurable sort of satisfaction that we can’t think is absolutely baseless. These dispositions in •philosophers and •their disciples give rise to a relation of mutual comfort between them: •the former furnish many strange and unaccountable opinions, and •the latter readily believe them. I can’t give a plainer example of this symbiosis than the doctrine of infinite divisibility. It will be the first topic in my discussion of the ideas of space and time.

Everyone agrees—and the plainest observation and experience makes it obvious—that the capacity of the mind is limited, and can never attain a full and adequate conception of infinity. It is also obvious that whatever is capable of being divided in infinitum must consist of an infinite number of parts: if you limit the number of parts, you thereby limit the ·possible· division. It doesn’t take much work to conclude from this that the idea we form of any finite quality is not infinitely divisible, and that by proper distinctions and separations we can reduce it to lesser ideas that are perfectly simple [= ‘without parts’] and indivisible. In denying that the mind’s capacity is infinite we are supposing that it will come to an end in the division of its ideas; and there is no possible escape from this conclusion. [‘Infinite’ comes from Latin meaning ‘no end’.] So it is certain that the imagination reaches a minimum, and can form in itself an idea of which it can’t conceive any subdivision—one that can’t be diminished without a total annihilation. When you tell me of •the thousandth and •ten thousandth part of a grain of sand, I have a distinct idea of these numbers and of their different proportions; but the images I form in my mind to represent the things themselves are not different from each other and are not smaller than the that image by which I represent •the grain of sand itself, which is supposed to be so much bigger. What consists of parts is distinguishable into them, and what is distinguishable is separable. But, whatever we may imagine of the thing, the idea of a grain of sand is not distinguishable or separable into twenty different ideas—much less into a thousand, ten thousand, or an infinite number of them! The impressions of the senses are the same in this respect as the ideas of the imagination. Put a spot of ink on paper, fix your eye on that spot, and move away just far enough so that you lose sight of it: it is obvious that the moment before it vanished the image or impression ·of the spot· was perfectly indivisible. Why do small parts of distant bodies not convey any sensible impression to us? It is not for lack of rays of light ·from them· striking our eyes. Rather, it is because they are further away than the distance at which their impressions •were reduced to a minimum and •couldn’t be diminished any further. A telescope that makes them visible doesn’t produce any new rays of light, but merely spreads out the rays that always flowed from them: in that way the telescope •gives parts to impressions that had appeared simple and uncompounded to the naked eye, and •advances to a minimum what was formerly imperceptible. The explanation of what a microscope does is essentially the same.

From this we can discover the error of the common opinion that the capacity of the mind is limited on both sides, and that the imagination can’t possibly form an adequate idea of anything below a certain size or above a certain size. Nothing can be more minute than some ideas that we form in the imagination, and some images that appear to the senses, for there are ideas and images that are perfectly simple and indivisible, ·and nothing can be smaller than that·. The only defect of our senses is that they give us wrongly proportioned images of things, representing as tiny and uncompounded what is really large and composed of a vast number of parts. We aren’t aware of this mistake. ·Take the example of a very tiny insect such as a mite·. When we see a mite we take that impression to be equal or nearly equal in size to the mite itself; then finding by reason that there are objects much smaller than that—·for example, the small parts of the mite·—we rashly conclude that these things are smaller than any idea of our imagination or impression of our senses. But it is certain that we can form ideas that are no bigger than the smallest atom of the animal spirits of an insect a thousand times smaller than a mite. [‘Animal spirits’ were thought to be extremely finely divided fluids in animal bodies —more fluid and finely divided than air or water.] We ought rather to conclude that the difficulty lies in enlarging our conceptions enough to form a just notion of a mite, or even of an insect a thousand times less than a mite. For in order to form a just notion of these animals we must have a distinct idea representing each part of them; and that, according to the system of infinite divisibility, is utterly impossible, and according to the system of indivisible parts or atoms it is extremely difficult because of the vast number and multiplicity of these parts.

2: The infinite divisibility of space and time

When ideas adequately represent objects, the relations, contradictions, and agreements among the ideas all hold also among the objects; and we can see this to be the general foundation of all human knowledge. But our ideas are adequate representations of the tiniest parts of extended things, so no parts of the things—through whatever divisions and subdivisions we may suppose them to be arrived at—can be smaller than some ideas that we form. The plain consequence, to be drawn with no shuffling or dodging, is that whatever appears impossible and contradictory in relation to these •ideas must be really impossible and contradictory ·in relation to the •things·.

Everything that is capable of being infinitely divided contains an infinite number of parts; otherwise the division would be stopped short by the indivisible parts that we would arrive at. So

if •anything of finite size is infinitely divisible, then •it can’t be a contradiction to suppose that an extended thing of finite size contains an infinite number of parts;

and, putting the same thing the other way around,

if •it is a contradiction to suppose that a finite thing contains an infinite number of parts, then •no finitely extended thing can be infinitely divisible.

The thesis that a finite thing can be infinitely divided is absurd, as I easily convince myself by considering my clear ideas. I first take the smallest idea I can form of a part of the extended world, and being certain that there is nothing smaller than this idea, I conclude that whatever I discover by means of it must be a real quality of extended things. I then repeat this idea once, twice, thrice, and so on; this repetition brings it about that my compound idea of extension grows larger and larger, becoming double, triple, quadruple, etc. what it was before, until eventually it swells up to a considerable size—larger or smaller depending on how often I repeat the same idea. When I stop adding parts, the idea of extension stops enlarging; and if I continued the addition in infinitum, my idea of extension—this is clear—would have to become infinite. From all this I infer that the idea of •an infinite number of parts is just the idea of •an infinite extension; that no finite extension can contain an infinite number of parts; and, consequently that no finite extended thing is infinitely divisible.[1]

Let me add another argument, proposed by a noted author (Monsieur Malezieu), which seems to me very strong and beautiful. It is obvious that existence in itself belongs only to unity, and is applicable to number only on the strength of the units of which the number is composed. Twenty men may be said to exist; but it is only because one, two, three, four, etc. are existent; and if you deny the existence of the individual men the existence of the twenty automatically falls. So it is utterly absurd to suppose that a number ·of items· exists and yet deny the existence of individual items. Now, according to the common opinion of metaphysicians ·who believe that whatever is extended is divisible·, what is extended is always a number of items and never resolves itself into a unit or indivisible quantity; from which it follows that what is extended can never exist! It is no use replying that a determinate quantity of extension is a unit, though one that admits of an infinite number of fractions and can be subdivided without limit. For by that standard these twenty men can be considered as a unit. The whole planet earth, indeed the whole universe, can be considered as a unit. That kind of ‘unity’ involves a merely fictitious label that the mind can apply to any quantity of objects that it collects together; that sort of ‘unity’ can no more exist alone than number can, because really it is a true number ·masquerading under a false label· .The unity that can exist alone and whose existence is necessary to that of all number is of another kind; it must be perfectly indivisible and incapable of being resolved into any lesser unity.

All this reasoning applies also to ·the infinite divisibility of· time, along with a further argument that we ought to take notice of. A property of time that it cannot lose—it is in a way time’s essence—is that its parts come in succession, and that no two of them, however close, can exist together. Every •moment must be distinct from—later or earlier than—each other •moment, for the same reason that the •year 1737 cannot coexist with the present •year 1738. This makes it certain that time, because it exists, must be composed of indivisible moments. For if we could never arrive at an end of the division of time, and if each moment as it succeeds another were not perfectly single and indivisible, there would be an infinite number of coexistent moments or parts of time, ·namely the parts of the moment·; and I think this will be agreed to be an outright contradiction.

The infinite divisibility of space implies that of time, as is evident from the nature of motion. So if time can’t be infinitely divisible, space can’t be either.

Even the most obstinate defender of infinite divisibility will surely concede that these arguments are ‘difficulties’, and that no perfectly clear and satisfactory answer can be given to them. Let me point out here the absurdity of this custom of trying to evade the force and evidentness of something that claims to be a demonstration [= ‘a logically rigorous proof’] by calling it a ‘difficulty’. It doesn’t happen with demonstrations, as it does with probabilities, that difficulties crop up and one argument counterbalances another and lessens its force. If a demonstration is sound, it can’t admit of an opposing difficulty; and if it is not sound it is nothing—a mere trick—and can’t itself be a difficulty. It is either •irresistible or •without any force at all. If in a topic like our present one you talk of ‘objections’ and ‘replies’, and of ‘balancing’ arguments ·pro and con·, you are either accepting that human reasoning is nothing but word-play or showing that you don’t have the intellectual capacity needed for such subjects. A demonstration may be difficult to understand because of the abstractedness of its subject; but it can’t have difficulties that will weaken its authority once it has been understood.

It is true that mathematicians are given to saying that there are equally strong arguments on the other side of our present question, and that the doctrine of indivisible points is also open to unanswerable objections. I shall examine these arguments and objections in detail ·in sections 4 and 5·; but first I will take them all together and try to prove through a short and decisive reason that it is utterly impossible for them to have a sound basis. ·This will occupy the remainder of this section; in section 3 I shall present some further doctrine about the ideas of space and (especially) time, and sections 4–5 will address objections to this further doctrine as well as objections to my view about divisibility·. It is an established maxim in metaphysics that

Whatever the mind clearly conceives includes the idea of possible existence—that is, nothing that we imagine is absolutely impossible.

We can form the idea of a golden mountain, from which we conclude that such a mountain could actually exist. We can form no idea of a mountain without a valley, and therefore regard it as impossible.

Now, it is certain that we have an idea of extension, for how otherwise could we talk and reason about it? It is also certain that this idea as conceived by the imagination, though divisible into parts or smaller ideas, is not infinitely divisible and doesn’t consist of an infinite number of parts; for that would exceed the grasp of our limited capacities. So there we have it: an idea of extension consisting of parts or lesser ideas that are perfectly indivisible; so this idea implies no contradiction: so it is •possible for extension reality also to be like that; so all the •arguments that have been brought against the •possibility of mathematical points are mere scholastic quibbles that don’t deserve our attention.

We can carry this line of argument one step further, concluding that all the purported demonstrations of the infinite divisibility of the extended are equally invalid; because it is certain that these demonstrations cannot be sound without proving the impossibility of mathematical points; which it is an evident absurdity to claim to do.

3: The other qualities of our ideas of space and time

For deciding all controversies regarding ideas, no discovery could have been more fortunate than the one I have mentioned, that

impressions always precede ideas, and every ·simple· idea that comes into the imagination first makes its appearance in a corresponding impression.

These •impressions are all so clear and evident that they there is no argument about them, though many of our •ideas are so obscure that it is almost impossible even for the mind in which they occur to say exactly what they are like and how they are made up. Let us apply this principle with a view to revealing more about the nature of our ideas of space and time.

On opening my eyes and turning them to the surrounding objects, I see many visible bodies; and when I shut my eyes again and think about the distances between these bodies, I acquire the idea of extension. As every idea is derived from some impression that is exactly like it, this idea of extension must come from some impression, which can only be either some sensation derived from sight or some internal impression arising from these sensations.

Our internal impressions are our passions, emotions, desires, and aversions; and I don’t think you’ll say that they are the model from which the idea of space is derived! So there remain only the ·external· senses as sources for this original impression. Well, what impression do our senses here convey to us? This is the main question, and it decisively settles what the idea is like.

My view of the table in front of me is alone sufficient to give me the idea of extension. So this idea is borrowed from, and represents, some impression that appears to my senses at this moment. But my senses convey to me only the impressions of coloured points arrayed in a certain manner. If you think the eye senses anything more than that, tell me what! And if it is impossible to show ‘anything more’, we can confidently conclude that •the idea of extension is nothing but •a copy of these coloured points and of the manner of their appearance.

Suppose that when we first received the idea of extension it was from an extended object—or composition of coloured points—in which all the points were of a purple colour. Then in every repetition of that idea we would not only place the points in the same order with respect to each other, but would also bestow on them that precise colour which was the only one we had encountered. But afterwards, having experience of other colours —violet, green, red, white, black, and all the different combinations of these—and finding a resemblance in the layout [Hume’s word is ‘disposition’] of coloured points of which they are composed, we omit the peculiarities of colour as far as possible, and establish an abstract idea based merely on the layout of points—the manner of appearance that is common to them all. Indeed, even when the resemblance is carried beyond the objects of one sense, ·and the sense of touch comes into the story·, the impressions of touch are found to be similar to those of sight in the layout of their parts, and because of this resemblance the abstract idea can represent both. All abstract ideas are really nothing but particular ones considered in a certain light; but being attached to general terms they can represent a vast variety, and can apply to objects which are alike in some respects and vastly unalike in others.

The idea of time is derived from the succession of our perceptions of every kind—ideas as well as impressions, and impressions of reflection as well as of sensation. So it’s an example of an abstract idea that covers a still greater variety than does the idea of space, and yet is represented in the imagination by some particular individual idea of a determinate quantity and quality.

As we receive the idea of space from the layout of visible and tangible objects, so we form the idea of time from the succession of ideas and impressions ·in our minds·. Time cannot all on its own make its appearance or be taken notice of by the mind. A man in a sound sleep, or strongly occupied with one thought, is unaware of time; the same duration appears longer or shorter to his imagination depending on how quickly or slowly his perceptions succeed each other. A great philosopher (Mr. Locke) has remarked that our perceptions have certain limits in this respect— limits that are fixed by the basic nature and constitution of the mind— beyond which no influence of external objects on the senses can ever speed up our thought or slow it down. If you quickly whirl around a burning coal, it will present to the senses an image of a circle of fire, and there won’t seem to be any interval of time between its revolutions. That is simply because our perceptions can’t succeed each other as quickly as motion can be communicated to external objects. When we have no successive perceptions, we have no notion of time, even though there is a real succession in the objects—·as when in a single circling of the burning coal, the second quarter of the journey follows the first quarter·. From these phenomena, as well as from many others, we can conclude that time can’t make its appearance to the mind •alone or •accompanied by a steady unchanging object, but is always revealed by some perceivable succession of changing objects.

To confirm this we can add the following argument, which strikes me as perfectly decisive and convincing. It is evident that time or duration consists of different parts; for otherwise we couldn’t conceive a longer or shorter duration. It is also evident that these parts are not coexistent: for the quality of having parts that coexist belongs to •extension, and is what distinguishes it from •duration. Now as time is composed of parts that don’t coexist, an unchanging object, since it produces only coexistent impressions, produces none that can give us the idea of time; and consequently that idea must be derived from a succession of changing objects, and time in its first appearance can never be separated from such a succession.

Having found that time in its first appearance to the mind is always joined with a succession of changing objects, and that otherwise we can never be aware of it, we now have to ask whether •time can be conceived without our conceiving any succession of objects, and whether •there can be a distinct stand-alone idea of time in the imagination.

To know whether items that are joined in an impression are separable in ·the corresponding· idea, we need only to know whether the items are different from one another. If they are, it is obvious that they can be conceived apart: things that are different are distinguishable, and things that are distinguishable can be separated, according to the maxims I have explained. If on the contrary they are not different they are not distinguishable, in which case they can’t be separated. But this ·latter state of affairs· is precisely how things stand regarding •time in relation to •succession in our perceptions. The idea of time is not derived from a particular impression mixed up with others and plainly distinguishable from them; its whole source is the manner in which impressions appear to the mind—it isn’t one of them. Five notes played on a flute give us the impression and idea of time, but time is not a sixth impression that presents itself to the hearing or to any other of the senses. Nor is it a sixth impression that the mind finds in itself by reflection, ·thus yielding time as an idea of reflection·. To produce a new idea of reflection the mind must have some new inner impression: it can go over all its ideas of sensation a thousand times without extracting from them any new original idea, unless it feels some new original impression arise from this survey. ·And, returning now to our flute·, these five sounds making their appearance in this particular manner don’t start up any emotion or inner state of any kind from which the mind, observing it, might derive a new idea. All the mind does in this case is to notice the manner in which the different sounds make their appearance, and ·to have the thought· that it could afterwards think of it as the manner in which other things—·other than the five flute-notes·—might appear. ·For the mind to have the idea of time·, it must certainly have the ideas of some objects [here = ‘events’], for without these it could never arrive at any conception of time. Time doesn’t appear as a primary distinct impression, so it has to consist in different ideas or impressions or objects disposed in a certain manner—the manner that consists in their succeeding each other.

Some people, I know, claim that the idea of duration is applicable in a proper sense to objects that are perfectly unchanging; and I think this is the common opinion of philosophers as well as of ordinary folk. To be convinced of its falsehood, however, reflect on the above thesis that

the idea of duration is always derived from a succession of changing objects, and can never be conveyed to the mind by anything steadfast and unchanging.

It inevitably follows from this that since the idea of duration can’t be derived from such an object it can’t strictly and accurately be applied to such an object either, so that no unchanging thing can ever be said to have duration, ·i.e. to last through time·. Ideas always represent the objects or impressions from which they are derived, and it is only by a fiction that they can represent or be applied to anything else. We do engage in a certain fiction whereby we apply the idea of time to unchanging things and suppose that duration is a measure of rest as well as of motion. I shall discuss this fiction in section 5.

There is another very decisive argument that establishes the present doctrine about our ideas of space and time; it relies merely on the simple principle that our ideas of space and time are compounded of parts that are indivisible. This argument may be worth examining.

Every idea that is distinguishable is also separable; so let us take one of those simple indivisible ideas of which the compound idea of extension is formed, separate it from all others, and consider it on its own. What are we to think are its nature and qualities? Clearly it isn’t the idea of extension; for the idea of extension consists of parts, and we have stipulated that the idea we are considering is perfectly simple and indivisible ·and therefore has no parts·. Is it nothing, then? That is absolutely impossible. The compound idea of extension is real, and is composed of ideas just like this one we are considering; if they were all nonentities, there would be an existing thing composed of nonentities, which is absurd. So I have to ask: What is our idea of a simple and indivisible point? If my answer seems somewhat new, that is no wonder, because until now the question has hardly ever been thought of. We are given to arguing about the nature of mathematical points, but seldom about the nature of the ideas of points.

The idea of space is conveyed to the mind by two senses, sight and touch; nothing ever appears to us as extended unless it is either visible or tangible. The compound impression that represents extension consists of several smaller impressions that are indivisible to the eye or feeling, and may be called

impressions of atoms or corpuscles endowed with colour and solidity.

But this is not all. For these atoms to reveal themselves to our senses, it is not enough merely that they be coloured or tangible; we have to preserve the idea of their colour or tangibility, if we are to grasp them by our imagination. The idea of their colour or tangibility is all there is that can make them conceivable by our mind. Deprive the ideas of these sensible qualities and you annihilate them so far as thought or imagination is concerned Now, as the parts are, so is the whole. If a point is not considered as coloured or tangible, it can’t convey any idea to us, in which case there can’t be an idea of extension that is composed of the ideas of these points. If the idea of extension really can exist, as we are aware it does, its parts must also exist, which requires them to be considered as coloured or tangible. So we have no idea of space or extension as anything except an object either of our sight or feeling.

The same reasoning will prove that the indivisible moments of time must be filled with some real object, some existing item, whose succession forms the duration and makes it conceivable by the mind.

4: Objections answered

My system about space and time consists of two intimately connected parts. •The first depends on this chain of reasoning.

•The capacity of the mind is not infinite. So

•any idea of extension or duration consists not of an infinite number of parts or smaller ideas, but of a finite number that are simple and indivisible. So

•it is possible for space and time to exist conformable to this idea, i.e. as only finitely divisible. So

•space and time actually do exist in that form, since their infinite divisibility is utterly impossible and contradictory.

•The other part of my system is a consequence of this. Dividing ideas of space and time into their parts, one eventually reaches parts that are indivisible; and these indivisible parts, being nothing in themselves, are inconceivable unless they are filled with something real and existent. So the ideas of space and time are not separate or distinct ideas, but merely ideas of the manner or order in which objects exist ·or in which events occur·. This means that it is impossible to conceive either •a ·spatial· vacuum, extension without matter, or •·a temporal vacuum, so to speak·, a time when there is no succession or change in any real existence. Because these parts of my system are intimately connected, I shall examine together the objections that have been brought against both of them, beginning with those against the finite divisibility of extension.

1. The objection that I shall take first really has the effect of showing that the two parts of my system depend on one another, rather than of destroying either of them. In the schools they have often argued like this:

•A mathematical point is a nonentity; so

•no assemblage of such points can constitute a real existence; so

•the whole system of mathematical points is absurd; ·so

•there is no coherent account of where the division of extended things would end if it did end; so

•such a division doesn’t end·; so

•anything extended must be infinitely divisible.

This would be perfectly decisive if there were no middle way between •the infinite divisibility of matter and •the nonentity of mathematical points. But there is such a way, namely conferring colour or solidity on these points; and the absurdity of the two extremes is a demonstration of the truth and reality of this middle way. (The system of physical points, which is an alternative middle way, is too absurd to need a refutation. A real extension such as a physical point is supposed to be must have can’t exist without parts that are different from each other; and when objects are different they are distinguishable and separable by the imagination, ·which means that the supposed physical point isn’t a point after all·.)

2. The second objection to the view that extension consists of mathematical points is that this would necessitate penetration. A simple and indivisible atom that touches another (the argument goes) must penetrate it; for it can’t touch the other only at its external parts because it, being simple, doesn’t have parts. So one atom has to touch the other intimately, in its whole essence, [then some Latin phrases], which is the very definition of ‘penetration’. But penetration is impossible; so mathematical points are impossible too.

I answer this objection by substituting a sounder idea of penetration. What we must mean when we talk of penetration is this:

two bodies containing no empty space within them come together and unite in such a way that the body resulting from their union is no bigger than either of them.

Clearly this penetration is nothing but the annihilation of one of the bodies and the preservation of the other, without our being able to tell which is which. Before the contact we have the idea of two bodies; after it we have the idea only of one. ·This is the only way we can make sense of ‘penetration’, for· the mind can’t possibly preserve any notion of difference between two bodies of the same nature existing in the same place at the same time.

Taking ‘penetration’ in this sense, now, as meaning the annihilation of one body on its contact with another, I ask: Does anyone see a necessity that a coloured or tangible point should be annihilated upon the approach of another coloured or tangible point? On the contrary, doesn’t everyone see clearly that from the union of these points there results an object that is compounded and divisible and can be distinguished into two parts—each part preserving its existence, distinct and separate, despite its being right next to the other? ·If help is needed·, aid your imagination by conceiving these points to be of different colours, to help you keep them distinct. Surely a blue and a red point can lie next to one another without any penetration or annihilation. For if they can’t, what can possibly become of them? Shall the red or the blue be annihilated? Or if these colours unite into one, what new colour will they produce by their union? What chiefly gives rise to these objections, and at the same time makes it so hard to answer them satisfactorily, is the natural infirmity and unsteadiness of our imagination and our senses when employed on such tiny objects. Put a spot of ink on paper and back away to a place from which the spot is altogether invisible: you will find that as you move back towards the spot it at first •becomes intermittently visible, then •becomes continuously visible, and then •acquires a new force only in ·the intensity of· its colouring, without getting any bigger; and afterwards, when it has increased enough to be really extended, it will still be hard for your imagination to break it into its component parts, because of the uneasiness you will experience in the conception of such a tiny object as a single point. This infirmity affects most of our reasonings on the present subject, and makes it almost impossible to answer intelligibly and accurately the many questions that can arise about it.

3. Many objections to the thesis of the indivisibility of the parts of extension have been drawn from mathematics, though at first sight that science seems favourable to my doctrine. Anyway, although it is contrary in its demonstrations, it perfectly agrees with me in its definitions. My present task, then, is to defend the definitions and to refute the demonstrations.

A surface is defined to be length and breadth without depth; a line to be length without breadth or depth; a point to be what has neither length, breadth, nor depth. It is evident that all this is perfectly unintelligible on any other supposition than that of the composition of extension by indivisible points or atoms. How else could anything exist without length, without breadth, or without depth? Two different answers, I find, have been made to this argument ·of mine·, neither of them satisfactory in my opinion. •The first answer is that the objects of geometry—those surfaces, lines, and points whose proportions and positions it examines—are mere ideas in the mind; they never did and indeed never can exist in nature. They never did exist, because no-one will claim to draw a line or make a surface that perfectly fits the definition; and they never can exist, because we can produce demonstrations from these very ideas to prove that they are impossible.

But can anything be imagined more absurd and contradictory than this reasoning? Whatever can be conceived by a clear and distinct idea necessarily implies the possibility of existence; and someone who claims to prove the impossibility of its existence by any argument derived from the clear idea is really saying that we have no clear idea of it because we have a clear idea! It is pointless to search for a contradiction in something that is distinctly conceived by the mind. If it implied a contradiction, it couldn’t possibly be conceived.

So there is no middle way between allowing at least the possibility of indivisible points and denying that there is any idea of them. And that principle is the basis for •the second answer to the argument of mine that I have been defending. It has been claimed that though it is impossible to conceive a length without any breadth, we can consider one without bringing in the other, doing this by means of an abstraction without a separation. It is in this way (they say) that we can think the length of the road between two towns while ignoring its breadth. The length is inseparable from the breadth both in Nature and in our minds; but that doesn’t rule out ·our giving the length· a partial consideration, thereby making a distinction of reason.

In refuting this answer I shan’t again press the argument that I have already sufficiently explained, namely that if the mind can’t reach a minimum in its ideas, its capacity must be infinite in order to take in the infinite number of parts of which its idea of any extension would be composed. Instead, I’ll try to find some new absurdities in this reasoning.

A surface terminates a solid; a line terminates a surface; a point terminates a line; but I contend that if the ideas of a point, line, or surface were not indivisible we couldn’t possibly conceive these terminations. ·Here is how I argue for that·. Suppose that the ideas in question are infinitely divisible, and then let your mind try to fix itself on the idea of the last surface, line, or point; it will immediately find this idea to break into parts; and when your mind seizes on the last of these parts it will ·again· lose its hold because of a new division—and so on ad infinitum, with no possibility of arriving at a terminating idea. The number of fractions bring it no nearer the last division than the first idea it formed. Every particle eludes the grasp by a new fraction, like quicksilver when we try to take hold of it. But as in fact •there must be something that terminates the idea of any finite quantity, and as •this terminating idea can’t itself consist of parts or smaller ideas (otherwise the terminating would be done not by this idea but by the last of its parts, and so on), this is a clear proof that •the ideas of surfaces don’t admit of any division in depth, those of lines can’t be divided in breadth or depth, and those of points can’t be divided in any dimension.

The schoolmen [= roughly ‘mediaeval Aristotelians’] were so well aware of the force of this argument that some of them maintained that, mixed in with •particles of matter that are infinitely divisible, Nature has a number of ·indivisible· •mathematical points, so as to provide terminations for bodies; and others dodged the force of this reasoning—·the reasoning of the preceding paragraph·—by a heap of unintelligible point-scorings and distinctions. Both these adversaries equally yield the victory: a man who hides himself admits the superiority of his enemy just as clearly as does one who fairly hands over his weapons.

Thus it appears that the •definitions of mathematics destroy the purported •demonstrations: if we have ideas of indivisible points, lines, and surfaces that fit their definitions, their existence is certainly possible; but if we have no such ideas, it is impossible for us ever to conceive the termination of any figure, and without that conception there can be no geometrical demonstration.

But I go further, and maintain that none of these demonstrations can carry enough weight to establish such a principle as that of infinite divisibility. Why? Because when they treat of such minute objects they are built on ideas that are not exact and maxims that are not precisely true, so that they are not properly demonstrations! When geometry decides anything concerning the proportions of quantity, we shouldn’t expect the utmost precision and exactness—none of its proofs yield that. Geometry takes the dimensions and proportions of figures accurately—but roughly, with some give and take. Its errors are never considerable, and it wouldn’t it err at all if it didn’t aim at such an absolute perfection.

I first ask mathematicians what they mean when they say that one line or surface is ‘equal to’, or ‘greater than’, or ‘smaller than’ another. This question will embarrass any mathematician, no matter which side of the divide he is on: maintaining that what is extended is made up of •indivisible points or of •quantities that are divisible in infinitum.

The few mathematicians who defend the hypothesis of indivisible points (if indeed there are any) have the readiest and soundest answer to my question. They need only reply that lines or surfaces are equal when the numbers of points in each are equal, and that as the proportion of the numbers varies so does the proportion of the lines and surfaces. But though this answer is sound, as well as obvious, I declare that this standard of equality is entirely useless and that it is never from this sort of comparison that we determine objects to be equal or unequal with respect to each other. The points that make up any line or surface, whether seen or felt, are so tiny and so jumbled together that it is utterly impossible for the mind to compute how many there are; so such a computation can’t provide us with a standard by which we may judge proportions. No-one will ever be able to determine, by a precise count ·of constituent points·, that an inch has fewer points than a foot, or a foot fewer than a yard; which is why we seldom if ever consider this as the standard of equality or inequality.

As for those who imagine that extension is divisible in infinitum, they can’t possibly give this answer to my question, or fix the equality of lines or surfaces by counting their component parts. According to their hypothesis •every figure—large or small—contains an infinite number of parts; and •infinite numbers, strictly speaking, can’t be either equal or unequal to one another; so •the equality or inequality of any portions of space can’t depend on proportions in the numbers of their parts. It can of course be said that the inequality of a mile and a kilometre consists in the different numbers of the feet of which they are composed, and that of a foot and a yard in their different numbers of inches. But the quantity we call ‘an inch’ in the one is supposed to be equal to what we call ‘an inch’ in the other, this equality has to be fixed somehow. ·Perhaps by sameness of numbers of millimetres·! If we are not to embark on an infinite regress, we must eventually fix some standard of equality that doesn’t involve counting parts.

There are some who claim that equality is best defined by congruence, and that two figures are equal if when they are placed one on the other all their parts correspond to and touch each other. To evaluate this definition I must first make this preliminary point: equality is a relation; it isn’t a property in the figures themselves, but arises merely from the comparison the mind makes between them. So if equality consists in this imaginary application and mutual contact of parts, we must at least have a clear notion of these parts, and must conceive their contact. In this conception, obviously, we would follow these parts down to the tiniest that can possibly be conceived, because the contact of large parts would never make the figures equal. But the tiniest parts we can conceive are mathematical points! So this standard of equality is the same as the one based on the equality of the number of points, which we have already seen to be a sound but useless. We must therefore look elsewhere for an answer to my question.

Many philosophers refuse to assign any standard of equality. To give us a sound notion of equality, they say, it is sufficient to present two objects that are equal. They hold that without the perception of such objects all definitions are fruitless, and when we do perceive such objects we don’t need any definition. I entirely agree with all this. I contend that the only useful notion of equality or inequality is derived from the whole united appearance and the comparison of particular objects.

It is evident that the eye—or rather the mind—is often able at one view to compare the size of bodies, and pronounce them equal or unequal to each other without examining or comparing the numbers of their minute parts. Such judgments are not only common but in many cases certain and infallible. When the measure of a yard and that of a foot are presented, the mind can no more question that the first is longer than the second than it can doubt the most clear and self-evident principles.

So there are three proportions that the mind distinguishes in the general appearance of its objects, and labels as ‘larger’, ‘smaller’, and ‘equal’. But though its decisions regarding proportions are sometimes infallible, they aren’t always so; our judgments of this kind are as open to doubt and error as those on any other subject. We frequently correct our first opinion •by a review and reflection, and judge objects to be equal that we at first thought unequal, or regard an object as smaller than another though it had formerly seemed to be larger. And that isn’t the only way in which we correct these judgments of our senses: we often discover our error •by putting the objects side by side; or, where that is impracticable, •by applying some common and invariable measure ·such as a yardstick· to each, learning in that way of their different proportions. And these corrections themselves are subject to further correction, and to different degrees of exactness depending on the nature of the measuring-instrument we use and the care with which we use it.

So when the mind •has become accustomed to making these judgments and to correcting them, and •has found that when two figures appear to the eye to be equal they are also equal by our other standards, •we form a mixed notion of equality derived from both the looser and the stricter methods of comparison. But we are not content with this. Sound reason convinces us that there are bodies vastly smaller than those that appear to the senses (and false reason tries to convince us that there are bodies infinitely smaller!); so we clearly perceive that we have no instrument or technique of measurement that can guarantee us against all error and uncertainty. We are aware that the addition or removal of one of these tiny parts won’t show up either in the appearance or in the measuring; and we imagine that two figures that were equal before can’t be equal after this removal or addition; so we suppose some imaginary standard of equality by which the appearances and measuring are exactly corrected, and the figures are related by that standard. This standard is plainly imaginary. For as the idea of equality is the idea of

a specific appearance, corrected by placing the things side by side or applying to each a common measure,

the notion of any correction that is finer than we have instruments and techniques to make is a mere fiction of the mind, and is useless as well as incomprehensible. Although this standard is merely imaginary, however, the fiction is very natural: the mind often continues in this way with some procedure, even after the reason that started it off has ceased to apply. This appears very conspicuously with regard to time. Obviously we have no exact method of comparing periods of time—not even ones as good as we have for parts of extension—yet the various corrections of our ·temporal· measures, and their different degrees of exactness, have given us an obscure unexpressed notion of perfect and entire equality. The same thing happens in many other subjects as well. A musician, finding that his ear becomes every day more delicate, and correcting himself by reflection and attention, continues with the same act of the mind—·the same thought of progressive refinement·—even when the subject fails him ·because he is thinking of refinements that he can’t actually make·; and so he is led to entertain a notion of a perfect major third or octave, without being able to tell where his standard for that comes from. A painter creates the same fiction with regard to colours; a mechanic with regard to motion. To the former light and shade, to the latter swift and slow, are imagined to be capable of exact comparison and equality beyond the judgments of the senses.

We can apply the same reasoning to curves and straight lines. Nothing is more apparent to the senses than the difference between a curved line and a straight one, and our ideas of these are as easy to form as any ideas that we have. But however easily we may form these ideas, it is impossible to produce any definition of them that will fix the precise boundary between them. When we draw a line on paper it runs from point to point in a certain manner that determines whether the line as a whole will look curved or straight; but ·this ‘manner·, this order of the points, is perfectly unknown; all we see is the over-all appearance ·that results from it·. Thus, even on the system of indivisible points we can form only a distant notion of some unknown standard to these objects. On the system of infinite divisibility we can’t go even this far, and are left with merely the general appearance as the basis on which to settle whether lines are curved or straight. But though we can’t give a perfect definition of ‘curved’ or ‘straight’, or come up with any very exact method of distinguishing curved lines from straight ones, this doesn’t prevent us from correcting ·our judgment based on· the first appearance by •a more accurate consideration and by •applying some standard of whose accuracy we are more sure of because of its past successes. It is from these corrections, and by carrying on the same ·correcting· action of the mind past where there is any basis for it, that we form the loose idea of a perfect standard for straight and curved, without being able to explain it or grasp what it is.

Mathematicians, it is true, claim to give an exact definition of a straight line when they say that it is the shortest distance between two points. ·I have two objections to this supposed definition·. First: this is a statement of the properties of a straight line, not a sound definition of ‘straight’. When you hear ‘a straight line’ mentioned, don’t you think immediately of •a certain appearance, without necessarily giving any thought to •this property? ‘Straight line’ can be understood on its own, but this ‘definition’ is unintelligible without a comparison with other lines that we conceive to be longer. Also, in everyday life it is established as a maxim that the straightest journey is always the shortest; but if our idea of a straight line was just that of the shortest distance between two points, that maxim would be as absurd as ‘The shortest journey is always the shortest’! Secondly, I repeat what I showed earlier, that we have no precise idea of equality and inequality, shorter and longer, any more than we do of straight and curved; so the former can never yield a perfect standard for the latter. An exact idea can’t be built on ideas that are loose and indeterminate.

The idea of a plane surface is no more susceptible of a precise standard than that of a straight line; we have no means of distinguishing such a surface other than its general appearance. It is useless for mathematicians to represent a plane surface as produced by the flowing of a straight line. This is immediately open to ·three· objections: (1) that •our idea of a surface is as independent of •this way of forming a surface as •our idea of an ellipse is of •the idea of a cone (·though mathematicians ‘define’ an ellipse as something made by cutting a cone in a certain way·); (2) that the idea of a straight line is no more precise than that of a plane surface; (3) that a straight line can flow irregularly and thus form a figure quite different from a plane, so that ·for purposes of the mathematicians’ definition· we must suppose the straight line to flow along two straight lines parallel to each other and on the same plane, which makes the definition circular.

So it seems that the ideas that are most essential to geometry—namely the ideas of

equality and inequality,

straight line, and

plane surface

—are far from being exact and determinate, according to our common method of conceiving them. We are not only incapable of telling in difficult particular cases whether these figures are equal, whether this line is straight, whether that surface is plane; we can’t even have a firm and invariable idea of equality or straightness or planeness. Our appeal is still to the weak and fallible judgment that we make from •the appearance of the objects and correct by •a compass or ·other· everyday device or technique; and if we bring in the supposition of •some further correction, it will be either useless or imaginary. It is pointless to resort to the usual line of thought that brings in God, supposing that his omnipotence enables him to form a perfect geometrical figure, and draw a straight line without any curve or inflection. As the ultimate standard of these figures is derived from nothing but the senses and imagination, it is absurd to talk of any perfection beyond what sense and imagination can determine, because the true perfection of anything consists in its conformity to its standard.

Since these ideas are so loose and uncertain, I want to ask any mathematician:

What entitles you to be so utterly sure of plainest and most obvious principles of your science (let alone of the more intricate and obscure ones)? How can you prove to me, for instance, that two straight lines can’t have a segment in common? Or that it is impossible to draw more than one straight line between any two points?

If he replies that these opinions are obviously absurd, and in conflict with our clear ideas, I answer:

I don’t deny that. When two straight lines approach each other •with a perceptible angle between them, it is absurd to imagine them to have a common segment. But suppose two lines to approach at the rate of •one inch in sixty miles, I see no absurdity in asserting that when they meet they become one. Please tell me what rule or standard you are going by when you assert that the line in which I have supposed them to come together can’t make the same straight line as those two that form so small an angle between them? Presumably you have some idea of a straight line to which this line doesn’t conform. Well, then, do you mean that the line in question doesn’t take the points in the same order and by the rule that is special and essential to a straight line? In judging in this way you are allowing that extension is composed of indivisible points, which may be more than you intend; but let that pass. My present point is just that •this is not the standard by which we form the idea of a straight line; and that •even if it were, our senses and imagination don’t provide anything firm enough to determine when such an order is violated or preserved. The original standard of a straight line is in reality nothing but a certain general appearance; and it is evident that straight lines can be made to coincide and yet correspond to this standard, even if it is corrected by all the means either practicable or imaginable.

Whichever way they turn, mathematicians are still caught in this dilemma. ·On one side of it·: If they judge of equality etc. by the accurate and exact standard of the enumeration of the minute indivisible parts, they •employ a standard that is useless in practice, and •they rely on the truth of something they have been trying to explode, namely the doctrine of indivisible parts of extension. ·On the other side of the dilemma·: If they employ (as they usually do) the inaccurate standard derived from the general appearance of objects when they are considered together, corrected by measuring and putting the objects side by side, their first principles are too coarse to afford any such subtle inferences as they commonly draw from them. The first principles are certain and infallible; but they are based on imagination and the senses, so what is ·soundly· inferred from them can never go beyond those faculties, much less contradict them.

This may open our eyes a little, and let us see that no geometrical ‘demonstration’ of the infinite divisibility of extension can have as much force as we naturally attribute to every argument supported by such magnificent claims. At the same time we may learn why it is that geometry fails to convince us on this single point, while all its other reasonings command our fullest assent and approval. And indeed there seems to be more need to explain why this exception exists than to show that it really is an exception and that all the mathematical arguments for infinite divisibility are utterly sophistical. For it is obvious that as no idea of quantity is infinitely divisible it is a glaring absurdity to try to prove that quantity itself admits of such a division, arguing for this by means of ideas that are directly opposite to that conclusion. And as this absurdity is very glaring in itself, so every argument based on it is accompanied by a new absurdity and involves an obvious contradiction.

I could cite as instances those arguments for infinite divisibility that are derived from the point of contact—·that is, the point at which, supposedly, a circle is in contact with a straight line that is tangential to it·. I know no mathematician will agree to be judged by the diagrams he draws on paper, these being rough sketches (he will tell us) that serve only to convey more easily certain ideas that are the true basis of all our reasoning. I accept this, and am willing to base the controversy merely on these ideas. So I ask our mathematician to form as accurately as possible the ideas of a circle and a straight line; and then I ask whether in his conception of their contact he can conceive them as touching at a mathematical point, or whether instead he has to imagine them to coincide for some space. Whichever side he chooses, he runs himself into equal difficulties. •If he says that in tracing these figures in his imagination he can imagine them as touching only at a point, he allows the possibility of the idea of a point, and thus the possibility of points. •If he says that in his conception of the contact of those lines he must make them coincide ·for some tiny distance·, he is implicitly admitting the fallacy of geometrical demonstrations that are carried beyond a certain degree of minuteness; for he certainly has such demonstrations against a circle’s coinciding ·for any distance· with a straight line. . . .

5: The same subject continued

·At the start of section 4, I pointed out that my account of space and extension has two parts. I devoted that section to the first part, namely the thesis that what is extended consists of indivisible parts. Now we come to· the second part of my system, namely that the idea of space or extension is nothing but the idea of visible or tangible points distributed in a certain order. If that is true, it follows that we can form no idea of a vacuum, or space where there is nothing visible or tangible. This is met by three objections that I shall examine together, because my answer to one of them is a consequence of my answer to the other two.

First, it may be said that men have disputed for ages about a vacuum and a plenum [= ‘space that is entirely full’] without being able to reach a final decision, and even today philosophers and scientists think they are free to join either side in this controversy, as their fancy leads them. But whatever basis there may be for a controversy about vacuum and plenum themselves, it may be claimed—·and by Locke it was claimed·—that the very ·existence of the· dispute is decisive concerning the idea: men couldn’t possibly argue for so long about a vacuum, and either oppose or defend it, without having a notion of what they refuted or defended.

Secondly, if this argument should be rejected, the reality or at least the possibility of the idea of a vacuum can be proved by the following reasoning. Every idea is possible that is a necessary and infallible consequence of ones that are possible. Now, even if we suppose the world to be at present a plenum, we can easily conceive it to be deprived of motion —this idea must be allowed as possible. It must also be allowed as possible to conceive that God in his omnipotence annihilates some portion of matter while nothing else moves. [For the rest of this paragraph Hume continues to expound (in very Humean terms) this argument for the possibility of vacuum; and to defend it against a certain reply (that of Descartes), in order to set it up for his own reply.] For as every idea that is distinguishable is separable by the imagination, and as every idea that is separable by the imagination may be conceived to be separately existent, it is evident that •the existence of one particle of matter no more implies •the existence of another than •one body’s having a square shape implies that •every body is square. This being granted, I now ask what results from the concurrence of these two possible ideas of rest and annihilation—what must we conceive to follow from •the annihilation of all the air and subtle matter [= ‘matter that is finer than air’] in a room, supposing the walls to remain the same, without any motion or alteration? There are some metaphysicians—·such as Descartes·—who answer that since •matter and •extension are the same, the annihilation of one necessarily implies that of the other; so ·if there is now •no matter· between the walls of the room there is now •no distance ·between them either·; that is, they touch each other, just as my hand touches the paper I am writing on. But though this answer is very common, I defy these metaphysicians to conceive the matter according to their hypothesis, or to imagine the floor touching roof and the opposite walls touching each other while nothing moves! . . . . If you change the position of the roof, floor, and walls, you suppose •a motion; if you conceive anything between them, you suppose •a new creation. But keeping strictly to the two ideas of •rest and •annihilation, it is obvious that the idea resulting from them is not that of a contact of parts, but something else that is concluded to be the idea of a vacuum.

The third objection carries the matter still further, and contends not only that the idea of a vacuum is real and possible but that it is necessary and unavoidable. This assertion is based on the motion we observe in bodies: this, it is maintained, would be impossible and inconceivable without a vacuum into which one body must move in order to make way for another. I shan’t expound this objection at length, because it principally belongs to physics, which lies outside our present sphere.

In order to answer these objections I must dig pretty deep and consider the nature and origin of various ideas, lest we argue without perfectly understanding what we are arguing about. The idea of darkness is obviously not a •positive one, but merely the •negation of . . . . coloured and visible objects. When a sighted man looks around him in complete darkness, he receives no perceptions except ones he shares with someone born blind; and it is certain the latter has no idea either of light or darkness. So the impression of extension without matter couldn’t come from the mere removal of visible objects; the idea of utter darkness can never be the same as the idea of vacuum. Now, suppose a man to be supported in the air and to be—·without seeing or feeling anything·—gently carried along by some invisible power; it is obvious that this invariable motion doesn’t make him aware of anything, and doesn’t give him the idea of extension or indeed any other idea. Even if he moves his limbs to and fro, this can’t convey that idea to him. He feels a certain sensation or impression, the parts of which are successive to each other; they may give him the idea of time, but certainly they are not laid out in a way that could convey the idea of space or extension.

So it appears that darkness and motion, •in the absence of everything visible and tangible, can’t give us the idea of extension without matter, i.e. of a vacuum. So now we must ask: can they convey this idea •when mixed with something visible and tangible? . . . . If we are to know whether sight can convey the impression and idea of a vacuum, we must suppose that in a complete darkness there are luminous bodies presented to us, their light revealing only these bodies themselves and giving us no impression of surrounding objects. And we have to form a parallel supposition about touch. It won’t do to suppose a perfect absence of all tangible objects: we must suppose that something is perceived by the sense of touch. then after an interval and motion of the hand or other sense-organ another tangible object is met with, then another, and so on, as often as we please. The question is: do these intervals give us the idea of extension without body? To begin with the case of sight: it is obvious that when only two luminous bodies appear to the eye we can see whether they are conjoined or separate, and whether the distance between them is large or small; and if that distance changes, we can perceive it getting larger or smaller as the bodies move. But in this case the distance is not anything coloured or visible, so it may be thought that what we have here is a vacuum or pure extension, not only intelligible to the mind but obvious to the senses.

This is our natural and most familiar way of thinking, but if we think a little we’ll learn to correct it. Notice that when there is perfect darkness in which two ·luminous· bodies present themselves, the only change that is revealed is the appearance of these two objects; all the rest continues to be, as before, a perfect negation of light and of every coloured or visible object. This is true not only of what may be said to be far away from these bodies but also of the very distance that interposes between them; for all that consists of nothing but darkness, or the negation of light—without parts, without composition, unchanging and indivisible. Now, since this distance causes no perception different from what a blind man gets from his eyes or what is conveyed to us in the darkest night, it must have the same properties; and as •blindness and darkness give us no ideas of extension, it is impossible that the dark and undistinguishable •distance between two bodies can ever produce that idea.

The sole difference between absolute darkness and the appearance of two or more visible luminous objects consists, as I said, in the objects themselves and how they affect our senses. ·Don’t think that the distances are also perceived·. Philosophers commonly agree that it is reason, more than the senses, that . . . . tells us how far away from us a given body is. The only perceptions from which we can (·by reasoned inference·) judge the distances are

•the angles that the rays of light flowing from the objects form with each other,

•the motion the eye has to make when it goes from looking at one object to looking at the next, and

•the different parts of the organs that are affected by the light from each object.

But as each of these perceptions is simple and indivisible, they can never give us the idea of extension.

We can illustrate this by considering the sense of touch, and the imaginary distance or interval between tangible or solid objects. I have supposed two cases:

•a man supported in the air and moving his limbs to and fro without meeting anything tangible;

•a man who feels something tangible, leaves it, and after a movement of which he is aware feels another tangible object.

What is the difference between these two cases? No-one will hesitate to reply that it consists merely in the perceiving of those objects, and that the sensation arising from the movement is the same in both cases. Well, that sensation can’t give us an idea of extension when it isn’t accompanied by some other perception, so it can’t give us that idea when mixed with impressions of tangible objects, because that mixture does not alter the sensation.

But although motion and darkness—alone or accompanied by tangible and visible objects—don’t convey •any idea of vacuum or extension without matter, they are the causes for •our falsely imagining we can form such an idea. For that motion and darkness are closely related to a real extension, a real complex of visible and tangible objects. ·There are three components to this relation·.

First, we may observe that two visible objects appearing in the midst of utter darkness •affect the senses in the same way, •form the same angle by the rays that flow from them, and •meet in the eye ·in the same way·, as if the distance between them were filled with visible objects that would give us a true idea of extension. Similarly, the sensation of motion when there is nothing tangible between two bodies is the same as when we feel a complex body whose different parts are outside one another.

Secondly, we find by experience that when •two bodies so placed as to affect the senses in the same way as •two others that have a certain extent of visible objects between them, the former two can come to have the same extent of visible objects between them without anything’s perceptibly bumping into or penetrating anything else and without any change in the angle they subtend at the eye. Similarly, when there are •two objects of which we can’t feel both unless, between the two feelings, time elapses and there is a sensation of movement in our hand, experience shows us that •the two objects could be felt with the intervening time being filled by that same sensation of hand-movement together with impressions of solid and tangible objects. Summing up these two points: an invisible and intangible distance can be converted into a visible and tangible one without any change in the distant objects.

Thirdly, these two kinds of distance have nearly the same effects on every natural phenomenon. All qualities—heat, cold, light, attraction, etc.— grow weaker as the distance increases; and we observe little difference ·in this effect· when the distance is •marked out by compounded and perceptible objects from what it is when the distance is •known only by how the distant objects affect the senses.

So here are three relations between the distance that conveys the idea of extension and that other distance that isn’t filled with any coloured or solid object. •The distant objects affect the senses in the same way, whether separated by one distance or the other; •the second species of distance is found to be capable of receiving the first; and •they both equally lessen the strength of every quality.

These relations between the two kinds of distance easily explain why one has so often been mistaken for the other, and why we imagine we have an idea of extension without the idea of any object either of sight or feeling. For we can accept it as a general maxim in this science of human nature that

whenever there is a close relation between two ideas, the mind is very apt to mistake them, and to use one in place of the other in all its discourses and reasonings.

This phenomenon occurs so often, and is so important, that I can’t resist stopping for a moment to examine its causes. Let me say in advance that the phenomenon mustn’t be confused with my account of its causes: if you have doubts about my explanation of the phenomenon, don’t let them become doubts about the phenomenon itself. It may be real even if my explanation of it is chimerical. Though it is complete wrong to do so, it is very natural for us to infer that something doesn’t exist from the falsity of a purported explanation of it; and the naturalness of that error is a clear instance of the very principle that I am now about the explain! When ·in section 4i· I accepted the relations of resemblance, contiguity, and causation as sources of union among ideas, doing this without looking into their causes, I was busy pressing my first maxim, that we must in the end rest contented with experience; it wasn’t that I had nothing attractive and plausible to say on the subject of the causes. It would have been easy to make an imaginary dissection of the brain, and to show why on our conception of any idea the animal spirits run into all the nearby channels and rouse up the other ideas that are related to it. But though I passed up any advantage that I might have gained from this line of thought in explaining the relations of ideas, I’m afraid that I must now have recourse to it so as to account for the mistakes that arise from these relations.

The mind is endowed with a power of arousing any idea it pleases: whenever it despatches the spirits into the region of the brain containing a certain idea, they always arouse the idea when they run precisely into the proper channels and rummage the cell that belongs to it. But their motion is seldom direct, and naturally turns a little to one side or the other; and for this reason the animal spirits, falling into nearby channels, present other related ideas instead of the one the mind at first wanted to look at. Sometimes we aren’t aware of this switch; we continue the same train of thought, make use of the related idea that is presented to us, employing it in our reasoning as if it were the one we asked for. This is the cause of many mistakes and sophisms in philosophy, as you can imagine; and it would be easy to show this, if there were any need to do so.

Of the three relations I have mentioned, resemblance is the most fertile source of error; and indeed most mistakes in reasoning owe a lot to that source. Not only are •resembling ideas related together, but •the actions of the mind that we employ in considering them are so alike that we can’t distinguish them. This fact is of great importance. Quite generally we can say that whenever the actions of the mind in forming any two ideas are the same or very alike, we are apt to confound these ideas and take the one for the other. We’ll see many examples in the course of this book. But though resemblance is the relation that most easily produces a mistake in ideas, the other two—causation and contiguity—can also contribute to it. We could prove this with the examples of poets and orators, if it were thought proper (it is certainly reasonable) to draw arguments from that quarter in metaphysical subjects. But metaphysicians may think this to be beneath their dignity, so I shall get a proof from an observation that can be made about most of the metaphysicians’ own discourses—namely that it is usual for men to use •words instead of •ideas, and to •talk instead of •thinking in their reasonings. We use words in place of ideas because they are commonly so closely connected that the mind easily mistakes them. This also explains why we substitute the idea of a distance that is not taken to be visible or tangible for the idea of extension, which is nothing but a complex of visible or tangible points arrayed in a certain order. The relations of causation and resemblance both contribute to this mistake. As the first sort of distance is found to be convertible into the second, it is in this respect a kind of cause; and the relation of resemblance comes in through the similarity in how the two sorts of distance affect the senses and diminish other qualities.

After this chain of reasoning and explanation of my principles, I am now prepared to answer all the objections that have been offered, whether derived from metaphysics or physics. •The frequent disputes about vacuum, or extension without matter, don’t prove the reality of the idea on which the dispute turns; for there is nothing more common than to see men deceive themselves in this regard, especially when some close relation presents them with another idea which may be the occasion of their mistake.

We can make almost the same answer to •the second objection, derived from the conjunction of the ideas of rest and annihilation. When everything in the room is annihilated, and the walls don’t move, the chamber must be conceived in much the same way as at present, when the air that fills the room is not an object of the senses. This annihilation leaves the eye with the fictitious distance that is revealed by the different parts of the organ that are affected, and by the degrees of light and shade; and it leaves to the sense of touch the fictitious distance that consists in a sensation of motion in the hand or other member of the body. It is no use our looking further. On whichever side we turn this subject, we shall find that these are the only impressions such an object can produce after the supposed annihilation; and I have already pointed out that impressions can give rise only to ideas that resemble them.

Since we can suppose a body to be annihilated without producing any change in its neighbours, we can easily conceive how a body might be created anew without affecting anything else. Now, the motion of a body has much the same effect as its creation: the distant bodies are no more affected in one than in the other. This suffices to satisfy our conceptual demands, and proves that there is no inconsistency in supposing such a motion. Afterwards experience comes in play to persuade us that two bodies situated in the manner described above really can receive ·a new· body between them, and that there is no obstacle to converting the invisible and intangible distance into one that is visible and tangible. However natural that conversion may seem, we can’t be sure that it is practically possible until we have experience of it.

Thus I seem to have answered the three objections mentioned above [here], though I realize that few people will be satisfied with these answers, and most will immediately propose new objections and difficulties. It will probably be said that my reasoning is irrelevant to the real question, and that I explain only •how objects affect the senses, without trying to account for •their real nature and operations. What I have said goes like this:

When there is nothing visible or tangible between two bodies, we find by experience that the bodies can be placed in the same manner, with regard to the eye and hand-movement, as if they were divided by something visible and tangible. This invisible and intangible distance is also found by experience to contain a capacity of receiving body, i.e. of becoming visible and tangible.

That is the whole of my system; and nowhere in it (the complaint runs) have I tried to explain the cause that separates bodies in this way, making them able to receive others between them, without any collision or penetration.

I answer this objection by pleading guilty, and by admitting that I never intended to penetrate into the nature of bodies or explain the secret causes of their operations. This is no part of my present purpose, and anyway I am afraid that such an enterprise is beyond the reach of human understanding, and that we shall never be able to claim to know body otherwise than by the external properties that reveal themselves to the senses. As for those who try to go further: I can’t approve of their ambition until I see at least one example of success in it. But at present I content myself with knowing perfectly how objects affect my senses, and knowing what experience tells me about their connections with one another. This suffices for the conduct of life, and it also suffices for my philosophy, which claims only to explain the nature and causes of our perceptions, i.e. impressions and ideas.[2]

I shall conclude this subject of extension with a paradox that the arguments I have given will easily explain. This paradox is that •if you choose to give the name ‘vacuum’ to distance of the invisible and intangible sort—in other words, to the ability to become a visible and tangible distance—then extension and matter are the same, and yet there is a vacuum! •If you choose not to give it that name, then motion is possible in a plenum without collisions running on to infinity or returning in a circle, and without penetration. But however we express ourselves, we must always admit that we have no idea of any real extension without filling it with perceptible objects and conceiving them as visible or tangible.

As for the doctrine that time is nothing but the manner in which some real objects ·or events· exist: this is open to the same objections as the similar doctrine regarding extension. If our disputing and reasoning about •·spatial· vacuum is a sufficient proof that we have the idea of it, we must for the same reason have the idea of time when nothing happens—·that is, of •temporal vacuum·—because there is no commoner subject of dispute. But it is certain that we really don’t have any such idea. For where could it come from? Does it arise from an impression of sensation or of reflection? Point the source- impression out distinctly to us, so that we can know its nature and qualities! But if you can’t point out any such impression you may be certain that you are mistaken in thinking you have any such idea.

But although it is impossible to show an impression from which an idea of time without something that changes could be derived, we can easily point out the appearances that make us fancy we have that idea. We may observe that there is a continual succession of perceptions in our mind, so that the idea of time is always present to us; and when we consider an unchanging object at five o’clock and then again at six •we are apt to apply our idea of time to it in the same way as if the object had been moving or altering throughout. The first and second appearances of the object, being compared with the succession of our perceptions, seem as far apart ·in time· as if the object had really altered. To this we may add, what experience shows us, •that between these appearances the object was capable of such a number of changes ·as we fictionally imagine it to have undergone·; as •also that the unchanging or rather fictitious duration has the same effect on every quality increasing or lessening it—as does the succession that is ·real, because it is· obvious to the senses. Because of these three relations we are apt to confound our ideas, and imagine we can form the idea of a time and duration without any change or succession.

6: The ideas of existence and of external existence

It may be a good idea, before we leave this subject, to explain the ideas of existence and of external existence, which have their difficulties as well as the ideas of space and time. This will help to prepare us for the examination of knowledge and probability, when we understand perfectly all the particular ideas that can enter into our reasoning.

Every impression or idea of every kind, in consciousness and in memory, is conceived as existent; and obviously the most perfect idea . . . . of being is derived from this consciousness. This gives rise to a splendidly clear and conclusive dilemma: that since we never remember any idea or impression without attributing existence to it, the idea of existence must either be •derived from a distinct impression that is conjoined with every perception or object of our thought or be •the very same as the idea of the perception or object.

This dilemma is an obvious consequence of the principle that every idea arises from a similar impression, so there is no doubt about how we should choose between the horns of the dilemma. So far from there being any distinct impression attending every ·other· impression and every idea, I don’t think that any two distinct impressions are inseparably conjoined. Though certain sensations may at one time be united, we quickly find they can be separated and can appear apart. And thus, though every impression and idea we remember is considered as existent, the idea of existence is not derived from any particular impression.

The •idea of existence, then, is identical with •the idea of whatever it is that we conceive to be existent. To reflect on something •simply, and to reflect on it •as existent, are exactly the same procedure. When the idea of existence is conjoined with the idea of an object, it adds nothing to it. Whatever we conceive, we conceive to be existent. Any idea we please to form is the idea of a being; and the idea of a being is any idea we please to form.

If you oppose this, you are obliged to point out the distinct impression from which your idea of entity [= ‘existing thing’] is derived, and to prove that this impression is inseparable from every perception we believe to be existent. This, we can say without hesitation, is impossible.

My reasoning ·in section 7i· about ·the so-called ‘distinction of reason’·—the distinction of ideas without any real difference—won’t do anything for us here. That kind of distinction is based on the fact that a single simple idea may resemble several different ideas ·in different respects·. But no object can resemble a second object with respect to its existence while differing from a third in that respect, since every object that is presented ·as a candidate for comparison· must necessarily be existent.

Similar reasoning will account for the idea of external existence. It is a philosophical commonplace as well as a pretty obvious truth that nothing is ever really present to the mind except its perceptions—its impressions and ideas—and that external objects become known to us only through the perceptions they give rise to. To hate, to love, to think, to feel, to see—all this is just to perceive.

Now, since nothing is ever present to the mind but perceptions, and since every idea is derived from something that was previously present to the mind; it follows that we can’t so much as conceive or form an idea of anything that is specifically different [= ‘different in fundamental kind’] from ideas and impressions. Look outside yourself as much as you can; chase your imagination to the heavens or to the outer limits of the universe; you’ll never really advance a step beyond yourself, and you can’t conceive any kind of existent other than the perceptions that have appeared within the narrow compass ·of your mind·. This is the universe of the imagination, and we have no ideas of anything that is not produced there.

The furthest we can go towards a conception of external objects, taking them to be specifically different from our perceptions, is to form a relative idea of them without claiming to comprehend the objects themselves. Generally speaking, we don’t suppose them to be specifically different; we take them to differ from our perceptions only in respect of some of their relations, connections, and durations. But of this more fully hereafter—·in 2iv·.

NOTES

[1] It has been objected to me that infinite divisibility requires only an infinite number of proportional parts, . . . . and that an infinite number of proportional parts does not form an infinite extension. (·The objector is thinking of things like the division of a line into a half, followed by a quarter, followed by an eighth, . . . and so on·.) But this is entirely frivolous. Whether or not the parts are proportional, they can’t be smaller than the minute parts I have been talking about, and so the conjunction of them can’t generate a smaller extension.

[2] As long as we confine our theorizing to the sensory appearances of objects, without getting into their real natures and operations, we are safe from all difficulties and can never be embarrassed by any question. For example, if we are asked ‘Is the invisible and intangible distance between two objects something or nothing?’ we can easily answer that it is something, namely a property of the objects that affect the senses in such and such a way. If we are asked ‘When two objects have an invisible and intangible distance between them, do they touch or not?’, we can answer that this depends on the definition of ‘touch’. If objects are said to touch when there is nothing perceptible placed between them, then these two objects touch. If objects are said to touch when their images affect adjoining parts of the eye, and when the hand feels both objects successively without any interposed motion, these objects do not touch. The appearances of objects to our senses are all consistent; and no difficulties can ever arise except from the obscurity of the terms we employ.

Part iii: Knowledge and probability

1: Knowledge

There are (as I said in section 5i) seven different kinds of philosophical relation:

resemblance

identity

relations of time and place

proportion in quantity or number

degrees in any quality

contrariety

causation.

These relations can be divided into two classes. •In one class are the ones that depend entirely on the ideas that we compare together, ·so that the relation can change only if the ideas change·. •In the other class are relations that can be changed without any change in the ideas. •The idea of a triangle shows us the relation of equality that its three angles have to two right angles, and this relation is invariable as long as our idea remains the same. On the other side, the relations of contiguity and distance between two objects can be changed merely by moving the objects, without any change in them or in their ideas; and how things move depends on a hundred different events that can’t be foreseen by the mind. Similarly with identity: two objects can be numerically different from each other—·that is, can really be two·—even though they perfectly resemble each other, and even if they appear at different times in the very same place. And with causation: the power by which one object produces another can never be discovered merely from the ideas of the objects; so it is evident that cause and effect are relations that we learn about from experience and not from any abstract reasoning or reflection. Not even the simplest phenomenon can be explained purely in terms of the qualities of the objects as they appear to us, or be foreseen by us without the help of our memory and experience.

It seems, then, that of these seven philosophical relations there remain only four that can be the objects of knowledge and certainty because they depend solely on ideas, . These four are resemblance, contrariety, degrees in quality, and proportions in quantity or number. Three of these relations are discoverable at first sight, and belong in the province of intuition rather than of demonstration. [In Hume’s day, ‘intuition’ stood for ‘seeing something, straight off, as self-evidently true’; while ‘demonstration’ is the procedure of proving something by rigorously valid argument, each step in which is warranted by intuition.] When two objects resemble each other, the resemblance will immediately strike the eye, or rather the mind, and seldom needs a second look. Similarly with contrariety: no-one can doubt for a moment that existence and non- existence destroy each other and are perfectly incompatible and contrary. And with the degrees of any quality: although it is impossible to judge exactly concerning degrees of a quality—such as colour, taste, heat, cold—when the difference between them is very small, it is easy to decide which is the more intense when their difference is considerable. And we pronounce this decision at first sight, without any enquiry or reasoning.

We can proceed in the same way in fixing the proportions of quantities or numbers: where the difference is very great and remarkable, we can see at a glance which figure or number is the larger of two. As to equality or any exact proportion—·that is, any judgment about exactly how much larger one item is than another·—a single look will yield us only a guess, except with very small numbers or very limited portions of extension, which can be taken in all at once and where we perceive that we can’t fall into any considerable error. In all other cases we must settle for approximations, or else proceed in a more artificial manner.

I have already observed, ·near the middle of 4ii·, that geometry, or the technique by which we fix the proportions of figures, never achieves perfect precision and exactness (though its results are much more general and exact than the loose judgments of the senses and imagination). Its first principles are drawn from the general appearance of the objects, and when we know something of the prodigious minuteness of which Nature is susceptible we can’t feel secure about general appearances! Our ideas seem to give us a perfect assurance that no two straight lines can have a common segment; but if you attend to the ideas that we have when we think this you’ll find that they always suppose the two lines to be inclining perceptibly towards one another, ·so that the angle between them is fairly large·. When the angle they form is extremely small we have no standard of straight line precise enough to assure us of the truth of this proposition. It is the same with most of the primary decisions [Hume’s phrase] of mathematics.

There remain, therefore, algebra and arithmetic as the only sciences in which we can carry on a chain of reasoning to any degree of intricacy while preserving perfect exactness and certainty. We have a precise standard by which to judge concerning the equality and proportion of numbers; and on the basis of that standard we can determine the relations between numbers without any possibility of error. When two numbers are brought together so that each always has a unit answering to every unit of the other, we pronounce them ‘equal’. The reason why geometry doesn’t quite qualify as a perfect and infallible science is that it doesn’t have a comparable standard of equality in size.

But it may be as well here to remove a difficulty that could arise from my asserting that, though geometry falls short of the perfect precision and certainty that arithmetic and algebra have, it still excels the imperfect judgments of our senses and imagination. The reason why I attribute any defect to geometry is that its first basic principles are derived merely from appearances; and you might think that this defect must follow it all the way through, preventing it from ever being able to compare objects or ideas more exactly than we can by relying purely on our eye or imagination. I accept that this defect follows it far enough to prevent it from ever aspiring to full ·exactness or· certainty: but since its basic principles depend on the easiest and least deceitful appearances, they give to their consequences a degree of exactness that the consequences couldn’t have if they were taken singly. It is impossible to see by looking that the angles of a thousand-sided figure are equal to 1996 right angles, or to guess at anything remotely like this result; but when the eye determines that straight lines cannot coincide, and that we can’t draw more than one straight line between two given points, its mistakes can never be of any consequence. And this is the nature and use of geometry, to take us back to appearances which, because of their simplicity, can’t lead us into any considerable error.

I shall take this opportunity to offer a second observation about our demonstrative reasonings. . . . It is usual with mathematicians to claim that the ideas that are their objects are so refined and spiritual that they can’t •be conceived in the imagination but must •be comprehended by a pure and intellectual view of which only the higher faculties of the soul are capable. The same notion runs through most parts of philosophy, and is principally made use of to explain our abstract ideas, and to show how we can form an idea of a triangle, for instance, which is to be neither isosceles nor scalar, nor confined to any particular length or proportion of sides. It is easy to see why philosophers are so fond of this notion of ‘spiritual and refined’ perceptions, since it helps them to cover up many of their absurdities, and lets them refuse to submit to the decisions of clear ideas by appealing to ideas that are obscure and uncertain ·though ‘spiritual and refined’·! To destroy this trick we need only to reflect on the principle I have stressed so often, that all our ideas are copied from our impressions. From that we can immediately conclude that since all impressions are clear and precise, the ideas copied from them must be clear and precise too, so that it’s our own fault if they ever contain anything dark and intricate. An idea is by its very nature weaker and fainter than an impression; but being in every other respect the same, it can’t bring with it any very great mystery. If its weakness makes it obscure, it is our business to remedy that defect as much as possible by keeping the idea steady and precise; and till we have done that it’s pointless for us to engage in reasoning and philosophy.

2: Probability, and the idea of cause and effect

I think that’s all I need to say about those four relations that are the foundation of science; but there is more to be said in detail about the other three—the ones that don’t depend on the ideas, and can be absent or present even while the ideas remain the same. These three relations are identity, situations in time and place, and causation.

All kinds of reasoning consist in nothing but a comparison, and a discovery of the relations—constant or changing— that two or more objects have to one another.

[In Hume’s time, ‘comparing’ two things could be simply bringing them together in a single thought, not necessarily thinking about their being alike. The present section seems to use the word sometimes in that broader, weaker sense of ‘compare’ and sometimes in the narrower sense that is common today.]

We can make such a comparison when both the objects are present to the senses, or when neither is present, or when only one is. When both the objects are present to the senses along with the relation ·that holds between them·, we call this ‘perception’ rather than ‘reasoning’: in this case there is no exercise of thought, no action properly so-called, but only a passive allowing in of the impressions through the organs of sensation. According to this way of thinking, we ought not to classify as ‘reasoning’ any observations we make about identity or relations of time and place; for in none of those does the mind go beyond what is immediately present to the senses, whether to discover the real existence of ·other· objects or to discover the relations between them. Only causation produces a connection that can assure us, on the basis of the existence or action of one object, that some other existence or action followed or preceded it. And the other two relations—identity, and location in time and space—can be used in reasoning only to the extent that they affect or are affected by causation. •There is nothing in any objects to persuade us that they are either always distant or always close; and when from experience and observation we discover that their spatial relation doesn’t change, we always conclude that some secret cause is separating or uniting them. The same reasoning extends to identity. •We readily suppose that an object can continue individually the same— ·that is, can continue to be that very same object·—even if in our perception it comes and goes; we attribute to it an identity, despite the interruption of the perception, as long as we conclude that if we had kept our eye or hand constantly on it would have given us an invariable and uninterrupted perception. But this conclusion ·about what would have happened· goes beyond the impressions of our senses and has to be based on the connection of cause and effect; and we need cause and effect if we are to be sure that the object has not been switched on us, however much the new object may resemble the one that formerly appeared to the senses. Whenever we discover such a perfect resemblance, we consider whether it is common in that kind of object; whether possibly or probably any cause could be at work producing the switch and the resemblance; and our judgment about the identity of the object is based on the answers to these questions concerning causes and effects.

So we find that of the three relations that don’t depend purely on the ideas, the only one that can be traced beyond our senses, and that informs us of existences and objects that we don’t see or feel, is causation. So I shall try to explain this relation fully before we leave the subject of the understanding. ·This explanation will occupy most of the remainder of Part iii of this work·.

To begin in an orderly fashion, we must consider the idea of causation and see from what origin it is derived. It is impossible •to reason soundly without understanding perfectly the idea about which we reason; and it is impossible •to understand an idea perfectly without tracing it back to its origin and examining the primary impression from which it arises. •The examination of the impression gives clearness to the idea, and •the examination of the idea gives a similar clearness to all our reasoning.

Take any pair of objects that we call cause and effect, and turn them on all sides in order to find the impression that produces this prodigiously important idea. I see straight off that I mustn’t search for it in any of the particular qualities of the objects: whichever of these qualities I pick on, I find some object that doesn’t have it and yet does fall under the label of ‘cause’ or ‘effect’. And indeed everything that exists, whether externally or internally, can be considered as either a ‘cause’ or an ‘effect’, though it is plain that no one quality universally belongs to all beings and gives them a title to that label.

So the idea of causation, ·since it doesn’t come from any •quality·, must be derived from some •relation among objects; and that relation is what we must now try to discover. The first thing I find is that only contiguous pairs of objects [= ‘immediate neighbours’] are considered as cause- effect related, and that nothing can •operate at a time or in a place other than—even if extremely close to—the time and place that it •exists in. It sometimes seems that one object acts on another that is at a distance from it, but they are commonly found on examination to be linked by a chain of causes, with each link contiguous to the next, and the end links contiguous to the distant objects; and in any particular case where we can’t discover such a chain we still presume it to exist. So we can take it that contiguity is essential to causation; at least we can suppose it to be so, according to the general opinion, until we can find a better occasion—in section 5iv—to clear up this matter by examining what objects are and what are not capable of being brought together and conjoined.

The second relation that I shall claim to be essential to causes and effects is not so universally acknowledged ·as contiguity·, being a subject of some controversy. It is the relation of the cause’s priority in time to the effect. Some claim that it is not absolutely necessary for a cause to precede its effect, and that any object or action can in the very first moment of its existence exert its productive quality, giving rise to another object or action that is absolutely simultaneous with it. But experience in most instances seems to contradict this opinion, and anyway we can may establish ·the essentialness of· the relation of priority by a kind of inference or reasoning, ·as follows·. It is an established maxim, both in physics and the human sciences, that

an object O_1 that exists for some time in its complete state without producing another object O_2 is not the sole cause of O_2 ·when it does occur·, but is assisted by some other factor that pushes O_1 from its state of inactivity and makes it exert the energy which it secretly possessed.

Now if any cause could be absolutely simultaneous with its effect, it is certain, according to this maxim, that all causes must be simultaneous with their effects; for any one of them that holds back its operation for a single moment doesn’t exert itself at the very time at which it might have operated, and so it is not the whole cause of the effect. The consequence of this would be nothing less than the destruction of the succession of causes that we observe in the world—indeed, the utter annihilation of time. For if one cause were simultaneous with its effect, and this effect with its effect, and so on, there would plainly be no such thing as succession, and all objects would be coexistent.

If you find this argument satisfactory, good! If not, I ask you to allow me the same liberty that I took in the preceding case, of supposing it to be satisfactory. You will find that the affair is of no great importance.

Having thus discovered or supposed the two relations of contiguity and succession to be essential to causes and effects, I find myself stopped short: this is as far as I can go if I attend only to single instances of cause and effect. When bodies collide, we think that the motion in one causes motion in the other; but when we consider these objects with the utmost attention, we find only that one body comes up to the other, and that the former’s motion precedes the latter’s, though without any interval that we can perceive. It does no good for us to rack ourselves with further thought and reflection on this individual case: we have said all we can about it.

You might want to stop looking at particular cases and define ‘cause’ as ‘something that is productive of something else’; but this doesn’t say anything. For what would you mean by ‘production’? Could you define it except in terms of causation? If you can, please produce the definition. If you can’t, you are here going in a circle, producing merely one synonymous term instead of a definition.

Shall we then rest contented with •contiguity and •succession as providing a complete idea of causation? By no means! One object can be contiguous and prior to another without being thought to be its cause. There is also a •necessary connection to be taken into account, and that relation is much more important than either of the others.

So I return to the particular case—·for example, the collision·—and look at it from all angles trying to discover the nature of this necessary connection by finding the impression(s) from which the idea of it could be derived. When I cast my eye on the known •qualities of objects, I immediately find that the relation of cause and effect doesn’t depend in the least on them. When I consider the •relations between them I can find only contiguity and succession, which I have already regarded as imperfect and unsatisfactory. Should I despair of success, and accept that what I have here is an idea that is not preceded by any similar impression? That would be strong evidence of light-mindedness and instability, given that the contrary principle has already been so firmly established as to admit of no further doubt—at least until we have more fully examined the present difficulty.

So we must proceed like someone who, having searched for something and not found it where he expected, beats about all the neighbouring fields with no definite view or plan, hoping that sheer good luck will eventually guide him to what he is looking for. We have to leave the direct survey of this question about the nature of the necessary connection that enters into our idea of cause and effect (·returning to it at the start of section 14·), and try instead to find some other questions the answering of which may afford a hint on how to clear up the present difficulty. I shall examine two such questions:

[the second question is here considerably expanded from Hume’s formulation of it]

What is our reason for holding it to be necessary that everything whose existence has a beginning also has a cause?

Why do we conclude that causes of kind K_1 must necessarily have effects of kind K_2, and what is going on when from the occurrence of a K_1 we infer that a K_2 will occur, and how does it happen that we believe the predictions generated by such inferences?

Before going further, I should remark that although the ideas of cause and effect are derived from impressions of reflection as well as of sensation, for brevity’s sake I usually mention only the latter as the origin of these ideas. Whenever I say anything about impressions of sensation, please take it to be said about impressions of reflection as well. Passions are connected with their objects and with one another just as much as external bodies are connected together. So the same relation of cause and effect that belongs in the external world belongs in the mind as well.

3: Why a cause is necessary

To begin with the first question, about the necessity of a cause ·of coming into existence·: It is a general maxim in philosophy that whatever begins to exist must be caused to do so. This is commonly taken for granted in all reasonings, without any proof being given or asked for. It is supposed to be based on intuition, and to be one of those ·immediately self-evident· maxims that men can’t really doubt in their hearts, even if they deny them with their lips. But if we examine this maxim in terms of the idea of knowledge that I have explained, we shan’t discover in it any mark of any such intuitive certainty. Quite the contrary: we’ll find that it is of a nature quite foreign to what can be known intuitively.

All certainty arises from the comparison of ideas, and from the discovery of such relations as don’t change so long as the ideas don’t change. These relations are resemblance, proportions in quantity and number, degrees of any quality, and contrariety, none of which is involved in the proposition Whatever has a beginning has also a cause of existence. So that proposition is not intuitively certain. At any rate, if you want to maintain that it is intuitively certain you must deny that these four are the only infallible relations, and must find some other infallible relation to be involved in the proposition we are examining. When you do that, we can look at it! Anyway, here is an argument that proves at one blow that our proposition is not intuitively or demonstrably certain. To demonstrate that (1) there must be a cause for every new coming-into-existence and for every alteration of something already in existence, we would have to show that (2) it is entirely impossible for anything to begin to exist without some productive force ·making it do so·; so if (2) can’t be proved, we have no hope of ever being able to prove (1). And (2) is utterly incapable of demonstrative proof, as we can assure satisfy ourselves by considering that as •all distinct ideas are separable from each other, and as •the ideas of ·a given· cause and ·of its· effect are evidently distinct, we can easily conceive an object coming into existence without bringing in the distinct idea of a cause or productive principlec. So the separation of the idea of a cause from that of a beginning of existence is plainly possible for the imagination; and consequently the actual separation of these items is possible to the extent that it doesn’t imply any contradiction or absurdity; and so it can’t be refuted by any reasoning from mere ideas, without which it is impossible to demonstrate the necessity of a cause.

Accordingly, when we look into the demonstrations that have been adduced to show the necessity of a cause we shall find them all to be fallacious and sophistical. ·I shall show this with respect to the three main ones·. Some philosophers (including Mr Hobbes) argue like this: all the points of time and place in which we can suppose any object to come into existence are in themselves equal; and unless there is some cause that is special to one time and to one place, and by that means determines and fixes the coming- into-existence, the ‘Where?’ question must remain eternally unanswered, and the object can’t come into existence because there is nothing to fix where and when it will do so. But I ask: Is it any harder to suppose the time and place to be fixed without a cause than to suppose the coming into existence of the object to be determined without a cause? The first question that comes up on this subject is always Will the object come into existence or not?, and the second is When and where will it come into existence? If the removal of a cause is intuitively absurd in the one case, it must be so in the other; and if the absurdity isn’t clear without a proof in the one case, it will equally require a proof in the other. So there can be no question of showing the absurdity of one supposition and inferring from that the absurdity of the other; for they are both on the same footing and must stand or fall by the same reasoning.

The second argument that is used on this topic (by Dr Clarke and others) runs into similar trouble. It goes like this:

Everything must have a cause; for if anything lacked a cause it would produce itself, i.e. exist before it existed, which is impossible.

But this reasoning is plainly invalid, because it assumes that something’s lacking any cause involves it having a cause, namely itself. No doubt the notion of a thing’s bringing itself into existence is an evident contradiction. But to say that something comes into existence without a cause is not to say that it is itself its own cause! On the contrary, in excluding all external causes the statement excludes the thing itself that comes into existence. An object that exists absolutely without any cause is certainly not its own cause; and when you assert that the one follows from the other you are taking for granted the very point that is in question . . . . Exactly the same trouble infects the third argument that has been used by Mr Locke to demonstrate the necessity of a cause:

Whatever is produced without any cause is produced by nothing, i.e. has nothing for its cause. But nothing can never be a cause, any more than it can be something, or be equal to two right angles. By the same intuition that we perceive that nothing is not equal to two right angles, and that nothing is not something, we perceive that nothing can never be a cause; and this forces us to see that every object has a real cause of its existence.

I don’t think I need employ many words in showing the weakness of this argument, after what I have said of the other two. All three are based on the same fallacy, and are derived from the same turn of thought. I need only to point out that when we exclude all causes we really do exclude them: we don’t suppose that nothing or the object itself causes of the object to come into existence; so we can’t argue from the absurdity of those suppositions to the absurdity excluding all causes. . . . Even more frivolously, some say that every effect must have a cause because having-a-cause it is implied in the very idea of effect. It is true that every effect must have a cause, because ‘effect’ is a relative term of which ‘cause’ is the correlative. But this doesn’t prove that everything real must be preceded by a cause, any more than it follows from ‘Every husband must have a wife’ that every man must be married. The right question to be asking is: Must every item that begins to exist owe its existence to a cause? I hope that by the foregoing arguments I have shown well enough that the answer Yes is neither intuitively nor demonstratively certain.

So the opinion of the necessity of a cause for every new production isn’t based on ·a priori· knowledge or scientific reasoning, and must therefore arise from observation and experience. The natural next question is: how does it arise from experience? But I shall postpone that for a while, because I find it more convenient to sink this question in two others:

•Why do we conclude that such-and-such particular causes must necessarily have such-and-such particular effects?

•Why do we form an inference from cause to effect?

It may turn out eventually that a single answer will serve for both questions.

4: The component parts of our reasonings about cause and effect

Although the mind in its reasonings from causes or effects carries its view beyond the objects that it sees or remembers, it must never lose sight of them entirely; it mustn’t reason merely on its own ideas, without some mixture of impressions (or at least of ideas of the memory, which are equivalent to impressions). When we infer effects from causes, we must establish the existence of the causes; which we have only two ways of doing. We can do it either by •an immediate perception of our memory or senses, or by •an inference from other causes; but then we must ascertain the existence of these in the same way, either by a present impression ·or memory· or by an inference from their causes, and so on ·backwards· until we arrive at some object that we see or remember. We can’t carry on our inferences ad infinitum; and the only thing that can stop them is an impression of the memory or senses. Beyond that there is no room for doubt or enquiry.

For an example, choose any point of history, and consider why we either believe or reject it. Thus, we believe that Caesar was killed in the senate-house on the ides of March, because this is established on the unanimous testimony of historians, who agree in assigning this precise time and place to that event. Here are certain words that we see or remember, words that we remember to have been used as the signs of certain ideas; and these ideas—·the ones in the minds of writers of the history books·—were those of people who •were immediately present at assassination and received their ideas directly from it, or who •got their ideas from the testimony of others, who relied on yet earlier testimony, and so on backwards until the slope stops at those who saw the assassination. It is obvious that all this chain of argument or connection of causes and effects is initially based on words that are seen or remembered, and that without the authority of either the memory or senses our whole reasoning would be chimerical and without foundation: every link of the chain would hang on another; but there would be nothing fixed to one end of it that could support the whole chain, and so there would be no belief. And this is actually the case with all hypothetical arguments, or reasonings from a supposition, for in them there is no present impression and no belief about a matter of fact.

You may want to object: ‘We can reason from our past conclusions or principles without having recourse to the impressions from which they first arose.’ This is true, but not a sound objection; for even if those impressions were entirely wiped from the memory, the belief they produced may still remain. All reasonings about causes and effects are originally derived from some impression; just as one’s confidence in a demonstration always comes from a comparison of ideas, though the confidence may continue after the comparison has been forgotten.

5: The impressions of the senses and memory

In this kind of reasoning from causation, then, we use materials that are of a mixed and heterogeneous nature: however inter- connected they are, they are still essentially different from each other. All our arguments about causes and effects consist of •an impression of the memory or senses, and of •the idea of the real object or event that ·we think· caused or was caused by the object of the impression. So we have here three things to explain: •the original impression, •the transition ·from that· to the idea of the connected cause or effect, and •the nature and qualities of that idea.

As for the impressions that arise from the senses: in my opinion their ultimate cause is utterly inexplicable by human reason; we will never be able to decide with certainty whether •they arise immediately from the object, or •are produced by the creative power of the mind, or •are caused by God. But this question doesn’t affect our present purpose. We can draw inferences from the coherence of our perceptions, whether they are true or false, whether they represent Nature justly or are mere illusions of the senses.

When we search for the feature that distinguishes memory from imagination, we see straight off that it can’t lie in the simple ideas they present to us; for both these faculties borrow their simple ideas from •impressions, and can’t ever get beyond •those original perceptions. Nor are memory and imagination distinguished from one another by how their complex ideas are arranged. It is indeed a special property of the memory to preserve the original order and position of its ideas—·or, more strictly speaking, to preserve its ideas in the order of the original corresponding impressions·— whereas the imagination transposes and changes its ideas as it pleases. But this difference is not sufficient to tell us whether in any given case we have memory or imagination; for it is impossible to bring back the past impressions in order to compare them with our present ideas and see whether the arrangements are exactly alike. So the memory is not known by •the nature of its simple ideas or •the order of its complex ones; so the difference between it and imagination must lie in •memory’s greater force and liveliness. You can indulge your fancy by imagining a past scene of adventures; and you couldn’t distinguish this from a memory of those events if it weren’t that the ideas of the imagination are fainter and more obscure.

It often happens that when two men have been involved in a course of events, one remembers it much better than the other and has great trouble getting his companion to recollect it. He recites various details—the time, the place, who was there, what they said, what they did—all with no result, until finally he hits on some lucky circumstance that revives the whole affair and gives his friend a perfect memory of everything. Here the person who forgets receives all his ideas ·of the event· at first from what his friend says; he has the right ideas of the circumstances of time and place ·and so on·, though to him they are mere fictions of the imagination. But as soon as the detail is mentioned that triggers his memory, those very same ideas now appear in a new light, and in a way feel different from how they did before. Without altering in any way except in how they feel, they immediately become ideas ·not of imagination but· of memory, and are assented to.

Since the imagination can represent all the same objects that the memory can offer to us, and since those ·two· faculties are distinguished only by how the ideas they present feel, we ought to consider what the nature is of that feeling. I think everyone will readily agree with me that the ideas of the memory are stronger and livelier than those of the imagination.

A painter wanting to represent a passion or emotion of some kind would try to get a sight of a person in the grip of that emotion, in order to enliven his ideas of it and give them more force and liveliness than is found in ideas that are mere fictions of the imagination. The more recent this memory is, the clearer is the idea; and when after a long time he wants to think again about that passion, he always finds his idea of it to be much decayed if not wholly obliterated. We are frequently in doubt about ideas of the memory when they become very weak and feeble; and can’t decide whether an image comes from the imagination or from the memory when it is not drawn in colours that are lively enough to point ·certainly· to the latter faculty. . . . .

As an idea of the memory can by losing its force and liveliness degenerate so far that it is taken to be an idea of the imagination, so on the other hand an idea of the imagination can acquire such force and liveliness that it passes for an idea of the memory and has a counterfeit effect on belief and judgment. We see this in liars who by frequently repeating their lies eventually come to believe them, ‘remembering’ them as realities. In this case, as in many others, •custom and habit have the same influence on the mind as •Nature does, and implant the idea with the same force and vigour.

It appears, then, that the •belief or assent that always accompanies the memory and senses is nothing but the •liveliness of the perceptions they present, and that this is all that distinguishes them from the imagination. In such cases, believing is feeling an immediate impression of the senses or a repetition of that impression in memory. It is simply the force and liveliness of the perception that constitutes the basic act of judgment, laying the foundation for the reasoning that we build on it when we track the relation of cause and effect.

6: The inference from the impression to the idea

It is easy to see that when we think our way along this relation, the inference we make from cause to effect is not based merely on probing these particular objects and learning enough about their inner natures to see why one depends on the other. If we consider these objects in themselves and never look beyond the ideas we form of them, we shall find that none of them implies the existence of anything else. Such an inference—·based purely on the ideas·—would amount to knowledge, and would imply the absolute contradiction and impossibility of conceiving anything different, ·that is, of conceiving the predicted effect not to follow·. But clearly there can’t be any impossibility of that kind, because all distinct ideas are separable. Whenever we pass ·inferentially· from a present impression to the idea of some other object, we could have separated the idea from the impression and have substituted any other idea in place of it.

So it is purely by experience that we can infer the existence of one object from that of another. The experience goes like this. We remember having had frequent instances of the existence of one sort of object, and also remember that individuals of another sort have always gone along with them, regularly occurring just after them and very close by. Thus we remember seeing the sort of object we call ‘flame’ and feeling the sort of sensation that we call ‘heat’. We recall also their constant conjunction in all past instances—·always flame-then-heat·. Without more ado we call the one ‘cause’ and the other ‘effect’, and infer the existence of the heat from that of the flame. In all the instances from which we •learn the conjunction of particular causes and effects, both the causes and effects have been perceived by the senses and are remembered; but whenever we •reason about them, only one is perceived or remembered, and the other is supplied on the basis of our past experience.

Thus, in moving on through our topic we have suddenly come upon a new relation between cause and effect—finding this when we least expected it and were entirely employed on another subject. This relation is the constant conjunction of cause with effect. Contiguity and succession are not sufficient to make us regard two objects as cause and effect unless we see that these two relations are preserved in a number of instances. Now we can see the advantage of leaving the direct survey of the cause-effect relation in order to discover the nature of the necessary connection that is such an essential part of it. Perhaps by this means we may at last arrive at our goal! But, to tell the truth, this newly discovered relation of constant conjunction doesn’t seem to take us far along our way. ·Here is an expansion of that pessimistic thought·:

The fact of constant conjunction implies only that similar objects have always been placed in similar relations of contiguity and succession; and it seems evident that this can’t reveal any new idea; it can make our ideas more numerous, but can’t make them richer. What we don’t learn from one object we can’t learn from a hundred that are all of the same kind and are perfectly alike in every detail. Our senses show us in one instance two bodies (or motions or qualities) in certain relations of succession and contiguity, and our memory presents us with a multitude of cases where we have found similar bodies (or motions or qualities) related in the same ways. The mere repetition of a past impression—even to infinity—won’t give rise any new original idea such as that of a necessary connection; and the sheer number of impressions has in this case no more effect than if we confined ourselves to one only.

But although this reasoning seems sound and obvious, it would be folly for us to despair too soon. So I shall continue the thread of my discourse: having found that after the discovery of the constant conjunction of any objects we always draw an inference from one object to another, I shall now examine the nature of that inference, and of the transition from the impression to the idea. Perhaps we shall eventually find that •the necessary connection depends on the inference rather than •the inference’s depending on the necessary connection! It appears that the transition from an impression that is present to the memory or senses (and said to be of a ‘cause’) to the idea of an object (which is said to be an ‘effect’) is founded on past experience, and on our memory of their constant conjunction. So the next question is: how does experience produce the idea ·of the effect·? Is it done by the •understanding or by the •imagination? Are we caused to make the transition by •our reason or by •some ·nonreasoned· association and relation of perceptions? ·I shall start with the former suggestion, giving it about a couple of pages·.

If reason did the work, it would have to be relying on the principle that

Instances of which we haven’t had experience must resemble those of which we have; the course of Nature continues always uniformly the same.

In order to clear this matter up, therefore, let us consider all the arguments that might be given to support such a proposition. They will have to be based either on •·absolutely certain· knowledge or on •probability; so let us look into each of these degrees of certainty, to see whether either provides us with a sound conclusion along these lines.

My previous line of reasoning will easily convince us that no demonstrative arguments could prove that instances of which we have had no experience resemble those of which we have had experience. We can at least conceive a change in the course of Nature; which proves that such a change is not absolutely impossible. To form a clear idea of anything is an undeniable argument for its possibility, and can all on its own refute any claimed demonstration against it.

Probability doesn’t concern the relations of ideas as such, but rather the relations among objects; so it must be based in some way on the impressions of our memory and senses, and in some way on our ideas. If our probable reasonings didn’t have any •impressions mixed into them, their conclusions would be entirely chimerical: and if there were there no •ideas in mixture, the action of the mind in observing the relation—·that is, in taking in that such-and-such makes so-and-so probable·—would strictly speaking be sensation, not reasoning. In all probable reasonings, therefore, there is •something present to the mind that is either seen or remembered, and from this we infer •something connected with it that is not seen nor remembered.

The only connection or relation of objects that can lead us beyond the immediate impressions of our memory and senses is that of cause and effect, because it is the only one on which we can base a sound inference from one object to another. The idea of cause and effect is derived from experience, which informs us that certain specific ·kinds of· objects have always been constantly conjoined with each other; and as an object of one of these kinds is supposed to be immediately present through an impression of it, we on that basis expect there to be an object of the other kind. According to this account of things—which I think is entirely unquestionable—•probability is based on •the presumption that the objects of which we have had experience resemble those of which we have had none; so •this presumption can’t possibly arise from •probability. One principle can’t be both the cause and the effect of another. This may be the only proposition about the causal relation that is either intuitively or demonstratively certain!

You may think you can elude this argument. You may want to claim that all conclusions from causes and effects are built on solid reasoning, saying this without going into the question of whether our reasoning on this subject is derived from demonstration or from probability. Well, please produce this reasoning so that we can examine it. You may say that after experience of the constant conjunction of certain ·kinds of· objects we reason as follows:

This kind of object is always found to produce an object of that kind. It couldn’t have this effect if it weren’t endowed with a power of production. The power necessarily implies the effect; and therefore there is a valid basis for drawing a conclusion from the existence of one object to the existence of another. The •past production implies a •power; the •power implies a •new production; and the new production is what we infer from the power and the past production.

It would be easy for me to show the weakness of this reasoning •if I were willing to appeal to the observations I have already made, that the idea of production is the same as the idea of causation, and that no existence certainly and demonstratively implies a power in any other object; or •if it were proper to bring in here things I shall have occasion to say later about the idea we form of power and efficacy. But these approaches might seem •to weaken my system by resting one part of it on another, or •to create confusion in my reasoning ·by taking things out of order·; so I shall try to maintain my present thesis without either of those kinds of help.

Let it be temporarily granted, then, that the production of one object by another in any one instance implies a power, and that this power is connected with its effect. But it has already been proved that the power doesn’t lie in the perceptible qualities of the cause, yet all we have present to us are its perceptible qualities. So I ask: why, in other instances where those qualities have appeared, do you presume that the same power is also there? Your appeal to past experience gives you no help with this. The most it can prove is that that very object which produced a certain other object was at that very instant endowed with a power to do this; but it can’t prove that the same power must continue in the same object (collection of perceptible qualities) ·at other times·, much less that a similar power is always conjoined with similar perceptible qualities ·in other objects·. You might say: ‘We have experience that the same power continues ·through time· to be united with the same object, and that similar objects are endowed with similar powers’; but then I renew my question about why from this experience we form any conclusion that goes beyond the past instances of which we have had experience. If you answer this in the same way that you did the previous question, your answer will raise a new question of the same kind, and so on ad infinitum; which clearly proves that this line of reasoning had no solid foundation.

Thus, not only does •our reason fail to reveal to us the ultimate connection of causes and effects, but even after experience has informed us of their constant conjunction we can’t through •our reason satisfy ourselves concerning why we should extend that experience beyond the particular instances that we have observed. We suppose, but can never prove, that objects of which we have had experience must resemble the ones that lie beyond the reach of our discovery.

I have called attention to •certain relations that make us pass from one object to another even when no reason leads us to make that transition; and we can accept as a general rule that wherever the mind constantly and uniformly makes a transition without any reason, it is influenced by •these relations. That is exactly what we have in the present case. Reason can never show us a connection of one object with another, even with the help of experience and the observation of the objects’ constant conjunction in all past instances. So when the mind passes from the idea or impression of one object to the idea of or belief in another, it isn’t driven by reason but by certain forces that link the ideas of these objects and unite them in our imagination. If among •ideas in the •imagination there were no more unity than the •understanding can find among •objects, we could never draw any inference from causes to effects, or believe in any matter of fact. The inference, therefore, depends solely on the ·unreasoned· union of ideas.

The principlesc of union among ideas come down to three general ones, I maintain; and I have said that the idea or impression of any object naturally introduces the idea of any other object that is •resembling, •contiguous to, or •connected with it. These are neither the infallible nor the sole causes of union among ideas. They are not infallible causes, because someone may fix his attention for a while on one object, without looking further. They are not the sole causes, because ·some of our transitions from impressions to ideas owe nothing to these three relations·: our thought has a very irregular motion in running along its objects, and can leap from the heavens to the earth, from one end of the creation to the other, without any certain method or order. But though I concede this weakness in these three relations (·‘not infallible’·), and this irregularity in the imagination (·‘not the sole causes’·), I still contend that the only general factors that associate ideas are •resemblance, •contiguity, and •causation.

Ideas are indeed subject to a uniting force that may at first sight seem different from any of these, but will be found ultimately to depend on the same origin. When every individual of some kind of objects is found by experience to be constantly united with an individual of another kind, the appearance of any new individual of either kind naturally conveys our thought to its usual attendant. Thus, because a particular idea is commonly attached to a particular word, nothing is required but the hearing of that word to produce the corresponding idea; and this transition will be one that the mind is hardly able to prevent, however hard it tries. In this case it is not absolutely necessary that on hearing the sound we should reflect on past experience and consider what idea has usually been connected with the sound. The imagination, unaided, takes the place of this reflection; it is so accustomed to pass from the word to the idea that it doesn’t delay for a moment between hearing the word and conceiving the idea.

But though I acknowledge this to be a true principlec of association among ideas, I contend that it is the very same as that between the ideas of cause and effect, and is an essential part of all our causal reasonings. The only notion of cause and effect that we have is that of certain objects that have been always conjoined together, and in all past instances have been found inseparable. We can’t penetrate into the reason for that conjunction. We only observe the fact itself: from constant conjunction, objects acquire a union in the imagination. When the impression of one becomes present to us, we immediately form an idea of whatever usually accompanies it; and consequently we can lay this down as one part of the definition of opinion or belief, that it is an idea related to or associated with a present impression.

Thus, though causation is a •philosophical relation—because it involves contiguity, succession, and constant conjunction—it’s only in its role as a •natural relation that it produces a union among our ideas and enables us to reason on it and draw inferences from it.

[See note here.]

7: The nature of the idea or belief

The •idea of an object is an essential part of the •belief in it—·of the belief that it exists·—but not the whole. We •conceive many things that we don’t •believe. Let us now investigate more fully the nature of belief, or the qualities of the ideas that we assent to.

Obviously, all reasonings from causes or effects end in conclusions about matters of fact—that is, about the existence of objects or of their qualities. It is also obvious that the •idea of existence is not different from the •idea of any object, and that when after •simply conceiving something we want to •conceive it as existent, this actually doesn’t add to or alter anything in the first idea. For example, when we affirm that God is existent we simply form the idea of such a being as he is represented to us, and the existence we attribute to him is not conceived by a particular idea which we join to the idea of his other qualities and could again separate and distinguish from them. But I go further than this. I say not only that •the conception of the existence of an object adds nothing to •the simple conception of it, but also that •the belief in its the existence doesn’t add any new ideas either. When I

think of God, then

think of God as existent, then

believe God to be existent,

my idea of him neither grows nor shrinks. Still, a simple conception of the existence of an object certainly differs greatly from a belief in it; and as this difference doesn’t consist in the parts or structure of the relevant idea, it follows that it must consist in how we conceive it.

Suppose that someone in conversation says things to which I don’t assent— that Caesar died in his bed, that silver is more fusible than lead, that mercury is heavier than gold. It is obvious that despite my incredulity I clearly understand his meaning, and form all the same ideas as he does. My imagination has the same powers as his: he can’t conceive any idea that I can’t conceive, or conjoin any ideas that I can’t conjoin. So I ask: what makes the difference between believing a proposition and disbelieving it? The answer is easy with regard to •propositions that are proved by intuition or demonstration. In that case, the person who assents not only conceives the ideas according to the proposition but is forced—either immediately or by the interposition of other ideas—to conceive them in just that way. Whatever is absurd is unintelligible, and the imagination cannot conceive anything contrary to a demonstration. But in •reasonings from causation, and about matters of fact, this sort of necessity isn’t present and the imagination is free to conceive both sides of the question; so I ask again, what makes the difference between incredulity and belief?. . . . Here is a bad answer:

A person who doesn’t assent to a proposition that you advance first conceives the object in the same way as you, and then immediately goes on to conceive it in a different way and to have different ideas of it; ·and this different conception is his disbelief·.

This answer is unsatisfactory—not because it contains any falsehood but because it doesn’t reveal the whole truth. Whenever we dissent from what someone says, we do indeed conceive both sides of the question, ·and that is the truth in the ‘bad answer’·; but we can believe only one side, so it evidently follows that belief must make some difference between the conception to which we assent and the one from which we dissent. We may mingle, unite, separate, run together, and vary our ideas in a hundred different ways; but until there appears some principlec that fixes one of these different combinations ·as the one we believe·, we have in reality no opinion. And this principlec, as it plainly adds nothing to our previous ideas, can only change how we conceive them. All the perceptions of the mind are of two kinds, impressions and ideas, which differ from each other only in their different degrees of force and liveliness. Our ideas are copied from our impressions and represent them in every detail. When you want somehow to vary your idea of a particular object, all you can do is to make it more or less strong and lively. If you change it in any other way it will come to represent a different object or impression. (Similarly with colours. A particular shade of a colour may acquire a new degree of liveliness or brightness without any other variation; but if you produce any other change it is no longer the same shade or colour.) Therefore, as belief merely affects how we conceive any object, all it can do—·the only kind of variation that won’t change the subject, so to speak·—is to make our ideas stronger and livelier. So an opinion or belief can most accurately defined as: a lively idea related to or associated with a present impression.[1]

Here are the main points of the arguments that lead us to this conclusion. When we infer the existence of one object from the existence of others, some object must always be present either to the memory or senses to serve as the foundation of our reasoning (the alternative being a regress ad infinitum). Reason can never satisfy us that the existence of any one object ever implies the existence of another; so when we pass from an impression of one to an idea of or belief in another, we are driven not by reason but by custom, or an associative force. But belief is something more than a simple idea. It is a particular manner of forming an idea; and as an idea can be varied—·without being turned into another idea·—only by a variation of its degree of force and liveliness, it follows from all this that belief is a lively idea produced by a relation to a present impression, which is the definition I gave.

This operation of the mind that forms the belief in any matter of fact seems to have been until now one of the greatest mysteries of philosophy, though no-one has so much as suspected that there was any difficulty in explaining it. For my part, I have to admit that I find a considerable difficulty in this, and that even when I think I understand the subject perfectly I am at a loss for words in which to express my meaning. A line of thought that seems to me to be very cogent leads me to conclude that an •opinion or belief is nothing but an idea that differs from a •fiction not in the nature or the order of its parts but in how it is conceived. But when I want to explain this ‘how’, I can hardly find any word that fully serves the purpose, and am obliged to appeal to your feeling in order to give you a perfect notion of this operation of the mind. An •idea assented to feels different from a •fictitious idea that the imagination alone presents to us; and I try to explain this difference of feeling by calling it ‘a superior force’, or ‘liveliness’, or ‘solidity’, or ‘firmness’, or ‘steadiness’. This variety of terms, which may seem so unphilosophical, is intended only to express the act of the mind that makes realities more present to us than fictions, causes them to weigh more in thought, and gives them a superior influence on the passions and the imagination. Provided we agree about the thing, we needn’t argue about the labels. . . . I admit that it is impossible to explain perfectly this feeling or manner of conception ·that marks off belief·. We can use words that express something near it. But its true and proper name is ‘belief’, which is a term that everyone sufficiently understands •in common life. And •in philosophy we can go no further than to say that it is something felt by the mind which distinguishes the ideas of the judgment from the fictions of the imagination. It gives them more force and influence, makes them appear of greater importance, anchors them in the mind, and makes them the governing forces of all our actions.

This definition will also be found to fit perfectly with everyone’s feeling and experience. Nothing is more obvious than that the ideas to which we assent are more strong, firm, and vivid, than the loose dreams of a castle- builder. If one person sits down to read a book as a romance, and another ·reads the same book· as a true history, they plainly receive the same ideas in the same order; and they attach the very same sense to what their author writes, despite the incredulity of one and the belief of the other. His words produce the same ideas in both, but his testimony doesn’t have the same influence on them. The believing reader has a livelier conception of all the incidents. He enters deeper into the concerns of the persons; he represents to himself their actions and characters, their friendships and enmities; he even goes so far as to form a notion of their features and manners. While the disbelieving reader, who gives no credit to the testimony of the author, has a more faint and languid conception of all these particulars, and can’t be much entertained by it unless he is held by the style and ingenuity of the composition.

8: The causes of belief

Having thus explained the nature of belief, and shown that it consists in a lively idea related to a present impression, I now enquire into what forces produce belief—·that is·, what gives the idea its liveliness.

I would like to have it established as a general maxim in the science of human nature that when an impression becomes present to us it not only •carries the mind to such ideas as are related to it but also •passes on to those ideas a share of its force and liveliness. All the operations of the mind depend to a large extent on its state at the time when it performs them; and the action will always have more or less vigour and liveliness according to whether the energy-level is high or low and the attention more or less fixed. So when an object is presented which •elevates and enlivens the thought, every action the mind performs will be stronger and more vivid as long as •that state continues. Now, it is obvious that how long the state continues depends entirely on what the mind is thinking about, and that •any new object ·of thought· naturally draws the energies in a new direction and changes the mind’s state; while on the other hand when the mind fixes constantly on •the same object, or passes easily along related objects without being aware that they are different, the state lasts much longer. So it comes about that when the mind is enlivened by a present impression it proceeds to form a livelier idea of the related objects, by a natural transition of the state—·the level of liveliness·—from one to the other. The change of the objects is so easy that the mind is hardly aware of it, and applies itself to the conception of the related idea with all the force and liveliness it acquired from the present impression.

It would be nice if we could satisfy ourselves that I am right about this just by considering what it is for things to be ·naturally· related, and the ease of transition that is essential to this. But I have to say that ·we can’t, and that· my confidence in my account comes mainly from experience. As the first experience that is relevant to our topic, I note that when we see a picture of an absent friend our idea of him is plainly enlivened by the resemblance ·of the picture to the friend·, and that every passion that the idea of our friend gives us—whether of joy or of sorrow—acquires new force and vigour ·because we see the picture·. This effect comes from the joint operation of •a relation and •a present impression. ·The relation·: if the picture isn’t at all like the friend, or at least wasn’t intended to be a picture of him, it doesn’t so much as carry our thought to him. And ·the present impression·: if the picture is absent as well as the friend, the mind may pass from the thought of the picture to that of the friend, but in this case it feels its idea ·of the friend· to be weakened rather than enlivened by that transition. We enjoy seeing a picture of our friend when it is set before us; but when the picture is removed, we prefer thinking about him directly to thinking about him as reflected in a picture which is as distant and dark to us as he is.

The ceremonies of the Roman Catholic religion may be considered as events of this sort. The devotees of that strange superstition usually plead, in excuse of the weird rituals they are scolded for, that they feel the good effect of those external movements, postures and actions in enlivening their devotion and their fervour, which would decay if they were directed entirely to distant and immaterial objects. They say:

We represent the objects of our faith in perceptible symbols and images, and make them more present to us by the immediate presence of these symbols than we could make them merely by an intellectual view and contemplation. Perceptible objects always have a greater influence on the imagination than anything else, and they readily pass this influence along to the ideas to which the objects are related and which they resemble.

I shall only infer from these practices and this defence of them that the effect of resemblance in enlivening the idea is very common; and as in every case a resemblance and a present impression must work together, we are abundantly supplied with phenomena to prove the reality of the ·ideaenlivening· force of which I have spoken.

We may reinforce these phenomena by ·bringing in· others of a different kind, noting the effects of contiguity as well as of resemblance. Distance certainly lessens the intensity of every idea; and when we are getting near to an object, even though it isn’t yet present to our senses, it operates on our mind with an influence that imitates ·that of· an immediate impression. Thinking about an object readily carries the mind to things that are contiguous to it; but only the object’s actual presence carries the mind ·to an idea of contiguous objects· with a superior liveliness. ·Here is an example of what happens where there isn’t a relevant present impression·. When I am a few miles from home, whatever relates to it touches me more nearly than when I am six hundred miles away, though even at that distance reflecting on anything in the neighbourhood of my friends and family naturally produces an idea of them. But as in this latter case both the relevant objects of the mind are ideas, the easy transition between them can’t heighten the liveliness of either, because there is no immediate impression at work.

No-one can doubt that •causation has the same influence as do •resemblance and •contiguity. Superstitious people are fond of the relics of saints and holy men, for the same reason that they want symbols and images, in order to enliven their devotion and give them a stronger and more intimate conception of the exemplary lives they want to imitate. It is clear that one of the best relics a devotee could get would be something made by the saint ·and thus causally related to him·; and if his clothes and furniture are ever considered as especially desirable in the same way, that is because they were once at his disposal and were moved and affected by him, which makes them partial effects of the saint, and connected with him by a shorter chain of consequences than any of the ones from which we learn that he really existed. This phenomenon clearly proves that a present impression with a relation of causation can enliven any idea, and consequently produce belief or assent; which fits my definition of ‘belief’.

But we needn’t search out other arguments to prove that a present impression with a relation or transition of the imagination can enliven an idea, because this very example—our reasonings from cause and effect— suffice for that purpose all on its own! Here are three certainties:

•We must have an idea of every matter of fact that we believe.

•This idea arises only from a relation to a present impression.

•The belief adds nothing to the idea, but only changes how we conceive it, making it stronger and livelier.

The present conclusion about the influence of ·a natural· relation follows immediately from these steps, and every step appears to me sure and infallible. All that this operation of the mind contains is: •a present impression, •a lively idea, and •a relation or association in the imagination between the two.

. . . . It is the present impression that is to be considered as the true cause of the idea, and of the belief that comes with it. So we should consult our experience in order to learn what special qualities the impression has that enable it to produce such an extraordinary effect.

•First kind of experience: the present impression doesn’t have this effect through its own power and efficacy, considered alone as a single perception and limited to the present moment. I find that an impression from which I can draw no conclusion when it first appears can later become a basis for a belief, after I have had experience of its usual consequences. ·For such a transition to occur·, we must in every case have observed the same ·sort of· impression in past instances, and have found that there is some other ·sort of· impression with which it is constantly conjoined. This is confirmed by such a multitude of events that there can’t be the slightest doubt about it.

From a •second kind of experience I conclude that the belief that comes with the present impression, and is produced by a number of past impressions and pairs of events, arises immediately, without any new operation of the reason or imagination. I can be sure of this, because I never am conscious of any such operation in myself and don’t find anything in the situation to operate on. When something comes from a past repetition without any new reasoning or conclusion, our word for it is ‘custom’; so we can take it as certainly established every belief that follows on a present impression is derived solely from custom. When we are accustomed to see two impressions conjoined, the appearance or idea of one immediately carries us to the idea of the other. Being fully satisfied about this, I make a •third appeal to experience in order to learn whether the production of this phenomenon of belief needs anything more, in addition to the customary transition. So I change the first impression into an idea; and then I note that though the customary transition to the correlative idea still remains, there isn’t any real belief or conviction. So a present impression is absolutely required for this whole operation; and when I go on to compare an impression with an idea, and find that they differ only in their degrees of force and liveliness, I reach the bottom-line conclusion that belief is a more vivid and intense conception of an idea, coming from its relation to a present impression.

Thus, all probable reasoning is nothing but a kind of sensation. We must follow our taste and sentiment not only in poetry and music but also in philosophy. When I am convinced of some principle, it is only an idea that strikes me more strongly. When I prefer one set of arguments to another set, all I do is to decide on the basis of how they feel which is the more powerful [Hume’s exact words: ‘I do nothing but decide from my feeling concerning the superiority of their influence’]. Objects have no discoverable connection with one another, and the only factor that lets us draw any inference from the appearance of one object to the existence of another is custom operating on the imagination.

It is worth noting that the past experience on which all our judgments about cause and effect depend can operate on our mind so imperceptibly that we don’t notice it, and it may even be that we don’t fully know it. A person who stops short in his journey when he comes to a river in his way foresees the consequences of going forward; and his knowledge of these consequences comes from past experience which informs him of certain linkages of causes and effects. But does he reflect on any past experience, and call to mind instances that he has seen or heard of, in order to discover how water effects animal bodies? Surely not! That isn’t how he proceeds in his reasoning. ·In his mind· the idea of •water is so closely connected with that of •sinking, and the idea of •sinking is so closely linked with that of •drowning, that his mind moves from one idea to the next to the next without help from his memory. . . . But as this transition comes from experience and not from any primary connection between the ideas, we have to acknowledge that experience can produce a belief—a judgment regarding causes and effects—by a secret operation in which it is not once thought of. This removes any pretext that may remain for asserting that the mind is convinced by reasoning of the principle that instances of which we haven’t had experience must resemble those of which we have. For we here find that the understanding or imagination can draw inferences from past experience without so much as reflecting on it—let alone forming a principle about it and reasoning on the basis of the principle!

In general we may observe that in all the most established and uniform conjunctions of causes and effects—gravity, impact, solidity, etc.—the mind never consciously reflects on any past experience; though in cause- effect linkages that are more rare and unusual the mind may engage in such reflections as an aid to the custom and transition of ideas. Indeed, in some cases •the reflection produces the belief without the custom; or— more accurately—•the reflection produces ·the belief by producing· the custom in an oblique and artificial manner. Let me explain. It is certain that not only in philosophy and science, but even in common life, we can come to know of a particular cause by a single experiment, provided it is judiciously made with a careful removal of all extraneous and irrelevant circumstances. . . . A habit can’t be acquired from a single instance, so it may be thought that belief in this case can’t be the effect of custom. But this difficulty will vanish if we consider that, though we are here supposed to have had only one experience of a particular effect, we have millions to convince us of this principle:

•Like objects placed in like circumstances will always produce like effects.

And as this principle has established itself by a sufficient custom, it makes convincing and firm any opinion to which it can be applied. The connection of the ideas is not habitual after one experiment; but this connection is covered by another principle that is habitual; which brings us back to my hypothesis. In all cases we transfer our experience to instances of which we have no experience, doing this consciously or implicitly, directly or indirectly.

I mustn’t leave this subject without remarking that it is very difficult to talk perfectly properly and accurately about the operations of the mind, because common language has seldom made any very fine distinctions amongst them, generally calling by the same word all that closely resemble each other. And as this is almost inevitably a source of obscurity and confusion in an author, so it may cause you to have doubts and objections that you otherwise would never have dreamed of. Thus, my general position that

•an opinion or belief is nothing but a strong and lively idea derived from a present impression related to it

may be liable to the following objection, because of a little ambiguity in the words ‘strong’ and ‘lively’:

It is not only an •impression that can give rise to reasoning—an •idea can have the same influence, especially given your principle that all our ideas are derived from corresponding impressions. If I now form an idea whose corresponding impression I have forgotten, I can still conclude from ·the existence of· this idea that such an impression did once exist; and this conclusion comes as a belief; so •what is the source of the qualities of force and liveliness that constitute this belief?

I am ready with an answer: •it comes from the present idea. This idea is not here considered as •the representation of an absent object but as •a real perception in the mind, of which we are intimately conscious; so it must be able to bestow on whatever is related to it the same quality (call it ‘firmness’, or ‘solidity’, or ‘force’, or ‘liveliness’ [Hume throughout uses ‘vivacity’]) with which the mind reflects on it and is assured of its present existence. The idea here takes the place of an impression, and so far as our present purpose goes it is entirely the same.

For the same reason, we needn’t be surprised to hear of the memory of an idea—that is, the idea of an idea—and of its having more force and liveliness than the loose conceptions of the imagination. In thinking of our past thoughts we don’t just sketch out the objects of which we were thinking; we also conceive the action of our mind in doing this— that certain je-ne-sais-quoi of which it is impossible to give any definition or description but which everyone understands well enough. When the memory offers an idea of this, and represents it as past, it is easy to see how that idea could have more vigour and firmness than ·the idea that occurs· when we think of a past thought without having any memory of it. . . .

9: The effects of other relations and other habits

However convincing those arguments may appear, I mustn’t rest content with them, but must turn the subject on every side in order to find new points of view from which I can illustrate and confirm these extraordinary and fundamental principles. Philosophers are right when they conscientiously hesitate to accept a new hypothesis; their attitude is necessary for progress towards the truth, and should be respected. So I must produce every argument that may tend to their satisfaction, and remove every objection that may stop them in their reasoning.

I have often remarked that in addition to •cause and effect the two relations of •resemblance and •contiguity are associating forces of thought, capable of conveying the imagination from one idea to another. I have also noted that when two objects are linked by either of these relations, and one of the objects is immediately present to the memory or senses, the mind is not only •carried to the linked object by means of the associating force, but •conceives that object with an additional force and vigour through the combined operation of the associating force and the present impression. In pointing all this out I was confirming by analogy my account of our judgments about cause and effect. But this very argument might be turned against me, becoming an objection to my hypothesis rather than a confirmation of it. The objection goes like this:

If all the parts of your hypothesis are true, namely:

•these three kinds of relation are derived from the same principlesc,

•their effects in giving force and liveliness to our ideas are the same, and

•belief is nothing but a more forceful and vivacious conception of an idea,

it should follow that belief can come not only from the relation of •cause and effect, but also from those of •contiguity and •resemblance. But we find by experience that belief arises only from causation, and that we can draw no inference from one object to another unless they are connected by this relation. So we can conclude that there is some error in the reasoning that has led us into such difficulties.

That is the objection; now let us consider its solution. It is obvious that whatever is present to the memory, striking on the mind with a liveliness that resembles ·that of· an immediate impression, must have a considerable effect on all the operations of the mind, easily distinguishing itself from mere fictions of the imagination. Of these impressions or ideas of the memory we form a kind of system, incorporating into it whatever we remember having been present to our internal perception or ·our external· senses; and whenever some particular item in that system is joined to a present impressions, we choose to call it ‘a reality’. But the mind doesn’t stop at that. Finding that •this system of perceptions is connected by custom—or, if you like, by the relation of cause and effect—with •another system, it proceeds to consider the ideas of items in the latter system. It feels itself to be somehow forced to view these particular ideas, and finds that the custom or relation which does the forcing can’t be changed in the slightest; so it forms them—·this second set of ideas·—into a new system, which it likewise dignifies with the title of ‘realities’. •The former of these two systems is the object of the memory and senses, the •latter of the judgment.

The judgment is what populates and furnishes the world, acquainting us with things that are too remote in time or space for our senses or memory to reach them. [Hume goes on to describe his beliefs about the history of Rome. Then:] These and all my other beliefs are nothing but ideas, though by their force and settled order, arising from custom and the relation of cause and effect, they distinguish themselves from ideas that are merely the offspring of the imagination.

As to the influence of •contiguity and •resemblance, we may observe that if the contiguous and resembling object is included in this system of realities, there is no doubt that these two relations will assist that of cause and effect, and fix the related idea with more force into the imagination. . . .

But though I can’t entirely exclude the relations of resemblance and contiguity from operating on the imagination in this way, it is observable that when they occur on their own their influence is very feeble and uncertain. The cause-effect relation is needed to persuade us of any real existence, and its persuasion is also needed to give power to these other relations. ·Here is why·. Take a case where the appearance of an impression leads us not only •to feign another object but quite arbitrarily •to give the latter a particular relation to the impression: this can’t have any great effect on the mind, and there is no reason why if the same impression returns we should be led to place the same object in the same relation to it. [The word ‘feign’ comes from a Latin word that is also the source for ‘fiction’. Hume is talking about fictions, inventions, stories we tell ourselves.] It is in no way necessary for the mind to feign any resembling or contiguous objects; and if it does feign them it needn’t always do it in the same way. Indeed, such a fiction is based on so little reason that nothing but pure whim can lead the mind to form it; and whim being fluctuating and uncertain, it can’t possibly operate with any considerable degree of force and constancy. . . . The relation of cause and effect has all the opposite advantages. The objects it presents are fixed and unalterable. The impressions of memory never change in any considerable degree; and each impression draws along with it a precise idea, which takes its place in the imagination as something solid and real, certain and invariable. The thought is always made to pass from the impression to the idea—and from that particular impression to that particular idea—without any choice or hesitation.

Not content with removing this objection, however, I shall try to extract from it an argument for my doctrine. Contiguity and resemblance have much less effect than does causation; but they still have some effect, and strengthen the confidence of any opinion and the liveliness of any conception. If I can show this with various new examples in addition to the ones I have already noted, you will grant that that will be a considerable further argument that belief is nothing but a lively idea related to a present impression.

To begin with contiguity: it has been remarked that Moslem pilgrims who have seen Mecca, and Christians who have seen the Holy Land, are from then on more faithful and zealous believers than those who haven’t had that advantage. A man whose memory presents him with a lively image of the Red Sea, the desert, Jerusalem, and Galilee can never doubt any miraculous events that are related by Moses or by the evangelists. His lively idea of those places passes by an easy transition to the events that are supposed to have been related to them by contiguity, and increases his belief by increasing the liveliness of his conception. A memory of these fields and rivers has the same influence on ordinary people as a new argument would— and from the same causes! Something similar holds for resemblance. I have remarked that •the conclusion we draw from a present object to its absent cause or effect is never based on any qualities that we observe in that object considered in itself; or, in other words, that it is only through experience that one can determine what a given event resulted from or what will result from it. But though this is so obvious that it didn’t seem to need supporting argument, some philosophers have imagined that there is a visible cause for the communication of motion, and that a reasonable man could immediately infer the motion of one body from the impact of another, without appealing to any past observation. It is easy to prove that this is false, thus:

If such an inference can be drawn merely from the ideas of body, motion, and impact, it must amount to a demonstration, and must imply the absolute impossibility of any contrary supposition. From this it would follow that ‘A case of impact caused something other than the communication of motion’ implies a formal contradiction: not merely that it can’t possibly be true but that it can’t even be conceived. But we can quickly satisfy ourselves that this is wrong by forming a clear and consistent idea of one body’s colliding with another, and

immediately coming to rest, or

going back in the same line in which it came, or

going out of existence, or

moving in a circle or an ellipse,

or—cutting it short—going through any one of countless other changes.

These suppositions are all consistent and natural; and the reason why some philosophers imagine the communication of motion to be more consistent and natural, not only than those suppositions but also than any other natural effect, is based on the resemblance between the cause and the effect—·motion into the collision, motion out from it·. In this case the •resemblance combines with •experience ·of motion in, motion out·—and binds the objects in the closest and most intimate manner to each other, so as to make those philosophers imagine them to be absolutely inseparable. Resemblance, then, has the same influence as experience, or anyway a parallel one; and as the only immediate effect of experience is to associate our ideas together, it follows that all belief arises from the association of ideas—which is what my hypothesis says.

Writers on optics all agree that the eye at all times sees the same number of physical points, and that a man on a mountain-top has no larger an image presented to his senses than when he is cooped up in the smallest room. It is only through experience that he infers from some special qualities of the image the largeness of the object ·he is seeing·; and here as in other contexts he confuses this inference of his •judgment with a •sensation. [Hume develops this point in some detail, giving a special role to the relation of resemblance; omitted here.] No weakness of human nature is more universal and conspicuous than what we commonly call ‘credulity’, or too easily believing what others say; and this weakness is also very naturally accounted for by the influence of resemblance. When we accept any matter of fact on the strength of human testimony, our belief comes from the very same source as our inferences from causes to effects, and from effects to causes. Our experience of the dominant drives in human nature is the only possible basis for any confidence we may have in the veracity of men. But though experience is the true standard for this as of all other judgments, we seldom regulate ourselves entirely by it, and have a remarkable propensity to believe whatever we are told—even about apparitions, enchantments, and wonders, however contrary to daily experience and observation. The words or discourses of other people have an intimate •connection with certain ideas in their minds, and these ideas have a •connection with the facts or objects that they represent. This latter •connection is generally much overrated, and commands our assent beyond what experience will justify; and the explanation for this must lie in the resemblance between the ideas ·of the speakers· and the ·supposed· facts. Other effects indicate their causes only in an oblique manner; but the testimony of men does it directly, and is to be considered as a likeness as well as an effect. So it is not surprising that we are so rash in drawing inferences from it, and are less guided by experience in our judgments about it than we are in our judgments about any other subject.

Just as resemblance when combined with causation strengthens our reasonings, so a considerable lack of resemblance can almost entirely destroy them. A remarkable example of this is the universal carelessness and stupidity of men with regard to a future state, a topic in which they show as obstinate an incredulity as they do a blind credulity about other things. There is indeed no richer source of material for a studious man’s wonder, and a pious man’s regret, than the negligence of the bulk of mankind concerning their after-life; and it is with reason that many eminent theologians have been so bold as to say that though common people don’t explicitly assent to any form of unbelief they are really unbelievers in their hearts and have nothing like what we could call a belief that their souls are eternal. Let us consider on the one hand •what divines have presented with such eloquence about the importance of eternity, ·which is to be spent either in heaven or in hell·; and in estimating this let us reflect that though in matters of rhetoric we can expect some exaggeration, in this case we must allow that the strongest figures of speech fall infinitely short of the subject. Then let us view on the other hand •how prodigiously safe men feel about this! Do these people really believe what they are taught, and what they claim to affirm? Obviously not. ·And I shall now explain why·.

Given that belief is an act of the mind arising from custom, it isn’t surprising that a lack of resemblance should overthrow what custom has established, and lessen the force of the idea as much as custom increases it. A future state is so far removed from our comprehension, and we have so obscure an idea of how we shall exist after our bodies have disintegrated, that all the reasons we can devise— however strong in themselves and however much assisted by education—can never, in people with slow imaginations, surmount this difficulty and bestow a sufficient authority and force on the idea. I ascribe this incredulity to the faintness of our idea of our future condition, derived from its •lack of resemblance to the present life, rather than to faintness derived from the after-life’s •remoteness in time. For I observe that men are everywhere concerned about what may happen in this world after their death, and that nearly everyone has some care for his ·post mortem· reputation, his family, his friends, and his country.

[Then a paragraph continuing this theme, adducing other evidence that hardly anyone really believes that he is at risk of eternal damnation. Then:] I would further remark that in matters of religion men take a pleasure in being terrified, and that no preachers are as popular as those who arouse the most dismal and gloomy emotions. In the common affairs of life, where we feel and are penetrated with the reality of the subject, nothing can be nastier than fear and terror; it is only in •dramatic performances and •religious discourses that they ever give pleasure. In these latter cases the imagination lazily admits the idea; and the emotion, being softened by the lack of belief in what is said, has merely the agreeable effect of enlivening the mind and fixing the attention.

My hypothesis will be further confirmed if we examine the effects of other kinds of custom as well as of other relations. Custom, to which I attribute all belief and reasoning, can operate on the mind in invigorating an idea in two different ways. ·One is the way I have been describing·. •If in all past experience we have found two ·kinds of· objects to be always conjoined together, the appearance of one of these objects in an impression leads us, through custom, to move easily to the idea of the ·kind of· object that usually accompanies it; and the present impression and the easy transition make us conceive that idea in a stronger and livelier manner than we do any loose floating image of the imagination. But let us next •suppose that a mere idea alone, without any of this curious and almost artificial preparation ·of experienced linkage with something else·, should frequently appear to the mind, this idea must gradually become easier to have and more forceful when it does occur; and this facility and force—this easy introduction and firm hold on the mind— distinguish this recurring idea from any new and unusual idea. This is the only respect in which these two kinds of custom agree; and if it turns out that their effects on judgment are similar, we can certainly conclude that my account of judgment ·or belief· is satisfactory. Well, is their influence on judgment similar? Who can doubt it when we consider the nature and effects of education?

All the opinions and notions of things to which we have been accustomed from our infancy take such deep root that it is impossible for us, by all the powers of reason and experience, to eradicate them; and this habit has an influence that is as strong as the influence arising from the constant and inseparable union of causes and effects. Indeed, it is sometimes stronger, and overcomes the latter influence. Don’t say that the vividness of the idea produces the belief; the vivid idea is the belief. The frequent repetition of an idea fixes it in the imagination, but such a repetition couldn’t possibly produce belief all by itself if we were so built that belief could come only through reasoning and comparison of ideas. . . .

(Here are three parallel instances. •Someone who has lost a leg or an arm by amputation tries for a long time afterwards to use the lost limb. •After someone’s death it is common for members of his household, especially the servants, to say that they can hardly believe he is dead, but still imagine him to be in his study or wherever else in the house they were accustomed to find him. •In conversation about some celebrated person, I have often heard something like this: ‘I never saw him, but I almost fancy that I have, because I have so often heard talk of him.’)

If we look at this argument from education in the right way, it will appear very convincing; and all the more so from being based on one of the most common phenomena that is to be met with anywhere. ·We are all familiar with education; and I am contending that the core of education is the production of beliefs through sheer repetition of certain ideas—that is, through creating customs of the second of the two kinds I have mentioned·. I am convinced that more than half of the opinions that prevail among mankind are products of education, and that the principles that are implicitly embraced from this cause over-balance the ones that come either from abstract reasoning or from experience. [Hume’s word ‘over-balance’ might mean ‘outnumber’ or ‘overpower’ or both.] As liars through the frequent repetition of their lies come at last to remember them, so our judgment, or rather our imagination, can through similar repetition have ideas so strongly and brightly imprinted on it that they operate on the mind in the same way as do the perceptions that reach us through the senses, memory, or reason.[2] But as education is an artificial and not a natural cause, and as its maxims are frequently contrary to reason and even to one another in different times and places, philosophers don’t take account of it ·in their theorizing about belief·, though in reality it is built on almost the same foundation of custom and repetition as are our ·natural· reasonings from causes and effects.

10: Influence of belief

[This section discusses, with examples, ways in which imagination and belief interact with one another, always with an eye to confirming Hume’s own theory about what belief is.]

11: The probability of chances

In order to give this system its full force and convincingness, we should turn briefly from it to its consequences, using the same principles to explain some other kinds of reasoning that are derived from the same origin.

Philosophers who have divided human reason into •knowledge and •probability, and have defined knowledge to be the evidentness that arises from the comparison of ideas, have to bring all our arguments from causes or effects under the general label ‘probability’. I have followed suit earlier in this book (everyone is entitled to use words as he sees fit); but really it is certain that in everyday talk we regard many arguments from causation as having conclusions that are certain enough to count as more than merely ‘probable’. It would seem ridiculous to say that it is only probable that •the sun will rise tomorrow, or that •all men must die; yet clearly we have no further assurance of these propositions than what experience gives us. For this reason it might be better, in order to preserve the common meanings of words while also marking the different levels of evidentness, to distinguish human reason into three kinds: knowledge, proofs, and probabilities. By •‘knowledge’ I mean the assurance arising from the comparison of ideas. By •‘proofs’ I mean arguments that are derived from the relation of cause and effect, and are entirely free from doubt and uncertainty. By •‘probability’ I mean the evidentness that is still accompanied by uncertainty. It is this third sort of reasoning that I proceed to examine ·in the present section·.

Probability—or reasoning from conjecture—can be divided into two kinds, one based on •chance, the other on •causes. I shall consider these in order.

The idea of cause and effect is derived from experience, which presents us with certain ·kinds of· objects constantly conjoined with each other, and from this produces a habit of surveying them in that relation—a habit so strong that we must do violence to our thoughts to ·break it and· consider objects of those kinds in any other way. In contrast with this, chance is nothing real in itself; strictly speaking, it is merely the negation of a cause. So its influence on the mind is contrary to that of causation: and it is essential to chance that it leaves the imagination perfectly free to consider either the existence or the non-existence of the object that is regarded as contingent ·or dependent on chance·. A cause shows our thought the path to follow; in a way, it forces us to regard certain objects in certain relations. All that chance does is to destroy this compulsion of thought, leaving the mind in its original state of indifference, ·that is, evenly balanced between assent and dissent to the proposition· . . . .

Since it is of the essence of chance to produce complete indifference, the only way one chance can be greater than another is by being composed of a •greater number of •equal chances. If we said on any other basis that one chance could be greater than another, we would be saying that something about it made it superior to the other, pushing the outcome to its side more than to the other’s. That is, we would be allowing a cause into the story, thus negating what we had started out with, namely the supposition that we were dealing with chance. A perfect and total indifference is essential to chance, and one total indifference can never in itself be either greater or lesser that another. This truth is not special to my system. It is accepted by everyone who does calculations about chances.

This combination of chances that is needed to make one risk greater than another brings up a remarkable fact about •chance and •causation. The two are directly contrary, yet we can’t conceive the combination I have mentioned without supposing that •causes are mixed in among the •chances— supposing •necessity in some details and total •indifference in others. When nothing constrains the chances, every notion that the most extravagant fancy can form is on an equal footing with every other, and there can’t be any circumstance that could give one an advantage over the others. If we don’t allow that there are some causes to make the dice fall, to keep their shape when doing so, and to come to rest on one of their sides, we can’t make any calculation about the laws of chance. But if we suppose that those causes operate, and suppose that all the rest is indifferent and determined by chance, we can easily arrive at a notion of a superior combination of chances. A die that has four sides marked with a certain number of spots, and only two with another number, affords us an obvious and easy instance of this superiority. The mind is here limited by the causes to a precise number and quality of upshots—·specifically to six possible upshots, each consisting in the die’s coming to rest on one side·—and at the same time it is undetermined in its choice of any of the six.

In our reasoning so far we have advanced three steps; that •chance is merely the negation of a cause, and produces total indifference in the mind; that •one negation of a cause and one total indifference can never be greater or lesser than another; and that •there must always be a mixture of causes among the chances if any reasoning about chances is to have a basis. Now we must move on, and consider what effect a greater combination of chances has on our mind—how does it influence our judgment and opinion? Here I can repeat all same arguments that I employed in examining the belief that arises from causes; and can prove in the same way that neither •demonstration nor •probability has any role in getting a greater number of chances to produce our assent. ·I shall take these one at a time·.

·Regarding •demonstration·: It is indeed obvious that mere comparison of ideas can never reveal to us anything relevant to our present question: it is impossible to prove with certainty that any outcome must fall on the side that has the greater number of chances. To suppose there is any certainty about this would be to overthrow what I have established about the perfect equality of opposing ·single· chances and the indifference of the mind with respect to them.

·Regarding •probability·: It might be said that though in an opposition of chances it is impossible to determine with certainty on which side the outcome will fall, we nevertheless can say for sure that it is more likely and probable that it will fall on the side that has the greater number of chances than that it will fall where there is a smaller number. If this is said, I reply:

What do you mean by ‘likelihood and probability’? The likelihood and probability of chances is a greater number of equal chances; so when you say that it is ‘likely’ that the outcome will fall on the side which has the greater number, rather than on one having a lesser number of chances, all you are saying is that where there is a greater number of chances there is actually a greater, and where there is an lesser there is a lesser. These are identical propositions [= ‘tautologies’], and of no significance.

So the question remains: how does a greater number of equal chances operate on the mind to produce belief or assent? Apparently it’s not by arguments derived from demonstration, or by ones from probability.

In order to clear up this difficulty, consider the following case:

Someone takes a die that has a circle on four of its sides and a square on the other two; he puts this die into a box, intending to throw it.

Obviously, he must consider a circle to be more probable than a square; that a circle will fall uppermost is the prediction that he must prefer. In a way he believes that a circle will come uppermost, but with hesitation and doubt in proportion to the number of chances of a square; and if the number of ‘square’ chances were lessened, thus increasing the gap between it and the number of ‘circle’ chances, his belief would become less hesitant and more confident. This belief arises from his mind’s operations on the simple and limited object before us, so we ought to be able to discover and explain it. We have nothing but one single die to think about, in order to grasp one of the most curious operations of the understanding. [By ‘curious’ Hume probably means something like ‘intricate and challenging’.] We should attend to three facts about the die that I have described. •First, certain causes—gravity, solidity, cubic shape, etc.—will cause it to fall, remain unaltered during the fall, and come down with one side uppermost. •Secondly, it has a particular number of sides, which are supposed indifferent—·that is, which are supposed to be such that there is no reason to expect any one rather than other to fall uppermost·. •Thirdly, on each side a certain figure is inscribed. These three facts constitute the whole nature of the die, so far as we are concerned here, and so they are the only things the mind can go by when forming a judgment about how the die will fall. So let us consider slowly and carefully what influence these facts must be having on our thought and imagination.

•First, I have already observed that custom makes the mind pass from any cause to its effect, and that when one appears it is almost impossible for the mind not to form an idea of the other. . . . When it thinks of the die as no longer supported by the box, the mind can’t without •violence ·to itself· regard it as suspended in the air. Rather, it •naturally imagines it as lying on the table with one of its sides uppermost. This is an effect of the admixture of causes that is needed if we are to make any calculation about chances.

•Secondly, we are supposing that though the die must fall and turn up one of its sides, there is nothing to fix the particular side, this being determined entirely by chance. The very nature and essence of chance is a negation of causes and leaving the mind in complete indifference among those outcomes that are supposed to be contingent, ·i.e. at the mercy of chance·. So when the causes make our thought consider the die as falling and turning up one of its sides, the chances present all these sides as equal, and make us regard each of them as being just as probable and possible as each of the others. The imagination passes from the cause to the effect—from the throwing of the die to the turning up one of the six sides—and feels itself as somehow unable to make this process stop short or terminate in some other idea. But only one side can lie uppermost at a time, and the causal factors don’t make us think of the sides as all lying uppermost together, which we regard as impossible; nor do they direct us with their entire force to any particular side, for if they did, the chosen side would be considered as certain and inevitable. Rather, the causal factors direct us to the whole six sides in such a way as to divide their force equally among them. We conclude in general that some one of them must result from the throw; we run all of them over in our minds; the forces acting on our thought are common to all of them; but what they exert with respect to any one outcome is no more than what is suitable given what proportion of the whole it makes. This is how the original impulse, and consequently the liveliness of thought arising from the causes, is divided and split in pieces by the intermingled chances.

So now we have seen the influence of the two first aspects of the die—the causes, and the number and indifference of the sides—and have learned how they give a push to our thought, and divide that push into as many parts as there are sides. We must now look into the effects of •the third factor, namely the figures inscribed on the sides. Obviously, where several sides have the same figure inscribed on them, they must work together in their influence on the mind, bringing to bear on one image or idea of the figure all those divided pushes that were scattered over the several sides that have that figure on them. If we were asking ‘Which side will fall uppermost?’, all the sides would be perfectly equal, and no-one could have any advantage over any other. But the question is ‘Which figure will fall uppermost?’; and as the same figure is exhibited by more than one side, it is obvious that the pushes belonging to all those sides must come together on that one figure, and become stronger and more forcible by their union. In our example, four sides have a circle, two have a square. The pushes on the circle are therefore more numerous than the pushes on the square. But as the outcomes are contrary—it can’t happen that circle and square both turn up in a single throw—the pushes likewise become contrary; the weaker force destroys the stronger as far as it has strength to do so; ·and what remains of the stronger one after the weaker has expended itself is the mind’s probability- judgment about the outcome·. The liveliness of the idea is always proportional to the degrees of the push or tendency to make the transition; and according to my doctrine that liveliness of the idea is belief.

12: The probability of causes

The only use for what I have said about the probability of •chances is to help us explain the probability of •causes, since it is commonly allowed by philosophers and scientists that what plain people call ‘chance’ is really a secret and concealed cause. The latter sort of probability, therefore, is what we must chiefly examine.

The probabilities of causes are of several kinds, but all come from the same source, namely the association between a present impression and certain ideas. As the habit that produces the association comes from the frequent conjunction of ·kinds of· objects, it ·can’t spring into existence all at once, but· must arrive at its full force gradually, gaining new force from each instance that we observe. The first instance has little or no force, the second adds a little to it, the third becomes still more noticeable; and it is by these slow steps that our judgment arrives at full confidence. But before it reaches such completeness it passes through several lower degrees, and in all of them it is to be regarded as only a presumption or probability. So the gradation from probabilities to proofs is in many cases imperceptible, and large differences between these kinds of confidence are easier to perceive than small ones.

Although this sort of probability comes before proof, and naturally takes place before any entire proof can exist, when people reach maturity they no longer have anything to do with it. It often happens of course that someone with the most advanced knowledge achieves only an imperfect experience of some particular conjunctions of events, which naturally produces ·in him· only an imperfect habit and transition; but then we must consider that the mind, having formed another observation concerning the connection of causes and effects, gives new force to its reasoning from that observation [Hume’s exact words from ‘;’ to here]; and by this means the mind can build an argument on one single experiment if it is properly prepared and examined. What we have found once to follow from an object ·of some kind· we conclude will always follow from it [= ‘from objects of that kind’]; and if we don’t always build on this maxim as a certainty, it is not because •we haven’t observed a large enough number of experiments but because •we have often met with instances to the contrary. And that leads us to ·the topic of this section·, namely the second kind of probability, where there is a contrariety in our experience and observation.

It would be very happy for men in the conduct of their lives and actions if the same ·kinds of· objects were always conjoined, and we had nothing to fear but the mistakes of our own judgment, with no reason to allow for the uncertainty of Nature. But as it is often found that one observation conflicts with another, and that causes and effects don’t follow in the same way that we have experienced in the past, I have to modify my theory so as to take into account this uncertainty, paying attention to the contrariety of outcomes. I start with the question of the nature and causes of this contrariety.

Common folk, who judge things according to their first appearance, attribute the uncertainty of outcomes to an uncertainty in the causes—they think that the causes often fail to have their usual influence even when they don’t meet with any obstacle to their operation. But philosophers and scientists, observing that almost every part of Nature contains a vast variety of mechanisms and forces that are hidden from us because they are so small or so distant, think it at least possible that the contrariety of outcomes may come not from any contingency [here = ‘unreliability’] in the cause but rather from the secret operation of contrary causes. This possibility becomes certainty when they bear in mind that when any contrariety of effects is studied carefully it always turns out that it does come from a contrariety of causes, and proceeds from their mutual hindrance and opposition. A peasant can give no better reason for a clock’s stopping than to say ‘It often doesn’t go right’; but a clockmaker easily sees that the same force in the spring or pendulum always has the same influence on the wheels, but has failed of its usual effect because of a grain of dust that puts a stop to the whole movement. Having observed various cases of this general kind, philosophers and scientists form a maxim that the connection between all causes and effects is equally necessary, and that its seeming unreliability in some cases comes from the secret opposition of contrary causes.

But however philosophers and scientists may differ from common folk in how they •explain the contrariety of outcomes, their •inferences from it are always of the same kind and based on the same principles. A contrariety of outcomes in the past may give us a kind of hesitating belief for the future, in either of two ways. First, by producing an imperfect habit and transition from the present impression to the related idea. When the conjunction of any two objects is frequent but not entirely constant, the mind is pushed towards passing from one object to the other, but not with such a complete habit as when the conjunction has been without exceptions and all the instances we have ever met with are uniform and of a piece. . . . There is no doubt that this is sometimes what happens, producing the ·tentative· inferences we draw from contrary phenomena; but I am convinced that it isn’t what mainly influences the mind in this sort of reasoning. When our mind is moved purely by our habit of transition, we make the transition without any reflection, and don’t have a moment’s delay between seeing one object and believing in the other that is often found to accompany it. The custom doesn’t depend on any deliberation, so it operates immediately, without allowing time to think. But it is very seldom like this in our probable reasonings. . . . In the latter usually take account of the contrariety of past outcomes, knowing that we are doing so: we compare the different sides of the contrariety, and carefully weigh the evidence that we have on each side. From this we can conclude that our reasonings of this kind arise from habit not directly but in an oblique manner which I must now try to explain.

Obviously, when a kind of object has contrary effects ·at different times·, we base our opinions about them purely on our past experience, and always consider as possible any effects that we have observed to follow from this kind of object. And just as past experience regulates our judgments about the possibility of these effects, so it also regulates what we think about their probability; and we always take to be the most likely the effect that has been the most common. So we have two things to think about here: •why we treat the past as a standard for the future, and •how we extract a single judgment from a contrariety of past outcomes.

First ·the question of why·: The supposition that the future resembles the past isn’t based on arguments of any kind, and comes solely from a habit that makes us expect for the future the same sequence of events as we have been accustomed to ·in the past·. This habit or push to transfer the past to the future is full and perfect; and therefore the first impulse of the imagination in this kind of reasoning is full and perfect too.

Secondly ·the question of how·: When we look back on past experiences and find them to be contrary, this push ·to transfer the past to the future·, though full and perfect in itself, doesn’t take us to any one steady object, but offers us a number of disagreeing images in a certain order and proportion. So in this case the first impulse ·of the imagination· is split up and diffuses itself over all those images, each of them having an equal share of the force and liveliness that the impulse gives. Any of these past outcomes may happen again, and we think that when they do happen they will be mixed in the same proportion as in the past.

[A long paragraph spelling this out in more detail. A notable episode is this:] Each new experience ·of a causeeffect pair· is like a new brush-stroke, which gives additional liveliness to the colours without altering any of the shapes.

Summing up, then: experiences with contrary outcomes produce an imperfect belief, either •by weakening the habit, or by •dividing and then recombining the perfect habit that makes us conclude in general that instances of which we have no experience must resemble those of which we have.

To justify still further this account of the second sort of probability, where we reason with knowledge and reflection from a contrariety of past experiences, I shall propose some further considerations. (They have an air of subtlety, but don’t hold that against them. Sound reasoning oughtn’t to lose any of its force through being subtle; just as matter retains its solidity in air and fire and animal spirits, as well as in larger and more perceptible forms.)

[Two points about that sentence. •It involves a half-suppressed pun: it was standardly said that air etc. differ from rocks etc. in being more ‘subtle’, meaning more finely divided. •When Hume implies that air is as ‘solid’ as rock, he means that it won’t share its space with any other bodies, any more than rock will.]

[The two-page argument that follows is subtle and ingenious, but it is exhausting to read and follow, and seems not to add much to what Hume has already said. He follows it with something else, equally demanding, that he describes as ‘almost the same argument in a different light’. This material is omitted from the present version.]

I am aware of how abstruse all this reasoning must appear to the general run of readers—people who aren’t accustomed to going so deeply into the intellectual faculties of the mind, and so will be apt to reject as fanciful anything that doesn’t fit with common received notions and with the easiest and most obvious principles of philosophy. You do have to take some trouble to follow these arguments of mine, though it takes very little trouble to see to see ·how bad the rival accounts are·—to see the imperfection of every plain-man hypothesis on this subject, and how little light philosophy has so far been able to cast in these elevated and challenging inquiries. If you can once be fully convinced that

•Nothing in any object, considered in itself, can give us a reason for drawing a conclusion about anything other than that object, and

•Even after observing the frequent or constant conjunction of objects, we have no reason to draw any inference about any object other than those of which we have had experience,

these two principles will throw you so loose from all common systems that you will have no trouble accepting other theses that may appear very extraordinary. These principles proved to be sufficiently convincing when applied to our most certain reasonings from causation; but I venture to say that they become even more believable when applied to the conjectural or probable reasonings that are our present topic.

[•Hume then goes again through his account of probabilistic reasoning, bringing out how it requires (and makes plausible) the two principles in question. •Then two paragraphs in which he presents ‘two reflections which may deserve our attention’. One concerns the difference between experiencing contrary outcomes and merely imagining them. The other concerns (in effect) the mathematics of adding belief-strengths, which Hume says has ‘a parallel instance in the affections’. The core of his view about the latter is that ‘a man who desires a thousand pounds has in reality a thousand or more desires which unite together and seem to make only one passion’.]

Beside these two sorts of probability—derived from •imperfect experience and from •contrary outcomes—there is a third arising from •analogy, which differs from them in some significant respects. According to the account I have given, all kinds of reasoning from causes or effects are based on two things: •the constant conjunction of any two ·kinds of· objects in all past experience, and •the resemblance of a present object to one of the kinds. These have the effect that •the present object invigorates and enlivens the imagination, and •the resemblance together with •the constant union conveys this force and liveliness to the related idea, which we are therefore said to believe. If you weaken either the •union or the •resemblance, you weaken the force of transition and thereby weaken the belief that arises from it. The liveliness of the first impression can’t be fully transferred to the related idea unless •the conjunction of objects of their kinds has been constant and •the present impression perfectly resembles the past ones whose union we have been accustomed to observe. In probabilities of chance and of causes (discussed above) it is •the constancy of the union that is diminished; and in the probability derived from analogy it is only •the resemblance that is diminished. Without some degree of resemblance there can’t be any reasoning. But this resemblance can be greater or smaller, and the reasoning is proportionally more or less firm and certain. An experience loses some of its force when transferred to instances that don’t exactly resemble it; but as long as there is some resemblance remaining there is still a basis for probability.

13: Unphilosophical probability

The three kinds of probability that I have described are all accepted by philosophers as reasonable bases for belief and opinion. But there are other kinds that are derived from the same principles but haven’t had the good fortune to be accepted in the same way. ·In this section I shall discuss four of them·.

The first probability of this kind can be described like this. The vividness of the inferred idea may be lessened by a lessening of •the union or of •the resemblance, and also—I now add—by a lessening of •the impression. . . . The argument that we base on a remembered matter of fact is more or less convincing according to whether the fact is recent or remote in time. This source for difference in degrees of evidentness is not accepted by philosophy as solid and legitimate, because ·if it is accepted, then· an argument must have more force today than it will have in a month’s time. But despite the opposition of philosophy, the remotenessin-time aspect certainly has a considerable influence on the understanding, and secretly changes the authority of an argument, depending on when it is put to us. . . .

A second source of difference in our degrees of belief and assurance, always disclaimed by philosophers but always effective, is this. An experience that is recent and fresh in the memory affects us more, having a greater influence on judgment as well as on the passions than one that is in some measure obliterated. A lively impression produces more assurance than a faint one, because it has more initial force to pass on to the related idea, which thereby gets more force and liveliness. Similarly with a recent observation: the custom and transition is more complete in that case, and preserves better the initial force of what is transferred. Thus a drunkard who has seen his companion die from a drinkingspree is struck with that instance for some time, and dreads having such an accident himself; but as the memory of it gradually decays, his former sense of security returns and the danger comes to seem less certain and real.

I add as a third instance ·of unphilosophical probability· the following. Although our reasonings from •proofs are considerably different from our reasonings from •probabilities, the former kind of reasoning often slides imperceptibly into the latter simply because the proof in question involves so many connected arguments. When an inference is drawn immediately from an object without any intermediate cause or effect, the conviction is much stronger . . . . than when the imagination is carried through a long chain of connected arguments, however infallible the connection of each link may be thought to be. The liveliness of all the ideas comes from the original impression, through the customary transition of the imagination; and it is obvious that this liveliness must be gradually lessened in proportion to the distance that the transition has to cover. Sometimes this distance does more to reduce conviction than even contrary experiences would have done; and a man may receive a livelier conviction from a probable reasoning that is brief and immediate than from a long chain of consequences, even if the latter is sound and conclusive in each part. Indeed, reasons of the latter kind seldom produce any conviction: one must have a very strong and firm imagination to preserve the evidentness through so many stages right to the end!

An odd point arises here, ·which I shall state in the form of an objection to what I have been saying·:

There is no point of ancient history of which we can have any assurance except through many millions of causes and effects, and through a chain of inferences of an almost immeasurable length. Before the knowledge of the fact could come to the first historian, it must be conveyed through many mouths; and after it is committed to writing, each new copy is a new object whose connection with the previous one is known only by experience and observation. From what you have been saying about strength of belief it seems to follow that the evidentness of all ancient history must now be lost, or at least will be lost in time as the chain of causes gets ever longer. But it seems contrary to common sense to think that if the world of scholarship and the art of printing continue in the same way that they do now, our descendants will some day come to doubt that there ever was such a man as Julius Caesar. So this looks like an objection to the account you have been giving. If belief consisted (·as you say it does·) only in a certain liveliness conveyed from an original impression, it would fade in accordance with the length of the transition, and would eventually have to be utterly extinguished. And if belief is sometimes not capable of such an extinction, it must be something different from that liveliness.

(Before I answer this objection I should remark that this line of thought has generated a very celebrated argument against the Christian religion, with just one difference: ·in the anti-Christianity argument· it is supposed that each link of the chain of human testimony is only probabilistically sound, and to be ·in itself· liable to some doubt and uncertainty. And it must be admitted that in this way of looking at the subject—which is not the correct one—every history and tradition must indeed eventually lose all its force and convincingness. Every new probability lessens the original conviction; and however great that conviction may be, it can’t continue under such repeated lessenings. This is true in general, though we shall find in 1iv that there is one very memorable exception, a vastly important one for our present topic of the understanding.)

Meanwhile, to answer the preceding objection on the supposition that historical evidence amounts initially to a complete proof, bear in mind that though the links connecting any historical fact with a present impression are very numerous, they are all of the same kind, depending ·only· on the reliability of printers and copyists. One edition is succeeded by another, and that by a third, and so on, till the chain reaches the history book we are now reading. There is no variation in the steps. After we know one, we know them all; and after we have taken one ·inferential step· we can’t hesitate to take all the others. This is enough to preserve the convincingness of history. . . .

A fourth unphilosophical sort of probability, ·which will be the topic of the remainder of this section·, is derived from general rules that we rashly form to ourselves—rules that are the source of what we properly call prejudice [the Latin root of which means ‘pre- judgment’]. An Irishman can’t have wit, and a Frenchman can’t have solidity; so even in particular cases where the Irishman talks entertainingly and the Frenchman talks judiciously, we have held such a prejudice against them that ·we think· they must be a dunce and a fop ·respectively·, in spite of sense and reason.

Human nature is very given to errors of this kind, and perhaps this nation as much as any other! Why do men form general rules and allow them to influence their judgment, even contrary to present observation and experience? I think that it comes from the very same sources as to all judgments about causes and effects. [In the rest of this paragraph, Hume reminds us of his account of causal and probabilistic reasoning, especially stressing how the latter may be weakened by imperfect resemblances amongst the instances.]

Although custom is •the basis of all our judgments, sometimes it has an effect on the imagination •in opposition to the judgment, and produces a contrariety in our views about the same object. Let me explain. In most kinds of causes there is a complication of factors, some essential and others superfluous, some absolutely required for the production of the effect and others present only by accident. Now, when these superfluous factors are numerous and remarkable and frequently conjoined with the essential factors, they influence the imagination so much that even in the absence of something essential they carry us on to the idea of the usual effect, giving it a force and liveliness that make it superior to the mere fictions of the imagination. We can correct this propensity by reflecting on the nature of the factors on which it is based; but it is still certain that custom starts it off and gives a bias to the imagination.

To illustrate this by a familiar example: a man who is hung out from a high tower in a cage of iron can’t help trembling when he sees the drop below him, even though his present experience of the solidity of the iron that supports him tells him that he is perfectly safe from falling, and the idea of falling and harm and death come only from custom and ·past· experience. That custom goes beyond the instances from which it is derived and to which it perfectly corresponds—·instances in which heavy things are released without support and fall to the ground·—and influences his ideas of objects that resemble the others in some respects but don’t precisely fit the same rule. The factors of •depth and descent impress him so strongly that their influence can’t be destroyed by the contrary factors of •support and solidity, which ought to make him feel perfectly safe. His imagination runs away with its object, ·the thought of falling·, and arouses a passion (·fear·) proportional to it. That passion reacts back on the imagination, and enlivens the idea; this newly enlivened idea has a new influence on the passion, increasing its force and violence; so his imagination and his feelings mutually support each other, causing the whole ·situation· to have a very great influence upon him.

But why need we look for other instances, when the present subject of unphilosophical probabilities offers us such an obvious one, in the conflict between judgment and imagination that arises from custom? ·I shall explain this by presenting an apparent difficulty for my account·:

According to my theory, reasonings are merely effects of custom, and custom’s only influence is to enliven the imagination and give us a strong conception of some object. So it seems to follow that our judgment and our imagination can never be in conflict—that custom can’t operate on the imagination in such a way as to put it in opposition to the judgment. ·But we have seen that they do sometimes conflict with one another; so this is a problem for my theory·.

The only solution for this difficulty is to bring in the influence of general rules. In section 15 I shall call attention to some general rules by which we ought to regulate our judgment about causes and effects; and these rules are based on the nature of our understanding, and on our experience of how it operates in our judgments about objects. Through those rules we learn to distinguish accidental circumstances from effective causes; and when we find that an effect can be produced in the absence of a certain factor we conclude that that factor is not part of the effective cause, however often it is conjoined with it. But this frequent conjunction necessarily makes the factor in question have some effect on the imagination, in spite of the opposite conclusion from general rules; and so the opposition of these two principles produces a contrariety in our thoughts, and makes us ascribe •one inference to our judgment, and •the other to our imagination. The general rule is attributed to our judgment because it is more extensive and constant; the exception to the general rule is credited to the imagination because it is more capricious and uncertain.

Thus our general rules are in a way set in opposition to each other. When an object appears that •resembles some cause in very considerable respects, the imagination naturally carries us to a lively conception of the usual effect, even if the object •differs from that cause in the most significant and effective respects. Here—·in this wrong transition to an idea of the usual effect·—is the first influence of general rules. But when we review this act of the mind and compare it with the more general and authentic operations of the understanding, we find it to be irregular and destructive of all the most established principles of reasoning, which causes us to reject it. This is a second influence of general rules, and implies the condemnation of the first one. Sometimes one prevails, sometimes the other, according to the disposition and character of the person. Ordinary folk are commonly guided by the first, and wise men by the second. Meanwhile sceptics can enjoy this prospect of a new and notable contradiction in our reason, and of seeing all philosophy ready to be subverted by a force in human nature and then saved by giving a new direction to the very same force! The following of general rules is a very unphilosophical sort of probability, but it is only by following them that we can correct this and all other unphilosophical probabilities.

Since we have instances where general rules act on the imagination contrary to the judgment, we needn’t be surprised to see their effects increase when they combine with the judgment, presenting to us ideas that have more force than any others. Everyone knows there is an indirect manner of insinuating praise or blame, which is much less shocking than the open flattery or censure of any person. Even if someone does communicate his sentiments by such secret insinuations, making them known just as certainly as openly revealing them would, their influence is not equally strong and powerful. Someone who lashes me with concealed strokes of satire doesn’t move me to indignation as intensely as if he had flatly told me I was a fool and coxcomb, though I understand his meaning just as well as I would if he had done that. This difference is to be attributed to the influence of general rules.

Whether a person •openly abuses me or •slyly indicates his contempt, in neither case do I immediately perceive his sentiment or opinion; I become aware of it only by signs, that is, by its effects. So the only difference between these two cases is that •in openly revealing his sentiments he uses signs that are general and universal, while •in secretly indicating them he uses signs that are more singular and uncommon. And when the imagination runs from the present impression ·of the man’s words or behaviour· to the absent idea ·of his hostility or contempt·, it makes the transition more easily—and so conceives the object with greater force— when the connection is •common and universal than when it is more •rare and particular. . . .

[Hume adds a further paragraph and a half, adding detail to this, and offering a reflection on reasons why sometimes ‘scurrility is less displeasing than delicate satire’.]

To this account of the different influence of open and concealed flattery or satire, I shall add the consideration of another phenomenon that is analogous to it. There are many violations of codes of honour that the world —though not excusing them—is more apt to overlook when the appearances are saved and the transgression is secret and concealed. (This holds for both men and women.) People who know perfectly well that the fault has been committed pardon it more easily when the proofs seem somewhat indirect and ambiguous than when they are direct and undeniable. In both cases the same idea is presented, and strictly speaking is equally assented to by the judgment; but its influence is different because of the different ways in which it is presented. . . . The difference is just this: in the first case the sign from which we infer the blamable action is single, and suffices all on its own to be the basis for our reasoning and judgment; whereas in the second case the signs are numerous, and decide little or nothing when taken alone and not accompanied by many minute and almost imperceptible factors. Any reasoning is convincing in proportion as it is single and united to the eye, and gives less work to the imagination in collecting its parts and going from them to the correlative idea that is the conclusion. . . .

[In a final pair of paragraphs Hume re-states his main conclusions in sections 11–13, contending that they are confirmed by their ability to interlock and solve problems, and that their success helps to confirm his account of belief.]

14: The idea of necessary connection

Having thus explained how we reason beyond our immediate impressions, and conclude that such and such causes must have such and such effects, we must now retrace our steps and pick up again the question that first occurred to us, and that we dropped along the way (near the end of section 2). The question is: What is our idea of necessity, when we say that two objects are necessarily connected? As I have often said already, if we claim to have such an idea we must find some impression that gives rise to it, because we have no idea that isn’t derived from an impression. So I ask myself: In what objects is necessity commonly supposed to lie? And finding that it is always ascribed to causes and effects, I turn my attention to two objects that are supposed to be related as cause and effect, and examine them in all the situations in which they can occur. I see at once that they are contiguous in time and place, and that the one we call ‘cause’ precedes the one we call ‘effect’. In no instance can I go any further: I can’t find any third relation between these objects. So I take a broader view, and consider a number of instances in which I find objects of one kind always existing in relations of contiguity and succession with objects of another kind. At first sight this seems to be pointless: the reflection on several instances only repeats the same objects, so it can’t give rise to any new idea. But on further enquiry I find that the repetition is not the same in every respect. It produces a new impression ·that I don’t get from any single instance·, and through that impression it gives me the idea ·of necessity· which I am at present examining. For after a frequent repetition I find that on the appearance of one of the objects, custom makes the mind think of its usual attendant, and think of it more vividly on account of its relation to the first object. So it is this impression, this being-made-to-think-of-the-effect, that gives me the idea of necessity.

I’m sure that you will have no trouble accepting this result, as being an obvious consequence of principles that I have already established and have often employed in my reasonings. This obviousness, both of the first principles and of the inferences from them, may seduce you into incautiously accepting the conclusion, making you imagine that it contains nothing extraordinary or worth thinking about. But although such casualness may make my reasoning easier to accept, it will also make it easier to forget; so I think I should warn you that I have just now examined one of the most elevated questions in philosophy, the one that seems to involve the interests of all the sciences—namely the question about the power and efficacy of causes. That warning will naturally rouse your attention and make you ask for a fuller account of my doctrine, as well as of the arguments on which it is based. This request is so reasonable that I can’t refuse to comply with it, especially because I have hopes that the more my principles are examined the more forceful and convincing they will be.

There is no question which, on account of its importance as well as its difficulty, has caused more disputes among both ancient and modern philosophers than this one about the •efficacy of causes, •the quality that makes an effect follow a cause. But before they embarked on these disputes, I think, they would have done well to examined what idea we have of the •efficacy they are arguing about. This is what I find principally lacking in their reasonings, and what I shall here try to provide.

I begin by observing that the words ‘efficacy’, ‘agency’, ‘power’, ‘force’, ‘energy’, ‘necessity’, ‘connection’, and ‘productive quality’, are all nearly synonymous, which makes it absurd to employ any of them in defining any of the others. This observation rejects at once all the common definitions that philosophers have given of ‘power’ and ‘efficacy’. Our search for the idea must be directed not to these definitions but to the impressions from which it was originally derived. If it is a compound idea, it must arise from compound impressions. If simple, from simple ones.

I believe that the most widely accepted and most popular [here = ‘appropriate for ordinary folk who lack philosophical skills and knowledge’] explanation of our idea of power is to say this:

We find from experience that various new productions occur in the world of matter, such as the motions and variations of bodies; and we conclude that there must somewhere be a power capable of producing them; and this reasoning brings us at last to the idea of power and efficacy. (Thus Mr Locke, in his chapter on Power) [Essay Concerning Human Understanding II.xxi.1])

But to be convinced that this explanation is more popular than philosophical we need only to remember two very obvious principles. First, •that reason alone can never give rise to any original idea, and secondly •that reason, as distinct from experience, can never make us conclude that a cause or productive quality is absolutely required for every beginning of existence. I have explained these two points already, so I shan’t go on about them here.

I shall only infer from them that since •reason can never give rise to the idea of efficacy, that idea must be derived from •experience—from particular instances of this efficacy which get into the mind through the common channels of sensation or reflection. . . . If we claim to have a sound idea of this efficacy, we must produce some instance in which the efficacy is plainly revealed to the mind and its operations are obvious to our consciousness or sensation. If we evade this demand, we are admitting that the ·so-called· idea ·of efficacy· is impossible and imaginary; since the only other escape is to plead that the idea is an innate one, and ·that escape-route is blocked because· the theory of innate ideas has been already refuted and is now almost universally rejected in the learned world. What we have to do, then, is to find some natural cause-effect pair in which the mind can grasp—clearly, unambiguously, and securely—how the cause operates and what gives it its efficacy.

We don’t get much encouragement in this from the enormous variation that we find in the opinions of philosophers who have claimed to explain the secret force and energy of causes. Various philosophers have variously contended that bodies operate by

their substantial form,

their accidents or qualities,

their matter and form,

their form and accidents,

certain powers and faculties distinct from all the above.

Further, all these opinions are mixed and varied in a thousand different ways, creating a strong presumption that none of them is solid or credible, and that there are simply no grounds for thinking that any of the known qualities of matter has any kind of efficacy. This presumption gains strength when we consider that substantial forms and accidents and faculties are not really among the known properties of bodies, but are perfectly unintelligible and inexplicable. Obviously philosophers would never have had recourse to such obscure and uncertain notions if they had met with any satisfaction in ideas that are clear and intelligible; especially in such an affair as this, which must be an object of •the simplest understanding if not of •the senses. The bottom line is this: we can conclude that it is impossible in any one instance ·of a cause-effect pair· to show what it is that contains the force and agency of the cause; and that in this respect the most refined understandings are on a par with the plain man in the street. If you think you can refute this assertion, you needn’t take the trouble to invent any long arguments; all you need to do is to show us an instance of a cause where we discover the power or operating force. We often have to use this kind of challenge, as being almost the only means of proving a negative in philosophy.

The failures of their attempts to pin down this power has finally obliged philosophers to conclude that the ultimate force and efficacy of Nature is perfectly unknown to us, and that it is no use looking for it among the known qualities of matter. They are almost unanimous about this; where their opinions differ it is in what they infer from it. Some of them, especially the Cartesians, have satisfied themselves that we are acquainted with the whole essence of matter, which they say consists in extension. Now, extension doesn’t imply actual motion, but only mobility; so they naturally conclude that when matters moves, the energy that produces the motion can’t lie in the extension, ·which means (for them) that it can’t lie in the matter·. So, they conclude, matter is not endowed with any efficacy, and can’t possibly (unaided) communicate motion or produce any of the effects that we ascribe to it.

This conclusion leads them to another which they regard as entirely inescapable. ·They argue like this·:

Matter is in itself entirely inactive and deprived of any power to produce or continue or communicate motion; but these effects are evident to our senses, and the power that produces them must be somewhere. So it must lie in God, the divine being who contains in his nature all excellency and perfection. So God is the first mover of the universe: he not only first created matter and gave it its initial push, but also through a continuing exertion of his omnipotence he keeps it in existence and gives it all its motions and configurations and qualities.

This opinion is certainly very interesting, and well worth our attention; but if you think for a moment about why it has come up for us in our present inquiry, you will see that we needn’t examine it in detail here. We have settled it as a principle that, because all ideas are derived from some previous perceptions, we can’t have any idea of •power and efficacy unless instances can be produced in which this •power is perceived to exert itself. These instances can never be discovered in body, so the Cartesians have relied on their principle of innate ideas and had recourse to a God whom they think to be the only active being in the universe, and the immediate cause of every alteration in matter. But given the falsity of the principle of innate ideas, the supposition of a God can’t be of any use to us in accounting for the idea of agency which we can’t find among the objects that are presented to our senses or those that we are internally conscious of in our own minds. For if every idea is derived from an impression, the idea of a God must come from the same origin; and if no impression, either of sensation or reflection, implies any force or efficacy, it is equally impossible to discover or even imagine any such active force in God. So when these ·Cartesian· philosophers argue that

No efficacious force can be discovered in matter, so no such force should be attributed to matter,

they ought by parity of reasoning to argue

No efficacious force can be discovered in God, so no such force should be attributed to God.

If they regard that conclusion as absurd and impious, as indeed it is, I shall tell them how they can avoid it—namely, admitting at the outset that they have no adequate idea of power or efficacy in any object, since they can’t discover a single instance of it in bodies or in minds, in divine natures or in creaturely ones.

The same conclusion is unavoidable on the hypothesis of those who maintain the efficacy of subordinate causes, and credit matter with having a power or energy that is real but derivative. For they grant that this energy doesn’t lie in any of the known qualities of matter, so ·for them as for the Cartesians· the difficulty still remains about the origin of the idea of it. If we really have an idea of power we can attribute power to an •unknown quality; but

the idea couldn’t be derived from a quality that we don’t know, and there is nothing in •known qualities that could produce the idea,

so it follows that it is mere self-deception for us to imagine we have any idea of this kind in the way we ordinarily think we do. All ideas are derived from and represent impressions. We never have any impression that contains any power or efficacy. So we never have any idea of power.

Some have asserted that we feel an energy or power in our own mind, and that having acquired the idea of power in this way we transfer that quality to matter, where we can’t immediately discover it. The motions of our body and the thoughts and sentiments of our mind (they say) obey the will, and we needn’t look beyond that for a sound notion of force or power. But to convince us of how fallacious this reasoning is, we need only notice that the will—which they are taking to be a cause—doesn’t have a discoverable connection with its effects any more than any material cause has one with its effect. We are so far from perceiving the connection between •an act of volition and •a bodily movement that it is generally agreed that the powers and essence of thought and matter come nowhere near to providing an explanation for the relation between willing to make a certain movement and making it. And the will’s power over our mind is no more intelligible. In that case ·too· the effect is distinguishable and separable from the cause, and couldn’t be foreseen without the experience of their constant conjunction. We can effectively command our thoughts up to a certain point, but not beyond that; and it is only by consulting experience that can know where the boundaries to our authority lie. (·For example, I can think about horses just by choosing to think about horses; but I can’t rapidly run through thoughts of the first nineteen prime numbers or believe that the earth is flat just by choosing to do so; and it is only from experience that I know what I can do just by choosing to and what I can’t—none of it ‘stands to reason’, none of it can be seen to be expectable given the nature of the will’s command over thoughts·.) In short, so far as our present topic goes, the actions of the mind are like the actions of matter: all we perceive is constant conjunction, and we can’t reason beyond it. . . . We have no chance of attaining an idea of force by consulting our own minds.[3]

It has been established as a certain principle that general or abstract ideas are nothing but individual ones looked at in a certain way, and that when we reflect on any object we have to bring into our thought its particular degrees of quantity and quality—just as the object itself has to have particular degrees of quantity and quality. So if we have any idea of power in general we must also be able to conceive some specific kind of power; and as power can’t exist alone but is always regarded as an attribute of some existing thing, we must be able to place this power in some particular thing and to conceive that thing as having a real force and energy by which such and such a particular effect necessarily results from its operation. We must •conceive the connection between the cause and the effect distinctly and in detail, and •see from a simple view of one of them that it must be followed or preceded by the other. This is the true manner of conceiving a particular power in a particular body; . . . . and it is perfectly obvious that the human mind ·can’t do any such thing, that is, it· can’t form an idea of two objects that will enable it to conceive any connection between them, or comprehend distinctly the power or efficacy by which they are united. Such a connection would amount to a demonstration, and would imply the absolute impossibility for the one object not to follow, or to be conceived not to follow on the other; and that kind of connection has already been rejected in all cases. If you disagree, and think you have acquired a notion of power in some particular object, please point out to me the object. Until someone does that—and nobody will!—I have to conclude that since we can never distinctly conceive how any •particular power can possibly reside in any particular object, we deceive ourselves in imagining we can form any such •general idea.

From all this we may infer that when we

•talk of any being, whether divine or creaturely, as having a ‘power’ or ‘force’ that is exactly right for some effect, or •speak of a ‘necessary connection’ between objects, and suppose that this connection depends on an ‘efficacy’ or ‘energy’ that some of these objects possess,

we really have no clear meaning for any of these expressions, and are merely using common words without any clear and determinate ideas. Perhaps the expressions never have meanings; but it is more probable that they do have proper meanings which they lose in these contexts through being wrongly used. So let us return to our subject, to see if we can discover the nature and origin of the ideas that we attach to the expressions ·when we are using them properly·.

As we confront a particular cause-effect pair, we can’t just by considering either or both of those objects •perceive the tie that unites them, or •say for sure that there is a connection between them. So it is not from any one instance that we arrive at the idea of cause and effect, of a necessary connection, of power, of force, of energy, of efficacy. •If all we ever saw were particular conjunctions of objects, each conjoined pair being entirely different from each of the others, we could never form any such ideas.

But •when we observe numerous instances in which the same ·kinds of· objects are conjoined, we immediately conceive a connection between them, and begin to draw an inference from one to another. So this •multiplicity of resembling instances constitutes the essence of power or connection, and is the source from which the idea of it arises. To understand the idea of power, then, we must consider this •multiplicity—and that is all I require for a solution of the difficulty we have been wrestling with. I reason thus: The repetition of perfectly similar instances can’t on its own give rise to an original idea different from what is to be found in any particular instance; I have pointed this out already, and it obviously follows from my basic principle that all ideas are copied from impressions. But the idea of power is a new original idea that isn’t to be found in any one instance, and yet it arises from the repetition of numerous instances; so it follows that the repetition doesn’t have that effect on its own, but must either (1) reveal or (2) produce something new that is the source of that idea. . . . (1) But the repetition of similar objects in similar relations of succession and contiguity obviously doesn’t •reveal anything new in any one of them, since we can’t draw any inference from it or make it a subject of either demonstrative or probable reasonings (as I proved in section 6). Indeed, even if we could draw an inference, it wouldn’t make any difference in the present case. That is because no kind of reasoning can give rise to a new idea such as the idea of power is; when we reason we must already have clear ideas to serve as the objects of our reasoning. The conception always precedes the understanding; and where one is obscure the other is uncertain, where one fails the other must fail also.

(2) It is certain that this repetition of similar objects in similar situations •produces nothing new in these objects or in any external body. For you will readily agree that the different instances we have of the conjunction of resembling causes and effects are in themselves entirely independent ·of one another·, and that the passing on of motion that I see result from the present collision of two billiard balls is totally distinct from what I saw result from such a collision a year ago. These collisions have no influence on each other: they are entirely separated by time and place, and one of them could have existed and communicated motion even if the other had never occurred. So:

Nothing new is either •revealed or •produced in any objects by their constant conjunction, and by the uninterrupted resemblance of their relations of succession and contiguity. Yet it is from this resemblance that the ideas of necessity, of power, and of efficacy are derived. So these ideas don’t represent anything that does or can belong to the objects that are constantly conjoined.

Look at this argument from any angle you like—you will find it to be perfectly unanswerable. Similar instances are the first source of our idea of power or necessity; but their similarity doesn’t give them any influence on each other or on any external object. We must therefore look in some other direction to find the origin of that idea.

Though the numerous resembling instances that give rise to the idea of power have no influence on each other, and can never produce in the object any new quality that could be the model for that idea, our observation of this resemblance produces a new impression in our mind, and that is the idea’s real model. For after we have observed the resemblance in a sufficient number of instances, we immediately feel a determination of the mind to pass from one object to its usual attendant, and to conceive the latter in a stronger light on account of that determination.

[Feeling a ‘determination’ to form a certain idea is just feeling oneself being made to form the idea. Most of Hume’s uses of ‘determine’ etc. have been rendered here by ‘make’ etc., but in the present section ‘determination’ is allowed to stand.]

This determination is the only effect of the resemblance, and so it must be the power or efficacy the idea of which is derived from the resemblance. The numerous instances of resembling conjunctions lead us into the notion of power and necessity. These instances are in themselves totally distinct from each other and have no union except in our mind, which observes them and collects their ideas. So necessity is the effect of this observation, and is nothing but an internal impression of the mind—a determination to carry our thoughts from one object to another. If we don’t view it in this way we can never arrive at the most distant notion of it, or be able to attribute it either to external or internal objects, to spirit or body, to causes or effects.

•The necessary connection between causes and effects is the basis of our inference from one to the other. The basis of our inference is •the transition ·in our minds· arising from the accustomed union. These, therefore, are the same: ·the necessary connection between causes and effects is the move our mind makes from an impression of the cause to a lively idea of the effect, or perhaps it is not the move itself but rather our being made or determined to make the move·.

The idea of necessity arises from some impression. No impression conveyed by our ·outer· senses can give rise to it. So it must be derived from some internal impression, some impression of reflection. The only internal impression that has anything to do with the present business is ·the impression of· the propensity that custom produces in us to pass from an object to the idea of its usual attendant. This, therefore, is the essence of necessity. The bottom line is this: necessity is something that exists in the mind, not in objects, and we can’t ever form the remotest idea of it considered as a quality in bodies. Either we have no idea of necessity, or necessity is nothing but the determination of the thought to pass from causes to effects (and vice versa) according to their experienced union.

Thus, just as •the necessity that makes twice two equal four . . . . lies only in •the act of the understanding by which we consider and compare these ideas, so also •the necessity or power that unites causes with effects lies in •the determination of the mind to pass from the one to the other. The efficacy or energy of causes doesn’t belong to the causes themselves or to God or to the two together; it belongs entirely to the mind that considers the union of two or more objects in all past instances. It is here that the real power of causes is placed, along with their connection and necessity.

I am aware that this is the most violent of all the paradoxes that I have advanced or will advance in the course of this Treatise, and that only through solid proof and reasoning can I hope to get it accepted and to overcome the ingrained prejudices of mankind. Before people are reconciled to this doctrine, they will have often to repeat to themselves ·the central line of argument·:

•The simple view of any two objects or actions, however they are related, can never give us any idea of power or of a connection between them.

•This idea arises from the repetition of their union.

•The repetition doesn’t reveal anything or cause anything in the objects; its only influence is on the mind, through the customary transition that it produces.

Therefore:

•this customary transition is the same as the power and necessity, which are therefore qualities of perceptions rather than of objects, and are internally felt by the soul rather than perceived externally in bodies.

Any extraordinary claim is usually met with astonishment, which immediately changes into the highest degree of admiration or contempt, depending on whether we approve or disapprove of what is said. I am much afraid that although the above reasoning seems to me the shortest and most decisive imaginable, the bias of the mind will persist in the general run of readers, giving them a prejudice against the present doctrine.

This bias against it is easily accounted for. It is widely recognized that the mind has a great propensity to spread itself on external objects: when some objects cause internal impressions that always occur at the same time that the objects appear to the senses, the mind conjoins these impressions with the objects. For example, as certain sounds and smells are always found to accompany certain visible objects, we naturally imagine that the sounds and smells are in the objects, even being in the same place, though in fact the qualities are the wrong sorts of thing to be conjoined with objects, and really don’t exist in any place. I shall return to this in 5iv. All I need say here is that this propensity ·that the mind has for spreading itself on external objects· is what makes us suppose necessity and power to lie in the objects we consider, not in our mind that considers them. . . .

But although this is the only reasonable account we can give of necessity, the contrary notion is so riveted in the mind by the forces I have mentioned that I am sure my views will be treated by many as extravagant and ridiculous.

What! the efficacy of causes lies in the determination of the mind? As if causes didn’t operate entirely independently of the mind, and wouldn’t continue their operation even if no minds existed to think about them or reason about them! •Thought may well depend on •causes for its operation, but •causes don’t depend on •thought. ·To suppose otherwise· is to reverse the order of Nature and give a secondary role to what is really primary. To every operation there is an appropriate power, which must belong to the body that operates. If we remove the power from one cause, we must ascribe it to another; but to remove it from all causes and bestow it on a being that relates to the cause and the effect only by perceiving them is a gross absurdity and contrary to the most certain principles of human reason.

All I can say in reply to these arguments is that they are like a blind man’s claiming to find a great many absurdities in the supposition that the colour of scarlet is not the same as the sound of a trumpet, or that light is not the same as solidity! If we really have no idea of power or efficacy in any object, or of any real connection between causes and effects, it won’t do much good to ‘prove’ that efficacy is necessary in all operations. People who say such things don’t understand their own meanings, and ignorantly run together ideas that are entirely distinct from each other. I willingly allow that both material and immaterial objects may have various qualities of which we know nothing; and if we choose to call these ‘power’ or ‘efficacy’, that won’t matter much to the world. But when we use the terms ‘power’ and ‘efficacy’ not as •meaning those unknown qualities, but rather as •signifying something of which we do have a clear idea, and which is incompatible with the objects to which we attribute it, obscurity and error begin to occur and we are led astray by a false philosophy. That is what happens when we transfer •the determination of the thought to •external objects and credit them with a real intelligible connection between them, this being ·an objectivised analogue of· a quality that can belong only to the observing mind.

As for the point that the operations of Nature are independent of our thought and reasoning, I agree; which is why I have remarked

•that objects have the relations of contiguity and succession to each other,

•that similar objects can be observed to have similar relations in many instances, and

•that all this is independent of the operations of the understanding.

But if we go beyond that and ascribe a power or necessary connection to these objects, we are ascribing something that we can never observe in them, and have to derive the idea of it from what we feel internally when we think about them. I carry this doctrine so far that I am ready to apply it to ·the causal claim involved in· my present line of thought. ·I do that in the following paragraph·.

When an object is presented to us, it immediately gives the mind a lively idea of the object that is usually found to accompany it, and this determination of the mind forms the necessary connection of these objects. But when we step back and attend not to •the objects but to •our perceptions of them, we still have a causal claim to consider, namely that the impression (of one object) is the cause and the lively idea (of another object) is the effect; and their necessary connection is the new determination that we feel to pass from the idea of the impression to the idea of the lively idea. The force that unites our internal perceptions is as unintelligible—·as incapable of being seen as necessitating, just by hard thinking·—as is the force that unites external objects, and is known to us only by experience. Now, I have already sufficiently examined and explained the nature and effects of experience: it never gives us any insight into the internal structure or operating force of objects, but only accustoms the mind to pass from ·an impression of· one to ·a lively idea of· another.

It is now time to gather up all the parts of this reasoning, and assemble them into an exact definition of the relation of cause and effect, which is our present topic. This order of exposition—first examining our inference from the causeeffect relation and then explaining the relation itself—would have been inexcusable if it had been possible to proceed in any other way. But as the nature of •the relation depends so much on that of •the inference, I have had to advance in this seemingly preposterous manner, using certain terms before being able exactly to define them or fix their meaning. I shall now correct this fault by giving a precise definition of cause and effect.

There are two definitions we can give for this relation, which differ only in that they present different views of the same object; one makes us consider cause-effect as a •philosophical relation (a mere comparison of two ideas), the other makes us consider it as a •natural relation (an association between two ideas). [See note here.] We can define a ‘cause’ to be

An object precedent and contiguous to another, and where all the objects resembling the former are similarly precedent and contiguous to objects that resemble the latter.

If you find this to be defective because in addition to the cause and the effect it brings in something extraneous (·namely, other objects that resemble them·), we can substitute this other definition in its place:

A cause is an object precedent and contiguous to another, and united with it in such a way that the idea of one determines the mind to form the idea of the other, and the impression of one to form a livelier idea of the other.

If you reject this too for the same reason—·because in addition to the cause and the effect it brings something extraneous (namely our impressions and ideas of them)·—I can only ask you to replace it by a better definition. I have to admit that I can’t do that. [Hume then goes on to repeat his theory and his reasons for it, concluding:] However extraordinary my views ·about cause-effect· may appear, I think it is useless to trouble myself with any further enquiry or reasoning on the subject, and shall now rely on them as on established maxims.

Before leaving this subject I shall draw some corollaries from my theory—ones that will enable us to remove four prejudices and popular errors that have held sway in philosophy. (1) We can learn from my doctrine that all causes are of the same kind, and that there is no basis for distinguishing •making causes from •enabling causes, or for sorting out causes according to whether they are

efficient,

formal,

material,

exemplary, or

final.

[The efficient cause of a coin is the stamping of a die on hot metal, its formal cause is its roundness etc., its material cause is the metal it is made of, and its final cause is the commercial end for which the coin was made. The notion of ‘exemplary cause’, employed by some mediaeval philosophers wishing to combine Plato with Christianity, can’t be briefly explained here.]

Our idea of efficiency ·or making· is derived from the constant conjunction of two ·kinds of· objects; when this is observed the cause is efficient; and where it is not, there is no cause of any kind. For the same reason we must deny that there is any essential difference between cause and occasion. If constant conjunction is implied in what we call ‘occasion’, it is a real cause. If not, it isn’t a ·natural· relation at all, and can’t give rise to any argument or reasoning.

[Some philosophers, notably Malebranche, held that created things cannot really act on one another, and that what happens in billiards (for example) is that God causes the cue-ball to move on the occasion of its being struck by the cue.]

(2) The same course of reasoning will make us conclude that just as there is only one kind of cause, so also there is only one kind of necessity, and that the common distinction between ‘moral’ and ‘physical’ necessity has no basis. This account I have given of necessity makes this clear. The constant conjunction of objects, along with the determination of the mind, constitutes physical necessity; and when these are absent what you have is chance. As objects must either be conjoined or not, and as the mind must either be determined or not determined to pass from one object to another, there can’t be any middle case between chance and absolute necessity. You don’t change the nature of the necessity by weakening this conjunction and determination. Even in the operation of bodies there are different degrees of constancy ·of going-together·, and different degrees of force ·exerted on the mind in its movement from impression to idea·, without producing different kinds of causality.

The distinction that is often made between ·having· power and exercising it is equally baseless.

(3) Perhaps I can now fully overcome all the natural reluctance to accept my earlier arguments in which I tried to prove that the necessity of a cause to every beginning of existence has no demonstrative or intuitive support. That conclusion won’t appear strange in the light of my definitions. If we define a ‘cause’ to be

An object precedent and contiguous to another, and where all the objects resembling the former are similarly precedent and contiguous to objects that resemble the latter,

we can easily grasp that there is no absolute or metaphysical necessity that every beginning of existence should be preceded by such an object. And if we define a ‘cause’ to be

An object precedent and contiguous to another, and united with it in the imagination in such a way that the idea of one determines the mind to form the idea of the other, and the impression of one to form a livelier idea of the other,

we shall have even less difficulty in assenting to my opinion. Such an influence on the mind—·so far from being something we can be sure must go with every beginning of existence—is in itself perfectly extraordinary and incomprehensible, and it is only from experience and observation that we are certain that it ever occurs.

(4) We can never have reason to believe in the existence of something of which we can’t form an idea. All our reasonings about existence are derived from causation, so they are derived from the experienced conjunction of objects and not from any exercise of pure thinking. So the same experience ·that grounds our causal reasoning· must give us a notion of these objects ·whose existence we reason to·; so there can’t be any mystery in our conclusions—·that is, we can’t soundly argue for the existence of an I-know-not-what of which we don’t have an idea·. . . .

15: Rules by which to judge of causes and effects

According to my doctrine, there are no objects which we can, by merely surveying them and without consulting experience, discover to be the causes of anything else; and no objects that we can certainly discover in the same manner not to be the causes ·of specified other things·. Anything can produce anything. Creation, annihilation, motion, reason, volition—all these can arise from one another, or from any other object we can imagine. You won’t find this strange if you hold in your mind together two principles that I have explained: •that the constant conjunction of objects determines their causation, and •that strictly speaking no objects are contrary to each other but existence and non-existence (see i.5). Where objects are not contrary, nothing hinders them from having the constant conjunction on which the relation of cause and effect totally depends.

Since it is thus possible for any object to be a cause or effect of any other, it may be proper to fix some general rules by which we can know when the cause-effect really does obtain. ·I shall offer eight such rules·.

1. The cause and effect must be contiguous in space andtime.

2. The cause must be prior to the effect.

3. There must be a constant union between the causeand effect. This is what chiefly constitutes the cause-effect relation.

4. The same cause always produces the same effect, and the same effect always comes from the same cause. We derive this principle from experience. And it’s the source of most of our philosophical reasonings. For when by any clear experience we have discovered the causes or effects of any phenomenon, we immediately extend our observation to every phenomenon of the same kind, without waiting for the constant repetition from which the idea of the cause-effect relation was originally derived.

5. (This rule depends on rule 4.) Where several different objects produce the same effect, it must be by means of some quality that we find to be common to them all. For as like effects imply like causes, we must always ascribe the causation to the respect in which the causes are alike.

6. (Another rule stemming from 4.) The difference in the effects of two similar objects must come from a respect in which the objects are not alike. For as like causes always produce like effects, when in any instance we find that this seems not to hold we must conclude that this irregularity proceeds from some ·not-yet-discovered· difference between the causes.

7. When an object increases or diminishes with the increase or diminution of its cause, it is to be regarded as a compounded effect, derived from the union of different effects arising from different parts of the cause. The absence (or presence) of one part of the cause is here supposed to be always followed by the absence (or presence) of a corresponding part of the effect. This constant conjunction sufficiently proves that one part is the cause of the other. But we must not rashly draw such a conclusion from a few instances. A certain degree of heat gives pleasure; if you reduce the heat, the pleasure lessens; but it doesn’t follow that if you raise the heat beyond a certain degree the pleasure will increase correspondingly; for we find that ·on the contrary· it degenerates into pain.

8. An object which exists for any time in its full perfectionwithout any effect is not the sole cause of that effect, but needs to be assisted by some other force that can forward its influence and operation. For as like effects necessarily follow from like causes, and in a contiguous time and place, their separation for a moment shows that these causes are not complete ones.

Those eight rules contain all the logic that I think proper to use in my reasoning; and perhaps even they weren’t much needed: the logic they contain might have been supplied by the natural workings of our understanding. Our Aristotelian intellectuals and logicians don’t exhibit so much superiority over ordinary folk in their reason and ability that I want to imitate them by delivering a long system of rules and precepts to direct our judgment in philosophy! All the rules of this sort are very easy to discover, but extremely difficult to apply; and even empirical science, which seems the most natural and simple of all, requires the utmost stretch of human judgment. Every phenomenon in Nature is compounded and modified in so many details that in order to arrive at the decisive point we must carefully separate whatever is superfluous and investigate through new experiments whether every detail of the first experiment was essential to it. These new experiments are open to critical examination of the same kind; so that we need the utmost constancy to persevere in our enquiry, and the utmost skill to choose the right way among so many that present themselves. If this is the case even in •physical science, how much more in •the sciences of human nature, where there is a much greater complication of details, and where the beliefs and feelings that are essential to any action of the mind are so unconscious and obscure that they often escape our strictest attention, and are not only unaccountable in their causes but not even known to exist! I greatly fear that the small success I meet with in my enquiries will make this remark sound like an apology rather than—·what it really is·—a boast! If anything can give me confidence that I am proceeding on the right lines, it will be the widening of my range of empirical data as much as possible; so it may be proper at this point to examine the reasoning faculty of non- human animals as well as that of human creatures.

16: The reason of animals

It is ridiculous to deny an obvious truth, and almost as ridiculous to take much trouble to defend one; and no truth appears to me more obvious than that beasts are endowed with thought and reason as well as men. The evidence for this is so obvious that it never escapes the most stupid and ignorant.

We are conscious that we ourselves, in adapting means to ends, are guided by reason and design, and that we don’t ignorantly or casually perform the actions that tend to selfpreservation, and to getting pleasure and avoiding pain. So when we see other creatures in millions of instances perform •similar actions directed to •similar ends, all our principles of reason and probability carry us with an irresistible force to believe in the existence of a •similar cause. I don’t think I need to illustrate this argument with particular examples; the smallest attention ·to the non-human part of the animal kingdom· will supply us with more than enough. The resemblance between the actions of animals and those of men is so complete in this respect that the first action of the first animal we happen to choose will provide us with incontestable evidence for the present doctrine.

This doctrine is as useful as it is obvious, and furnishes us with a kind of touchstone by which to test every theory in this area of philosophy. The resemblance of the •external actions of animals to our own actions leads us to judge that their •internal actions also resemble ours; and that same line of reasoning, carried one step further, will make us conclude that since their internal actions resemble ours, the causes must also be alike. So when any hypothesis is advanced to explain a mental operation that is common to men and beasts, we must apply the same hypothesis to both; and just as every true hypothesis will survive this test, I venture to say that no false one will do so. In the systems that philosophers have employed to account for the actions of the mind, the common defect has been that they presuppose so much subtlety and refinement of thought that the thought they describe is out of reach not only of mere animals but even of children and common people in our own species, although they are capable of the same emotions and affections as people of the most accomplished genius and understanding. Such •subtle complexity is a clear proof of the falsehood ·of a theory of mind·, just as •simplicity is proof of its truth.

Let us, therefore, put our present system about the nature of the understanding to this decisive trial, and see whether it will equally account for the reasonings of beasts as for these of the human species.

I need to distinguish •the actions of animals that are of a down-to-earth kind and seem to be on a level with their common capacities from •those more extraordinary instances of wisdom that they sometimes display in the interests of their own preservation and the propagation of their species. A dog that avoids fire and precipices, that shuns strangers and caresses his master, gives us an instance of the •first kind. A bird that chooses with such care and precision the place and materials of her nest, and sits on her eggs for an appropriate time in a suitable season, . . . . provides us with a lively instance of the •second.

As to actions of the former kind, I assert that they come from a reasoning that is not different—in itself or in the forces behind it—from what appears in human nature. It is necessary in the first place that there be some impression immediately present to their memory or senses, to be the basis for their judgment. From the tone of voice the dog infers his master’s anger and foresees his own punishment. From a certain sensation affecting his smell he judges that his prey is not far away.

The inference he draws from the present impression is built on experience, and on his observation of the conjunction of objects in past instances. As you vary this experience, he varies his reasoning. Make a beating follow on one sign or motion for some time, and afterwards on another; and he will successively draw different conclusions in line with his most recent experience.

Now, let any philosopher try to explain the act of the mind we call ‘belief’, giving an account of its causes without bringing in the influence of custom on the imagination, and let his hypothesis be equally applicable to beasts as to the human species; when he has done this, I promise to accept the result! But at the same time I demand that if my system is the only one that can do this, it should in fairness be accepted as entirely satisfactory and convincing. That it is the only one is evident almost without any reasoning.

•Beasts certainly never perceive any real connection among objects. So

•it is by experience that they infer one from another.

•They can’t by any argument reach the general conclusion that objects of which they have had no experience resemble those of which they have. So

•it is through custom alone that experience operates on them.

All this was obvious enough with respect to man. When applied to beasts there can’t be the least suspicion of mistake; which must be admitted to be a strong confirmation, or rather an invincible proof, of my system.

The force of habit in reconciling us to a phenomenon shows nowhere more strikingly than in this: men are not astonished at the operations of their own reason, yet they wonder at the instinct of animals, and find it hard to explain because it can’t be traced back to the very same sources as their own reason·. To consider the matter rightly, reason ·itself· is nothing but a wonderful and unintelligible instinct in our souls, which carries us along a certain sequence of ideas and endows them with particular qualities according to their particular situations and relations. This instinct, admittedly, arises from past observation and experience; but can anyone give the ultimate reason why •past experience and observation produce such an effect, any more than why •Nature alone should produce it? Nature can certainly produce ·without help from habit· anything that can arise from habit; indeed, habit is merely one of the forces of Nature, getting all its power from Nature.

NOTES

[1] I take this opportunity to comment on a very remarkable error which, because it is frequently taught in the schools [= ‘Aristotelian philosophy departments’], has become a kind of established maxim and is accepted by all logicians. This error consists in the division of the acts of the understanding into

conception, judgment, and reasoning,

and in the definitions given of them. •Conception is defined as the simple survey of one or more ideas, •judgment as the separating or uniting of different ideas, and •reasoning as the separating or uniting of different ideas by the interposition of others which show how they are related to one another. But these distinctions and definitions are seriously faulty. (1) It is far from being true that in every judgment that we form we unite two different ideas. In the proposition God is—or indeed any other proposition about existence—the idea of existence is not a distinct idea that we unite with that of the thing that is said to exist, forming a compound idea by the union. (2) Just as we can thus form a proposition containing only one idea—·as the idea of God is the only idea in the proposition God exists·—so we can exercise our reason employing only two ideas, not bringing in a third to serve as an intermediary between them. We infer a cause immediately from its effect; and this inference is not only a true example of reasoning, but is the strongest of all, and is more convincing than when we interpose another idea to connect the two extremes. What we can in general affirm regarding these three acts of the understanding is that properly understood they all come down to the first of the three, and are nothing but particular ways of conceiving our objects. Whether we consider a single object or several, whether we dwell on these objects or run from them to others, and in whatever form or order we survey them, the act of the mind doesn’t go beyond a simple conception, and the only remarkable difference that sometimes occurs is when we join belief to the conception and are convinced of the truth of what we conceive. Belief is an act of the mind that has never yet been explained by any philosopher; so I am at liberty to propose my hypothesis about it, which is that belief is only a strong and steady conception of an idea—one that approaches in some degree to an immediate impression.

[2] I should remark that as our assent to all probable reasonings is based on the liveliness of ideas, it resembles many of the whimsies and prejudices that are rejected as ‘mere offspring of the imagination’. From this way of talking we learn that ‘imagination’ is commonly used in two different senses; and in the following reasonings I have used it in both of them (I know that nothing is more contrary to true philosophy than this sort of inaccuracy). When I contrast •imagination with •memory, I mean (·broad sense·) the faculty by which we form our fainter ideas. When I contrast it with •reason, I mean (·narrower sense·) the same faculty but excluding our demonstrative and probable reasonings. When I am not contrasting it with either memory or reason, it doesn’t matter whether you take it in the broader or narrower sense, or at least the context will sufficiently explain the meaning.

[3] Our ideas of God are similarly imperfect, but this can’t have any effect on either religion or morals. The order of the universe proves that there is an omnipotent mind, that is, a mind whose will is constantly accompanied by the obedience of every creature and being. That’s all that is needed as a basis for all the articles of religion; we don’t need to form a distinct idea of God’s force and energy.

Part iv: The sceptical and other systems of philosophy

1: Scepticism with regard to reason

In all demonstrative sciences the •rules are certain and infallible; but when we •apply them, our fallible and uncertain faculties are very apt to depart from them and fall into error. So we must in every reasoning form a new judgment, as a check or control on our first judgment or belief; and ·as a basis for the new judgment· we must enlarge our view to take in a kind of history of all the cases where our understanding has deceived us, compared those with the ones where its testimony was sound and true. Our reason must be considered as a kind of cause of which truth is the natural effect; but a cause that can often be prevented from having its natural effect by the intrusion of other causes and by the inconstancy of our mental powers. In this way, all •knowledge degenerates into •probability; and this probability is greater or less depending on our experience of the truthfulness or deceitfulness of our understanding, and on how simple or complex the question is.

No algebraist or mathematician is so expert in his science that he places complete confidence in any truth immediately on discovering it, or regards it ·initially· as more than merely probable. Every time he runs over his proofs, his confidence increases; but still more by the approval of his friends; and it is brought to full perfection by the universal assent and applause of the learned world. And this gradual increase in confidence is obviously nothing but the addition of new probabilities, and is derived from the constant union of causes and effects according to past experience and observation.

In financial accounts of any length or importance, merchants seldom rely on the infallible certainty of numbers for their security. Rather, they structure their accounts in a manner that gives their results a greater probability than what is derived from the skill and experience of the accountant. For it is clear that skill and experience do yield some probability ·of accuracy·, though what the probability is varies according to how experienced the accountant is and how long his account is. Now, nobody will maintain that the result of a long calculation can be more than probable. Yet it is safe to say that there is hardly any proposition about numbers of which we can be more sure; for it is easy to break the longest series of additions down into steps in each of which one number less than 10 is added to another—the simplest operation that can be done with numbers. So we shall find it impracticable to show the precise limits of knowledge and of probability, or discover the particular number of steps at which knowledge stops and probability begins. But knowledge and probability can’t shade into each other: they are of contrary and disagreeing natures, and they can’t be split up—each of them must be either entirely present, or entirely absent. Furthermore, if •any single addition were certain ·and a case of knowledge·, •every one would be so, and consequently the total sum would be certain—unless the whole can be different from all its parts. I had almost said ‘This is certain’, but I reflect that what I am saying applies to itself as well as to every other reasoning, and thus must therefore slide from knowledge down into probability.

So all knowledge resolves itself into probability, and eventually comes to be of the same nature as the kind of assurance that we have in common life. Let us, then, examine our common-life sort of reasoning, to see what foundation it stands on.

In every judgment that we can form about probability, as well as about knowledge, we ought always to correct the •first judgment derived from the nature of the object by a •second judgment derived from the nature of the understanding. A man of solid sense and long experience certainly should and usually does have more confidence in his opinions than a man who is foolish and ignorant. . . . But even in someone with the best sense and longest experience this confidence is never complete, because such a person must be conscious of many errors in the past, and must still fear making more. So now there arises a new sort of probability to correct and regulate the first, assigning to it its proper level of confidence. Just as demonstration is subject to the control of probability, so also ·this· probability admits of further adjustment through an act of the mind in which we reflect on the nature of our understanding and on the reasoning that took us to the first probability.

Now we have found in every probability •the original uncertainty inherent in the subject and also •a second uncertainty derived from the weakness of our judgment ·in arriving at the first probability·. When we have put two together ·to get a single over-all probability·, we are obliged by our reason to add •a third doubt derived from the possibility of error ·at the second stage· where we estimated the reliability of our faculties. This third doubt is one that immediately occurs to us, and if we want to track our reason closely we can’t get out of reaching a conclusion about it. But even if this conclusion is favourable to our second judgment, it is itself based only on probability and must weaken still further our first level of confidence. And it must itself be weakened by a •fourth doubt of the same kind, and so on ad infinitum; till at last nothing remains of the first probability, however great we may have supposed it to be, and however small the lessening of it by every new uncertainty. Nothing that is finite can survive an infinity of repeated decreases; and even the vastest quantity that we can imagine must in this manner be reduced to nothing. However strong our first belief is, it is bound to perish when it passes through so many new examinations, each of which somewhat lessens its force and vigour. When I reflect on the natural fallibility of my judgment, I have less confidence in my opinions than when I consider only the topic that I am reasoning about; and when I go still further and scrutinize every successive estimation that I make of my faculties, all the rules of logic require a continual lessening and eventually a total extinction of belief and evidentness.

‘Do you sincerely assent to this argument that you seem to take such trouble to persuade us of? Are you really one of those sceptics who hold that everything is uncertain, and that our judgment doesn’t have measures of truth and falsehood on any topic?’ I reply that this question is entirely superfluous, and that neither I nor anyone else was ever sincerely and constantly of that ·sceptical· opinion. Nature, by an absolute and uncontrollable necessity, makes us judge as well as breathe and feel; and we can’t prevent ourselves from •viewing certain objects in a stronger and fuller light on account of their customary connection with a present impression, any more than we can prevent ourselves from •thinking as long as we are awake, or from •seeing nearby bodies when we turn our eyes towards them in broad sunlight. Whoever has taken trouble to refute the objections of this total scepticism has really been disputing without an antagonist, trying to establish •by arguments a faculty that •Nature has already implanted in the mind and made unavoidable.

Then why did I display so carefully the arguments of that fantastic sect (·the total sceptics·)? It was to make you aware of the truth of my hypotheses that •all our reasonings about causes and effects are derived from nothing but custom, and that •belief is strictly an act of the feeling part of our natures rather than of the thinking part. ·I now proceed to connect the second of these hypotheses with what I have shown about reasoning and probability·.

Concerning the elements in our make-up that make us reach a conclusion on any subject, and correct that conclusion in the light of thoughts about our intellectual limits and about the situation of our mind when we reached the conclusion, I have proved that they—these very same elements—when carried further and applied to every new judgment on ourselves, must by continually lessening our original confidence eventually reduce it to nothing, utterly subverting all belief and opinion. So if belief were a simple act of thought, not involving any special manner of conception such as conceiving in a forceful and lively way, it would be bound to destroy itself and in every case terminate in a total suspense of judgment. But experience will sufficiently convince you (if you think it worthwhile to try this) that although you can’t find anything wrong with my arguments you still continue to believe, think, and reason as usual; so you can safely conclude that your reasoning and belief is some sensation or peculiar manner of conception that can’t be destroyed by mere ideas and reflections.

But here a further question may be raised:

Even on your hypothesis ·about what belief is·, how does it happen that your arguments early in this section don’t produce a total suspension of judgment? How does the mind ever retain any degree of assurance on any subject? These new probabilities whose repetition perpetually lessens the original confidence are based on the very same principles as the first judgment in the series, and it makes no difference whether the principles have to do with thought (·which you deny·) or with sensation (·which you assert·). Either way, it seems unavoidable that they must subvert belief, through the opposition either of contrary thoughts or of contrary sensations, reducing the mind to a total uncertainty. Some question is proposed to me, and after going over the impressions of my memory and senses, and carrying my thoughts from them to objects of the kinds commonly conjoined with them, I feel a stronger and more forcible conception on one side ·of the question· than on the other. This strong conception (·according to you·) constitutes my first conclusion ·or belief·. Next, I examine my judgment itself and, observing from experience that it is sometimes sound and sometimes erroneous, I see it as governed by contrary forces or causes, of which some lead to truth and others to error; and in balancing these contrary causes I arrive at a new probability which lessens the assurance of my first conclusion. This new probability is open to being lessened in the same way as the previous one was, and so on, ad infinitum. So how does it happen that even after all that we retain a degree of belief that is sufficient for our purpose in philosophy or in common life?

I answer that after the first and second conclusions the action of the mind becomes forced and unnatural, and the ideas become faint and obscure. The •principlesc of judgment and the balancing of opposite causes is the same as at the very beginning, but their •influence on the imagination and the difference they make to the vigour of the thought is by no means the same. When the mind doesn’t grasp its objects with easy smoothness, the same sources of activity don’t have the same effect as they do in a more natural conception of the ideas; and the imagination doesn’t feel a sensation anything like the one that comes from its everyday judgments and opinions. The attention is on the stretch; the posture of the mind is uncomfortable, and the ·animal· spirits, being diverted from their natural course, are not governed in their movements by the same laws as when they flow in their usual channel—or at any rate are not governed by them to the same degree.

It isn’t difficult to provide other examples of the same phenomenon; the present subject of metaphysics supplies them in abundance. An argument that would have been found convincing in a reasoning about history or politics has little or no influence in abstruser subjects such as metaphysics, even when it is perfectly understood; and that is because understanding it requires a study and an effort of thought, which disturbs the operation of our sentiments on which the belief depends. The case is the same in other subjects. The straining of the imagination always hinders the regular flowing of the passions and sentiments. A tragic poet who represented his heroes as talking cleverly and inventively in their misfortunes would never touch the passions. Just as the •emotions of the soul prevent any •subtle reasoning and reflection, so •reflective thinking tends to quell •emotions. The mind, as well as the body, seems to be endowed with a certain definite amount of force and activity which it employs in one action only at the expense of all the rest. This is more evidently true where the actions are of quite different kinds; for then the force of the mind is not only redirected but its disposition is changed, making us incapable of a sudden switch from one action to the other, let alone of performing both at once. No wonder, then, that the belief arising from a subtle reasoning lessens in proportion to the efforts that the imagination makes to enter into the reasoning and to conceive it in all its parts. Belief, being a lively conception, can never be complete when it is not founded on something natural and easy.

I take this to be the true state of the question, and cannot approve of the way in which some people try dispose of the sceptics by rejecting all their arguments at once, without enquiry or examination. They argue like this:

If the sceptical reasonings are strong, that is a proof that reason can have some force and authority; if they are weak, they can never be sufficient to invalidate all the conclusions of our understanding.

This argument is not sound, and here is why. If the sceptical reasonings could exist and not be destroyed by their own subtlety, they would be successively strong and weak, according to the successive dispositions of the mind. Reason first appears in possession of the throne, prescribing laws with absolute authority. So her enemy (·the sceptical argument·) has to take shelter under her protection and by using rational arguments to prove reason’s incompetence and liability to error, her enemy produces a sort of warrant of authenticity signed and sealed by reason. This warrant initially has some authority in proportion to the present and immediate authority of reason from which it is derived. But as it is supposed to be contradictory to reason, it gradually lessens •the force of that governing power and •its own force at the same time; till at last they both vanish away into nothing through regular and proper lessenings. ·Here is how·. The sceptical and anti-sceptical reasons are of the same kind, though working in contrary directions, so that when the anti- sceptical case is strong it has to reckon with an enemy of equal force in the sceptical case; and as they started out with equal force, they continue like that for as long as either of them exists; and neither loses any force in the contest without taking as much from its opponent. So it is fortunate that Nature eventually breaks the force of all sceptical arguments, keeping them from having much influence on the understanding. If we put all our trust in their destroying themselves, ·as alleged in the above argument·, we would be relying on something that can never take place until they (·the sceptical arguments·) have first subverted all belief and totally destroyed human reason.

2: Scepticism with regard to the senses

Thus the sceptic still continues to •reason and believe, even though he asserts that he can’t defend his reason by reason; and by the same rule he must •assent to the principle concerning the existence of body, though he can’t claim to maintain its truth by any arguments of philosophy. Nature hasn’t left this to his choice, and has doubtless thought it too important to be trusted to our uncertain reasonings and speculations. We may well ask ‘What causes induce us to believe in the existence of body?’ but it is pointless to ask ‘Is there body or not?’, because that is something we must—·being compelled by Nature·—take for granted in all our reasonings.

So the subject of our present enquiry is the causes that induce us to believe in the existence of body. I start with a distinction that at first sight may seem superfluous, but which will contribute greatly to the perfect understanding of what follows. Two questions that are commonly run together ought to be examined separately. They are:

•Why do we attribute a continued existence to objects even when they aren’t present to the senses? and

•Why do we suppose objects to have an existence distinct from the mind and perception?

In the second question, I ·am using ‘distinct from’ to· refer to object’s spatial position as well as its ·causal· relations—•its external position as well as •the independence of its existence and operation. These two questions, about the continued and distinct existence of body, are intimately connected. For if the objects of our senses •continue to exist even when they are not perceived, their existence is of course independent of the perception and ·in that sense· •distinct from it; and conversely, if their existence is independent of the perception and ·in that sense· •distinct from it, they must •continue to exist even when they are not perceived. But though a decision on either of the questions also decides the other as well, it will be easier for us to discover the sources in human nature from which the decision arises if we treat •continuity separately from •distinctness. So I shall inquire whether the opinion that bodies have a •continued existence is produced by the senses, by reason, or by the imagination, and shall inquire into the analogous question regarding the opinion that bodies exist •distinct from the mind. These are the only questions that are intelligible on the present subject. As for the notion of external existence, when understood to mean that bodies exist and are of a categorially different sort from our perceptions, I have already shown its absurdity in 6ii.

·THE SENSES·

Obviously the senses can’t give rise to the view that objects •continue to exist after they have stopped appearing to the senses. For them to do that would be for them to continue to operate even after they have entirely stopped operating, which is a contradiction in terms. So if the senses have any influence in the present case, it must be in producing the opinion that bodies have a •distinct (not a continued) existence. If they were to do that, it would have to be either by presenting their impressions as •images [= ‘likenesses’] and representations ·of bodies existing distinct from the mind· or by presenting their impressions as •themselves being these distinct and external existences. ·Let us look at these separately·.

It is obvious that our senses don’t offer their impressions as the images of something distinct (i.e. independent and external), because all they convey to us is a single perception, with not the slightest hint of anything beyond it. A single perception can’t produce the idea of two existing things except through some inference of either reason or imagination (·and I shall come to them later·). When the mind looks further than what immediately appears to it, its conclusions can never be attributed to the senses; and it certainly does look further when from a single perception it infers two existing things and supposes relations of resemblance and causation between them.

So if our senses suggest any idea of distinct existences, they must do it by presenting their impressions as being those very existences, this being a kind of fallacy and illusion. In this connection I point out that all sensations are felt by the mind as what they really are; when we wonder whether they present themselves as distinct objects or only as impressions, we aren’t asking about their nature but about their •relations and •situation—·specifically, about whether they are •related to us by causation or resemblance, and whether they are •located somewhere other than where we are·. Now, if the senses presented our impressions as being objects that are external to and independent of ourselves, they must be able to relate the objects to ourselves, which means that we ourselves must appear to our senses. So that is the question we now have to face: how far are we ourselves the objects of our senses? No question in philosophy is more abstruse than the one about ·personal· identity—about the nature of the uniting principlec that ·makes a •number of items· constitute •one person. So far from being able to answer it merely through our senses, we must—·and in section 6 I shall·—have recourse to the most profound metaphysics to give a satisfactory answer to it; and in common life it is obvious that these ideas of self and person are never very fixed or determinate. So it is absurd to suggest that the senses can ever distinguish ourselves from external objects. And a further point: All impressions (external and internal), passions, affections, sensations, pains, and pleasures are originally on the same footing; and whatever differences we may observe among them, they all appear in their true colours as impressions or perceptions ·and not as objects distinct from ourselves·. Indeed, it is hardly possible that it should be otherwise: it isn’t conceivable that our senses should be able to deceive us about the •situation and relations of our impressions, any more than about their •nature. For since all the actions and sensations of the mind are known to us by consciousness, they must in every detail appear to be what they are, and be what they appear. It is impossible that something that enters the mind as really a perception should appear to be something different. If that could happen, it would mean that we might be mistaken even about what we are most intimately conscious of.

Rather than spending more time examining whether our senses possibly could deceive us by representing our perceptions as distinct from ourselves (that is, as •external to and •independent of us), let us consider whether they really do so. . . . Here is an argument that might be used:

My own body evidently belongs to me, and as various impressions appear exterior to my body I suppose them to be exterior to me. (Let’s set aside the metaphysical question about the identity of a thinking substance, ·which may be tied up with the question of what I am·.) The paper on which I am now writing is beyond my hand. The table is beyond the paper. The walls of the room beyond the table. And in looking towards the window I see a great stretch of fields and buildings beyond my room. From all this it can be inferred that all I need are my senses, with no help from any other faculty, to be convinced of the external existence of body.

This inference is blocked by the three following considerations. (1) Properly speaking, when we look at our limbs and other body-parts what we perceive isn’t •our body but rather •certain impressions that come to us through the senses; so when we treat these impressions as being (or as being impressions of ) real bodies, that is an act of the mind that’s as hard to explain as the one we are now examining. (2) Sounds, tastes, and smells, though commonly regarded by the mind as •continued •independent qualities, don’t appear to have any existence in the extended realm, so that they can’t appear to the senses as situated outside the body. The reason why we ascribe a place to them will be considered in section 5. (3) Even our sight doesn’t inform us of distance or outerness immediately and without a certain reasoning and experience, as is agreed by the most rational philosophers ·under the lead of Berkeley·.

As to the •independence of our perceptions from ourselves, this can never be given to us by the senses; any opinion we form about it must be derived from experience and observation; and we’ll see later that our conclusions from experience are far from being favourable to the doctrine of the independence of our perceptions. Anyway, I would point out that when we talk of real ‘distinct’ existents, we are usually thinking more of their •independence than of their •external position; we think an object has sufficient reality if its existence is uninterrupted, and independent of the incessant revolutions that we are conscious of in ourselves.

Summing up what I have said about the senses: They give us no notion of •continued existence because they can’t operate beyond the limits within which they really operate. No more do they produce the opinion of a •distinct existence, because they can’t offer that to the mind as represented or as original. To offer it as represented, they must present both an object and an image. To make it appear as original, they would have to convey a falsehood, . . . . but in fact they don’t and can’t deceive us. So we can conclude with certainty that the senses don’t give rise to the opinion of a •continued existence or of a •distinct one.

I shall confirm this ·with an argument that will run to the end of the next paragraph·. Three different kinds of impressions are conveyed by the senses:

•those of bodies’ shape, size, motion, and solidity,

•those of colours, tastes, smells, sounds, heat, and cold; and

•pains and pleasures that arise from the application of objects to our bodies, for example by the cutting of our flesh with steel.

Both philosophers and ordinary folk suppose the first of these to have a distinct continued existence. Only common people regard the second in that way. Both philosophers and common folk, again, regard the third as merely perceptions and thus as being interrupted and dependent in their existence.

Now, whatever our philosophical opinion may be, it is obvious that so far as the senses can tell colours, sounds, heat, and cold exist in the same way as do motion and solidity; and that the mere perception ·of them· isn’t what makes us distinguish them in this respect, ·by attributing independent existence to the latter group and not the former·.

·On the contrary, many people think their senses tell them that colours etc. do have an independent existence·. The prejudice in favour of assigning a distinct continued existence to colours etc. is so strong that when the contrary opinion is advanced by modern philosophers, people think they can almost refute it by appealing only to their feeling and experience; their very senses, they think, contradict this philosophy! It is also obvious that colours etc. are originally on the same footing as the pain that arises from steel and pleasure that comes from a fire, and that the difference between them is based not on perception or reason but on the imagination. Both lots—·colour etc. and pain etc.·—are agreed to be nothing but perceptions arising from the particular configurations and motions of the parts of body, so how could they possibly differ? Taking all this into account, we can conclude that, as far as the senses are judges, all perceptions are the same in their manner of existence.

·REASON·

Notice that when people attribute a distinct continued existence to sounds and colours, they do this without ever consulting reason or testing our opinions by any philosophical principles. Indeed, whatever convincing arguments philosophers may think they can produce to establish the belief in objects that are independent of the mind, these arguments are known to only a very few; it is not by them that children, peasants, and most of mankind are induced to attribute ·independent· objects to some impressions and deny them to others. Thus, we find that all the conclusions that common people arrive at about this are directly contrary to those that are confirmed by philosophy! For philosophy informs us that everything that appears to the mind is nothing but a perception, and is interrupted and dependent on the mind; whereas common people confuse •perceptions with •objects, and attribute a •distinct continued existence (·objects·) to the very things they feel or see (·perceptions·). This opinion is entirely unreasonable, therefore, and so it must come from some faculty other than the understanding, ·i.e. other than reason·. To which I would add this: As long as we take our perceptions and objects to be the same, we can’t infer the existence of the objects from the existence of the perceptions, or form any argument from the relation of cause and effect, which is the only one that can assure us of any matter of fact. And even after we distinguish perceptions from objects, it will soon appear that we still can’t reason from the existence of one to the existence of the other. All this shows that our reason doesn’t and couldn’t possibly, on any supposition, give us an assurance of the continued and distinct existence of body. That opinion must be entirely owing to the imagination, which must now be the subject of our enquiry. ·The discussion of the imagination’s role in producing the belief in continued bodies that are distinct from us will occupy more than half of the length of this section·.

·IMAGINATION: FIRST ATTEMPTS·

Since all impressions are internal and perishing things, and appear as such, •the notion of their distinct and continued existence ·can’t arise from them alone; so it· must arise from some of their qualities aided by qualities of the imagination; and since •this notion doesn’t extend to all of them, it must arise from qualities that only some impressions possess. So we can easily discover what these qualities are by comparing the impressions to which we attribute a distinct and continued existence with those that we regard as internal and perishing.

It has commonly been supposed that we attribute a reality and continued existence to some impressions because they are involuntary (·as I look up from this table with my eyes open I can’t help seeing the window, whereas with my eyes closed I can choose whether to imagine the window·); and another suggestion is that we attribute a reality and continued existence to some perceptions because they have greater force and violence than the others (·my perception when I see the window is more forceful than the one I have when I imagine the window·). These are both wrong. It is obvious that some impressions that we never suppose to have any existence beyond our perception are just as involuntary as, and are more violent than, the impressions of shape and extension, colour and sound that we suppose to be permanent beings; for example our pains and pleasures, our passions and affections. . . .

Having rejected these common opinions, we must search for some other theory revealing the special qualities in some impressions that makes us attribute to them a distinct and continued existence.

After a little examination we shall find that all the objects to which we attribute a continued existence have a peculiar constancy that distinguishes them from the impressions ·that we don’t regard as existing continuously, through gaps in our perception, because we think that their· existence depends on our perception. The mountains and houses and trees that I see at this moment have always appeared to me in the same order, and when I lose sight of them by shutting my eyes or turning my head I soon after find them return to me without the least alteration. My bed and table, my books and papers, present themselves in the same uniform manner, and don’t change because of interruptions in my seeing or perceiving them. This is the case with all the impressions whose objects are supposed to have an external existence, and it doesn’t hold for any other impressions, whether gentle or violent, voluntary or involuntary.

But this constancy is not perfect, and admits of considerable exceptions: bodies often change their position and qualities, and after a little absence or interruption they may be hardly knowable. But we can see that even in these changes they preserve a •coherence, and have a regular •dependence on each other, which is the basis for a kind of reasoning from causation that produces the opinion of their continued existence. When I return to my room after an hour’s absence, I don’t find my fire in the same state as when I left it; but then in other cases I have been accustomed to seeing a similar alteration produced in a similar period of time, whether I am present or absent. (·Similar initial states of the fire have regularly been followed by similar subsequent states; this makes me think that the former cause the latter; and that requires that the fire stayed in existence throughout. This is the ‘kind of reasoning from causation’ to which I referred·.) So this coherence in their changes is one of the characteristics of external objects, as well as their constancy.

Having found that the belief in the continued existence of body depends on the coherence and constancy of certain impressions, I now ask how these qualities give rise to this extraordinary opinion. To begin with coherence: although the internal impressions that we regard as fleeting and perishing also have a certain coherence or regularity in their appearances, it is of a somewhat different kind from what we find in bodies. We find by experience that our •passions have a mutual connection with and dependence on each other; but we never find ourselves having to suppose that they have existed and operated when they were not perceived, in order to preserve the same dependence and connection of which we have had experience. It is not like that with •external objects. They require a continued existence if they are not to lose much of the regularity of their operation. I am sitting here in my room with my face to the fire, and all the objects that strike my senses are within a few yards of me. (It is true that my memory informs me of the existence of many ·other· objects; but what it tells me is only about their past existence, and neither it nor my senses tell me that those things have continued in existence until now.) So here I am, turning over these thoughts, when suddenly I hear a noise as of a door turning on its hinges, and a moment later I see a porter coming towards me. This gives rise to many new reflections and reasonings ·in which three things predominate·. •I have never observed that this ·kind of· noise could come from anything but the motion of a door; so I conclude that the present phenomenon is a contradiction to all past experience unless the door that I remember on the other side of the room still exists. •I have always found that human bodies have a quality that I call ‘gravity’ which prevents them from floating in the air, which is what this porter must have done to arrive at my chamber unless the stairs that I remember have survived my absence ·from them·. •I receive a letter which, when I open it, I see by the handwriting and signature to have come from a friend, and in it he says he is six hundred miles away. Obviously I can’t account for this phenomenon, consistently with my experience in other instances, without spreading out in my mind the whole sea and continent between us, and supposing the effects and continued existence of coaches and ferries, according to my memory and observation. Looked at in a certain way, these phenomena of the porter and letter are contradictions to common experience, and may be regarded as objections to the maxims we form about the connections of causes and effects. I am accustomed to hearing a certain sound and at the same time seeing a certain object in motion. On this occasion I have received one of these impressions without the other. These observations are contrary unless I suppose that the door still exists and that it was opened without my perceiving it; and this supposition, which at first was entirely arbitrary and hypothetical, becomes more strong and convincing through being the only one that lets me reconcile the contradiction. At almost every moment of my life there is a similar instance presented to me, leading me to suppose the continued existence of objects in order to connect their past appearances with their present ones, giving them such a union with each other as I have found by experience to be suitable to their particular natures and circumstances. Thus I am naturally led to regard the world as something real and durable, and as preserving its existence even when I don’t perceive it.

•This inference from the coherence of appearances may seem to be of the same nature with •our reasonings about causes and effects, because both are derived from custom and regulated by past experience. But we shall find that they are ultimately quite different from one another, and that our present inference arises from the understanding and from custom ·not in the direct way that causal reasoning does, but· in an indirect and oblique manner. You will agree that since nothing is ever really present to the mind except its own perceptions, it is impossible that •any habit should ever be acquired other than through the regular succession of these perceptions, and impossible that •any habit should ever exceed that degree of regularity. So a certain degree of regularity in our perceptions can’t be a basis for us to infer a greater degree of regularity in some objects that are not perceived. To suppose that it could is to suppose a contradiction—namely, a habit acquired by something that was never present to the mind. But when we infer the continued existence of the objects of sense from their coherence and the frequency of their union, we obviously do this so as to give them a greater regularity than has been observed in our mere perceptions. ·To make this clearer, I shall redescribe the situation in slightly different terms·. We notice a connection between two kinds of objects in their past appearance to the senses, but we don’t see this connection to be perfectly constant, because we can break it by turning our head or shutting our eyes. So what we suppose in this case is that these objects still continue their usual connection, despite their apparent interruption, and that the irregular appearances ·of them· are joined by something that we don’t perceive. But as all reasoning about matters of fact arises purely from custom, and custom can only be the effect of repeated perceptions, extending custom and reasoning beyond the perceptions can never be the direct and natural effect of the constant repetition and connection. It must, therefore, arise from the cooperation of some other forces.

I have already observed in examining the foundation of mathematics (in 4ii) that when the imagination embarks on any line of thinking it is apt to continue even when its object fails it; like a galley put in motion by the oars, it carries on its course without any new impulse. I gave this as the reason why, after considering several rough standards of equality and correcting them by each other, we proceed to imagine a standard of equality that is so correct and exact that it can’t admit of the least error or variation. The same tendency makes us easily entertain this opinion of the continued existence of body:

Objects have a certain •coherence even as they appear to our senses; but this coherence is much greater and more uniform if we suppose the objects to have a continued existence; and once the mind is engaged in observing a uniformity among objects, it naturally continues this until it renders the uniformity as complete as possible. The simple supposition of their continued existence suffices for this purpose, and gives us a notion of a much greater regularity ·or •coherence· among objects than they have when we look no further than our senses.

But whatever force we may ascribe to this tendency, I am afraid it is too weak to support unaided such a vast edifice as the continued existence of all external bodies. To give a satisfactory account of that opinion, I think, we must bring in not only the •coherence of objects but also their •constancy. There is an inference from the constancy of our perceptions which, like the preceding one from their coherence, gives rise to the opinion of the continued existence of body. (·Notice that I am still focussing on objects’ continued existence·; the belief in that is prior to, and a cause of, the belief in their distinct existence.) Explaining this will lead me into a considerable range of very profound reasoning, and I want to avoid confusion; so I think it worthwhile to give a short sketch or abridged version of my system before proceeding to lay out its parts in detail.

·IMAGINATION: SKETCH OF THE SYSTEM·

When we have been accustomed to observe a constancy in certain impressions, and have found that the perception of the sun or ocean (for instance) returns to us after an absence or annihilation with similar parts and in a similar order to its first appearance, we aren’t apt to regard these interrupted perceptions as different, which they really are; on the contrary, we consider them as individually the same— ·thinking that my present impression that I now have is the very one, the same individual impression, that I had an hour ago·—on account of their resemblance. But ·we are pulled also in the opposite direction·: the interruption of the existence of the impressions is contrary to their perfect ·individual· identity, and makes us think that the first impression was annihilated and a second one created later; so we find ourselves somewhat at a loss, and are involved in a kind of contradiction. In order to free ourselves from this difficulty, we disguise the interruption as much as we can, or rather we abolish it by supposing that these interrupted perceptions are connected by a real existence that we don’t perceive. This supposition—this idea of continued existence—acquires force and liveliness from the memory of the broken impressions and from that propensity they give us to suppose them to be ·individually· the same; and according to my theory of belief, the very essence of belief consists in the force and liveliness of the conception.

In order to justify this system, four things are needed. •To explain the principium individuationis, or principle of identity; •to explain why the resemblance of our broken and interrupted perceptions induces us to attribute an identity to them; •to explain why this illusion—·this false attribution of identity·—gives us a propensity to unite these broken appearances by ·supposing· a continued existence; and •to explain the force and liveliness of conception that arises from the propensity.

·IMAGINATION: FIRST PART OF THE SYSTEM·

First, as to the principle of individuation, notice that the view of a single object is not sufficient to convey the idea of identity. Consider the proposition An object is the same as itself. If the idea expressed by ‘object’ is exactly the one meant by ‘itself’, the proposition really means nothing; and in that case it doesn’t contain a predicate and a subject, though the sentence purports to do so. One single object conveys the idea of unity, not of identity.

On the other hand, a number of objects can never convey the idea of identity, however alike they may be. The mind always pronounces this one not to be that or the other, and considers them as forming two, three or some higher number of objects, whose existences are entirely distinct and independent.

Since number and unity are thus both incompatible with it, the relation of identity must lie in something that is neither of them. At first sight this seems quite impossible: there can’t be something intermediate between unity and number, any more than there can between existence and non- existence. Given one object, we either have another, in which case we have the idea of number; or we don’t have any other, in which case the object remains at unity.

To remove this difficulty, let us get help from the idea of time or duration. I have already observed in 5ii that time in a strict sense implies change, and that when we apply the idea of time to any unchanging object, supposing it to participate in the changes of the coexisting objects and in particular of the changes in our perceptions, this is only a fiction of the imagination. This fiction, which almost universally takes place, is the means by which we get a notion of identity from a single object that we survey for a period of time without observing in it any interruption or variation. ·Here is how it does that·. We can consider any two points in this period in either of two ways: we can

•survey them at the very same instant, in which case they give us the idea of number: both as being two points in time, and as containing perceptions of two objects, for the objects must be multiplied in order to be conceived as existing in these two different points of time;

or we can

•trace the succession of time by a matching succession of ideas, conceiving first one moment along with the object at that time, then imagine a change in the time without any variation or interruption in the object; and so we get the idea of unity.

Here then is an idea that is intermediate between unity and number, or—more properly speaking—is either of them, according to how we look at it; and this is the idea that we call the idea of identity. We can’t in propriety of speech say that an object is the same as itself unless we mean that the object existent at one time is the same as itself existent at another. In this way we make a difference between the idea meant by ‘object’ and that meant by ‘itself’, without going as far as number yet without confining ourselves to a strict and absolute unity.

Thus the principle of individuation is nothing but the invariableness and uninterruptedness of an object through a supposed variation of time, by which the mind can trace it in the different periods of its existence, without any break in the view, and without being obliged to form the idea of multiplicity or number.

·IMAGINATION: SECOND PART OF THE SYSTEM·

I now proceed to show why the constancy of our perceptions makes us ascribe to them a perfect numerical identity, even though there are very long intervals between their appearances, and even though they have only one of the essential qualities of identity, namely invariableness. To avoid all ambiguity and confusion about this, I explain that I am here going to account for the opinions of common people with regard to the existence of bodies; so I must entirely conform to their manner of thinking and talking. Now, ·some· philosophers distinguish sense-perceptions from objects of the senses, and suppose that the objects coexist with the perceptions and resemble them; but, as I have already remarked, this distinction is not recognized by the general run of people, who perceive only one thing and wouldn’t assent to the opinion that there really are two, of which one represents the other. For them, the very sensations that enter by the eye or ear are the true objects, and they can’t make much sense of the suggestion that •this pen that is immediately perceived represents •another pen that is like it. To accommodate myself to their notions, therefore, I shall at first suppose that there is only a single existing thing that I shall call ‘object’ or ‘perception’ as seems best for my purpose ·in the given context·, understanding each word to stand for what any common man means by ‘hat’ or ‘shoe’ or ‘stone’ or any other impression that his senses bring to him. I shall be sure to warn you when I return to a more philosophical way of speaking and thinking. [See here.] Now we face the question about the source of the error and deception that we are prey to when we attribute identity to our resembling perceptions, despite their interruption. Here I must recall something that I proved and explained in 5ii, namely that what is most apt to make us mistake one idea for another is a relation between them that links them in the imagination so that it passes easily from one to the other. The relation that does this the most effectively is resemblance, because it causes an association not only of ideas but also of dispositions: when some act or operation of the mind leads us to have a certain idea, it will be led also to have a similar idea through a similar act or operation. I have commented on the importance of this. We can take it as a general rule that any •two ideas that put the mind into the same disposition, or into similar ones, are very apt to be confounded—·and thus to be thought to be •one idea·. The mind readily passes from one to the other and doesn’t notice the change unless it attends very closely—and that is something of which most people’s minds are wholly incapable.

In order to apply this general maxim, we must first examine

•the disposition of the mind when it views an object that preserves a perfect identity,

and then find

•some other object that we wrongly identify with the former one because it causes in us a similar disposition.

When we fix our thought on some object and suppose it to continue the same for some time, it’s clear that we are supposing that only the time is changing, and we don’t put ourselves to the trouble of producing any new image or idea of the object. The mind’s faculties in this case are not put to any work beyond what is necessary to continue the idea we formerly had, which goes on existing without variation or interruption. The passage from one moment to the next is hardly felt, and the conception of it doesn’t involve any difference of perception or idea. . . . That is the disposition of the mind when it contemplates a perfectly identical object. Now we have to discover what other objects can put the mind in that same disposition when it considers them, causing the same uninterrupted passage of the imagination from one idea to another. This is of the highest importance. For if we find any such objects, we can certainly conclude (from the foregoing principle) that it is very natural for them to be wrongly identified with identical objects, and are taken to be such in most of our reasonings. But though this question is very important, it is not very difficult or doubtful. For I immediately reply that a sequence of related objects puts the mind into this disposition: such a •sequence is contemplated with the same smooth and uninterrupted progress of the imagination as accompanies a view of a •single invariable object. The very nature and essence of ·natural· relations is to connect our ideas with each other, and when one idea appears to facilitate the move to the related one. The move between related ideas is therefore so smooth and easy that it produces little alteration in the mind, and seems like a continuation of a single action; and as the continuation of a single action is an effect of the continued view of a single object, this is why we attribute singleness to every succession of related objects, treating them as though they were a single object. The thought slides along the succession as easily as if it were considering only one object; and so it confounds the succession with the identity.

We shall later see many instances of this tendency of relations to make us ·wrongly· identify different objects with one another, but here I shall stay with the present subject. We find by experience that there is so much constancy in most of the impressions of the senses that their interruption produces no alteration in them, allowing them to returning ·to our senses· with the same appearance and situation as they had before. I survey the furniture in my room; I shut my eyes and then re-open them; and I find my new perceptions to resemble perfectly the previous ones. I observe this resemblance ·across interruptions· in a thousand instances, and it naturally connects my ideas of these interrupted perceptions by the strongest relation, conveying the mind easily from one to another. An easy passage of the imagination along the ideas of these •different and interrupted perceptions is almost the same disposition of mind as that in which we contemplate •one constant and uninterrupted perception. It is therefore very natural for us to mistake the one for the other.[1]

·IMAGINATION: THIRD PART OF THE SYSTEM·

The people who have this opinion about the identity of our resembling perceptions are in general all the uthinking and unphilosophical part of mankind, (that is, all of us at one time or another); so they are the ones who (·as I said earlier·) suppose their perceptions to be their only objects, and never think of a double existence: ·perception and external object·, internal and external, representing and represented. The very image that is present to the senses is for them (for us!) the real body, and it is to these interrupted images we ascribe a perfect identity. But the interruption of the appearance seems contrary to their identity, and that naturally leads us to regard the resembling perceptions as different from each other ·after all·. Here we find ourselves at a loss how to reconcile such opposite opinions.

•The smooth passage of the imagination along the ideas of the resembling perceptions makes us ascribe to them a perfect identity. •The interrupted manner of their appearance makes us consider them as a number of distinct though similar things that appear after certain intervals.

The perplexity arising from this contradiction inclines us to unite these broken appearances by the fiction of a continued existence, which is the third part of the system I offered to explain.

Our experience shows us—as certainly as it shows anything—that whatever contradicts either our opinions or our passions generates a noticeable uneasiness, whether the contradiction comes from without or from within—from the opposition of external objects or from the conflict of forces inside us. On the other hand, anything that chimes with our natural propensities, and either externally advances their satisfaction or internally goes along with their turns of thought and feeling, is sure to give us conscious pleasure. Now, we have here an opposition between •the notion of the identity of resembling perceptions and •the interruption in their appearance, so the mind is bound to be uneasy and to seek relief from that uneasiness. Since the uneasiness arises from the opposition of two contrary forces, the mind must look for relief by sacrificing one to the other. But as the smooth passage of our thought along our resembling perceptions makes us ascribe an identity to them, we are very reluctant to give up that opinion. So we must turn to the other side ·of the dilemma·, and suppose that our perceptions are not interrupted after all, that their existence is not only invariable but continuous, and that this enables them to be entirely the same, strictly identical. But appearances of these perceptions are interrupted so often and for such long periods that we can’t overlook the interruptions; and they seem to imply that the perceptions didn’t exist during those periods. The alternative is to suppose that they existed but weren’t present to the mind; but this looks like a flat contradiction that we couldn’t ever swallow, because a perception’s existing seems at first sight to be the very same thing as its appearing to a mind. To clear this matter up, and to learn how an interruption in the appearance of a perception doesn’t necessarily imply an interruption in its existence, I need to touch on some principles that I’ll have occasion to explain more fully in section 6.

I begin by observing that our present difficulty is not about the factual question of whether the mind does form such a conclusion about the continued existence of its perceptions, but only about how it does so, about what forces are at work in this. It is certain that almost all mankind—and even philosophers most of the time—take their perceptions to be their only objects, and suppose that the very thing that is intimately present to the mind is the real body or material thing. It is also certain that this very perception or object is supposed to have a continued uninterrupted existence, and to be neither annihilated by our absence nor brought into existence by our presence. We say:

When we are absent from it, it still exists, but we don’t feel, we don’t see it. When we are present, we feel or see it.

So two questions arise. •How can we get ourselves to be satisfied in supposing a perception to be absent from the mind without being annihilated? •How do we conceive an object to become present to the mind, without some new creation of a perception or image; and what do we mean by ‘seeing’ and ‘feeling’ and ‘perceiving’ an object? As to the first question, I would remark that what we call ‘a mind’ is nothing but a heap or collection of different perceptions, held together by certain relations and wrongly supposed to be endowed with a perfect simplicity and identity. Now, every perception is distinguishable from every other, and can be considered as existing separately from any other; from which it clearly follows that there is no absurdity in separating any particular perception from the mind—that is, in breaking off all its relations with that heap of connected perceptions that constitute a thinking being.

The same reasoning gives us an answer to the second question. If the label ‘perception’ doesn’t make this separation from a mind absurd and contradictory, the label ‘object’, standing for the very same thing, can’t make a presence to the mind impossible. External objects are seen and felt and become present to the mind; that is, they acquire such a relation to a connected heap of perceptions as to influence them very considerably in augmenting their number by present reflections and passions, and in storing the memory with ideas. The same continued and uninterrupted being can therefore be sometimes present to the mind and sometimes absent from it, without any real or essential change in the being itself. An interrupted appearance to the senses doesn’t necessarily imply an interruption in the existence; the supposition of the continued existence of perceptible objects or perceptions involves no contradiction; we can easily go along with out inclination to make that supposition. When the exact resemblance of our perceptions makes us ascribe to them an identity, we can remove the seeming interruption by feigning a continued being that can fill those intervals and preserve a perfect and entire identity to our perceptions.

[Feigning is creating a fiction; the two words come from a single Latin word.]

·IMAGINATION: FOURTH PART OF THE SYSTEM·

But we don’t just feign this continued existence—we believe in it. Where does this belief come from? This question leads us to the fourth part of my system. I have already shown that belief in general consists in nothing but the liveliness of an idea, and that an idea can acquire this liveliness by its •relation to some present impression. Impressions are naturally the most vivid perceptions of the mind, and some of this vividness is conveyed by the •relation to every connected idea. The relation •disposes the mind to go from the impression to the idea, and causes the move to be a •smooth one. The mind goes so easily from the one perception to the other that it hardly notices the change, and retains in the second perception (·the idea·) a considerable share of the liveliness of the first (·the impression·). It is aroused by the lively impression, and this liveliness is conveyed without much loss to the related idea, because of the •smooth transition and the •disposition of the imagination.

Even if this disposition arises from something other than the influence of relations, its source—whatever it is—must obviously have the same effect ·as I have been attributing to relations·, and must convey the liveliness from the impression to the idea. And that is what we have in our present case. Our memory presents us with a vast number of instances of perceptions perfectly resembling each other that return at different distances of time and after considerable interruptions. This resemblance disposes us to consider these ·different· interrupted perceptions as ·being· •the same; and also disposes us to connect them by a continued existence in order to justify •this identity and avoid its seeming contradiction with the interrupted appearance of these perceptions. So we are disposed to feign the continued existence of all perceptible objects; and as this disposition arises from some lively impressions of the memory it gives liveliness to that fiction—which is to say that it makes us believe in the continued existence of the body. If we sometimes ascribe a continued existence to objects that are perfectly new to us, and of whose constancy and coherence we have no experience, it is because they present themselves to our senses in a manner that resembles that of constant and coherent objects; and this resemblance is a source of reasoning and analogy, leading us to attribute the same qualities to objects that are similar.

I believe a thinking reader will find it easier to •assent to this system than to •grasp it fully and clearly, and after a little thought will agree that every part carries its own proof along with it. ·I shall now run through the argument again in a slightly different way·. It is obvious that as common people

•suppose their perceptions to be their only objects,

and at the same time

•believe in the continued existence of matter,

we have to explain how •that belief can arise for people who make •that supposition. Now, on that supposition it is not true that any of our objects (or perceptions) is identically the same after an interruption; and consequently the opinion of their identity can never arise from reason, but must arise from the imagination. The imagination is seduced into this opinion only by the resemblance of certain perceptions (evidence for this: our resembling perceptions are the only ones that we are disposed to suppose the same). This disposition to confer an identity on our resembling perceptions produces the fiction of a continued existence. That fiction ·is properly so-called· because it, as well as the identity, really is false, as all philosophers agree, and its only effect is to remedy the interruption of our perceptions which is the only obstacle to their identity. Finally, this disposition causes belief by means of the present impressions of the memory (evidence: without memories of former sensations we would obviously never have any belief in the continued existence of body). Thus, in examining all these parts, we find that each of them is supported by the strongest proofs; and that all of them together form a consistent system that is perfectly convincing. . . .

But although the natural disposition of the imagination leads us in this way to ascribe a continued existence to those perceptible objects or perceptions that we find to resemble each other in their interrupted appearance, a very little reflection and philosophy is sufficient to make us see the fallacy of that opinion. I have already remarked that there is an intimate connection between the two theses, of a •continued existence and of a •distinct or independent existence, and that we no sooner establish one than the other follows as a necessary consequence. It is the belief in a continued existence that comes first, and without much study or reflection pulls the other along with it. . . . But when we compare experiments and think about them a little, we quickly see that the doctrine of the independent existence of our sensory perceptions is contrary to the plainest experience. This leads us to retrace our steps and perceive our error in attributing a continued existence to our perceptions. It is the origin of many very curious opinions that I shall here try to account for.

First I should mention a few of those experiential episodes that convince us that our perceptions don’t have any independent existence. When we press one eye with a finger, we immediately perceive all the objects to become double, and half of them to be removed from their usual position. But as we don’t attribute a continued existence to both these perceptions, and as they are both of the same nature, we clearly perceive that all our perceptions depend on our organs and the disposition of our nerves and animal spirits. This is confirmed by the seeming growth and shrinkage of objects according to how far away they are, by the apparent alterations in their shapes, by the changes in their colour and other qualities, when we are ill, and by countless other experiences of the same kind—from all which we learn that our sensible perceptions don’t have any distinct or independent existence.

·THE NEW PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEM·

The natural consequence of this reasoning should be that our perceptions don’t have a continued existence either; and indeed philosophers have reached this view so thoroughly that they change their system, and distinguish (as I shall do from here on) between •perceptions and •objects. They hold that perceptions are interrupted and perishing, and different at every different return ·to our senses·; and that objects are uninterrupted and preserve a continued existence and identity. But however philosophical this new system may be thought to be, I contend that it is only a superficial remedy, and that it contains all the difficulties of the common system along with some others that are all its own. There are no drives in either the understanding or the imagination that lead us directly to embrace this opinion of the double existence of •perceptions and •objects, and we can’t arrive at it except by passing through the common hypothesis of the identity and continuity of our interrupted •perceptions. If we weren’t first convinced that our perceptions are our only objects, and continue to exist even when they no longer appear to the senses, we would never be led to think that our perceptions and our objects are different, and that it is only our objects that have a continued existence. ·I contend·:

The philosophical hypothesis •has no primary recommendation either to reason or the imagination, and •acquires all its influence on the imagination from the common hypothesis.

This ·displayed· proposition contains two parts, which I shall try to prove as distinctly and clearly as such abstruse subjects will permit.

As to the first part of the proposition that this philosophical hypothesis has no primary recommendation either to reason or the imagination, we can soon satisfy ourselves with regard to reason, by the following reflections. The only existences of which we are certain are perceptions that, being immediately present to us in consciousness, command our strongest assent and are the ultimate basis of all our conclusions. The only conclusion we can draw from the existence of one thing to the existence of another is through the relation of cause and effect, showing that there is a connection between them and that the existence of one depends on that of the other. The idea of the cause-effect relation is derived from past experience in which we find that two ·kinds of· beings are constantly conjoined and are always present together to the mind. But no beings are ever present to the mind except perceptions; so we can observe a conjunction or cause-effect relation •between different perceptions, but can never observe it •between perceptions and objects. So it is impossible that from any fact about perceptions we can ever validly form any conclusion about the existence of objects ·when these are understood, as they are in the philosophical hypothesis, as different from perceptions·.

It is no less certain that this philosophical system has no primary recommendation to the imagination, which would never have arrived at such a view on its own and through forces that are intrinsic to it. It will be somewhat difficult to prove this to your full satisfaction, I admit, because it implies a negative, and negatives very often don’t admit of any positive proof. If someone would take the trouble to look into this question and invent a system ·claiming· to account for how this opinion does arise directly from the imagination, we could by examining that system reach a certain judgment on the present topic. Thus:

Let it be taken for granted that •our perceptions are broken and interrupted, and that •however alike they are they are still different from each other; and let anyone on this basis show why •the imagination directly and immediately (·not through the indirect mechanism I have proposed·) proceeds to the belief in another existing thing that resembles these perceptions in their nature but ·differs from them in being· continuous and uninterrupted and identical.

When someone has done this to my satisfaction, I promise to renounce my present opinion. Meanwhile I can’t help thinking that this, because of the very abstractedness and difficulty of the first supposition [Hume’s phrase], is not fit material for the imagination to work on. Whoever wants to explain the origin of the common opinion about the continued and distinct existence of body must focus on the mind as it commonly is, and proceed on the supposition that our perceptions are our only objects and continue to exist even when not perceived. This opinion is false, but it is the most natural of any, and is the only one that has any primary recommendation to the imagination. As to the second part of the proposition ·that is displayed earlier·, that the philosophical system acquires all its influence on the imagination from the common one: this is a natural and unavoidable consequence of the foregoing conclusion that the philosophical system has no primary recommendation to reason or the imagination. We find by experience that the philosophical system does take hold of many minds, especially of all those who reflect even a little on this subject; so it must derive all its authority from the common system, as it has no authority of its own. These two systems, though directly contrary, are connected together and here is how.

The imagination naturally thinks along the following lines:

•Our perceptions are our only objects.

•Resembling perceptions are the same, however broken or uninterrupted in their appearance.

•This apparent interruption is contrary to the identity.

•So it is only an apparent interruption, and the perception or object really continues to exist even when absent from us.

•So our sensory perceptions have a continued and uninterrupted existence.

But as a little reflection destroys this conclusion that our perceptions have a continued existence by showing that they have a dependent one—·and I have shown that they couldn’t be continuous unless they were independent·—it would naturally be expected that we should altogether reject the opinion that Nature contains any such thing as a continued existence that is preserved even when it no longer appears to the senses. But that is not what has happened! Philosophers don’t in general infer from

Our sensory perceptions are dependent and not continuous

that

Nothing has a continued existence ·through gaps in our perceptions·.

Indeed, they are so far from making that inference that although all philosophical sects agree with the former view, the latter—which is in a way its necessary consequence—has been the property only of a few extravagant sceptics; and even they have maintained it in words only, and were never able to bring themselves sincerely to believe it.

There is a great difference between opinions that we form after calm deep thought and ones that we embrace by a kind of instinct or natural impulse because of their suitableness and conformity to the mind. When opinions of these two kinds come into conflict, it is easy to foresee which will win! As long as our attention is focussed on the subject, the philosophical and studied principle may prevail; but the moment we relax our thoughts, Nature will display herself and pull us back to our former ·instinctive or natural· opinion. Indeed, Nature sometimes has so much influence that she can stop us in our tracks, even in the middle of our deepest reflections, and keep us from running on into all the consequences of some philosophical opinion. Thus, though we clearly perceive the dependence and interruption of our perceptions, we come to an abrupt halt and don’t infer that there is nothing independent and continuous. The opinion that there are such things has taken such deep root in the imagination that it is impossible ever to eradicate it; no tenuous metaphysical conviction of the dependence of our perceptions is sufficient for that purpose.

But though our natural and obvious drives here prevail over our studied reflections, there must surely be some struggle and opposition over this, at least so long as these reflections retain any force or liveliness. In order to set ourselves at ease in this respect, we contrive a new hypothesis that seems to take in both these influences—of reason and of imagination. This is the philosophical hypothesis of the double existence of perceptions and objects: it pleases our reason by allowing that our dependent perceptions are interrupted and different, and it is also agreeable to the imagination because it attributes a continued existence to something else that we call ‘objects’. This philosophical system, therefore, is the misshaped offspring of two principles that are •contrary to each other, are •both at once embraced by the mind, and are •unable mutually to destroy each other. The imagination tells us that our resembling perceptions

•have a continued and uninterrupted existence, and are not annihilated by being absent from us.

Reflection tells us that even our resembling perceptions

•are interrupted in their existence, and are different from each other.

We escape the contradiction between these opinions by a new fiction that squares with the hypotheses of both reflection and imagination by ascribing these contrary qualities to different existences—•the interruption to perceptions, and •the continuity to objects. Nature is obstinate, and refuses to give up, however strongly it is attacked by reason; and at the same time reason is so clear about this matter that there is no possibility of disguising it ·by muffling and then evading its message·. Not being able to reconcile these two enemies, we try to set ourselves at ease as much as possible by successively granting to each whatever it demands, and by feigning a double existence in which each can find something that meets all the conditions it lays down. ·Look at how we get ourselves into this·:

If we were fully convinced that our resembling perceptions are continued and identical and independent, we would never go for this opinion of a double existence; because in that case we would find satisfaction in our first supposition, and would not look beyond.

On the other hand,

If we were fully convinced that our perceptions are dependent and interrupted and different, we would be equally disinclined to embrace the opinion of a double existence; because in that case we would clearly perceive the error of our first supposition of a continued existence, and give it no further thought.

So the opinion of a double existence arises from the half-way situation of the mind—from adhering to these two contrary principles in such a way as to seek some pretext to justify accepting both; which (happily!) is found at last in the system of a double existence.

Another advantage of this philosophical system is its similarity to the common one: it enables us to humour our reason for a moment when it becomes troublesome and anxious, but as soon as reason’s attention flags, the system makes it easy to us to return to our common and natural notions. Sure enough, we find that philosophers make use of this advantage: as soon as they leave their studies they join with the rest of mankind in those exploded opinions that our perceptions are our only objects, and continue identically and uninterruptedly the same through all their interrupted appearances.

Other aspects of the philosophical system show very conspicuously its dependence on the imagination. I shall note two of them. First, ·in the philosophical system· we suppose external objects to resemble internal perceptions. I have already shown that the relation of cause and effect can never let us soundly infer the existence of external continuous objects from the existence or qualities of our perceptions; and I now add that even if we could justify such an inference, we should never have any reason to infer that our objects resemble our perceptions. So that opinion is comes purely from the quality of the imagination that I have explained above, namely that it borrows all its ideas from some earlier perception. We never can conceive anything but perceptions, so ·in our imagination· we must make everything resemble them.

Secondly, ·in the philosophical system· we don’t merely suppose our objects to resemble our perceptions in a general way; we also take it for granted that each particular object resembles the perception that it causes. The relation of cause and effect makes us bring in that other relation, resemblance; and since the ideas of these items—·the object and the perception of it·—are already united together in the imagination by the former relation (·cause-effect·), we naturally add the latter (·resemblance·) to complete the union. We have a strong disposition to complete every union by joining new relations to those that we have before observed between any ideas, as I shall have occasion to remark in section 5.

·FINAL REMARKS·

Having thus given an account of all the systems, both popular and philosophical, with regard to external existents, I can’t help expressing a certain attitude that arises in me when I review those systems. I began this subject by laying it down that we ought to have an unquestioning faith in our senses, and that this would be the conclusion I would draw from the whole of my reasoning. Frankly, however, I feel myself at present in a quite contrary frame of mind, and am more inclined to put •no faith at all in my senses (or rather my imagination) than to place in it such an •unquestioning confidence. I can’t conceive how such trivial qualities of the imagination, guided by such false suppositions, can ever lead to any solid and rational system. I mean the qualities of the coherence and constancy of our perceptions, which produce the opinion of their continued existence, although these qualities of perceptions have no perceivable connection with such an existence. The constancy of our perceptions has the most considerable effect, and yet it is the one that brings the greatest difficulties. It is a gross illusion to suppose that our resembling perceptions are numerically the same ·after an interruption·; and it is this illusion that leads us to the view that these perceptions are not interrupted and still exist when not present to our senses. So much for our popular system! As to our philosophical system: it suffers from the same difficulties, and in addition to them it is loaded with the absurdity of at once •denying and •asserting the common supposition! Philosophers say that our resembling perceptions are not identically the same and uninterrupted; yet they have so great a disposition to believe that they are that they arbitrarily invent a new set of perceptions to which they attribute these qualities. (I say ‘a new set of perceptions’ ·for a good reason·. We can in a general ·vague· way suppose there are objects that are not perceptions, but it is impossible for us to think clearly and sharply about objects as being in their nature anything but exactly the same as perceptions.) What then can we look for from this confusion of groundless and extraordinary opinions but error and falsehood? And how can we justify to ourselves any belief in them? This sceptical doubt, with respect to both reason and the senses, is an illness that can never be thoroughly cured; it is bound to return upon us every moment, even if we chase it away and sometimes seem to be entirely free from it. On no system is it possible to defend either our understanding (·i.e. reason·) or our senses, and when we try to justify them in that manner ·that I have been discussing· we merely expose their defects further. As the sceptical doubt arises naturally from deep and hard thought about those subjects, it always increases as we think longer and harder, whether our thoughts are in opposition to sceptical doubt or conformity with it. Only •carelessness and •inattention can give us any remedy. For this reason I rely entirely on •them; and I take it for granted that whatever you may think at this present moment, in an hour from now you will be convinced that there is both an external and internal world; and on that supposition—·that there is an external as well as an internal world·—I intend now to examine some general systems, ancient and modern, that have been proposed regarding both ‘worlds’, before I proceed ·in section 5· to a more particular enquiry about our impressions. This may eventually be found to be relevant to the subject of the present section.

3: The ancient philosophy

Several moralists have recommended, as an excellent method of becoming acquainted with our own hearts and knowing our progress in virtue, to recollect our dreams in the morning and examine them as severely as we would our most serious and deliberate actions. Our character is the same sleeping as waking, they say, and it shows up most clearly when deliberation, fear, and scheming have no place, and when men can’t try to deceive themselves or others. The generosity or baseness of our character, our mildness or cruelty, our courage or cowardice, are quite uninhibited in their influence on the •fictions of the imagination, revealing themselves in the most glaring colours. In a similar way I believe that we might make some useful discoveries through a criticism of the •fictions of ancient philosophy concerning substances, substantial forms, accidents, and occult qualities; those fictions, however unreasonable and capricious they may be, have a very intimate connection with the forces at work in human nature.

The most judicious philosophers agree that our ideas of bodies are nothing but

collections formed by the mind of the ideas of the various distinct perceptible qualities of which objects are composed and which we find to have a constant union with each other.

Although these qualities are in themselves entirely distinct ·from one another·, it is certain that we commonly regard the compound that they form as one thing and as continuing to be that thing while it undergoes very considerable alterations. The admitted •compositeness is obviously contrary to this supposed •simplicity, just as the •alteration is contrary to the •identity. So it may be worthwhile to consider the causes that make us almost universally fall into such evident contradictions, and also the means by which we try to conceal them.

[In this context, ‘simple’ means ‘without parts’. In equating ‘x is one thing’ with ‘x is simple’, Hume is assuming that an item with parts— a ‘composite’ item—is really a collection of its parts, not really one thing.]

The ideas of the various different qualities that an object has one after another are linked by a very close relation; so when the mind looks along the series it is carried from one part of it to another by an easy transition, and doesn’t perceive the change any more than it would perceive a change when contemplating a single unchanging object. This easy transition is an effect . . . . of the relation ·between each quality and its successor·; and as the imagination readily identifies one idea with another when their influence on the mind is similar, it comes about that the mind considers any such •sequence of related qualities as •one continuous object, existing without any alteration. The smooth and uninterrupted movement of thought, being alike in both cases, easily deceives the mind and makes us ascribe an identity to the changing sequence of connected qualities.

But when we look at the sequence in a different way, not •tracking it gradually through the successive moments, but instead •surveying at once any two distinct periods of its duration, and •laying its qualities at those two moments side by side in our minds, then the variations that we didn’t notice when they arose gradually appear significant, and seem entirely to destroy the identity. Thus there comes to be a kind of contrariety in our method of thinking, because of the different •points of view from which we survey the object and the different •lengths of time between the moments that we consider together. ·Here is the essential contrast·:

•When we gradually follow an object through its successive changes, the smooth progress of our thought makes us ascribe an identity to the sequence, because this smooth progress is similar to our act of the mind when we consider an unchanging object. •When we compare its situation after a considerable change ·with its situation before·, the progress of the thought is broken, so that we are presented with the idea of diversity, i.e. non-identity.

To reconcile these contradictory positions the imagination is apt to feign something unknown and invisible which it supposes to continue the same under all these variations; and this unintelligible something it calls a ‘substance’, or ‘original and first matter’.

We have a similar notion with regard to the simplicity of substances, and from similar causes. Suppose that •a perfectly simple and indivisible object is presented, along with •another object—·a composite one·—whose coexistent parts are linked by a strong relation. Obviously the actions of the mind in considering these two objects are not very different. The imagination conceives the simple object

at once, easily, by a single effort of thought, without change or variation.

The connection of parts in the composite object has almost the same effect ·on the contemplating mind·: it unites the object within itself in such a way that the imagination doesn’t feel the transition when it passes from one part to another. Thus the colour, taste, shape, solidity, and other qualities that are combined in a peach or a melon are thought of as forming one thing; and this happens because of their close relation, which makes them affect our thought in the same way as if the object were perfectly uncompounded—·i.e. had no parts at all·. But the mind doesn’t stop at that. When it views the object in a different way it finds that all these qualities are different, distinguishable, and separable from each other; that view of things destroys the mind’s primary and more natural notions, and obliges the imagination to feign an unknown something—an original •substance and •matter—as a source of the union or cohesion among these qualities, and as what may entitle the composite object to be called one thing, despite its diversity and compositeness.

The Aristotelian philosophy says that the ‘original’ matter is absolutely the same in all bodies, and it considers fire, water, earth, and air as being of the very same substance because of their gradual changes into each other. At the same time it assigns to each of these sorts of objects a distinct substantial form that it supposes to be the source of all the different qualities the objects possess, and to be a new basis for simplicity and identity for each particular sort. All depends on how we look at the objects. •When we look along the imperceptible changes of bodies, we suppose all of them to be of the same substance or essence. •When we consider their perceptible differences, we attribute to each of them a substantial and essential difference. •And to allow ourselves to keep both these ways of considering our objects, we suppose all bodies to have at once a substance and a substantial form.

The notion of accidents [= ‘qualities’] is an unavoidable consequence of this way of thinking about substances and substantial forms. [Hume uses ‘quality’ freely throughout the Treatise. He uses ‘accident’ for qualities thought of as existing things that have to be kept in existence by other things, namely the substances that have them.] We can’t help thinking of colours, sounds, tastes, shapes, and other properties of bodies as existents that can’t exist on their own and have to be supported by something in which they inhere. For whenever we have discovered any of these perceptible qualities we have, for the reasons mentioned above, imagined a substance to exist also; the same habit that makes us infer •a connection between cause and effect here makes us infer •a dependence of every quality on an unknown substance.

The custom of imagining a dependence has the same effect as the custom of observing it would have. But this turn of thought is no more reasonable than any of the previous ones. Every quality is distinct from every other, and can be conceived to exist on its own—apart from every other quality and also from that unintelligible chimera of a substance.

But these philosophers carry their fictions still further in their opinions about occult qualities: they suppose a supporting substance, which they don’t understand, and a supported accident, of which they have no better an idea. The whole system, therefore, is entirely incomprehensible, and yet is derived from principles as natural as any of the ones I have explained.

In considering this subject, we can see that as the people concerned acquire new degrees of reason and knowledge, their opinions rise up through three levels. These opinions are •that of the common people, •that of a false philosophy, and •that of the true philosophy—and we shall find when we look into it that the true philosophy is closer to the views of the common people than it is to those of a mistaken knowledge ·such as many philosophers have·. It is natural for men in their common and careless way of thinking to imagine that they perceive a connection between objects that they have constantly found united together; and because custom has made it hard for them to separate the ideas, they are apt to imagine such a separation to be in itself impossible and absurd. ·Thus, for example: Someone observes—for things (x) like middle-sized physical objects— that •x-is-left-unsupported is almost always followed immediately by •x-falls-to-the-ground; this creates in him a custom of expectation, in which an impression of •x-unsupported leads quickly and smoothly and easily to an idea of •x-falling; and this inclines him to think that the idea of •non-support is absolutely tied to the idea of •falling in the way that the idea of being square is tied to the idea of being rectangular; which means that he is inclined to think he can see that it is absolutely (logically) impossible for an unsupported object of the relevant kind not to fall·. But philosophers, who set aside the effects of custom and look for relations between the ideas of objects, immediately see the falsehood of these common opinions and discover that there is no known connection among objects—·that is, none of the kind involving a connection between the ideas of the objects·. Every object appears to them entirely distinct and separate from every other; and they see that when we infer one from another, our basis is not a view of the nature and qualities of the objects but only an experience of having often observed ·objects of those kinds· to have been constantly conjoined. But these philosophers, instead of soundly inferring from this that we don’t have any idea of mind-independent objective power or agency, frequently search for the qualities in which this agency consists, and are displeased with every account of it that their reason suggests to them. Their intellects are sharp enough to keep from the common error that there is a natural and perceivable connection ·of ideas· between matter’s various perceptible qualities and how it behaves, but not sharp enough to keep them from looking for such a connection in matter itself—in the causes themselves. If they had found their way to the right conclusion, they would have turned back to the situation of the common people, and would have adopted a lazy ‘don’t care’ attitude to all these long investigations ·into the causal tie·. As things are, they seem to be in a very lamentable condition, much worse that the poets present in their descriptions of the punishments of Sisyphus and Tantalus. For what could be more tormenting than to seek eagerly something that always flies away from us, and to seek it in a place where it can’t possibly be?

But as Nature seems to have observed a kind of justice and compensation in everything, she hasn’t neglected philosophers more than the rest of the creation, but has provided them with a consolation amid all their disappointments and afflictions. This consolation principally consists in their invention of the words ‘faculty’ and ‘occult quality’. After the frequent use of a term that is significant and intelligible, we often omit the idea that we mean to express by it, and preserve only the custom by which we recall the idea when we want to; so it naturally happens that after the frequent use of a term that is wholly insignificant and unintelligible, we fancy it to be on the same footing with the meaningful ones and to have a meaning that we don’t actually have in mind but that we could bring to mind if we thought about it. . . . By this means these philosophers set themselves at ease, and eventually arrive through •an illusion at the same ‘don’t care’ attitude that common people achieve through •their stupidity, and true philosophers achieve through •their moderate scepticism. They need only to say that a phenomenon that puzzles them arises from a ‘faculty’ or an ‘occult quality’ and there’s an end of all dispute and enquiry about it!

But among all the examples of the ancient Aristotelians’ showing they were guided by every trivial twist of the imagination, none is more remarkable than their ‘sympathies’, ‘antipathies’, and ‘horrors of a vacuum’! There is a very remarkable inclination in human nature to attribute to external objects the same emotions that it observes in itself, and to find everywhere those ideas [here = ‘qualities’] that are most present to it. This inclination is suppressed by a little reflection, and it occurs only in children, poets, and the ancient philosophers. It appears in children when they want to kick the stones that hurt them; in poets by their readiness to personify everything; and in the ancient philosophers by these fictions of ‘sympathy’ and ‘antipathy’. We must pardon •children because of their age, and •poets because they are openly obedient to the promptings of their imagination; but what excuse shall we find to justify our •philosophers—·the ancients and their modern disciples·—in such a striking weakness?

4: The modern philosophy

You may want to object:

You say yourself that the imagination is the ultimate judge of all systems of philosophy. So you are unjust in blaming the ancient philosophers for making use of their imagination, and letting themselves be entirely guided by it in their reasonings.

In order to justify myself, I must distinguish two kinds of forces that are at work in the imagination: •those that are permanent, irresistible, and universal, such as the customary transition from causes to effects and from effects to causes, and •those that are changing, weak, and irregular; such as those on which I have just been commenting. •The former are the foundation of all our thoughts and actions, so that if they were lost human nature would immediately perish and go to ruin. •The latter are not ones that must be at work in mankind, and they are not necessary for the conduct of life or even useful in it. On the contrary, we see them at work only in weak minds, and because they are opposite to the former forces of custom and reasoning they can easily be overthrown when confronted by the opposition. For this reason, the former are accepted by philosophy and the latter rejected. Someone who hears an articulate voice in the dark and concludes that there is someone there reasons soundly and naturally, even though his inference is derived from nothing but custom, which brings him a lively idea of a human creature because of his usual conjunction of that with the present impression ·of the voice·. But someone who is tormented—he knows not why—with the fear of spectres in the dark may perhaps be said to reason, and indeed to reason ‘naturally’; but then it must be in the same sense that a malady is said to be ‘natural’ because it arises from natural causes, even though it is contrary to health, which is the most agreeable and most natural condition for a man to be in.

The opinions of the ancient philosophers, their fictions of substance and accident, and their reasonings about substantial forms and occult qualities, are like spectres in the dark! They are driven by forces which, however common, are neither universal nor unavoidable in human nature. The modern philosophy claims to be entirely free from this defect, and to arise only from the solid, permanent, and consistent principles of the imagination. We must now look into the grounds for this claim.

The fundamental principle of that philosophy is the opinion about colours, sounds, tastes, smells, heat, and cold, which it asserts to be nothing but impressions in the mind, derived from the operation of external objects and without any resemblance to the qualities of the objects. Having examined the reasons commonly produced for this opinion, I find only one of them to be satisfactory, namely the one based on the variations of those impressions even while the external object seems to remain unaltered. These variations depend on various factors. •Upon the different states of our health: a sick man feels a disagreeable taste in food that used to please him the most. •Upon the different conditions and constitutions of men: stuff that seems bitter to one man is sweet to another. •Upon differences in location and distance: colours reflected from the clouds change according to the distance of the clouds, and according to the angle they make with the eye and the luminous body. Fire also communicates the sensation of pleasure at one distance and of pain at another. Instances of this kind are very numerous and frequent.

The conclusion drawn from them is also utterly satisfactory. When different impressions of the same sense come from an object, it certainly can’t be that each of these impressions resembles a quality that exists in the object. (Why? Because one object can’t, at one time have different qualities of the same sense, and one quality can’t resemble impressions that are entirely different from one another.) It evidently follows that many of our impressions have no external model or archetype [= ‘thing from which something is copied’]. Now, from similar effects we presume similar causes. Many of our impressions of colour, sound, etc., are admittedly nothing but internal existences ·with no archetypes in Nature·, arising from causes that don’t resemble them in the slightest. These impressions are in appearance in no way different from the other impressions of colour, sound, etc. So we conclude that they all have causes of that sort.

Once this principle has been accepted, all the other doctrines of the modern philosophy seem to follow by an easy inference:

Once we have removed sounds, colours, heat, cold, and other perceptible qualities from the category of continuous independent existents, we are left with only what are called ‘primary qualities’, as the only real ones of which we have any adequate notion. These primary qualities are extension and solidity, with their different mixtures and special cases: shape, motion, gravity, and cohesion. The generation, growth, decline, and death of animals and vegetables are nothing but changes of shape and motion, as are all the operations of bodies on each other, and the operations of fire, light, water, air, earth and all the elements and powers of Nature. One shape and motion produces another shape and motion; and we can’t form even the remotest idea of any force or drive (active or passive) among systems of matter other than that one.

I think that many objections could be made to this system, but at present I shall confine myself to one that I think is very decisive. I contend that instead of explaining the operations of external objects by means of this system, we utterly annihilate all these objects and reduce ourselves to the opinions of the most extravagant scepticism about them. If colours, sounds, tastes, and smells are merely perceptions, nothing that we can conceive has a real, continuous, and independent existence—not even motion, extension, and solidity, which are the primary qualities emphasized most ·in the modern philosophy·.

To start with motion: obviously this quality is altogether inconceivable except when thought of as the motion of an object: the idea of motion necessarily supposes that of a moving body. Now, what is our idea of the moving body, without which motion is incomprehensible? It must come down to the idea of •extension or of •solidity; so the reality of motion depends on the reality of those other two qualities.

Everyone agrees with this opinion about motion, ·namely that it is conceivable only as the motion of something·; and I have proved that it holds also with regard to extension, ·which is conceivable only as the extension of something·—I have shown that it is impossible to conceive extension except as composed of parts that have either colour or solidity. The idea of extension is a compound idea; but it isn’t compounded out of infinitely many parts or lesser ideas, so it must eventually be made up of parts that are perfectly simple and indivisible ·and thus don’t have parts in their turn·. These simple and indivisible parts are not themselves ideas of extension ·because extension must have parts·, so they must be non-entities, nothings, unless they are conceived as coloured or solid. Colour is excluded from any real existence ·by the modern philosophy which I am now examining·. The reality of our •idea of extension therefore depends on the reality of •our idea of solidity; the former can’t be sound if the latter is chimerical. Let us look, then, into the idea of solidity.

The idea of •solidity is the idea of •two objects which, however hard they are pushed, can’t penetrate each other, but still maintain a separate and distinct existence. So solidity is perfectly incomprehensible taken on its own, without the conception of some bodies that are solid and maintain this separate and distinct existence. Now, what idea do we have of these bodies? The ideas of colours, sounds, and other ‘secondary qualities’ are excluded. The idea of •motion depends on the idea of •extension, and the idea of •extension depends on the idea of •solidity. So the idea of solidity can’t possibly depend on either of those two ideas (·motion and extension·), for that would be to run in a circle, make one idea depend on another which at the same time depends on it. Our modern philosophy, therefore, provides us with no sound or satisfactory idea of solidity or, therefore, of matter.

This argument will appear entirely conclusive to anyone who understands it; but it may seem abstruse and complicated to the general run of readers, so I shall try to make it obvious by some changes of wording. To form an idea of solidity we must conceive two bodies pressing on each other without any penetration; and we can’t do that if we confine ourselves to one object. (And still less if we don’t conceive any: two non-entities can’t exclude each other from their places, because they don’t have places and don’t have qualities.) What idea do we form of these bodies or objects to which we attribute solidity? To say that we conceive them merely as solid is to run on ad infinitum. To affirm that we depict them to ourselves as extended either •bases everything on a false idea or •brings us around in a circle. Extension must necessarily be considered either as •coloured, which is a false idea ·according to the modern philosophy, which says that nothing out there in the world is coloured·, or as •solid, which brings us back to where we started. The same argument applies regarding mobility and shape; and so ultimately we have to conclude that after the exclusion of colour, sounds, heat, and cold from the category of external existents there remains nothing that can give us a sound and consistent idea of body. . . . Let us remember here our accustomed method of examining ideas by considering the impressions from which they came. The impressions that enter through the sight and hearing, smell and taste, are affirmed by modern philosophy to have no resembling ·external· objects; so the idea of solidity, which is supposed to be real—·i.e. to resemble external objects·—can’t be derived from any of those senses. So all that remains is the sense of touch as a conveyor of the impression that is the ultimate source of the idea of solidity; and indeed we do naturally imagine that we feel the solidity of bodies, and need only to touch an object to perceive its solidity. But this is a layman’s way of thinking rather than a philosopher’s, as will appear from the following ·two· reflections.

First, it is easy to observe that although bodies are felt by means of their solidity, the feeling doesn’t resemble the solidity. A man with no feeling in one hand has as perfect an idea of impenetrability when he •sees that hand supported by the table as when he •feels the table with the other hand. An object pressing on any part of our bodies meets with resistance; and that resistance, through the motion it gives to the nerves and animal spirits, conveys a certain sensation to the mind; but it doesn’t follow that there are any resemblances among the sensation, the motion, and the resistance.

Secondly, the impressions of touch are simple impressions (except with regard to their extent, which is irrelevant to the present purpose); and from this simplicity I infer that they don’t represent solidity or any real object. Consider these two cases ·in which solidity is manifested·:

•A man presses a stone or other solid body with his hand;

•Two stones press each other.

You will agree that these two cases are not in every respect alike, because the former involves not just solidity but also a feeling or sensation that doesn’t appear in the latter. So to bring out the likeness between these two cases alike we must remove ·at least· some part of the impression that the man feels by his hand; but a simple impression doesn’t have parts, so we have to remove the whole impression; which proves that this whole impression has no archetype or model in external objects. To which we may add that solidity necessarily involves •two bodies along with •contiguity [= ‘nextness’] and •impact; but that ·trio· is a compound object, and can’t possibly be represented by a simple impression. Not to mention the fact that though •solidity is always the same, •tactual impressions keep changing, which is a clear proof that •the latter are not representations of •the former.

Thus there is a direct and total opposition between our reason and our senses; or, more properly speaking, between the conclusions we form from cause and effect and those that convince us of the continued and independent existence of body. When we reason from cause and effect, we conclude that neither colour, sound, taste, nor smell have a continued and independent existence. When we exclude these perceptible qualities there is nothing left in the universe that does have such an existence.

5: The immateriality of the soul

Having found such contradictions and difficulties in every system concerning •external objects, and in the idea of •matter (which we imagine is so clear and determinate), we would expect still greater difficulties and contradictions in every hypothesis about our •internal perceptions, and the nature of the •mind (which we are apt to imagine so much more obscure and uncertain). But in this we would be wrong. The intellectual world, though involved in infinite obscurities, is not tangled in contradictions such as we discovered in the natural world. What is known about it is self-consistent, and what is unknown we must be content to leave so.

Certain philosophers promise to lessen our ignorance if we will listen to them, but I’m afraid that in doing so we would risk running into contradictions from which the subject itself is free. These philosophers are the reasoners who probe the question of whether the ‘substances’ in which they suppose our perceptions to ‘inhere’ are material or immaterial. In order to put a stop to this endless point-scoring on both sides, I know no better method than to ask these philosophers ‘What do you mean by “substance” and by “inhere”?’ It will be reasonable to enter seriously into the dispute after they have answered this question, but not until then.

We have found the question impossible to answer with regard to matter and body; and when it comes to mind there are all the same difficulties and some additional ones that are special to that subject. As every idea is derived from a preceding impression, if we had any idea of the substance of our minds we must also have an impression of it; and it is hard if not impossible to conceive what such an impression could be. For how can an impression •represent a substance otherwise than by •resembling it? And how can an impression resemble a substance, given that (according to the philosophy I am examining) it isn’t a substance and has none of the special qualities or characteristics of a substance? But leaving the question of what may or may not be, and turning to the question of what actually is, I ask the philosophers who claim that we have an idea of the substance of our minds to point out the impression that produces it, and say clearly how the impression operates and from what object it is derived. Is it an impression of sensation or of reflection? Is it pleasant, or painful, or neither? Do we have it all the time, or does it only return at intervals? If at intervals, when does it principally return, and what causes produce it? If, instead of answering these questions, anyone should evade the difficulty by saying that the definition of ‘a substance’ is something that can exist by itself, and that this definition ought to satisfy us, I would reply that this definition fits everything that can possibly be conceived, and can’t possibly serve to distinguish substance from accident, or the soul from its perceptions. Here is why. This is a principle:

Everything can be distinguished from everything else; and if two things can be distinguished, they can be separated by the imagination—·which is to say that they can be conceived as separate from one another·.

Another principle that has been already acknowledged is this:

Anything that is clearly conceived can exist, and anything that can be clearly conceived as being thus-andso can exist in that way—·for example, things that can be conceived as existing separately from one another can exist separately from one another·.

My conclusion from these two principles is that since all our perceptions are different from each other, and from everything else in the universe, they are also distinct and separable, and may be considered ·or conceived· as separately existent, and ·therefore· can exist separately and have no need of anything else to support their existence. So they are substances according to this definition.

So we can’t arrive at any satisfactory notion of substance, whether by looking for an originating impression or by means of a definition; and that seems to me a sufficient reason for abandoning utterly the dispute about whether the soul is material or not, and makes me absolutely condemn the very question. We have no perfect idea of anything except perceptions. A substance is entirely different from a perception. So we have no idea of a substance. It is thought ·by some philosophers· that our perceptions can exist only if they ‘inhere in’ something that supports them; but nothing seems to be needed to support the existence of a perception. So we have no idea of ‘inhesion’. That being the case, how can we possibly answer the question ‘Do perceptions inhere in a material substance or in immaterial one?’ when we don’t so much as understand the meaning of the question?

·THE LOCATION OF OUR PERCEPTIONS·

One argument that is commonly employed for the immateriality of the soul seems to me remarkable:

Whatever is extended consists of parts; and whatever consists of parts can be divided, if not in reality then at least in the imagination. But something that is divisible can’t possibly be conjoined to a thought or perception, which is altogether indivisible. If such a conjunction did occur, would the indivisible thought exist on the left or on the right side of this extended divisible body? On the surface or in the middle? On the back or on the front side of it? ·If you aren’t convinced by those rhetorical questions, consider instead this sober argument·. If the thought or perception is conjoined with something extended, it must exist somewhere within that thing’s boundaries—either •in one particular part or •in every part. In •the former case, that particular part is indivisible, and the perception is conjoined only with it and not with the extended thing; and in •the latter case, the thought must also be extended and separable and divisible, just as the body is, which is utterly absurd and contradictory. Can anyone conceive a passion that is a yard long, a foot wide, and an inch thick? So thought and extension are wholly incompatible qualities, and can never come together in one subject.

This argument doesn’t bear on the question about the substance of the soul, but only the question about its being in the same place as matter; so it may be worthwhile to consider in general what objects are capable of being in places and what ones are not. This is an interesting and challenging question, which may lead us to some discoveries of considerable importance.

Our first •notion of space and extension is derived solely from the senses of sight and touch; only things that are coloured or tangible can have parts that are arranged in such a way as to convey •that idea. ·You might say that a taste has parts, because it can be lessened or increased; but· increasing or lessening a taste is not like lessening or increasing a visible object. ·Again, you might say that we experience distance—and thus extension—through the sense of hearing; but· when several sounds strike our hearing at once, it is only through custom and reflection that we form an idea of spatial relations among the bodies from which the sounds are derived. Anything that exists somewhere must either •be extended or •be a mathematical point having no parts or inner complexity. Something extended must have a particular shape—square, round, triangular—none of which can be true of a desire, or indeed of any impression or idea except ones belonging to sight and touch. And although a desire is indivisible, it oughtn’t to be considered as a mathematical point. If it were one, it could be arranged along with three or four other desires in such a way as to make a complex with a determinate length, width, and thickness; which is obviously absurd.

In the light of these remarks, you won’t be surprised when I affirm something that is condemned by many metaphysicians, and regarded as contrary to the most certain principles of human reason. It is that an object can exist, and yet be nowhere. And I assert that this is not only possible but that most existing things do and ·indeed· must exist in that way. An object can be said to ‘be nowhere’ when •its parts are not related to one another in such a way as to form any shape or size, and •it as a whole isn’t related to other bodies in such a way as to fit our notions of closeness or distance. Now this is obviously the case with all our perceptions and objects except those of the sight and touch. •A smell or a sound can’t be either circular or square; •a moral reflection can’t be situated to the right or to the left of a passion. These objects and perceptions, so far from requiring any particular place, are absolutely incompatible with it; we can’t even imagine their being located. . . . Perceptions that have no parts and exist nowhere cannot be spatially conjoined with matter or body—i.e. with something extended and divisible —because any relation has to be based on some common quality. But there is no need for me now to press this argument. It may be better worth our while to remark that this question of the placing of objects comes up not only in metaphysical disputes about the nature of the soul but even in everyday life. Consider a fig at one end of the table and an olive at the other: when we form the complex ideas of these substances, one of the most obvious is that of their different tastes, and clearly we incorporate and conjoin these qualities with ones that are coloured and tangible. The bitter taste of one and sweet taste of the other are supposed to lie in the visible bodies and ·thus· to be separated from each other by the whole length of the table. This illusion is so remarkable and ·yet· so natural that it may be proper to consider its causes.

Although things that exist without any place or extension can’t be •joined in space by something extended, they can enter into many •other relations. Thus the taste and smell of a piece of fruit are inseparable from its other qualities of colour and tangibility; and whichever of them is the cause and whichever the effect, they certainly always exist together. And it’s not just that they coexist in some general way— ·their coexistence exhibits two relations that we have seen to have a powerful effect on our minds·. The taste •appears in the mind at the same time as the smell; and it is when the extended body comes within reach of our senses that we perceive its particular taste and smell—·so we naturally infer that the body •causes the taste and smell·. So we have the relations of •causation and •contiguity in the time of their appearance between the extended object and the quality that exists nowhere; and this must have such an effect on the mind that when one of the related items appears the mind will immediately turn to the conception of the other. And this is not all. As well as turning our thought from one to the other on account of their relation, we try to give them a further relation—namely, being in the same place—so as to make the transition more easy and natural. For it is a quality in human nature that I shall often have occasion to mention, and shall explain more fully in its proper place, that when objects are united by some relation we are strongly disposed to add some further relation to them in order to complete their union. . . . But whatever confused notions we may form of a union in place between (say) a fig and its particular taste, when we think about it we have to see that there is something altogether unintelligible and contradictory about such a union. Let us ask ourselves one obvious question:

The taste that we conceive to be contained within the boundary of the fig—is it in every part of the fig, or in only one part?

Faced with this, we must quickly find ourselves at a loss, and see the impossibility of ever giving a satisfactory answer. We can’t reply that it is only in one part, for experience convinces us that every part has the same taste. And it’s no better to reply that it exists in every part, for then we must suppose the taste to have shape and size, which is absurd and incomprehensible. So here we are pulled in opposite directions by two forces—•the inclination of our imagination, which makes us incorporate the taste into the fig, and •our reason, which shows us the impossibility of such a union. Being divided between these opposing pulls, we don’t renounce either of them, but instead involve the subject in so much confusion and obscurity that we no longer see the opposition. We suppose that the taste exists within the boundary of the fig, but in such a way that it •fills the whole thing without being extended, and •exists complete in every part of it without being divided! In short, in our most ordinary everyday way of thinking we use a principle of the Aristotelian philosophers which seems shocking when it is expressed crudely: totum in toto, et totum in qualibet parte—which is about the same as saying that a thing is in a certain place and yet is not there.

[The Latin means, literally, ‘The whole in the whole, and the whole in each part’.]

All this absurdity comes from our trying to assign a place to something that is utterly incapable of it; and that attempt comes from our inclination to complete a union that is based on causation and contiguity of time, by crediting the objects with being in the same place. But if reason is ever strong enough to overcome prejudice, it must surely prevail here. For here are our only choices ·regarding such items as passions and tastes and smells·:

•They exist without being in any place. •They have shapes and sizes. •They are incorporated with extended objects, and then the whole is in the whole and the whole is in every part.

The absurdity of the second and third suppositions proves sufficiently the truth of the first. And there is no fourth opinion. What about the supposition that these items exist in the way mathematical points do? That ·isn’t a genuine fourth option, because· it boils down to the second opinion: it supposes that various passions may be placed in a circle, and that a certain number of smells can combine with a certain number of sounds to compose a body of twelve cubic inches; the mere mention of which shows it to be ridiculous.

But though in this view of things we can’t refuse to condemn the materialists, who conjoin all thought with •an extended body, a little thought will show us an equally strong reason for blaming their opponents, who conjoin all thought with •a simple and indivisible substance. The plainest and most down-to-earth philosophy informs us that an external object can’t make itself known to the mind immediately; it has to appear through the interposition of an image or perception. The table that appears to me right now is only a perception, and all its qualities are qualities of a perception. Now, the most obvious of all its qualities is extendedness. The perception consists of parts. These parts are arranged in such a way as to give us the notion of distance and closeness, of length, width, and thickness. The termini of these three dimensions create what we call shape. This shape is movable, separate, and divisible. Mobility and divisibility are the distinguishing properties of extended objects. And to cut short all disputes, the very idea of extendedness is copied from nothing but an impression, with which it must therefore perfectly agree. To say that the idea of extension ‘agrees with’ something is to say that the ‘something’ is extended.

The ·materialist· free-thinker can now have his turn to triumph. Having found that some impressions and ideas are really extended, he can ask his opponents ‘How can you bring a simple and indivisible subject together with an extended perception?’ All the arguments of the theologians can here be turned back against them. ·They have demanded of the materialist ‘Is the unextended perception on the lefthand or the right-hand part of the extended body?’, but now the materialist can demand·: ‘Is the unextended subject (or immaterial substance, if you like) on the left-hand or the right hand part of the ·extended· perception? Is it in this particular part, or in that other? Is it in every part without being extended? Or is it complete in any one part without deserting the rest?’ It is impossible to give to these questions any answer that won’t both •be absurd in itself and •·be available (if it weren’t absurd) for the materialists to use for their purposes, that is, to· account for the union of our unextended perceptions with an extended substance.

·THE SUBSTANTIAL UNDERLAY OF OUR PERCEPTIONS—(SPINOZA)·

This is my opportunity to take up again the question about the substance of the soul. Though I have condemned that question as utterly unintelligible, I can’t refrain from offering some further reflections on it. I assert this:

The doctrine of a thinking substance that is immaterial, simple and indivisible is a true atheism. From it we can infer all the ·atheistic· views for which Spinoza is so universally infamous.

From this line of thought I hope at least to reap one advantage, that my adversaries won’t have any excuse for rendering my doctrine odious by accusations that can be so easily turned back against them. The fundamental principle of Spinoza’s atheism is the doctrine of the simplicity of the universe—·that is, the universe’s not having parts·—and the unity of the substance in which he supposes both thought and matter to inhere. There is only one substance in the world, says Spinoza, and that substance is perfectly simple and indivisible, and doesn’t have any particular position because it exists everywhere. Whatever we discover externally by sensation, whatever we feel internally by reflection —all these are nothing but qualities of that one simple and necessarily existent being, and don’t have any separate or distinct existence. ·This table and that chair are not two distinct things, they are just two qualities of the one and only thing— the one substance·. All the passions of the soul, all the configurations of matter however different and various, inhere in the same substance ; they can be distinguished from one another, without their distinctness bringing it about that they inhere in distinct substances. The same substratum [= ‘underlay’], if I may so speak, supports the most different qualities without any difference in itself, and varies them without itself varying. Neither time, nor place, nor all the diversity of Nature are able to produce any composition or change in the perfect simplicity and identity of the one substance.

This brief exposition of the principles of that famous atheist will, I think, be sufficient for the present purpose. Without our having to enter further into these gloomy and obscure regions, I shall be able to show that •this hideous hypothesis of Spinoza’s is almost the same as •the doctrine of the immateriality of the soul, which has become so popular. To make this evident, let us remember (from 6ii) that because every idea is derived from a preceding perception, it follows that ·we can’t have an idea of something that it is radically different in kind from a perception; from which it follows in turn that· our idea of an externally existing object can’t possibly represent anything radically different in kind from every perception. Whatever difference we may suppose between perceptions and external objects, it is still incomprehensible to us; and we are obliged either to make external objects the same as perceptions or to conceive an external object merely as a relation without a relative—·that is, to conceive it emptily as whatever-it-is-that- some-perceptions-are-perceptions-of ·.

The conclusion I shall draw from this may at first sight appear to be a cheat, but a very little thought will show it to solid and satisfactory. I start with this:

We can suppose there to be a radical difference in kind between an object and an impression, but we cannot conceive such a difference; so when we reach any conclusion about impressions that are inter-connected or incompatible we shan’t know for certain that it will apply also to objects; but any such conclusion that we form about objects will certainly apply also to impressions.

The reason is not difficult. An object is supposed to be different from an impression; so if in our reasoning we start with the impression, we can’t be sure that the details ·of the impression· that we are going by are shared by the object; it may ·for all we know· be that the object differs from the impression in that respect. But ·the converse doesn’t hold·: our reasoning, if it starts with the object, certainly must hold also for the impression. Why? Because the quality of the object on which the reasoning is based must at least be conceived by the mind (·otherwise it couldn’t be reasoned about·), and it couldn’t be conceived unless it were a quality also possessed by an impression, because all our ideas are derived from impressions. So we can lay it down as a certain maxim that we can never . . . . discover a connection or incompatibility between objects that doesn’t hold also for impressions; though the converse proposition—that all the discoverable relations between impressions hold also for objects—may not be equally true.

Let us now apply this to the present case. I am presented with two different systems of existing things for which—I am supposing ·for purposes of argument·—I have to assign some substance or ground of inhesion. •I observe first the universe of objects or of bodies—the sun, moon, and stars, the earth, seas, plants, animals, men, ships, houses, and other productions of art or of nature. Here Spinoza appears, and tells me that

these are only qualities, and the subject in which they inhere—·the substance that has them·—is simple, uncompounded, and indivisible.

After this I consider •the other system of beings, namely the universe of thought, or of my impressions and ideas. There I observe another sun, moon, and stars, an earth and seas, covered and inhabited by plants and animals; towns, houses, mountains, rivers—and in short everything I can discover or conceive in the first system. When I ask about these, theologians present themselves and tell me that

these also are qualities, and indeed qualities of one simple, uncompounded, and indivisible substance.

Then I am deafened by the noise of a hundred voices that treat Spinoza’s hypothesis with detestation and scorn, and the theologians’ view with applause and veneration! I look into these hypotheses to see what may be the reason for such a strong preference for one of them, and I find that •they share the fault of being unintelligible, and that •as far as we can understand them they are so much alike that we can’t find any absurdity in one that isn’t shared by the other. Because all our ideas are derived from our impressions, we have no idea of a quality in an object that doesn’t match and can’t represent a quality in an impression. So if we can ·against Spinoza· find a conflict between an extended object as a quality and something simple and uncompounded which is the substance in which it inheres, then there must (·against the theologians·) be the same conflict between the perception or impression of an extended object and something simple and uncompounded which is the substance ·in which it inheres·. Every idea of a quality in an object passes through an impression, so every perceivable relation, whether of connection or incompatibility, must be common to both objects and impressions.

Looked at in a general way, this argument seems obvious beyond all doubt and contradiction. Still, to make it clearer and more intuitive, let us go through it in detail, and see whether all the absurdities that have been found in Spinoza’s system may not also be found in that of the theologians.

First, this has been said against Spinoza:

Because according to Spinoza a mode [= ‘quality’] is not a distinct or separate existent—·something over and above the one substance·—it must be its substance. So the extended universe, which is supposed to inhere ·as a mode or quality· in a simple, uncompounded substance, must be in a manner identified with that substance. But this is utterly impossible and inconceivable, unless the indivisible substance expands so as to correspond to the extended world, or the extended world contracts so as to match the indivisible substance.

This argument (·against Spinoza·) seems sound, as far as we can understand it; and it is clear that with some change in the wording it applies equally (·against the theologians·) to our extended perceptions and the simple substance of the soul. For the ideas of objects and of perceptions are in every respect the same, except for the supposition of a difference that is unknown and incomprehensible.

Secondly, it has been said ·against Spinoza· that

we have no idea of substance that isn’t applicable to matter, and no idea of a distinct substance that isn’t applicable to every distinct portion of matter. So matter is not a mode ·or quality· but a substance, and each part of matter is not a distinct mode but a distinct substance.

I have already proved that we have no perfect idea of substance, but that taking ‘substance’ to mean ‘something that can exist by itself’ it is obvious that every perception is a substance and every distinct part of a perception is a distinct substance. So in this respect each hypothesis labours under the same difficulties as does the other.

Thirdly, it has been objected to the system of one simple substance in the universe that

this substance, being the support or substratum of everything, must at the very same instant be modified into forms that are contrary and incompatible. The round and square figures are incompatible in the same substance at the same time. How then is it possible for one substance to be modified into that square table and into this round one?

I ask the same question about the impressions of these tables, and I find that the answer is no more satisfactory in one case than in the other. ·So any embarrassment for Spinoza along these lines is equally an embarrassment for the theologians·.

It appears, then, that whichever way we turn the same difficulties follow us, and that we can’t advance one step towards the establishing the simplicity and immateriality of the soul without preparing the way for a dangerous and incurable atheism. The situation is the same if, instead of calling thought a modification ·or quality· of the soul, we give it the more ancient and yet more fashionable name of ‘action’. By an action we mean much the same thing as what is commonly called an ‘abstract mode’— that is, something that strictly speaking isn’t distinguishable or separable from its substance, and is conceived only through a distinction of reason, that is, an abstraction. ·For example, a dance is not distinguishable or separable from the dancer, but from the totality that is the dancer we abstract one aspect, which we call her dance·. But nothing is gained by this switch from ‘modification’ to ‘action’: it doesn’t free us from a single difficulty. . . . [Hume explains and defends this claim in two paragraphs which are not included here.]

·THE CAUSE OF OUR PERCEPTIONS·

From these hypotheses about the •location and the •substance of our perceptions, let us pass to another that is more intelligible than •the latter and more important than •the former, namely concerning the cause of our perceptions. The Aristotelians say this:

Matter and motion, however varied, are still ·only· matter and motion, and cause only differences in where bodies are and how they are oriented. Divide a body as often as you please, it is still body. Give it any shape and nothing will result but shape (which is the relation of parts). Move it in any way and all you will get is motion (which is a change of relation ·to other bodies·). It is absurd to imagine that motion in a circle should be merely •motion in a circle while motion in an ellipse should also be •a passion or moral reflection; or that the collision of two spherical particles should become •a sensation of pain while the collisions of two triangular ones yields •pleasure. Now, as these different collisions and variations and mixtures are the only changes of which matter is capable, and as they never give us any idea of thought or perception, it follows that thought cannot possibly be caused by matter.

Few have been able to resist the seeming force of this argument, yet nothing in the world is easier than to refute it! We need only reflect on what I have proved in general, namely we never sense any connection between causes and effects, and that it is only through our experience of their constant conjunction that we can arrive at any knowledge of the causal relation. Now,

•no two real objects are contrary to one another, and

•objects that are not contrary are capable of being constantly conjoined,

and from these two principles I have inferred in 15iii that

•to consider the matter a priori, anything could produce anything, and we shall never discover a reason why any object may or may not be the cause of any other, however alike or unalike they may be.

This obviously destroys the foregoing reasoning about the cause of thought or perception. For though no connection between motion or thought appears to us, neither does any connection between any other causes and effects. Place one body of a pound weight on one end of a lever, and another body of the same weight on another end; you will never find in these bodies any •movement-force that depends on their distances from the centre, any more than a •force of thought and perception. So if you claim to prove a priori that •a position of bodies can never cause thought because, turn it which way you will, it is nothing but a position of bodies, you must by the same line of reasoning conclude that •a position of bodies can never produce motion, since there is no more apparent connection in that case than in the other. But the latter conclusion is contrary to evident experience, ·which shows that how a body moves may depend on how it is situated·; and we could come to have similar experiences in the operations of the mind, perceiving a constant conjunction of thought with motion. So you reason too hastily when you conclude, from merely attending to the ideas, that motion cannot possibly produce thought and that a different position of parts cannot produce a different passion or reflection. Indeed, it is not only possible for us to have such an experience, but it is certain that we do have it, for everyone can perceive that the different dispositions of his body change his thoughts and sentiments. You might say: ’This ·is a special case, because it· depends on the union of soul and body.’ To that I reply that we must separate the question about •the substance of the mind from the one about •the cause of its thought; and that if we take the latter question on its own,

we find by comparing their ideas that thought and motion are different from each other,

and

we find by experience that thought and motion are constantly united.

Such constant uniting is all we demand for the causal relation when we are considering the effects of matter on matter; so we can confidently conclude that motion can be and actually is the cause of thought and perception.

We seem to be left with a dilemma. Either •nothing can be the cause of something else unless the mind can perceive a connection between the ideas of the two items, or •all objects that we find constantly conjoined are on that account to be regarded as causes and effects. If we choose the first horn of the dilemma, the consequences are as follows. First, we are really saying that there is no such thing in the universe as a cause or productive force, not even God himself, since our idea of that Supreme Being is derived from particular impressions, none of the ideas of which have any perceptible connection with ·the idea of· any other existent. You may object: ‘The connection between the idea of an infinitely powerful being and that of any effect that he wills is necessary and unavoidable.’ To this I make two replies. •We have no idea of a being endowed with any power, much less of one endowed with infinite power. And if ·in order to avoid this point· you seek to define ‘power’, you will have to do it in terms of ‘connection’; and then in saying that

the idea of an infinitely powerful being is connected with that of every effect that he wills

you are really saying only that

a being whose volition is connected with every effect is connected with every effect;

which is an identical proposition—·a tautology·—and gives us no insight into the nature of this power or connection. •Supposing that God were the great and effective force that makes up for what is lacking in all ·other· causes, this leads us into the grossest impieties and absurdities. It involves having recourse to God in natural operations, saying that matter can’t of itself communicate motion or produce thought because matter has no perceptible connection with motion or thought, ·so that when matter seems to cause something it is really God at work·; and I say that on this account we must acknowledge that God is the author of all our volitions and perceptions, for they also have no perceptible connection with one another or with the supposed but unknown substance of the soul. Father Malebranche and other Cartesians have taken this view of all the actions of the mind, except for volition, or rather an inconsiderable part of volition—though it’s easy to see that this exception is a mere dodge to avoid the dangerous consequences of their doctrine. If nothing is active except what has a perceptible apparent power, thought is never any more active than matter; and if this inactivity must make us fall back on a Deity ·to explain what seem to be cause-effect relations·, God is the real cause of all our actions, bad as well as good, vicious as well as virtuous.

So we are necessarily brought to the other horn of the dilemma, namely that all objects that are found to be constantly conjoined are—for that reason and only for that reason—to be regarded as causes and effects. Now, as all objects that are not contrary are capable of being constantly conjoined, and as no real objects are contrary, it follows that (for all we can tell by considering the mere ideas of things) anything could be the cause or effect of anything; which obviously gives the advantage to the materialists ·who let matter do all the causing· over their antagonists ·who say that God must be brought into the causal story·.

The final verdict, then, must be this: •the question concerning the substance of the soul is absolutely unintelligible; •some of our perceptions are unextended, so they can’t all be located in the same place as something extended, and some of them are extended, so they can’t all be co-located with something unextended; and as the constant conjunction of objects constitutes the very essence of cause and effect, matter and motion can often be regarded as the causes of thought, as far as we have any notion of the causal relation.

Philosophy’s sovereign authority ought to be acknowledged everywhere; so it is a kind of indignity to oblige her on every occasion to apologize for her conclusions and justify herself to every particular art and science that may be offended by her. It’s like a king being arraigned for high treason against his subjects! The only occasion when philosophy will think it necessary and even honourable to justify herself is when religion may seem to be in the least offended; for the rights of religion are as dear to philosophy as her own, and are indeed the same. So if anyone imagines that the arguments I have presented are in any way dangerous to religion, I hope the following explanation will remove his worries.

There is no foundation for any a priori conclusion about either the •operations or the •duration of any object that the human mind can conceive. Any object can be imagined suddenly to become entirely •inactive, or to be •annihilated, and it is an obvious principle that whatever we can imagine is possible. Now this is no more true of matter than of mind; no more true of an extended compounded substance than of a simple and unextended one. In both cases the •metaphysical arguments for the immortality of the soul are equally inconclusive; and in both cases the •moral arguments and those derived from the analogy of Nature are equally strong and convincing. If my philosophy doesn’t add to the arguments for religion, I have at least the satisfaction of thinking that it doesn’t take anything from them either. Everything remains precisely as before.

6: Personal identity

Some philosophers believe this:

We are every moment intimately conscious of what we call our self ; we feel its existence and its continuing to exist, and are certain—more even than any demonstration could make us—both of its perfect identity and of its simplicity. The strongest sensations and most violent emotions, instead of distracting us from this view ·of our self·, only focus it all the more intensely, making us think about how these sensations and emotions affect our self by bringing it pain or pleasure. To offer further evidence of the existence of one’s self would make it less evident, not more, because no fact we could use as evidence is as intimately present to our consciousness as is the existence of our self. If we doubt the latter, we can’t be certain of anything.

Unfortunately, all these forthright assertions are in conflict with the very experience that is supposed to support them. We don’t so much as have an idea of self of the kind that is here described. From what impression could this idea be derived? This question can’t be answered without obvious contradiction and absurdity; yet it must be answered if the idea of self is to qualify as clear and intelligible. Every real idea must arise from some one impression. But self or person is not any one impression, but is rather that to which all our many impressions and ideas are supposed to be related. If the idea of self came from an impression, it would have to be an impression that remained invariably the same throughout our lives, because the self is supposed to exist in that way. But no impression is constant and invariable. Pain and pleasure, grief and joy, passions and sensations follow one other and never all exist at the same time. So it can’t be from any of these impressions or from any other that the idea of self is derived. So there is no such idea.

Furthermore, if we retain this hypothesis about the self, what are we to say about all our particular perceptions? They are all different, distinguishable, and separable from one other—they can be separately thought about, and can exist separately—with no need for anything to support their existence. In what way do they belong to self? How are they connected with it? For my part, when I look inward at what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure, or the like. I never catch myself without a perception, and never observe anything but the perception. When I am without perceptions for a while, as in sound sleep, for that period I am not aware of myself and can truly be said not to exist. If all my perceptions were removed by death, and I could not think, feel, see, love or hate after my body had decayed, I would be entirely annihilated—I cannot see that anything more would be needed to turn me into nothing. If anyone seriously and thoughtfully claims to have a different notion of himself, I can’t reason with him any longer. I have to admit that he may be right about himself, as I am about myself. He may perceive something simple and continued that he calls himself, though I am certain there is no such thing in me.

But setting aside metaphysicians of this kind, I am willing to affirm of the rest of mankind that each of us is nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions that follow each other enormously quickly and are in a perpetual flux and movement. Our eyes can’t turn in their sockets without varying our perceptions; our thought is even more variable than our sight; and all our other senses and faculties contribute to this change in our perceptions, with no one of them remaining unaltered for a moment. The mind is a kind of stage on which many perceptions successively make their appearance: they pass back and forth, glide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of positions and situations. Strictly speaking, there is no •simplicity in the mind at one time and no •identity through different times, no matter what natural inclination we may have to imagine that simplicity and identity. ·That is to say: It is not strictly true that •when a blue colour is seen and a whistling sound heard at the same time, one single unified mind has both these perceptions; nor is it strictly true that •the mind that has a certain perception at one time is the very same mind that has a perception at another time·. The ‘stage’ comparison must not mislead us. What constitutes the mind is just the successive perceptions; we haven’t the faintest conception of the place where these scenes are represented or of the materials of which it is composed.

What, then, makes us so inclined to ascribe an identity to these successive perceptions, and to suppose that we have an invariable and uninterrupted existence through the whole course of our lives? To answer this question we must distinguish what we think and imagine about personal identity from the role of personal identity in our emotions and desires. The former is our present subject. To explain it perfectly we must dig fairly deep: first we must account for the identity that we attribute to plants and animals, because there is a great analogy between that and the identity of a self or person.

We have a clear idea of an object that remains invariable and uninterrupted while time supposedly passes. We call this the idea of identity or sameness. We have also a clear idea of many different objects existing successively in a close relation to one another; and this, properly understood, is just as good an example of diversity as it would be if the objects were not related to one another in any way. ·As the sand runs in the hour-glass, this grain is distinct from that one that falls a tenth of a second later and a micromillimetre behind; they are diverse from one another, which is simply to say that they are two grains, not one; and the fact that they are closely related to one another (in space, in time, and in being alike) makes no difference to that. They are as distinct from one another—they are as clearly two—as the Taj Mahal and the Grand Canyon·. But though these two ideas of identity and a sequence of related objects are perfectly distinct from one another and even contrary, yet in our everyday thinking they are often confused with one another, treated as though they were the same. ·I now explain what leads us into that confusion·. Here are two mental activities:

(1) thinking about a sequence of related objects, and

(2) thinking about one uninterrupted and invariable object.

Although these are distinct, and involve different activities of the imagination, they feel the same. The activity in (1) doesn’t require much more effort than the activity in (2): in (1) the relation between the objects helps the mind to move easily from one to the next, making its mental journey as smooth as if it were contemplating one continued object as in (2). This resemblance between these two kinds of thought generates the confusion in which we mistakenly substitute the notion of (2) identity for that of (1) related objects. When contemplating a sequence of related objects, at one moment we think of it as (1) variable or interrupted, ·which it is·, yet the very next moment we ·wrongly· think of it as (2) a single, identical, unchanging and uninterrupted thing. ·That completes the explanation·. The resemblance that I have mentioned ·between the two acts of the mind· gives us such a strong tendency to make this mistake that we make it without being aware of what we are doing; and though we repeatedly correct ourselves and return to a more accurate and philosophical way of thinking, we can’t keep this up for long, and we fall back once more into the mistake. Our only way out ·of this oscillation between truth and error· is to give in to the error and boldly assert that these different related objects are really the same, even though they are interrupted and variable. To justify this absurdity to ourselves, we often feign [= ‘create a fiction of’] some new and unintelligible thing that connects the objects together and prevents them from being interrupted and variable. The perceptions of our senses are intermittent—·there are gaps between them·—but we disguise this by feigning that they exist continuously; and they vary, but we disguise this by bringing in the notion of a soul or self or substance ·which stays the same under all the variation·. Even in contexts where we don’t indulge in such fictions, we are so strongly inclined to confuse identity with relatedness that we are apt to imagine something unknown and mysterious connecting the parts, other than the relations between them; and this is what I think happens when we ascribe identity to plants. When even this ·kind of fiction-making· doesn’t take place, we still feel impelled to confuse these ideas with one another, though we can’t give a satisfactory account of what we are doing or find anything invariable and uninterrupted to justify our notion of identity.

Thus the controversy about identity is not a merely verbal dispute. For when we attribute identity in an improper sense to variable or interrupted objects, we are not just using words wrongly but are engaging in a fiction, a false thought, either of something •invariable and uninterrupted or of something •mysterious and inexplicable. To convince a fair-minded person that this is so, we need only to show him through his own daily experience that when variable or interrupted objects are supposed to continue the same, they really consist only in a sequence of parts, connected together by resemblance, contiguity [= ‘nextness’], or causation. Such a sequence obviously fits our notion of diversity, so it can only be by mistake that we attribute an identity to it; and this mistake must arise from the fact that when the imagination moves from one of the related parts to the next, this act of the mind resembles the act in which we contemplate one continued object. What I mainly have to prove, then, is that whenever we ascribe identity to something that we do not observe to be unchanging and uninterrupted, what we are really talking about is ·not a single object, but rather· a sequence of related objects.

To get started on this, suppose we have in front of us a mass of matter whose parts are contiguous and connected; clearly we have to attribute a perfect identity to this mass so long as it continues uninterruptedly to contain the very same parts, even if those parts move around within it. Now suppose that some very small or inconspicuous part is added to the mass or removed from it. Strictly speaking, it is no longer the same mass of matter; but we—not being accustomed to think so accurately—don’t hesitate to say that a mass of matter is still ‘the same’ if it changes only in such a trivial way. Our thought moves from the object before the change to the object after it so smoothly and easily that we are hardly aware that there is any movement; and this tempts us to think that it is nothing but a continued survey of the same object.

One aspect of this phenomenon is well worth noticing. Although a turnover in any large part of a mass of matter destroys the identity of the whole, ·that is, makes us unwilling to say that it continues to be the same thing·, what we count as large in this context depends not on the actual size of the part but rather on how big a proportion it is of the whole. We would count a planet as still ‘the same’ if it acquired or lost a mountain, but the change of a few inches could destroy the identity of some bodies. The only way to explain this is by supposing that objects interrupt the continuity of the mind’s actions not according to their real size but according to their proportion to each other; and therefore, since this interruption makes an object cease to appear ‘the same’, it must be the uninterrupted movement of the thought that constitutes the imperfect identity, ·that is, that leads us to say that something is ‘the same’ when, strictly speaking, it is not the same·.

This is confirmed by another phenomenon. Although a change in any considerable part of a body destroys its identity, if the change is produced gradually and imperceptibly we are less apt to see it as destroying the identity. The reason for this must be that the mind, in following the successive changes of the body, slides easily along from surveying its condition at one moment to surveying it at another, and is never aware of any interruption in its actions.

However careful we are to introduce changes gradually and to make each a small proportion of the whole, when eventually they add up to a considerable change we hesitate to attribute identity to such different objects. But we have a device through which we can induce the imagination to go one step further ·in attributing identity where really there is none·—namely, relating the parts to one another through some common end or purpose. A ship of which a considerable part has been changed by frequent repairs is still considered ‘the same’ even if the materials of which it is composed have come to be quite different. Through all the variations of the parts, they still serve the same common purpose; and that makes it easy for the imagination to move from the ship before the repairs to the ship after.

This happens even more strikingly when we see the parts as being causally related to one another in everything they do, in ways that reflect their common end. This ·is not the case with ships, but it· is the case with all animals and vegetables: not only are the parts taken to have some over-all purpose, but also they depend on and are connected with one another ·in ways that further that purpose·. The effect of this relation is that, although in a very few years both plants and animals go through a total change, with their form, size and substance being entirely altered, yet we still attribute identity to them. An oak that grows from a small plant to a large tree is still the same oak, ·we say·, though there is not one particle of matter or shape of its parts that is the same. An infant becomes a man, and is sometimes fat, sometimes thin, without any change in his identity.

We should also consider two further noteworthy facts. The first is that though we can usually distinguish quite exactly between numerical and specific identity, yet sometimes we mix them up and use one in place of the other in our thinking and reasoning.

[Numerical identity is real identity, or being the very same thing. It is called ‘numerical’ because it affects counting: if x is not numerically identical with y, then x and y are two. By ‘specific identity’ Hume means similarity, qualitative likeness, being of the same species, sort, or kind.]

Thus, a man who hears a noise that is frequently interrupted and renewed says it is still ‘the same noise’, though clearly the sounds have only a specific identity, that is, a resemblance, and there is nothing numerically the same but the cause that produced them. Similarly, when an old brick church fell to ruin, we may say that the parish rebuilt ‘the same church’ out of sandstone and in a modern architectural style. Here neither the form nor the materials are the same; the buildings have nothing in common except their relation to the inhabitants of the parish; and yet this alone is enough to make us call them ‘the same’. It is relevant that in these cases ·of the noises and the churches· the first object is in a manner annihilated before the second comes into existence. That protects us from being presented at any one time with the idea of difference and multiplicity; ·that is, we are not in a position to pick out both noises (or both churches) at the same time, and have the thought ‘This is one and that is another’·; and that increases our willingness to call them ‘the same’.

Secondly, although in general we don’t attribute identity across a sequence of related objects unless the change of parts is gradual and only partial, with objects that are by nature changing and inconstant we will say they are ‘the same’ even if the changes are quite sudden. For example, the nature of a river consists in the motion and change of parts, so that there is a total turnover of these in less than twentyfour hours, but this does not stop the river from being ‘the same’ for centuries. What is natural and essential to a thing is expected, and what is expected makes less impression and appears less significant than what is unusual and extraordinary. A big change of an expected kind looks smaller to the imagination than the most trivial unexpected alteration; and by making less of a break in the continuity of the thought it has less influence in destroying the ·supposition of· identity.

I now proceed to explain the nature of personal identity, which has become such a great issue in philosophy. The line of reasoning that has so successfully explained the identity of plants and animals, of ships and houses, and of all changing complex things—natural and artificial—must be applied to personal identity too. The identity that we ascribe to the mind of man is fictitious; it is like the identity we ascribe to plants and animals. So it can’t have a different origin from the latter, but must come from a similar operation of the imagination on similar objects.

That argument strikes me as perfectly conclusive, but if you aren’t convinced by it you should consider the following even tighter and more direct argument. It is obvious that the identity we attribute to the human mind, however perfect we may imagine it to be, cannot make many different perceptions become one by making them lose the distinctness and difference that are essential to them. Every distinct perception that enters into the mind’s make-up is a distinct existence, and is different and distinguishable and separable from every other perception (whether occurring at the same time or at other times). Yet we suppose the whole sequence of perceptions to be united by identity—·we say that the members of the sequence are all perceptions of a single person·—which naturally raises a question about this relation of identity. Is it something that really binds together our various perceptions themselves, or does it only associate the ideas of them in the imagination? In other words, when we speak about the identity of a person, do we observe some real bond among his perceptions, or do we merely feel a bond among the ideas we form of those perceptions? The question is easy to answer, if we remember what I have already proved, namely that the understanding never observes any real connection among objects, and that even the causeeffect relation, when strictly examined, comes down to a customary association of ideas. For that clearly implies that identity doesn’t really belong to these different perceptions, holding them together, but is merely a quality that we attribute to them because of how the ideas of them are united in the imagination when we think about them. Now, the only qualities that can unite ideas in the imagination are the three I have mentioned. They are the uniting principles in the world of ideas; without them every distinct object is separable by the mind and can be separately thought about, and seems to be disconnected from every other object, not merely from ones that are very dissimilar or distant. So identity must depend on some of the three relations of resemblance, contiguity, and causation. Now, the very essence of these relations consists in their making ideas follow one another easily; so our notions of personal identity must proceed entirely from the smooth and uninterrupted movement of thought along a sequence of connected ideas, in the way I have explained.

The only remaining question is: Which of the three relations produce this uninterrupted movement of our thought when we consider the successively existing perceptions that we take to constitute a mind or thinking person? Obviously contiguity has little or nothing to do with it; so we must attend to resemblance and causation.

Let us take resemblance first. If someone always remembers a large proportion of his past perceptions, this will contribute greatly to the holding of a certain relation within the sequence of his perceptions, varied as they may be. For memory is just a faculty by which we raise up images of past perceptions; and an image of something must resemble it. So ·each memory involves a perception that resembles some past perception the person has had; and· the frequent occurrence of these resembling ·pairs of· perceptions in the chain of thought makes it easier for the imagination to move from one link in the chain to another, making the whole sequence seem like the continuation of a single object. In this way, therefore, memory doesn’t merely show the identity but also helps to create it, by bringing it about that many of the perceptions resemble one another. The account given in this paragraph applies equally to one’s sense of one’s own identity and to one’s thoughts about the identity of others.

Causation also has a role. The true idea of the human mind is the idea of a system of different perceptions that are linked by the cause-effect relation, through which they mutually produce, destroy, influence, and modify each other. Our impressions give rise to corresponding ideas, which in their turn produce other impressions. One thought chases another and draws after it a third by which it is expelled in its turn. In this respect the soul is very like a republic or commonwealth, in which the members are united by the links that connect rulers with subjects; these members cause others to come into existence ·by begetting or giving birth to them·, and these in their turn keep the same republic continuously in existence throughout all the unceasing changes of its parts. And just as the same individual republic may change not only its members but also its laws and constitution, so also the same person can vary his character and disposition as well as his impressions and ideas. Whatever changes he undergoes, his various parts are still connected by causation. Our emotions contribute to our identity just as our impressions and ideas do, by making some of our perceptions influence others that occur at very different times. This is what happens when we have a present concern for our past or future pains or pleasures.

Memory should be regarded as the source of personal identity, mainly because without it we wouldn’t know of the existence of this lengthy and continuous sequence of perceptions. If we had no memory, we would never have any notion of causation or, consequently, of the chain of causes and effects that constitute our self or person. Once we have acquired this notion of causation from our memory, we can extend the same chain of causes—and consequently the identity of our persons—beyond our memory, stretching it out to include times, circumstances and actions that we have entirely forgotten but which we suppose on general grounds to have existed. How many of our past actions do we actually remember? Who can tell me, for instance, what he thought and did on the 1st of January 1715, the 11th of March 1719 and the 3rd of August 1733? Or will he overturn all the most established notions of personal identity by saying that because he has forgotten the incidents of those days his present self is not the same person as the self of that time? Looked at from this angle, memory can be seen not so much to create personal identity as to reveal it, by showing us the relation of cause and effect among our different perceptions. Those who contend that memory alone produces our personal identity ought to explain how we can in this way extend our identity beyond our memory.

The whole of this doctrine leads us to the very important conclusion that all the precise, subtle questions about personal identity can never be settled, and should be seen as verbal difficulties rather than philosophical ones. Identity depends on the relations of ideas; and these relations produce identity by means of that easy movement of thought that they give rise to. But the relations in question are matters of degree, and so is the easiness of the mental movement that depends on them; so we have no correct standard by which to settle when they acquire or lose their entitlement to the name ‘identity’. ·Just because the basis of our identity judgments consists in matters of degree, there can be borderline cases— just as there are borderlines for baldness, tallness and so on·. All the disputes about the identity of connected objects are merely verbal, except in so far as the relation of parts gives rise to some fiction—some imaginary source of union—such as I have described.

What I have said about the origin and the uncertainty of our notion of the identity of the human mind can also be applied—with little or no change—to our notion of simplicity, ·that is, the notion of a thing’s not having parts·. An object whose different coexistent parts are closely related strikes the mind in much the same way as one that is perfectly simple and indivisible, and the thought of it doesn’t require a much greater mental stretch. Because contemplating it is like contemplating something simple, we regard as though it were simple, and we invent a principle of union as the support of this simplicity and as the centre of all the different parts and qualities of the object.

* * * * *

[After Book I of the Treatise of Human Nature had been published, Hume had some afterthoughts that were published in an Appendix to Book III. Here is the afterthought that he asks us to insert at this point.]

·START OF THE APPENDIX PASSAGE·

I had hoped that however deficient my theory of the intellectual world might be, it would at least be free from those contradictions and absurdities that seem to infect every explanation that human reason can give of the material world. But reconsidering more carefully the section on personal identity I find myself involved in such a labyrinth that I don’t know how to correct my former opinions, nor do I know how to make them consistent. If this is not a good general reason for scepticism, it is at least a sufficient one (as if I didn’t already have plenty) for me to be cautious and modest in all my conclusions. I shall present the arguments on both sides, starting with those that led me to deny the strict and proper identity and simplicity of a self or thinking being. ·I offer seven of these, each pretty much independent of the others·.

(1) When we talk of self or substance we must associate ideas with these terms, otherwise they would be meaningless. Every idea is derived from previous impressions; and we have no impression of self or substance as something simple and individual. We have, therefore, no idea of them in that sense.

(2) Whatever is distinct is distinguishable, and whatever is distinguishable is separable by the thought or imagination. All perceptions are distinct. They are, therefore, distinguishable, and separable, and may be thought of as separately existent, and may exist separately, without any contradiction or absurdity.

When I view this table and that chimney, nothing is present to me but particular perceptions that are of the same kind as all other perceptions. This is the doctrine of philosophers. But this table and that chimney can and do exist separately. This is the doctrine of the common man, and it implies no contradiction. So there is no contradiction in extending the same doctrine to all perceptions—·that is, the doctrine that they can exist separately. The next paragraph gives an argument for this·.

The following reasoning seems satisfactory on the whole. All ideas are borrowed from previous perceptions. So our ideas of objects are derived from that source. Therefore any proposition that is intelligible and consistent with regard to objects must be equally so when applied to perceptions. But it is intelligible and consistent to say that objects exist independently, without having to inhere in any common simple substance. So it can’t be absurd to say the same thing about perceptions. ·We are therefore not entitled to insist that there must be some self or substance in which our perceptions exist·.

(3) When I look in on myself, I can never perceive this self without some one or more perceptions; nor can I ever perceive anything but the perceptions. It is a complex of these perceptions, therefore, that constitutes the self.

(4) We can conceive a thinking being to have as few perceptions as we like—even to be reduced to the level (below that of an oyster) of having only one perception, such as that of thirst or hunger. In considering such a mind, do you conceive anything more than merely that one perception? Have you any notion of self or substance? If not, the addition of other perceptions can never give you that notion.

(5) The annihilation that some people suppose to follow on death, and which entirely destroys this self, is nothing but an extinction of all particular perceptions—love and hatred, pain and pleasure, thought and sensation. So these must be the same as the self, since the one cannot survive the other.

(6) Is self the same as substance? If it is, then there can be no question of the same self remaining when there is a change of substance. If on the other hand self and substance are distinct, what is the difference between them? For my part, I have no notion of either when they are conceived as distinct from particular perceptions.

(7) Philosophers are beginning to be reconciled to the principle that we have no idea of external substance distinct from the ideas of particular qualities. This should pave the way for a similar principle regarding the mind, namely that we have no notion of it distinct from the particular perceptions.

All of this seems clear and true. But having started my account with our particular perceptions all loose and separate, when I proceed to explain the principle of connection that binds them together, making us attribute to them a real simplicity and identity, I come to realize that my account is very defective, and that I wouldn’t have accepted it if it weren’t for the seeming power of the foregoing arguments.

[Hume now re-states his own theory of personal identity, in a manner that is favourable to it. His subsequent worries and doubts start to surface only at the end of this paragraph.]

If perceptions are distinct existences, they form a whole only by being connected together. But the human understanding can never discover connections among distinct existences; we only feel a connection in our mind when our thought is compelled to pass from one object to another. It follows, then, that personal identity is merely felt by our thought: this happens when our thought reflects on the sequence of past perceptions that compose a mind, and feels its the ideas of them to be interconnected and to follow on from one another in a natural way. Extraordinary though it is, this conclusion need not surprise us. Most philosophers today seem inclined to think that personal identity arises from consciousness, and consciousness is nothing but a thought or perception directed inwards towards oneself. To that extent, this present philosophy of mine looks promising. [Now comes the trouble.] But all my hopes vanish when I come to explain the principlesc that unite our successive perceptions in our thought or consciousness. I cannot discover any satisfactory theory about this.

In short, there are two principles that I cannot render consistent, nor can I give either of them up: (1) all our distinct perceptions are distinct existences, and (2) the mind never perceives any real connection among distinct existences. If our perceptions either inhered in something simple and individual, or if the mind perceived some real connection among them, there would be no difficulty. For my part, I must plead the privilege of a sceptic and confess that this problem is too hard for my understanding. I don’t say outright that it is absolutely insoluble. Perhaps someone else—or even myself after further reflection—will discover some hypothesis that will reconcile those contradictions.

·NOW BACK TO SECTION 6·

Thus I have finished my examination of the various systems of philosophy, both of the intellectual and the moral world; and, in my miscellaneous way of reasoning I have been led into several topics that will either illustrate and confirm some of what I have been saying or prepare the way for what is to come. It is now time to return to a closer examination of our subject, and to proceed in the accurate anatomy of human nature, having fully explained the nature of our judgment and understanding.

7: Conclusion of this book

But before I launch out into those immense depths of philosophy that lie before me ·in Books II and III of this Treatise·, I want to stop for a moment at the place I have so far reached, and to ponder the voyage I have undertaken, which undoubtedly requires the utmost skill and hard work to be brought to a happy conclusion. I am like a man who, having grounded his ship on many shoals and nearly wrecked it in passing a small island, still has the nerve to put out to sea in the same leaky weather-beaten vessel, and even carries his ambition so far as to think of going around the globe in it. My memory of past errors and perplexities makes me unsure about the future. The wretched condition, the weakness and disorder, of the ·intellectual· faculties that I have to employ in my enquiries increase my anxiety. And the impossibility of amending or correcting these faculties reduces me almost to despair, and makes me resolve to die on the barren rock where I am now rather than to venture into that boundless ocean that goes on to infinity. This sudden view of my danger makes me gloomy; and as that above all is the passion that indulges itself, I can’t help feeding my despair with all those down-casting reflections that the present subject provides in such abundance.

First, I am frightened and confused by the forlorn solitude in which my philosophy places me, and see myself as some strange uncouth monster who, not being able to mingle and unite in society, has been expelled from all human society and left utterly abandoned and disconsolate. I would like to run into the crowd for shelter and warmth, but I can’t get myself to mix with such deformity. I call on others to join me so that we can make our own separate society, but no-one will listen. Everyone keeps at a distance, and dreads the storm that beats upon me from every side. I have exposed myself to the enmity of all metaphysicians, logicians, mathematicians, and even theologians—can I wonder at the insults I must suffer? I have declared my rejection of their systems—can I be surprised if they express a hatred of mine and of me? When I look outwards ·and ahead· I foresee on every side dispute, contradiction, anger, slander, and detraction. When I look inwards I find nothing but doubt and ignorance. All the world conspires to oppose and contradict me; and I am so weak that when •my opinions are not supported by the approval of others I feel •them loosen and fall away. I take every step with hesitation, and every new reflection makes me dread an error and absurdity in my reasoning.

·This is not unreasonable·; for what confidence can I have in venturing on such bold enterprises when, beside the countless infirmities that I personally have, I find so many that are common to human nature? Can I be sure that when I leave all established opinions I am following truth? and by what criterion shall I recognize her [= truth] even if fortune should at last guide me onto her path? After the most accurate and exact of my reasonings, I can give no reason why I should assent to it [= my conclusion]; I merely feel a strong disposition to consider objects strongly in the manner in which they appear to me ·as a result of that reasoning·. Experience is a force that instructs me in the various conjunctions of objects in the past; habit is another force that makes me expect the same in the future; and the two work together on the imagination, making me form certain ideas in a more intense and lively manner than other ideas that don’t have the same advantages. This quality by which the mind enlivens some ideas more than others seems trivial, and has no basis in reason; yet without it we could never assent to any argument, or carry our view beyond •the few objects that are present to our senses. Indeed, even to those objects we could never attribute any existence but •what was dependent on the senses, and must ·therefore· bring them entirely into that sequence of perceptions that constitutes our self or person. And even in relation to that sequence, we could ·at any given time· only accept the existence of •the perceptions that are immediately present to our consciousness ·at that moment·; the lively images with which the memory presents us could never be accepted as true pictures of past perceptions. The memory, senses, and understanding are therefore all founded on the imagination, or the liveliness of our ideas.

No wonder a force that is so inconstant and fallacious should lead us into errors when uncritically followed (as it must be) in all its variations. It is this force that •makes us reason from causes and effects, and that •convinces us of the continued existence of external objects when they are absent from the senses. But though these two operations are equally natural and necessary in the human mind, in some circumstances they are directly contrary to one another (section 4); so we can’t reason soundly and regularly from causes and effects while at the same time believing in the continued existence of matter. How then shall we relate those two forces to one another? Which of them shall we prefer? Or if we prefer neither of them, and (as philosophers usually do) go sometimes with one and at other times with the other, how confidently can we give ourselves the glorious title of ‘philosopher’ when we thus knowingly accept an obvious contradiction? This contradiction (see 14iii) would be more excusable if it were compensated by any degree of solidity and satisfaction in the other parts of our reasoning. But that is not how things stand. When we trace human understanding back to its first sources, we find that it leads us into opinions that seem to make a mockery of all our past trouble and work, and to discourage us from future enquiries. Nothing is more assiduously enquired into by the mind of man than the causes of every phenomenon; and we aren’t content with knowing the immediate causes, but push our enquiries on until we arrive at the basic ultimate cause. We aren’t willing to stop until we are acquainted with the energy in the cause by which it operates on its effect—the tie that connects cause and effect together—and the effective quality on which that tie depends. This is our aim in all our studies and reflections; so how disappointed we must be when we learn that this connection, tie, or energy lies merely in ourselves, and is nothing but that set of mind that custom creates, which causes us to make a transition from the impression of an object to the lively idea of its usual accompaniment! Such a discovery not only cuts off all hope of ever attaining satisfaction, but won’t even let us wish for it; for it appears that when we say that we want to know ‘the ultimate and operating force’, regarding this as something that resides in the external object, we either contradict ourselves or talk without a meaning.

This deficiency in our ideas is not indeed perceived in common life. Indeed, we are not in general aware that in the most usual conjunctions of cause and effect we are as ignorant of the ultimate force that binds them together as we are in the most unusual and extraordinary cases. But this ·unawareness· comes merely from an illusion of the imagination; and the question is ‘How far ought we to yield to these illusions?’. This question is very difficult, and the choice of answers forces us to confront a very dangerous dilemma. One option is to assent to every trivial suggestion of the imagination. But these suggestions are often contrary to one another; and anyway they lead us into such errors, absurdities, and obscurities that we must eventually become ashamed of our credulity. Nothing is more dangerous to reason than the flights of the imagination, and nothing has led to more mistakes among philosophers. Men with bright imaginations may in this respect be compared to the angels whom the Scripture represents as covering their eyes with their wings! I have already shown so many instances of this that I can spare myself the trouble of going on about it any more.

The consideration of these troubles might make us resolve to reject all the trivial suggestions of the imagination, and adhere to the understanding—that is, to the imagination’s general and more established properties. But even this resolution, if steadily kept to, would be dangerous and would bring the most fatal consequences. For I have already shown in section 1 that the understanding, when it acts alone and according to its most general principles, entirely subverts itself and leaves us without even the lowest level of conviction about any proposition, either in philosophy or common life. We save ourselves from this total scepticism only by means of a special and seemingly trivial property of the imagination—namely, its making it difficult for us to enter into remote views of things, not being able to accompany them with as strong an impression as we do things that are more easy and natural. Shall we, then, adopt it as a general maxim that no refined or elaborate reasoning is ever to be accepted? Consider well the consequences of such a principle! It cuts you off entirely from all science and philosophy; you proceed on the basis of one special quality of the imagination, and by parity of reasoning you should embrace them all; and you explicitly contradict yourself, because this maxim must be based on the preceding reasoning, which you must admit is sufficiently refined and metaphysical ·to fall under the principle and thus be rejected by it·! What side shall we choose among these difficulties? If we embrace this principle and condemn all refined reasoning, we run into the most manifest absurdities. If we reject it in favour of these reasonings, we entirely subvert the human understanding. We are left with a choice between •a false reason and •no reason at all. For my part, I don’t know what ought to be done in the present case. I can only observe what commonly is done, namely: this difficulty is seldom or never thought of, and even when it is present to the mind it is quickly forgotten and leaves only a small impression behind it. Very refined reflections have little or no influence on us; and yet we don’t and can’t accept the rule that they ought not to have any influence, for that implies a manifest contradiction.

But what have I just said? That very refined and metaphysical reflections have little or no influence on us? I can scarcely refrain from retracting ·even· this opinion, and condemning it on the basis of my present feeling and experience. The intense view of all these contradictions and imperfections in human reason has so heated my brain that I am ready to reject all belief and reasoning, and can’t see any opinion ·as true, or· even as more probable or likely than another.

Where am I?

What am I?

What has caused me to exist, and to what condition shall I return ·after death·?

Whose favour shall I court, and whose anger must I dread?

What beings surround me? Which ones can I influence, and which have any influence on me?

I am bemused by all these questions, and begin to fancy myself in the most deplorable condition imaginable— surrounded by the deepest darkness, and utterly deprived of the use of every skill of body and mind.

Most fortunately it happens that since reason can't scatter these clouds, Nature herself suffices for that purpose and cures me of this philosophical gloom and frenzy, either by reducing the intensity of these thoughts or by some pastime that makes lively impressions on my senses that obliterate all these chimeras. I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse cheerfully with my friends; and when after three or four hours’ amusement I turn back to these speculations, they appear so cold, strained, and ridiculous that I can’t find in my heart to enter into them any further.

Here, then, I find myself absolutely and necessarily made to live and talk and act like other people in the common affairs of life. But although my natural disposition and the course of my animal spirits and passions bring me to this lazy acceptance of the general maxims of the world, I still feel such remains of my earlier frame of mind that I am ready to throw all my books and papers into the fire, and resolve never again to turn away from the pleasures of life in order to resume reasoning and philosophy. For that’s how I feel in the depressed mood that governs me at present. I may— I must—go with the current of Nature in my dealings with my senses and understanding, and in this blind obedience I show most perfectly my sceptical disposition and principles. But does it follow that I must go against the current of Nature that leads me to laziness and pleasure? that I must to some extent shut myself away from dealings with and the society of men that is so agreeable? that I must torture my brain with subtleties and sophistries, doing this at the very time when I can’t satisfy myself that this painful activity is a reasonable thing to do and can’t have any tolerable prospect of arriving through it at truth and certainty? ·Why must I?· What obliges me to misuse my time in that way? And what purpose can it serve, either for the service of mankind or for my own personal interests? No: if I must be a fool (and all those who reason or believe anything certainly are fools), my follies shall at least be natural and agreeable! Where I strive against my inclination, I shall have a good reason for my resistance; and will no more be led to wander into such dreary solitudes and rough passages as I have so far met with.

These are the sentiments of my depression and slackness; and indeed I must confess that philosophy has nothing to bring against them, and expects a victory more from the benefits of a serious good-humoured disposition than from the force of reason and conviction. In all the incidents of life, we ought still to preserve our scepticism. If we believe that fire warms or water refreshes, it is only because it is too much trouble to think otherwise. Indeed, if we are philosophers, it ought only to be on sceptical principles—·not in the hope of arriving at assured truths, but only· because we feel inclined to employ ourselves in that way. Where reason is lively, and mixes itself with some disposition, it ought to be assented to. Where it doesn’t, it can’t have any right to operate on us.

Thus, at a time when I am tired with amusement and company, and have allowed myself a daydream in my room or in a solitary walk by a river-side, I feel my mind all collected within itself, and am naturally inclined to think about all those subjects about which I have met with so many disputes in the course of my reading and conversation. I can’t help wanting to know the sources of moral good and evil, the nature and foundation of government, and the cause of the various passions and inclinations that move and govern me. I am •not contented with the thought that I approve of one thing and disapprove of another, call one thing beautiful and another ugly, and make decisions concerning truth and falsehood, reason and folly, without knowing what principles I am going by in all this. I am •concerned for the condition of the learned world that is so deplorably ignorant about all this. I •feel an ambition arising in me to contribute to the instruction of mankind, and to make myself known through my discoveries. These •feelings spring up naturally in my present frame of mind; and if I tried to get rid of them by applying myself to any other activity or pastime, I feel I would be a loser in point of pleasure; and this is the origin of my philosophy.

But if this curiosity and ambition didn’t carry me into speculations outside the sphere of common life, I would still inevitably be led into them by my own weakness. ·Let me explain·. It is certain that •superstition is much bolder in its systems and hypotheses than •philosophy is: whereas •philosophy contents itself with assigning new causes and explanations for the phenomena that appear in the visible world, •superstition opens up a world of its own, and presents us with scenes and beings and states of affairs that are altogether new. Now, it is almost impossible for the mind of man to stay—like the minds of lower animals—within the narrow circle of items that are the subject of daily conversation and action; ·so we are bound to stray outside that circle·, and all we have to deliberate about is our choice of guide ·when we do so·, looking for the one that is safest and most agreeable. In this respect I venture to recommend philosophy, and I don’t hesitate to prefer it to superstition of every kind. For as superstition arises naturally and easily from the popular opinions of mankind, it seizes more strongly on the mind and is often able to disturb us in the conduct of our lives. Philosophy stands in contrast to that. Sound philosophy can present us only with mild and moderate sentiments; and the opinions offered by false and extravagant philosophy are merely the objects of cool generalizing thought, and seldom go so far as to interrupt the course of our natural inclinations. The Cynics are an extraordinary instance of philosophers who, from purely philosophical reasonings, entered into extravagances of conduct as great as any monk or dervish that ever was in the world. Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy are only ridiculous.

I am aware that these two cases of the strength and weakness of the mind—·that is, philosophy and superstition·— don’t cover all mankind, and that in England in particular there are many honest gentlemen who are always engaged in their domestic affairs, or amusing themselves in common recreations, and so have carried their thoughts very little beyond the objects that are every day exposed to their senses. I don’t purport to make philosophers of these, and I don’t expect them either to join in these researches or listen to their results. Such people do well to keep themselves in their present situation; and, rather than refining them into philosophers, I ·would like to make philosophers more like them; that is, I· wish we could give our founders of ·philosophical· systems a share of this gross earthy mixture, as an ingredient that they commonly need and don’t have, an ingredient that would damp down those fiery particles of which they are composed! As long as philosophy makes room for a lively imagination and for hypotheses that are embraced merely because they are glittering and agreeable, we can never have any steady principles or any opinions that will square with common practice and experience. If such hypotheses were removed from philosophy, then we might hope to establish a system or set of opinions which—if not true (for that may be too much to hope for)—might at least be satisfactory to the human mind, and might stand the test of the most critical examination. Many flimsy systems that have arisen and then died, but this shouldn’t make us despair of attaining this goal; consider the shortness of the period in which these questions have been the subjects of enquiry and reasoning. Two thousand years, with long interruptions and under mighty discouragements, are a small stretch of time to bring the sciences to anything like completion; and perhaps the world is still too young for us to discover any principles that will stand up under examination by our remote descendants. Speaking for myself, my only hope is that I may contribute a little to the advancement of knowledge by giving in some respects a different turn to the speculations of philosophers, and more clearly indicating to them the only subjects in which they can expect assurance and conviction. Human nature is the only science of man; and yet it has been until now been the most neglected. I will be satisfied if I can bring it a little more into fashion; and the hope of this serves to bring me out of the depression and slackness that sometimes take me over. If you find yourself in the same easy disposition, follow me in my future speculations ·in Books II and III·. If not, follow your own inclination, and wait for the return of good humour and industriousness. The conduct of a man who studies philosophy in this careless manner is more truly sceptical than the conduct of one who, feeling in himself an inclination to it, nevertheless totally rejects it because he is overwhelmed with doubts and worries. A true sceptic will be cautious about his philosophical doubts as well as about his philosophical convictions; and he will never refuse any innocent satisfaction that offers itself on account of either of them.

It is proper that we should •in general indulge our inclination in the most elaborate philosophical researches, notwithstanding our sceptical principles, and also that we should •give rein to our inclination to be positive and certain about particular points, according to how we see them at any particular instant. It is easier •to give up examination and enquiry altogether than •to restrain such a natural disposition in ourselves and guard against the confidence that always arises from an exact and full survey of an object. At those moments we are apt to forget not only our scepticism but even our modesty, and make use of such expressions as ‘it is evident’, ‘it is certain’, ‘it is undeniable’, which a due deference to the public ought perhaps to prevent. I may have followed others into committing this fault, but in face of any objections that may be made against me on that account I declare that such expressions were dragged out of me by my view of the object at that moment; they don’t imply any dogmatic spirit or conceited idea of my own judgment—attitudes that I am aware are not suitable for anybody, least of all a sceptic.

NOTES

[1] This reasoning is admittedly rather abstruse and hard to understand; but the remarkable fact is that this very difficulty can be turned into an argument for the reasoning! We can see that there are two resemblances that contribute to our mistaking •the sequence of our interrupted perceptions for •an identical object. The first is the resemblance of the perceptions that are involved in each; the second is the resemblance of the acts of the mind that are involved in each. Now we are apt to confound these resemblances with each other, ·and that is what makes this whole piece of theory hard to get straight in one’s mind·. It is also what it is natural for us to do, according to this very theory. If you can only keep the two resemblances distinct, you’ll have no difficulty in following my argument.

Book 2

Part i: Pride and humility

1: Division of the subject

2: Pride and humility—their objects and causes

3: Where these objects and causes come from

4: The relations of impressions and ideas

5: The influence of these relations on pride and humility

6: Qualifications to this system

7: Vice and virtue

8: Beauty and ugliness

9: External advantages and disadvantages

10: Property and riches

11: The love of fame

12: The pride and humility of animals

Part ii: Love and hatred

1: The objects and causes of love and hatred

2: Experiments to confirm this system

3: Difficulties solved

4: Love for people with whom one has some connection

5: Esteem for the rich and powerful

6: Benevolence and anger

7: Compassion

8: Malice and envy

9: The mixture of benevolence and anger with compassion and malice

10: Respect and contempt

11: The amorous passion, or love between the sexes

12: The love and hatred of animals

Part iii: The will and the direct passions

1: Liberty and necessity

2: Liberty and necessity (continued)

3: The influencing motive of the will

4: The causes of the violent passions

5: The effects of custom

6: The imagination’s influence on the passions

7: Closeness and distance in space and time

8: Closeness and distance in space and time (continued)

9: The direct passions

10: Curiosity, or the love of truth

Part i: Pride and humility

1: Division of the subject

Having divided all the perceptions of the mind into •impressions and •ideas, we can now divide impressions into (1) original and (2) secondary. The distinction between these is the one I drew in I.i.2, using the language of (1) ‘impressions of sensation’ and (2) ‘impressions of reflection’. (1) Original impressions, i.e. impressions of sensation, arise in the soul not from any preceding perception but from the constitution of the body, from the animal spirits, or from the effect of objects on the external organs. These include all the impressions of the senses, and all bodily pains and pleasures. (2) Secondary impressions, i.e. impressions of reflection, arise out of the original ones, either immediately or through the mediation of ideas of the original ones. These include the passions, and other emotions resembling passions.

[Example of ‘the mediation of ideas’; Joe’s (2) present anger against Max is caused by Joe’s present memory of being hurt by Max, which is caused by his (1) being hurt by Max.]

The mind in its perceptions has to begin somewhere. It can’t begin with ideas, because every idea comes after a corresponding impression; so it must start with impressions— there must be some (1) impressions that turn up in the soul without having been heralded by any preceding perception. [Remember that for Hume ’perception’ covers every mental state.] The causes of these impressions of sensation are natural objects and events out there in the world; I couldn’t examine those without straying from my present subject into anatomy and natural science. So I’m going to confine myself to the other (2) impressions, the ones I call ‘secondary’ and ‘of reflection’, which arise either from original impressions or from ideas of them. Bodily pains and pleasures are the source of many passions, both ·immediately· when they are felt by the mind and ·through the mediation of ideas· when they are considered by it; but they themselves arise originally in the soul (or in the body, call it what you will) without any preceding thought or perception. An attack of gout, ·which is extremely painful·, leads to a long series of passions—grief, hope, fear and so on—but it doesn’t come immediately from any mental state or idea.

[Regarding that last use of ‘immediately’, perhaps Hume is thinking of things like this: my present agony is caused by gout, which is caused by my drinking too much port and getting too little exercise, which was caused by my having thoughts of how pleasant it would be to sit by the fire swilling port; so my pain is after all caused by a mental event, but not immediately.]

The reflective impressions can be divided into •calm and •violent. Of the first kind is the sense of beauty and ugliness in actions, works of art, and external objects.

[In this version, ‘ugliness’—a word Hume doesn’t use—always replaces his ‘deformity’, which did but now doesn’t mean the same thing. He does regularly use the adjective ‘ugly’, and always associates it with ‘deformity’.]

Of the second kind are the passions of love and hatred, grief and joy, pride and humility—these are ‘passions’ properly so-called. This division is far from exact: poetry and music frequently produce intense raptures that are far from calm; while those other impressions—the passions properly so-called—can subside into an emotion that is so soft as to be almost imperceptible. But the passions are usually more violent than the emotions arising from beauty and ugliness, and that’s the basis on which we draw the line. The human mind is such a big and complicated topic that I need help in ordering my treatment of it, and it’s in that spirit that I shall take advantage of this common and plausible classification, and . . . . set myself to explain those violent emotions or passions, their nature, origin, causes, and effects.

Looking over the passions, we find that they divide into •direct and •indirect. By ‘direct passions’ I mean ones that arise immediately from good or evil, from pain or pleasure. By ‘indirect passions’ I mean ones that have the same sources as the others but only when those sources are combined with other qualities. At this stage I can’t justify or explain this distinction any further. I can only say that under the ‘indirect passions’ I include

•pride, humility, ambition, vanity, love, hatred, envy, pity, malice, generosity,

along with passions that depend on those. Under the ‘direct passions’ I include

•desire, aversion, grief, joy, hope, fear, despair, and security.

I shall begin with the indirect passions.

[‘z is an indirect result of x’ ought to mean that x leads to y which leads to z. But what Hume says about z’s arising from x ‘by the conjunction of’ other qualities points to a different picture, in which y doesn’t reach back to x and forward to z but rather collaborates with x to produce z directly. The contrasting use of ‘immediately’ is wrong for the same reason. From now on, phrases like ‘arise immediately from’ will be replaced by ‘arise purely from’, in contexts where that is obviously the meaning.]

2: Pride and humility—their objects and causes

[Hume’s words ‘humility’ and ‘humble’ will be allowed to stand in this version; but you’ll see that ‘humility’ as he describes it sounds more like shame. Every occurrence of ‘shame’ or ‘ashamed’ in this version comes from the original text.]

The passions of pride and humility are simple and uniform impressions, so we can’t—however many words we use—properly define them, or any of the passions for that matter. (·This resembles the fact that we can’t verbally define ‘red’ because the idea or impression of redness is simple and uniform·.) The most we can claim to offer is a description of them—a description in which we list the states of affairs that accompany them. But ‘pride’ and ‘humility’ are commonly used words, and the impressions they stand for are the most common of all; so no-one needs my help to form an accurate idea of them with no risk of getting them wrong. I shan’t waste time on preliminaries, therefore, and will start right away on my examination of these passions.

[In this paragraph we’ll meet Hume’s technical notion of ‘the object of’ someone’s pride or humility. He also uses ‘object’ (not ‘object of ’) hundreds of times to mean merely ‘thing’ or ‘item’—as in the phrase ‘the effect of objects on the external organs’. When ‘object’ is used in this thin sense, in a context where the ‘object of’ notion is also at work, the thin-sense ‘object’ will be replaced by ‘thing’ or by ‘item’, a word that Hume himself never uses.]

It is obvious that pride and humility, though directly contrary to one another, have the same object. This object is oneself, i.e. the sequence of related ideas and impressions of which one has an intimate memory and consciousness. Whenever we are driven by pride or humility, our view is always focussed on ourself. We feel one or other of those opposite affections—are elated by pride, or dejected with humility—depending on how favourable an idea of ourself we have.

[The word ‘affection’ occurs very often in this work. It is Hume’s most general term for emotional states, covering everything from furious rage to mild distaste, from ecstatic pleasure to a barely detectable feeling of satisfaction.]

·When we are in a state of pride or humility·, whatever other items we are thinking about we’re considering them in relation to ourselves; otherwise they couldn’t arouse these passions or increase or lessen them in the slightest. When oneself doesn’t enter the picture, there is no room for either pride or humility.

But although the connected sequence of perceptions that we call ‘self’ is always the •object of these two passions, it can’t possibly be their •cause —it can’t unaided arouse them. [Hume goes on to explain that if one’s self alone caused either pride or humility, it would always arouse both together, and because they are contrary passions with the same object, namely oneself, they would cancel out, so that in the upshot neither would be caused. He continues:] It is impossible for a man to be both proud and humble at the same time. It often happens that a man has reasons for pride and other reasons for humility; in that case they take turns in him; or, if they do come together and collide, the stronger one annihilates the weaker and loses as much of its strength as has been used up in that process. But in the present case—i.e. the supposed case in which the whole cause of someone’s pride and/or humility is himself—neither of the two passions could ever be stronger than the other, because their common cause, himself, isn’t biased in favour of one rather than the other, so it must produce both in the same strength—which means that it can’t produce either of them. . . .

So we have to distinguish the •cause of these passions, i.e. the idea that arouses them, from their •object, i.e. whatever it is that they focus on when aroused. Once pride or humility has kicked in, it immediately turns our attention onto ourself, regarding that as its ultimate and final object; but for either pride or humility to be aroused in the first place, another factor is needed—a factor that figures differently in one of these passions from how it figures in the other. Here’s how the course of events goes:

(1) A certain idea I_1 comes before the mind,

(2) I_1 causes or produces an associated passion P,

(3) P turns the person’s attention to I_2, the idea of himself.

So here we have a passion P that comes between two ideas I_1 and I_2; it is caused by I_1 and it causes I_2. Thus, the first idea I_1 represents the cause of the passion, the second idea I_2 represents the object of the passion.

Let us start with the causes of pride and humility. The most obvious and remarkable thing about them is the vast variety of things that people can be proud of or humble about. Every valuable quality of the mind—

of the imagination, judgment, memory, or disposition; wit, good sense, learning, courage, justice, integrity

—all these are causes of pride, and their opposites are causes of humility. And people can be proud of or humble about physical characteristics as well as mental ones. A man may be proud of his

beauty, strength, agility, handsomeness; elegance in dancing, riding, fencing; skill in any manual business or manufacture,

·and humble about his lack of any of these·. And there’s more yet! Pride and humility look further, and take in whatever items are in any way connected with or related to us. Our country, family, children, relations, riches, houses, gardens, horses, dogs, clothes; any of these can cause either pride or humility.

Thinking about these causes, we see that in any cause of pride or humility we have to distinguish •the operative quality from •the thing that has the quality. Take the case of a man who is proud of a beautiful house that he owns or that he planned and built. The object of his pride is himself, and its cause is the beautiful house; and the cause is subdivided into •the beauty that operates on [Hume’s phrase] the pride and •the house that has the beauty. Both these parts are essential, and they really are different—both •in themselves and •in how they relate to pride and humility. No-one is ever proud of beauty, considered in the abstract and not considered as possessed by something that is related to him; and no-one would be proud of a house—even one that he had planned and built, and now owned—unless it had beauty or some other pride-inducing quality. So we need to be aware of this distinction between the two parts of any cause of pride or humility, and to handle it with careful exactness: •the two can easily be separated from one another, and •it takes the two of them in conjunction to produce the passion.

3: Where these objects and causes come from

Having distinguished the object of a passion from its cause, and within the cause having distinguished the operative quality from the thing that has it, the next task is to examine what makes each of our two—pride and humility—to be what it is, and associates a given case of passion to this •object and that •quality and this other subject [= ‘quality- possessor’]. ·For example, to understand fully what is going on when I am proud of my son’s energy, we must face these questions:

•What makes this state of mine a case of pride?

•How does energy come into it?

•How does that man come into it?

•How do I come into it?

and must have answers to them all·. When we have done all that we’ll fully understand the origin of pride and humility.

Why do pride and humility always have self for their object? Well, it happens because of a certain property of the human mind—a property that is both •natural and also •basic. No-one can doubt that this property is natural, given how constantly and steadily it operates: it is always self that is the object of pride and humility, and whenever either of these passions looks further, it is still with a view to oneself—without an appropriate relation to ourself no person or thing can have any influence on us. ·If the connection between one’s pride or humility and oneself were not natural but rather something we learn, there would surely be some people who hadn’t learned this properly and were (for example) proud of the number of stars in the sky or ashamed of the existence of volcanoes·.

That the mental property in question is basic or primary will likewise appear evident if we consider that it is the distinguishing characteristic of these passions. Unless nature had given the mind some basic qualities, it could never have any derived ones, because with no basic qualities it would have no basis for action and could never begin to exert itself. The basic qualities of the mind are the ones that are most inseparable from it, and can’t be analysed out as upshots or special cases of other more basic qualities, And that’s the case with the mental quality that determines the object of pride and humility.

[In this context. ‘basic’ replaces Hume’s ‘original’. The sense of ‘original’ in ‘original quality’ is nothing like its sense in ‘original impressions’ (see here), and it should be helpful to use a different word. A second point: if the paragraph gives any reason for thinking not merely that the mind must have some basic qualities but that the quality Hume is writing about is one of them, it is in the first sentence; but it’s not clear what reason it is.]

Even if you are satisfied that the •object towards which pride and humility are directed is natural, you may not be satisfied that the •causes of these passions are equally natural. Rather than coming from the constitution of our mind (you may think), perhaps all that vast variety of causes comes from individual preferences. This doubt is soon removed when we look at human nature, and bear in mind that the same ·sorts of· items have given rise to pride and humility in all nations and at all times, so that even if someone is a stranger to us we can make a pretty good guess at what will either increase or diminish his passions of these two kinds. There are no big differences among people in this respect, and what ones there are come merely from differences in temperament and bodily constitution. Can we imagine it as possible that without any change in human nature men will ever become entirely indifferent to their power, riches, beauty, or personal merit, and that their pride and vanity won’t be affected by these advantages?

[Despite the phrase ‘pride and vanity’, Hume ordinarily seems to treat ‘vanity’ as synonymous with ‘pride’. This version will always leave ‘vanity’ and ‘vain’ untouched.]

But though the causes of pride and humility are clearly natural, it turns out that •they can’t be basic—i.e. that •it’s impossible that each of them is connected to pride or humility by a particular basic natural hook-up. They are far too numerous for that; and many of them are man-made things that are products partly of work, partly of personal choices and partly of good luck. Work produces houses, furniture, clothes. Personal choice determines what kinds of houses etc. men make. And good luck often contributes to all this, by revealing the effects of different mixtures and combinations of bodies—·e.g. the lucky discovery of a better recipe for cement·. It’s absurd to think that each of these was foreseen and provided for by nature, and that every new man-made cause of pride or humility is connected with that passion by a basic mechanism that lay concealed in the soul until something happened that kicked it into action. The cabinet-maker who invented the plan for a writing desk and then made the first one, sold it to someone who was proud of this possession of his; are we to suppose that this pride arose from a basic pride-in-writing-desks mechanism in his mind? one that is different from his pride-in-handsome-chairs mechanism? We must reject that ridiculous suggestion; so we have to conclude that the causes of pride owe their efficacy to some one or more features that they all share, and similarly with all the causes of humility.

[Those two occurrences of ‘mechanism’ replace Hume’s word ‘principle’, which he uses here in a now-obsolete sense—or narrow range of closely related senses. In the passage represented by the (1)–(2)–(3) here, Hume speaks of the first idea I1 as a ‘cause or productive principle’ of the passion P; but ‘principle’ is often used to stand not for an individual cause but rather for some permanent causal structure. In our present paragraph, ‘mechanism’ catches the meaning pretty well, as it does also in most of the dozens of other cases. Don’t think of these mechanisms in terms of physical machines with wheels and gears etc. In fact, Hume has no opinion about the intrinsic nature of these items, but he’s sure that they exist. If it is pretty reliably the case that when an F occurs in someone’s mind it will be followed by a G, Hume will be sure that it’s because that mind has a property or quality or ‘principle’ connecting F with G—what this version will call a ‘mechanism’ connecting F with G. That expresses a conviction that the if-F-then-G link will continue to hold, but Hume’s use of this mechanism concept does more work than that. Where two things like these seem to be reliably true:

•When an F occurs in someone’s mind, it is followed by a G,

•When an H occurs in someone’s mind, it is followed by a J,

Hume will want to know ‘Does one mechanism underlie both these generalizations, or do they involve two independent mechanisms?’ He does real work with this type of question, even while knowing nothing about what any such mechanism consists in.—When he uses ‘principle’, as we do, to stand for a kind of proposition, the word will of course be left untouched.]

·And there’s a more general point that goes the same way·. We find •that in the course of nature there are many effects but their causal sources are usually few and simple, and •that when a natural scientist appeals to a different quality in order to explain every different operation, that’s a sign that he isn’t very competent. This must apply with special force to ·explanations of the operations of· the human mind, because it is such a confined subject. It’s reasonable for us to think that it couldn’t contain such a monstrous heap of mechanisms as would be needed to arouse the passions of pride and humility if each of their causes were connected to its passion by its own separate mental mechanism.

The situation of the scientific study of man is now what the situation of the physical sciences were with regard to astronomy before the time of Copernicus. Although the ancient astronomers were aware of the maxim that nature does nothing in vain, they concocted systems of astronomy that •were so intricate that they seemed inconsistent with true science, and eventually •gave place to something simpler and natural. When someone confronted by a new phenomenon isn’t ashamed to invent a new mechanism for it rather than tracing it back to mechanisms already known, when he overloads his scientific system with this sort of variety, we know for sure that none of his mechanisms is the right one and that he’s merely trying to hide his ignorance behind a screen of falsehoods.

4: The relations of impressions and ideas

So now we have easily established two truths—that the mechanisms through which this variety of causes arouse pride and humility are natural, and that there isn’t a different mechanism for every different cause. Now let us investigate how we can reduce these mechanisms to a lesser number, finding among the causes something common on which their influence depends.

To do this, we’ll have to think about certain properties of human nature that have an enormous influence on every operation both of the understanding and of the passions, yet are seldom emphasized by students of human nature.

(1) One is the •association of ideas, which I have so often mentioned and explained ·in Book I of this Treatise·. It’s impossible for the mind to concentrate steadily on one idea for any considerable time, and no amount of strenuous effort will enable it to train itself to that kind of constancy of attention. But changeable though our thoughts are, they aren’t entirely without rule and method in their changes. The rule by which they proceed is to pass from one object to what is •resembling, •contiguous to, or •produced by it. When one idea is present to the imagination, any other idea that is related to it in one of these three ways will naturally follow it, entering the mind more easily through that introduction.

(2) The other property of the human mind that I want to call attention to is a similar •association of impressions. Impressions that resemble one another are connected together, so that when one arises the rest immediately follow. Grief and disappointment give rise to anger, anger to envy, envy to malice, and malice to grief again, until the whole circle is completed. Similarly, when our mind is elevated with joy it naturally throws itself into love, generosity, pity, courage, pride, and the other emotional states that resemble joy. When the mind is gripped by a passion, it can’t easily confine itself to that passion alone without any change or variation. Human nature is too inconstant to permit such regularity—it is essentially changeable. And what it’s most natural for it to change to at any given time are affections or emotions that are . . . . in line with the dominant passions that it actually has at that moment. So clearly there’s an attraction or association among impressions as well as among ideas, but with one notable difference: •ideas are associated by resemblance, contiguity, and causation, whereas •impressions are associated only by resemblance.

(3) These two kinds of association very much assist and forward each other, and the transition ·from one idea to another or from one impression to another· is more easily made when both items have the same object. For example, a man who is upset and angry because of some harm that someone has done to him will be apt to find a hundred subjects of discontent, impatience, fear, and other unpleasant passions, especially if he can find these subjects in or near the person who did him the initial harm. In a case like this, the mechanisms that drive the transition from one idea to another go along with the mechanisms that drive the transition from one passion to another; and with both of them operating jointly in a single mental event, they bestow on the mind a double impulse. So the new passion must arise with that much greater violence, and the transition to it must be made that much more easy and natural.

I’d like to cite the authority of an elegant writer, ·Joseph Addison·, who writes this:

As the imagination delights in everything that is great, strange, or beautiful, and is still more pleased the more it finds of these perfections in the same thing, so it is capable of receiving a new satisfaction by the assistance of another sense. Thus, any continued sound, as the music of birds or a fall of waters, awakens every moment the mind of the beholder, and makes him more attentive to the several beauties of the place that lie before him. Thus, if there arises a fragrance of smells or perfumes, they heighten the pleasure of the imagination and make even the colours and lushness of the landscape appear more agreeable; for the ideas of both senses recommend each other, and are pleasanter together than when they enter the mind separately: as the different colours of a picture, when they are well disposed, set off one another, and receive an additional beauty from the advantage of the situation.

In this phenomenon we see the association both of impressions and of ideas, as well as the mutual assistance they give each other.

5: The influence of these relations on pride andhumility

Now we have some principles that are based on unquestionable experience. The next move is to consider how to apply them ·to our present topic·, starting with this: we’ll look over all the causes of pride and humility and ask whether the causal work is done by the •qualities of things or by the •things that have the qualities. When I examine these qualities, I immediately find that many of them agree in producing the sensation of pleasure independently of pride, and that many of them agree in producing the sensation of unpleasure independently of humility.

[The phrase ‘sensation of pain’, which is what Hume wrote, is now much too narrow for what he means. And ‘displeasure’ won’t do either, because to our ear it carries suggestions of moral disapproval and of the attitude of someone in authority. So, as the opposite of ‘pleasure’, this version will use ‘unpleasure’, an excellent English word that is exactly right for the purpose. Hume often expresses this same notion with the term ‘uneasiness’, probably borrowed from Locke; it will be allowed to stand.]

Thus, personal beauty considered just in itself gives pleasure as well as pride; and personal ugliness causes unpleasure as well as humility. A magnificent feast delights us, and a sordid one displeases. When I find something to be true in some instances, I suppose it to be true in all, so I’ll now take it for granted at present, without any further proof, that every cause of pride produces, through its special qualities, a separate pleasure, and every cause of humility in the same way produces a separate uneasiness.

Regarding •the things that have these qualities, it’s often obvious that •they are either parts of ourselves or something nearly related to us; and it seems likely enough that this is always the case—as I shall suppose it to be. The good and bad qualities of our actions and manners constitute virtue and vice, and determine our personal character, which has as much effect on pride and humility as anything does. Similarly, it is the beauty or ugliness of our person, houses, silverware, or furniture by which we are made either vain or humble. When those same qualities are possessed by things that aren’t related to us in any way, they haven’t the slightest tendency to make us proud or humble.

[In the next paragraph the first six words are Hume’s.]

Having thus in a manner supposed two properties of the causes of pride and humility, namely that

•the qualities produce a separate unpleasure or pleasure,

—·separate, that is, from their production of humility or pride·—and that

•the things that have the qualities are related to self,

I now turn to the examination of the passions themselves, looking for something in them that corresponds to the supposed properties of their causes. From this examination we get two results.

(1) The special object of pride and humility—·i.e. their always being related to oneself ·—is fixed by a basic and natural instinct; the fundamental constitution of the mind makes it absolutely impossible to have pride or humility that isn’t connected with oneself, i.e. with the individual person of whose actions and sentiments each of us is intimately conscious. When we are actuated by either of these passions, our ultimate focus is on ourself—the object we can’t lose sight of while we are experiencing pride or humility. I don’t offer to explain why this is so; I regard it as a basic feature of the mind.

(2) The second quality that I find in pride and humility and regard as another basic quality is how they feel, the special emotions that they arouse in the soul and that constitute their very being and essence. Pride is a pleasant sensation, and humility an unpleasant one; strip off the pleasure or unpleasure and there’s no pride or humility left. We feel that this is so; and there’s no point in reasoning or disputing about something that is settled by feeling.

Now let us take these two established properties of the passions, namely

(1) their object (self) and (2) how they feel (pleasant or unpleasant)

and compare them to the two supposed properties of their causes, namely

(3) their relation to self, and (4) their tendency to produce pleasure or pleasure independently of the passion.

If I am right about those four items, everything falls into place—the true theory breaks in on me with irresistible convincingness. The property (3) of the cause of the passion is related to the (1) object that nature has assigned to the passion; the property (4) of the cause is related to the (2) feeling of the passion: from this double relation of ideas and impressions the passion is derived. [The rest of this paragraph expands what Hume wrote, in ways that can’t easily be indicated by the ·small dots· convention.] The (3)/(1) relation involves a relation between ideas—for example between •the idea of a book that I wrote and the idea of •myself. The (4)/(2) relation is a relation between impressions—for example between •the pleasure I get from the book just as a good book and •the pleasure that is a part of my pride in the book. It is easy for idea (3) to lead to idea (1), and for impression (4) to lead to impression (2); so you can see how easy it is for the whole transition to occur from

(4) impersonal pleasure in (3) something that happens to be related to me in a certain way

to

(2) pride in something (1) because I made it.

The movement from idea to idea helps and is helped by the move from impression to impression; there’s a double impact on the mind, pushing it into pride.

To understand this better, let’s suppose that nature has equipped the human mind with a certain structure that is disposed produce a special impression or emotion, the one we call ‘pride’. She has assigned to this emotion a certain idea, namely that of self, which it never fails to produce. It’s not hard to entertain this; it’s a kind of set-up of which we know many examples. The nerves of the nose and palate are so structured that in certain circumstances they convey certain particular sensations to the mind; the sensations of lust and hunger always produce in us the idea of the special items that are suitable to each appetite. These two features occur together in pride. The ·mental· ‘organs’ are structured so as to produce the passion; and when the passion has been produced it naturally produces a certain idea. None of this needs to be proved. It’s obvious that we would never have that passion if there weren’t a mental structure appropriate for it; and its equally obvious that the passion always turns our view to ourselves, making us think of our own qualities and circumstances.

The next question is this: Does the passion arise purely from nature, or do other causes come into it as well? Unaided nature may produce •some of our passions and sensations, e.g. hunger; but it’s certain that •pride needs the help of some external object, and that the organs that produce pride aren’t kicked into action, as the heart and arteries are, by a basic internal movement. ·Here are three reasons for saying this·. (a) Daily experience convinces us that pride requires certain causes to arouse it, and fades away unless it is supported by some excellence in the character, physical accomplishments, clothes, possessions or fortune ·of the person whose pride is in question·. (b) It’s obvious that if pride arose purely from nature it would be perpetual, because its object is always the same, and there’s no disposition of body that is special to pride, as there is to thirst and hunger. (c) If pride arose purely from nature, the same would be true of humility; and in that case anyone who is ever humble must be perpetually humble, except that being perpetually proud and perpetually humble he would never be either! Safe conclusion: pride must have a •cause as well as an •object, and neither can have any influence without the other.

Our only remaining question, then, is this: What is the cause of pride? What makes pride kick in by starting up the organs that are naturally fitted to produce it? [This next bit uses the 1–2–3–4 numbering system that was used previously.] When I look to my own experience for an answer, I immediately find a hundred different causes of pride; and on examining them I get confirmation for my initial suspicion that each cause of pride x has these two features. (4) x is a sort of item that is generally apt to produce an impression that is allied to pride—·specifically, that is like pride·. (3) x has to do with something that is allied to the object of this particular instance of pride. ·Consider for example my pride in my brother’s physical skills. (4) Physical skill generally gives pleasure, which resembles pride in being enjoyable; and (3) this instance of physical skill is possessed by someone ‘allied’ to me, namely my brother·. Stated generally:

P: Anything that (4) gives a pleasant sensation and (3) is related to oneself arouses the passion of pride, which (2) is also agreeable and (1) has oneself for its object.

[Hume remarks that this account of the causes of pride relies on his extremely general thesis—one that he applies far beyond the territory of pride—that impressions and ideas are apt to be caused by other impressions and ideas that are suitably related to them, especially by the relation of resemblance. He says also that it doesn’t take much to start up a causal chain that ends in pride, because the relevant ‘organs’ are] naturally disposed to produce that affection, ·and so· require only a first impulse or beginning for their action.

This account of the causes of •pride holds equally for the causes of •humility. The sensation of humility is uneasy, as that of pride is agreeable; so the causal story reverses the (4)/(2) quality-of-sensation part of the pride story while keeping the (3)/(1) relation-to-oneself part the same. ·In short:

H: Anything that (4) gives an unpleasant sensation and (3) is related to oneself arouses the passion of humility, which (2) is also unpleasant and (1) has oneself for its object.

· [Hume says that in going from P to H what we are doing is to ‘change the relation of impressions without making any change in the relation of ideas’. This is right about the ideas, wrong about the impressions, i.e. the sensations. In shifting from P to H we don’t ‘change the relation of impressions; it’s the relation of similarity in both; what we change are the impressions that are thus related.]

Accordingly, we find that a beautiful house owned by me makes me proud; and if through some accident it becomes ugly while still being mine, that same house makes me humble. When beautiful, the house gave pleasure, which corresponds to pride; and when it became ugly it caused unpleasure, which is related to humility. It is easy to move from pride to humility or from humility to pride, because the double relation between the ideas and impressions is there in both cases.

[In this next paragraph Hume remarks that ‘nature has bestowed a kind of attraction on certain impressions and ideas’, thus likening the phenomenon of the association of ideas and impressions with something like magnetism. Apart from that, the paragraph repeats the material of the preceding one, emphasizing how natural and inevitable pride and humility are. Take the case of my pride in my beautiful house. The cause of this involves

(4) a pleasure-giving quality (beauty) possessed by (3) something related to me;

and the resultant pride is

(2) a pleasant-feeling sensation associated with (1) my idea of myself.

Hume concludes:] no wonder the whole cause, consisting of a quality and of a subject, so unavoidably gives rise to the passion.

[The last paragraph of this compares Hume’s theory of pride with his theory of causal judgments. He says that there’s ‘a great analogy’ between the two.]

6: Qualifications to this system

Before I move on to examine the causes of pride and humility in detail, I should state some qualifications—·five of them·— to the general thesis that all agreeable (disagreeable) items that are related to ourselves by an association of ideas and of impressions produce pride (humility). These qualifications come from the very nature of the subject.

(1) When an agreeable item acquires a relation to oneself, the first passion that appears is joy; and it takes less to produce joy than to produce pride. I feel joy on being present at a feast, where my senses are regaled with delicacies of every kind; but it’s only the master of the feast who has not just •joy but also the additional passion of •self- applause and vanity. It’s true that men sometimes boast of a great entertainment at which they have only been present, using that relation as a basis for converting their pleasure into pride: but there’s no denying that in general joy arises from a more inconsiderable relation than vanity [Hume’s word], and that many things that are not related to us closely enough to produce pride can still give us pleasure. . . .

So my general thesis that everything that is related to us and produces pleasure or unpleasure also produces pride or humility has to be qualified: for pride or humility to occur, the relation has to be a close one, closer than is required for joy.

(2) The second qualification says that for an item to make a person proud or humble it must be •closely related to that person and •not closely related to many other people. It’s a quality observable in human nature that anything that comes before us often, so that we get used to it, loses its value in our eyes and before long is treated as negligible. Also, we judge things more by comparison than by their real intrinsic merit; and we’re apt to overlook what is essentially good in a thing if we can’t use some contrast to enhance its value. These •qualities of the mind—which I’ll try to explain later—have an effect on joy as well as pride. It is noteworthy that goods that are common to all mankind, and have become familiar to us by custom, give us little satisfaction— sometimes much less than we get from inferior things that we value highly because they are rare and unusual. But •the qualities in question have a greater effect on vanity than on joy. We rejoice in many goods that don’t give us pride because they are so widespread. When health returns after a long illness, we are very conscious of our •satisfaction, but we don’t regard our health as a subject of •vanity because it is shared with so many others.

Why is pride is in this way so much harder to trigger than joy? I think it’s for the following reason. For me to be proud, my mind has to fix on two items,

(i) the cause, i.e. the item that produces pleasure; and

(ii) myself, the real object of the passion.

But for me to have joy ·or pleasure·, all my mind needs to take in is (i). Admittedly, this cause of my joy must have some relation to myself, but that’s needed only to make it agreeable to me; it doesn’t make myself the object of this joy. So pride involves focussing on two items, and if neither of them is sufficiently special this must weaken pride more than joy is weakened by the insufficiency of the one item that it involves. ·He was proud of his house’s wonderful copper roof; then he learned that (i) it wasn’t copper but treated zinc, and that in any case (ii) all the neighbouring houses also had such roofs. This was a fatal double blow to his pride·.

(3) The third qualification is this: the pleasant or unpleasant item will cause pride or humility only if it is very noticeable and obvious, not only to ourselves but also to others. This detail, like those in (1) and (2), has an effect on joy as well as on pride: our ·joyful· sense of our own happiness is intensified when we appear to others to be happy. The same thing applies even more strongly to our ·proud· sense of being virtuous or beautiful. I’ll try to explain later why this is so.

(4) [The fourth qualification has to do with short-lived potential causes of pride. Something x that crops up in my life in a ‘casual and inconstant’ manner won’t give me much joy, and will give me even less pride. Why less? Because in pride I’m thinking well of myself because of my relation to x; and if x is enormously less durable than I am, this seems ridiculous. With joy the situation is different, because in joy the whole focus is on x and not on myself.]

(5) The fifth point, which is really an enlargement of my account rather than a limiting qualification of it, is this: General rules have a great influence on pride and humility, as well as on all the other passions. For example, our notion of a certain social rank is made to fit the power or riches that go with it, and we don’t change this notion because of any peculiarities of health or temperament that may deprive someone in that rank of any enjoyment of his possessions.

[Hume uses the word ‘notion’ twice in that sentence, but his real topic is the emotions or passions that go with the notion; the next two sentences make that clear.]

This can be explained in the same way as the influence of general rules on the understanding. Custom easily leads us to go too far in our passions as well as in our reasonings.

I might as well point out here that all the mechanisms that I’ll be explaining in the course of this Treatise are greatly aided by the influence of general rules and maxims on the passions. Suppose that a full-grown person with a nature the same as yours were suddenly launched into our world: isn’t it obvious that he would be at a loss over everything, and would have to work at learning what degree of love or hatred, pride or humility, or any other passion he ought to attribute to different things? The passions are often varied by very minor mechanisms that aren’t always perfectly regular in their operation; but when custom and practice have •brought all these mechanisms to light and •settled the correct value of everything, this is bound to contribute to the easy production of the passions, and to guide us—through general established maxims—regarding how strongly we ought to prefer one object to another. . . .

A final thought relating to these five qualifications: The people who are proudest and are generally regarded as having most reason for their pride aren’t always the happiest . . . . though my account might lead you to think otherwise. An evil may be real although (1) its cause has no relation to me; it may be real without (2) being special to me; it may be real without (3) showing itself to others; it may be real without (4) being constant; and it may be real without (5) falling under general rules. Such evils as these won’t fail to make us miserable, but they have little tendency to diminish pride. The most real and solid evils in life may all be found to be of this nature.

7: Vice and virtue

Taking these qualifications along with us, let us examine the causes of pride and humility to see whether in every case we can discover the double relations by which they operate on the passions. If we find that

every cause of pride or humility in a given person (1) is related to that person and (2) produces pleasure or uneasiness independently of the pride or humility,

there’ll be no room left for doubt about the present system [= ‘the account I have given of the causes of pride and humility’]. I shall mainly work at proving (2), because (1) is in a way self-evident.

I’ll begin with vice and virtue, which are the most obvious causes of pride and humility. In recent years there has been a great deal of interest in whether our notions of vice and virtue are •based on natural and basic mechanisms ·of the mind· or •arise from self-interest and upbringing; but this issue is irrelevant to my present topic. I’ll deal with it in Book III of this Treatise. In the meantime I’ll try to show that my system holds good on either of these hypotheses—which will be a strong proof of its solidity!

Suppose that morality has no foundation in nature, and that ·our judgments about· vice and virtue are based on our own self-interest or are products of indoctrination in our youth; it’s still beyond question that vice and virtue produce in us a real unpleasure and pleasure; and we see this being strenuously asserted by those who defend that hypothesis about the basis of morality. They say this:

Every passion, habit, or turn of character that tends to work for our advantage or against it gives us delight or uneasiness; and that is where approval and disapproval come from. We easily profit from the generosity of others, but always risk losing because of their avarice; courage defends us, but cowardice leaves us open to every attack; justice is the support of society, but unchecked injustice would quickly lead to its ruin; humility exalts us, but pride mortifies us. For these reasons the former qualities are regarded as virtues, and the latter regarded as vices.

This line of thought takes it for granted that delight or uneasiness—·pleasure or unpleasure·—accompanies every kind of merit or demerit; and that is all I need for my purposes.

But I go further, and remark that (1) this moral hypothesis and (2) my present system are not merely compatible but one implies the other—if (1) is true, that provides an absolute and undefeatable proof of (2). ·It goes as follows·. If all morality is based on the unpleasure or pleasure arising from the prospect of any loss or gain that may result from the characters of those whose moral status is in question, all the effects of morality must come from that same unpleasure or pleasure—including among those effects the passions of pride and humility. The very essence of virtue, according to this hypothesis, is to produce pleasure, and that of vice to give unpleasure. For virtue or vice to make someone proud or humble it must be part of that person’s character, i.e. must be virtue or vice that he has. What further proof can we want for the double relation of impressions and ideas?

[Slowing that down a bit: When I am proud of my own virtue, I move from •the impression that is the pleasure associated with virtue to •the impression that is the agreeable feeling of pride; and from the idea of the virtue as mine to the idea of me. So: a double relation.]

An equally conclusive argument for my account of pride and humility can be derived from the thesis that morality is something real, essential, and grounded in nature,·i.e. the opposite of the thesis I have just been exploring. The most probable theory anyone has offered to explain how vice differs from virtue, and what the origin is of moral rights and obligations, is this:

Some characters and passions produce unpleasure in us just from our observing or thinking about them; others produce pleasure in the same way; and all this happens because of a basic fact about how we are naturally constructed. The uneasiness and pleasure are not only inseparable from vice and virtue but constitute their very nature and essence. To approve of a character is to feel a basic pleasure when it appears. To disapprove of it is to be aware of an uneasiness.

·According to this view·, unpleasure and pleasure are the primary causes of vice and virtue, which implies that they must also be the causes of all the effects of vice and virtue, including the pride and humility that inevitably accompany vice and virtue.

Even if that hypothesis in moral philosophy is false, it’s still obvious that unpleasure and pleasure are •inseparable from vice and virtue even they aren’t •causes of them. Just seeing a generous and noble character gives us satisfaction; such a character never fails to charm and delight us when we encounter it, even if it’s only in a poem or fable. And on the other side, cruelty and treachery displease us by their very nature; and we can’t ever be reconciled to these qualities, either in ourselves or others. Thus one theory of morality is an undeniable proof of my system, and the other is at least compatible with it.

But the qualities of the mind that are commonly taken to be parts of moral duty aren’t the only causes of pride and humility, which also arise from any other quality that has a connection with pleasure and uneasiness. Nothing flatters our vanity more than a talent for pleasing others by our wit, good-humour, or any other accomplishment; and nothing gives us a more painful sense of humiliation than a failure of any attempt to please in such a way. No-one has ever been able to tell what wit is, i.e. to show what is going on when we affirm ‘It shows wit’ of one system of thought and deny it of another. Our only basis for making this distinction is our taste—there’s no other standard for us to go by. Well, then, what is this ‘taste’, which in a way brings true wit and false wit into existence, and without which no thought can be entitled to either label? It’s clearly nothing but a sensation of pleasure from true wit, and of uneasiness ·or unpleasure· from false wit, without our being able to tell the reasons for that pleasure or uneasiness. So the very essence of true and false wit is the power to give •these opposite sensations, and that’s why it is that true and false wit are causes of the pride or humility that arises from •them.

[In the next sentence, and a few other places, ‘schools’ are university philosophy departments that are heavily influenced by Roman Catholicism and the philosophy of Aristotle.]

If you have been accustomed to the style of the schools and the pulpit, and have never considered human nature in any light except the one that they shine on it, you may be surprised to hear me talk of virtue as arousing pride, which they look on as a vice; and of vice as producing humility, which they have been taught to consider as a virtue. I don’t want to argue with them about words, so I’ll just say this: by ‘pride’ I mean the agreeable impression that arises in someone’s mind when the view of his virtue, beauty, riches, or power makes him satisfied with himself, and that by ‘humility’ I mean the opposite impression. In these senses of the terms, it’s obvious that pride isn’t always morally wrong and humility isn’t always virtuous. The most rigid morality allows us to get pleasure from reflecting on a generous action that we have performed; and no morality judges it to be a virtue to feel any useless remorse when we think about our past villainy and baseness. So let us examine these impressions considered in themselves, investigating their mental and physical causes, without troubling ourselves just now about any merit or blame that may come with them.

8: Beauty and ugliness

Whether we regard the body as a part of ourselves, or agree with the philosophers who regard it as something external ·to us·, there’s no denying that it is connected with us closely enough to form one of the double relations that I have said are necessary to the causes of pride and humility.

[My pride in my own virtue involves a relation between the idea of mine and the idea of me. My pride in my own beauty—really my body’s beauty—involves a relation between the idea of my body’s and the idea of me. Hume is saying that that’s a close enough relation to satisfy the demands of his theory of pride.]

To complete the application of my theory to pride in one’s own beauty, all we need now is to find a suitable relation of impressions to go with that relation of ideas. Well, beauty gives us a special delight and satisfaction—and ugliness a special unpleasure—no matter what kind of beauty or ugliness it is, and no matter what kind of thing it is that has it, e.g. whether the thing is animate or inanimate. So that completes my theory’s account of pride (humility) about one’s own beauty (ugliness). We have an appropriate relation between two ideas (my body’s, me) and an appropriate relation between two impressions (pleasure, pride; or unpleasure, humility).

This effect of personal and bodily qualities supports my account of pride and humility not only •by showing that the account fits what happens when someone is made proud or humble by his own beauty or ugliness, but also •in a stronger and even more convincing way. Think about all the hypotheses that philosophers and ordinary folk have come up with to explain the difference between beauty and ugliness: they all come down to the thesis that

for something to be beautiful is for it to be put together in such a way as to give pleasure and satisfaction to the soul, whether by the basic constitution of our nature or by custom or by caprice.

That’s the distinguishing character of beauty, and constitutes the whole difference between it and ugliness, whose natural tendency is to produce uneasiness. Thus, pleasure and unpleasure don’t just come with beauty and ugliness—they constitute their very essence. You’ll have no doubt about this if you give thought to the fact that much of the beauty that we admire in animals and in other objects comes from the idea of convenience and utility. The shape that produces strength is beautiful in one animal, and the shape that is a sign of agility is beautiful in another. For a palace to be beautiful it has to be not merely •shaped and coloured in certain ways but also •planned so as to be convenient to live in. Similarly, the rules of architecture require that a pillar be narrower at the top than at the base, because that shape gives us the idea of security, which is pleasant; whereas the contrary form—·narrower at the base than at the top·—gives us a sense of danger, which is uneasy. From countless instances of this kind we can conclude that beauty is just a form that produces pleasure, as ugliness is a structure of parts that conveys unpleasure; and we get further confirmation of this from the fact that beauty, like wit, can’t be defined, but is discerned only by a taste or sensation. (·That is, we can’t define ‘beautiful’ by listing the intrinsic qualities that are necessary and sufficient for a thing to be beautiful. The question ‘Is x beautiful?’ doesn’t inquire into x’s •intrinsic qualities; all it asks is whether x has a certain •relational property, namely making us feel a certain way·.) And since the power of producing pleasure and unpleasure constitute the essence of beauty and ugliness, the only effects there can be of beauty and ugliness must be effects of this pleasure and unpleasure; and of all their effects the most common and remarkable are pride and humility.

This argument is conclusive, I think; but let’s suppose that its conclusion is false, and see where that leads us. We’re supposing now that the power to produce pleasure and unpleasure is not the essence of beauty and ugliness; but we can’t avoid the fact that pleasure and unpleasure always accompany beauty and ugliness. Now, ·here are arguments for two conclusions that add up to my account of pride and humility·. (1) Think about •natural beauty and •moral beauty: each is a source of pride, but all they have in common is their power to produce pleasure. Now, a common effect always points to a common cause; so the real and influencing cause of the pride that comes from both kinds of beauty must be the pleasure that each gives. (2) Think about •the beauty of your body and •the beauty of other objects that aren’t related to you in any special way. One gives you pride while the others don’t—you haven’t, for example, the slightest tinge of pride in the beauty of the Parthenon. The only way in which your body differs from all those other items is that it is closely related to you and they aren’t. So this difference in relation-to-you must be the cause of all their other differences, including the fact that one arouses pride while the others don’t. Put these two conclusions together and they amount to my account of pride and humility: pride (1) comes from pleasure that is (2) given by something that is related to oneself; and the same account, except for switching from ‘pleasure’ to ‘unpleasure’, holds for humility. . . . This is good confirmation of my account, though I’m not yet at the end of my arguments for it.

[Hume now has two short paragraphs about one’s pride in other ‘bodily accomplishments’, such as strength and agility. This whole range of facts, he rightly says, fit his account.]

[In this next paragraph as originally written, Hume talked about surprise—a quality of the surprised person, not of the surprising object. To make the paragraph fit better with his general line of thought, this version talks instead about surprisingness—a relational property of the surprising object, not an intrinsic property of it.]

You may think or suspect that beauty is something real, ·an intrinsic quality of the beautiful thing· and not a mere power to produce pleasure; but you have to allow that surprisingness is relational—a thing’s being surprising isn’t an intrinsic quality of it, but merely its power to create a pleasure arising from novelty. Pride comes into the picture through a natural transition from that pleasure; and it arises so naturally that we feel pride in everything in us or belonging to us that produces surprise. We are proud of the surprising adventures we have had, the escapes we have made, and dangers we have been exposed to. That’s the source of the commonplace kind of lying in which someone, without being prodded by self-interest and purely out of vanity, heaps up a number of extraordinary events that are either fictions of his brain or true stories about someone else. . . .

This phenomenon involves two empirical findings [‘experiments’] that we should look at in the light of the known rules by which we judge cause and effect in anatomy, physics, and other sciences. When we do, we’ll find that we have here an undeniable argument for ·my thesis about· the influence of the double relations that I have been discussing. (1) We find that an object produces pride merely through the interposition of pleasure, because the quality by which it produces pride is actually just the power of producing pleasure. (2) We find that the pleasure causes the pride by a transition along related ideas; because when we cut off that relation the pride is immediately destroyed. We are proud of any surprising adventures in which we have been engaged; other people’s adventures may give us pleasure, but they won’t make us proud because they aren’t related in the right way to ourselves. What further proof of my theory could you want?

Possible objection: ‘Though nothing is more agreeable than health, and nothing more unpleasant than sickness, people are not usually proud of their health or humiliated by their illness.’ It’s not hard to account for this ·consistently with my system·, if we bear in mind the second and fourth qualifications that I made to the system. I noted that (2) no item ever produces pride or humility in someone unless something about it is special to that person; and (4) that for something to cause pride or humility in a person x it must be fairly constant and must last for a length of time that holds some proportion to [Hume’s phrase] the duration of x who is its object. Well, (4) health and sickness come and go (2) with all men, and neither is in any way the special property of one individual . . . . When an illness of any kind is so rooted in someone’s constitution that he is beyond hoping for recovery, from that moment the illness does become a cause of humility. [Hume writes ‘an object of humility’, but this must have been a slip; look back here for his distinction between ‘cause’ and ‘object’ where pride and humility are concerned.] This is evident in old men, who are disgusted by the thought of their age and infirmities. They try for as long as they can to conceal their blindness and deafness, their rheums and gouts, and admitting that they have such infirmities is something they do reluctantly and unhappily. Young men aren’t ashamed of every headache or cold they fall into, but the general thought that we are at every moment of our lives vulnerable to such infirmities is more apt than anything else to make us take a low view of our nature. This shows well enough that bodily pain and sickness are in themselves proper causes of humility, though we tend to filter them out from our thoughts about our merit and character because of our practice of estimating things in comparative terms rather than in terms of their intrinsic worth and value. . . .

9: External advantages and disadvantages

Although a person’s pride and humility have his own qualities—the qualities of his mind and body—as their natural and more immediate causes, we find by experience that these passions can also have many other causes, and that the primary cause is somewhat obscured and lost among all the other causes that lie outside the person himself. We base our vanity on •houses, gardens, furniture, as well as on personal merit and accomplishments; and •these external advantages, distant though they are from the person himself, considerably influence his pride of which the ultimate object is himself. This happens when external things come to have some special relation to him, and are associated or connected with him. A beautiful fish in the ocean, an animal in a desert, and indeed anything that he doesn’t own and isn’t in any other way related to, hasn’t the slightest influence on his vanity—however extraordinary and wonderful it may be. To touch his pride it must be somehow associated with him. His •idea of it must in some way hang on his •idea of himself, and the transition from •one idea to •the other must be easy and natural.

But here’s a remarkable fact: although the relation of •resemblance conveys the mind from one idea to another in the same way that •contiguity and •causation do, it is seldom a basis for either pride or humility. [The gist of the rest of the paragraph is this: Sometimes resemblance may seem to enter into the causing of pride, but really it doesn’t. I resemble you in respect of some of the fine parts of your character, and my pride may rest on this fact; but it’s basically a fact about •my character, not about •how I resemble you.]

Sometimes a man x will be vain about resembling a great man y in facial features or other tiny details that don’t contribute in the least to his reputation; but this isn’t a widespread phenomenon, and it’s not an important part of the story of pride. Here is my explanation of why it isn’t. x wouldn’t be vain about a trivial resemblance to y unless he admired him for some very shining qualities; and these qualities are the real causes of x’s vanity—causing it by their relation to him. Well then, how are they related to him?

(1) the admired person y’s good qualities

are parts of him, and this connects them with

(2) y’s trivial qualities,

which are also supposed to be parts of him.

(3) x’s trivial qualities,

which are connected with the

(4) the person x as a whole.

This creates a chain of several links between x and the shining qualities of the person y whom he resembles. But the chain doesn’t convey much force, for two reasons: •there are so many links in it; and •when x’s mind passes from (1) to (2) the contrast between them will make him aware of how trivial (2) are, which may even make him a little ashamed of the comparison and resemblance.

Thus, •contiguity and •causation are the only two relations that are needed for the causation of pride and humility—relations, that is, between the cause of the passion and its object, namely the person whose pride or humility it is. And what these relations are—·so far as our present topic is concerned·—is nothing but qualities by which the imagination is carried from one idea to another. In the light of that, let us consider what effect these relations can possibly have on the mind, and how they become so essential for the production of the passions. The general association-of- ideas mechanism can’t be the whole story, because:

It is obvious that •the association of ideas operates so quietly and imperceptibly that we are hardly aware of it, and know about it more from its effects than from any immediate feeling or perception. •It produces no emotion, gives rise to no new impression of any kind, but only modifies ideas that the mind used to have and could recall when there was a need for them.

So it’s obvious that when the mind feels either pride or humility when it thinks about some related item, there is, along with the thoughts that can be explained in terms of the association of ideas, an emotion or original impression [Hume’s phrase] that is produced by some other mechanism. The question then arises:

Are we dealing here with just the passion of pride itself, or is there an involvement of some other impression that is related to pride?

It won’t take us long to answer this ·in favour of the second alternative·. There are many reasons for this, but I’ll focus on just one. [The next part of this paragraph is dense and difficult. Here is the gist of it, not in Hume’s words: We must consider two possible mechanisms for producing pride:

(1) The cause of pride or humility produces that passion immediately, without causing any other emotion along the way.

(2) The cause of pride or humility produces that passion indirectly, by causing some other emotion E that in its turn causes the pride or humility.

If (1) were right, there would be no work to be done by the relation of ideas. But our experience shows us that the relation of ideas does figure in the causation of pride and humility; so of the two possible mechanisms (2) must be the actual one. Hume continues:] It’s easy to see how the relation of ideas could play a part in this: it could facilitate the transition from E to pride. . . . I go further: I say that this is the only conceivable way for the relation of ideas to help in the production of pride or humility. An easy transition of ideas can’t in itself cause any emotion; the only way it can have any role in the production of any passion is by helping the transition from one impression (E) to a related impression (pride or humility). And this is confirmed by another point: How much pride a given item x causes in a person y depends not only on •how glowing x’s pride- making qualities are but also on •how closely x is related to y. That is a clear argument for the transition of affections along the relation of ideas, because every change in the relation produces a corresponding change in the passion. [The italicised phrase is verbatim from Hume.]. . . .

You’ll see this even better if you look at some examples. Men are vain of the beauty of their country, of their county, of their parish. Here the idea of beauty plainly produces a pleasure, which is related to pride—·this being a similarity between two impressions·. The object or cause of this pleasure is related to self, i.e. to the object of pride—this being a relation between two ideas. It’s this double relation of impressions and ideas that enables a transition to be made from the one impression to the other, ·from pleasure to pride·.

Men are also vain about temperateness of the climate in which they were born; the fertility of their native soil, and the goodness of the wines, fruits, and other foods produced by it; the softness or the force of their language; . . . and so on. These items plainly involve the pleasures of the senses, and are basically considered as agreeable to touch, taste or hear. How could they possibly become objects of pride except through the relation-of-ideas transition that I have been discussing? . . . .

Since we can be vain about a country, a climate, or any inanimate item that has some relation to us, it’s no wonder that we are vain about the qualities of people who are our relatives or friends. If a quality is one that I would be proud of if I had it, then I shall be proud—though less so—if (say) my brother turns out to have it. Proud people take care to display the beauty, skill, merit, trustworthiness, and honours of their relatives, these being some of the most considerable sources of their own vanity.

Just as we are proud of riches in ourselves, so—to satisfy our vanity—we want everyone connected with us to be rich also, and are ashamed of any of our friends and relations who are poor. So we get the poor as far from us as possible ·on the family tree·, and . . . . claim to be of a good family, and to be descended from a long succession of rich and honourable ancestors.

I have often noticed that (1) people who boast about how old their families are are glad when they can add to this that their ancestors for many generations have continuously owned the same portion of land, and that their family has never changed its possessions or moved into any other county or province. I have also noticed that (2) they are even more vain when they can boast that these possessions have been passed down the male line, with none of the honours and fortune going through any female. I’ll try to explain these facts through my account of pride.

Obviously, when someone boasts of the antiquity of his family he isn’t boasting merely about how many ancestors he has and how far back they go; his vanity rests on their riches and good name, which are supposed to reflect some glory onto him because of his relation to them. He first considers these items, gets an agreeable feeling from them, and then—returning to himself through the relation of parent and child—is filled with pride through the double relation of impressions and ideas. Because the passion thus depends on these relations, whatever strengthens (weakens) any of them must also increase (diminish) the passion. Now, (1) the relation of ideas arising from kinship is certainly strengthened if it is accompanied by the identity of the family’s possessions down through the years; if they have through all that time owned the very same estate, that makes it even easier for today’s heirs and descendants to make mental connections between themselves and their ancestors; and this increases their pride and vanity.

Similarly with the transmission of the honours and fortune through a succession of males without their passing through any female. It is a quality of human nature (I’ll discuss it in ii.2) that the imagination naturally turns to whatever is important and considerable, at the expense of attention to lesser things that are also available to be thought about. Now, in the society of marriage the male sex has the advantage above the female [those are Hume’s exact words], which is why the husband first engages our attention; and whether we’re thinking about him directly or only through his relation with other items that we’re thinking about, it is easier for our thought to reach him than to reach his wife, and there’s more satisfaction in thinking about him than in thinking about her. It’s easy to see that this must strengthen a child’s relation to its father and weaken its relation to its mother. Why? Because:

A relation between x and y is nothing but a propensity to pass from the idea of x to the idea of y, and whatever strengthens the propensity strengthens the relation. From the idea of the children we are more prone to pass to the idea of the father than to the idea of the mother; so we should regard their relation to their father as closer and more considerable than their relation to their mother.

That’s why children usually have their father’s name, and are rated as high-born or low-born on the basis of his family. . . .

10: Property and riches

But the relation that is rated as the closest—the one that does more than any other to make people proud—is ownership. I can’t fully explain this relation until I come to discuss justice and the other moral virtues ·in Book III·. For present purposes it will suffice to define

•person x owns object y—or y is a property of x

as meaning

•x is related to y in such a way that the laws of justice and moral equity allow x the free use and possession of y, and don’t allow this to anyone else.

So if justice is a virtue that has a natural and basic influence on the human mind, ownership can be regarded as a particular sort of causation, the effect being (1) the owner’s liberty to do as he likes with y, or (2) the advantages he gets from y. [Put a little differently: If x owns y according to Hume’s definition of what this means, then by the laws of justice x is free to do as he likes with y, and no-one else is; so if the laws of justice are a kind of causal law governing the basic operations of the human mind, then x’s ownership of y (1) causes] a state of affairs in which no-one interferes with x’s use of y, and (2) causes all the benefits x gets from using y. And the same holds if justice is, as some philosophers think, an artificial and not a natural virtue. For in that case honour and custom and civil laws take the place of natural conscience, and produce some of the same effects. Anyway, this much is certain: the mention of the •property naturally carries our thought to the •owner, and vice versa; this shows a perfect relatedness of those two ideas, and that’s all I need for my present purpose. [Hume proceeds to argue like this: given that any idea of something I own is related to my idea of myself, and that the pleasure I take in any of my nice possessions is related to the pleasure involved in being proud of something, it follows by Hume’s account of pride that any person will be proud of any good possessions that he has. Whether this consequence is true, Hume says,] we may soon satisfy ourselves by the most cursory view of human life.

Everything a vain man owns is the best to be found anywhere! His houses, coaches, furniture, clothes, horses, hounds, excel all others—he thinks. And it’s easy to see that the slightest advantage in any of these gives him a new subject of pride and vanity. His wine, if you’ll believe him, has a finer flavor than any other; his cookery is more exquisite; his table more orderly; his servants more expert; the air in which he lives more healthful; the soil he cultivates more fertile; his fruits ripen earlier, and to greater perfection; this object is remarkable for its novelty; this other for its antiquity; here’s one that is the workmanship of a famous artist; there’s another that used to belong to such-and-such a prince or great man. In short, any object that is—or is related to something that is—useful, beautiful, or surprising gives rise to the passion of pride through being owned. The only thing these objects have in common is that they give pleasure. That’s their only common quality, so it must be what produces the passion that is their common effect. Every new example ·of this phenomenon· is further confirmation ·of my system·, and countless instances are available; so I venture to assert that there has hardly ever been a system so fully proved by experience as the one I have put forward here.

Given that, ·as my system asserts·,

owning something that gives pleasure either by its utility, its beauty, or its novelty produces ·not only pleasure but· also pride, through a double relation of impressions and ideas,

it’s not surprising that the power of coming to own the thing should have the same effect. That’s the right way to look at riches—they are the power to come to own things that please, which is the only reason they have any influence on the passions. In many contexts paper will be considered as riches, because it can confer the power of acquiring money; and what makes money count as riches is not its qualities of solidity, weight, and fusibility, but only its relation to the pleasures and conveniences of life. This is obvious, and we can take it for granted; and then from it we can get one of my strongest arguments to prove the influence of the •double relations on pride and humility.

I have remarked that the distinction we sometimes make between •a power and •the exercise of it is entirely frivolous, and that no-one and nothing should be credited with •having an ability unless he or it •puts the ability into action [I.iii.14, here]. This is indeed strictly true as a matter of sound scientific thinking, but it certainly isn’t true of how our passions work, because many things work on them through the idea and supposition of •power, independently of •its actual exercise. We are pleased when we acquire an ability to procure pleasure, and are unpleased when someone else acquires a power of giving unpleasure. Experience shows that this is the case; but understanding why it’s the case is another matter, and I now embark on that explanation.

According to the scholastic doctrine of free will, a person who doesn’t do x because he has strong motives for not doing it may nevertheless have the power to do x, this being an aspect of his free will. That could lead people to distinguish power from its exercise; but in fact it has very little to do with that distinction as made by ordinary folk, whose everyday ways of thinking are not much influenced by this scholastic doctrine. According to common notions, a man who wants to do x and is blocked from doing it by very considerable motives going the other way doesn’t have the power to do x. (1) When I see my enemy pass me in the streets with a sword by his side, while I am unarmed, I don’t think I have fallen into his power, because I know that his fear of the law is as strong a restraint as any iron one, and that I’m as safe as if he were chained or imprisoned. But (2) when someone gets an authority over me that he can exercise as he pleases, with no external obstacle and no fear of punishment for anything he does to me, then I attribute a full power to him, and consider myself as his subject or underling.

According to the system presented in Book I, the only known difference between these two cases is this:

In (1) we conclude, from past experience that the person never will perform the action in question, whereas in (2) he possibly or probably [Hume’s phrase] will perform it.

Because the will of man is often fluctuating and inconstant (nothing more so!), we can’t be absolutely sure about someone’s future actions, ·in the manner of (1)·, unless he has strong motives. When we see someone who is free from strong motives, we take it be possible that he’ll do x and possible that he won’t; we may hold that motives and causes will settle how he acts, but that ·conviction· doesn’t remove •the uncertainty of our judgment concerning these causes, or •the influence of that uncertainty on the passions. ·So we do after all have a connection between power and the exercise of it·. We ascribe a power of doing x to anyone who has no very powerful motive to refrain from x, and we deny that the power is possessed by anyone who does have such a motive; from which we can infer that power is always related to its actual or probable exercise; we regard a person as having an ability ·or power· when we find from past experience that he probably will—or at least possibly may—exercise it. Add to this •the fact that our passions always look to the real existence of objects, and •the fact that our beliefs about what is ·or will be· real always come from past instances, and out comes •the conclusion that the power to do x consists in the possibility or probability of doing x, as discovered by experience of how the world goes.

If some other person and I are inter-related in such a way that he has no very powerful motive to deter him from harming me, so that it’s uncertain whether he will harm me or not, I am bound to be uneasy in this situation and can’t consider the possibility or probability of that harm without feeling a concern. The passions are affected not only by •certainty about what is going to happen but also—though not so strongly—by •the ·thought of the· possibility that something is going to happen. Even if the harm never comes, and I eventually learn that strictly speaking the person didn’t have the power to harm me because he didn’t harm me, my earlier uneasiness about this is real. And all this applies equally to agreeable passions in relation to the belief that someone can or probably will bring me some benefit.

Another point: My satisfaction at the thought of a possibly coming good is greater when it’s in my own power to take the good or leave it, with no hindrance from any external obstacle and no very strong motive ·going the other way. It’s easy to see why·. All men want pleasure, and by far their best chance of getting it comes when there’s no external obstacle to its being produced and no perceived danger in going after it. In such a case, a man’s imagination easily anticipates the satisfaction, giving him the same joy as if he were convinced that it actually exists right now.

But this doesn’t fully explain the satisfaction that comes with riches. A miser gets delight from his money—i.e. from the power it gives him of getting all the pleasures and conveniences of life—though he knows he has possessed his wealth for forty years without ever using it, so that he has no reason to think that the real existence of these pleasures is any closer than it would be if he suddenly lost everything. But though he can’t (1) rationally infer that he is near to getting pleasure from the use of his riches, he certainly (2) imagines it to come closer when all external obstacles are removed and he isn’t deterred from taking it by any motive of self-interest or fear. For a fuller treatment of this matter, see my account of the will in iii.2, where I shall explain the false sensation of liberty that makes us imagine that we can do anything that isn’t very dangerous or destructive. Whenever •someone else has no strong reason of self-interest to forgo a certain pleasure, we judge from experience that the pleasure will exist and that he will probably obtain it. But when •we ourselves are in that situation, our imagination creates an illusion that the pleasure is even closer and more immediate. The will seems to move easily in every direction, and throws a shadow or image of itself even on the side where it doesn’t actually settle; and this image makes the enjoyment seem to come closer, giving us the same lively satisfaction that we would have if it were perfectly certain and unavoidable.

It will be easy now to pull all this together into a proof that when riches make their owner proud or vain (as they always do!), this comes about through a double relation of impressions and ideas. ·It goes like this·:

•The very essence of riches consists in the power of getting the pleasures and conveniences of life.

•The very essence of this power consists in the probability of its being exercised and in its causing us to anticipate—by true or false reasoning—the real existence of the pleasure.

•This anticipation of pleasure by a person x is in itself a very considerable pleasure; and its cause—namely, x’s wealth—is related to x.

So there you have it: all the parts of my account of the cause of pride are laid before us exactly and clearly. ·The relation of ideas is the relation between x’s idea of •his ownership of the wealth in question and his idea of •himself. And the relation of impressions is the relation between •the pleasure of anticipating pleasure from spending the wealth and •the pleasure involved in pride·.

[The section ends with two paragraphs on slavery and related themes. One makes the point that •having power over others is a source of pride for the same reason that wealth is; and that •being enslaved is a source of humility for the same reason that poverty is. Then:] The vanity of power (and the shame of slavery) are greatly increased by facts about the persons over whom we exercise our authority (or who exercise it over us). Suppose statues could be constructed having such an admirable mechanism that they could move and act in obedience to our will; owning such a statue would obviously be a source of pleasure and pride; but not as much pleasure and pride as one gets from having that same authority over creatures that can think and feel. [Hume’s reason for this is obscure, but he says that it will recur when he discusses malice and envy. He doesn’t explain–or even describe—the effect that facts about a slave-owner have on the humiliation of his slaves. And when he does return to this topic [see here] he still writes obscurely.]

11: The love of fame

In addition to these basic causes of pride and humility there’s another cause which, though secondary, is just as powerful in its effect on the feelings. It is the opinions of others. Our reputation, our character, our name, are tremendously important to us; and the other causes of pride—virtue, beauty, and riches—have little influence when they aren’t backed up by the opinions and sentiments of others. To explain this phenomenon I’ll have to cast my net wider, and first explain the nature of sympathy.

[In Hume’s day ‘sympathy’ had a broad sense that comes from the Greek origin of the word, meaning ‘feeling with’: my ‘sympathy’ for you could consist in my sorrowing over your sorrow or rejoicing in your joy. In Hume’s hands, we’ll see in a moment, the word is even broader, covering not just fellow-feeling but also fellow-thinking.]

We are prone to sympathize with others, to have their inclinations and sentiments passed on to us, even if they are quite different from or even contrary to our own. This quality of human nature is notable both in itself and in its consequences. It is conspicuous not only in •children, who firmly accept every opinion proposed to them, but also in •men of great judgment and understanding, who find it hard to follow their own reason or inclination in opposition to that of their friends and daily companions. This mechanism is the source of the great uniformity we see in how the members of a single nation feel and think; this uniformity is much more likely to have arisen from sympathy than from any influence of the soil and the climate, which, though they are constant, couldn’t make the character of a nation constant over a century. A good-natured man immediately joins in the mood of those he is with, and even the proudest and most surly person will pick up something of the frame of mind of his countrymen and his acquaintances. Your cheerful face makes me feel serene and contented; your sad or angry face throws a sudden damp on me. Hatred, resentment, respect, love, courage, cheerfulness, and melancholy—all these passions are ones that I feel more through their being passed on ·from others· than from my own natural temperament and disposition. Such a remarkable phenomenon is worth studying; let us trace it back to its basic causes.

When a person x has a feeling that is passed on through sympathy to another person y, what y first knows about it are its effects, the external signs in x’s face and speech that convey to y an idea of the feeling. This idea is immediately turned into an impression, and becomes so forceful and lively that it becomes the very passion itself, producing in y as much emotion as do any of his feelings that start within himself. This switch from idea to impression, though it happens in an instant, is a product of certain opinions and thoughts that the philosopher should look into carefully, even if y himself isn’t aware of them.

It’s obvious that the idea (or rather impression) of a person is always intimately present to him, and that his consciousness gives him such a lively conception of himself that nothing could possibly be livelier. So anything that is related to him will be conceived by him in a similarly lively manner (according to my scheme of things); that relatedness, even if it’s not as strong as that of causation, must still have a considerable influence. Resemblance and contiguity [= ‘togetherness in space or in time’] are relations that we shouldn’t neglect, especially when we are informed of the real existence of an object that is resembling or contiguous. (·When the ‘object’ is someone else’s feeling, how are we informed of its existence·? By observing the external signs of it ·in his face, speech, and other behaviour·, and performing a cause-and-effect inference on those signs.)

It’s obvious that nature has made all human creatures very much alike: the parts of our bodies may differ in shape or size, but their structure and composition are in general the same. And what holds for our bodies is also true of the structure of our minds, which is why we never observe in other people any passion or drive that doesn’t have some kind of parallel in ourselves. Amidst all the variety of minds there’s a very remarkable resemblance that must greatly contribute to making us •enter into the sentiments of others and •easily and happily accept them. And so we find that where the general resemblance of our natures is accompanied by any special similarity in our manners, or character, or country, or language, it makes our sympathy for one another even easier. . . .

•Resemblance isn’t the only relation having this effect; it gets new force from other relations that may accompany it. The sentiments of others have more influence on us when the others are •nearby than when they are far away. •Blood-relationships, which are a species of causation, sometimes contribute to the same effect; so does •personal acquaintance, which operates in the same way as education and custom, as we’ll see more fully in ii.4. When all these relations are combined, they produce in our consciousness the strongest and liveliest conception of the sentiments or passions of others.

[Hume now reminds us of his thesis that the only systematic difference between ideas and impressions is the greater ‘force and vivacity’ of the latter, so that when an idea becomes lively enough it becomes an impression. He continues:] The lively idea of any object always approaches its impression, and we sometimes feel sickness and pain from the mere force of imagination, making an illness real by often thinking about it. This happens most notably with •opinions and feelings—it’s with •them that lively ideas are most often converted into impressions. Our feelings depend more on ourselves—on the internal operations of our minds—than any other impressions, which is why they arise more naturally from the imagination and from every lively idea we form of them. This is the nature and cause of sympathy; this is how we enter so deeply into the opinions and feelings of others . . . .

[In a long paragraph Hume now develops his view that the obvious and well- known facts of sympathy are good evidence both for his thesis about how ideas differ from impressions and for his theory of sympathy. Indeed, he says, the facts are so clear that there’s hardly any need for any explanatory theory.]

Now let us turn from •the general topic of sympathy to •the influence of sympathy on pride and humility when these passions arise from praise and blame, from reputation and infamy. No-one ever praises anyone for a quality that wouldn’t produce pride in anyone who possessed it. The songs of praise focus on his power, or riches, or family, or virtue—all of which are subjects of pride that I have already explained. According to my system, then, if the praised person saw himself in the same way that his admirer does he would first receive pleasure and then pride or self-satisfaction. Now, it is utterly natural that we should accept the opinions of others whom we admire, both (1) from sympathy, which makes all their sentiments intimately present to us, and (2) from reasoning, which makes us regard their judgment as evidence to support what they affirm. These two mechanisms— sympathy and authority—influence almost all our opinions, and are bound to have a special influence on our judgments of our own worth and character. Such judgments are always accompanied by passion (I.iii.10); and nothing is more apt to disturb our thinking and rush us into unreasonable opinions than their connection with passion, which spreads itself across the imagination and gives extra force to every related idea. . . .

All this seems very probable in theory; but to make this reasoning fully secure we should examine the facts concerning the passions, to see if they agree with it.

A fact that gives good support to my account is this: although fame in general is agreeable, we get much more satisfaction from the approval of people whom we admire and approve of than from the approval of those whom we hate and despise; and, similarly, we are mainly humiliated by the contempt of persons on whose judgment we set some value, and don’t care much about the opinions of the rest of mankind. If our mind had a basic instinct for wanting fame and wanting to avoid infamy, we would be equally influenced by fame and infamy no matter where they came from—the judgment of a fool is still the judgment of another person.

As well as valuing a wise man’s approval more than a fool’s, we get an extra satisfaction from the former when it is obtained after a long and intimate acquaintance. This is also accounted for by ·the role of contiguity in· my system.

The praises of others never give us much pleasure unless we agree with them, i.e. unless they praise us for qualities in which we do (·in our opinion·) chiefly excel. A recipient of praise won’t value it much if he is

a mere soldier being praised for eloquence,

a preacher praised for courage,

a bishop praised for humour,

a merchant praised for learning.

However much a man may admire a given quality, considered in itself, if he is aware that he doesn’t have it he won’t get pleasure from the whole world’s thinking that he does, because their praise won’t be able to draw his own opinion after them.

It often happens that a man of good family who is very poor leaves his friends and his country and tries to earn a humble living among strangers rather than among those who know about his birth and upbringing. ‘I shall be unknown’, he says, ‘in the place I am going to. Nobody will suspect what my family background is. I’ll be removed from all my friends and acquaintances, and that will make it easier for me to bear my poverty and low station in life.’ When I examine these sentiments I find that in four different ways they support the position that I am defending.

[Regarding the next bit and some other places in this work: •To ‘contemn’ someone is to have or show contempt for him—a useful verb. •In Hume’s day the noun ‘contempt’ had a broader meaning that it does today. For us, contempt for someone is an attitude of actively despising him; but for Hume it could be merely the attitude of regarding him as negligible, treating him as of no account; though here we’ll find him saying that contempt is a species of hatred.]

First, the sentiments in question show that we suffer most from the contempt of people who are both related to us by blood and live in our neighbourhood; from which we can infer that the unpleasantness of being contemned depends on sympathy, which depends on the relation of objects to ourselves. So we try to diminish this sympathy and uneasiness by getting away from those who are •blood-related to us and •contiguous to us, putting ourselves in a contiguity to strangers.

Secondly, there’s something to be learned here about how relations come into the forming of sympathy. After my shame over my poverty has led me to go to another country to live among strangers, I am still •blood-related to my kindred and •contiguity-related to my new neighbours; ·and both groups still despise my poverty·. But those •two relations don’t have much force to create sympathy—·i.e. to cause me to have towards myself the dismissive attitude that my distant kindred and my close neighbours have towards me·— because they aren’t united in the same persons. This shows that what are required for sympathy are not •relations period, but •relations that have influence in converting our ideas of the sentiments of others into the sentiments themselves.

Thirdly, we should think some more about this matter of sympathy’s being reduced by the separation of relations. Suppose I am (2) living in poverty among strangers, and consequently am treated with little respect; I prefer that to my situation (1) when I was every day exposed to the contempt of my relatives and neighbours. In (1) I felt a double contempt—from my relatives and from my neighbours—this double contempt being strengthened by the relations of •kindred and •contiguity. But in (2) the people to whom I am •kin are different from those I •live near to, these two inputs of contempt don’t coalesce, and that reduces their power to make me feel the contempt for myself that I know those two groups have. . . .

Fourthly, a person in (2) naturally conceals his birth from those among whom he lives, and is very unhappy if anyone suspects that he comes from a family that is much wealthier and socially more elevated than he is now. We always value things by comparison: an immense fortune for a private gentleman is beggary for a prince; a peasant would count himself fortunate if he had ‘wealth’ that a gentleman couldn’t scrape by on! If someone has been accustomed to a more splendid way of living, or thinks he is entitled to it by his birth and social rank, everything below that level strikes him as disagreeable and even shameful; and he tries very hard to conceal his claim to a better fortune. He knows that he has come down in the world; but his new neighbours know nothing of this, so that the odious comparison comes only from his own thoughts, and isn’t reinforced by a sympathy with others; and that must contribute very much to his ease and satisfaction.

Any objections to my thesis that the pleasure we get from praise arises from the passing on of sentiments will turn out—when properly understood—to confirm the thesis. ·Here are three of them·. •Popular fame may be agreeable even to a man who despises ordinary people; but that’s because the very number of them gives them additional weight and authority. •Plagiarists are delighted with praises that they know they don’t deserve; but this is building castles in the air, with the imagination entertaining itself with its own fictions and trying to make them firm and stable through a sympathy with the sentiments of others. •Proud men are very shocked by contempt though they don’t agree with it; but that’s because of the conflict between the passion that is natural to them and the one that comes to them from sympathy. . . .

12: The pride and humility of animals

[In this section Hume argues that the phenomena of pride and humility in non-human animals can be explained by his theory and not in any other way. Based as it is on such notions as that of the pride of peacocks and vanity of nightingales, the section has a certain charm but little serious intellectual interest.]

Part ii: Love and hatred

1: The objects and causes of love and hatred

It is quite impossible to define the passions of love and hatred, because each produces just one simple impression with no internal complexity, ·so that trying to define them would be like trying to define ‘red’ or ‘sweet’·. And it’s altogether unnecessary to give you markers that would help you to identify cases of love and hatred, because your own feeling and experience enable you to pick them out well enough. ·It would also be a clumsy procedure for me to offer such markers at this stage, because· they would have to involve the nature, origin, causes, and objects of love and hatred, and these are precisely what I am going to be discussing throughout Part ii. This is the line I took when I embarked on my discussion of pride and humility in 2i; and indeed pride/humility are so like love/hatred that my explanation of the latter has to start with an abbreviated account of my reasonings concerning the former.

Whereas the immediate object of pride and humility is ourself, the particular person whose thoughts, actions, and sensations we are intimately conscious of, the object of love and hatred is some other person, whose thoughts, actions, and sensations we are not conscious of. This is obvious enough from experience. Our love and hatred are always directed to some sentient being other than ourselves. We talk of ‘self-love’, but that’s not ‘love’ in the strict sense, and doesn’t produce a feeling that is in the least like the tender emotion that is aroused by a friend or mistress. Similarly with ‘self-hatred’: we may be disgusted by our own faults and follies, but it’s only from harm caused by others that we ever feel anger or hatred ·properly so-called·.

Although the object of love and hatred is always some other person, it’s clear that this •object is not strictly speaking the •cause of these passions. ·It can’t be, because·: Love and hatred are directly contrary in how they feel, yet have the same object as one another; so if that object were also their cause, it would produce these opposite passions in an equal degree—in which case they would cancel out and there would be no such thing as love or hatred. So they must have a cause that is different from the object.

[Don’t spend energy trying to see how this argument works, because it doesn’t. The analogous argument for pride/humility succeeds, with help from the premise

‘Pride and humility have the same object’—namely oneself.

But the present argument needs the premise

‘Love and hatred have the same object’—namely someone else,

which is obviously absurd. Hume, for all his brilliance, sometimes goes too fast.]

The causes of love and hatred turn out to be very various and not to have much in common. A person’s virtue, knowledge, wit, good sense, or good humour produce love and respect, and the opposite qualities produce hatred and contempt. Love can come from physical accomplishments such as beauty, strength, speed, nimbleness, and hatred from their contraries. And family, possessions, clothes, nation, and climate—any one of these can produce love and respect, or hatred and contempt, depending on what its qualities are.

These causes point us towards a new ·way of looking at the· distinction between •the causally operative quality and •the thing that has it. A prince who owns a stately palace commands the respect of the people on that account—why? Because •the palace is beautiful and because •he owns it. Remove either of these and you destroy the passion; which shows that the cause is a complex one.

Many of the points I have made regarding pride and humility are equally applicable to love and hatred; it would be tedious to follow them through in detail. All I need at this stage is the general remark that

•the object of love and hatred is obviously some thinking person, that •the sensation of love is always agreeable, and that •the sensation of hatred is always disagreeable.

We can also suppose, with some show of probability, that

•the cause of love or hatred is always related to a thinking being, and that •the cause of love produces pleasure and •the cause of hatred produces unpleasure

quite apart from its relation to a thinking being. ·For example, through being owned by the Prince the palace causes people to love him, but the palace—just in itself, whoever owns it—gives pleasure·.

The supposition that nothing can cause of love or hatred without being related to a person or thinking being is more than merely probable—it’s too obvious to be questioned. . . . A person looking out of a window sees me in the street, and beyond me a beautiful palace that has nothing to do with me; no-one will claim that this person will pay me the same respect as if I were owner of the palace.

[Hume goes on to say that it’s not so immediately obvious that love/hatred fit the pride/humility story about connections between impressions and ideas, and so on. But he will let himself off from going through all that, he says, because he is willing to defend on empirical grounds the general thesis (not that he puts it quite like this) that if you •take a complete true theory about pride and humility, and •in that story replace every occurrence of ‘oneself’ by an occurrence of ‘someone else’, the result will be a complete true theory about love and hatred. The defence of this starts now.]

Anyone who is satisfied with his own character or intellect or fortune will almost certainly want to show himself to the world, and to acquire the love and approval of mankind. Now, it’s obvious that the qualities and circumstances that cause pride or self-respect are just exactly the ones that cause vanity or the desire for reputation, and that we always put on display the features of ourselves that we are best satisfied with. Well, if the qualities of others that produce love and respect in us were not the very same qualities that produce pride in ourselves when we have them, this behaviour would be quite absurd; no-one in that case could expect other people’s sentiments about him to correspond with his own. It’s true that few people can create exact theories about the passions, or reflect on their general nature and resemblances; but we don’t need that kind of philosophical progress to move through this territory without making many mistakes. We get enough guidance from common experience, and from a kind of presentation [Hume’s word] that tells us, on the basis of what we feel immediately in ourselves, what will operate on others. Therefore: since the same qualities that produce pride or humility also cause love or hatred, all my arguments to show that •the causes of pride and humility arouse pleasure or unpleasure independently of the passion will hold just as clearly for •the causes of love and hatred.

2: Experiments to confirm this system

Anyone who weighs these arguments will confidently accept the conclusion I draw from them regarding the transition along related impressions and ideas, especially given what an easy and natural mechanism this is. Still, in order to place this system beyond doubt—both its love/hatred part and its pride/humility part—I shall present some new experiments on all these passions, and will also recall a few of the points I have formerly touched on. ·The ‘experiments’ are mostly thought-experiments·.

As a framework for these experiments, let’s suppose that I am in the company of a person for whom I have had no sentiments either of friendship or enmity. This presents me with the natural and ultimate object of all these four passions—myself as the proper object of pride or humility, the other person as the proper object of love or hatred.

Now look carefully at the nature of these passions and how they relate to each other. It’s evident that we have here four ·possible· emotions, related to one another in ways that can be represented by a square. [He has in mind a square like this:

In this the horizontal lines represent ‘identity of object’ and the verticals represent sameness in respect of pleasant/unpleasant. Hume’s summing up of this could (though he doesn’t put it this way) be represented by another square in which each corner represents, regarding the passion in question, •how it feels and •to whom it is directed:

Hume continues:] I say then that for anything to produce any of these ·four· passions it must involve a double relation—a relation of ideas to the object of the passion, and a relation of sensation to the passion itself. That’s what I am going to argue for, on the basis of eight experiments.

[Through all this, bear in mind how Hume’s terminology works in this context. If you are proud of your wealth and I respect (or ‘love’) you because of it, your owning the wealth creates a ‘relation of ideas’, i.e. a relation between my or your idea of that wealth and my or your idea of you; and the wealth’s giving pleasure creates a ‘relation of impressions’, i.e. a similarity between that pleasure and your pride and my love. Similarly for my shame (or your contempt) regarding my house.]

(1) Take the case I have described, where I am in the company of some other person ·towards whom I have none of the four passions we are considering·, and add to it some object that has no relation (of impressions or of ideas) to any of the four. Let it be an ordinary dull stone that isn’t owned by either of us, and isn’t an independent source of pleasure or unpleasure—so obviously it won’t produce any of the four passions. Now replace the stone by anything you like, x, and suppose my mentality to be changed in any way you like; if you do this in such a way that x doesn’t relate in a certain way to myself or the other person, or relate in a certain other way to pleasure or unpleasure, it won’t be credible that x should produce in me any of the four passions. Try it out on them, one by one, and you’ll see.

(2) [In this paragraph and the next, the stuff about ‘tilting’ towards one ‘pole’ of an ‘axis’ goes well beyond Hume’s wording, but it does express the meaning of what he says.] Try this again with an object x that has just one of the two relations in question, and see what emerges. Specifically, suppose that I own the unremarkable stone, so that it has the crucial relation to the object of the passions: it obviously still won’t be a source of pride in me or of love or respect in the other person, because there’s nothing here to tilt the situation towards one rather than the other pole of the pride/humility axis or the love/hatred axis . . . . No trivial or common object that doesn’t independently cause pleasure or unpleasure can ever produce pride or humility, love or hatred, no matter how it relates to any person.

(3) So a relation of •ideas is clearly not enough on its own to give rise to any of these passions. Now let us see what can be achieved by a relation of •impressions on its own: instead of the stone let’s have an object that is pleasant or unpleasant but has no relation either to me or to the other person. What do we find now? Let’s first look at the matter theoretically, as I did in (2). We find that the object does have a small though uncertain connection with these passions, and it does involve a tilt towards one pole of each axis; in terms of how they feel, pleasure is not very different from pride, unpleasure from humility or shame. But nothing in this situation enables the feeling in question to focus on one person rather than another. For a state to count as one of our four passions, it must not only

feel a certain way

but must also

be targeted at some particular person

the person who is proud/humble or is loved/hated. And this present situation provides no such target. . . .

Fortunately, this theoretical approach fits perfectly with what we find in experience. Suppose I’m travelling with a friend through a country to which we are both utter strangers; if the views are beautiful, the roads good, and the inns comfortable, this may well put me into a good mood in relation to myself and to my friend. But as this country has no ·special· relation either to myself or to my friend, it can’t be the immediate cause of pride or love ·because those are targeted on individual persons·. ·I may say ‘I love this country!’, but this isn’t love strictly so-called·. It is the overflowing of an elevated frame of mind rather than an established passion. And all this can be re-applied to the case of a nasty countryside and the passions of humility and hatred.

(4) [Hume says here that we may well be convinced by what he has said so far, but that he will push forward in further arguing for his theory of the four passions. He does this with a serial thought- experiment, that can be expressed in terms of the second square here. I start with the thought of some virtue of mine, of which I am proud (top left). I then suppose that the virtue belongs not to me but to you, and this produces love (bottom left). Next, I go back to the starting-point and instead replace the (pleasant) virtue by some unpleasant vice that I have; this produces humility (top right); and if instead I take some vice of yours the result is hatred (bottom right). In Hume’s own presentation of all this (which is about five times as long), he says that a virtue of yours has •one relation that favours my being proud, this being outpulled by the •two relations that favour my having love for you. Similarly with each of the other competitions between adjacent corners of the square. He continues:]

But to make the matter still more certain, switch the examples from virtue and vice to beauty and ugliness, then to riches and poverty, then to power and servitude. With each of these, suitable changes in the relevant relations take us around the square of the passions in the same way as with virtue and vice—and the result is the same no matter what order we adopt in changing the relations. It’s true that in some cases we’ll get respect (or contempt) rather than love (or hatred); but these are basically the same except for differences in their causes. I’ll explain this later.

(5) Now let us go through all that again with just one difference: we are now to suppose that the other person in the scene is closely connected with me either by blood or friendship—he’s my son or my brother or an old friend of mine. Let us see what difference that makes to all the switches that we went through in (4).

Before we consider what the differences actually are, let us work out what they must be if my theory is right. ·Here and in (6) I’ll state all this in terms of an attractive virtue; you can work out for yourself how to adapt it to the case of a nasty vice·. Clearly, my theory says that the passion of love must arise towards the person who possesses the virtue—the person who is linked to it by a connection of ideas.

[Hume speaks of the person who is connected to the cause of my pleasure ‘by these double relations which I have all along required’, but that is a mistake. According to his theory there’s a relation-of-ideas between the person and the virtue, and a relation-of-impressions between my pleasure at his virtue and my love for him. The theory doesn’t have any person entering into any ‘double relation’. When we come to ‘experiment’ (6) we’ll again find Hume being careless about what is supposed to be related to what, and in that case the carelessness will do damage.]

The virtue of my brother must make me love him; but then the theory has something further to say: because he is my brother, there’s a relevant relation-of-ideas between his virtue and myself; and so according to the theory my love for him will give rise to pride, ·taking me from the lower-left to the upper-left corner of the square·.

That’s what my theory says will happen, and I am pleased to find that that’s what actually does happen in such cases. The virtue of a son or brother not only arouses love but also, by a new transition from similar causes, gives rise to pride; nothing causes greater vanity than some shining quality in our relatives. This exact fit between experience and my reasoning is convincing evidence of the solidity of the theory on which the reasoning was based.

(6) [Hume here presents (a) a certain empirical fact, (b) a reason for thinking that it clashes with his theory, and (c) an explanation of (a) that reconciles it with the theory. He starts:] This case is strengthened even further if we make a switch in the story, so that instead of starting with

•my brother’s virtue, which causes me first to love him and then to be proud of him,

we start with

•my own virtue, with this having no special connection with my brother.

(a) Experience shows us that this switch breaks the chain: my mind is not now carried from one passion to another, as in the preceding instance. We never love a brother for the virtue we see in ourselves, though obviously we feel pride when it is he who has the virtue. The transition from pride to love is not so natural as the transition from love to pride. (b) This may seem to clash with my theory, because the relations of impressions and ideas are in both cases precisely the same.

[Hume evidently means that his theory might lead us to expect that in this present case

my love for myself because of my virtue will make me proud of my brother because of my virtue;

but why might it lead us to expect that preposterous result? Hume’s only answer to this is that in the present case ‘the relations of impressions and ideas are precisely the same’ as they were in (5); but that doesn’t explain anything because it isn’t true—see the long small-type note immediately before this one. Hume’s (c) attempt to reconcile the fact with the theory hinges on an explanation of why, although Gerald and I are symmetrically brothers of one another, it is easier for my imagination to pass from •the thought of him to •the thought of myself than it is for it to go in the opposite direction. That in itself is graspable, but it doesn’t fend off a crash because there was no threat of a crash in the first place.]

(7) We have seen that a passion P1 whose object is item x1 easily generates a similar passion P2 whose object x2 is idea-related to x1. For example, the (P1) pleasure I get from (x1) my son’s virtue generates (P2) pride in me, and of course (x2) the object of my pride is something idea-related to my son, namely myself. The mechanism producing that result ought to work even more smoothly in bringing it about that a passion P whose object is item x1 easily generates the very same passion P with an object x2 that is idea-related to x1. And that is what we find. When we either love or hate someone, the passions seldom stay within their first bounds; they stretch out towards all the nearby objects, taking in the friends and relatives of the person we love or hate. When someone is our friend, it is totally natural for us to have friendly feelings towards his brother, without looking into the brother’s character. A quarrel with one person makes us hostile to his whole family, even if they had no part in whatever it was that generated the trouble. There are countless instances of this kind of thing.

There’s a wrinkle in this that I’ll need to deal with before moving on. It’s obvious that although all passions pass easily from one object to another related to it, when this transition

•goes from an object to a related one that is somehow lesser, less considerable, than the first object is,

the transition happens more easily than when it

•goes in the opposite direction, from the lesser to the greater.

For example, it is more natural for us to love the son on account of the father than to love the father on account of the son; the servant on account of the master than the master on account of the servant; the subject on account of the prince than the prince on account of the subject. Similarly, we more readily come to hate a whole family when our first quarrel is with the head of it than when we are displeased with a son, or servant, or some low-ranked member of the family. In short, our passions, like other objects, fall more easily than they rise!

This phenomenon poses a challenge, because the factor that makes it easier for the imagination •to pass from remote things to nearby ones than to go from nearby to remote also makes it easier for the imagination •to pass from lesser things to greater ones than to go from greater to lesser. Whatever has the greatest influence is most taken notice of; and whatever is most taken notice of presents itself most readily to the imagination. In any subject we’re more apt to overlook what is trivial than to overlook what seems to be important, especially if it’s the important item that first engages our attention. [Hume gives examples: Jupiter before its planets, imperial Rome before its provinces, master before servant, subject before monarch. He continues:] That same mechanism is at work in the common custom of making wives bear the name of their husbands, rather than husbands that of their wives; as also the ceremonial custom of allowing those whom we honour and respect to go first ·in any parade·. There are many other instances of the mechanism, but it’s obvious enough without them.

Now, since the imagination finds it just as easy to pass from the lesser to the greater as to pass from the remote to the nearby, why doesn’t this easy •transition of ideas help the •transition of passions in the former case as well as in the latter? . . . . The love or hatred of an inferior doesn’t easily cause any passion towards the superior, even though the natural propensity of the imagination is to move in that direction; whereas the love or hatred of a superior does cause a passion towards the inferior, again contrary to the propensity of the imagination. . . .

[Having spent two of his pages setting up this problem, Hume now spends two difficult pages solving it. The gist of the solution is as follows. Take the example of

A: (a1) love for (a2) the father,

B: (b1) love for (b2) the son.

So far as transition from one idea to another is concerned, the move from (b2) to (a2) is easier than the move in the opposite direction. So the puzzling fact that the move from A to B is easier than the reverse must come from its being easier to move from (a1) to (b1) than to move in the opposite direction; that is, it must be that the tendency of the transition of ideas is overpowered by a reverse tendency of the transition of impressions. Hume then proceeds to show why it is that the transition of impressions is easier in that direction. The basic thought is that the father is more considerable than the son, so that any passion towards the father will be stronger than the corresponding passion towards the son; and it’s easier to pass from a stronger passion to a weaker one than vice versa. So we have one tendency favouring the move from A to B, and another favouring the move from B to A. Why does the A-to-B tendency trump the B-to-A one? Because, Hume says, ‘the affections are a more powerful principle than the imagination’, meaning that impressions push harder than ideas do. He goes on to say at some length that his theory’s ability to resolve this difficulty is further strong evidence for its truth.]

(8) [Hume here presents and explains a seeming exception to his thesis that it’s easier to pass from love or hatred to pride or humility than to pass from pride or humility to love or hatred. His handling of this is hard to grasp, and seems not to be needed for anything that comes later; so let’s let ourselves off from trying to master it.]

. . . . If we consider all the eight experiments that I have explained, we shall find that the same mechanism appears in all of them—that it’s by means of a transition arising from a double relation of impressions and ideas that pride and humility, love and hatred, are produced. And this double-transition mechanism explains not only the straightforward cases but also the seemingly anomalous ones. . . .

3: Difficulties solved

After so many and such undeniable proofs drawn from daily experience and observation, there seems to be no need to explore in detail all the causes of love and hatred. What I shall do in the rest of Part ii is ·in this section· to remove some difficulties concerning particular causes of these passions, ·in sections 4 and 5 to discuss some rather special cases·, and ·in sections 6–11· to examine compound affections arising from the mixture of love and hatred with other emotions.

We all know that any person acquires our kindness, or is exposed to our ill-will, in proportion to the pleasure or unpleasure we receive from him, and that the passions stay exactly in step with the sensations in all their changes and variations. We are sure to have affection for anyone who can find ways to be useful or agreeable to us, by his services, his beauty, or his flattery; and, on the other side, anyone who harms or displeases us never fails to arouse our anger or hatred. When we are at war with some other nation, we detest them as ‘cruel’, ‘perfidious’, ‘unjust’, and ‘violent’, but always judge ourselves and our allies to be fair, moderate, and merciful. If our enemies’ general is successful, it’s hard for us to allow that he is a man at all. He is a sorcerer (·we tend to think·); he is in touch with demons; . . . . he is bloody-minded, and takes pleasure in death and destruction. But if our side succeeds, then our commander has all the opposite good qualities—he’s a pattern of virtue, as well as of courage and steadiness. His treachery we call ‘policy’; his cruelty is an evil inseparable from war. In short, we deal with each of his faults either by trying to minimize it or by dignifying it with the name of the closest virtue. It is evident that this same way of thinking runs through common life.

Some people add another condition to this; they require not only that the unpleasure and pleasure arise from the person, but that it arise knowingly, having been designed and intended by the person. A man who wounds and harms us by accident doesn’t become our enemy on that account; and we don’t feel any ties of gratitude to someone who accidentally does something that is helpful to us. We judge the actions by •the intentions; it’s through •those that the actions become causes of love or hatred.

But here we must make a distinction. If what pleases or displeases us in someone else is constant and inherent in his person and character, it will cause us to love or hate him independently of what he intends; but otherwise—·i.e. when someone pleases or displeases us by some short-lived action rather than a durable character-trait·—we won’t love or hate him unless ·we think that· he intended to produce the displeasing result. Someone who is disagreeable because he is ugly or stupid is the object of our aversion [Hume’s word], though he certainly hasn’t the least intention of displeasing us by these qualities. But if the unpleasure he gives us comes not from •a quality that he has but from •an action that he performs—something produced and annihilated in a moment—unless it comes from a particular forethought and design it won’t be sufficiently connected with him ·to cause anything like love or hatred in us·. It’s not enough that the action arises from him, has him as its immediate cause and author. This relation on its own is too feeble and inconstant [Hume’s phrase] to be a basis for love or hatred. ·When considered apart from any intention or purpose, the action is really just a bodily movement·; it doesn’t reach down into the person’s sensing and thinking part; it doesn’t come from anything durable in him, or leave anything behind it in him—it passes in a moment, and is as though it had never been. In contrast with this, an intention shows certain qualities of the person that

•are still qualities of him after the action has been performed,

•connect the action with him, and

•make it easier for us to move between ideas of the action and ideas of him.

We can never think of him without reflecting on these qualities, unless repentance and a change of life have altered him in a relevant way, in which case our the passion is likewise altered.

[The word ‘injury’ in what follows isn’t restricted to bodily damage. It means more generally ‘harm’, though restricted to harm deliberately inflicted. In a moment we’ll see Hume implying that an ‘injury’ minus the nasty frame of mind in which it was done is ‘mere harm’. He also sometimes labels as ‘injury’ something that wasn’t deliberate; in the interests of clean line-drawing, those occurrences will be put between quotation-marks.]

I have just given one reason why an intention is needed if either love or hatred is to be aroused, but there is also another. The intention with which an action is performed doesn’t just •strengthen the relation of ideas ·between the action and the person·; it is often needed to •produce a relation of impressions ·between our perception of the action and our feelings about it·, i.e. needed for the action to give us pleasure or unpleasure. That is because, as we can all see, the principal part of any injury is the contempt and hatred that it shows in the person who injures us; without that, the mere harm gives us a less acute unpleasure. Similarly, a bit of help is agreeable mainly because it flatters our vanity, and shows the kindness and respect of the person who gives it. Remove the intention and the help is much less gratifying. . . .

Admittedly, removing the intention doesn’t entirely remove the (un)pleasantness of what is done. But then it doesn’t entirely remove love and hatred either. We all know that men become violently angry over ‘injuries’ that they have to admit were entirely involuntary and accidental. This emotion doesn’t last long, but it’s enough to show that there’s a natural connection between uneasiness and anger, and that a relation of ideas doesn’t have to be very sturdy for a relation of impressions to operate along it. But when the impression has lost some of its violence, the defect of the relation begins to be better felt—·i.e. when the man becomes less angry he becomes more aware of the fact that the real object of his anger doesn’t have much to do with the person he thought he was angry with·. And because a person’s ·long-term· character isn’t involved in ‘injuries’ that he causes in a casual and involuntary way, such ‘injuries’ are seldom the basis for any lasting enmity.

Compare that with a parallel phenomenon. When something unpleasant happens to us because of someone’s conduct, our strength of feeling about this may be reduced not because the person •wasn’t acting deliberately but because he •was only doing what his duty required him to do. If we are in the least reasonable, we won’t be angry with someone who deliberately harms us, if the source of this intention is not hatred and ill-will but justice and equity, despite the fact that he is the cause—the knowing cause—of our sufferings. Let us look into this a little.

[Hume goes on to remark that this latest phenomenon isn’t total or universal. A criminal will usually be hostile towards the judge who condemns him, although he knows that he deserves the sentence. And all of us are at least somewhat like this. And a second point: When something unpleasant happens to us through somebody’s action, our immediate reaction is angry and hostile, and that leads us to look for evidence that the other person was malicious,] so as to justify and establish the passion. Here the idea of injury doesn’t produce the passion—it arises from it. . . .

4: Love for people with whom one has some connection

Having given a reason why various actions that cause real pleasure or unpleasure arouse little if any love or hatred towards the people who performed them, I now need to show what is going on in the pleasure or unpleasure of many items that we find by experience do produce these passions.

According to my theory, love and hatred can be produced only where there is a double relation of impressions and ideas between the cause and effect. But though this is universally true, it’s a conspicuous fact that the passion of love can be aroused by a single relation of a different kind ·from either of these·, namely a relation between ourselves and the person we love. ·Clearly that’s a relation between persons, not between impressions or between ideas; but· it doesn’t make the other two kinds of relation irrelevant; what it does, rather, is to bring them along with it.

(1) ·The connection phenomenon·: What I’m talking about is the relation that holds between x and y if x is united by some connection [Hume’s phrase] to y. If someone is united to me by some connection, I’ll give him a share of my love (greater or lesser depending on what the connection is), without enquiring into his other qualities. Thus

•blood-relatedness of parents to their children

produces parental love, which is the strongest tie the mind is capable of; and lesser degrees of love come with

•more distant blood-relationships.

And it’s not only those—any kind of relatedness whatsoever tends to produce love. We love

•our countrymen,

•our neighbours,

•others in our trade or profession, even

•those who have the same name as we do.

Every one of these relations is regarded as a tie of a sort, and entitles the person to a share of our affection.

(2) ·The acquaintance phenomenon·: There’s another phenomenon that is parallel to this, namely the fact that love and kindness towards a person can arise from our merely being acquainted with him, without any kind of relation. When we have become used to being in the company of a certain person, without finding that there’s anything specially good about him, we can’t help preferring him to strangers who we are sure are all-round better than he is. These two phenomena—the effects of •connection and of •acquaintance—will throw light on one another, and can both be explained in terms of the same mechanism.

Those who enjoy speaking out against human nature have said that man is utterly incapable of supporting himself, and that when you loosen his grip on external objects he immediately slumps down into the deepest melancholy and despair. They say that this is the source of the continual search for amusement in gaming, in hunting, in business, by which we try to forget ourselves and arouse our spirits from the lethargic state that they fall into when not sustained by some brisk and lively emotion.

[The ‘(animal) spirits’—mentioned in the very first paragraph of Book II— belong to a physiological theory popularized by Descartes. They were supposed to be a superfine superfluid stuff that could move fast and get in anywhere, doing the work in the body that is actually done by impulses along the nerves. Hume quite often brings them in, apparently with confidence; but the phrase ‘it is natural to imagine’ here may be a signal that he knows how wildly hypothetical the theory of ‘spirits’ is.]

I agree with this line of thought to this extent: I admit that the mind can’t entertain itself unaided, and naturally looks for external items that can produce a lively sensation and stir up the spirits. When such an item appears, the mind awakes, so to speak, from a dream, the blood flows more strongly, the heart is elevated, and the whole man acquires a vigour that he can’t achieve in his solitary and calm moments. That is why company is naturally such a pleasure: it presents us with the liveliest thing there is, namely a rational and thinking being like ourselves, who lets us in on all the actions of his mind, shares with us his innermost sentiments, and lets us see his various emotions at the very moment when they are produced. . . .

Given this much, all the rest is easy. Just as the company of strangers is agreeable to us for a short time because it enlivens our thought, so the company of people we are (1) connected to or (2) acquainted with must be especially agreeable because it enlivens us more and for a longer time. If someone is connected with us ·in some way like those listed near the start of this section·, our conception of him is made lively by the easy transition from ourselves to him. And having long been acquainted with a person also makes it easier to think of him and strengthens our conception have of him. The ‘connections’ phenomenon and the ‘acquaintance’ phenomenon have just one thing in common, namely that they both produce a lively and strong idea of the object. (·I can give a round-about argument for that last statement·. The (1) ‘connections’ phenomenon is parallel to our •reasonings from cause and effect; the (2) ‘acquaintance’ phenomenon is parallel to what happens in •education; and the only thing that •reasoning has in common with •education is that they both lead to the formation of strong and lively ideas.) Their role in producing love or kindness must depend on the force and liveliness of conception that goes into the forming of love. Such a conception is especially agreeable, and makes us have an affectionate regard for everything that produces it, when the proper object of kindness and good-will.

[By the words after the last comma Hume presumably means to imply that we wouldn’t have affection for a non-person that happened to cause us to have a strong agreeable conception.]

(3) ·The resemblance phenomenon·: It is obvious that people get together according to their individual temperaments and dispositions—that cheerful men naturally love others who are cheerful, as serious men are fond of others who are serious. This happens not only when they notice this resemblance between themselves and others, but also by the natural course of their disposition and a certain sympathy that always arises between people of similar characters. When they notice the resemblance, it operates by producing a relation of ideas in the way a (1) connection does. In cases where they don’t notice it, some other mechanism must be at work; and if this other mechanism is like the one that operates in (1), this phenomenon must be accepted as further evidence for my over-all account of these matters. ·I now proceed to show what this other mechanism is·.

The idea of ourselves is always intimately present to us, and noticeably enlivens our idea of any other object to which we are related in any way. The enlivening of this idea gradually turns it into a real impression (remember that the only difference between ideas and impressions is in their degree of force and vivacity). Now, this change from idea to impression is bound to happen more easily if the object in question is a person who is temperamentally like ourselves, because in that case we are naturally apt to have the same impressions that the other person has, so that any given impression will arise from the slightest of causes.

[The impressions that Hume is writing about here are feelings. The thought is that it won’t take much to make me amused by something that amuses Peter if we are both cheerful people.]

When that happens, the resemblance changes the idea into an impression not only by means of the relation, and by transfusing the original vivacity into the related idea; but also by presenting such materials as take fire from the least spark [that last clause is verbatim Hume]. So this is a second way in which love or affection arises from resemblance. Out of all this we learn that a sympathy with others is agreeable only because it gives an emotion to the spirits. Why? Because an easy sympathy and correspondent emotions are the only things that are common to (1) connection, (2) acquaintance, and (3) ·temperamental· resemblance.

The range of things that a person may be proud of can be seen as a similar phenomenon. After we have lived for a considerable time in a city, however little we liked it at first, our dislike gradually turns into fondness as we become familiar with—acquainted with—the streets and buildings. The mind finds satisfaction and ease in the view of objects to which it is accustomed, and naturally prefers them to others that may be intrinsically better but are less known to it. This same quality of the mind seduces us into having a good opinion of ourselves, and of all objects that belong to us. They appear in a stronger light, are more agreeable, and consequently are fitter subjects of pride and vanity than any others are.

[Hume now devotes two pages to putting some of his theoretical apparatus to work in a fairly unconvincing explanation of why the tie between a child and his widowed mother becomes weaker if the mother remarries, whereas the remarriage of a widower doesn’t equally weaken the tie between him and his child. The explanation leans heavily on the view, encountered earlier, that men are greater or more significant than women.]

5: Esteem for the rich and powerful

Nothing has a greater tendency to give us a respect for someone than his being rich and powerful; and nothing has a greater tendency to give us contempt for someone than his being poor and living poorly; and because respect and contempt are kinds of love and hatred, this is a good place to explain these phenomena.

In this case we ·as theorists· are fortunate: rather than having to look around for some mechanism that could produce this effect, we have only to choose the best out of three candidates for this role. It may be that we get satisfaction from others’ wealth, and respect the possessors of it, because:

(1) the objects a rich person possesses—his house, furniture, pictures, gardens—are agreeable in themselves, and must therefore give pleasure to anyone who sees them or thinks about them. Or because

(2) we expect the rich and powerful to do us some good by giving us a share in their possessions. Or because

(3) sympathy makes us share in the satisfaction of everyone we come into contact with, including rich people.

These three mechanisms could work together in producing the present phenomenon. But which of them has the largest role?

The mechanism (1) involving reflection on agreeable objects has more influence than we might think it does at first glance. We seldom reflect on something that is beautiful and agreeable (or ugly and disagreeable) without an emotion of pleasure (or unpleasure); and though these feelings of pleasure or unpleasure don’t show up much in our ordinary casual way of thinking, it is easy to find them when we are reading or engaging in conversation. Men of wit always direct the conversation towards subjects that are entertaining to the imagination; and the subjects of poets are always like that. Mr. Philips wrote an excellent poem on cider; beer would have been less satisfactory because it doesn’t look or taste as good as cider does. (He would have preferred wine to either of them, if only his native country had provided him with that agreeable liquor!) We can learn from this that everything that is agreeable to the senses is also to some extent agreeable to the imagination, creating a mental image of the satisfaction that comes from applying the item to the bodily organs—·e.g. an image of the satisfaction of tasting cider·.

This delicacy of the imagination may be one of the causes of our respect for the rich and powerful, but there are many reasons for not regarding it as the only one, or even as the main one. [Hume now embarks on two pages of reasoning to show that mechanism (1) does less work than mechanism (3). He gives three reasons for this. (a) If someone is rich and powerful, we tend to respect him, not just his possessions. The only way to bring the owner of the wealth and power into the story of our respect and admiration is by our responding not merely to the thought of

•our enjoying his wonderful possessions

but also to the thought of

•his enjoying his wonderful possessions.

Our having a good feeling about that is sympathy, i.e. mechanism (3). (b) We respect the rich and powerful even if they don’t make use of their wealth and power. It’s true that a man’s money can carry our imaginations to ideas of enjoyment of things that the money could buy; but this connection is pretty remote; there’s a stronger connection between our pleasant thoughts and the rich person’s own satisfaction in being able to purchase good things; and that again is (3) the sympathy mechanism. (c) Hume says his third reason may to some people ‘appear too subtle and refined’, but we can follow it. It concerns our respect for the wealth of a miserly man who doesn’t spend much. We can see that the man’s character is so settled that it isn’t probable—it is hardly even possible—that he will use his wealth to get things that we would enjoy (and would therefore enjoy thinking about, in the manner of mechanism (1)). But from his own point of view such uses of his money are thoroughly on the cards—‘For me to acquire a handsome house and garden’, he may think, ‘would be as easy as raising my arm.’ This is just a fact about how human beings view themselves—each of them regards as on the cards for himself various kinds of behaviour that his character actually puts off the cards. So our respect for the wealthy miser can’t owe as much to (1) our responding to our sense of possible pleasures from his wealth as to (3) our sympathetic response to his sense of the possibility of those pleasures. Hume continues:]

So we have found that the mechanism (1) involving the agreeable idea of the objects that riches make it possible to enjoy largely comes down to the mechanism (3) involving sympathy with the person we respect or love. Now let us see what force we can allow to mechanism (2), involving the agreeable expectation of advantage.

Riches and authority do indeed give their owner the power to do us service, but obviously this power isn’t on a par with his power to please himself and satisfy his own appetites. His power to do himself good will come close to his actually doing himself good—self-love will take care of that. But what can narrow the gap between his power to do us good and his actually doing us good? It will have to be his having friendship and good-will towards us along with his riches. Without that detail it’s hard to see what basis we can have for hoping for advantage from the other person’s riches; yet the plain fact is that we naturally respect the rich even before we find them to have any such favourable disposition towards us.

Indeed we respect the rich and powerful not only where they show no inclination to serve us but also when we are so much out of the sphere of their activity that they can’t even be thought to be able to serve us. Prisoners of war are always treated with a respect suitable to their condition [here = ‘social status’], and a person’s condition is determined to a large extent by his wealth. If birth and rank come into it also, that provides another argument for my present thesis. What does it mean to say that a man is of ‘good birth’ except that he is descended from a long series of rich and powerful ancestors, and acquires our respect by his relation to people we respect? So we respect his ancestors partly on account of their riches; but those ancestors, being dead, can’t bring any advantage to us.

Our disinterested [= ‘not self -interested’] respect for riches also shows up in everyday life and conversation. A man who is himself moderately well off, when he comes into a company of strangers, naturally treats them with different degrees of respect and deference as he learns of their different fortunes and conditions; though he couldn’t possibly solicit any advantage from them, and perhaps wouldn’t accept it if it were offered. . . .

You might want to oppose these arguments of mine by an appeal to the influence of general rules. Thus:

We’re accustomed to expecting help and protection from the rich and powerful, and to respect them on that account; and we extend the same attitude to others who resemble them in their fortune but from whom we can’t hope for any advantage. The general rule still holds sway, and steers the imagination in such a way as to draw along the passion in the same way as when its proper object is real and existent.

But that can’t be what is happening here. For a general rule to become established in our minds and to extend itself beyond its proper bounds, there has to be a certain uniformity in our experience, with very many more cases that fit the rule than ones that don’t. But that is not how things stand with regard to advantage from the rich and powerful. Of a hundred men of credit and fortune that I meet with, there may be none from whom I can expect advantage, ·and there certainly aren’t many·, so that a custom of expecting such help can’t possibly be established ·in my mind·.

So, wanting to explain our respect for power and riches, and our contempt for meanness and poverty, all we are left with is (3) the mechanism of sympathy, by which we have some of the sentiments of the rich and poor, and share in their pleasure and unpleasure. •Riches give satisfaction to their possessor x; •this satisfaction is conveyed to the onlooker y by his imagination, which •gives him an idea that resembles the original impression (·i.e. x’s satisfaction·) in force and vivacity. This agreeable idea or impression •is connected with love, which is an agreeable passion. . . .

[We will be better ‘reconciled’ to this view, Hume says, if we look at the prevalence and power of sympathy all through the animal kingdom, and especially] in man, who is the creature •most desirous of society and •best fitted for it by his qualities. There’s nothing we can wish for that doesn’t involve society. A perfect solitude is perhaps the greatest punishment we can suffer. When there is no-one else around, every pleasure fades and every unpleasure becomes more cruel and intolerable. Whatever other passions we may be driven by—pride, ambition, greed, curiosity, revenge, or lust—the soul or animating force of them all is sympathy . . . . Let all the powers and elements of nature work together to serve and obey one man; let the sun rise and set at his command; let the sea and rivers roll as he pleases, and the earth furnish spontaneously whatever may be useful or agreeable to him; he will still be miserable until you give him access to at least one person with whom he can share his happiness and whose respect and friendship he can enjoy.

This conclusion from a •general view of human nature is confirmed by •special cases where the force of sympathy is very remarkable. Most kinds of beauty are derived from sympathy. When we judge some senseless inanimate piece of matter to be beautiful, we are usually taking into account its influence on creatures who think and feel. A man who shows us a house takes particular care, among other things, to point out the convenience of the rooms, the advantages of how they are laid out, and how little space is wasted on stairs, antechambers and passages; and indeed it’s obvious that the chief part of the beauty consists in such details as these. The observation of convenience gives pleasure, because convenience is a beauty. But how does it give pleasure? The beauty in question isn’t a •formal one; it has to do with people’s •interests; but our own self- interest doesn’t come into it. So our pleasure in this beauty must come from our sympathizing with the house’s owner: we enter into his interests by the force of imagination, and feel the same satisfaction that the house naturally occasions in him. . . .

Nothing makes a field more agreeable than its fertility, and the beauty that this gives it can hardly be matched by any advantages of ornament or situation [=, roughly, ‘any advantage of prettiness or of having a fine view’]. Similarly with individual trees and plants. For all I know, a plain overgrown with gorse and broom may be intrinsically as beautiful as a hill covered with vines or olive-trees, but it will never seem so to anyone who knows the value of each. Yet this is a beauty merely of imagination, and isn’t based on what appears to the senses. ‘Fertility’ and ‘value’ plainly refer to use; and use points to riches, joy, and plenty; and though we have no hope of sharing in these, we enter into them by the strength of our imagination and to some extent ·sympathetically· share them with the owner.

The most reasonable rule in painting is that figures should be balanced, each placed with great exactness on its own centre of gravity. A figure that isn’t justly balanced is disagreeable; but why? Because an unbalanced figure it conveys the ideas of •falling, of •harm, and of •pain; and these ideas are unpleasant when they become forceful through sympathy.

Add to this that main element in personal beauty is an air of health and vigour, and a physique that promises strength and activity. The only way to explain this idea of beauty is in terms of sympathy.

The minds of men are mirrors to one another, not only because •they reflect each others’ emotions but also because •those rays of passions, sentiments and opinions can often reverberate and gradually fade away.

[Hume is likening •the workings of sympathy with •the effect on a ray of light of a facing pair of mirrors that bounce the light back and forth between them; the ‘gradually-fade-away’ feature is special to sympathy, and doesn’t carry over to the mirrors.]

Thus the pleasure that a rich man receives from his possessions is thrown onto the onlooker, in whom it causes pleasure and respect; these feelings are perceived and sympathized with by the rich man, thus increasing his pleasure; and this, being reflected back yet again, becomes a new basis for pleasure and respect in the onlooker. The basic satisfaction in riches comes from their power to enable one to enjoy all the pleasures of life; and this, being the very nature and essence of riches, must be the primary source of all the passions that arise from riches. Of these resultant passions, one of the most considerable is the love or respect that others have, which has to come from their sympathy with the pleasure of the possessor. But he also has a secondary satisfaction in riches, arising from the love and respect that come to him because of them; and this satisfaction is simply a second reflection of that basic pleasure that came from himself. This secondary satisfaction or vanity becomes one of the main advantages in being rich, and is the chief reason why we either want to be rich ourselves or respect riches in others. This, then, is a third rebound of the original pleasure. After that it’s hard to distinguish images from reflections of them, ·and thus hard to go on counting ‘rebounds’·, because of their faintness and confusion.

6: Benevolence and anger

Ideas may be compared to the extension and solidity of matter; impressions—especially reflective ones—may be compared to colours, tastes, smells, and other sensible qualities. Ideas can never be totally coalesced with one another; they have a kind of impenetrability by which they exclude each other and can’t form a compound by mixing but only by conjunction.

[Compare what happens when you add a pint of sand to a pint of dry rice, and stir. The most intimate mixture we can have will still have sand-grains and rice-grains distinct from one another; and this is what Hume is calling ‘conjunction’. If the grains were mutually penetrable, we might have a compound in which every part, however small, contained both rice and sand; which is what Hume here calls ‘mixing’.]

On the other hand, impressions can be entirely united with one another; like colours, they can be blended so totally that each of them loses itself and contributes to •the whole only by making some difference to the uniform impression that arises from •it. This is true not only of ordinary impressions but also of passions. Some of the most challenging and puzzling phenomena of the human mind come from this property of the passions.

What ingredients can be united with love and hatred? In trying to answer that, I have started to become aware of a misfortune that has befallen every system of philosophy [here = ‘of philosophy or science’] that the world has seen. When we are explaining the operations of nature in terms of some particular hypothesis, we often find that along with •many experiments that square perfectly with the principles we want to establish there is •some phenomenon that is more stubborn, and won’t so easily bend to our purpose. We needn’t be surprised that this happens in natural science: we’re so much in the dark about the essence and composition of external bodies that in our reasonings (or rather our conjectures!) concerning them we are bound to get caught up in contradictions and absurdities. But the perceptions of the mind are perfectly known, and I have been enormously cautious in forming conclusions about them; so I have always hoped to keep clear of the contradictions that every other system has fallen into. The difficulty that I am about to present, then, isn’t at all contrary to my system; it merely departs a little from the simplicity that until now has been the system’s principal force and beauty.

The passions of love and hatred are always followed by, or rather combined with, benevolence and anger. It is this combination that chiefly distinguishes love and hatred from pride and humility. Pride and humility are pure emotions in the soul: they aren’t accompanied by any desire, and they don’t immediately arouse us to action. But love and hatred are not self-sufficient in that way—there’s more to them than just how they feel —they carry the mind to something further. Love is always followed by a desire for the happiness of the person beloved, and an aversion to his misery; and hatred produces a desire for the misery of the hated person, and an aversion to his happiness. Given the extent to which pride/humility is parallel with love/hatred, this remarkable difference between them is worth attending to.

Why are love and hatred thus combined with this desire and this aversion? There are two possible answers. (1) The first says that the desire and aversion are not merely •inseparable from love and hatred but are •integral parts of them. On this view, love and hatred have not only ·the two elements that we have already met, namely·:

(a) a cause that arouses them, namely pleasure or unpleasure, and

(b) an object to which they are directed, namely a person or thinking being,

but also ·one that I didn’t include in my initial account of these two passions·,

(c) an end that they try to attain, namely the happiness or misery of the person in (b).

The thesis is that love or hatred is a single passion in which these three elements are smoothly blended. So (c) doesn’t accompany love and hatred; it’s a part of them

But our experience doesn’t support this. It’s certainly true that whenever we love someone we do want him to be happy, and whenever we hate someone we do want him to be miserable; but these desires don’t arise until the ideas of the happiness of our friend or misery of our enemy are presented by the imagination; the desires are not absolutely essential to love and hatred. They’re the most obvious and natural expressions of love and hatred, but not the only ones. Those two passions can express themselves in a hundred ways, and can last in us for a considerable time without our having any thoughts about the happiness or misery of their objects; which clearly shows that these desires are not any essential part of love and hatred.

(2) ·So we are left with the second hypothesis, namely that· benevolence and anger are passions different from love and hatred, and are only conjoined with them by the basic constitution of the mind. Just as •nature has given certain appetites and inclinations to the body, increasing or lessening or varying them according to the situation of the fluids or solids, •she has done the same for the mind. A desire for the happiness or misery of someone is something that nature arouses in our mind, according to whether we love or hate the person, and the nature and intensity of the desire varies in accordance with the nature and intensity of the love or hatred. This isn’t an absolutely necessary state of affairs: love and hatred could have occurred without any such accompanying desire, or the connection of those desires with love and hatred could have been entirely reversed. That is, if nature had wanted it this way, love could have had the effect that hatred actually does, and hatred the same effect as love. I can’t see anything self-contradictory in supposing love to be accompanied by a desire to produce misery, or hatred to be accompanied by a desire to produce happiness. If the sensation of the passion and desire be opposite, nature could have altered the sensation without altering the tendency of the desire, and by that means made them compatible with each other.

[The last sentence is exactly as Hume wrote it.]

7: Compassion

But although the desire for the happiness or misery of others, according to our love or hatred for them, is an arbitrary and basic instinct implanted in our nature, we often have counterfeits of it, which ·aren’t upshots of our basic nature but· arise from secondary sources. Pity is a concern for the misery of others, and malice is a joy in it, without any friendship or enmity—·any love or hate·—to bring about this concern or joy. We pity even strangers, and people who mean nothing to us; and ·we sometimes feel malice towards someone to whom we aren’t otherwise connected·. If our ill-will toward someone else comes from his having harmed or insulted us, that isn’t strictly malice—it’s revenge. But if we examine these feelings of pity and malice, we’ll find that they are secondary ones, arising from basic ones that are varied by some particular turn of thought and imagination.

My earlier account of sympathy [here] makes it easy to explain the passion of pity. We have a lively idea of everything that is related to us. All human creatures are related to us by resemblance. So their persons, their interests, their passions, and their pains and pleasures must have a strong effect on us, producing in us an emotion similar to the one in them, because a lively idea is easily converted into an impression. If this is true in general, it must be especially true of affliction and sorrow, which always have a stronger and more lasting influence than any pleasure or enjoyment.

A spectator of a ·dramatic· tragedy goes through a long series of feelings—terror, indignation, and so on—which the poet represents through his characters. The spectator must sympathize with all these changes, and take in the fictitious joy as well as all the other passions represented on the stage. Why joy? Because a tragedy can’t be a really good one unless it involves some reverses of fortune—indeed many tragedies end happily. [Hume goes on to say that •what has to be explained here is the fact that

each passion represented on the stage

is followed by

the appearance in the spectators’ minds of the very same passion, ‘first as an idea and then as an impression’;

that •this must be explained by some kind of carry-over from actor to audience; and that •the only remotely plausible account of this carry-over is that it comes through the mechanism of sympathy. Then:]

Some philosophers explain pity in terms of who-knowswhat subtle reflections on •the instability of fortune and on •our being liable to the same miseries that we see in others; but the facts don’t support them. For example, there’s the fact that x’s pity for y depends to a large extent on y’s being near to x and even within x’s range of eyesight; which shows that pity comes from the imagination ·and not from any high-flown philosophical reflections on fortune or fate·. Notice also that women and children, who are most guided by imagination, are most subject to pity; the same infirmity that makes them faint at the sight of a naked sword, even when it’s in the hands of their best friend, fills them with pity for anyone whom they find in any grief or affliction.

A rather remarkable fact about sympathy ·in general, and thus about pity in particular· is that the communicated passion of sympathy sometimes gets strength from the weakness of its original, and even arises by a carry-over from feelings that don’t actually exist! For example, when someone obtains an honourable office or inherits a great fortune, our joy in his prosperity is •greater in proportion as the sense he seems to have of it is •less, i.e. in proportion as his enjoyment of his good fortune is calm and level-headed. Similarly, a man who is not dejected by his misfortunes is pitied all the more on account of his patience; and if he has that virtue to such an extent that he really isn’t suffering at all, this still further increases our compassion.

[The ‘virtue’ of ‘patience’ is an attitude to •one’s own misfortunes—the attitude of putting up with •them without whining or complaining, even within one’s own mind].

When a good man suffers what would ordinarily be regarded as (1) a great misfortune, we form

(2) a notion of his condition;

our imagination moves from that to

(3) a lively idea of the sorrow that would usually result from that;

and that turns into

(4) an impression of that sorrow,

·meaning that we become sad about his misfortune·, •overlooking the greatness of mind that raises him above such emotions, or •noticing it and being led by it to an even greater admiration, love, and tenderness for him. In our move from (2) to (3) our imagination is influenced by the general rule that most people who suffer such a misfortune are made very sad by it. The same mechanism is at work when we blush for the conduct of someone who behaves foolishly in our presence, even if he shows no sense of shame and seems to have no awareness of his folly. This comes from sympathy, but it’s a selective sympathy that views its object only on one side, without considering the other side that •has a contrary effect and •would entirely destroy the emotion that arises from the first appearance.

[The ‘one side’ is the misfortune (or foolish conduct) that would ordinarily produce sorrow (or shame); the ‘other side’ is the person’s actual lack of sorrow (or shame).]

In some cases, our concern for someone who is unfortunate is increased by his lack of concern about his misfortune, although his lack of concern does not come from any great-minded virtue. A murder is made worse by its victim’s being murdered when he was peacefully asleep. And when an infant prince is captive in the hands of his enemies, historians find him •more worthy of compassion the •less aware he is of his miserable condition. In such a case we are acquainted with the person’s situation, that gives us a lively idea and then sensation of the sorrow that generally comes with such a misfortune; and this idea becomes even more lively, and the sensation more violent, by contrast with the security and calmness that we observe in the person himself. Our imagination is always affected by contrasts, . . . . and pity depends entirely on the imagination.[1]

8: Malice and envy

The next task is to explain the passion of malice, which imitates the effects of hatred just as pity does those of love, giving us a joy in the sufferings and miseries of others who haven’t in any way harmed or wronged us.

Men are so little governed by reason in their feelings and opinions that their judgments about things are always based more on •comparisons than on the things’ •intrinsic worth and value. If something that is in itself pretty good is not as good as something that a man is already thinking about or is used to, it will affect his passions as though it were defective and bad. This is a feature of the soul, and is similar to what we experience every day in our bodies. Heat one of your hands and cool the other, then plunge both into ·tepid· water; you’ll experience the water as cold to one hand and hot to the other. When a small degree of a quality comes after a greater degree, it produces the same sensation as if it were less than it really is, and even sometimes as if it were the opposite quality. A gentle pain that follows a violent one seems like as nothing, or rather becomes a pleasure; just as a violent pain following a gentle one is doubly grievous and unpleasant.

No-one can doubt this as a thesis about our passions and sensations

—·i.e. the thesis that comparisons enter into how strong a passion is caused in us by a given sensory input·—

but there may be some doubt about it as a thesis concerning our ideas and objects

—·i.e. the thesis that comparisons enter into what idea or image is caused in us by a given object·.

When an object x seems larger or smaller because of a comparison with an object y that one was looking at just before, no change is occurring in the image and idea of x, or in the retina or in the brain or organ of perception. The size of y won’t make any difference to •how one’s eyes refract the rays of light from x, or in •how the optic nerves convey the images of x to the brain, or even in •what x’s size is according to the imagination. So the question is: how can it happen that, from the same impression and the same idea, we form such different judgments about x, at one time admiring its great size and at another despising its smallness? This variation in our judgments must come from a variation in some perception; but the impression of x doesn’t vary, nor does the idea of x; so the variation must concern some other impression that accompanies the impression of x.

[The words ‘seems larger or smaller’ replace Hume’s words ‘augments or diminishes to the eye or imagination’. But that formulation can’t be what he means, because he goes on to say that the larger/smaller variation doesn’t involve either the eye or the imagination.]

In order to explain this, I’ll briefly bring in two mechanisms—one to be more fully explained later on, the other already fully explained. (1) I think it is safe to accept as a general truth that every object that is presented to the senses, and every image formed in the imagination, is accompanied by some •emotion or movement of spirits that is proportional to it. Because we are so accustomed to this •sensation we may be unaware of it ·as a separate factor in our mental situation· and may confound it with the object or idea. But with some careful and exact experiments we can easily isolate it from those. I’ll start with examples involving extension and number—·‘How big?’ and ‘How many?’·. It is well known that •any very large object (the ocean, an extended plain, a vast chain of mountains, a wide forest) and any very numerous collection of objects (an army, a fleet, a crowd) arouse in the mind an emotion that we do feel; and that •the admiration arising from the appearance of such objects is one of the liveliest pleasures that we are capable of. Now, as this admiration is made to grow or shrink by the growth or shrinkage of the objects, we can conclude, in line with the rules of causation I expounded in I.iii.15 [rule 7 here], that it is a compound effect—a combination of several different ·simpler· effects, each arising from some part of the cause. So every part of extension, and every unit of number, has a separate emotion accompanying it when it is conceived by the mind. That emotion isn’t always agreeable, ·because sometimes it is too faint/slight/minor to be either pleasant or unpleasant·; but it contributes to the production of admiration, which is always agreeable. How does it make that contribution? By combining with other such emotions, and helping to agitate the spirits enough to produce a perceptible emotion. If this is granted with respect to extension and number, there can’t be any problem about accepting it also with respect to virtue and vice, wit and folly, riches and poverty, happiness and misery, and other such objects that are always accompanied by an evident emotion.

(2) The second of the two mechanisms that I mentioned is the one that makes us adhere to general rules. This has an enormous influence on our actions and our understanding, and can even affect our senses. When we have found by experience that a certain ·kind K_1 of· object is always accompanied by an object of some other kind K_2, ·the general-rule mechanism comes into play·:

Every time a K_1 object appears, even if this is in circumstances very different from previous appearances of such an object, we naturally fly to the conception of K_2 and form an idea of a K_2 object—an idea that’s as lively and strong as if we had inferred the object’s existence by sober and rigorous reasoning.

When this happens, nothing can undeceive us—not even our senses! Instead of correcting this false judgment, the senses are often perverted by it, and seem to authorize its errors.

These two mechanisms, combined with the influence of comparison that I have mentioned, produce this result:

Every object is accompanied by some emotion proportioned to it—a great object with a great emotion, a small object with a small emotion.

Because of this, a great object following a small one makes a great emotion follow a small one. Now, when a great emotion follows a small one, that makes it greater than it would otherwise have been; and we naturally infer from that increase in the •emotion that the •object is also greater than it would ordinarily be. How do we infer that? By applying a general rule to the effect that a certain degree of emotion goes with a certain magnitude of the object; and it doesn’t occur to us that comparison—·the effect of the move from small to large·—might change the emotion without changing anything in the object. Those who are acquainted with the metaphysical part of optics [see I.iii.9 here], and know how we transfer the judgments and conclusions of the understanding to the senses, will easily conceive this whole operation.

But setting aside this new discovery of an ·emotional· impression that secretly accompanies every idea, we must at least acknowledge the mechanism through which objects appear greater or less by comparison with others. We have so many examples of this that there can’t be any argument as to whether it is real; and it’s this mechanism that I invoke to explain the passions of malice and envy.

[Hume will here be using ‘happiness’ to refer not to an emotional state but rather to a general state of being in good ‘condition and circumstances’. Some of his early uses of ‘happiness’ and ‘happy’ may also have been like that; but it’s especially important to grasp the point here, where happiness is repeatedly said to lead to or be accompanied by pleasure. And all of this applies equally to ‘misery’.]

It’s obvious that when we reflect on •our own condition and circumstances, we have more or less satisfaction or dissatisfaction in proportion as •they appear more or less fortunate or unhappy, in proportion to how much riches, power, merit, and reputation we think we have. Now, our judgments about objects are usually based not on their intrinsic value but on how they compare with other objects; and from that it follows that our estimate of our own happiness or misery (and thus the pleasure or unpleasure we feel because of it) depends on our observation of the happiness or misery of others. Someone else’s misery gives us a more lively idea of our happiness, and his happiness gives us a more lively idea of our misery. So the former produces delight in us, and the latter produces unpleasure.

So we have here a kind of pity in reverse, with the beholder having sensations that are the opposite of those that are felt by the person whom he considers. [Hume goes on to say that what’s at work here is a very general mechanism that makes our estimate of where a thing x falls on any scale depend partly on the place on that same scale of something else y to which we compare x. He continues:] A small object makes a great one appear still greater. A great object makes a little one appear less. Ugliness of itself produces unpleasure, but it increases, by contrast, the pleasure we get from a beautiful object. . . . So the case must be the same with happiness and misery. The direct survey of someone else’s pleasure naturally gives us pleasure, and therefore produces unpleasure when compared with our own. His unpleasure considered in itself is unpleasant to us, but it augments the idea we have of our own happiness and so gives us pleasure.

If you think it strange that we may feel a reversed sensation from the happiness and misery of others, bear in mind that such comparisons can also give us a kind of malice against ourselves, making us rejoice for our ·past· unpleasures and grieve for our ·past· pleasures. The prospect of past unpleasure is agreeable to us when we are satisfied with our present condition; and the prospect of our past pleasures give us unpleasure if we don’t at present enjoy anything that matches them. . . . ·This phenomenon could be described as a kind of malice against one’s past self, enjoying the thought of how miserable one was·.

Indeed, someone may have this malice against his present self, carrying it to the point where he deliberately seeks affliction, trying to increase his unpleasures and sorrows. There are two situations in which this can happen: (1) when someone who is dear to him is in distress, and (2) when he feels remorse for a crime that he has committed. Both of these irregular appetites for evil [Hume’s phrase] arise from the comparison mechanism. (1) Someone who basks in pleasure while his friend is suffering feels the reflected suffering from his friend more acutely because of how it contrasts with his own initial pleasure. Shouldn’t the contrast make his present pleasure even greater? ·In theory it might·; but in the case as I have described it, grief is the predominant passion, and every addition falls to that side and is swallowed up in it, without operating in the least on the opposite feeling. (2) Similarly with the penances that men inflict on themselves for their past sins and failings. When a criminal reflects on the punishment he deserves, the idea of it is magnified by a comparison with his present ease and satisfaction; this comparison forces him, in a way, to seek unpleasure so as to avoid such a disagreeable contrast.

This accounts for •envy as well as •malice. The only difference between those two is this:

•Envy is aroused by someone else’s present enjoyment, which by comparison lessens our idea of our own satisfaction.

•Malice is the unprovoked desire to make things bad for someone else, in order to get pleasure from the comparison.

The enjoyment that is the object of envy is usually greater than our own. A superiority naturally seems to overshadow us, and presents a disagreeable comparison. But even when the other person’s enjoyment is less than our own, we still want a greater distance ·between his enjoyment and ours·, so as to increase our idea of ourself—·i.e. our idea of how satisfactory things are with us·—even further. When this distance decreases, the contrast is less to our advantage, and consequently it gives us less pleasure, even to the point of being disagreeable. That’s the source of the kind of envy that men feel when they see their inferiors approaching or overtaking them in the pursuit of glory or happiness. This envy involves the effects of comparison twice repeated. A man who •compares himself to his inferior gets pleasure from the comparison; and when the inferior person rises, thus reducing the gap, what should have been merely a decrease of pleasure becomes a real unpleasure because of a new •comparison with its preceding condition [the last six words are Hume’s.]

It’s worth noting that when x is envious of y’s superiority ·in some respect·, what makes x envious is not the •great size of the relevant difference between himself and y but rather its •smallness. A common soldier doesn’t envy his general in the way he envies his sergeant or corporal; an eminent writer doesn’t encounter great jealousy in hack writers for tabloids as much as he does in authors who are closer to his own level. You might think that the greater the difference of level the greater must be the unpleasure from the comparison; but then look at it in this way: the sheer size of the level-difference between (for example) the hack writer and the eminent author cuts off the relation between them, and either •keeps the hack from comparing himself with the other or •reduces the effects of the comparison. Resemblance and proximity always produce a relation of ideas, and two ideas can’t be related unless there is resemblance and proximity between them. No matter what other features may bring them together, in the absence of a bond or connecting quality to join them in the imagination they can’t remain united for long or have any considerable influence on each other. ·The next paragraph will concern proximity; after that the topic will be resemblance·.

[Hume now gives a one-sentence account of what is going on when an affluent slave-owner gets satisfaction from the difference between his condition and that of his slaves. It is extremely obscure, as is the earlier passage to which Hume relates it (section 10i); but we can follow his general point when he continues:] When the imagination in comparing objects doesn’t pass easily from one of the objects to the other, the action of the mind is to a large extent interrupted, and the imagination in considering the second object makes a kind of fresh start with it. In cases like that, the impression that accompanies an object isn’t made to seem greater by the fact that it follows a lesser one of the same kind. These two impressions are distinct, and produce their distinct effects without interacting with one another. The lack of relation between the ideas breaks the relation of the impressions, and this separation prevents them from operating together.

·I have been discussing cases where •proximity is lacking, i.e. where the people being compared are far apart on the relevant scale; but I stand by my statement that· •resemblance is also essential for a comparison to produce envy. A poet is not apt to envy a philosopher, or a poet of a different kind, of a different nation, or of a different age. All these differences prevent or weaken the comparison, and consequently reduce the passion ·of envy·.

That is also the reason why objects appear large or small only when compared with others of the same kind. If we see a horse on a mountain, its apparent size isn’t altered by the fact that we are also seeing the mountain; but when we see a Flemish horse beside a Welsh horse, one appears much bigger (and the other much smaller) than when it is seen in contexts that don’t involve any other horses.

[Now Hume says that this same phenomenon can be seen at work in history, when one side in a civil war is willing to hire foreign mercenary soldiers rather than come to terms with their fellow-countrymen on the other side. In the many wars between Italian city states,. he says, the two sides were not strongly related; they both had the label ‘Italian’, spoke the same language, and were geographically close, that was all; yet that was enough relatedness to make the ‘envy’ mechanism kick in, causing the lesser of the warring states to suffer at the thought of the other state’s superiority; and to seek help from foreign forces that were also superior to them, this superiority not being ‘grievous’ because it wasn’t accompanied by any significant ‘relation’. He continues:] The mind quickly perceives its various advantages and disadvantages; it finds its situation to be most unpleasant when superiority—·i.e. the superiority of someone else·—is combined with other relations; so it tries to calm itself down as much as possible by separating itself as much as possible from the superior person, thus breaking the association of ideas that makes the comparison so much more natural and powerful. When it can’t break the association, it feels a stronger desire to remove the superiority; which is why travellers are commonly so lavish in their praise of the Chinese and Persians and so grudging about the merits of nations that are neighbours to their own native country! The point about the neighbours is that they are strongly enough related to the travellers to count as rivals, whose superiority would be a source of grief.

[There are similar phenomena in the arts, Hume says, though the similarity that he points out is really rather remote. His main example: (1) we would object to a play of which part was tragic and part light and funny, but (2) we don’t mind tragic play and a comic one being published in a single volume; the point being that in (1) the two items are more closely ‘related’ than the items in (2).]

In short, no ideas can affect each other by comparison or by the passions they separately produce unless they are united by some relation that can makes it easy for the mind to move between them, thus making it easy to move from •the emotions or impressions that accompany one of them to •the emotions or impressions that accompany the other, so that a single impression relating to one of them can be carried over, intact, to the other. This mechanism is very remarkable, because it is analogous to what we have seen concerning •the understanding and •the passions. Suppose I am confronted by two objects that aren’t connected by any kind of relation, that each of these objects separately produces a passion, and that these two passions are opposites—·what will be the emotional upshot of all this·? We find from experience that the lack of relation between the objects or ideas blocks the natural contrariety of the passions: the break in the •transition of the thought keeps the emotions at a distance from each other, and prevents their opposition. ·For example, my •utter delight over the success of my friend’s book is not lessened, not eaten into or diluted, by my •total gloom over the latest news about slavery in Jamaica·. It is the same case with comparison.

[He means that just as two passions don’t interact if they aren’t sufficiently related, our thoughts about x aren’t affected by thoughts of how x compares with y if x and y aren’t sufficiently related.]

From these two phenomena we can build a secure argument:

•The absence of relation between two ideas can prevent the associated impressions from interacting as they naturally would.

•When the absence of an object or quality removes any usual or natural effect, we can certainly conclude that its presence contributes to the production of the effect.

Therefore:

•The relation of ideas contributes to the transition ·or interaction· of impressions.

9: The mixture of benevolence and anger with compassion and malice

So there you have my attempt to explain pity and malice. Both arise from the imagination; whether it generates pity or malice in any particular case depends on the light in which it places its object.

·Pity: When it considers the sentiments of others directly, entering deep into them, our imagination makes us feel the passions it surveys ·in the other person·.

This happens with all passions, but most especially with grief or sorrow. On the other hand,

Malice: When we compare the feelings of others to our own, we feel a sensation directly opposite to the original one, i.e. a joy from the grief of others, and a grief from their joy.

But these are only the first foundations of the affections of pity and malice. Other passions are afterwards mingled with them: there is always a mixture of love or tenderness with pity, and of hatred or anger with malice. Now, these mixtures seem to count against my system. Pity is an unpleasure, and malice is a joy, each arising from the misery of others; so we would expect pity to produce hatred, and malice to produce love. I’ll now try to reconcile the ‘mixture’ facts with my theory.

For a passion to pass from one person to another there has to be a double relation of impressions and ideas—a single relation won’t do the work. To understand the full force of this double relation, you have to grasp ·a crucial fact about the nature of the passions being transferred·:

What determines the character of any passion is not merely the present sensation—the momentary unpleasure or pleasure—but rather the whole bent or tendency of it from the beginning to the end.

Up to here I have been discussing cases where two passions are related to one another because they feel the same; but passions can also be related because their impulses or directions—·the behaviour or at least the desires associated with them·—are alike. This can’t happen with pride or humility, because they are only pure sensations, ways of feeling with no direction or tendency to action. So if we want examples of this special relation of impressions, we’ll have to look to emotions that are accompanied by a certain appetite or desire, e.g. love and hatred.

[Hume’s next paragraph is hard to grasp. (1) One of its aims is to show how pity is connected with love. The link is provided by benevolence. Hume has already shown, he says, that benevolence is connected with love in a natural and basic way; and he expresses this by using the formula—

‘a desire for the happiness of a beloved person and an aversion to his misery’

—to characterize the ‘desire’ component of benevolence. He then uses a very similar formula—

‘a desire for the happiness of someone else and an aversion to his misery’

—to characterize the ‘desire’ component of pity. He concludes from this that these two passions are ‘similar’ and ‘related’. (2) The paragraph’s other aim is to show how malice is connected with hatred. The link is anger. Hume claims to have shown that anger is connected with hatred in a natural and basic way, and brings this out by using the formula—

‘a desire for the misery of a hated person and an aversion to his happiness’

—to characterize the ‘desire’ component of anger. Then he uses the very similar formula—

‘a desire for the misery of someone else and an aversion to his happiness’

—to characterize the ‘desire’ component of malice. He concludes from this that anger is ‘correspondent to’ and ‘related to’ malice. The paragraph concludes:] It is by this chain that the passions of pity and malice are connected with love and hatred.

There are adequate empirical grounds for this hypothesis. If a man is starting to resolve to perform a certain action (never mind why), he is naturally drawn to every other view or motive that can strengthen his resolution, giving it authority and influence on his mind. To confirm us in any plan that we have formed, we hunt for motives drawn from ·self·-interest, from honour, from duty. So it’s not surprising that pity and benevolence, malice and anger, being the same desires arising from different mechanisms, should become so totally mixed together that they can’t be told apart. . . .

Here is another empirical fact: benevolence and anger— and thus love and hatred—arise when our happiness or misery depend in any way on the happiness or misery of another person, even if we have no further relation to him. I’m sure you will agree that this is such a striking fact that it’s all right for me to stop for a moment to consider it.

Suppose that two people in the same trade seek employment in a town that can’t support them both; it’s clear that the success of either of them is incompatible with the success of the other, and that anything serving the interests of either of them goes against the interests of his rival. Now suppose that two merchants, though living in different parts of the world, enter into a partnership; in this case, their interests go the same way, and anything that favours either of them favours both. It’s obvious that the rivalry in the first case will generate hatred, and that the partnership in the second case will generate love. Let us consider to what mechanism is at work here.

[It can’t be the standard mechanism of double-relationsof-impressions-and- ideas, Hume says. If that were in play, my frame of mind towards my rival would be like this: I hate him when he causes me unpleasure, and love him when he causes me pleasure. But the fact is that I hate him all the time, even though he often brings me pleasure through his misfortunes in our common trade. Similarly with my partner: he may often cause grief in me through his misfortunes in business, but I love him all the time. After dismissing one other suggested explanation, Hume continues:]

So the only explanation we can give of this phenomena involves the parallel direction mechanism mentioned above. ·I mean the mechanism I was invoking a page back, when I wrote that ‘passions can be related because their impulses or directions are alike’, meaning the behavioural impulses and the direction of the desires involved in them·. Our concern for our own interests gives us a pleasure in the pleasure of our partner and an unpleasure in his unpleasure, in the same way that by sympathy we feel a sensation matching that of a person who is present with us. And on the other side, our concern for our own interests makes us feel unpleasure in the pleasure of our rival, and pleasure in his unpleasure—i.e. the same contrariety of feelings as arises from comparison and malice. . . .

[The remainder of this section will not be presented here. It consists of five pages of very dense exposition and argument, presenting •various supposed facts about when and towards whom we have this or that passion, •reasons why those facts present challenges to Hume’s theories, and •attempts by him to meet the challenges. This material is ingenious, but doesn’t offer today’s philosophically interested readers enough, at the bottom line, to warrant the truly exhausting labour of following it in detail.]

10: Respect and contempt

I now turn to the passions of respect and contempt. In considering the qualities and circumstances of another person, we can either

(1) regard them as they really are in themselves,

(2) compare them with our own qualities and circumstances, or

(3) combine both of those two methods of consideration.

The good qualities of others from the first point of view produce (1) love; from the second (2) humility; from the third (3) respect, which is a mixture of love and humility. And the different ways of regarding the bad qualities of others can lead us to (1) hatred or (2) pride or (3) contempt, which is a mixture of hatred and pride.

There’s no need for me to prove that humility is an ingredient in respect, and pride an ingredient in contempt; you’ll find it obvious that this is so if you attend to what it feels like to have respect or contempt for someone. It’s equally obvious that this mixture arises from tacitly comparing ourselves with the respected or contemned person. While x’s condition and talents don’t change, he may go from causing respect in y to causing contempt in him because y has moved from being x’s inferior to being his superior. It’s clear from this that the passions in question come from the subject’s comparing himself with the object.

I have remarked that the mind has a stronger propensity for pride than for humility, and have tried to explain this in terms of the basic mechanisms of human nature. Whether or not you accept my explanation, you can’t deny the phenomenon, of which there are many examples. Among other things it is the reason why there is a much greater mixture of pride in contempt than of humility in respect, and why we are more elevated with the view of someone below us than cast down by the presence of someone above us. Contempt or scorn is such a large ingredient in pride that one can hardly detect any other passion in it, whereas humility plays a smaller part in esteem or respect—love is a much bigger ingredient than humility is. The passion of vanity is so alert that it springs into action at the slightest prompting, whereas humility requires a stronger impulse to make it exert itself.

But now a question arises: . . . . Why does anything ever cause pure •love or •hatred, rather than always producing the mixed passions of •respect and •contempt?

All through my discussion I have been supposing that the passions of love and pride are similar in their sensations, being always agreeable; and that humility and hatred are also alike in their sensations, being always unpleasant. That is indeed true ·as far as it goes·, but we can see that between the two agreeable passions, as well as between the two unpleasant ones, there are differences—even contrarieties. Nothing invigorates and exalts the mind as much as pride and vanity do, whereas love or tenderness are rather found to weaken it and make it slack. The same difference is observable between the unpleasant passions. Anger and hatred give new force to all our thoughts and actions, whereas humility and shame deject and discourage us. We need to have a clear idea of these qualities of the passions, so let’s keep it in mind: pride and hatred invigorate the soul, love and humility weaken it.

Now, love and pride are alike in the agreeableness of how they feel, and that’s why they are always •aroused by the same objects; but they are also unalike because of the contrariety I have just described, which is why they are •aroused in very different degrees. [Hume tries to illustrate this with a couple of examples, but they or Hume’s analyses of them aren’t described fully enough for one to follow his line of thought.

[In the following paragraph he offers to answer his question ‘Why does anything ever produce pure love or hatred, rather than the mixed respect and contempt?’ The placing of this paragraph seems to imply that his answer will involve the invigorate/weaken point that he has been making, but in the upshot it doesn’t. It goes like this: Certain personal qualities—including ‘good nature, good-humour, facility, generosity and beauty’—are especially apt to produce love in others, but haven’t such a strong tendency to arouse pride in ourselves. And those qualities, though very productive of love in others, won’t cause much humility in them. No quality in you will cause humility in me by comparison with you unless it’s a quality that I would be (non-comparatively) proud of if I had it myself; and no quality in you will cause pride in me by comparison with you unless it’s a quality that I would feel (non-comparatively) humble about if I had it myself. Now, suppose someone x has a quality that is •just right for producing love in others but is •not very apt to produce pride in x himself; the effect of this on another person y will be •a great degree of love in y for x but •a much lower degree of humility in y from the comparison with x; with the result that although y does have both love and humility with respect to x, the humility ingredient in his compound state isn’t enough to turn his state from love into respect—it is barely enough for him even to feel it. And the analogous story can be told about qualities in x that are apt to make y •hate x but not very apt to make him •contemn x.]

[The section ends with two paragraphs devoted to explaining the ‘curious phenomenon’ of our preference to keep people whom we contemn at a distance from ourselves. The core of the explanation can be briefly stated (in terms of ‘rich’ and ‘poor’, but of course those are only examples). (1) Seeing a rich man gives us at least a ‘faint touch of respect’; seeing a poor one gives us a touch of contempt. These are conflicting emotions, but the conflict doesn’t disturb us if the rich man and the poor one are not related in any relevant way [see the book-success/slavery example near the end of section 8]. But if they are physically close to one another, that’s enough of a relation to set up an unpleasant dissonance in our minds. (2) The rich man wants to keep the poor one at a distance, because if he doesn’t he will seem to the rest of us to be unaware of the dissonance and thus, perhaps, unaware of his own high status.]

11: The amorous passion, or love between the sexes

Of all the compound passions that come from mixing love or hatred with other emotions, none is more worth attending to than the love that arises between the sexes—both •because of its force and violence and •because it constitutes overwhelming evidence for certain interesting philosophical theses. It’s clear that this emotion in its most natural state comes from the combination of three different impressions or passions—•the pleasing sensation arising from beauty, •the bodily appetite for generation, and •a generous kindness or good-will. [Those three sources are given in Hume’s exact words.] Things I have already said explain how kindness arises from ·the perception of· beauty, ·and the ‘pleasing sensation’ component is too obvious to need discussing·. The question that remains is: how is the bodily appetite ·for generation· aroused by the perception of beauty?

[The ‘appetite for generation’ is of course sexual desire or, if you like, lust; but it will do no harm to stay with Hume’s terminology. When ‘lust’ appears here, it will be because that’s the word Hume used.]

The appetite for generation is obviously pleasant (when it’s not too extreme), and it is strongly connected with all the agreeable emotions. Joy, mirth, self-satisfaction, and kindness all encourage this desire, as do as music, dancing, wine, and good cheer. On the other hand, sorrow, melancholy, poverty, and humility are destructive of it. All this makes it easy to grasp why this appetite should be connected with the sense of beauty.

But there’s another mechanism that contributes to the same effect. Two desires will be connected if there is a real relation between them; one such real relation is •feeling the same, another is •having parallel directions. The second of these is my present topic (I have mentioned it before). To get a proper grasp of the extent of this relation, consider this:

Any principal desire may be accompanied by subordinate ones that are connected with it. Any further desires that run parallel to those subordinate desires thereby come to be related to the principal one.

Thus, (1) hunger often counts as the primary inclination of the soul, and (2) the desire to come to food as the secondary ·or subordinate· one, because it’s impossible to satisfy (1) without satisfying (2). So if something other than hunger inclines us to come near to food, it naturally increases our appetite; as something that inclines us to set our food at a distance is contradictory to hunger and lessens our inclination to eat.

[An example of what Hume is getting at here might be this: We start with two states of my soul:

(a) my hunger,

(b) my desire to get my fork into that steak,

where I have (b) because I have (a). A friend who is already sitting at the table says ‘Come and join us for dinner’. That gives me

(c) a desire to sit at the dinner-table,

a desire that doesn’t come from hunger. Because (b) and (c) have parallel directions—meaning that they aim at the same behaviour—my acquisition of (c) intensifies (a). To illustrate the other half of Hume’s story, suppose that my wife says ‘The folk next door haven’t had steak for years; it would mean such a lot to them if we gave them that one’; and this creates

(d) a desire for the steak to be sent to next-door.

This goes in the opposite direction to (b), and thus lessens (a).]

Now, we all know that when our food looks attractive, that sharpens our appetite; and that if it looks terrible we aren’t willing to eat it, however, wonderful it may taste. That is an example of the double phenomenon I have been talking about. All this is easily applicable to the appetite for generation.

These two relations, resemblance and parallel desires, create such a strong connection between •the sense of beauty, •the bodily appetite ·for generation·, and •benevolence that they become in a manner inseparable; and we find from experience that it doesn’t matter which of them comes up first, because any one of them is almost sure to be accompanied by the other two. Someone who is inflamed with lust feels at least a momentary kindness towards the object of it, and at the same time sees her as unusually beautiful; it often happens that someone begins with kindness and respect for the intelligence and merit of the other person, and moves on from that to the other ·two· passions. But the commonest kind of love is the one that starts with ·the sense of· beauty and then spreads itself into kindness and into the bodily appetite ·for generation·. It isn’t easy for •kindness or respect to be united with •the appetite for generation: they are too remote for that, because •one may be the most refined passion of the soul, while •the other is the most gross and vulgar [here calling it ‘vulgar’ just means that anybody might have it]. The love of beauty is nicely half-way between them, sharing something with each; which is why it is uniquely fitted to produce both.

This account of love isn’t special to my system; it is unavoidable on any theory. The three feelings that make up this passion are obviously distinct, with each having its own distinct object. So it is certain that their ability to produce one another comes from the relations amongst them. But the relations among •the passions is not sufficient on its own; there have to be also relations among •ideas: the beauty of one person never inspires us with love for someone else! This is further evidence of ·the truth of my theory about· the double relation of impressions and ideas. . . .

This ·matter of sexual appetite· also serves to illustrate my claims about the origin of pride and humility, love and hatred. I have pointed out that although self is the object of pride and humility, and some other person is the object of love and hatred, these objects can’t unaided be the causes of the passions. If they were, pride and humility would always be caused together, cancelling one another out; similarly with love and hatred. So here is the picture I have drawn of the mind:

The mind has certain organs that are naturally fitted to produce a passion; when that passion is produced, it naturally turns the view to a certain object. But this object isn’t sufficient to produce the passion, so there has to be some other emotion which, by a double relation of impressions and ideas, can set these mechanisms in action and give them their first impulse.

This situation is still more remarkable with regard to the appetite of generation. Sex is not only the object of that appetite but also its cause: as well as being caused by that appetite to think about sex, we are also caused by thinking about sex to have that appetite. But because this cause loses its force if it comes into action too frequently, it has to be enlivened by some new impulse; and we get that impulse from the beauty of the person—i.e. from a double relation of impressions and ideas. Since this double relation is necessary where an emotion has a distinct cause and a distinct object, how much more necessary it is for an emotion that has only a distinct object without any determinate cause!

12: The love and hatred of animals

Let us now move on from the passions of love and hatred (and mixtures containing them) to those same passions as they display themselves in lower animals. When we look into this we find not only that •love and hatred are common to every animal that can sense and perceive, but also that •on my account of the causes of love and hatred those causes are so simple that it’s easy to believe that they are at work in mere animals ·as well as in mankind·. They don’t require any force of thoughtfulness or insight; everything is done by springs and mechanisms that aren’t exclusive to man or to any one species of animals. This clearly constitutes support for my system.

Love in animals doesn’t have other animals of the same species as its only object; it stretches beyond that, taking in almost every sensing and thinking being. A dog naturally loves a man more than another dog, and it very commonly finds that this affection is returned.

Animals can’t have much in the way of pleasures or unpleasures of the imagination; so they can judge objects only by the perceptible good or evil that they produce, which has to be the basis for the animals’ feelings about them. And so we find that we can get an animal to love or hate us by bringing it benefits or by hurting it.

Love in the lower animals isn’t caused by relations as much as it is in our species, because they aren’t intellectually agile enough to trace relations, except in very obvious instances. Yet it’s easy to see that sometime relations have a considerable influence on them. For example, acquaintance— which has the same effect as relation—always produces love in animals either to men or to each other. For the same reason, any likeness among them is a source of affection. An ox that is in an enclosed space with horses will naturally keep company with them; but he will leave them and join up with one of his own species if one is introduced into the enclosure.

The feelings of parents for their young comes from a special instinct in animals, as well as in our species.

It’s obvious that sympathy—the passing on of passions— occurs among animals as much as it does among men. Fear, anger, courage, and other states are frequently passed from one animal x to another animal y without y’s knowing anything about the cause of x’s state. Grief also is acquired through sympathy among animals, producing almost all the same emotional and other consequences that it produces in our species. . . .

Everyone has noticed that dogs hunting in a pack are ever so much more animated than when they are hunting singly; and it’s obvious that it must be sympathy that makes the difference. And huntsmen know that this effect follows in a greater degree—even in too great a degree—when two packs that are strangers to each other are joined together. We might wonder why this should be, if we didn’t have experience of the same thing in ourselves.

Animals are conspicuously given to envy and malice. Perhaps those are more common than pity because they require less effort of thought and imagination.

NOTES

[1] To prevent all ambiguity, I should explain that (1) when ·in I.i.3· I contrasted •imagination with •memory, I was taking imagination to be merely the faculty that presents our fainter ideas. (2) Everywhere else, and especially when I contrast ‘imagination’ with •understanding, I am construing ‘imagination’ more broadly, as excluding only our demonstrative and probable reasonings. [This is in fact the first occurrence of ‘understanding’ in II.ii; what Hume is referring to is his explanation of pity (here) in terms of ‘imagination’ rather than in terms of ‘subtle reflections’ on fate etc.]

Part iii: The will and the direct passions

1: Liberty and necessity

The next task is to explain the direct passions, i.e. the impressions that arise immediately from good or evil, from unpleasure or pleasure. These include desire and aversion, grief and joy, hope and fear.

Of all the immediate effects of unpleasure and pleasure, none is more remarkable than the will. That isn’t strictly speaking a passion; but we can’t understand the passions unless we fully understand the will—what it is and how it works—and for that reason I’m going to explore it here. Please note: by ‘the will’ I mean nothing but

the internal impression that we feel and are conscious of when we knowingly give rise to any new motion of our body or new perception of our mind.

This impression, like the previously discussed ones of pride and humility, love and hatred, can’t be defined and needn’t be described; so I shan’t get into any of those definitions and distinctions with which philosophers customarily •tangle rather than •clarify this topic. Instead I’ll get straight into the topic by first examining the long-disputed question concerning liberty and necessity, which crops up so naturally in discussions of the will.

[Regarding the next two sentences: An instance of ‘indifference’ would be a state of affairs that could develop in either of two or more ways. (This does not mean merely ‘that could, so far as we can tell, develop in either of two or more ways’.) Hume holds that in the material world there are no indifferent states of affairs. He says that indifference is ruled out by ‘absolute fate’, but don’t attach any weight to that. What makes it certain that this body at this moment will move precisely thus, Hume holds, is not its being spookily ‘fated’ to move like that but its being down-to-earth caused to do so.]

Everyone accepts that the operations of external bodies are necessary—that there’s not the least trace of indifference or liberty in how they •push one another around, •attract one another, and •hang together. Every object is determined by an absolute fate to move at a certain speed in a certain direction; it can’t move in any other way, any more than it can turn itself into an angel . . . . So the actions of matter are to be regarded as necessary actions; and anything that is in this respect on the same footing as matter must also be acknowledged to be necessary. We want to know whether the actions of the •mind are on this same footing; and I’ll work towards that by first examining •matter, asking what basis there is for the idea of a necessity in its operations, and what reason we have for ever concluding that one body or ·bodily· action is the necessitating cause of another.

I have said that •the ultimate connection between any two objects can never be discovered through our senses or our reason, and that •we can never penetrate far enough into the essence and structure of bodies to perceive the fundamental source of their mutual influence. All we are acquainted with is their constant union, and that is where the necessity comes from. If objects didn’t occur in uniform and regular relations with one another, we would never arrive at any idea of cause and effect. ‘·What about the element of necessity that is contained in the idea of cause and effect?’ Yes, that too!· All there is to that necessity is the mind’s determination •to pass from object x to the object y that usually accompanies it, and •to infer the existence y from the existence of x. [See the first paragraph of I.iii.14.] So these are two elements that we are to consider as essential to necessity—

(1) the constant union, and

(2) the inference of the mind;

and wherever we find these we must acknowledge a necessity. (·The two are connected with one another, because· it’s our observation of (1) that leads us to perform (2).) Now, it’s only because of these two that we take the actions of matter to be necessary; this view of ours owes nothing to any insight into the essence of bodies. What, then, would it take to show that the actions of our mind are also necessary? One might think that the answer to that is this:

To show that the actions of the mind are necessary, all that is needed is to show (1) that there is a constant union of these actions; that will secure (2) the inference from one mental action to the next; and from (1) and (2) together we get necessity.

To give my results as much force as I can, I shall take these two elements separately: I’ll first prove from experience (1) that our actions have a constant union with our motives, temperaments, and circumstances, before I consider (2) the inferences that we draw from this union.

A very slight and general view of the common course of human affairs will be enough to establish (1). . . . Whether we consider mankind according to the difference of sexes, ages, governments, conditions, or methods of education, the same uniformity and regular operation of natural mechanisms are discernible. Just as in the mutual action of the elements and powers of ·material· nature, so also in the mind, like causes produce like effects.

Different kinds of trees reliably produce different-tasting fruit, and we’ll all agree that this regularity is an example of necessity and causes in external bodies. But is there any more regularity in how

•the products of Bordeaux differ in taste from •the products of Champagne

than there is in how

•the forceful and mature feelings, actions, and passions of the male sex differ from •the soft and delicate feelings, actions, and passions of the female sex?

Are the changes of our body from infancy to old age more regular and certain than those of our mind and conduct? Is it more ridiculous to expect a four-year-old child to raise a weight of 300 pounds than to expect that same child to produce philosophical reasoning or a prudent and wellthought-out course of action?

We have to accept that the cohesion of the parts of matter arises from natural and necessary causal sources, however hard we find it to explain what they are; and for a similar reason we have to accept that human society is based on similar sources. [Hume is here likening •the way portions of matter hang together to constitute (say) a pebble with •the way human beings hang together to constitute a society.] Indeed we have more reason to say this about humans and societies than to say it about rock-grains and pebbles. That’s because as well as observing that men always seek society we can explain the mechanisms that underlie this universal coming-together. It’s no more certain that two flat pieces of marble will unite together than it is that two young savages of different sexes will copulate. And then there are further uniformities: parents caring for the safety and preservation of children arising from this copulation; parental foresight of possible difficulties when their offspring leave home; plans to avoid these difficulties by keeping close and collaborative relations with the offspring.

The skin, pores, muscles, and nerves of a day-labourer are different from those of a man of quality; so are his sentiments, actions, and behaviour. A man’s position in life influences his whole fabric, external and internal; and these different positions arise •necessarily, because •uniformly, from the necessary and uniform mechanisms of human nature. Men can’t live without society, and can’t have society without government. Government brings it about that people differ in how much property they have, and in what their social ranks are; and out of this arise industry, manufactures, lawsuits, war, leagues, alliances, voyages, travels, cities, fleets, ports, and all the other actions and objects that produce so much diversity, while also maintaining so much uniformity, in human life.

If a traveller from abroad told us that he had encountered a climate in the fiftieth degree of northern latitude where all the fruits ripen in the winter and rot in the summer, in the way that in England the reverse happens, very few people would be so gullible as to believe him. I suspect it would be the same with a traveller who told us he had encountered people just like the ones in Plato’s Republic, or the ones in Hobbes’s Leviathan. There is a general course of nature in human actions as well as in the operations of the sun and the climate. There are also national characters and individual personal characters, as well as characteristics that are common to all mankind. Our knowledge of what these national or personal •characteristics are is our observation of the actions that uniformly flow from •them in the given nation or the given individual person; and this uniformity is the essence of necessity.

The only conceivable way of evading this argument is to deny the uniformity of human actions that is its basis. Someone who accepts that human actions have a constant union and connection with the situation and temperament of the agent, though he may be unwilling to say ‘Human actions are necessary’, is really accepting that they are. Now, you may want to deny this regular union and connection for the following reason:

‘What is more capricious than human actions? What more inconstant than the desires of man? What creature departs more widely not only •from right reason but •from his own character and disposition? An hour—a moment!—is sufficient to make him change from one extreme to another, and overturn some plan that it had cost him the greatest work and effort to establish. Human conduct is irregular and uncertain; so it doesn’t come from necessity, which is regular and certain.’

To this I reply that our conclusions about the actions of men should be reached by the same kind of reasoning we use in reaching our views about external objects. When any two phenomena are constantly and invariably conjoined together, they become so strongly connected in •the imagination that •it passes quickly and confidently from one of them to the other. ·In such a case, we are certain, and we say that the connection is necessary·. But there are many degrees of evidence and probability that are lower ·than this certainty·, and we don’t regard our reasoning to a general conclusion as completely destroyed by a single counter-example. The mind balances the items of empirical evidence for and against our conclusion, and deducts the lighter from the heavier; the remainder fixes the degree of assurance or evidentness that the conclusion still has. Even when evidence and counter-evidence are of equal weight, we don’t drop the whole idea of causes and necessity ·from our thinking about the subject-matter of our conclusion·. Rather, we take it that the counter-examples are produced by the operation of hidden contrary causes, and conclude that any chance or indifference that there is here lies only in our imperfectly informed judgment and not in the things themselves—the events are in every case equally necessary (we think), even though they don’t appear to be equally constant or certain. ·And this intellectual handling of events in the material world should, I repeat, be applied also to events of the mind and human conduct·. No union can be more constant and certain than that of •some actions with •some motives and characters; and if in other cases the union is uncertain, it’s no more uncertain than plenty of events in the operations of body; and we can’t infer from the mind/conduct irregularity anything that won’t follow equally from the irregularities in bodies.

It is commonly accepted that madmen •have no liberty. But their actions have less regularity and constancy than the actions of sane men, and consequently —if we judge by the surface—they are •further removed from necessity than sane men are. So our way of thinking about liberty in humans is absolutely inconsistent; but that’s a natural upshot of the confused ideas and undefined terms that we so often use in our reasonings, especially on this topic.

My next task is to show that just as motives relate to actions in the same constant way that other kinds of natural events relate to one another, the influence of this constancy on our understanding is also the same in one sphere as in the other—meaning that we are caused to infer the occurrence of an action from the existence of a motive. If this turns out to be right, there is no known circumstance that enters into the connection and production of the actions of matter that isn’t to be found also in all the operations of the mind; which implies that it would be a manifest absurdity to attribute necessity to matter and deny it of mind.

[This next paragraph will use the phrase ‘moral evidence’, using ‘evidence’ in its old sense of ‘evidentness’. So ‘moral evidence’ could mean (1) something like what ‘moral certainty’ means today—referring to something short of absolute certainty but sure enough to be a safe basis for planning and predicting. That was one of its meanings in Hume’s day too, but ‘moral’ then also had a different sense, meaning (2) ‘having to do with human thinking and acting’—a sense in which psychology was a ‘moral science’. It’s natural to think that the opponents Hume envisages here are talking about ‘moral evidence’ in sense (1). His reply to them isn’t evasive, but it does shift the emphasis from (1) to (2).]

Any philosopher, however firmly his judgment is riveted to this fantastic system of liberty, accepts the force of moral evidence, regarding it as a reasonable basis for thinking both in theory-building and practical planning. Well, what is moral evidence? It’s nothing but a conclusion about the actions of men, derived from premises about their motives, temperaments, and situations. Here’s an example.

[Here as nearly always Hume uses the word ‘fact’ to mean ‘proposition’, so that for him calling Caesar’s death a fact isn’t implying that Caesar died.]

We •see certain words printed on paper, we •infer that the person who wrote them would affirm such facts as Caesar’s death, Augustus’s success, Nero’s cruelty; and, recalling many other testimonies to these same things, we •conclude that those facts were once really existent, and that so many men wouldn’t conspire to deceive us without having any motive to do so, especially since the attempt to do so would expose them to the derision of all their contemporaries. . . .

The same kind of reasoning runs through politics, war, commerce, economics—indeed it’s woven so densely into human life that we couldn’t act or survive for a moment without making use of it. A prince who imposes a tax on his subjects, expects them to pay. A general who leads an army relies on a certain degree of courage ·in his soldiers·. A merchant looks for honesty and skill in his agent. A man who gives orders for his dinner doesn’t wonder whether his servants will obey. In short, most of our reasonings relate to judgments concerning our own actions and those of other people, because nothing is more central to our interests than that. I contend that when anyone reasons in this way ·about his and other people’s actions· he is expressing his belief that the actions of the will arise from necessity; and if he denies this, he doesn’t know what he means!

Any two items of which we call one ‘cause’ and the other ‘effect’ are, considered in themselves, as distinct and separate from each other as any two things in nature; and however carefully we look into them we can never infer the existence of the effect from that of the cause. It’s only from experience and the observation of their constant union that we can make this inference; and when we can conduct the inference there’s nothing to it but the effects of custom on the imagination. We mustn’t here be content with saying •that the idea of cause and effect arises from

(1) constantly united objects;

we have to say •that it also involves

(2) constantly united ideas of objects;

and •that the necessary connection is not discovered by a conclusion of the understanding ·on the subject of (1)·, but is merely a perception of the mind ·arising from (2)·. Thus, whenever we see that kind of uniformity, and wherever the uniformity has that effect on our belief and opinion, we have the •idea of causes and necessity, even if we don’t like using those •words. In every case that we have observed, when a moving body has collided with another, the other has moved. That is as far as the mind can go; it can’t dig any deeper. From this constant union it forms the idea of cause and effect, and through the influence of the union it feels the necessity. What we call ‘moral evidence’ involves that same constancy and that same influence—and that completes my argument. What remains can only be a dispute about words.

Think about how neatly natural evidence and moral evidence join together to form a single chain of argument. If you do, you won’t hesitate to agree that the two are of the same nature, and derived from the same principles. [In this sentence ‘principle’ can’t plausibly be replaced by ‘mechanism’ or ‘causal source’, as it usually has been up to here. There’s a real question as to how much similarity Hume is here claiming between the two kinds of evidence; and ‘principle’ is left standing, to mark the spot. On most of its future occurrences, it will be replaced by ‘drive’.] If a prisoner has no money and no influence, he can’t escape, and that is as much because of the obstinacy of his jailer as because of the walls and bars with which he is surrounded; and when he tries to escape, he chooses to work on the hardness of the stone and iron rather than on the inflexible nature of the jailer. When he is led to the scaffold, he foresees his death as certainly from the constancy and fidelity of his guards as from the operation of the axe. His mind runs along a certain train of ideas—

the refusal of the soldiers to consent to his escape,

the action of the executioner,

the separation of the head from the body,

bleeding, convulsive motions, and death.

Here is a connected chain of natural causes and voluntary actions. As the mind passes from one link to the next, it doesn’t feel any difference, and it is as sure of the future event as it would be if it were connected with the present impressions of the memory and senses by a chain of causes cemented together by so-called ‘physical necessity’. The same experienced union has the same effect on the mind, whether the united items are •motives, volitions, and actions, or •shape and motion. . . .

I venture to predict, with confidence, that no-one will ever try to refute these reasonings ·of mine· in any way except by altering my definitions and giving different meanings to ‘cause’, ‘effect’, ‘necessity’, ‘liberty’, and ‘chance’. According to my definitions, necessity is an essential part of causation; and consequently liberty, by removing necessity, also removes causes, and is the same thing as chance. As chance is commonly thought to imply a contradiction, and is at least directly contrary to experience, there are always the same arguments against liberty or free-will. If anyone alters the definitions, I can’t undertake to argue with him till I know what meanings he does give to these terms.

2: Liberty and necessity (continued)

The doctrine of liberty is absurd taken in one sense, and unintelligible in any other—so why is it so prevalent? I think there are three reasons for this. (1) After we have performed an action, though we accept that we were influenced by particular views and motives it’s hard for us to persuade ourselves that we were governed by necessity and that it was utterly impossible for us to have acted differently; because we have no sense of the force, violence, or constraint that seems to be implied by the idea of necessity. Not many people are capable of distinguishing

•the liberty of spontaneity (as the scholastics call it), the liberty that is opposed to violence [= ‘opposed to being physically locked up or held down or the like’]

from

•the liberty of indifference, i.e. the liberty that means a negation of necessity and causes.

The former is the most common sense of the word; and that species of liberty is the only one we have reason to want to preserve; so our thoughts have chiefly turned towards it, and have almost universally confused it with the other.

(2) There is a false sensation or experience of liberty, which is regarded as evidence for its real existence (I’m talking now just about the liberty of indifference). The necessity of any action, whether of matter or of the mind, is a quality not in the thing that acts but in the mind of any thinking being who considers the action. It consists in •the determination of the spectator’s thought to infer the action’s existence from something that happened before it; whereas liberty or chance is nothing but the lack of •that determination, and a certain looseness that we feel in passing or not passing from the idea of one to the idea of the other. When we are viewing or thinking about the actions of others, we seldom feel such a looseness or indifference, but we often feel something like it regarding our own actions; and . . . . this has been offered as a conclusive proof of human liberty. We feel that our actions are usually subject to our will, and we imagine we feel that our will isn’t subject to anything. Here is why: If someone insists that our will is subject to causes, we may be provoked to try ·to show him to be wrong·, we feel that our will moves easily in every direction, and produces an image of itself even on the side on which it didn’t settle. We persuade ourselves that this image could have developed into the thing itself, because if that is denied we find, on a second trial, that it can. But these efforts get us nowhere. Whatever capricious and irregular actions we may perform ·in such a situation·, they are •motivated by the desire to show our liberty, so we can’t ·in this way· ever free ourselves from the bonds of •necessity. We may imagine that we feel a liberty within ourselves, but a spectator can commonly infer our actions from our motives and character; and even where he can’t, he concludes in general that he could have done so if he had known all the details of our situation and temperament, and the most secret springs of our character. And that, according to my doctrine, is the very essence of necessity.

(3) A third reason why the doctrine of liberty has had a better reception from the world than has its antagonist involves religion, which has needlessly concerned itself with this question. No method of ‘reasoning’ is more common, or more blameworthy, than in philosophical debates to try to refute a thesis by claiming that it has dangerous consequences for religion and morality. When any opinion leads us into absurdities, it is certainly false; but an opinion’s having dangerous consequences does not make it certain that it is false. So we ought never to use that line of thought: it isn’t in the least helpful towards discovering the truth; all it does is to draw down hatred on one’s opponent. I’m offering this as a general remark, without wanting to get any advantage from it, ·such as I might get if I thought my position to be true and also dangerous·. I am entirely willing to have my views tested for dangerousness! I would go so far as to say that the doctrine of necessity, understood in terms of my account of it, is not only innocent but even advantageous to religion and morality.

I define ‘necessity’ in two ways, conformable to the two definitions of ‘cause’, of which necessity is an essential part. I place necessity either in (a) the constant union and conjunction of pairs of similar items or in (b) the inference of the mind from one such item to the other. Now, necessity in each of these senses has been attributed to the will of man—tacitly, but by everyone in the schools, in the pulpit, and in common life. No-one has ever claimed to deny that (b) we can draw inferences concerning human actions, and that those inferences are based on (a) the experienced union of similar actions with similar motives and circumstances. If someone is to disagree with me about this, it will have to be either •by refusing to call this ‘necessity’ or •by maintaining that the operations of matter involve something more ·than the necessity described in my theory. The former of these dissents doesn’t matter·: the word can do no harm as long as its meaning is understood. As for the second dissent: the question as to whether my account captures the necessity of material events is of no consequence to religion, however much it may matter to natural science. Perhaps I am wrong in asserting that our only idea of connections between the actions of •bodies is the one I have analysed, and I’ll be glad to be further instructed about this; but I am sure that I don’t ascribe to the actions of •the mind anything but what must readily be agreed to. So no-one should make my position look bad by misconstruing my words and saying simply

‘He asserts the necessity of human actions, putting them on a level with the operations of senseless matter.'

I do not ascribe to the will the unintelligible necessity that is supposed to lie in matter. I do ascribe to matter the intelligible quality—call it ‘necessity’ or not—which the most rigorous orthodoxy does or should agree belongs to the will. If I am in conflict here with any of the received systems, the conflict concerns material objects, not the will.

Indeed I go further! I contend that this kind of necessity is so essential to religion and morality that without it they would both be undermined, and that any account of the will different from mine would be entirely destructive to all laws, both divine and human. All human laws are based on rewards and punishments, so it must be assumed as a fundamental principle that these motives influence the mind in producing good actions and preventing bad ones. Call this influence anything you like; but . . . . common sense says it should be regarded as a cause, and be looked on as an instance of the necessity that I am arguing for.

This reasoning holds just as well when applied to divine laws, with God being considered as a legislator who inflicts punishments and gives rewards in order to produce obedience. But what about when he is acting not •in that magisterial capacity—·i.e. distributing rewards and punishments so as to get obedience·—but rather •as the avenger of crimes simply because they are disgusting and ugly? ·I stand my ground even then·. I contend that without the necessary connection of cause and effect in human actions, punishments would be inconsistent with justice and moral fairness, and no reasonable being could even think of punishing anyone. The object of hatred or anger is always a person, a creature endowed with thought and consciousness; and when some criminal or injurious •action creates hatred or anger, it does so only because of its connection with the •person whose action it is. But the doctrine of liberty or chance reduces this connection to nothing, implying that men are no more accountable for their designed and premeditated actions than they are for their most casual and accidental ones. Actions are by their very nature temporary and short- lived; if an action doesn’t come from some cause in the character and disposition of the person who performed it, then doesn’t attach itself to him, and can’t bring him either honour (if it’s a good action) or dishonour (if it’s a bad one). The action may be blameworthy, and contrary to all the rules of morality and religion; but the person isn’t responsible for it, because it didn’t come from anything durable or constant in him and doesn’t leave anything durable or constant behind in him. So it can’t possibly draw down punishment or vengeance on him because of it. According to the hypothesis of liberty, a man is as pure and untainted after committing a horrid crime as he was at the moment of his birth; his character isn’t in any way involved in his actions because they don’t come from it, so that the wickedness of the actions is no evidence of the depravity of the man. . . .

But men are so inconsistent with themselves that though they often say that necessity utterly destroys all merit and demerit . . . . , they still continue to base their judgments about merit and demerit on the thesis that necessity reigns. ·Here are three striking bits of evidence for this·.

Men aren’t blamed for evil actions that they perform ignorantly and casually, whatever their consequences may be.

Why? It can only be because the causes of these actions are only momentary, and come to an end the moment the action is performed.

Men are blamed less for evil actions that they perform hastily and without premeditation than for ones that they perform thoughtfully and deliberately.

Why? It must be because a tendency to act with rash haste, though it’s a constant cause in the mind, operates only intermittently and doesn’t infect the whole character.

Any crime can be wiped off by repentance, especially if the repentance is accompanied by an evident reformation of life and manners.

Why? It must be because actions make a person criminal only because the actions are proofs of criminal passions or drives [Hume: ‘principles’] in the person’s mind; and when these drives alter in such a way that the actions are no longer proofs of that, they are no longer criminal. But according to the doctrine of liberty or chance, the actions never were sound proofs ·of anything bad and durable in the person who performed them·, and so they never were criminal!

[Hume ends the section with a triumphant challenge to his adversaries to support their position by ‘fair arguments’. He concludes:] I have no doubt of an entire victory. So now, having proved that all the actions of the will have particular causes, I proceed to explain what these causes are and how they operate.

3: The influencing motive of the will

Nothing is more usual in philosophy, and even in common life, than to talk of the battle between passion and reason, to give the preference to reason, and to assert that men are virtuous only to the extent that they conform themselves to reason’s dictates. Every rational creature, it is said, ought to regulate his actions by reason; and if any other motive or drive tries to take control, he ought to oppose it until it is either entirely subdued or at least made to conform to the superior drive, reason. Most moral philosophy, ancient and modern, seems to be based on this way of thinking. This supposed pre-eminence of reason over passion provides a rich source of •metaphysical arguments as well as of •moral harangues, in which

reason’s eternity, unchangingness, and divine origin

are held up for admiration, while

the passions’ blindness, inconstancy, and deceitfulness

are equally strongly emphasized. Wanting to show the fallacy of this entire line of thought, I shall try to show •that reason alone can never be a motive to any action of the will, and •that reason can never oppose passion in directing the will.

The understanding [here = ‘the faculty of reason’] goes to work in two different ways: (1) reaching judgments through demonstration, attending only to the abstract relations of our ideas, and (2) reaching them on the basis of probability, attending to the relations of objects that we can know about only from experience. I hardly think anyone will contend that (1) the demonstrative species of reasoning is ever, on its own, the cause of any action. That kind of reasoning belongs in the world of •ideas, while the will deals on with the world of •realities; so it seems that demonstration and volition are totally removed from each other. It’s true that mathematics [here = ‘geometry’?] is useful in all mechanical operations, and arithmetic is useful in almost every art and profession; but they don’t have any influence by themselves. Mechanics is the art of regulating the movements of bodies for some purpose; and our only reason for using arithmetic in fixing the proportions of numbers is to help us discover the proportions of the influence and operations of bodies. . . . Abstract or demonstrative reasoning never influences any of our actions except by directing our judgment concerning causes and effects. That brings me to the second operation of the understanding.

(2) It’s obvious that when we have the prospect of unpleasure or pleasure from any object, we feel a consequent emotion of aversion or liking, and are led to avoid or embrace the object in question. It’s also obvious that this emotion doesn’t stop there; rather, it makes us look in every direction so as to take in whatever objects are connected with the first one by the relation of cause and effect. That’s where reasoning comes in: it looks for cause-effect connections, and the results it comes up with will affect how we subsequently act. But it’s obvious that in this case reason doesn’t provide the impulse to act but only steers it. It’s the prospect of pleasure or unpleasure from an object that makes us want it or want to avoid it; and these feelings extend themselves to the causes and effects of the object as they are pointed out to us by reason and experience. We couldn’t have the slightest interest in what causes what, if the causes and effects were indifferent to us [i.e. if we didn’t have attitudes, pro or con, towards them]. Where •the objects themselves don’t affect us, •their way of being connected can’t have any influence over us; and because reason is nothing but the discovery of how they are connected, objects can’t affect us with the help of reason.

Since unaided reason can’t (a) produce an action or give rise to a volition, I infer that it is equally incapable of (b) preventing a volition or of challenging any passion or emotion ·in its role as a producer of our conduct·. This inference is strictly valid. The only way reason could possibly (b) prevent a volition would be by pushing our passions in a different direction; but such a push, if it operated alone, would have been able (a) to produce a volition. Nothing can block or dampen the impulse of passion except a contrary impulse—·a push in the opposite direction·; and if this contrary impulse ever comes from reason, it follows that reason must have a basic influence on the will, and must be able to cause volitions as well as block them. But if reason has no basic influence, it can’t possibly resist any drive that does have such efficacy; it can’t ever keep the mind in suspense for a moment. So it seems that the drive that opposes our passion can’t be reason (using that word in its proper sense). When we talk of the struggle ‘between passion and reason’, we aren’t speaking correctly. Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions; the only work it can claim to do is in serving and obeying them. [The famous first half of that sentence is verbatim Hume; he didn’t put it in bold type.] This opinion may strike you as rather extraordinary, so perhaps I should back it up by some other considerations.

A passion is just a bit of the world’s furniture, or if you like a property or state of a bit of the world’s furniture; there’s nothing about it that would enable it to represent or be a copy of anything other than itself. When I am angry, that passion is just the state that I am in; it isn’t about anything else, any more than a reference to something else is involved in my being thirsty or sick or more than five foot tall. So my anger can’t possibly be opposed by, or contradictory to, truth and reason; because any such contradiction consists in a misfit between objects and the ideas that represent them; ·and my anger doesn’t represent anything·.

. . . . Passions can be contrary to reason only to the extent that they are accompanied by some judgment or opinion. So there are only in two senses in which any passion can be called ‘unreasonable’. (1) When a passion such as hope or fear, grief or joy, despair or security, is based on a belief in the existence of objects that don’t really exist—·which includes: a belief in the occurrence of events that don’t really occur·. (2) When in acting on a passion the person chooses means that won’t secure his desired end, because he is making some false judgment about causes and effects. If a passion isn’t based on false beliefs, and doesn’t lead to the choice of inadequate means for the person’s end, there’s nothing the understanding can say about it by way of justification or condemnation. It’s not contrary to reason for me to prefer •the destruction of the whole world to •the scratching of my finger. It’s not contrary to reason for me to choose •my total ruin so as to prevent •some slight unpleasure for a person who is wholly unknown to me. When I accept that x is better y, it’s not contrary to reason for me to have a strong preference for y. A trivial good can in certain circumstances produce a stronger desire than does the greatest and most valuable enjoyment; and there’s nothing extraordinary in this, any more than there is in mechanics when we see a one-pound weight so situated that it can raise 100 pounds. In short, a passion must be accompanied by some false judgment if it is to be unreasonable; and even then, strictly speaking, what is unreasonable is not the passion but the judgment. . . .

For anyone who doesn’t examine things with a strict philosophic eye [Hume’s phrase], it is natural to think that there’s no difference between two actions of the mind that don’t feel different. Now, reason exerts itself without producing any sensible emotions, and hardly ever gives pleasure or unpleasure . . . . So it comes about that every action of the mind that is performed with that same calmness and tranquillity is confused with reason by everyone whose opinions about things are based on superficial appearances. Some calm desires and tendencies, though they are real passions, produce little emotion in the mind and are known more by their effects than by how they feel. These desires are of two kinds: (1) basic instincts implanted in our natures, such as benevolence and resentment, the love of life, and kindness to children; (2) the general desire for good and aversion to evil, considered merely as such. When any of these passions are calm, and cause no turbulence in the soul, they’re easily mistaken for the determinations of reason, ·so that (for example) when someone is calmly drawn to behaving kindly to a child· he thinks he is being told to do this by the faculty that makes judgments concerning truth and falsehood. Because the calm desires and the workings of reason don’t feel different, they have been thought to have the same nature and to work in the same way.

Beside these calm passions that often determine •the will, there are certain violent emotions of the same kind that also have a great influence on •that faculty. When someone harms me, I often feel a violent passion of resentment that makes me want him to be punished by coming to harm, independently of any thought of pleasure and advantage for myself. ·Another example·: When I am immediately threatened with some grievous ill, my fears, apprehensions, and aversions rise to a great height and produce an emotion that I feel.

Philosophers have commonly gone wrong by •ascribing the direction of the will entirely to one of these mechanisms and •supposing the other to have no influence. ·Evidence that the calm passions don’t do all the work·: Men often act knowingly against their interest, which means that ·the calm passion involved in· the view of the greatest possible good doesn’t always influence them. ·Evidence that the violent passions don’t do all the work·: Men often counteract a violent passion in furthering their interests and designs; so they aren’t determined purely by their present uneasiness.

[Hume’s choice of words here suggests that while expounding his view about calm and violent passions he means also to be offering a passing comment on Locke—who wrote that he used to think that the will is always determined by the person’s view of ‘the greater good’, and then came to see that this is wrong and that the will is always determined by the person’s ‘present uneasiness’.]

The fact is that both these mechanisms act on the will; and when they are opposed, which one prevails will depend on the person’s general character or his present disposition. When we credit someone with having ‘strength of mind’, we mean that in him the calm passions usually prevail over the violent ones; though we all know that no-one has this virtue so constantly that he to decide ·what is actually going on· in men’s actions and never gives in to the urgings of ·violent· passion and desire. resolutions in any case where there is any contrariety of Because of these variations of temperament, it is very hard motives and passions.

4: The causes of the violent passions

This question of the different causes and effects of the calm and violent passions is as tricky—as demanding of careful precision—as anything in philosophy. It’s obvious that passions don’t influence the will in proportion to how violent they are, to how much disturbance they create in the person’s frame of mind. ·Sometimes the truth is the opposite of that·! It often happens that when a passion has become •a settled action-driver and •the predominant inclination of the soul, it no longer produces any agitation that the person can feel. Its own force and its repeated activity have made everything yield to it, so that it now directs the person’s conduct without the opposition and emotion that naturally accompany every momentary gust of passion. So we need to distinguish •calm passions from •weak ones, and •violent passions from •strong ones. But despite this, when we want to control a man and push him to act in a certain way we’ll usually have a better chance of succeeding if we work on his •violent passions rather than his •calm ones, hooking into his •inclination rather than his •reason (as the vulgar call it). ·And how are we to do this? The answer to that introduces my main topic in this section·. What we have to do is to get the object of the passion ·we are working on· into a situation that will increase the violence of the passion. It’s just a fact that everything depends on the situation of the object, and that a variation in that can change a calm passion into a violent one or vice versa. Both these kinds of passions pursue good and avoid evil; and both of them are increased or lessened by the increase or lessening of the good or evil. But here’s where they come apart: something that the person judges to be good will cause a violent passion in him when it is near, but a calm passion when it is remote—·it’s the very same good, affecting the passions differently according to its situation·. This is part of the story of the will; so I’m going to examine it thoroughly, investigating the circumstances and situations of objects that make a passion either calm or violent.

It is a remarkable property of human nature that any emotion that accompanies a passion is easily converted into it, even if they are basically different from and even contrary to one another. [Hume reminds us of his theory that ‘a double relation of impressions and ideas’ is needed for one passion to produce another; but that is irrelevant here, he says, because he is talking about two passions that already exist from their own separate causes, and then merge and mingle; and for this there doesn’t have to be a double relation, or even, sometimes, a single one. He continues:] The predominant passion swallows up the lesser one and converts it into itself. Once the spirits [see note here] have been aroused, it’s easy to change their direction, and it’s natural to imagine that this change will come from the prevailing passion. In many ways the connection between two passions is closer than the connection between any passion and ·passionless· indifference.

[Hume now offers three examples. (1) A lover is so ‘heartily in love’ that he comes to find charming and lovable the little faults of his mistress that would ordinarily make him angry. (2) A public speaker, wanting to get his audience worked up over some ‘matter of fact’, first makes them curious, delaying his revelation until they are almost desperate to know what it is. Hume doesn’t provide details to make this plausible. (3) The third example concerns the emotions of a soldier going into battle, feeling brave and confident when he thinks of ‘his friends and fellow-soldiers’ and terrified when the thinks about the enemy. Hume writes of the steps that are taken to increase the soldier’s confidence and reduce his fear; and he says that this involves the phenomenon that is his official topic here—a dominant emotion converting a lesser one into itself—but he says nothing to make this believable.]

If two passions are both present at the same time, then, however independent they are, they’re naturally transfused into each other. From this it follows that when good or evil is placed in such a situation as to cause not only •the basic direct passion of desire or aversion but also •some more specific emotion, the basic passion acquires new force and violence.

One class of cases where this happens is when an object arouses contrary passions. When someone is subject to two opposing passions, this often causes a new emotion in the spirits, creating more disorder than would come from the working together of two passions of equal force [equal, that is, to the two opposing passions]. This new emotion is easily converted into the predominant one of the two opposing passions, which thus becomes more violent than it would have been if it had met with no opposition. That explains why it is natural for us to want what has been forbidden, and to take pleasure in performing actions merely because they are unlawful. When the notion of duty is opposed to the passions, it usually can’t overcome them; and when it fails to do so, it tends rather to increase them, by producing an opposition in our motives and drives.

Whether the opposition arises from internal motives or external obstacles, the effect is the same: the passion usually acquires new force and violence in both cases. The mind’s efforts to overcome the obstacle arouse the spirits and enliven the passion.

Uncertainty has the same effect as opposition. ·The natural accompaniments of uncertainty·—the agitation of the thought, the thought’s quick turns from one view to another, the variety of passions that come with the different views—all these produce an agitation in the mind and transfuse themselves into the predominant passion.

Why does security •diminish passions? The only natural cause for this, I believe, is that security removes the uncertainty that •increases the passions. When the mind is left to itself it immediately goes slack; it has to be continually supported by a new flow of passion if it is to preserve its eagerness and energy. And that’s also the reason why despair tends to dampen the passions, despite the fact that despair is contrary to security. ·That contrariety is irrelevant; the crucial point is that despair and security are two forms of certainty·.

Nothing more powerfully enlivens an emotion than concealing some part of its object by throwing it into a kind of shade, so that we are shown enough of the object to be drawn to it while still having some work left for the imagination to do. ·This is doubly enlivening·: •obscurity is always accompanied by a kind of uncertainty, ·which is enlivening·, and •the imagination’s effort to complete our idea of the object arouses the spirits and gives even more force to the passion.

With despair and security we have an example of

•contrary states that produce the same effects;

which contrasts with absence, which is

•a single state that has contrary effects

in different circumstances. The Duc de la Rochefoucault was right when he said that absence destroys weak passions but increases strong ones; as the wind extinguishes a candle but blows up a fire. Long absence naturally weakens our idea and diminishes the passion; but when the idea is strong and lively enough to support itself, the unpleasure arising from absence increases the passion and gives it new force and violence.

5: The effects of custom

Nothing has more power to increase and lessen our passions, to convert pleasure into unpleasure and vice versa, than custom and repetition. Custom has two basic effects on the mind: •it makes easier the performance of any ·kind of· action or the conception of any object, and •it then creates a tendency or inclination towards that action or object. All the other effects of custom, however extraordinary, come from those two.

When the soul sets itself to perform an action or conceive of an object to which it isn’t accustomed, the faculties are somewhat stiff and awkward and the spirits find it difficult to move in the ·required· new direction. Because •this difficulty arouses the spirits, •it is the source of wonder, surprise, and all the emotions that arise from novelty; and •it is in itself very agreeable, like everything that enlivens the mind to a moderate degree. But although surprise is agreeable in itself, its effect of agitating the spirits leads to a heightening of all our affections, pleasant as well as unpleasant. (This follows from my principle that every emotion that precedes or accompanies a passion is easily converted into it.) So every new thing affects us greatly, giving us more pleasure or unpleasure than what naturally belongs to it. If the item in question often returns, the novelty wears off, the passions subside, the spirits stop bustling, and we survey the item in a calmer way.

The repetition gradually makes the action or conception easy; and that’s another very powerful driver in the human mind, and an infallible source of pleasure as long as the easiness hasn’t gone too far. It’s worth noting that the pleasure that comes from a moderate facility [= ‘easiness’] doesn’t tend to augment unpleasant as well as pleasant emotions in the way that novelty does. The pleasure of facility doesn’t consist in any •ferment of the spirits as much as it does their •orderly motion; and this is sometimes so powerful that it even converts unpleasure into pleasure, eventually getting us to like something that was at first most harsh and disagreeable.

That was about moderate facility. When an action or conception becomes too easy, it often converts pleasure into unpleasure, making the actions of the mind so faint and lethargic that they can’t any longer interest and support it. The only things, almost, that become disagreeable through custom are ones that are naturally accompanied by some emotion, which is destroyed by the too frequent repetition. We can look at or think about the clouds, the night sky, trees, and stones as often as we like without ever feeling any aversion. Not so with women and music and good cheer and all the other things that naturally ought to be agreeable: when one of them becomes indifferent, that easily produces the opposite emotion. . . .

6: The imagination’s influence on the passions

The imagination is notably closely united with the emotions; nothing that affects it can be entirely indifferent to them. Whenever our ·imaginative· ideas of good or evil become livelier, the passions become more violent and keep pace with the imagination in all its variations. Never mind •why this happens; . . . . it’s enough for my present purpose that the imagination •does have this influence on the passions, and that there are plenty of examples of this.

[Hume now devotes most of two pages to the thesis that if we are acquainted with pleasure x and know about pleasure y only in a general way (presumably from description), we’ll be more affected by x than by y, even if we accept that y is better than x. (He might be thinking of x as the pleasure of dining with good friends and y as the promised joys of heaven.) The reason, he says, is that a very general notion of a pleasure doesn’t give our imagination, or therefore our emotions, enough to latch on to. He then recounts something that happened in ancient Athens. Someone had a plan for a military action that he thought would be good for Athens, but he couldn’t say publicly what it was because surprise was of its essence. The Athenians told him to confide the details to one man whom they trusted, and that man reported that the proposed action would be •very advantageous to Athens and •very unjust; whereupon the Athenian people voted against putting the plan into action. Hume reports an historian who is extremely impressed by this behaviour, but he says that it’s not surprising: his point is that the description ‘very advantageous to Athens’ is too general to grip their imaginations or, therefore, their emotions. He concludes:] The advantage must have had a weaker influence on their imaginations, and have been a less violent temptation, than if they had been acquainted with all its details; otherwise it’s hard to conceive that a whole people—unjust and violent people, as men commonly are—should so unanimously have stuck to justice and rejected a considerable advantage.

Any satisfaction that we have recently enjoyed, and of which the memory is fresh, operates more forcefully on the will than a less recent satisfaction of which the traces are almost obliterated. That has to be because in the first case the memory helps the imagination, giving extra force and vigour to its conceptions. The image of the past pleasure being strong and violent, bestows these qualities on the idea of the future pleasure that is connected with it by the relation of resemblance.

A pleasure that is suitable to •our present way of life arouses our desires and appetites more than does a pleasure that is foreign to •it. This can also be explained in terms of the same mechanism.

Nothing is more capable of putting passion into the mind than eloquence, by which objects are represented in their strongest and most lively colours. We don’t need the help of an orator to see that x is valuable and y is odious; but •these ideas may have only a feeble influence on the will and the affections until an orator stirs up the imagination and gives •them force.

But eloquence isn’t always needed. Someone else’s bare opinion, especially if reinforced by passion, will cause an idea of good or evil to influence us—an idea that would otherwise have been entirely neglected. This comes from the mechanism of sympathy, which, I repeat, is simply the conversion of an idea into an impression by the force of imagination.

It’s a conspicuous fact that lively passions usually go with a lively imagination. This is just one of the ways in which the force of a passion depends on the temperament of the person as much as on the nature or situation of the object. . . .

7: Closeness and distance in space and time

There is an easy reason why everything that is close to us, whether in space or in time, should be conceived with special force and liveliness, and excel every other object in its influence on the imagination. Ourself is intimately present to us, and anything that is related to self—·e.g. by closeness·—is intimately present too. But that doesn’t explain the fact that when an object is far enough away from us to have lost the advantage of this relation, it becomes fainter and more obscure the further away it is. To explain this we may need to get into details.

It’s obvious that our imagination can’t ever totally forget the points of space and time in which we exist—·i.e. can’t ever forget here and now·. It gets so many reminders of them from the passions and the senses that even when it is busy with things that are far away ·in space and/or time· it is forced at every moment to reflect on the present. Now, when we are thinking about objects that we regard as real and existent, we take them in their proper order and situation; we don’t jump from one object to another that is distant from it, without at least sketchily running our thought across all the objects that come between them. [Despite Hume’s use of ‘distant’ and ‘space’, throughout all this he is talking about near/far in time as well as in space. He’ll come to a relevant difference between them in the next paragraph but one.] So when we reflect on any object that is distant from ourselves, we are obliged not only •to reach it at first by passing through all the space between ourselves and the object, but also •to keep redoing this because we are at every moment recalled to the consideration of ourselves and our present situation, ·i.e. recalled to here and now·. It’s easy to believe that this interruption must weaken the idea, by breaking up the mind’s action so that its conception can’t be as intense and continuous as it is when we think about something closer to us. . . . The unliveliness of our idea of an object is roughly proportional to how distant the object is from us and how difficult it is for us to get our thought across to it.

So those are the effects on our •imagination of close objects and remote ones. If my previous theory is correct, there must be corresponding effects on the •will and the •passions—strong effects for close objects, weaker ones for remote objects. And that’s what we find. In everyday life men are principally concerned about items that aren’t far away in space or in time, enjoying the present and leaving what is far off to the care of chance and fortune. Talk to a man about his condition thirty years hence and he won’t listen. Speak of what is to happen tomorrow and he will attend. The breaking of a mirror at home concerns us more than the burning of a house a hundred miles away.

But although spatial and temporal distance both have a considerable effect on the imagination, and therefore on the will and passions, the effect of spatial distance is much less than that of temporal distance. Twenty years —that’s a tiny stretch of time compared with how far back history goes; indeed it isn’t very big compared with the extent of some people’s memories. Yet I think that a twenty-year distance will weaken our ideas and diminish our passions more than they would be diminished by five thousand miles, or even the greatest distance possible on our planet. A West Indian merchant ·here in Europe· will tell you that he cares somewhat about what is going on in Jamaica, but he is not likely to think far enough ahead to be afraid of possible accidents twenty years into the future.

Why is there this difference? It must come from the different properties of space and time. [Hume’s explanation is this. Different parts of space exist together, and can be perceived together; this helps the imagination to imagine them together; and that makes the imagination’s journey from here to elsewhere ‘smooth and easy’. In contrast with that, different parts of time don’t exist together, and can’t be perceived together; so when the imagination traces a route from now to some other time it must go through the intervening times piecemeal—‘Every part must appear single and alone’, as Hume puts it—so that the imagination’s journey is much bumpier. Hume concludes:] In this way any distance in time causes a greater interruption in the thought than an equal distance in space, and consequently weakens more considerably the idea—and therefore (according to my system) correspondingly weakens the passions.

There’s another somewhat similar phenomenon, namely that an object a certain distance into the •future has a greater effect than that same object would have if it were that same distance into the •past. It’s easy to explain with respect to effects on the will: what is past can’t be altered, so it’s to be expected that it won’t have any effect on the will. But why does the future have more effect on the •passions than the past does? That question is still standing, and it’s worth trying to answer.

When we think about some temporally remote item by going progressively through the points of time between ourselves and it, a further feature of our thinking comes into play—one that I haven’t yet mentioned. It is that when we think our way along a period of time, we find it easier to go through the moments in the order in which they exist. Starting from an event in the past, we find it easier to move our thought from that event to what happened afterwards than to move it from that event to what happened before it. You can see this at work in the order that is always observed in historical narrations: nothing short of an absolute necessity can get an historian to break the order of time by narrating two events in the opposite order to that in which they actually occurred.

It will be easy to apply this to our present question if we reflect on my point that the present situation of the person is always what imagination starts from when it sets out to conceive any ·temporally· distant object. When the object is past, the movement of thought in passing to it from the present is contrary to nature: it goes from one point of time to an earlier one, then a still earlier one . . . and so on, in opposition to the natural course of the succession ·of time·. Whereas when we turn our thought to a future object, our imagination flows along the stream of time, going in the seemingly most natural order from one point of time to the next . . . and so on. So the move into the future is easier for the imagination, making it conceive its object in a stronger and fuller light than when it makes its (much less natural) journey into the past. A small distance into the past has a greater effect in interrupting and weakening the conception than a much greater distance into the future. And that past/future difference in effect on the imagination produces a past/future difference in effect on the passions.

[The section ends with a one-page paragraph in which Hume presents a further flourish of his present line of thought. It’s not clear what the flourish really is, and it seems not to be needed for the understanding of the rest of what he has to say.]

8: Closeness and distance in space and time (continued)

Thus I have explained three remarkable phenomena: •distance weakens both conception and passion; •distance in time has a greater effect than distance in space; and •distance in past time has a greater effect than distance in future time. Now we come to three phenomena that seem to be in a way the reverse of these. They all concern the respect and admiration that we have for a given item x:

(1) It is increased by x’s being at a very great ·spatial or temporal· distance.

(2) It is increased more by x’s being distant in time than by its being distant in space.

(3) It is increased more by x’s being distant in the past than by its being distant in the future.

This is an odd set of facts; forgive me if I stay with it for some time.

[In the paragraphs headed (1) and (3), ‘admiration’ is used, as it often was in Hume’s day, to mean something like ‘enjoyable wonder’; one could ‘admire’ the distances between the stars without in any way approving of them.]

(1) Why does a great distance increase our respect and admiration for an object? It is obvious that the mere view and contemplation of any greatness, whether in a succession or all at once, enlarges the soul and gives it delight and pleasure. A wide plain, the ocean, eternity, a succession of centuries— these are all objects of great interest; they surpass everything, however beautiful, whose beauty isn’t accompanied by a comparable greatness. Now, when a very distant object is presented to our imagination we naturally think about •the distance between ourselves and it, and get the satisfaction that usually comes from conceiving •something great and magnificent. And our admiration for the distance naturally spreads to the distant object (because of the imagination’s practice of passing easily from one idea to any other that is related to it); so that any passions we have directed to the distance come also to be directed to the distant object. For an object to attract our distance-related admiration, it doesn’t have to be actually distant from us; all that is needed is for it to make us, by the natural association of ideas, carry our thought to a considerable distance. A great traveller counts as a very extraordinary person although he is right here in the room with us; as a Greek medal in our display-case is regarded as a valuable curiosity. In these cases the object by a natural transition makes us think about the distance (·spatial for the traveller, temporal for the medal·), and our admiration for the distance by another natural transition reflects back on the object.

Temporal distance has this effect more strongly than does spatial distance. Ancient busts and inscriptions are more valued than ·contemporary· Japanese tables; . . . . we regard the •ancient Chaldeans and Egyptians with more veneration than we do the •modern Chinese and Persians, and take more trouble to clear up the history and chronology of the •former than it would cost us to make a voyage and get solid information about the character, learning, and government of the •latter. To explain this I shall have to take a detour.

It’s a conspicuous quality in human nature that any opposition that doesn’t entirely discourage and intimidate us has instead a contrary effect, and inspires us with a more than ordinary largeness of thought. In gathering ourself together to overcome the opposition, we invigorate the soul and raise it to a height that it would never have known otherwise. Giving in to a difficulty makes our strength useless, so that we have no sense of having strength; but opposition ·to a difficulty· awakens our strength and puts it to use.

This is also true in reverse. It’s not just that opposition enlarges the soul; when the soul is full of courage and largeness of thought it in a way seeks opposition. . . . •Whatever supports and fills the passions is agreeable to us; •what weakens and enfeebles them is disagreeable. Opposition has the •former effect, and facility [= ‘easiness’] has the •latter; so it’s no wonder that the mind in certain dispositions wants opposition and is averse to facility.

These mechanisms have an effect on the imagination as well as on the passions. To be convinced of this, we need only consider . . . [Hume now embarks on a three-page exposition of this point (in the course of which he loses sight of what he set out to argue; the only thing in it that has the form ‘. . . applies to the imagination as well as to the passions’ is simply asserted, not shown). The exposition starts with the effect on the imagination of height and depth, which we associate with good and bad—e.g. a monarch has a ‘high’ status, a labourer a ‘low’ one. Now, no place is intrinsically high: our notion of height is just the thought of a position from which it is easy for bodies to descend towards the earth, a place towards which it is hard for bodies to rise. And the customary descent of •bodies from heights operates on our •senses, which affect our •imagination; the result of this being that when we think about something that is high up, ‘the idea of its weight makes us tend to transport it to the place immediately below it, and so on ·downwards· until we reach the ground, which stops the body and our imagination’. And we have some difficulty moving from the thought of something to the thought of something above it, ‘as if our ideas acquired a kind of heaviness from their objects’. In this context, Hume revisits his thesis that a fully robust soul will (‘in a manner’) look for difficult things to do, applies this to the (difficult and therefore attractive) process of raising one’s thoughts higher and higher, and asserts that this applies to the imagination as well as passions. Then:]

All this is easily applied to our question of why a considerable distance in time produces a greater veneration for the distant objects than a comparable distance in space. The imagination finds it harder to move from one portion of time to another than to move through parts of space, because space or extension appears to our senses as •united whereas time or succession is always •broken and divided. If the distance is large enough it creates a challenge for the imagination, which is invigorated by it; the challenge (and therefore the invigoration) is greater with temporal than with spatial distance, . . . . and this is the reason why all the relics of antiquity are so precious in our eyes, and appear more valuable than what is brought even from the remotest parts of the world.

(3) The third phenomenon that I noted—·namely, the fact that our admiration for a thing is increased more by its being distant in the past than by its being distant in the future·—fully confirms this. [Hume’s explanation of this is based on the thesis that we think of past/future in terms of high/low, e.g. thinking of our ancestors as above us. That has the result that it is harder for us to think our way ‘up’ to earlier times than to think our way ‘down’ to later ones; if the difficulty is great enough it presents an invigorating challenge to our imagination and our passions, and that makes us have ‘veneration and respect’ for any object that our thought reaches by this difficult route. Then Hume ends the section:]

Before I leave this subject of the will, I should perhaps give a brief summary of what I have said about it, so as to put the whole ·body of doctrine· more clearly before your eyes. A ‘passion’, in the ordinary sense of the word, is a violent emotion that the mind experiences when confronted by something good or evil, or by something that arouses an appetite in us by hooking into the basic structure of our faculties. By ‘reason’ we mean emotions of the very same kind as passions, but operating more calmly and causing no disturbance in the person’s temperament. (The calmness of these emotions leads us into a mistake about what they are, causing us to regard them as merely conclusions of our intellectual faculties.) The causes and the effects of these violent and calm passions are pretty variable, and largely depend on the particular temperament and disposition of the person concerned. The violent passions generally have a more powerful influence on the will; though we often find that the calm ones, when backed by reflection and supported by resolution, can control the violent passions in their most furious movements. A calm passion can easily turn into a violent one, either by

•a change of mood in the person,

•a change in the circumstances and situation of the object of the passion,

•reinforcement by an accompanying passion,

•reinforcement by custom, or

•input from an excited imagination,

and that fact makes this whole affair more uncertain, ·i.e. makes it harder to predict with justified confidence how a given person’s emotional state at a given moment will lead him to act·. This so-called ‘struggle between passion and reason’ adds variety to human life, and makes men different not only from each other but also from themselves at different times. Philosophy can account for only a few of the larger and more obvious events of this war, leaving aside all the smaller and more delicate revolutions because they depend on mechanisms that are too tiny for philosophy to grasp.

9: The direct passions

It’s easy to see that the passions, both direct and indirect, are based on unpleasure and pleasure, and that all you need to produce an affection of any kind is to present some good or evil. Remove the unpleasure and pleasure and you immediately remove love and hatred, pride and humility, desire and aversion, and of most of our reflective or secondary impressions.

The impressions that arise most naturally and simply from good and evil—actual or prospective—are the direct passions of desire and aversion, grief and joy, hope and fear, along with volition. The mind by a basic instinct tends to unite itself with the good and to avoid the evil.

[Hume goes on to fit indirect passions into his account. Some impression of unpleasure or pleasure gives me a direct passion; and further features of the situation make ‘certain dormant mechanisms of the human mind’ kick in to create indirect passions in the manner Hume described early in Book II. A secondary passion doesn’t compete with the primary passion from which it comes, and may indeed increase it. A suit of fine clothes gives me pleasure because of its beauty; this pleasure produces the direct passions of volition and desire; the thought that I own the suit starts up the mechanism that produces pride; and the pleasure that this involves reflects back on my direct passions, adding strength to my desire or volition, joy or hope. Then:]

When a good is certain or probable, it produces joy. When evil is certain or probable, there arises grief or sorrow.

When good or evil is uncertain, it gives rise to fear or hope—depending on where the balance of uncertainty lies.

Desire is derived from good considered simply, and aversion is derived from evil. [That sentence is verbatim Hume.] The will exerts itself, when either good can be achieved or evil averted by some action of the mind or body.

Beside good and evil—i.e. pleasure and unpleasure—the direct passions often arise from a natural impulse or instinct that defies explanation. Examples include: •the desire for our enemies to be punished and for our friends to be happy, •hunger, •lust, and a few •other bodily appetites. Strictly speaking, these ·indirect· passions produce good and evil rather than coming from them as other emotions do. ·For example, when I look hungrily at the food on my plate, the situation is not that I see the food as good and am led by that to hunger for it; rather, it is that I hunger for the food, and that makes it a good for me·.

The only direct passions that are worth studying closely, it seems, are hope and fear; and I’ll now try to explain them. The ·fundamental· fact is obvious:

If an event would produce grief or joy if it were certain to happen, it will give rise to fear or hope if there is only an uncertain probability that it will happen.

Thus, the difference in certainty of upshot makes a considerable difference in the associated passion. To understand why, we have to go back to what I said in I.iii.11 about the nature of probability.

Probability arises from an opposition of contrary chances or causes, by which the mind is not allowed to settle on either side but is incessantly tossed from one side to the other—from thinking of the object as existent to thinking of it as nonexistent. [This to-and-fro of ‘imagination or understanding, call it which you please’ [Hume’s exact phrase] creates a fluctuation between joy and sorrow—the unsettledness of thought produces unsettledness of passions. Hume continues:]

With regard to its passions, the human mind is not like a flute, which stops making a sound the moment the breath ceases, but rather like a violin, which still makes some sound, gradually fading away, after the bow’s •stroke has been completed. The imagination is extremely quick and agile; but the passions are slow and hard to budge, which is why when the mind is presented with an alternation of two views that are productive of two different passions, though the imagination can change its views very nimbly, it does not happen that each •stroke produces a clear and distinct note of ·some one· passion, but rather one passion is always mixed and mingled with the other. Depending on whether the probability is greater on the good or the evil side, the passion of joy or sorrow predominates in the composition. Probability provides a larger number of views or chances on one side than on the other; or—to put the same thing in different words—it involves a larger number of returns of one of the passions. Those dispersed passions are collected into one, and form a higher intensity of that passion. Which is to say, in other words, that the •joy and •grief that are intermingled by means of the alternating contrary views of the imagination produce through their mixture the passions of •hope and •fear.

The contrariety of passions that is our present topic raises a teasing question about how to explain the following empirical fact. When the objects of contrary passions are presented at once, any one of four things can happen. One is that the predominant passion absorbs the other and is increased by it (I have already explained this, ·and won’t discuss it further here·). The other three are:

(1) Brief attacks of one of the passions alternate with brief attacks of the other.

(2) The two passions cancel one another out, so that neither of them is experienced.

(3) Both passions remain united in the mind.

What theory can we use to explain these different upshots? and what general mechanism underlies then all?

(1) When the contrary passions arise from entirely different objects they take place alternately, because the lack of any relation in the relevant ideas separates the impressions from each other and prevents them from cancelling one another out. For example, when a man is upset over •losing in a lawsuit, and joyful at •the birth of a son, his mind can’t run from the agreeable to the calamitous object and back again quickly enough for one emotion to damp down the other and leave him between them in a •state of indifference.

(2) It’s easier for the mind to achieve •that calm state when a single event is of a mixed nature, having both good and bad aspects. In that case, the two passions mingle with each other by means of the relation—·i.e. the relation of coming from different aspects of a single event·—and so they cancel out and leave the mind in perfect tranquillity.

(3) Suppose that what we have is not (1) two different objects or (2) good and bad aspects of a single object, but rather a single entirely good object which is being considered not as certain but only as more or less probable. In that case, I contend, the contrary passions will both be present in the soul at once, and instead of destroying and damping down each other they will exist together and produce a third impression or emotion by their union. [A little later on, Hume compares (1) with two liquids in different bottles, (2) with acid and alkali in one bottle, and (3) with oil and vinegar in one bottle. On the way to that he explains rather lengthily what is needed for a case to be of type (3) rather than type (2). The explanation is ingenious, but not very nutritious, philosophically speaking. After all that he returns to his main topic in this section:]

The passions of fear and hope can arise when the chances on the two sides are equal. In such a situation the passions are at their strongest, because the mind there has the least foundation to rest on and is tossed about by the greatest uncertainty. Add a little probability on the side of grief and you immediately see that passion spread itself over the joy/grief mixture and tincture it into fear; as the probability on the grief side goes on increasing, the grief steadily grows and so does the fear, until—as the joy component continually diminishes—the fear imperceptibly turns into pure grief. And the entire process can be run in reverse: increase probability on the joy side and you’ll intensify the joy until it turns into hope, and eventually when the probability becomes high enough the hope will turn back into pure joy. Aren’t these ·facts· plain proofs that the passions of fear and hope are mixtures of grief and joy—as plain as the comparable proofs in optics that a coloured ray of the sun passing through a prism is a composition of two others? I’m sure that neither natural nor moral philosophy contains any proofs stronger than this.

There are two kinds of probability: •when the object is really in itself uncertain, and to be determined by chance; and •when the object is already certain but we can’t be certain about it because we have evidence on both sides of the question. Both kinds of probability cause fear and hope; which must come from the one property that they have in common, namely the uncertainty and fluctuation they bestow on the imagination by the unresolved contrariety of views.

It’s not only probability that can cause hope and fear. They can arise from anything which, like probability, produces a wavering and unconstant method of surveying an object; and that is convincing evidence that my hypothesis about the causes of hope and fear is correct.

An evil that is hardly thought of as even possible does sometimes produce fear, especially if it’s a very great evil. A man can’t think of extreme pain without trembling, if he is in any danger of suffering them. The smallness of the probability is made up for by the greatness of the evil, and the sensation ·of fear· is just as lively as it would be if the evil were more probable. . . .

Fear can even be caused sometimes by evils that are agreed to be impossible. For example, when we tremble on the brink of a precipice, though we know that we are in no danger because it is up to us whether we advance a step further. What is happening here is this: the immediate •presence of the evil influences the imagination in the same way that •the certainty of it would do; but when this fear collides with our thought about how safe we are, it is immediately retracted, and causes the same kind of passion, as when contrary passions are produced from a contrariety of chances.

Evils that are certain sometimes produce fear in the same way that ·merely· possible and impossible evils do. A man in a strong well guarded prison with no chance of escape trembles at the thought of ·being tortured on· the rack, to which he has been sentenced. This happens only when the certain evil is terrible and confusing: the mind continually pushes the evil away in horror, and the evil continually pushes back into the man’s thought. The evil itself is fixed and established, but the man’s mind cannot bear being fixed on it; and from this fluctuation and uncertainty there arises a passion that feels much the same as fear.

[Fear can arise when some evil is uncertain (not as to whether it did or will occur, but) as to what evil it is. Hume gives the example of a man who learns that one of his sons has been suddenly killed, but doesn’t yet know which. This produces in his mind a fluctuation between one evil and another—‘the passion cannot settle’—with nothing good about it; and this produces something like the fear that comes from evil/good uncertainties.]

These results enable us to explain a phenomenon that at first sight seems very extraordinary, namely that surprise is apt to change into fear, and everything that is unexpected frightens us. The most obvious explanation of this is that human nature is in general cowardly, so that on the sudden appearance of any object we immediately conclude it to be an evil and are struck by fear without waiting to learn anything about it. But although this seems obvious it turns out to be wrong. The suddenness and strangeness of an appearance naturally creates a commotion in the mind, like everything that is unfamiliar to us and that we weren’t prepared for. This commotion naturally produces a curiosity or inquisitiveness that is very violent (because of the strong and sudden impulse of the object); because of its violence it becomes unpleasant, and resembles in its fluctuation and uncertainty the sensation of fear or the mixed passions of grief and joy. This •likeness of fear naturally turns into •fear itself, giving us a real sense that something evil is present or on the way. That’s an example of the mind’s general practice of forming its judgments more from its own present disposition than from the nature of its objects.

[The concept of fluctuation seems to intrude into this paragraph without being explained or justified. Perhaps Hume’s thought is that a ‘commotion’ is bound to be a shaky fluctuating affair.]

Thus all kinds of uncertainty are strongly connected with fear, even when they don’t cause any opposition of passions coming from opposite features of the situation or ways of looking at it. A person who has left his friend on his sick-bed will feel more anxiety about his friend than if he were still with him, even if he can’t give him any help and can’t judge what the outcome of the sickness will be. Here is the explanation of this. What he chiefly cares about here is the life or death of his friend; he will be just as uncertain about that when he is with his friend as when he is away from him; but while he is there in the hospital room he will take in a thousand little details of his friend’s situation and condition, these will steady his thought and prevent the fluctuation and uncertainty that is so like fear. It’s true that uncertainty is in one way as closely allied to hope as to fear, because it is essential part of both; but it doesn’t lean to that side, because uncertainty as such is unpleasant, which gives it a relation of impressions to the unpleasant passions. That’s why it is that uncertainty concerning any little detail relating to a person increases our fear of his death or misfortune. [Hume decorates this with four lines by the Latin poet Horace.]

But this mechanism connecting fear with uncertainty goes even further: Any doubt produces fear, even if it’s a doubt about whether A or B or C will happen, when each of them is good and desirable. A virgin on her bridal night goes to bed full of fears and apprehensions, although she expects nothing but pleasure of the highest kind, and what she has long wished for. The newness and greatness of the event, the confusion of wishes and joys, throw the mind into such a turmoil that it doesn’t know what passion to settle on; that gives rise to a fluttering or unsettledness of the spirits, and because this is somewhat unpleasant it very naturally degenerates into fear.

So we go on finding that whatever causes any fluctuation or mixture of passions that has any degree of unpleasure in the mix always produces fear, or at least a passion so like fear that they can hardly be told apart.

I have here confined myself to discussing hope and fear in their simplest and most natural form, not going into all the variations they can have by being mixed with different views and reflections. Terror, consternation, astonishment, anxiety and the like are nothing but different species and degrees of fear. It’s easy to imagine how •a different situation of the object or •a different turn of thought can change a passion, even changing how it feels; and the more specific sub-kinds of all the other passions come about in the same sort of way. Love may show itself in the shape of tenderness, friendship, intimacy, respect, good-will, and in many other forms; basically they are all one passion, arising from the same causes though with slight variations. I needn’t go into the details of this, which is why I have all along confined myself to the principal passion, ·love·.

The same wish to avoid long-windedness has led me to by-pass a discussion of the will and direct passions as they appear in animals. It’s perfectly obvious that they have the same nature and the same causes in the lower animals as they have in human creatures. Look at the facts about this for yourself—and in doing so please consider how much support they give to the theory of the direct passions that I have been defending here.

10: Curiosity, or the love of truth

All these enquiries of mine started from the love of truth, and yet I have carelessly ignored that love while inspecting many different parts of the human mind and examining many passions. Before leaving the passions, I should look a little into the love of truth and show its origin in human nature. It’s such a special emotion that it couldn’t have been satisfactorily dealt with under any of the headings of my discussion up to here.

Truth is of two kinds: (1) the discovery of the proportions of ideas, considered as such, and (2) the conformity of our ideas of objects to their real existence.

[The rather mysterious (1) seems to refer primarily to truths in geometry, though we’ll see Hume extending it to mathematical truths generally.]

It is certain that (1) is not desired merely as truth, and that our pleasure in truths of this kind doesn’t come just from their being true; something else has to be at work here. . . .

The chief contributor to a truth’s being agreeable is the level of intellect that was employed in discovering it. What is easy and obvious is never valued; and even what is in itself difficult isn’t much regarded by us if we learn it without difficulty and without any stretch of thought or judgment. We love to track through the demonstrations of mathematicians; but we wouldn’t get much pleasure from someone who merely reported the conclusions, telling us the facts about the proportions of lines and angles, even if we were quite sure that he was well-informed and trustworthy. In listening to this person we wouldn’t be obliged to focus our attention or exert our intellect; and these—attending and stretching—are the most pleasant and agreeable exercises of the mind.

But although the exercise of intellect is the principal source of the satisfaction we get from the ·mathematical· sciences, I don’t think that it alone is sufficient to give us any considerable enjoyment. If we are to get pleasure from it, the truth we discover must also be of some importance. It’s easy to multiply algebraic problems to infinity, and there’s no end to the discovery of the proportions of conic sections; yet few mathematicians take any pleasure in these researches—most turn their thoughts to what is more useful and important. The question then arises: How does this utility and importance operate on us? It is a tricky question because of a strange fact:

Many philosophers have consumed their time, destroyed their health, and neglected their fortune, in the search for truths that they regarded as important and useful to the world; although their over-all conduct showed that they weren’t endowed with any share of public spirit and had no concern for the interests of mankind.

We have here something that seems to be a contradiction: These philosophers •would lose all enthusiasm for their studies if they became convinced that their discoveries wouldn’t matter to mankind; and yet they •haven’t the least interest in the welfare of mankind!

To remove this contradiction we must take into account the fact that certain desires and inclinations go no further than the imagination, and are the faint shadows and images of passions rather than real emotions. Consider someone who surveys in great detail the fortifications of a city; it’s clear that in proportion as the bastions, ramparts, and so on are fitted to achieve what they were built for, he will have a suitable pleasure and satisfaction. This pleasure arises from the utility of the objects, not from their form, so it has to be an instance of sympathy—i.e. sympathy with the city’s inhabitants, for whose security all these fortifications were designed and built. And yet the pleased surveyor may be •a stranger who has in his heart no kindness for those people, or even •an enemy who hates them.

You may want to object: ‘Such a remote sympathy is a very slight foundation for a passion, and is not nearly strong enough to be the source of so much industry and application as we frequently observe in philosophers.’

[These ‘philosophers’ are scientists, and Hume has focussed on the special case of mathematicians. You’ll recall that he is trying to explain why such a person might be motivated by the thought of his work’s utility to mankind, even though he doesn’t much care for mankind.]

But here I return to my earlier point that the pleasure of study consists chiefly in the action of the mind, and the exercise of high intellect and understanding in the discovery or comprehension of a truth. If the importance of the truth is needed to complete the pleasure, it’s not because that in itself adds significantly to the person’s enjoyment, but only because it is somewhat needed to fix our attention. Work that would give us great satisfaction if we did it in a focussed and attentive way won’t satisfy us if we do it—the very same work—in a casual and inattentive manner.

Along with the pleasure of doing the work there has to be also some prospect of success in it, i.e. of discovering the truth that is being sought. A general remark that may be useful in many contexts is relevant here: When the mind pursues any end with passion, even if the passion originally comes not from the end but from the action of pursuing it, we naturally come to care about the end itself, and are unhappy with any disappointment we meet with in pursuing it. . . .

[Hume illustrates this with the psychology of hunting. A very wealthy man gets great satisfaction from a session of hunting and shooting ‘partridges and pheasants’, and may want his catch to be prepared, cooked and eaten. But the resultant food doesn’t motivate his hunt or provide his pleasure, because he could get such food in much less expensive and time-taking ways. On the other hand, he wouldn’t be interested in hunting and shooting ‘crows and magpies’. Why? Because they aren’t edible! —And a second example: Playing cards for money. This can be found enjoyable by someone who already has plenty of money and has no use for more, yet would find the game flat and boring if it were not played for money. Hume winds up:] This is like the chemical preparations where by mixing two clear and transparent liquids you get a liquid that is opaque and coloured.

[In the next two sentences, what Hume means by our ‘interest’ in a game, and our ‘concern’ as we play it, is our caring what happens in it, our wanting to win.]

The interest we take in a game engages our attention; without that we can’t enjoy any activity. Once our attention has been engaged, the difficulty, variety, and ups and downs still further interest us; and it’s from that concern that our satisfaction arises. Human life is such a tedious and boring scene, and men generally are so slack and lazy, that anything that helps them to pass the time—even with a passion that is mixed with unpleasure—mostly gives them pleasure. And in our present case this pleasure is increased by the nature of the objects—·the coins·—which are small and perceptible, making them •easy to get one’s mind around and •agreeable to the imagination. This theory that accounts for the love of truth in mathematics and algebra can be extended to morals, politics, natural philosophy, and other studies, where we our topic is not the •abstract relations of ideas but rather their •real connections and existence.

But along with the love of knowledge that displays itself in the sciences, there’s a certain curiosity implanted in human nature that is a passion derived from a quite different mechanism. Some people have an insatiable desire to know about the actions and circumstances of their neighbours, though •their interests aren’t in any way involved in them, and •they must entirely depend on others for their information; so that there’s no room here for ·the pleasures of· •study or of •useful application. Let us try to see why this is so.

[Hume’s explanation comes down to this: Believing can be a source of pleasure or something like it. That’s because (according to his theory about belief) to believe something is to have a lively idea that is fixed firmly in the mind; liveliness is a source of pleasure, and stability connects with pleasure too, because its opposite is mental unsettledness which is a source of unpleasure. The desire for stability comes into play only when for some reason the relevant ideas ‘strike on us with force and concern us nearly’. That’s why I am curious about my next-door neighbours but not about yours.]

Book 3

Part i: Virtue and vice in general

1: Moral distinctions aren’t derived from reason

2: Moral distinctions are derived from a moral sense

Part ii: Justice and injustice

1: Justice natural or artificial?

2: The origin of justice and property

3: The rules that settle who owns what

4: The transference of property by consent

5: The obligation of promises

6: Further thoughts about justice and injustice

7: The origin of government

8: The source of allegiance

9: The measures of allegiance

10: The objects of allegiance

11: The laws of nations

12: Chastity and modesty

Part iii: The other virtues and vices

1: The origin of the natural virtues and vices

2: Greatness of mind

3: Goodness and benevolence

4: Natural abilities

5. Further thoughts about the natural virtues

6: Conclusion of this book

Part i: Virtue and vice in general

1: Moral distinctions aren’t derived from reason

All abstract reasoning has this disadvantage: it can silence an opponent without convincing him, because it’s as hard to see the force of such an argument as it was to discover the argument in the first place. When we leave our study and get involved in the common affairs of life, the argument’s conclusions seem to vanish like the phantoms of the night when sunrise comes, and it’s hard for us retain even the conviction that we had so much trouble acquiring. This is even more conspicuous with a long chain of reasoning, where we have to preserve the evidentness of the first propositions right through to the end, and where we often lose sight of accepted maxims of philosophy or of common life. But I have some hope that the system of philosophy that I am presenting here will gather force as it advances, and that my reasonings about •morals will corroborate what I have been saying about •the understanding and •the passions. We care more about morality than about anything else; we imagine the peace of society to be at stake in every decision concerning it, and obviously that has to make our theoretical thinking about morality appear more real and solid than our thoughts about any subject that doesn’t much matter to us. Anything that has an effect on us, we think, can’t be a chimera ·and so must be real·; and because our passions are engaged on the one side or the other in disputes in morality, we naturally think that the question lies within our intellectual reach, which is something we aren’t sure of in other cases of this nature. Without this advantage, I wouldn’t have ventured on a third volume of such abstract philosophy, at a time when most people seem to agree in taking reading to be a mere pastime and in rejecting anything that can’t be understood without a great deal of concentration.

* * * * * *

I have said that nothing is ever present to the mind but its perceptions; and that ‘perception’ covers all the actions of seeing, hearing, judging, loving, hating, and thinking. Anything the mind can do is a ‘perception’; so our judgments distinguishing moral good from moral evil are as much perceptions as anything else the mind does. Approving this character and condemning that are merely two perceptions.

Perceptions fall into two kinds, impressions and ideas; so let us start our enquiry into morals with that distinction, by asking:

When we distinguish vice from virtue, and declare a given action to be blameworthy or to be praiseworthy, are we doing this by means of our ideas or by means of our impressions?

This will immediately cut short all loose discussions and speeches, and bring us down to something precise and exact concerning our subject.

It has been maintained that

•virtue is nothing but conformity to reason;

•there are eternal fitnesses and unfitnesses of things, which are the same to every rational being who considers them;

•the changeless standards of right and wrong impose obligations not only on human creatures but also on God himself.

All these views have something in common, because they all imply that morality, like truth, is discovered merely by putting ideas together and comparing them. So if we are to judge these theories we need only consider whether unaided reason enables us to distinguish moral good from moral evil, or whether some other principle must be at work to enable us to make that distinction.

[Important note: More than half of Hume’s uses of the word ‘principle’ in Treatise III, including the one two lines up, give it a meaning that it often had in his day, namely that of ‘source’, ‘cause’, ‘drive’, ‘mechanism’ or the like. From now on, every occurrence of the word in that sense of it will be written as ‘principlec’, suggesting ‘principle = cause’. A ‘principle’ without the subscript is a proposition, usually a premise but sometimes a conclusion.]

If morality didn’t naturally influence human passions and actions, it would be useless to try so hard to inculcate it, and nothing would be achieved by the multitude of rules and precepts that all moralists churn out. Philosophy is commonly divided into •speculative and •practical; and as morality is always classified as •practical, it is supposed to influence our passions and actions, going beyond the calm inactive judgments of the understanding. And this is confirmed by common experience, from which we learn that men are often governed by their duties, deterred from certain actions by the opinion that they would be unjust, and pushed into other actions by the opinion that they were obligatory.

So morals have an influence on our actions and feelings, which implies that they can’t be derived from reason because reason alone (as I have already proved) can never have any such influence. Morals arouse passions and produce or prevent actions. Unaided reason is powerless to do such things. So the rules of morality are not conclusions of our reason.

I don’t think anyone will deny that this inference is valid; there’s no way to escape its conclusion except by denying its premise, namely the principle that reason has no influence on our passions and actions. As long as that stands, it’s hopeless to claim that morality is discovered purely through a deduction of reason. An active principlec can never be based on something inactive; and if reason is intrinsically inactive then it must remain so in all its shapes and appearances, whether it exerts itself in natural subjects (the powers of external bodies) or in moral ones (the actions of rational beings).

It would be tedious to repeat the arguments I presented in II.iii.3 to prove that reason is perfectly inert and can never prevent or produce any action or feeling. . . . I’ll return here to just one of those arguments, which I’ll try to make still more conclusive and more applicable to the present subject. Reason is the discovery of truth or falsehood. Truth or falsehood consists in an agreement or disagreement either with the real relations of ideas, or with real existence and matter of fact. So anything that isn’t capable of this agreement or disagreement isn’t capable of being true or false, and can never be an object of our reason. Now, our passions, volitions, and actions are basic facts and realities; they are complete in themselves and aren’t in any way about other passions, volitions, and actions; so they aren’t capable of either of those sorts of agreement or disagreement; so they can’t be sorted into ‘true’ and ‘false’, and can’t be either in conflict with reason or in accord with it.

This argument serves my purpose in two ways at once. •It proves directly that actions don’t get their merit from a conformity to reason, or their blame from a contrariety to it; and •it proves the same truth more indirectly, by showing that because reason can’t immediately prevent or produce any action by contradicting or approving of it, it can’t be the source of moral good and evil, which do have that influence. Actions can be praiseworthy or blameworthy, but they can’t be reasonable or unreasonable; so ‘praiseworthy’ and ‘blameworthy’ are not the same as ‘reasonable’ and ‘unreasonable’. The merit and demerit of actions frequently contradict and sometimes control our natural patterns behaviour; but reason has no such influence. So moral distinctions are not the offspring of reason. Reason is wholly inactive, and can’t be the source of such an active principlec as is conscience, or a sense of morals.

You may want to say:

Although no will or action can be immediately contradictory to reason, perhaps reason can be contradicted by some of the causes or effects of the action. The action may cause a judgment; or it may be obliquely caused by one, when the judgment goes along with a passion; and in such a case we might say that the action is in conflict with reason.

Saying this—attributing the conflict with reason to the action itself rather than to some judgment that is a cause or effect of the action—is a misuse of language, and philosophy will hardly allow it. ·But without any such misuse, you can still say that what makes an action right or wrong is the relation to reason—i.e. the truth or falsity —of some judgment suitably associated with it·. That is the issue I will now look into: To what extent can morals arise from the truth or falsehood of judgments that cause or are caused by the actions in question?

I have pointed out that reason, in a strict and philosophical sense of that word, can influence our conduct in only two ways. •It can arouse a passion by informing us of the existence of something that is a proper object of it. •It can discover cause-effect connections, thereby showing us how to go about satisfying some passion. These are the only kinds of judgment that can be said to produce our actions in any way; and of course these judgments can often be false. •You might be led to have a certain passion by your belief that pain or pleasure would come from something that in fact has no tendency to produce either pain or pleasure—or has a tendency to produce pain (if you predicted pleasure) or pleasure (if you predicted pain). •You might go about achieving your purpose in the wrong way, foolishly doing things that hold back your project instead of pushing it forward. These false judgments may be thought to affect the passions and actions that are connected with them, and may be said to render them unreasonable (in a figurative and improper way of speaking). But it’s easy to see that such errors are far from being the source of all immorality—so far that they are commonly very innocent, and don’t bring any sort of guilt onto the person who has the misfortune to fall into them. All they involve is a mistake of fact; and moralists haven’t generally thought such mistakes to be criminal, because we don’t choose to make them. If I am mistaken about what objects will produce pain or pleasure, or if I don’t know the right way to go about satisfying my desires, you may feel sorry for me but you won’t blame me. No-one could think that such errors are a defect in my moral character. . . .

And there’s another point: if •moral distinctions are derived from the truth or falsehood of those judgments, •they must be applicable wherever we form the judgments—it won’t make any difference whether the judgment in question concerns an apple or a kingdom, or whether the error is avoidable or unavoidable. The very essence of morality is supposed ·by the theory I am discussing· to consist in agreement or disagreement with reason; so the other details of a situation make no difference, and can’t give any action the character of virtuous or vicious, or deprive it of that character. Also: this agreement or disagreement doesn’t admit of degrees—·there’s no such thing as ‘fairly much agreeing’ or ‘greatly disagreeing’·—so on this theory all virtues and vices would be equal.

Someone might say: ‘A mistake of fact isn’t criminal, yet a mistake of right often is; and this may be the source of immorality.’ I reply that such a mistake can’t possibly be the basic source of immorality, because it presupposes a real right and wrong—i.e. a real distinction in morals independently of these judgments. So a mistake of right may become a sort of immorality; but it would only be a secondary one, based on some other right/wrong distinction underlying it.

As for judgments that are effects of our actions, and which when false might lead us to describe the actions as contrary to truth and reason: notice first that our actions may cause judgments in others, but never in ourselves. It often happens that an action gives rise to false conclusions in others. Someone who sees me through a window behaving in a lewd way with my neighbour’s wife may imagine she is my wife. In this way my action is a little like a lie; but with this difference, that I don’t act as I do •with any intention of giving rise to a false judgment in someone else, but merely •to satisfy my lust and passion. Still, it does accidentally cause a false judgment in someone, and this falsehood of its effect may be figuratively ascribed to the action itself. But I can’t see the beginnings of any reason for claiming that the tendency to cause such an error is the basic source of all immorality.[1]

So the distinction between moral good and evil can’t possibly be made by reason, because that distinction has something that unaided reason can’t have, namely an influence on our actions. Reason and judgment may indeed be the mediated cause of an action, by prompting or by directing a passion; but no-one claims that a judgment of this kind is accompanied by virtue if it is true or by vice if it is false. And as for the judgments that are caused by our actions, they are even further from giving those moral qualities to the actions that are their causes.

Here are some more detailed reasons for holding that there’s no sound philosophical basis for the view that there are eternal unchangeable fitnesses and unfitnesses of things.

If unaided thought and understanding could fix the boundaries of right and wrong, any item’s being virtuous or vicious must consist either in some relations between objects or in some matter of fact that is discovered by our reasoning. It is obvious that this follows. The operations of human understanding are of two kinds, •the comparing of ideas and •the inferring of matters of fact; so if virtue were discovered by the understanding, it would have to be an object of one of these operations—there’s no third operation of the understanding that could discover it.

Certain philosophers have busily propagated the opinion that morality can be demonstrated; and though no-one has ever advanced one step in those demonstrations, it is assumed that this science ·of demonstrative morality· can be brought to a level of certainty equal to that of geometry and algebra. Now, no-one thinks that any matter of fact can be demonstrated; so on this supposition ·that morality can be demonstrated·, vice and virtue must consist in some relations. Let us put the supposition to the test by trying to fix those moral qualities that have for so long eluded our researches, by pointing out the relations that constitute morality or obligation. . . .

If you contend that vice and virtue consist in relations that are capable of certainty and demonstration, you must confine yourself to the four relations that are the only ones admitting of that degree of evidentness; and if you do so, you’ll run into absurdities from which you will never be able to extricate yourself. [Hume is relying here on a conclusion he reached in I.iii.1.] The four relations I have mentioned can apply to beings that don’t think—indeed to beings that aren’t even alive—so they will have to be capable of moral merit and demerit if you are right that the very essence of morality lies in those four relations. They are:

resemblance,

contrariety,

degrees in quality, and

proportions in quantity and number.

These can relate ·inert· material things as well as they can relate our actions, passions, and volitions, and that settles the issue: morality doesn’t lie in of any of these relations, and the moral sense doesn’t make discoveries about them.[2]

If you say ‘The sense of morality consists in the discovery of some relation other than those four, and when you brought all demonstrable relations under four general headings you left something out’, I don’t know what to say in reply until you have the courtesy to tell me what the new relation is. It’s impossible to refute a system that hasn’t yet been explained. Trying to do so is fighting in the dark, wasting one’s blows on places where the enemy is not present.

In the meantime I must rest content with saying that anyone who wants to clear up this system must make it satisfy two conditions. (1) It must say that moral good and evil consist in relations between internal ·mental· actions and external objects. (Why? Well, consider the options:

(a) Morality consists in relations of external objects to other external objects.

(b) Morality consists in relations of internal objects to other internal objects.

(c) Morality consists in relations of internal objects to external objects.

If (a) were right, it would follow that even inanimate things would be capable of moral beauty and ugliness; so that is out. If (b) were right, it would follow that we could be guilty of crimes within ourselves, independently of where and how we were situated within the universe; so that is out too. All that remains is (c).) It’s hard to believe that any relation can be discovered that will (c) relate internal objects to external ones that couldn’t also (b ) relate some of our passions, volitions, and actions to others of our passions, volitions and actions, or (a) relate external objects to other external objects.

(2) The second condition that this system must satisfy will be even harder to make good on. Those who maintain an abstract rational difference between moral good and evil, and a natural fitness and unfitness of things, maintain that because these relations are eternal and unchangeable,

(i) they are the same when considered by every rational creature, and

(ii) their effects must also be the same, which implies that they influence the will of the Deity as much as—indeed more than—they influence rational and virtuous human beings.

These are evidently distinct points. It is one thing (a) to know virtue, and another (b) to conform your will to it. Thus, if you want to prove that the measures of right and wrong are eternal laws that are obligatory on every rational mind, it isn’t enough merely to show the relations they are based on; you must also point out the connection between those relations and the will, and to prove that this connection is so necessary that it must have its influence—·the same influence·—in every well-disposed mind, even when in other respects the differences between these minds are immense and (·in the case of ourselves and God·) infinite. Now, I have already shown that even in human nature no relation can ever on its own produce any action; and I have also shown in Book I that there is no connection of cause and effect (which is what we are supposed to have here) that can be discovered in any way except through experience, so there is none that could be discovered just by thinking about the objects. All the beings in the universe, considered in themselves, appear entirely loose and independent of each other. It’s only by experience that we learn about their influence and connection, and this influence we ought never to ·be said to· extend beyond experience.

So there we have it: it’s impossible to fulfill (1) the first condition for a system of eternal rational measures of right and wrong, because it’s impossible to point to any relations on which the right/wrong distinction could be founded; and it’s equally impossible to fulfill (2) the second condition, because we can’t prove a priori that those relations, if they really did exist and really were perceived, would be universally forcible and obligatory.

To make these general reflections more clear and convincing, I shall illustrate them by two particular examples, ones that everyone agrees involve the character of moral good or evil. The first concerns ingratitude, the most horrid and unnatural of all the crimes human creatures can commit —especially when it is committed against parents and expresses itself in wounding and killing. Everyone accepts this, philosophers as well as laymen, and the only question about it that arises among philosophers is this: Is the guilt or moral ugliness of an act of ingratitude •discovered by demonstrative reasoning or •felt by an internal sense through some sentiment that naturally arises from thinking about such an action? The former answer to this question will soon be ruled out if I can show that the same relations hold amongst non-human objects without implying any guilt or wickedness in them. Using reason. . . .is nothing but taking two or more ideas together and discovering the relations among them; and if two instances of the very same relation have different characters, those characters can’t be discovered merely by reason. ·I am going to put that truth to work by presenting two instances of a certain relation of which clearly one is morally bad and the other isn’t, from which I’ll infer that that moral difference isn’t discovered by reason·. [Hume is about to use ‘inanimate’ in a sense that the word had at his time, closer to its etymological sense of ‘not breathing’ than our sense for it is; thus, ‘inanimate’ objects included plants as well as sticks and stones.] Let us choose any inanimate object, say an oak tree, and let us suppose that by dropping its seeds this tree produces a sapling below it, the sapling gradually grows until at last it overtops and destroys the parent tree. Doesn’t this involve every relation that can be found in parricide or ingratitude? Isn’t one tree the cause of the other’s existence, and the latter the cause of the destruction of the former, in the same way as when a child murders his parent? You may say ‘In the case of the tree no choice or will is involved’, but that won’t help you. In the case of ·human· parricide, the act of will of the murderous child is only the cause of the action—it makes no difference to what relations the murderous act involves, these being exactly the same relations as are involved in the tree-killing episode that arises from some other principlec. It is a will or choice that determines a man to kill his parent; and the laws of matter and motion determine a sapling to destroy the oak from which it sprang. The relations have different causes in the two cases, but it’s still the same set of relations in both; the discovery of those relations doesn’t bring immorality into the picture in both; so that notion doesn’t arise from such a discovery, ·which means that immorality is not discovered by reason·.

My second example is even more like its human analogue. Why is it that in the human species incest is criminal, when in non-human animals the very same action and the very same relations haven’t the faintest touch of moral baseness and ugliness? [The rest of this paragraph is unduly hard to follow. Its main point is that the rationalist—the person who says that morality is discovered by reason—won’t be helped by pointing out that humans have reason while other animals don’t, or anyway don’t have enough reason to discover how disgustingly wrong incest is. That response doesn’t spare the rationalist from the conclusion that incest in non-human animals is disgustingly wicked, though they aren’t equipped to discover this. To avoid that conclusion on the grounds that such animals don’t have reason, the rationalist would have to say not that reason discovers moral truths but that it creates them. Hume winds up:] This argument deserves to be weighed, because it is in my opinion entirely decisive.

My argument doesn’t merely prove that morality doesn’t consist in any •relations that are the objects of science [here = ‘objects of treatment by strictly demonstrative procedures’]; it also proves, just as conclusively, that morality doesn’t consist in any •matter of fact that can be discovered by the understanding. This is the second part my argument, and if it can be made evident we can conclude that morality is not an object of reason.

[The phrase ‘the second part’ links with the opening sentence of the paragraph starting ‘If unaided thought. . . ’ here.]

Can there really be any difficulty in proving that vice and virtue are not matters of fact whose existence we can infer by reason? Take any action that is agreed to be vicious—willful murder, for instance. Examine it in all lights, and see if you can find the matter of fact or real existence that you call ‘vice’. However you look at it, all you’ll find are certain passions, motives, volitions, and thoughts; those are the only matters of fact in the case. The vice entirely escapes you as long as you focus on the object, ·i.e. the individual action, the murder·. You can never find it until you turn your reflection into your own breast and find a sentiment of disapproval that arises in you towards this action. [The next two sentences are verbatim from Hume.] Here is a matter of fact, but it is the object of feeling, not of reason. It lies in yourself, not in the object. So when you say of some action or character that it is vicious, all you mean is that you have a feeling or sentiment of blame from contemplating it.

[Hume says that you have this feeling ‘from the constitution of your nature’, by which he means: that you have this feeling is just a fact about how you are built; it’s not something that you could derive from some deeper-lying thought or feeling that you have.]

So vice and virtue may be compared to sounds, colours, heat, and cold, which modern philosophy says are not •qualities in objects but •perceptions in the mind; and this discovery in morals, like the other in physics, is to be regarded as a considerable advance in the speculative sciences; though it is also like the other in having little or no influence on practice. Nothing can be more real, or concern us more, than our own sentiments of pleasure and uneasiness; and if these are favourable to virtue and unfavourable to vice, this is all that is needed for the regulation of our conduct and behaviour.

[Hume uses the phrase ‘conduct and behaviour’ several times. Perhaps he means ‘what we do and how we do it’.]

I can’t forbear adding an observation that may be found of some importance. In every system of morality I have met with I have noticed that the author •proceeds for some time reasoning in the ordinary way to establish the existence of a God, or making points about human affairs, and then he suddenly surprises me by •moving from propositions with the usual copula ‘is’ (or ‘is not’) to ones that are connected by ‘ought’ (or ‘ought not’). This seems like a very small change [Hume writes ‘This change is imperceptible’, but he can’t mean that literally], but it is highly important. For as this ‘ought’ (or ‘ought not’) expresses some new relation or affirmation, it needs to be pointed out and explained; and a reason should be given for how this new relation can be—inconceivably!—a deduction from others that are entirely different from it. Authors don’t ordinarily take the trouble to do this, so I recommend it to you; and I’m convinced that paying attention to this one small matter will •subvert all the vulgar systems of morality and •let us see that the distinction between vice and virtue is not based merely on the relations of objects, and is not perceived by reason.

2: Moral distinctions are derived from a moral sense

So the course of the argument leads us to conclude that since vice and virtue aren’t discoverable merely by reason, i.e. by comparing •ideas, what enables us to tell the difference between them must be some •impression or sentiment that they give rise to. Our decisions regarding moral rightness and wrongness are evidently •perceptions; all perceptions are either impressions or ideas; so ruling out ideas leaves us with impressions. It is therefore more correct to speak of moral feelings than of moral judgments; though this feeling or sentiment is commonly so soft and gentle that we are apt to confuse it with an idea, according to our common custom of taking closely resembling things to be the same.

The next question is: What kind of impressions are these, and how do they operate on us? We needn’t spend long on this question! Clearly, the impression arising from virtue is agreeable, and the impression coming from vice is unpleasant. Every moment’s experience must convince us of this. No spectacle is as fair and beautiful as a noble and generous action; none more disgusting to us than one that is cruel and treacherous. No enjoyment equals the satisfaction we get from the company of those we love and esteem; and the greatest of all punishments is to be obliged to live with those we hate or have contempt for. Even plays and romantic fiction can provide us with examples of the pleasure that virtue conveys to us, and of the pain that arises from vice.

Now, since the impressions by which we distinguish moral good from moral evil are nothing but particular pleasures or pains, it follows that when we want to understand why a certain ·personal· character is praiseworthy or blameworthy, all we have to do is to discover what the principlesc are in us that make us feel a satisfaction or uneasiness from the survey of that character. Why is this action or sentiment or character virtuous (or vicious)? Because seeing it ·or even just thinking about it· causes in us a pleasure (or uneasiness) of a particular kind. So when we have explained •the pleasure or uneasiness we have also sufficiently explained •the virtue or vice. Having a sense of virtue is nothing but feeling a particular kind of satisfaction as a result of contemplating a character. Our praise or admiration is that feeling. . . . What happens here is not this:

•We find that this character pleases us, and from that we infer that it is virtuous.

What happens is this:

•We feel that this character pleases us in a certain way, and in having that feeling we are in effect feeling that the character is virtuous.

It’s the same with our judgments concerning all kinds of beauty, and tastes, and sensations. Our approval is contained in the immediate pleasure they convey to us.

Against the theory that there are eternal rational measures of right and wrong, I have objected:

There aren’t any relations in the actions of thinking creatures that aren’t also to be found in external objects, so that if morality always came with these relations it would be possible for inanimate matter to become virtuous or vicious.

Something like this may be objected against my theory:

If virtue and vice are determined by pleasure and pain, they must in every case arise from pleasure and pain; so that any object, animate or inanimate, thinking or non-thinking, might become morally good or evil by arousing satisfaction or uneasiness.

But although this objection seems to be the very same as mine, it has nothing like the force that mine has. There are two reasons why.

It’s obvious that the term ‘pleasure’ covers sensations that are very different from one another, having only the distant resemblance that is needed for them to fall under a single abstract term. A good musical composition and a bottle of good wine equally produce pleasure, and their goodness is determined merely by the pleasure. But is that going to lead us to say that the wine is harmonious or that the music has a good flavor? Well, in the same way we may get satisfaction from an inanimate object x and from the character or sentiments of a person y; but the satisfactions are different, which keeps our sentiments concerning x and y from getting confused with one another, and makes us ascribe virtue to y and not to x. Also, it is not the case that every sentiment of pleasure or pain arising from ·personal· characters and actions is of the special kind that makes us praise or condemn. The good qualities of an enemy are hurtful to us, but may still command our esteem and respect. It is only when a character is considered in general, without reference to our particular interests, that it causes the kind of feeling or sentiment that qualifies it as morally good or evil. It’s true that sentiments from self-interest are apt to be confused with moral sentiments. We usually think that our enemy is vicious—not distinguishing his opposition to our interests from real villainy or baseness. But this doesn’t stop it from being the case that the sentiments are in themselves distinct; and a man with a good temperament and good judgment can preserve himself from these illusions. Similarly, although a musical voice is nothing but one that naturally gives a particular kind of pleasure, it is hard for a man to be aware that an enemy has an agreeable ·singing· voice or to admit that it is musical. But someone who has a fine ear and good command of himself can separate these feelings—·the hostility and the music-based pleasure·—and give praise to what deserves it.

You will notice an even greater difference among our pains and pleasures if you think back to something in my account of the passions. [Hume is referring here to his account of pride and humility, love and hatred. His explanation of his point is stunningly obscure, and we don’t need it for what follows.]

You may now want to ask in a general way: ‘What principlec in the human mind creates this pain or pleasure that distinguishes moral good from moral evil?’ The first thing I have to say in reply to this is that it would be absurd to imagine that in every particular case these sentiments are produced by a basic feature of our innate constitution. There is no end to the list of our duties; so it’s impossible that we should have a basic instinct corresponding to each of them; if we did, that would mean that from our earliest infancy our minds were imprinted with all the multitude of precepts that are contained in the completest system of ethics! If nature had gone about things in that way, that would have been quite out of line with its usual procedure, in which a few principlesc produce all the variety we observe in the universe, and everything is carried on in the easiest and simplest manner. So we need a shorter list of primary impulses—i.e. some more general principlesc on which all our notions of morals are founded.

In the second place, if we take the question to include this: ‘Ought we to search for these principlesc in nature, or rather elsewhere?’, I say that how we answer this question depends on the definition of the word ‘Nature’—as ambiguous a word as there is! (1) If ‘nature’ is opposed to miracles, the distinction between vice and virtue is natural, but so also is every event that has ever happened in the world, apart from the miracles on which our religion is founded. So we aren’t announcing much of a result when we say that the sentiments of vice and virtue are ‘natural’ in this sense.

(2) But ‘nature’ may instead be opposed to ‘rare and unusual’; and in this sense of the word—the common one— there can often be disputes about what is or isn’t ‘natural’, and it’s safe to say that we have no precise standard by which these disputes can be decided. •‘Frequent’ and ‘rare’ depend on how many examples we have observed; that number may gradually increase or lessen; so we can’t possibly fix any exact boundary between •them. All I can say about this is that if it is ever right to call something ‘natural’ in this sense, the sentiments of morality are certainly natural, because no nation or individual person has ever been utterly deprived of such sentiments, showing not the least approval or dislike of ways of behaving. These sentiments are so deeply rooted in our human constitution that the only way they could be erased and destroyed is by the relevant mind’s being thrown into confusion by disease or madness.

(3) But ‘nature’ can also be opposed to artifice as well as to what is rare and unusual; and in this sense it is open to question whether the notions of virtue are natural or not. We readily forget that men’s designs and projects and opinions are principlesc that are as necessary in their operation as are heat and cold, moist and dry; we instead take them to be free and entirely our own, contrasting them with the other principlesc of nature. Is the sense of virtue natural or artificial? I don’t think that at this stage I can give any precise answer to this question. It may appear later on that our sense of some virtues is artificial while our sense of others is natural. The topic will be better discussed when we come to the details of each particular vice and virtue.[3]

Given these ·three· definitions of ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’, we can see how utterly unphilosophical it is to say that virtue is the same as what is natural, and vice the same as what is unnatural. •In (1) the first sense of the word ‘nature’, in which it is contrasted with ‘miraculous’, vice and virtue are equally natural; and (2) in the second sense of ‘nature’, in which it is contrasted with ‘unusual’, it may be found that virtue is the unnatural one of the two! You must at least agree that that heroic virtue is as unnatural—in this sense—as the most brutal barbarity. (3) As for the third sense of the word ‘nature’, it is certain that vice and virtue are equally artificial and out of nature. Whatever disputes there may be about whether the notion of merit or demerit in certain actions is natural or artificial, there is no disputing that the actions themselves are artificial, and are performed with a certain design and intention; if that weren’t so, they couldn’t count as either virtuous or vicious. So there is no way in which the contrast between ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’, in whatever sense you take it, can ever mark the line between vice and virtue.

So we are still brought back to my first position, namely that virtue is distinguished by the pleasure, and vice by the pain, that we get from encountering or thinking about an action, sentiment, or character. This thesis is very useful, because it lets us tackle the question

•What is the origin of an action’s moral rectitude or depravity?

without searching for any incomprehensible relations and qualities, without looking around for something that never did exist in nature or even in the clear and distinct part of our imagination. It spares us all that, because it answers that question in the same way that it answers this:

•Why is it that thinking about certain general kinds of action or sentiment causes in us a certain satisfaction or uneasiness?

I flatter myself that I have carried out a great part of my present plan just by getting the question into that form, which appears to me so free from ambiguity and obscurity.

NOTES

[1] One might think there was no need to argue for this point if it weren’t for the fact that a late author who was fortunate enough to obtain some reputation seriously claimed that such a falsehood is indeed the foundation of all guilt and moral ugliness. [This was William Wollaston, who died about 15 years before Hume wrote the Treatise.] To see that he was wrong about that, we need only consider this:

When a false conclusion is drawn from an action, that is because there’s some obscurity about the natural forces that were at work: a cause has been secretly interrupted in its operation by contrary causes, making the connection between two items uncertain and variable. But that kind of uncertainty and variety of causes occurs even in natural ·non-human· objects, where it produces a similar error in our judgment. If that tendency to produce error were the very essence of vice and immorality, it would follows that even inanimate objects could be vicious and immoral!

[Hume continues at some length with objections to the feeble version of Wollaston’s theory that equates moral wrongness with simple causing-false-beliefs. Then he turns to the much more interesting and substantial thesis that Wollaston is] reasoning in a circle. A person who takes possession of someone else’s goods and uses them as his own does in a way declare them to be his own; and this falsehood is the source of the immorality of theft. But are ‘property’ and ‘right’ and ‘obligation’ intelligible without an antecedent morality? A man who is ungrateful to his benefactor does in a way affirm that he never received any favours from him. But in what way? Is it because it’s his duty to be grateful? This presupposes that there is some antecedent rule of duty and morals. . . .

Anyway, this whimsical system collapses for another reason. It offers to explain such things as that

ingratitude is morally wrong

in a manner that presupposes that

telling or implying a falsehood is morally wrong,

and it has no explanation of that. If you insist, I’ll agree that all immorality is derived from this supposed falsehood in action if you can give me any plausible reason why such a falsehood is immoral! If you think straight about this, you’ll see that it takes you right back to your starting-point. . . .

[2] As evidence of how confusedly people commonly think about this subject, notice that those who say that morality is demonstrable do not say:

•Morality lies in the ·four· relations, and those relations are distinguishable by reason.

All they say is:

•Reason can discover that any action that stands in these relations is virtuous, and any action that stands in those relations is vicious.

They seem to have thought that all they needed was to bring the word ‘relation’ into the proposition, without troubling themselves over whether it was really any help! Here is a plain argument ·that they ought to accept; it is obviously valid, its first premise is true, and its second premise is the hypothesis I am now discussing·:

•Demonstrative reason discovers only relations.

•Reason also discovers vice and virtue.

Therefore

•Vice and virtue are relations.

The hypothesis we are examining isn’t intelligible unless it says this: When we blame any action in any situation, the whole complex action-in-situation object must form certain relations that constitute the essence of vice. . . .

[3] In the remainder of this work, ‘natural’ is also sometimes contrasted with ‘civil’, and sometimes with ‘moral’. In each case, the contrasting term will tell you in what sense ‘natural’ is being taken.

Part ii: Justice and injustice

1: Justice natural or artificial?

I have already hinted that •it’s not the case that our sense of every kind of virtue is natural, because •there are some virtues that produce pleasure and approval by means of an artifice or contrivance that arises from mankind’s needs and circumstances. I contend that justice is of this kind, and I’ll try to defend this opinion by a short and (I hope!) convincing argument, before considering what the artifice is from which the sense of virtue is derived.

It’s obvious that when we praise an action we are attending only to the motive that produced it; we are taking the action as a sign or indication of certain principlesc at work in the person’s mind and temperament. The external ·physical· performance has no merit. We must look within the person to find the moral quality; but we can’t do this directly; so we attend to the person’s action as an external sign of his state of mind. But we’re taking it only as a sign; the ultimate object of our praise and approval is the motive that produced it.

In the same way, when we require someone to act in a certain way, or blame a person for not acting in a certain way, we always have in mind the proper •motive for such an action, and if the person doesn’t have •that, we regard this as an instance of vice. If on further enquiry we find that the virtuous motive was still powerful over his breast but was blocked from operating by some circumstances unknown to us, we retract our blame and give the person as much esteem as we would if he had actually performed the action that we required of him.

So it appears that all virtuous actions get their merit purely from virtuous motives, and are considered merely as signs of those motives. Now what, basically, makes a motive a virtuous one? Here is a clearly wrong answer to that question:

•The fundamental virtuous motive is the motive of wanting to perform a virtuous action.

To suppose that the mere concern to act virtuously is the first motive that produced the action, making it virtuous, is to reason in a circle. A concern to act virtuously is possible only if there is something other than this concern, this motive, that would make the action virtuous if it were performed. So ·at least· some virtuous motives must be some natural motive or principlec—·‘natural’ in the sense of not involving any such moral notion as that of virtue·.

This isn’t a mere metaphysical subtlety; it enters into all our reasonings in common life, though we may not always be able to state it with such philosophical clarity. We blame a father for neglecting his child. Why? because it shows a lack of natural affection, which is the duty of every parent. If natural affection were not a duty, the care of children couldn’t be a duty; and we couldn’t be motivated to care for our children by the thought that it is our duty to do so. This, therefore, is one of the cases where everyone supposes that the action comes from a motive other than a sense of duty.

Consider a man who performs many benevolent actions— relieves the distressed, comforts the afflicted, and extends his generosity even to perfect strangers. No character can be more lovable and virtuous ·than his·. We regard these actions as proofs of the greatest •humaneness, and •this confers merit on the actions. So our thought about the merit of the actions is a secondary consideration; it comes from the ·primary, underived· merit and praiseworthiness of the humaneness that produced the actions.

So we can take this as established and beyond question: For an action to be virtuous or morally good, ·the agent’s· human nature must contain some motive to produce it other than the sense of its morality.

You may want to object: ‘But can’t a person’s sense of morality or duty produce an action, without any other motive?’ Yes, it can; but this is no objection to what I am saying. When a virtuous motive or principlec is common in human nature, a person who feels his heart to be lacking in that motive may hate himself on that account, and may perform the action without the motive, doing this from a certain sense of duty, in order to acquire through practice that virtuous principlec or at least to hide from himself, as much as he can, the fact that he doesn’t have it. A man who really feels no gratitude is still pleased to perform grateful actions, and he thinks that in performing them he is fulfilling his duty. Actions are at first considered only as signs of motives; but here as everywhere else we usually fix our attention on •the signs and to some extent neglect •the thing signified. But although it may sometimes happen that a person performs an action merely out of a desire to do his moral duty, this presupposes ·that there is such a thing as doing one’s duty, which in turn presupposes that· human nature contains some distinct principlesc whose moral beauty confers merit on the actions that are produced.

Now let us apply all this to the following case: Someone has lent me a sum of money, on condition that I return it in a few days; and at the end of those few days he demands his money back. I ask, What reason or motive have I to return the money to him? You may answer:

‘If you have the least grain of honesty, or sense of duty and obligation, your respect for justice and your hatred for villainy and knavery provide you with enough reasons to return the money.’

And this answer is certainly true and satisfactory for a man in his civilized state, one who has been brought up according to a certain discipline. But as addressed to a man who is in a crude and more natural condition—if you’ll allow that such a condition can be called ‘natural’— this answer would be rejected as perfectly unintelligible and sophistical. Someone in that ‘·natural·’ condition would immediately ask you: ‘What is this honesty and justice that you find in repaying a loan and not taking the property of others?’ It surely doesn’t lie in the external action, so it must be in the motive that leads to that action. And the motive can’t be a concern for the honesty of the action; because it is a plain fallacy to say that •an action is honest only if its motive is virtuous, while also saying that •the motive in question is a concern to perform an honest action. We can’t be motivated by a concern for the virtue of an action unless the action ·can· be antecedently virtuous, ·i.e. virtuous for some reason that doesn’t involve the virtuous motive·. . . .

So we have to find some motive for acts of justice and honesty distinct from our concern for honesty; and there is a great difficulty about this. Suppose we say this:

The legitimate motive for all honest actions is a concern for our private self-interest or reputation,

it would follow that when that concern ceases, there is no longer any place for honesty. ·That would be a dismal outcome, because· it is certain that when •self-love acts without any restraints, instead of leading us to act honestly •it is the source of all injustice and violence. A man can’t ever correct those vices without correcting and restraining the natural emotional thrusts of the appetite ·of self-love·.

Well, suppose instead that we say this:

The reason or motive for such actions is a concern for the public interest, to which nothing is more contrary than acts of injustice and dishonesty.

Anyone who thinks that this might be right should attend to the following three considerations. (1) Public interest is not naturally attached to the keeping of the rules of justice. It is connected with it only through an artificial convention for establishing the rules of justice. I’ll defend this in detail later on. (2) ·Sometimes the public interest doesn’t come into it. We have been discussing the repayment of a loan·. Well, it might be that the loan was secret , and that for some reason the lender’s interests require that it be repaid in secret too (perhaps he doesn’t want the world to know how rich he is). In this case, the interests of the public aren’t involved in how his borrower behaves; but I don’t think that any moralist will say that the duty and obligation ceases. (3) Experience shows us well enough that when men in the ordinary conduct of their life pay their creditors, keep their promises, and refrain from theft and robbery and injustice of every kind, they aren’t thinking about the public interest. Service to the •public interest is too remote—too lofty—to affect most people and to operate with any force in actions of justice and common honesty, contrary as those often are to •private interest.

·A concern for the public interest might be thought to arise from a love of mankind; but that is wrong because· in general it can be said that there is no such passion in human minds as

•the love of mankind, merely as mankind,

as distinct from

•love ·for one person because· of his personal qualities or his services or his relation to oneself.

It is true that there’s no human creature—indeed no sentient creature—whose happiness or misery doesn’t have some effect on us when it is brought near to us and represented in lively colours. But this comes merely from sympathy, and is no proof of a universal affection towards mankind, because it extends beyond mankind to other species. Consider an affection that obviously is an ingrained feature of human nature, namely the affection between the sexes. This shows itself not only in •specifically sexual feelings but also in its effect of intensifying every other principlec of affection, e.g. the love we have for someone because of his or her beauty, wit, or kindness. ·A man would be grateful to •anyone who relieved the pain in his neck by massage, but his gratitude would be stronger if the massage were given by •a woman·. If there were a universal love among all human creatures—·a love that was also ingrained in human nature·—it would show up in the same way, ·intensifying our positive reactions to people. That is·, if

(1) someone’s having a certain degree of a bad quality BQ would cause people in general to hate him with intensity HBQ, and if

(2) someone’s having an equal degree of a good quality GQ would cause people in general to love him with intensity LGQ,

•LGQ would be a greater intensity than HBQ, ·because •it would involve the response to GQ in particular amplified by input from the universal love for mankind·. And that is contrary to what we find by experience. Men’s temperaments are different: some have a propensity for the tender affections, others for the rougher ones; but it’s safe to say that man in general = human nature is nothing but the ·potential· object both of love and hatred.

[The word ‘potential’ is inserted into Hume’s ‘nothing but. . . ’ phrase because his point seems be that from the mere information that x is a human being we can infer that x could be loved or could be hated, depending on further details about him; and that there is nothing here that tilts the probability towards the ‘love’ rather than to the ‘hate’ side.]

For either of these passions to be aroused there has to be some other cause—·something more than the mere fact that this is a human being·—producing love or hate by a double relation of impressions and ideas [see note late in II.1.7]. There’s no escape from this conclusion. There are no phenomena that indicate any such kind affection towards men simply as men, independently of their merit and every other detailed fact about them. We love company in general, but that’s like our love for any other way of passing the time. In Italy an Englishman is a friend; in China a European is a friend; and it may be that if we were on the moon and encountered a human being there, we would love him just as a human being. But this comes only from the person’s relation to ourselves, . . . .·and not from a universal love of everyone for everyone·.

So •public benevolence—a concern for the interests of mankind—can’t be the basic motive for justice; and it’s even less possible for the motive to be •private benevolence, i.e. a care for the interests of the person concerned. What if he is my enemy, and has given me good reason to hate him? What if he is a vicious man who deserves the hatred of all mankind? What if he is a miser, and can’t make use of what I would deprive him of ·by theft or by not repaying a loan·? What if he is a profligate debauchee, and would get more harm than benefit from large possessions? What if I am in great need, and have urgent motives to get something for my family? In all these cases, the ·supposed· basic motive for justice would fail; and so justice itself would fail, and along with it all property, right, and obligation. ·There would be no injustice in stealing from someone you justly hate, or not repaying a loan that you had from a miser·.

[The next extremely difficult paragraph is given just as Hume wrote it.]

A rich man lies under a moral obligation to communicate to those in necessity a share of his superfluities. Were private benevolence the original motive to justice, a man would not be obliged to leave others in the possession of more than he is obliged to give them. At least, the difference would be very inconsiderable. Men generally fix their affections more on what they are possessed of, than on what they never enjoyed; for this reason, it would be greater cruelty to dispossess a man of any thing, than not to give it him. But who will assert that this is the only foundation of justice? The chief reason why men attach themselves so much to their possessions is that they consider them as •their property and as •secured to them inviolably by the laws of society. But this is a secondary consideration, which depends on independent notions of justice and property.

A man’s property is supposed to be fenced ·by justice· against every mortal, in every possible case. But private benevolence is and ought to be weaker in some persons than in others; and in many persons—indeed in most of them—there is absolutely no private benevolence ·towards very many other people·. So private benevolence isn’t the basic motive for justice.

From all this it follows that our only real and universal motive for conforming to the laws of equity is that it is equitable and meritorious to do so; but no action can be equitable or meritorious unless it can arise from some separate motive. If there weren’t a separate motive, the situation would be this:

I am motivated to do A because that would equitable and meritorious; and what makes A equitable and meritorious is its being done from a good motive.

This obviously involves sophistry, reasoning in a circle. Presumably we won’t say that nature has established this sophistry, making it necessary and unavoidable ·for us to think in this circular manner·; so we have to accept that the sense of justice and injustice isn’t derived from •nature, but arises artificially—though necessarily—from •upbringing and human conventions.

Here is a corollary to this reasoning: Because no action can be praiseworthy or blameworthy unless it comes from some motives or impelling passions distinct from the sense of morals, these distinct passions must have a great influence on the moral sense. It’s their general force in human nature that determines how and what we blame or praise. In judging the beauty of animal bodies, we always have in mind the economy of a certain species [= ‘the way the parts of an animal of that species fit and work together to constitute a functioning animal’]; and where the limbs and features are proportioned in the way that is common for the species, we declare them to be ‘handsome’ and ‘beautiful’. Similarly, when we reach a conclusion about vice and virtue we always have in mind the natural and usual force of the passions; and when someone has a passion that is a long way—on one side or the other—from the common degree of intensity of that passion, we disapprove of it and regard it as vicious. Other things being equal, a man naturally loves his children better than his nephews, his nephews better than his cousins, his cousins better than strangers. Those facts are what generate our common measures of duty—e.g. our judgment that a man has a greater duty to his son than to his nephew. Our sense of duty always follows the common and natural course of our passions.

To avoid giving offence, I must here remark that when I deny that justice is a natural virtue, I am using the word ‘natural’ only as opposed to ‘artificial’ [i.e. using ‘natural’ in a sense that rules out everything that in any way involves deliberate actions of human beings]. In another sense of the word, no principlec in the human mind is more ‘natural’ than a sense of virtue, so no virtue is more ‘natural’ than justice. Mankind is an inventive species; and when an invention is obvious and absolutely necessary, the word ‘natural’ applies to it just as well as it does to anything that comes of nature immediately from basic principlesc without the intervention of thought or reflection. Though the rules of justice are artificial, they aren’t simply decided on by some one or more human beings. And there’s nothing wrong with calling them ‘laws of nature’, if we take ‘nature’ to include everything that is •common to our species, or even if we take it more narrowly to cover only what is •inseparable from our species.

2: The origin of justice and property

I’m now going to examine two questions: (1) In what way are the rules of justice established by the artifice of men [i.e. by men’s thoughts and deliberate activities]? (2) What are the reasons that make us attribute moral beauty to conformity to these rules, and moral ugliness to departures from them? I shall begin with (1), ·and will embark on (2) here.·

Man seems at first sight to have been treated more cruelly by nature than any of the other species of animal on this planet, because of the countless wants and necessities with which she has loaded him and the slender means she has given him for getting what he needs. In other creatures, these two particulars—·i.e. needs and means to satisfy them·—generally match each other. If we think of the lion as a voracious and carnivorous animal—·needing a lot of food, and needing it to be meat·—we shall easily see that he is very needy [Hume: ‘necessitous’]; but if we attend to his physical structure, his temperament, his agility, his courage, his weapons, and his strength, we’ll find that his advantages match up to his wants. The sheep and the ox don’t have all these advantages; but their appetites are moderate, and their food is easy to get. To observe a total mismatch—an unnatural conjunction of needs and weakness in its most complete form—we must look to the case of man. The food he needs for survival either •runs away from him or •requires his labour to be produced, and he has to have clothes and lodging to protect him from being harmed by the weather; and yet if we consider him only in himself—·looking at any individual man·—we see that he doesn’t have the weapons or the strength or any other natural abilities that match up to his enormous needs.

It is only through society that man can make up for his defects and raise himself to the level of his fellow-creatures or even to something higher. Through society all his weaknesses are made up for; and though in the social situation his wants multiply every moment, his abilities multiply even more, leaving him in every respect happier and more satisfied than he could ever become if he remained in his savage and solitary condition. When each individual person works alone and only for himself, (a) he hasn’t the power to do anything much; because he has to work at supplying all his different needs, (b) he never reaches perfection in any particular skill; and (c) his power comes and goes, and sometimes his projects fail because he has run out of power or run out of luck, so that he is constantly at risk of ruin and misery. Society provides a remedy for these three drawbacks. (a) By combining forces we increase our power; (b) by dividing up the work we increase our level of ability; and (c) by helping one another we are less exposed to bad luck. It’s this addition to our power, ability, and security that makes society advantageous to us.

[Hume wrote in (c) of ruin and misery being ‘inevitable’ upshots of ‘the least failure’ in power or luck; but that can’t have been his considered view.]

For society to be formed, however, not only must it be advantageous but men must be aware of its advantages; and they can’t possibly get this awareness through study and reflection in their wild uncultivated ·non-social· state. So it is very fortunate that along with all the needs whose remedies are •remote and •obscure there’s another need the remedy for which is •present and •obvious, so that it can fairly be regarded as the first—the basic—principlec of human society. What I am talking about here is the natural appetite between the sexes, which brings them together and keeps them together ·as a two-person society· until their concern for their offspring binds them together in a new way. This new concern becomes also a principlec uniting the parents with their offspring, and creates a society with more than two members, where the parents govern through their superior strength and wisdom while also being restrained in the exercise of their authority by their natural affection for their children. It doesn’t take long for custom and habit to work on the tender minds of the children, •making them aware of the advantages that they can get from society, as well as gradually •fitting them to be in society by rubbing off the rough corners and inappropriate affections that prevent them from joining in.

[In speaking of inappropriate (his word is ‘untoward’) affections, Hume is using ‘affection’ with a broader meaning than we give to it, sprawling across feelings and mental attitudes of all kinds; the same broad meaning is at work •when he speaks of ‘kind affections’, which are pretty much what you and I would call, simply, ‘affections’, and •when here he says that the two principal parts of human nature are ‘the affections and [the] understanding’.]

However much the circumstances of human nature may make a union necessary, and however much the passions of lust and natural affection may seem to make it unavoidable, some other features of (a) our natural temperament and of (b) our outward circumstances are not conducive to the needed union—indeed they are even contrary to it. (a) The most considerable of these features of our temperament is our selfishness. I’m aware that what philosophers have written about this has generally been highly exaggerated; the descriptions that certain philosophers love to give of mankind’s selfishness are as wide of nature as any accounts of monsters in fables and romances. So far from thinking that men have no affection for anything but themselves, I hold that although we don’t often meet up with

•someone who loves some one person better than he

it is equally rare to find

•someone whose selfish affection is not outweighed by the totality of his kind affections, taken together.

Consult common experience: the whole expense of a family is generally under the direction of the head of it, and almost always the head of a family spends most of his wealth on the pleasures of his wife and the upbringing of his children, reserving the smallest portion for his own individual use and entertainment. That’s what we see concerning those who have those endearing ties; and we can assume that it would be the same with others if they came to be heads of families.

Such ·paternal· generosity must be counted as to the credit of human nature; and yet this noble affection, instead of fitting men for large societies, is almost as contrary to them as the most narrow selfishness. As long as each person loves himself better than any other single person, and has a greater loving affection for his own relations and friends than for anyone else, there are bound to be opposing passions and therefore opposing actions, which must be dangerous to the newly established union ·of a just-formed society·.

(b) But it’s worth pointing out that this opposition of passions would be relatively harmless if a certain fact about our outward circumstances didn’t give it an opportunity to exert itself. The goods that we are possessed of are of three kinds:

•the internal satisfaction of our minds;

•the external advantages of our body; and

•the enjoyment of such possessions as we have acquired by hard work and good luck.

We are perfectly secure in the enjoyment of the first. We can be robbed of the second, but they can’t bring any advantage to the robber. It’s only the third category of possessions that are both •exposed to the violence of others, and •transferable from one person to another without undergoing any loss or alteration; and—·to make things even worse·—there’s not enough of them to satisfy everyone’s desires and needs. So the situation regarding •ownable and transferable goods is this: the chief advantage of society is that it enables us to get more of •them, and the chief impediment to society is the instability of their ownership and their scarcity.

There’s no chance of finding in uncultivated nature any remedy for this trouble; or of finding any non-artificial principlec in the human mind that could control those partial [= ‘not impartial’] affections and make us overcome the temptations arising from our circumstances. The idea of justice can’t possibly serve this purpose; we can’t regard it as a natural principlec that could inspire men to behave fairly towards each other. The virtue of justice, as we now understand it, would never have been dreamed of among savage uncivilised men. ·Here is why·. The notion of injury [here = ‘wrongful harm’] or injustice involves the notion of an immoral act committed against some other person. Every immorality is derived from some defect or unsoundness of the passions, and any judgment that something is morally defective must be based to a large extent on the ordinary course of nature in the constitution of the mind. So we can easily learn whether we are guilty of any immorality with regard to •others, by considering the natural and usual force of the various affections ·of ours· that are directed towards •them. Well, it seems that in the basic ·untrained· frame of our mind, our strongest attention is confined to ourselves, our next is extended to our relations and friends, and only the weakest reaches to strangers and persons who don’t mean anything special to us. So this partiality and unequal affection must influence not only our •behaviour and conduct in society but even our •ideas of vice and virtue; making us regard anything that departs much from that usual degree of partiality—by involving too great an enlargement or too great a contraction of the affections—as vicious and immoral. We can see this in the way we judge actions: we blame both the person who centres all his affections in his family and the person who cares so little for his family that whenever there’s a conflict of interests he gives the preference to a stranger or mere chance acquaintance. What all this shows is that our natural uncultivated ideas of morality, far from •providing a remedy for the partiality of our affections, •conform to that partiality and •add to its force and influence.

So the remedy for what is irregular and inappropriate in the affections has to come not from •nature but from •artifice; or, more properly speaking, it comes from nature working through the judgment and the understanding.

[Hume’s ‘more properly speaking’ version expresses his view that everything that happens is natural, and that although we talk of an art/nature divide, art—i.e. everything that involves human thought and human skill—is really a part of nature.]

·Here is how it happens·. When

•men’s early upbringing in society makes them aware of the infinite advantages of having society, and also leads them to have a new liking for company and conversation,

and when

•they notice that the principal disturbance in society comes from the goods that we call ‘external’—from their looseness, the ease of transferring them from one person to another,

they must try to remedy the situation by putting those goods as far as possible on the same footing with the fixed and constant advantages of the mind and body. The only possible way to do this is by a convention entered into by all the members of the society to make the possession of those external goods stable, leaving everyone in the peaceful enjoyment of whatever he has come to own through luck and hard work. This enables everyone to know what he can safely possess; and the passions are restrained in their partial and contradictory motions. The restraint ·imposed by this convention regarding property· is not contrary to these passions—if it were, it couldn’t be maintained, and couldn’t even be entered into in the first place. All that it is contrary to is the heedless and impetuous movement of the passions. In keeping our hands off the possessions of others we aren’t departing from our own interests or the interests of our closest friends. In fact, the best way we have of serving both those sets of interests is by adhering to such a convention, because that is how we maintain society, which is so necessary to the well-being and survival of ourselves and of our friends.

This convention ·about property· is not a promise; for promises themselves arise from human conventions, as I’ll show in due course. The convention is only a general sense of common interest—a sense that all the members of the society •have and •express to one another, which leads them to regulate their conduct by certain rules. I see that it will be in my interests to leave you in possession of your goods, provided you will act in the same way towards me. And you are aware of its being in your interests to regulate your conduct in the same way, ·provided that I do·. When this shared sense of where our interests lie is mutually expressed and is known to both of us, it produces a suitable decision and suitable behaviour. This can properly enough be called a ‘convention’ or ‘agreement’ between us, though not one that involves a promise; because the actions of each of us are related to actions the other, and are performed on a supposition about how the other is going to act. Two men pulling the oars of a boat do this by an •agreement or •convention, though they haven’t made any •promises to each other. The rule concerning the stability of ownership comes into existence gradually, gathering force by a slow progression and by our repeated experience of the drawbacks of transgressing it; but that doesn’t detract from its status as a human convention. . . . This is how languages are gradually established by human conventions, without any promise being made; and how gold and silver become the common measures of exchange, and are accepted as sufficient payment for something that has a hundred times their value.

After this convention about keeping one’s hands off the possessions of others is entered into, and everyone has his possessions in a stable manner, there immediately arise the ideas of

•justice and •injustice,

as well as the ideas of

•property, •right, and •obligation.

These last three ideas are altogether unintelligible to anyone who doesn’t understand the first two. For something to be my property is for it to be permanently assigned to me by the laws of society, i.e. the laws of justice. So anyone who uses any of the words ‘property’, ‘right’, and ‘obligation’ before he has explained the origin of justice. . . .is guilty of a very gross fallacy, and can never reason on any solid foundation. A man’s property is some object related to him ·in a certain way·, and the relation is not •natural but •moral—it is based on justice. So it is preposterous to think that we can have any idea of property without fully grasping the nature of justice and its origin in the artifice and contrivance of men. The origin of justice explains the origin of property. The same artifice gives rise to both. Our first and most natural moral sentiment is based on the nature of our passions, and prefers ourselves and our friends above strangers; so there can’t possibly be any such thing as a •fixed right or as •property while the opposing passions of men push them in contrary directions without restraint from any convention or agreement.

No-one can doubt that the convention for marking things out as property, and for the stability of ownership of property, is the most necessary single thing for the establishment of human society, and that when men have agreed to establish and obey this rule there remains little or nothing to be done towards establishing perfect harmony. All the other passions—other than this one concerning the interests of ourselves and our friends—are either •easily restrained or •not so very harmful when acted on without restraint.

•Vanity should be counted as a social passion, and as a bond of union among men.

•So should pity and love.

•Envy and vengefulness are indeed harmful, but they operate only intermittently, and are directed against individuals whom we regard as our superiors or enemies.

It’s only this avidity [= ‘greed’] to acquire goods and possessions for ourselves and our closest friends that is •insatiable, •perpetual, •universal, and •directly destructive of society. Almost everyone is actuated by it, and everyone has reason to fear what will come from it when it acts without any restraint, giving way to its first and most natural emotions. So our view about how hard it is for society to be established should be proportioned to how hard it is to regulate and restrain this passion.

It is certain that no affection of the human mind has enough force and the right direction for counterbalancing the love of gain, making men fit for society by making them abstain from taking the possessions of others. Benevolence to strangers is too weak for this purpose; and the other passions all inflame our avidity when we notice that the more possessions we have the more able we are to gratify all our appetites. So the only passion that can control this affection (this ·avidity·) is that very affection itself, by an alteration of its direction. . . . No issue about the •wickedness or •goodness of human nature is raised by the facts about the origin of society. All we have to consider are the degrees of men’s •foolishness or •good sense ·in taking care of their long-term interests·. It makes no difference whether we regard the passion of self- interest as vicious or virtuous, because all that restrains it is itself. Thus, if it is virtuous then men become social by their virtue; if it is vicious, they become social by their vice.

This passion ·of avidity· restrains itself by establishing the rule for the stability of ownership; so if that rule were very abstruse and hard to discover, we would have to conclude that society is in a way accidental—something that came into being through the centuries. But if we find that

•nothing can be simpler or more obvious than this rule; that

•every parent has to establish it in order to preserve peace among his children; and that

•these first rudiments of justice must be constantly improved, as the society enlarges;

if all that seems obvious (and it certainly does), we can conclude that it is utterly impossible for men to remain for long in the savage condition that precedes society, so that we are entitled to think of mankind as social from the outset. It is still all right for philosophers to extend their reasoning to the supposed ‘state of nature’, as long as they accept that this is a mere philosophical fiction, which never had—and never could have—any reality. Human nature has two principal parts, the affections and the understanding, which are required in all its actions; the blind motions of the affections without direction from the understanding would certainly incapacitate men for society. Still, there’s nothing wrong with our considering separately the effects of the separate operations of these two component parts of the mind.

[In the next sentence, ‘natural philosophers’ refers to natural scientists, and ‘moral philosophers’ refers to philosophers in our sense; Hume is thinking of them as scientists who study the human condition.]

Natural philosophers often treat a single motion as though it were compounded out of two distinct parts, although they accept that the motion is in itself uncompounded and unsplittable; and that same approach is followed by moral philosophers who examine the affections and the understanding separately from one another.

So this •state of nature is to be regarded as a mere fiction, rather like that of •the ‘golden age’ that poets have invented, except that •the former is described as full of war, violence, and injustice, whereas •the latter is depicted as charming and peaceful. If we’re to believe the poets, the seasons in that first ·golden· age of nature were so temperate that men didn’t need clothes or houses to protect them from the violence of heat and cold. The rivers flowed with wine and milk, the oaks yielded honey, and nature spontaneously produced her greatest delicacies. And these weren’t even the chief advantages of that happy age! The age was free not only from storms and tempests in the weather but also from the more furious tempests in human breasts that now cause such uproar and create so much confusion. Avarice, ambition, cruelty, selfishness, were never heard of; cordial affection, compassion, sympathy, were the only feelings the human mind had experienced. Even the distinction between mine and thine was banished from that happy race of mortals, so that the very notions of property, obligation, justice and injustice were banished also.

Although this is no doubt an idle fiction, it deserves our attention, because nothing can more plainly show the origin of the virtues that are the subjects of our present enquiry. I have already remarked that justice comes from human conventions, which are intended as a remedy to some drawbacks that come from a way in which certain •qualities of the human mind—

namely, selfishness and limited generosity—

are matched by certain •facts about external objects—

namely, that they are easy to move around and that they are scarce in comparison of the wants and desires of men.

But however bewildered philosophers may have been in those speculations, poets have been guided more infallibly by a certain taste or common instinct which, in most kinds of reasoning, goes further than any of the art and philosophy that we have so far been acquainted with. The poets easily perceived that if every man had a gentle concern for every other, or if nature abundantly fulfilled all our needs wants and desires, there would be no place for the conflicts of interests that justice presupposes, and no use for the distinctions and boundaries relating to property and ownership that at present are in use among mankind. Make a big enough increase in •the benevolence of men or •the bounty of nature and you make justice useless by replacing it with much nobler virtues and more valuable blessings. . . .

We didn’t have to go to the fictions of poets to learn this,. . . .because we could discover the same truth from common experience and observation. It is easy to see that a cordial affection makes all things common among friends; and that married people, especially, share their property [Hume: ‘mutually lose their property’] and aren’t acquainted with the mine and thine that are so necessary and yet so troublesome in human society. The same thing can be brought about by an alteration in the circumstances of mankind—e.g. when there is enough of some commodity to satisfy all the desires of men, so that ·for that commodity· property-distinctions are lost and everything is held in common. We can see this with regard to air and water, though they are the most valuable of all external objects; and we can easily conclude that if men were supplied with everything as abundantly as they are with air and water, or if everyone had the same affection and tender regard for everyone else as he does for himself, justice and injustice would be unknown among mankind.

I think we can regard this proposition as certain:

J: Justice gets its origin from •the selfishness and limited generosity of men, along with •the scanty provision nature has made for men’s wants.

If we look back we’ll find that proposition J adds extra force to some of the things I have already said on this subject.

(i) We can conclude from J that our first and most basic motive for the conforming to the rules of justice is not a concern for the public interest or a strong extensive benevolence, because proposition J implies that if men did have such a benevolence the rules of justice would never have been dreamed of.

(ii) We may conclude from J that the sense of justice is not based on reason, or on the discovery of certain connections and relations of ideas—connections and relations that are eternal, unchangeable, and universally obligatory. We have just seen that an alteration such as I have described in the temperament or the circumstances of mankind would entirely alter our duties and obligations; so a defender of the common theory that the sense of virtue is derived from reason has to show how the relations of ideas would be changed ·by either of those alterations—i.e. by a great increase in the benevolence of men or by the abundance of nature·. But it’s obvious that

the only reason why •extensive human generosity and •perfect natural abundance of everything would destroy the very idea of justice is that •they would make that idea useless;

and that

the only reason why •limited human benevolence and human •needs that nature doesn’t abundantly meet give rise to that virtue is that they make virtue necessary for the public interest and for each person’s private interest.

·There’s nothing in this that involves changes in relations of ideas·! What made us establish the laws of justice was a concern for our own and the public interest; and it’s absolutely certain that what gives us this concern is not any relation of ideas, but rather our impressions and sentiments, without which nothing in nature matters to us either way. So the sense of justice is based not on our ideas but on our impressions.

(iii) J further confirms my earlier thesis that the impressions giving rise to this sense of justice are not natural to the mind of man, but arise from artifice and human conventions. Any considerable alteration in the human temperament and circumstances destroys justice and injustice equally; and because such an alteration has an effect only by changing our own and the public interest, it follows that the basic establishment of the rules of justice depends on these different interests. But if men pursued the public interest naturally and with a hearty affection, they would never dream of restraining one another by these rules; and if they pursued their own interest without any precaution—·i.e. naturally·—they would run headlong into every kind of injustice and violence. So these rules are artificial, and seek their end in an oblique and indirect manner; and the interest that gives rise to them is of a kind that couldn’t be pursued by the natural and unartificial passions of men.

To make this more obvious, consider the fact that although the rules of justice are established merely by interest, their connection with interest is of a special kind and is different from what may be observed on other occasions [that formulation is Hume’s]. It often happens that a single act of justice is contrary to the public interest; if it stood alone, without being followed by other acts, it would be very prejudicial to society. When a good man with a beneficent disposition restores a great fortune to a miser or a seditious bigot, he has acted in a way that is just and praiseworthy ·by giving to the miser or bigot something that is rightfully his property·; but the public is a real sufferer. And it can happen that a single act of justice is not, considered in isolation, conducive to the agent’s private interest or to the public interest. It’s easy to conceive how a man might impoverish himself by a notable instance of integrity, and have reason to wish that the laws of justice were for a moment suspended in the universe with regard to that single act. But however contrary to public or private interest a single act of justice may be, it’s certain that the whole plan or scheme ·of justice· is highly conducive to—indeed absolutely required for—the support of society and the well-being of every individual. It is impossible to separate the good from the ill. Property must be stable, and must be fixed by general rules. Even if in one instance the •public is a sufferer, this momentary ill is more than made up for by the peace and order that are established in society by steady adherence to the rule. And every •individual person must find himself a gainer, on balance, because without justice society would immediately dissolve, driving everyone into the savage and solitary condition that is infinitely worse than the worst situation that can possibly be imagined in society. So, when

men’s experience shows them that, whatever may be the upshot of any single act of justice, the whole system of ·just· actions accepted by the whole society is infinitely advantageous to society as a whole and to each individual in it,

it doesn’t take long for justice and property to come into existence. Every member of society is aware of this interest; everyone expresses this awareness to his fellows, along with the decision he has made to act in accordance with it on condition that others will do the same. That is enough to induce any one of them to perform an act of justice if he is the first to have an opportunity to do so. This ·first just act· becomes an example to others; and thus justice establishes itself by a kind of convention or agreement, i.e. by an awareness that everyone is supposed to have of where his interests lie, with every single act being performed in expectation that others will act similarly. Without such a convention, no-one would ever have dreamed that there was any such virtue as justice, or have been induced to conform his actions to it. . . .

(2) We come now to the second of the two questions I raised ·here·, namely: Why do we attach the idea of •virtue to •justice and the idea of •vice to •injustice? Given the results that I have already established, this question needn’t detain us for long. All I can say about it now will take only a few words; if you want a fuller answer you must wait until we come to Part iii of this Book. What naturally ties us to justice, namely interest, has been fully explained; as for what morally ties us to justice—i.e. as for the sentiment of right and wrong—I can’t give a full and satisfactory account of that until after I have examined the natural virtues.

[Hume now repeats his account of the basis of a system of justice in men’s thoughts about where their interests lie. Then:] But when a society grows large enough to be a tribe or a nation, the interest ·that each person has in maintaining a system of justice· is more remote; and it is harder for men to grasp that disorder and confusion follow every breach of these rules—harder, that is, than in a more narrow and contracted society. But although in our own actions we may often •lose sight of the interest that we have in maintaining order and •follow a lesser and more present interest, we have no trouble seeing the harm to our interests that comes—either mediately or immediately—from unjust acts by others. . . . And even when •the injustice is too distant from us to affect our interests, •it still displeases us because we regard it as harmful to human society and damaging to everyone who comes close to the person guilty of it—·i.e. everyone who is causally ‘close’ enough to be directly affected by the unjust act·. Through sympathy we share in the uneasiness of such people. Now, the label ‘vice’ is attached to any action that gives uneasiness when we see or think about it, and ‘virtue’ is attached to any action that produces satisfaction when we see or think about it. So this is the reason why the sense of moral good and evil follows from justice and injustice. What I have just said concerns the sense of good and evil as arising from our responses to the actions of others, but we do also extend it to cover our own actions. The general rule reaches beyond the instances from which it arose, ·so that it could be applied to our own actions. And there is a clear reason why it does, namely the fact that· we naturally sympathize with others in the sentiments they have regarding us ·when they see how we act·. Thus the original motive for the establishment of a system of justice is self-interest; but what attaches moral approval to justice is sympathy with the public interest.

[Hume now describes how politicians for their own purposes urge people to behave justly. He says that ‘certain writers on morals’ have inferred from this that moral concepts are just political dodges that we should throw away; but this is wrong, Hume says, because the politicians’ pleas wouldn’t have any effect on us if we didn’t have moral notions independently of them. Winding up:] The most that politicians can do is to extend our natural ·moral· sentiments beyond their original bounds; we still need nature to provide the materials, and give us some notion of moral distinctions.

Just as public praise and blame increase our esteem for justice, so private upbringing and instruction contribute to the same effect. It’s easy for parents to see •that the more honesty and honour a man is endowed with, the more useful he is to himself and to others; and •that the principlesc leading towards honest and honourable conduct are more forceful when the work of self-interest and reflection is helped by custom and upbringing; so they have a reason to instill into their children from their earliest infancy the principles of honesty and to teach them to regard obedience to the rules by which society is maintained as worthy and honourable, and disobedience to them as base and infamous. This enables the sentiments of honour to take root in their tender minds, and to acquire so much firmness and solidity that they are almost as strong as the principlesc that are the most essential to our natures and the most deeply rooted in our internal constitution. . . .

One last remark before I leave this subject: Although I say that in the state of nature—i.e. the imaginary state that preceded society—there is neither justice nor injustice, I do not say that in such a state it was allowable to violate the property of others. What I do say is that ·in that state· there was no such thing as property, so that there couldn’t be any such thing as justice or injustice. I’ll say something similar about promises, when I discuss them. . . .

3: The rules that settle who owns what

Although the establishment of the rule regarding the stability of ownership is not only useful but outright necessary for human society, it can’t achieve anything while it remains in such general terms. We need a method by which to distinguish what particular goods are to be assigned to each particular person to the exclusion of the rest of mankind. That is my next topic: what goes into the detailing of this general rule so as to fit it to the common use and practice of the world.

[Hume writes of ‘modifying’ the general rule, in a now obsolete sense of ‘modify’; the word ‘detailing’ is adopted here as a convenient short-hand for the procedure of moving from the general rule (that people should be allowed to keep what they own) to something more specific that governs what things are owned by which people.]

Obviously the detailing can’t tie x’s ownership of y to any fact of the type:

If x owns y, that will bring more utility or advantage to x or to the public than would come from y’s being owned by anyone else.

No doubt it would be better if everyone owned what is most •suitable for him ·in particular·; but ·the proposed notion of ownership is no good. For one thing·, this relation of •fitness ·or suitability· may relate an object y to several different people, ·so that the proposed rule wouldn’t always yield a unique answer·. Also, the proposed ownership rule is liable to so many controversies, in which men would be so partial and passionate that such a loose and uncertain rule would be absolutely incompatible with the peace of human society. The point of having the convention about the stability of ownership is precisely to cut off all occasions of discord and contention; and that would never be achieved if we were allowed to apply this rule differently from case to case, depending on where the utilities lie in the individual cases. Justice, in her decisions, pays no attention to whether a given object is fit or suitable for this or that person. . . . Whether a man is generous or a miser, he is equally well received by her, and easily gets a decision in his favour, even if the decision gives him the ownership of something that is entirely useless to him.

So the general rule that ownership must be stable is applied not by particular judgments but by other general rules; these must extend to the whole society, and must hold rigidly, not being bent ·in particular cases· by spite or by favour. Starting with the thought of men in their savage and solitary condition, I suppose that their awareness of the misery of that state and their foreseeing the advantages that would result from society will lead them to seek each others’ company and offer mutual protection and assistance. I also suppose that they are wise enough to see straight off that the main obstacle to this project of society and partnership lies in the greed and selfishness of their natural temperament; and to remedy that they enter into a convention for the stability of ownership, and for mutual restraint and forbearance. This account of the origin of justice looks unnatural, ·implausible·, but that’s because it presents as happening very quickly a train of thoughts that in fact arise imperceptibly and by degrees. Furthermore, it could happen that a group of people are somehow cut off from the society they have belonged to, and need to form a new society among themselves; and in that case the basic rule of justice might be reached in exactly the way I have described, ·by a fast sequence of thoughts and decisions·.

Clearly their first difficulty after adopting the general convention for •the establishment of society and •the constancy of ownership is to decide how to separate their possessions and assign to each person his particular portion—the items he is to have the use of permanently. This won’t hold them up for long, because it must immediately occur to them that the most natural expedient is for everyone to continue to enjoy what he is at present master of, and that •property or •constant ownership should be tied to •immediate possession. [Men would rapidly agree to that rule for ownership, Hume says, because we do in fact—as an effect of custom—like best the things that we are most used to.]. . . .[1] But although the rule according to which x owns y if x is currently in possession of y is natural and thus useful, it is useful only in the first formation of society. If we went on holding to it after that, the results would be dreadful: there would be no such thing as restitution, ·i.e. restoring to someone something that he •owns but doesn’t •currently have in his possession·, and every injustice would be authorized and rewarded. So we have to look for some other basis or bases for ownership after society has been established. I find four such bases: (1) Occupation, (2) Prescription, (3) Accession, and (4) Inheritance. I shall briefly discuss each of these.

[Hume calls (4) ‘Succession’, using that word narrowly to stand for the passing on of a dead parent’s possessions or governing power to his nearest descendants; but (starting here) he also uses it more broadly to stand for •any process in which a dead ruler is replaced. To avoid confusion, every occurrence of ‘succession’ in the narrower sense is replaced in this version by ‘inheritance’.]

(1) Occupation: The ownership of all external goods is changeable and uncertain; and that is one of the biggest obstacles to the establishment of society, and is the reason why men restrain themselves by explicitly or tacitly agreeing to abide by what we now call the rules of justice and equity. The misery of men’s condition before this restraint came into play is the cause of our submitting to that remedy as quickly as possible; and this provides an easy reason why we attach the idea of property ·or ownership· to the first possession or occupation. ·Why ‘as quickly as possible’? Because· men are unwilling to leave the ownership of anything undecided, even for the shortest time, or to leave the door open—even a crack—to violence and disorder. And there’s also this: the first possession always engages our attention most; and if we neglected it there would be no basis for assigning property to any succeeding possession.[2]

There is still the question of what exactly it means to say that someone is ‘in possession of’ something; and this is harder to answer than you might think. We are said to be in possession of a thing not only when we immediately touch it—·e.g. holding it in our hands, or standing on it·—but also when we are related to it in such a way that we have it in our power to use it, and can move, alter, or destroy it if we choose to. So this relation ·of being-in-possession-of· is a species of cause and effect; and as owning something is nothing but having possession of it in a way that is made stable by the rules of justice (i.e. the conventions of men), ownership should be regarded as a cause-effect relation also. But now notice this: our power of using a thing becomes more or less certain, depending on whether the blockages to our using it are less or more probable; and this probability can increase by insensible degrees; so in many cases it is impossible to determine when ownership begins or ends, there being no certain standard by which to decide such controversies. A wild boar that falls into our trap is considered to be in our possession if it’s impossible for him to escape. But what do we mean here by ‘impossible’? How do we separate this •impossibility from an •improbability? And how do we exactly distinguish the latter from a •probability?. . . . Disputes frequently arise on this subject.[3]

Such disputes can arise not only about whether something is a case of property and possession at all but also about the extent of the property that is possessed; and these disputes often can’t be decided, or can be decided only by the imagination. Someone who lands on the shore of a small island that is deserted and uncultivated is regarded as possessing it—possessing all of it—from the very first moment. That is because the island is bounded and circumscribed in the imagination, as well as being proportioned to its new possessor—·he is only one man, but it is only a small island·. If that man lands on a desert island as large as Great Britain, his property doesn’t extend beyond his immediate possession; though a large colony are regarded the owners of the whole big island from the instant they set foot on it. (2) Prescription: [This word is a legal technical term meaning ‘uninterrupted possession or use for a very long time’.] It often happens that the title of first possession becomes obscure through time, and that many controversies arise about it and can’t be resolved; in that case, •long ownership or •prescription naturally takes place, and gives a person a sufficient property in any thing he enjoys. [Hume explains this by saying that as something recedes further into the past its effect on our mind lessens, so that x’s having the first possession of y comes through time to be less impressive as a basis for regarding x as owning y; and in that case the gradually weakening sense of that relation is strengthened by the knowledge that (for example) x wasn’t just the first person who landed on the island but he has been farming it ever since, this being prescription. Hume winds up this discussion thus:] Possession during a long period of time conveys a title to any object, ·i.e. makes one the rightful owner of it·. But even if everything is produced in time, nothing real is produced by time; and from this it follows that the ownership that is produced by ·the passage of· time is not anything real in the objects, but is the offspring of the sentiments, which are the only things on which time is found to have any influence.[4]

(3) Accession: We come to own objects by accession when they are intimately connected with objects that are already our property, and at the same time are inferior to them. Thus the fruits of our garden, the offspring of our cattle, and the work of our slaves are all regarded as our property, even before we take possession of them. When objects are inter-connected in the imagination we are apt to put them on the same footing and to suppose them to have the same qualities. ·In our imaginations· we readily pass from one to another and don’t distinguish them in the judgments we make about them, especially if the one we pass to is inferior to the one we pass from.

·START OF A LONG FOOTNOTE·

This basis for judgments about who owns what can only be explained in terms of the imagination, and the explanation doesn’t bring in anything else—the causes here are unmixed. I shall now explain these causes in more detail, and illustrate them by examples from common life and experience.

I remarked earlier that the mind has a natural tendency to •combine relations, especially similar ones, and finds a kind of fitness and uniformity in such a •union. This tendency is what gives rise to these two laws of nature:

•In the first formation of society, property always follows the present possession.

•After the first formation of society, property arises from first or from long possession.

Now it’s easy to see that there are different degrees of relatedness: by being related to some object we acquire a relation to every other object that is related to that one, ·and then a relation to every object that is related to any of these·,. . . and so on until the chain becomes so long that it can’t be thought about. However much the relatedness is •weakened at each stage along the chain, it isn’t immediately •destroyed; and it often happens that two objects are related to one another through an intermediate object that is related to both. And this principlec is of such force as to give rise to the right of accession, giving us ownership not merely of things that we have in our immediate possession but also of things that are closely connected with those.

Suppose a German, a Frenchman, and a Spaniard were quarreling about who was to get which of three bottles of wine—one Rhenish, one Burgundy, and one Port. Any impartial umpire who was asked to resolve this dispute would give each of the three the wine from his own country; and the principlec that is at work here is also a source of the laws of nature that ascribe property on the basis of occupation, prescription, and accession.

In all these cases, and especially that of accession, there is first •a natural union between the idea of the person and the idea of the object, and afterwards there comes to be •a new and moral union that is produced by that right of ownership that we ascribe to the person. [Hume now devotes a footnote-page to presenting and solving a difficulty. In II.ii.5 he has said that ‘the imagination passes more easily from small to large than from large to small’, but the phenomenon of ownership-by- accession seems to reverse the direction: owning Great Britain would give one ownership of the Isle of Man, but the converse of this doesn’t hold. Thus, we have large to small but not small to large. Hume’s solution of this difficulty is not very interesting. After that, the long footnote continues:] Philosophers and legal theorists hold that the sea can’t become the property of any nation, because it’s impossible to take possession of the sea or to become related to it in any way that would be a basis for ownership. Where this reason ceases, property immediately takes place. [That is Hume’s sentence. He means that any part of the sea that can be owned is owned.] Thus, even the most strenuous advocates for the liberty of the seas—all of them—accept that inlets and bays naturally belong, as an accession, to the owners of the surrounding land. These inlets and bays aren’t any more united with the land than the Pacific ocean is; but they are united in the imagination, and are at the same time inferior ·in size to the surrounding land·, and so as a matter of course they are regarded as an accession.

Ownership of rivers goes to the owners of their banks; that is what the laws of most nations say, and it strikes us as natural. The exception is such vast rivers as the Rhine and the Danube, which seem to the imagination to be too large to be automatically owned by the owners of the neighbouring fields. Yet even these rivers are regarded as the property of the nation through whose dominions they run, because the idea of a nation is big enough to match up to such great rivers. . . .

There are ownership issues that somewhat resemble accession but are really quite different; they are worth discussing. One of them concerns the case where something owned by one person and something owned by another are conjoined in such a way that they can’t be separated from one another. The question here is ‘Who owns the united mass ·of the two properties taken together·?’. . . . An example would be the situation where someone builds a house on someone else’s ground, so that the whole house-and-groundit-stands-on must belong to one of these two. I contend that it’s natural to think of it as belonging to the owner of the most considerable part of the whole complex. Granted that the compound object is related to two different persons, and carries our view to both of them at once, still what mostly engages our attention is the most considerable part, which then draws the inferior part along it; and so the whole bears a ·dominant· relation to the owner of that part and is regarded as his property. The only remaining difficulty is to decide what part of the thing should we count as the most considerable part, the part exerting the strongest pull on the imagination.

This quality ·of considerableness· depends on several different factors that have little connection with each other. One part of a compound object may become more considerable than another because it is

•more constant and durable, or

•of greater value, or

•more obvious and remarkable, or

•bigger, or

•more separate and independent in its existence.

It’s easy to grasp that with all the different combinations of these and their opposites that there can be, and the further complexities that come from their all being differences of degree ·rather than of kind·, there are going to be many cases that can’t be satisfactorily decided because the reasons on the two sides are balanced. This brings in municipal laws, whose proper business is to fix what the forces of human nature have left undetermined.

what Hume wrote next: The superficies yields to the soil, says the civil law; the writing to the paper; the canvas to the picture.

examples of what he meant: According to the civil law: if I build a house on your ground, it is your house; if I write a poem on your paper, it is your poem; if I paint a picture on your canvas, it is my picture.

Those decisions don’t agree well together, and are a proof of the contrariety of the sources from which they are derived.

[The footnote ends with a discussion of a case that the ancients use to worry over: If I make a cup from your metal, is it your cup? If I build a ship using your wood, is it your ship? Hume reports one theorist who answered Yes and Yes, and another who answered

•Yes because the cup can easily be turned back again into shapeless metal, and

•No because the ship can’t easily be turned back into a stack of lumber.

Hume likes this Yes-No answer and the reason given for it; and remarks that this ‘ingenious’ reason gets its force from a fact about the imagination, namely that the difference in ease-of-restoration makes a difference in how closely we imagine the cup and the ship to be connected with their original owners.]

·END OF THE LONG FOOTNOTE·

(4) Inheritance: The right of inheritance is a very natural one, given the presumed consent of the parent or near relative and the general interests of mankind—interests which require that men’s possessions should pass to those who are dearest to them, in order to render them more industrious and frugal. Perhaps these causes are backed up by the influence of relation—the association of ideas—by which we are naturally directed to consider the son after the parent’s decease, and ascribe to him a title to his father’s possessions. Those goods must become the property of somebody—but of whom? Here it is evident the person’s children naturally present themselves to the mind; and being already connected to those possessions by means of their deceased parent, we are apt to connect them still further by the relation of property. There are many parallel instances of this.

4: The transference of property by consent

However useful or even necessary the stability of ownership may be to human society, it has considerable drawbacks. The relation of •fitness or •suitableness ought never to play a part in how properties are distributed among mankind; our handling of ownership issues has to be governed by rules that are more general in their application, and more free from doubt and uncertainty, ·than they could be if fitness were the criterion·. Rules that have these virtues include the rule of •present possession when society is first established, and after that the rules of •occupation, •prescription, •accession, and •inheritance. But because these depend very much on chance, they must often produce results that are in conflict with men’s needs and desires, so that persons and possessions are often very poorly adjusted to one another. This is a great drawback, which calls for a remedy. To go straight at the problem and allow every man to seize by violence anything that he judges to be fit for him would destroy society; so the rules of justice look for something less extreme—something between •rigid stability and •the changeable and uncertain adjustment of the ‘take what you think is fit for you’ procedure. There is no better unextreme rule than the obvious one saying that what a person owns will never change except when that person consents to give something he owns to someone else. This rule can’t have bad effects through causing wars and dissensions,. . . .and it may serve many good purposes in improving the fit between property and persons. Different parts of the earth produce different commodities; and different men are fitted by nature for different employments, and achieve greater perfection in any one employment when they confine themselves to it alone. All this requires a mutual exchange and commerce; so the transfer of property by consent is based on a law of nature, and so is the stability of property when such a consent is not given.

This much is determined by plain utility and self-interest. [Hume then says that more trivial reasons are involved in various procedures for the transfer of property from one person to another—handing over the keys of a granary, or some soil from the grounds of a manor, or the like. These are mere aids to the imagination, Hume says—needed by some people because their imagination can’t get a grip on the sheer fact that the ownership of something has changed. He concludes:] This is a kind of superstitious practice in civil laws and in the laws of nature, resembling the Roman Catholic superstitions in religion. Just as Roman Catholics represent the inconceivable mysteries of the Christian religion, making them more present to the mind by a candle or a gown or a facial expression that is supposed to resemble them, so also lawyers and moralists have come up with similar inventions for the same reason, trying by those means to satisfy themselves concerning the transference of property by consent.

5: The obligation of promises

The rule of morality that commands the keeping of promises is not natural. That will be clear from two propositions that I shall now prove: (1) A promise wouldn’t be •intelligible before human conventions had established it. (2) Even if it were then intelligible, it wouldn’t bring with it any moral obligation.

(1) A promise is not intelligible naturally, or antecedent to human conventions; a man who wasn’t acquainted with society could never enter into any undertakings with someone else—not even if he and the other could perceive each other’s thoughts by intuition! If promises were natural and intelligible, there would have to be some act of the mind that goes with the words ‘I promise’, and the moral obligation would have to depend on this act of the mind. Well, then, let us scan the faculties of the soul to see which of them is at work when we make promises. ·The search, if done competently, will go like this·:

The act of the mind expressed by a promise to do A is not a decision to do A, for a mere decision never imposes any obligation. Nor is it a desire to do A, for we can promise to do something without wanting to do it and even with an openly declared dislike of the prospect of doing it. Neither is it a willing of A, for a promise always concerns some •future time, whereas the will has an influence only on •present actions. So it comes down to this: the act of the mind that enters into a promise to do A, and makes it obligatory to do A, is neither the deciding, the desiring, or the willing to do A, so it must be the willing of the obligation to do A that arises from the promise.

And ·the promising-is-an-act-of-the-mind theorist might congratulate himself on having reached this conclusion because·:

This isn’t just a conclusion reached by philosophical argument; it is also entirely in line with our common ways of thinking and expressing ourselves, when we say that we are bound by our own consent and that the obligation arises from our mere will and pleasure.

So we are left with only this question: Isn’t this supposed act of the mind a manifest absurdity?—an absurdity that no-one could be guilty of if his ideas weren’t confused by prejudices and the fallacious use of language? All morality depends on our sentiments; and when any action or quality of the mind pleases us in a certain way we say it is ‘virtuous’, and when the nonperformance of it displeases us in that same way we say that we are under an ‘obligation’ to perform it. A change of the obligation requires a change of the sentiment, and the creation of a new obligation requires some new sentiment to arise. But we can’t naturally change our own sentiments, any more than we can change the motion of the planets; and we can’t by a single act of our will—i.e. by a promise—make a change in •which actions are agreeable or disagreeable to us, or in •which actions are moral or immoral. [Hume means that a promise is a single act of the will according to the theory he is now attacking.] The notion of willing a new obligation—i.e. willing a new sentiment of pain or pleasure—is an absurdity, indeed an absurdity that is too gross for men to fall into it naturally. So a promise, looked at naturally—·i.e. without any thoughts of its being embedded in a society·—is entirely unintelligible, and there’s no act of the mind belonging to it.[5]

(2) If there were any act of the mind belonging to a promise, it couldn’t naturally produce any obligation. This follows from what I have just been saying. A promise creates a new obligation. A new obligation involves the arising of new sentiments. The will never creates new sentiments. So no obligation could naturally arise from any promise, even if the mind could—absurd as this is—will such an obligation. . . . [Hume’s next argument is excessively difficult to follow, but where it comes out is clear enough:] The only motive we have leading us to do what we have promised to do is our sense of duty. If we thought that promises didn’t create moral obligations, we wouldn’t feel any inclination to keep them. That is not the case with the natural virtues. Even if we had no obligation to relieve the miserable, our humanity would lead us to do this anyway; and when we omit that duty, the immorality of the omission arises from its being a proof that we lack the natural sentiments of humanity. A father knows it to be his duty to take care of his children, but he also has a natural inclination to do this. Without that inclination, no-one could have such an obligation. Well, there’s no natural inclination to do what one has promised to do; the only motivation is provided by our sense of our obligation; and this implies that fidelity to one’s promises is not a natural virtue, and that promises have no force antecedent to—·and therefore independent of·—human conventions.

If you disagree with this you must give a regular proof that

•there is a special act of the mind tied to promises; and that •this act of the mind creates an inclination to perform the promised action, distinct from a sense of duty.

I presume that neither of those can possibly be proved, from which I infer that promises are human inventions, founded on the necessities and interests of society.

To discover what these necessities and interests are, we must consider the same qualities of human nature that we have found to be the source of the laws of society already discussed. ·The central fact is this·:

Because men are naturally selfish, or very limited in their generosity, they aren’t easily induced to do anything in the interests of strangers except when they see this as the only way to get some benefit in return.

Now, it frequently happens that these mutual performances— ·the giving of benefits in each direction·—can’t be completed at the same instant; and then one party has to settle for remaining in uncertainty and depending for his benefit on the other person’s gratitude. But men are so corrupt that this—·depending on someone else’s gratitude·—gives very little security; and because the benefactor is here supposed to be motivated by self-interest to bring a benefit to the other person, this insecurity •undermines the obligation and •points the way to selfishness, which is the true mother of ingratitude. If we followed the natural course of our passions and inclinations, therefore, we wouldn’t perform many actions in the interests of others—

•few performed in our own interests, because we can’t depend on the beneficiaries’ gratitude, and •few performed without self-interest, because we are naturally very limited in our kindness and affection.

What we see here is mankind losing the device of exchangeof-benefits, with everyone being thrown back on his own skill and industry for his well-being and subsistence. The invention of •the law of nature regarding the stability of ownership has already made men tolerable to each other [= ‘kept men from one anothers’ throats’]; and •the law regarding the transference by consent of property and ownership has begun to make men advantageous to one another; but these laws of nature, however strictly they are kept to, aren’t sufficient to make men as serviceable to each other as they are naturally advantage to someone who owns more than he can use of some kind of goods while needing more than he has of some other kind. The proper remedy for this difficulty is the transference of property, but that’s not a complete remedy, because it can only take place with regard to objects that are •present and •individual, not ones that are •absent or •general. One can’t transfer the property of a particular house sixty miles away, because the consent can’t be accompanied by delivery, which is also needed for a transfer. Nor can one transfer the ownership of ‘ten bushels of corn’ or ‘five barrels of wine’ merely by agreeing to this in words, because the quoted phrases are only •general terms, with no direct relation to any •particular heap of corn or barrels of wine.

And there’s another point. The commerce of mankind isn’t confined to the exchange of commodities; it can extend to services and actions, which we can also exchange to our mutual interest and advantage. Your corn is ripe today; mine will be ripe tomorrow. It would be profitable for us both if I worked with you today and you helped me tomorrow. I have no kindness for you, and I know that you have as little for me. So I won’t take any trouble to further your interests; I know that if I worked with you in my own interests, expecting a return, I would be disappointed—it would be pointless to depend on your gratitude. So I leave you to labour alone; you leave me to work alone; the weather changes, and we both lose our harvests because of our lack of mutual confidence and security.

All this results from the natural and inherent principlesc and passions of human nature. Because these passions and principlesc are unalterable, you might think that our conduct that depends on them must also be unalterable, in which case it would be pointless for moralists or politicians to interfere with us, trying in the public interest to change the usual course of our actions. And, indeed, if the success of their designs depended on their success in correcting the selfishness and ingratitude of men, they would never make any progress unless they were aided by ·God’s· Omnipotence, which is the only thing that can re-shape the human mind and change its character in such fundamental respects. All they can claim to do is to give a new direction to our natural passions, and to teach us that we can better satisfy our appetites in an indirect and artificial manner than by giving our passions their heads. In this way I learn to do a service for someone else without having any real kindness towards him, doing this because I foresee that he will do something for me in return.

[The next two sentences expand what Hume wrote, in ways that the ·small dots· convention can’t easily indicate.]

Why will he do that? Because he will expect that on some future occasion I will again be in a position to help him, and will do so if, but only if, I think it will be in my interests to do so; and he will want to maintain this matching-of-services with me or with others. And so it come about that after he has acquired the benefit of my action on his behalf, he is induced to perform his part because he foresees the consequences of refusing.

But although this self-interested commerce of men starts to happen and to predominate in society, it doesn’t entirely abolish the more generous and noble intercourse of friendship and friendly help. I may still do something for someone I love. . . .without any prospect of advantage; and that person may return the favour in the same way, not aiming to get anything out of it except recompense for me because of my past services. We need to distinguish those two different sorts of commerce—the ·self·-interested and the disinterested [here and always = ‘not self -interested’]—so a certain form of words was invented for the self-interested case, a form of words by which we bind ourselves to the performance of some action. This form of words constitutes what we call a ‘promise’, which is the sanction of the ·self·-interested commerce of mankind. [Here and later on Hume uses ‘sanction’ in the sense of ‘consideration which enforces obedience to a rule of conduct’.] When a man says he promises to do A, he is in effect expressing a decision to do A, and along with that he is subjecting himself—by using this form of words—to the penalty of never being trusted again if he doesn’t do A. Decisions are natural acts of the mind that promises express; but if there were nothing but that in a promise it would only declare our former motives, and wouldn’t create any new motive or obligation. The new motive is created by the conventions of men, when experience has taught us that human affairs would go much better if certain symbols or signs were instituted by which we could give each other security of our conduct in any particular incident. After these signs are instituted, whoever uses them is immediately bound by his ·self·-interest to do what he has promised to do, and must never expect to be trusted any more if he refuses.

There is nothing high-flown or difficult about the knowledge that is needed for people to be aware that it’s in their interests to make promises and to keep them; this knowledge is the sort of thing that any human being could have—even one who is savage and uncultivated. One doesn’t need much experience of being in the world to perceive all those consequences and advantages. A very short experience of society reveals them to every mortal; and when each individual sees the same self-interest at work in all his fellows, he immediately performs his part of any contract because he’s sure that they won’t fail in theirs. All of them jointly •enter into a scheme of actions that is calculated to benefit them all, and •agree to be true to their word. All that is needed for the formation of this joint action, this convention, is that everyone should •have a sense of its being in his own interests to keep his promises, and should •express that sense to other members of the society. This immediately causes ·self·-interest to go to work in all of them; and what primarily obliges us to keep our promises is ·self·-interest.

Later on, a sentiment of morals goes along with ·self·interest, and becomes a new obligation on mankind. This sentiment of morality about the keeping of promises comes from the same principlesc as the sentiment of morality about keeping one’s hands off other peoples’ property. Public interest, upbringing, and the wiles of politicians all have the same effect in both cases. . . .

I want to make some points about the act of will that is supposed to enter into a promise, and to make keeping it obligatory. Obviously, what is supposed to cause the obligation is never the act of the will alone; it has to be expressed in words or signs if it is to impose a tie—·an obligation·—on anyone. After the expression has been brought into the story as subservient to the will, it soon becomes the principal part of the promise; and a man won’t be less bound by his promise to do A even if he secretly •points his intention in a different direction and •withholds himself both from deciding to do A and from wanting to be obliged to do A. On most occasions the expression is the whole of the promise, but this isn’t always so: someone who says ‘I promise to do A’ without knowing what this means, and without any intention of binding himself, certainly isn’t bound by what the words he has uttered. Even if he knows the meaning of ‘I promise to do A’, if he says it only as a joke, giving clear indications that he has no serious intention of binding himself, he isn’t under any obligation to do A. For an obligation to be created, the words must be a perfect expression of the will, without any contrary signs. [Hume adds that if someone promises to do A intending to deceive us, and we are clever enough to pick up signs of what he is up to, that doesn’t free him from the obligation to do A. All these details are easy to explain if promising is ‘merely a human invention’, Hume says, but are inexplicable if the obligation of promises is ‘something real and natural, arising from any action of the mind or body’.

[He devotes a further paragraph to comparing promising, in which a moral obligation arises out of a person’s will, with the doctrine of transubstantiation, which also supposes that ‘a certain form of words, along with a certain intention, changes entirely the nature of an external object’.

[Hume refers here to the doctrine that bread and wine are converted, in the ceremony of the Eucharist when it is done properly, into the body and blood of Jesus.]

He has shown that promising involves some difficulties that mankind have overcome by adding some complexities (e.g. about jokes, deceits. etc.) to the moral doctrine about promising; equal and even worse difficulties beset the doctrine of transubstantiation, Hume says, but the doctrine goes its simple way, riding roughshod over those problems; the difference being that promising is, while transubstantiation isn’t, important in this life. As for the after-life, Hume concludes:] Men are always more concerned about the present life than the future; and are apt to think the smallest evil regarding the former is more important than the greatest regarding the latter.

If someone is forced to make a certain promise, the promise isn’t binding—we’ll agree about that. And that gives further support to the thesis that promises don’t naturally create obligations, and are mere artificial contrivances for the convenience of society. Think about it! There’s no essential difference between •force and •any other motive of hope or fear that might induce us to give our word and lay ourselves under an obligation. A dangerously wounded man who promises a payment to a surgeon in return for curing him is certainly bound—·morally obliged·—to pay up, though this case isn’t very different from that of a man who promises a sum of money to a robber. Two cases so alike wouldn’t arouse such different moral sentiments—·no obligation in one, full obligation in the other·—if these sentiments weren’t based wholly on public interest and convenience.

6: Further thoughts about justice and injustice

We have now gone through the three fundamental laws of nature, the laws of

the stability of ownership,

its transference by consent, and

the keeping of promises.

The peace and security of human society entirely depend on strict obedience to •those three laws; there is no chance of establishing good relations among men when •they are neglected. Society is absolutely necessary for the well-being of men, and these laws are equally necessary for the support of society. Although they restrain the passions of men, they are the real offspring of •those passions—they are just a more artful and more refined way of satisfying •them. Our passions are extremely vigilant and inventive, and the convention for the observance of these rules is obvious. So nature has entrusted this affair entirely to the conduct of men, and hasn’t placed in the mind any innate principlesc specially for the purpose of getting us to conform to the three rules; the other ·all-purpose· principlesc and features of our constitution are sufficient for that. To strengthen the case for this even further, I shall pause here and draw from my preceding reasonings three new arguments to prove that •those laws, however necessary they may be, are entirely artificial, invented by human beings, and consequently that •justice is an artificial and not a natural virtue.

(1) Consider the common layman’s definition of justice. Justice is commonly defined as a constant and perpetual will to give everyone his due. This definition presupposes •that there are such things as rights and property (·‘his due’·), independently of justice and antecedent to it; and •that there would have been rights and property even if men had never dreamed of acting justly. I have already briefly indicated the wrongness of this, and now I shall present my views about it more fully and a little more clearly.

This quality that we call ‘property’—·the quality of being owned or of being owned by x for some particular x·— vanishes before our eyes when we try to have a close look at it without bringing in our moral sentiments. (Its disappearance under scrutiny is something it shares with many of the imaginary qualities of the Aristotelian philosophy!) Obviously property doesn’t consist in any of the perceptible qualities of the object, for these can continue unchanged while the property changes—·e.g. the snuff-box that changed from being mine to being yours without altering in itself·. So property must consist in some relation that the object has to something else. But it’s not its relation to any other •external and inanimate objects, because •these too can continue invariably the same while the property changes. So this quality must consist in a relation the object has to ·one or more· thinking and rational beings. But the essence of property can’t consist in the object’s relation to the external physical aspects of such beings, because it could have such relations to brute creatures or even to inanimate objects, though none of these can own it. So property must consist in some relation that the object has to—some influence that it has upon—the mind and actions of a thinking being. [The next sentence goes beyond what Hume wrote, in ways that the ·small dots· convention can’t easily indicate.] It’s true that my account of ownership starts with ‘occupation’ or ‘first possession’, which is a relation the object has to physical aspects of its owner—he has put a fence around it, he has it in his pocket, he wears it daily, or whatever—but it would be wrong to think that x’s having (in this sense) first possession of y is x’s owning y; it is merely the cause of his owning y—he owns y because he has first possession of it. Well, now, x has this external relation to y, this ‘first possession’ relation that connects x’s body with y, and the question is How does this bring it about that x owns y? The external relation doesn’t cause any changes in external objects; its only influence is on the mind, which it affects by giving us a sense of duty in keeping our hands off the object in question and restoring it to its first possessor. Actions of that sort are strictly what we call ‘justice’; so the nature of property depends on justice, not vice versa.

[Hume now goes on for two more book-pages with further reasons for holding that ‘the rules by which property, right, and obligation are determined’ are human inventions and not by-products of any natural facts about the world. Then:]

(2) All kinds of vice and virtue gradually shade into each other, and can approach each other by such imperceptible degrees that it is hard if not outright impossible to settle where one ends and the other begins. In contrast with this, rights and obligations and property aren’t subject to such insensible gradations: either you fully and perfectly own y or you don’t own it at all; either you are entirely obliged to do A or you under no sort of obligation to do A. Civil laws talk of ‘perfect dominion’ and ‘imperfect dominion’, but it’s easy to see that this arises from a fiction that has no basis in reason, and can’t enter into our notions of natural justice and equity. [Hume briefly discusses the relation between a man and something that he rents, this apparently being an example of so-called ‘imperfect dominion’. Hume says that it is outright ownership that is limited to the period of the rental. There is nothing gradual or imperceptible about what happens to property-rights when, say, a man rents a horse. He continues:] If you accept that justice and injustice are not matters of degree you are accepting that they are not naturally virtuous or vicious; because all natural qualities run imperceptibly into each other, and often can’t be told apart.

Although abstract reasoning and the general maxims of philosophy and law establish that property, and right, and obligation are not matters of degree, we often find it hard to stick to that in our everyday careless way of thinking, where we sometimes secretly accept the opposing principle. (a) When we consider the origin of property and obligation, and find that they depend on public utility and sometimes on propensities of the imagination that usually aren’t all on one side, we are naturally inclined to imagine that these moral relations do admit of an imperceptible gradation. . . . (b) But when we really think about it, we are forced to acknowledge that all property and obligations are entire, ·with no halfway cases or imperceptible gradations·. An object must be in the possession either of one person or of another (we come to realize); an action must be either performed or not performed; when dilemmas arise, one side has to be chosen and it’s often impossible to find any just medium. It is because of (a) that in cases of disputed ownership where the conflicting parties put the decision in the hands of a referee, the referee often finds so much equity and justice on both sides that he opts for a middling position, dividing the difference between the parties. In the spirit of (b), civil judges are not at liberty to compromise in this way, and have to give a decisive judgment in favour of some one side; but because of (a) they are often at a loss about which side to support, and are forced to proceed on the most frivolous reasons in the world. Half-rights and half-obligations, which seem so natural in everyday life, are perfect absurdities in the civil law- courts, which is why judges often have to take half-arguments for whole ones, so as to bring the affair to a close one way or the other!

(3) If we consider the ordinary course of human actions we’ll find that the mind doesn’t restrain itself by any general and universal rules, but usually acts as it is determined to by its present motives and inclination. Each action is a •particular individual event, so it must come from •particular principlesc, reflecting how we are ·at that •particular moment·—within ourselves and in relation to the rest of the universe. If ·in the ordinary course of our lives· we sometimes extend our motives beyond the particular circumstances that gave rise to them, and form something like general rules for our conduct, it’s easy to see that these rules are not perfectly inflexible and allow of many exceptions. Because that is how things go in the ordinary course of human actions—·the everyday unfolding of human •nature·—we can conclude that the laws of justice, being universal and perfectly inflexible, can’t be derived from •nature, can’t be the immediate [bear that word in mind] offspring of any •natural motive or inclination. No action can be morally good or evil unless some natural passion or motive impels us to perform it or deters us from performing it; and obviously any variations that are natural to the passion will also be variations that the morality can undergo. Here are two people disputing over an estate:

•a rich man who is a fool, a bachelor, and my enemy:

•a poor man who has good sense and a large family, and is my friend.

Whether I am driven in this affair by a concern for the public interest, or the interests of the involved individuals, or the facts about friendship and enmity, I must be induced to do my best to get the estate awarded to the second man. And no considerations concerning the right and property of the persons involved could restrain me, if I were driven only by natural motives without any input from facts about how others might behave or about conventions that I am party to. Because

•all property depends on morality, and

•all morality depends on the ordinary course of our passions and actions, and

•these passions and actions are directed solely by particular motives,

it is evident that side-taking conduct ·such as my working to get the estate to my friend· must conform to the strictest morality and can’t be a violation of property. [Hume means that that would be the situation if general rules and conventions are left out of the story.] So if men took the liberty of acting with regard to the laws of society in the way they do in every other affair—[namely, acting on their particular passions]—they would usually conduct themselves by particular judgments, taking into consideration the characters and circumstances of the persons as well as the general nature of the question. ·So they would, for example, take into account the characters, finances, intellectual levels, and family situations of the two competitors for the estate mentioned above·. And it’s easy to see that this would produce an infinite confusion in human society, and that men’s greed and partiality would quickly bring disorder into the world if they weren’t restrained by some general and inflexible principlesc. That confusion is what men were trying to avoid when they established the laws of society and agreed to restrain themselves by those general rules—rules that can’t be changed by spite or favour, or by particular views of private or public interest. These rules, then, are artificially invented for a certain purpose, and are contrary to the common principlesc of human nature, which adapt themselves to particular circumstances and have no stated invariable method of operation. . . .

The upshot of all this is that the distinction between justice and injustice has two different foundations:

(1) interest, when men observe that they can’t live in society without restraining themselves by certain rules; and

(2) morality, when this interest is being respected by men’s behaviour, and they get pleasure from seeing actions that tend to the peace of society, and unpleasure from ones that are contrary to it.

The first interest (1) exists because of the voluntary convention and artifice of men; and to that extent those laws of justice should be regarded as artifacts. Once that interest ·in social harmony· is established and acknowledged, the sense that morality is at stake in the observance of these rules follows naturally and of itself. But it is certainly augmented by new artifacts: public instructions by politicians, and the private upbringing that parents provide, contribute to giving us a sense of honour and duty regarding the strict regulation of our actions relating to the property of others.

7: The origin of government

Nothing is more certain than this: Men are largely governed by ·self·-interest, and when they extend their concern beyond themselves they don’t extend it far; in ordinary everyday life they don’t usually look further than their nearest friends and acquaintances. It is equally certain that the most effective thing men can do to favour their own interests is to conform their behaviour, strictly and always, to the rules of justice; that’s what is needed to preserve society and keep men from falling into the wretched and savage condition that is commonly called ‘the state of nature’. There’s a great deal at stake in this upholding of society and obeying the rules of justice, and it is obvious that this is so—obvious even to the most rough and uncultivated members of the human race—so that it’s almost impossible for anyone who has had experience of society to be mistaken about this. Now a question arises. Given that

•men are so sincerely attached to their ·self·-interest, and that •their interest is so greatly at stake in the observance of justice, and that •this interest is so certain and openly acknowledged,

how can any disorder ever arise in society? What principlec in human nature is powerful enough to overcome such a strong passion, or violent enough to obscure such clear knowledge? In my discussion of the passions I pointed out that men are mightily governed by their imaginations, and that what affection they have towards a given object depends more on the light under which it appears to them than on its real and intrinsic value. [See note on ‘affection’ here.] What presents itself to them through a strong and lively idea usually prevails above something that lies in a more obscure light; it takes a great superiority of value in the latter thing to make up for its disadvantage ·of being less strongly and brightly presented·. Now, anything that is right next to us in space or in time will affect us with a strong and lively idea, so it will have a correspondingly large effect on the will and passions, and will usually operate with more force than any object that lies in a more distant and obscure light. Even if we are fully convinced that the distant object excels the nearby one, we can’t get this judgment to govern our actions, and instead yield to the enticements of our passions, which always plead in favour of whatever is nearby.

That’s why men so often act in contradiction to their known interests, and in particular why they prefer any trivial present advantage to the maintenance of order in society, which so greatly depends on conduct’s conformity to justice. The consequences of any unjust act seem to be very remote, and can’t outweigh any immediate advantage that the injustice may bring. But their remoteness doesn’t make them any less real; and because men all have some degree of this weakness ·of preferring what is near to what is better but further away in space or time·, it inevitably happens that violations of justice often occur in society, making relations between men very dangerous and uncertain. You are as apt as I am to prefer what is nearby to what is distant, so you are naturally as much inclined as I am to commit acts of injustice. Your example ·affects me in two ways, both bad: it· •pushes me forward in injustice by imitation, and •it provides me with a new reason for any breach of justice ·that takes my fancy·, by showing me that if I alone restrained myself severely amid the licentious behaviour of others, I would be the innocent dupe of my integrity! So this quality of human nature is very dangerous to society and seems at first glance to be incurable. Any remedy would have to come from the consent of men; and if men can’t, unaided, choose remote goods rather than lesser nearby ones, they’ll never consent to anything that would oblige them to make such a choice, because that would too obviously contradict their natural principlesc and propensities. Whoever chooses the means, chooses also the end; and if we can’t prefer what is remote ·to what is near· then we also can’t submit to anything that would force us to such a method of acting.

[Hume continues with an elegant line of thought presented in extremely compressed form. Its opening thought amounts to this: I have said that our human tendency to prefer a present benefit to a future greater benefit seems at first sight to be incurable, and I explained why: If we are so built that we always prefer a present benefit to a greater future one, then you’d think that we are so built that we won’t subject ourselves to anything that would force us to choose a future benefit rather than a smaller present benefit. But when we look deeper, we find that we do subject ourselves to just such a choice-compeller; and our willingness to do so, although in one way it •goes against our tendency to give weight to what is far off in time, •is also an example of that very tendency! This fact about ourselves contributes to its own remedy! To see how this happens, consider my frame of mind now (at time T_1) when I think about some practical choice that I’ll have to make at a time T_2 some distance off into the future. When T_2 comes, I’ll be faced with a choice between two options which will then present themselves like this:

I have to choose between

(1) doing X now (= at T_2) and getting some benefit B now; and

(2) doing Y now, getting no immediate benefit from that now, but getting later (at time T_3) a benefit much bigger than B.

When I think now (= at T_1) about those two options, their tiny differences [Hume writes ‘all their minute distinctions’] vanish; from my present standpoint now (= at T_1) the difference between •benefit at T_2 and •benefit at T_3 is negligible, which frees me to think about the T_2 choice purely in terms of size of benefit, which means that my present preference is for my choosing Y over X when the time comes. Now let Hume take over:] But as I get nearer to T_2, the circumstances that I at first overlooked begin to appear and to influence my conduct and affections. A new inclination to ·prefer· the present good springs up and makes it hard for me to stick to my first purpose and resolution. I may very much regret this natural infirmity, and I may try everything I can think of to free myself from it: study and reflection within myself, the advice of friends, frequent meditation, and repeated resolution. And after finding that these are all ineffective I may embrace with pleasure any other expedient by which I can guard against this weakness by imposing a restraint on myself.

So the only remaining problem is to discover this expedient by which men cure their natural weakness, subjecting themselves to the necessity of obeying the laws of justice and fairness despite their violent inclination to prefer what is near to what is far. Obviously, such a remedy can’t be effective unless it corrects this inclination, and it’s impossible to change or correct anything material in our nature; so our only way of correcting the propensity is by changing our circumstances and situation so that obedience to obeying the laws of justice becomes our nearest interest and disobedience to them becomes our most remote interest. However, there’s no practicable way of doing this for all mankind; it can only be done for a few people, by arranging for it be immediately in their interest that justice be preserved, ·which we bring about by hiring them to do that job·. These are the people we call civil magistrates, kings and their ministers, governors and rulers.

[Of those labels, ‘magistrate’ is the one we’ll see most of. Hume follows the then-customary usage in which ‘the magistrate’ refers to whoever it is that makes the civil laws and/or enforces obedience to them. In sections 8 and 10 he will use ‘the magistracy’ to refer to the power or authority of whoever it is that is being called ‘the magistrate’]

Their personal interests are not closely connected with the welfare of individual members (with perhaps a few exceptions), so they have nothing to gain from any act of injustice; and they have an immediate interest in every enforcement of justice. . . . because they are satisfied with their present condition and with their part in society. So there you have it—the origin of civil government and of society. Men can’t radically cure their own or anyone else’s narrowness of soul that makes them prefer the present to the remote. They cannot change their natures. All they can do is to change their situation, putting the maintenance of justice in the immediate interest of certain selected people, and putting the violation of justice in their more remote interest ·or not in their interest at all·. These people are not only induced to obey those rules in their own conduct but also to constrain others to a similar obedience and to enforce the dictates of fairness throughout the whole society. And they may, if they need to, also interest others more immediately in the preservation of justice, creating a number of civil and military officers to assist them in their government.

This way of bringing about justice is not the only advantage of government. Just as violent passion hinders men from •seeing clearly the interest they have in fair behaviour towards others, so also it hinders them from •seeing what is fair in individual cases, giving them a remarkable partiality in their own favour. This trouble is corrected in the same manner as the one I have been discussing. The same people who enforce the laws of justice will also decide all controversies concerning them; and because their interests aren’t tangled up with those of many other members of the society, they will decide these controversies more equitably than anyone would in his own case.

By means of these two advantages in the enforcement of justice and decisions regarding it, men acquire a security against each other’s weakness and passion as well as against their own, and under the shelter of their governors they begin to enjoy in comfort the pleasures of society and mutual assistance. But government goes further than that in its beneficial influence: not contented with merely protecting men in the conventions they make for their mutual interest, government often obliges them to make such conventions, forcing them to seek their own advantage by working together for some common end or purpose. No quality in human nature causes more fatal errors in our conduct than our preference for whatever is •present to whatever is •distant and remote, which makes us desire objects on the basis of how near they are more than on their intrinsic value. Two neighbours may agree to drain a meadow that they own jointly, because it’s easy for them to know each other’s mind, and each of them must see that if he fails in his part the whole project will fail right there and then. But it is very difficult—indeed it’s impossible—for a thousand people to agree in any such action. It will be hard for them to plan it, and even harder for them to carry it out, because each of them will be looking for an excuse to •free himself from ·his share of· the trouble and expense and to •lay the whole burden on others. Political society easily remedies both these troubles. Magistrates have an immediate interest in the interests of any considerable number of their subjects. They needn’t consult anyone else to form a scheme for promoting those ·public· interests. And because •the failure of any one part of the project is connected, though not immediately, with the failure of the whole thing, the magistrates prevent •that failure because its occurrence isn’t in their interests—whether remotely or immediately. Thus bridges are built, harbours opened, ramparts raised, canals formed, fleets equipped, and armies disciplined—all by the care of government. Although it is composed of men who have all the human infirmities, government becomes—through one of the finest and most subtle inventions imaginable—a structure that is in some measure exempted from all these infirmities.

8: The source of allegiance

Government is a very beneficial invention, and in some circumstances it is absolutely necessary to mankind; but it isn’t necessary in all circumstances—men can preserve society for some time without the help of government. It is true that men are always much inclined to prefer present advantages to ones that are distant and remote; and they don’t find it easy to resist the temptation of an advantage that they can have immediately at the risk of an evil that lies at a ·temporal· distance from them. But this weakness is less conspicuous when the possessions and pleasures of life are few and of little value, as they always are in the infancy of society. An Indian isn’t greatly tempted to deprive another of his hut or to steal his bow, because he is already provided with a hut and bow of his own. As for any differences between one Indian and another that might come from one’s having had better luck than the other in hunting and fishing: such differences are only casual and temporary, and won’t have much tendency to disturb society. Some philosophers hold that men are utterly incapable of society without government, but I don’t agree—far from it. I contend that the first rudiments of government arise from quarrels not among men of the same society but members of different societies. ·My case for this goes in two steps·. (1) It doesn’t take as much difference in wealth to start a quarrel between societies as it takes to start a quarrel among the members of one society. Men fear nothing from public war and violence but the resistance they meet with; and that seems less terrible because they share it in common, and it seems less pernicious in its consequences because it comes from strangers rather than from individual members of their own society, people whom they have to live with and do business with. (2) When a society without government gets involves in a •foreign war, that is bound to lead to •civil war. Throw any considerable goods among men and they immediately start quarrelling, with each trying to get possession of what pleases him, without regard to the consequences. When a foreign war is going on, the most considerable of all goods—namely, life and limbs—are at stake; and everyone tries to avoid dangerous ports, seizes the best arms, uses the slightest wounds as an excuse ·for not fighting·; with the result that laws that might be obeyed well enough when men were calm can no longer have any effect now that men are in such a commotion.

We find confirmation for this in the American tribes, where men live in peace and friendship among themselves, with no established government, and never submit to any of their fellows except in time of war, when their captain enjoys a shadow of authority. He loses this after the war is over and peace is established with the neighbouring tribes; but this war-time authority instructs them in the advantages of •government, and teaches them to resort to •it when war or trade or some kind of luck has made their riches and possessions so considerable as to make them forget, in the heat of this or that moment, that the preservation of peace and justice is in their interests. This gives one plausible reason, among others, why •all governments are at first purely monarchical, and why •republics arise only from abuses of monarchy and despotic power. ·Military· camps are the true mothers of cities! A war can’t be conducted without some authority in a single person, because in a war things happen suddenly and require quick responses. And it is natural that a civil government taking over from a military one will have that same kind of one-man authority. I regard this as a more natural explanation than the common one based on patriarchal government—i.e. the authority of a father—which is said to happen first in one family and to accustom its members to being governed by a single person. The state of society without government is one of the most natural states of men, and must continue when many families are involved, long after the first generation. The only thing that could force men to quit this state ·and establish government· is an increase of riches and possessions; and all societies on their first formation are so barbarous and uninstructed that many years must elapse before their riches and possessions can increase sufficiently to disturb men in the enjoyment of peace and harmony.

But although men can maintain a small uncultivated society without government, they can’t possibly maintain a society of any kind without justice, i.e. without obeying the three fundamental laws concerning •the stability of ownership, •its transfer by consent, and •the keeping of promises. So these come before government, and are regarded as imposing an obligation before anyone has even thought of any duty of allegiance to civil magistrates. Indeed, I’ll go even further than that, and say that when •government is first established it would be natural to suppose that •its obligation comes from the obligations of those ·three· laws of nature, especially the one about promise-keeping. Once men saw that they had to have government if they were to maintain peace and carry out justice, they would naturally come together and choose magistrates, decide what powers they were to have, and promise to obey them. As a promise is supposed to be a bond or security that is already in use and brings with it a moral obligation, it should be regarded as the basic sanction of government, and as the source of the first obligation to obedience. This reasoning seems so natural that it has become the basis for our fashionable system of politics, and is in a way the creed of a contemporary party who have reason to pride themselves on the soundness of their philosophy and on their liberty of thought. They say: All men are born free and equal; government and superiority can be established only by consent; the consent men give to the establishing of a government imposes on them a new obligation, unknown to the laws of nature. So men are obliged to obey their magistrates, only because they have promised to do so; and if they hadn’t (explicitly or tacitly) given their word to preserve allegiance, that would never have become a part of their moral duty. But when this conclusion is taken to apply to government in all its ages and situations, it is entirely erroneous. I maintain that although the duty of allegiance was at first grafted onto the obligation to keep promises, and was for some time supported by that obligation, as soon as the advantages of government are fully known and acknowledged, government immediately puts down its own roots and comes to have a basic obligation and authority, independent of all contracts ·and promises·. This is an important matter, which we must examine with care and attention before going on.

For the philosophers who say that justice is •a natural virtue and •antecedent to human conventions, it is reasonable to treat all civil allegiance as a special case of the obligation of a promise, claiming that our own consent is all that binds us to any submission to civil law or government. All government is plainly an invention of men, and the origin of most governments is known in history; so these philosophers, wanting to find the source of our political duties, have to go higher if they want these duties to have any natural obligation of morality. So they are quick to maintain that •society is as ancient as the human species, and that •those three basic laws of nature are as ancient as society. Then, taking advantage of the antiquity and obscure origin of those laws, they deny them to be artificial and voluntary inventions of men, and then seek to graft onto them other duties that are more obviously artificial. But now that we have been undeceived about the status of those three laws, and have found that natural as well as civil justice grows out of human conventions, we shall quickly perceive how useless it is to resolve the one into the other, trying to make the laws of nature a stronger foundation for our political duties than interest and human conventions are; while these laws themselves are built on the very same foundation. On whichever side we turn this subject, we’ll soon shall find that these two kinds of duty are exactly on the same footing, and have the same source both of their first invention and of their moral obligation. (1) They are designed to remedy similar troubles, and (2) get their moral force in the same way, from their remedying those troubles. These are two points that I’ll try to prove as clearly as possible.

(1) I have already shown that men invented the three basic laws of nature when they saw that they couldn’t survive without society, and found that they couldn’t work together in social ways without some restraint on their natural appetites. So the same self-love that •makes men so harmful to one another •starts to go in a new and more satisfactory direction, producing the rules of justice, and •is the first motive for obeying them. But when men have seen that although the rules of justice are sufficient to maintain any society, they can’t unaided obey those rules in large and polished societies; so they establish government as a new invention to achieve their ends—keeping the old advantages or getting new ones—by a more strict carrying out of justice. Up to that point, therefore, our •civil duties are connected with our •natural duties in that

•the former are invented chiefly for the sake of •the latter; and the principal object of •government is to constrain men to observe •the laws of nature.

But the law of nature about the keeping of promises is just one of the group of laws; and strict conformity to it should be seen as an effect of the institution of government, rather than obedience to government being an effect of the obligation to keep promises. The object of our civil duties is to enforce our natural duties, yet the first[6] motive for inventing as well as for performing both is nothing but self- interest; and since we have an interest in obedience to government that is separate from our interest in the keeping of promises, we must also allow of a separate obligation. Obeying the civil magistrate is required for preserving order and harmony in society. Keeping promises is required for creating mutual trust and confidence in the business of everyday life. The ends, as well as the means, are perfectly distinct; and neither is subordinate to the other.

This will be more evident if we bear in mind that men will often bind themselves by promises to do things that it would have been in their interests to do quite apart from those promises—for example, when they have undertaken to do something and then try to give others a fuller security that they’ll do it ·by promising to do it, thus· adding to •whatever they have already bound themselves to do •a new self- interested motive. That it is in one’s interests to keep one’s promises—quite apart from the moral obligation a promise creates—is something that holds for everyone, is known by everyone, and is enormously important in everyday life. Other interests may be less widespread and more doubtful; and we’re apt to have a greater suspicion that men may give way to their whim or their passion by acting contrary to •them. That is where promises come naturally into play, and are often required to give fuller satisfaction and security ·to some party to a contract or arrangement·. But any •other interests that share the two striking features of the interest in keeping a promise—namely, being applicable to everyone and being openly acknowledged—will be regarded as on a par with the interest in promise-keeping, and men will begin to have the same confidence in •them. That is exactly how things stand with regard to our civil duties, i.e. our obedience to the magistrate: without that obedience no government could survive and no peace or order could be maintained in large societies where some people have so many possessions and others have so many wants, real or imaginary. So it doesn’t take long for our civil duties to detach themselves from our promises and acquire a separate force and influence of their own. The ·self·-interest in both is of the very same kind: it’s an interest that everyone has, that everyone proclaims, and that exists at all times and places. There is, then, not the slightest hint of a reason to base one of these on the other, when each has a foundation all of its own. [Hume goes on to say that the very same reasoning shows that •the motivation to keep one’s hands off other people’s property is not based on •the motivation to keep promises.]

[Throughout all of this Hume speaks not of ‘motivations’ but of ‘obligations’, but they are ‘obligations of interest’, which means ‘self-interested motivations’. Moral obligations have been no part of the topic in this page, but they come into play right now.]

(2) •Promise-keeping and •allegiance to the civil power are distinct not only in the natural obligations of interest but also in the moral obligations of honour and conscience. The ·moral· merit or demerit of •one doesn’t depend in the least on that of •the other. In fact, if we consider how closely natural obligations are connected with moral obligations, we’ll find this conclusion to be entirely unavoidable. It is always in our interests to obey the magistracy; for us to engage in rebellion there would have to be a great •present advantage that made us overlook the •future interest that we have in the preserving of peace and order in society. But though a present interest can in this way blind us with regard to our own actions, it doesn’t blind us with regard to the actions of others; nothing prevents us from seeing them in their true colours, as highly prejudicial to the public interest and to our interest in particular. This naturally makes us uneasy when we think about such seditious and disloyal actions, and makes us attach to them the idea of vice and moral ugliness. This uneasiness comes from the same principlec as our disapproval of all kinds of private injustice, breach of promises in particular. We blame all treachery and breach of promise because

we think that if promises aren’t kept, that will reduce the extent to which people can freely and profitably interact with one another;

and we blame all disloyalty to the magistrates because

we see that if we don’t submit to the government, it won’t be possible to maintain justice in the stability of ownership, its transfer by consent, and the keeping of promises.

Because there are two entirely distinct interests here, they must give rise to two equally separate and independent moral obligations. If there were no such thing as a promise, government would still be necessary in all large and civilized societies; and if promises had only their own exclusive obligation, without the separate sanction of government, they wouldn’t achieve much in such societies. This draws the line between •our public duties and our •private ones, and shows that the private depend more on the public than vice versa. Education and the devices of politicians work together to bestow a further morality on loyalty, branding all rebellion with a greater degree of guilt and infamy. . . .

In case those arguments don’t strike you as entirely conclusive (as I think they are), I shall appeal to authority: I’ll prove that the obligation to submit to government is not derived from any promise of the subjects, using as my premise the fact that everyone thinks so! Don’t be surprised that after trying to establish my system on the basis of pure reason, and hardly ever bringing in anyone else’s judgments, even those of philosophers or historians, I now appeal to popular authority, setting up the sentiments of the rabble in opposition to philosophical reasoning, ·e.g. any reasoning that might be used against my position·. In this present matter the opinions of men carry with them a special authority and are to a large extent infallible. The distinction of moral good and evil is founded on the pleasure or unpleasure that results from encountering or thinking about the sentiment or character in question; and that pleasure or unpleasure has to be known to the person who feels it; from which it follows that there is just so much virtue or vice in any character as everyone places in it, and that we can’t possibly be mistaken about this.[7] Our judgments about the origin of any vice or virtue are not as certain as our judgments concerning whether and to what extent a given item is virtuous or vicious; but that really applies only to •philosophical questions about origins (e.g. ‘How did the institution of promising arise in a state of nature?’), whereas our present concern is purely with •plain matter-of-fact questions about origins (e.g. ‘Was it I or my father who bound me to pay ten pounds to Smith? was it done out of sheer good-will or because of money that had been lent to me? what did I expect to get out binding myself like this, and what were the circumstances at the time when I did it?’). It’s hard to see how we can fall into error about that sort of thing. Similarly, it is certain that there’s a moral obligation to submit to government, because everyone thinks there is; so it must be equally certain that this obligation doesn’t arise from a promise, because no-one thinks it does—indeed no-one has ever dreamed of ascribing our duty of allegiance to that origin. (When I say ‘no-one’, I ought to say ‘no-one whose judgment hasn’t been led astray by sticking too closely to some philosophical theory’!)

Neither magistrates nor subjects have formed this idea of our civil duties. We find that magistrates are so far from deriving their authority and our obligation to obey them from the foundation of a promise or original contract that they do their best to conceal from their people—especially from the uneducated man in the street—that that’s where the duty of allegiance came from originally. . . . ‘Have you ever consented to the authority of your rulers, or promised to obey them?’—put that question to people and the vast majority of them will think you are very strange, and will reply that consent doesn’t come into it and that they were born to obedience to their rulers. That’s how it comes about that we often see people imagining someone to be their natural ruler though at that time he has lost all power and authority and wouldn’t be anyone’s choice as a ruler; this being something they imagine merely because the person in question is descended from those who ruled at earlier times. . . .although that may have been so long ago that hardly any man alive now could ever have given any promise of obedience. Think about these people who have never consented to be governed, and who would regard it as arrogant and impious to try to choose a government: does a government have no authority over them? We find by experience that a government punishes them very freely for what it calls ‘treason’ and ‘rebellion’—this being plain injustice, according to this theory ·that the duty of allegiance rests on the duty to keep one’s promises·. You may say ‘By living in the territory ruled by that government they do in effect consent to be governed by it’; I reply that this can be right only for people who think that allegiance depends on their choice, and hardly anyone does think so—perhaps nobody does apart from the philosophers I am now arguing against. It never was pleaded as an excuse for a rebel that his first act after he came to years of discretion was to wage war against the sovereign of the state; and that while he was a child he couldn’t bind himself by his own consent, and having become a man he showed plainly—by his very first act—that he had no intention of imposing on himself any obligation to obedience!. . . . And another point: ·according to the theory that I am attacking·, a man living under an absolute government would owe it no allegiance because this government by its very nature doesn’t depend on consent. But as it’s as natural and common a form of government as any, it must give rise to some obligation; and we find that men who are subjects of absolute government do always think so. This is a clear proof that we do not commonly think that our ·duty of· allegiance is derived from our consent or promise . . . .

9: The measures of allegiance

Those political writers who have had recourse to a promise or original contract as the source of our allegiance to government intended to establish a principle that is perfectly just and reasonable, though the reasoning they used to establish it was fallacious and sophistical. They wanted to prove that there are exceptions to our duty to submit to government, because a dreadful tyranny in the rulers is sufficient to free the subjects from all obligations of allegiance. Their view has been this:

When men enter into society and submit themselves to government by their free and voluntary consent, they must propose to get from this certain advantages that make it worth their while to give up their native liberty. So the magistrate also engages to offer something in return, namely protection and security; and it is only by the hopes he gives them of these advantages that he can ever persuade men to submit to him. But when they meet with tyranny and oppression instead of protection and security, they are freed from their promises. . . .and return to the state of liberty that preceded the institution of government. Men would never be so foolish as to enter into contracts that would work entirely to the benefit of others, with no view of bettering their own condition. Whoever plans to get any profit from our submission must undertake—either explicitly or tacitly—to enable us to get some advantage from his authority. He oughtn’t to expect that we will continue in obedience if he doesn’t do his part.

I repeat: this conclusion is right, though the premises from which it is inferred are erroneous; and I flatter myself that I can reach the same conclusion from more reasonable premises. In my account of our political duties I shan’t say anything as sweeping as that

•men see the advantages of government; that •they institute government with a view to getting those advantages; and that •this institution requires a promise of obedience, which creates a moral obligation that is conditional and ceases to be binding if the other contracting party—·the government side·—doesn’t do what it contracted to do.

I see that a promise itself arises entirely from human conventions, and is invented as a way of securing a certain ·self·-interest. So I look for some such interest that is connected with government more immediately ·than through the obligation to keep a promise·—an interest that could have been both •the original motive for instituting government and •the source of our obedience to government. And I have found it: it’s our interest in the security and protection that we •enjoy in political society and •can’t have when perfectly free and independent. So: because the immediate source of support for government is interest, government can’t last longer than the interest does; and when the civil magistrate carries his oppression so far as to make his authority perfectly intolerable, we are no longer bound to submit to it. The cause ceases; the effect must cease also. ·You’ll notice that there is nothing here about keeping promises·.

That’s a direct and immediate conclusion regarding our natural obligation to allegiance. What about moral obligation? Well, in this case we can’t assert that when the cause ceases the effect must cease also. That’s because human nature contains a strong principlec (I have often mentioned it) that results in men’s being mightily addicted to general rules, so that we often carry our maxims beyond the reasons that first induced us to establish them. Where cases are similar in many of their details we are apt to put them on the same footing, ignoring the fact that they differ in the most important respects so that the resemblance is more apparent than real. So it may be thought •that in the case of allegiance our moral obligation to obey won’t cease even when its cause—the natural obligation of interest—has ceased, and •that men can be bound by conscience to submit to a tyrannical government, against their own and the public interest. I concede this much to the force of this argument: General rules do commonly extend beyond the principles on which they are based; and we seldom make any exception to them unless it’s an exception that has the qualities of a general rule, and is founded on very numerous and common instances. That, I contend, is exactly what is going on here. When men submit to the authority of others it’s because they want to get some security against the wickedness and injustice of men who are perpetually carried, by •their unruly passions and •their present and immediate interest, to the violation of all the laws of society. But this imperfection is inherent in human nature, and we know •that men in all their states and conditions must have it, and •that those whom we choose to be rulers don’t immediately come to have a superior nature to the rest of mankind because of their superior power and authority! We aren’t expecting any change in their •nature; what we expect from them depends on a change in their •situation when they come to have a more immediate interest in the preservation of order and the carrying-out of justice. . . . But because of the irregularity of human nature we can often expect that the rulers will neglect even this immediate interest, and be swept along by their passions into all the excesses of cruelty and ambition. Our general knowledge of human nature, our observation of the past history of mankind, and our experience of present times—all these causes must induce us to open the door to exceptions, making us conclude that there will be no crime or injustice in our resisting the more violent effects of supreme power.

Syracuse, Rome and Spain respectively] are favoured by everyone who reads their history; it would be a perversion of common sense to condemn them. So it is certain that in all our notions of morals we •never entertain such an absurdity as that of passive obedience [= ‘absolute obedience to the government with no possibility of challenging it’] and •always allow for resistance against the more flagrant cases of tyranny and oppression. On any topic •the general opinion of mankind has some authority; on the topic of morals •it is perfectly infallible. And it’s not made less so by men’s inability to explain clearly the principles on which it is founded. Not many people can conduct this line of reasoning:

‘Government is a mere human invention for the interest of society. Where the tyranny of the governor removes this interest, it also removes the natural obligation to obedience. The moral obligation is founded on the natural one and therefore must cease when the natural obligation ceases; especially if we can foresee many occasions in which the natural obligation may cease, leading us to form a kind of general rule to govern our conduct in such occurrences.’

This argument is too subtle for plain uneducated people; but everyone has an implicit notion of it, and is aware •that he owes obedience to government merely on account of the public interest, and •that human nature is so subject to frailties and passions that it can easily pervert this institution and change his governors into tyrants and public enemies. . . .

10: The objects of allegiance

But although it is sometimes politically and morally sound to resist supreme power, in the ordinary course of human affairs such behaviour is utterly pernicious and criminal. Besides the convulsions that revolutions always bring, such a practice tends directly to [= ‘raises the probability of’] the subversion of all government, and the causing of universal anarchy and confusion among mankind. Large civilized societies can’t survive without government, and government is entirely useless without exact obedience. In thinking about our situation under the authority of a government we ought always to weigh the advantages of this against the disadvantages; that will make us more careful about putting into practice the doctrine of resistance. The common •rule requires obedience; •exceptions to it can occur only in cases of grievous tyranny and oppression.

Well, then: given that blind submission is commonly due to magistracy, the next question is: ‘To whom is it due? Whom are we to regard as our lawful magistrates?’ In approaching this question, let us remember what I have already shown regarding the origin of government and political society. When men experience the impossibility of preserving any steady order in a society where everyone is his own master, violating or obeying the laws of society according to his present interest or pleasure, they naturally run into the invention of government, and do their best to deprive themselves of any power to transgress the laws of society. So government arises from the voluntary convention of men; and it’s obvious that the same convention that •establishes government will also •settle which persons are to do the governing, and will remove all doubt and ambiguity about that. And promises come into this: the authority of the magistrate does at first stand on the foundation of the subjects’ promise to obey. . . . So the very promise that binds them to obedience also ties them down to a particular person—·the person to whom they have made their promise·—making him the object of their allegiance.

But when government has been established on this basis for some considerable time, and the separate interest that we have in obeying it has produced a separate sentiment of morality, the case is entirely altered: a promise can’t now settle who is to be the particular magistrate, because a promise is no longer considered to be the basis of government. We naturally think of ourselves as born to submission, and imagine that such- and-such particular persons have a right to command, as we on our part have an obligation to obey. These notions of right and obligation are derived from nothing but the advantage we get from government, which makes us •unwilling to practise resistance ourselves and •displeased with anyone else who practises it. [Hume now argues at length for one point: Government

•was first started by a promise

but then over the long haul it

•is maintained by the subjects’ advantages from it.

The question of which particular persons were to be the governors

•was first settled by a promise,

but over the long haul it

•is not settled by facts about the subjects’ advantages.

If we always tried to settle ‘Who is to govern?’ by asking ‘Which governor would be best for us?’, there would be perpetual confusion and conflict. Hume compares this with the situation regarding the stability of ownership. A rule about this was established because there is so much advantage to us in ownership’s being stable; but we would get into a terrible mess if we tried at each moment to redistribute property in such a way as to maximize advantage; we need to act by general rules about property. It’s true that if we do that, we’ll find that ‘Who owns what?’ is often answered in terms of factors that seem pretty trivial; but this won’t make us take ownership less seriously. Hume continues:] It is the same case with government. This invention is enormously advantageous to society, so it serves our interests enough to make us embrace it with ardour and alacrity, even though, later on, we have to regulate and direct our devotion to government by considerations that aren’t as important, and to choose our magistrates without having in view any particular advantage from the choice. ·I shall discuss five of these considerations·.

(1) I shall start with the basis for the right of magistracy that gives authority to all—all—the most established governments of the world, namely: long possession in any one form of government, or succession of monarchs. If we work back to the first origin of every nation, we’ll certainly find that almost every race of kings and almost every form of a commonwealth was initially launched through usurpation and rebellion, having an entitlement to govern that was worse than doubtful and uncertain! It’s only the passage of time that gives solidity to their right; operating gradually on men’s minds, time reconciles them to any authority, making it seem just and reasonable. Custom increases the influence that our sentiments have on us. . . . When we have long been accustomed to obeying some set of men, our general •instinct or tendency to suppose that we are morally obliged to be loyal to the government easily takes this •direction, choosing that set of men for its objects. It is ·self·-interest that gives the general •instinct; but it is custom that gives the particular •direction.

A given length of time can affect our minds in one way with regard to one object and in another with regard to another, and such differences can affect our sentiments of morality. We naturally judge everything by comparison; when we are considering the fate of kingdoms and republics we think in terms of a long extent of time, a small duration hasn’t as much influence on our sentiments about a government as it has when we consider any other object. Someone may think he acquires a right to a horse or a suit of clothes in a very short time; but a century is hardly long enough to establish any new government and remove all its subjects’ scruples about it. And another point: It doesn’t take as long for a ruler to become entitled to any additional power he may usurp as it does to give him a right to a power that he gained all of by usurpation. The kings of France haven’t had absolute power for more than two reigns; yet talking to Frenchmen of their liberties would strike them as wild. If we consider what I have said about accession [here] we’ll easily account for this phenomenon.

(2) When no form of government has been established by long possession, present possession makes up for that and can be regarded as the second source of all public authority. Right to authority is nothing but the constant possession of authority, maintained by the laws of society and the interests of mankind; and it is utterly natural. . . .

what Hume wrote next: . . . to join this constant possession to the present one, according to the principles above mentioned.

what he may have meant: . . . to think of this present possession as just the latest stage in a long-term possession, and therefore to think of it as legitimate; this being like the way of thinking I mentioned recently, where a long-established king takes some extra bit of territory by force or trickery, and is very soon thought of as entitled to it. Private property was

not thought of in this way, but that was because this way of thinking was outweighed by very strong considerations of interest: treat present-actual-possession as giving an entitlement to private property (we could see) and there will be no such thing as restitution and every violence will be authorized and protected. That consideration may seem to have force also with regard to public authority, but it is opposed by a contrary interest, namely our interest in the preservation of peace and the avoiding of all changes which, though they may be easily produced in private affairs, are unavoidably accompanied by bloodshed and confusion where the public is interested.

We can’t account for the right of the present possessor by any accepted system of ethics; but if that leads you to deny that right absolutely because it isn’t authorized by morality, you’ll be justly thought to be maintaining a very extravagant paradox that clashes with the common sense and judgment of mankind. No maxim is more fitting to prudence and to morals than to submit quietly to the government that we find established in the country where we happen to live, without enquiring too curiously into its origin. Few governments can stand being examined rigorously on that score. How many kingdoms are there at present in the world, and how many more do we find in history, whose governors have no better foundation for their authority than that of present possession? [Hume elaborates on this point, citing all the governments of Rome down the centuries, most of which were first established by ‘the sword’.]

(3) The right of conquest may be considered as a third source of the entitlement of sovereigns. This right is very like the right of present possession, but has rather more force than that because it is backed up by •the notions of glory and honour that we ascribe to •conquerors, rather than •the sentiments of hatred and detestation that are directed at •usurpers. Men naturally favour those they love; so they are more apt to regard as legitimate a successful use of violence by one sovereign against another than the successful rebellion of a subject against his sovereign.[8]

(4) When the sovereign who founded a monarchy dies, the right to rule isn’t settled by •long possession or •present possession or •conquest; and in cases like this the right of inheritance naturally takes over their legitimising role, and men are commonly induced to place the son of their late monarch on the throne and to regard him as having inherited his father’s authority. There are three reasons that lead men to prefer the son of their late monarch to any other person: •the presumed consent of the father, •the imitation of inheritance as it works in the private sphere, and •the state’s interest in choosing the person who is most powerful and has the most numerous followers.[9]

Those reasons have some weight; but I’m convinced that to anyone who looks at the matter impartially it will appear that the considerations of interest are reinforced by some principlesc of the imagination. The royal authority seems to be •connected with the young prince even in his father’s lifetime, and still more after his death, by a natural transition of the mind, so that men find it utterly natural to complete this •connection by a new relation, putting him actually in possession of what seems so naturally to belong to him.

There is confirmation for this in a strange-seeming phenomenon: in elective monarchies the right of inheritance is not endorsed by the laws or by settled custom, and yet its influence is so natural that the subjects can’t •get it out of their minds and •regard the son of their deceased monarch as just one of many possible candidates for the throne.

[The Denmark of Shakespeare’s Hamlet has an elective monarchy. The King dies and Prince Hamlet speaks of his uncle—who has seized the throne—as having come ‘between the election and my hopes’.]

So it comes about that in some elective monarchies the choice commonly falls on some member of the royal family; and in others they are all excluded, on the grounds that otherwise they would be too likely to be chosen, and might then replace the elective system by a hereditary one. . . .

You might want to claim this:

‘The sole source of all the right of inheritance is •what men think will be advantageous to them. Men gladly take advantage of any rule by which they can fix the successor of their late sovereign, and prevent the anarchy and confusion that comes with all new elections.'

I agree that •this motive may contribute something to what happens. but I contend that this motive couldn’t operate at all unless some other principlec were at work. It’s in a nation’s interests that the succession to the crown should be fixed one way or other; but as for the question of how it should be fixed—the nation’s interests aren’t involved in that in any way; so that if blood-relatedness didn’t have an effect independent of the public interest it would never have been thought of if there weren’t a positive law ·commanding that a deceased king be succeeded by his eldest son, or the like·. And such positive laws have been established in many countries, which would be impossible if blood-relatedness didn’t naturally exert a pull on the imagination.

[A ‘positive law’ is a law laid down by one or more thinking beings—a human person or government, or God. The contrast is with ‘natural laws’, which are grounded in the natures of things and aren’t ordained by anyone.]

(5) The fifth source of authority is: positive laws, where the legislature establishes a certain form of government and succession of monarchs. At first sight you might think this:

‘This must be a special case of one of the other sources. The positive law must be laid down by a legislative power, and that must have been established by •original contract, •long possession, •present possession, •conquest, or •inheritance; so the positive law must get its force from some of those principlesc.’

But although a positive law can get its force only from these principlesc, it doesn’t get from them all the force that they had in the first place; rather, it loses considerably in the transition, as one might naturally expect. Suppose that a government is established for many centuries on a certain system of laws, forms, and methods of succession, and that the legislative power established by this long succession suddenly changes the whole system of government and introduces a new constitution in place of it. I don’t think that many of the subjects will think themselves bound to accept this alteration; rather, they’ll think they are still at liberty to return to the time-honoured form of government (unless the new form looks very likely to be for the public good). That is what generates the notion of fundamental laws, which are supposed to be unchangeable by the will of the sovereign. . . . How far these fundamental laws extend is not—and couldn’t possibly be—settled in any government. There is such a gradual slope from the most important laws to the most trivial, and from the most ancient laws to the most modern, that there’s no way of setting bounds to the legislative power, fixing how far it may innovate in the basic workings of government. That is the work of imagination and passion more than of reason.

Whoever considers the history of the various nations of the world—their revolutions, conquests, growth and shrinkage, the way their particular governments are established and the successive right ·to govern· transmitted from one person to another—will soon learn to treat very lightly all disputes about the rights of rulers. He’ll soon be convinced that a strict adherence to any general rules about this, and any rigid loyalty to particular persons and families—loyalty on which some people set such a high value—are ‘virtues’ not of reason but of bigotry and superstition. The study of history confirms the reasonings of true philosophy on this topic. Philosophy shows us the basic qualities of human nature, which teaches us to regard the controversies in politics as undecidable in most cases and as entirely subordinate to the interests of peace and liberty. Where the public good does not clearly demand a change, it is certain that a combination of all those entitlements—•original contract, •long possession, •present possession, •inheritance, and •positive laws—forms the strongest entitlement to sovereignty, and is rightly regarded as sacred and inviolable. But when these entitlements are mingled and to some extent opposed, they often create problems that are less capable of solution by the arguments of lawyers and philosophers than by the swords of the soldiery! [Hume illustrates this with a concrete example drawn from Roman history: the tangle of considerations concerning who would have been the most legitimate successor to the emperor Tiberius. He sums up:] Whatever principles we may claim to use in answering such questions, I’m afraid we shall never be able to satisfy an impartial enquirer who doesn’t take sides in political controversies, and will be satisfied with nothing but sound reason and philosophy.

At this point an English reader may want to ask about the famous revolution that has had such mighty consequences and had such a happy influence on our constitution.

[This refers to the ‘bloodless revolution’ of 1688, in which James II was driven out and replaced by William of Orange, not the earlier bloody revolution that cost Charles I his life.]

I have already remarked that when there is enormous tyranny and oppression it is lawful to take arms even against the supreme power: government is merely something that people invented for mutual advantage and security, so when it stops having that tendency there is no longer any natural or moral obligation to obey it. But although this •general principle is authorized by common sense and by the practice of all ages, neither laws nor (even) philosophy can establish any •particular rules that would tell us when resistance is lawful, and decide all controversies that may arise about that. [Hume goes on to say that the general right to rebel that he has defended applies not only to absolute monarchies and the like but also to ‘mixed governments’ such as ‘limited monarchies’ where the power is legally divided between the king and the parliament. He adds that forceful resistance to a chief magistrate may be legitimised not only by his •doing things that are extremely harmful to the people in general but also by his •trying to ‘encroach on the other parts of the constitution, and extend his power beyond the legal bounds’.

[The ‘parts of the •constitution’ referred to here are the parts of the •mixed government. Hume is thinking of a king’s attempt to encroach on the powers of parliament.]

He expresses this last point in terms of the right of any part of the mixed government to defend itself against the other parts, and he expresses this through a charming metaphor. There would have been no point in creating matter, Hume says, unless it were given a power of resistance: without that, the different portions of matter could run together, and the whole material world could be crammed into a single point. Well, it is equally absurd to suppose that a government has distinct parts that haven’t the power to resist ‘invaders’, including other parts of the same government.]. . . .

It’s no part of my present purpose to show that these general principles are applicable to the late revolution, and that all the rights and privileges that ought to be sacred to a free nation were at that time threatened with the utmost danger. I prefer to leave this controverted subject—if it really does admit of controversy—and instead to indulge myself in some philosophical reflections that naturally arise from that important event. ·There are two main points that I want to make·.

(1) If the lords and commons—·i.e. the two houses of parliament·—in our constitution were to •depose the reigning king or •exclude from the succession to him the prince who by laws and settled custom ought to succeed, doing this without any reason from public interest, no-one would think their proceedings were legal or think himself bound to accept them. But if a king forfeits his legal right to rule by his unjust practices or his attempts to get a tyrannical and despotic power, then not only does it become morally lawful and suitable to the nature of political society to dethrone him, but also we are inclined to think that the remaining members of the constitution have a right to exclude his next heir—·e.g. his oldest son·—and to choose whom they please for his successor. This comes from a very special quality of our thought and imagination. When a king forfeits his authority, his heir ought naturally to be in the same situation as he would have been in if the king had died (unless he has been involved in the king’s tyranny, in which case he forfeits his right to the throne also). But though this may seem reasonable, it’s easy for us to go along with the contrary opinion. In a governmental system like ours, deposing a king is an act that goes beyond all common authority—a taking on, for public good, of a power that ordinarily doesn’t belong to any member of the constitution. When so much public good is so obviously at stake that the act is justified, it is a license—·a going beyond the normal boundaries of authority·—that we approve of; and this naturally leads us to attribute to the parliament a right to use further licences. Once •the old boundaries of the laws have been crossed with our approval, we’re not apt to be so strict in confining ourselves precisely within •their limits. The mind naturally continues with any course of ·mental· action that it has begun; after the first act of any kind that we perform, we’re usually ready to go on in the same way without worrying much about our duty. Thus at the revolution, no-one who thought the deposition of the father to be justifiable thought they had to let him be succeeded by his infant son; and yet if that unhappy monarch had died innocent at that time, and had his son happened to be overseas somewhere, it’s certain that a regency would have been appointed until he came of age and could be restored to his dominions. ·This readiness to carry on with a line of thought once we have begun it is· a minor property of the imagination that has an effect on peoples’ judgments; and the laws and the parliament show wisdom in taking advantage of such properties and choosing the magistrates in a hereditary line or not, depending on what the common people will most naturally regard as having rightful authority.

(2) Though the accession of the Prince of Orange to the throne ·in 1688· might at first give rise to many disputes about whether he had a right to be there, his right ought not to appear doubtful now, having acquired sufficient authority from the three monarchs who have followed with the same entitlement to the throne. This way of thinking seems at first sight to be utterly unreasonable, but in fact it is utterly usual! Monarchs often seem to acquire a right from their successors, as well as from their ancestors; and a king who could rightly be regarded as an usurper during his lifetime will be regarded by posterity as a lawful monarch, just because he has had the good fortune to settle his family on the throne, entirely changing the previous form of government. Julius Caesar is regarded as the first Roman emperor; whereas Sylla and Marius, whose entitlement to rule was really the same as his, are treated as tyrants and usurpers. Time and custom give authority to all forms of government, and all successions of monarchs; and the power that was initially based on injustice and violence comes in time to be legal and obligatory. And the mind doesn’t leave it at that. Rather, it retraces its footsteps and transfers to their predecessors and ancestors the right that it naturally ascribes to the posterity, because they are all inter-related and are united in the imagination. The present king of France makes Hugh Capet [from whom he throne was a result of political manoeuvring] a more lawful monarch than Cromwell. And the established liberty of the Dutch now makes a strong case for their stubborn resistance to ·Spain’s· Philip II ·nearly two hundred years ago·.

11: The laws of nations

When civil government has been established over the greatest part of mankind, and different societies have been formed next door to one another, a new set of duties arises among the neighbouring states, suitable to the nature of the dealings that they have with one another. Writers on politics tell us that in every kind of inter-relations ·between states·, a state [Hume: ‘a body politic’] is to be considered as a single person; and there is some truth in that: different nations are like private persons in that •they need one anothers’ help, and •their selfishness and ambition are perpetual sources of war and discord. But nations are very different from individual persons in other respects, and it’s not surprising that they regulate themselves by different maxims, giving rise to a new set of rules that we call ‘the laws of nations’. These include rules about the sacredness of the persons of ambassadors, the declaration of war, abstaining from poisoned arms, and other such duties that are clearly fitted to the kinds of dealings that different societies—but not different individuals—have with one another.

These laws of nations are added to the laws of nature; they don’t abolish them! It’s safe to say that the three fundamental rules of ·personal· justice—the stability of ownership, its transference by consent, and the keeping of promises—are duties of monarchs as well as of their subjects. The same interests produce the same effect in both cases. Where ownership has no stability, there must be perpetual war. Where property is not transferred by consent, there can be no commerce. Where promises are not kept, there can be no leagues or alliances. So the advantages of peace, commerce, and mutual help make us extend to different •kingdoms the same notions of justice that hold for •individuals.

A widely accepted maxim says that there’s a system of morals for •monarchs that is much less constraining than the system that ought to govern •private persons. Few politicians are willing to say this, but it has been authorized by what they have done down through the centuries. This isn’t meant to imply that the duties and obligations of monarchs have a lesser extent than those of private persons—e.g. no-one will say that the most solemn treaties ought to have no force among monarchs! Monarchs do form treaties among themselves, so they must they expect some advantage from their being carried out; and the prospect of such an advantage for the future must motivate them to perform their part of the treaty, and must establish that law of nature. So the political maxim must mean that although the morality of monarchs has the same •extent as that of private persons it doesn’t have the same •force, and can be transgressed from more trivial motives ·than would be needed to excuse such transgressions by private persons·. Some philosophers will be shocked by this proposition; but it can easily be defended on the principles I have used to explain the origin of justice and equity.

When men have learned from experience that they can’t survive without society, and that society can’t be maintained while they give free rein to their appetites, their own urgent ·self·-interest quickly restrains their actions and gives them an obligation to observe the rules that we call the ‘laws of justice’. This obligation of interest isn’t the end of the matter. [Re ‘obligation of interest’: see the note here.] We approve of actions that tend to the peace of society, and disapprove of ones that tend to its disturbance; and so the obligation of •interest gives rise—by the necessary course of the passions and sentiments—to the moral obligation of •duty. The same natural obligation of interest occurs among independent kingdoms, and gives rise to the same morality; so that no-one, however morally corrupt he is, will approve of a monarch who voluntarily and of his own accord breaks a promise or violates a treaty. But ·there’s a difference·: although peaceful inter-relations among states are advantageous, and even sometimes necessary, they are not as necessary or as advantageous as they are among individuals, who simply can’t survive without them. Thus the natural obligation to justice is not as strong among states as it is among individuals, so the moral obligation that arises from it must also be weaker; and when a monarch or minister deceives another, we have to judge him less fiercely than we would judge a private gentleman who breaks his word of honour.

You may want to ask: ‘How much stronger is individual morality than state morality?’ This can’t be answered precisely; we can’t say in numerical terms how the strengths of the two moralities compare with one another. It is safe to say that people get the relative strengths without any art or study—just as happens with many other matters. The practice of the world teaches us more about the strengths of our obligations than does the subtlest philosophy ever invented. And this is convincing evidence that all men have an implicit notion of the basis for the moral rules concerning natural and civil justice, and are aware that they arise merely from human conventions and from the interest we have in the preservation of peace and order. If the basis were anything else, the lessening of the interest would never produce a relaxation of the morality. . . .

12: Chastity and modesty

[This section contains Book III’s first (and almost its only) occurrences of the word ‘women’. Throughout most of the work Hume uses ‘men’ as equivalent to ‘people’ or ‘human beings’; but here ‘men’ are contrasted with ‘women’.]

If you are not yet fully convinced of this theory about the laws of nature and nations, it will be because you think this:

The general interests of society don’t provide a sufficient explanation of the universal approval (or blame) that follows the observance (or transgression) of those laws.

To remove such worries as thoroughly as I can, I shall now consider another set of duties, namely the modesty and chastity that belong to the fair sex. I am sure that these virtues will be found to be still more conspicuous instances of the operation of the principlesc that I have been emphasizing.

Some philosophers attack the ‘female virtues’ with great vigour, and think they have gone very far in detecting popular errors when they show •that there is no basis in nature for all the exterior modesty that we require in how the fair sex speak, dress, and behave. I think I can spare myself the trouble of arguing for something as obvious as •that, and proceed immediately to examine how such notions do arise—from upbringing, from the voluntary conventions of men, and from the interests of society.

Whoever considers •the length and feebleness of human infancy and •the concern that both sexes naturally have for their offspring will easily see that there must be a union of male and female for bringing up the young, and that this union must be of considerable duration. But men won’t impose this restraint on themselves, cheerfully undergoing all the fatigues and expenses to which it subjects them, unless they believe that •the children are their own, and that •in lavishing love and tenderness on them they aren’t giving it to a wrong object. Now, if we examine the structure of the human body we shall find that it’s very difficult to be entirely sure about this. In the copulation of the sexes the principlec of generation goes from the man to the woman; so there can easily be an error about which man it was, while it’s impossible to have any question about which woman. This trivial anatomical fact creates the vast difference between the upbringing and duties of the two sexes.

If a philosopher examined this matter a priori he would reason like this:

‘Men are induced to work to maintain and bring up their children by the conviction that they really are their own; so they must have some assurance about this. They can’t get it solely by imposing on their wives severe punishments for any lapse in conjugal fidelity; because such public punishments can’t be inflicted without legal proof, which is hard to find in these cases. What restraint, then, , shall we impose on women in order to outweigh their strong temptation to be unfaithful? The only possible restraint, it seems, is the punishment of a bad reputation. This has a mighty influence on the human mind, and we inflict it on the basis of surmises and conjectures and bits of evidence that would never be accepted in a criminal court. Therefore, in order to restrain the female sex appropriately we must attach a special intensity of shame to their infidelity, above what arises merely from its wrongness, and we must correspondingly praise their chastity.'

But although this is a very strong motive to fidelity, our philosopher would quickly discover that it on its own wouldn’t be sufficient for that purpose. ·His thought would continue as follows·:

‘All human creatures, especially of the female sex, are apt to overlook distant motives in favour of present temptations; the temptation is here the strongest imaginable; it creeps up on a woman without her realising that it is doing so; and she easily finds—or optimistically thinks she will find—certain means for securing her reputation and preventing all the pernicious consequences of her pleasures. So there has to be something more than ·the risk of· infamy resulting from such licentious behaviour. Specifically, there has to be some prior resistance or dread that can prevent the temptations from getting started, giving the female sex a dislike for all expressions and postures and liberties that have an immediate relation to sexual enjoyment.’

That is how our theorizing philosopher would reason; but I’m convinced that if he didn’t have a perfect knowledge of human nature he would be apt to regard his reasonings as merely fanciful theory-spinning, and would regard •the infamy that comes with infidelity and •resistance to all its approaches as principlesc that are to be wished for rather than hoped for in the world. He would think

‘What means are there for persuading mankind that marital infidelity is worse than any other kind of wrong conduct, when it is obviously more excusable ·than the others· because the temptation is so great? And what could create a resistance to the approaches of a pleasure to which nature has given such a strong propensity, and a propensity that must eventually have its way if the species is to survive?’

But theoretical reasonings that •philosophers take so much trouble to create are often formed by •the world naturally and without reflection; and difficulties that seem insurmountable in theory are easily overcome in practice. Those who have an interest in the fidelity of women naturally disapprove of their infidelity and of everything that might lead to it. Those whose interests are not bound up with this are carried along with the stream. Education takes possession of the malleable minds of the fair sex in their infancy. And once a general rule of this kind is established, men are apt to extend it beyond the matters that first gave rise to it. Thus bachelors, however debauched, can’t help being shocked by any instance of lewdness or impudence in women. And although all these maxims clearly arise from concerns about generation, women who are past child-bearing have no more privilege in this respect than those who are in the flower of their youth and beauty. Men must have an unconscious notion that all those ideas of modesty and decency are concerned with generation; because they don’t impose the same laws with the same force on the male sex, to which the concern about generation doesn’t apply. ·The general attitude to female chastity doesn’t slide across and generate a similar attitude to chastity among males, because· males constitute a very large class who are obviously different from females, so that there’s a clear line to be drawn here. It’s not like that with the different ages of women, ·where none of the lines are clear, and drift is therefore possible·. So although we know that these notions are based on the public interest, the general rule carries us beyond the original reason for insisting on female chastity and makes us extend the notions of modesty over the whole female sex, from their earliest infancy to their most extreme old age and infirmity.

We shall see later that the valuing of courage in men is like the ·valuing of· chastity of women in •having a foundation in nature while also •deriving much of its merit from artifice.

As for the obligations that the male sex have regarding chastity, we may observe that according to the general notions of the world they are less strong than the obligations of women, by about the same amount as the obligations of the law of nations are less strong than those of the law of nature. It is contrary to the interests of civil society that men should be entirely free to indulge their sexual appetites; this interest is weaker than in the case of the female sex, so the moral obligation arising from it must be proportionately weaker. For evidence of this, look at how men of all nations have acted and felt down through the ages.

NOTES

[1] No questions in philosophy are harder than the ones that arise when a number of causes present themselves for a single phenomenon, and we have to settle which is the principal and predominant one. There’s seldom any very precise argument to fix our choice, and men settle for being guided by •a kind of taste or imagination arising from analogy, and by •a comparison of similar cases. In this matter of ownership, no doubt there are reasons of public interest for most of the rules that settle who owns what; but I suspect that these rules are principally fixed by the imagination, i.e. the more frivolous features of our thought and conception. I’ll go on discussing these causes, leaving it to you to choose between •the ones that are derived from public utility and •the ones derived from the imagination. I’ll begin with the right of the present possessor.

A feature of human nature that I noted back in I.iv.5 is that when two objects appear in a close relation to each other, the mind is apt to regard them as related in other ways as well, so as complete their union; and this inclination is so strong that it often pushes us into errors if we find any ·errors· that can serve that purpose ·of completing the union·. [Hume cites ‘the conjunction of thought and matter’—his exact phrase—as an example of such an error.] Many of our impressions are incapable of being in any place, and yet we suppose them—those very impressions—to be located along with the impressions of sight and touch, merely because they are causally connected with them and are already united with them in the imagination. [Hume goes on at some length about the powerful force in our thinking—this propensity for taking pairs of items that are connected in some way and imagining them to be connected in other ways as well, especially ways that are like the first one, thereby increasing (we think) the orderliness of things. He starts to link this with his present topic by saying:] The same love of order and uniformity that arranges the books in a library, and the chairs in a parlour, contributes to the formation of society and to mankind’s well-being by the effect it has on the general rule about the stability of ownership. If y is owned by x, i.e. is part of x’s property, that’s one relation between them, and it’s natural ·for us to try· to base it on some preceding relation. Now, if x owns y then that ownership or property relation between is just

•x’s constantly having y among his possessions,

with this being secured by the laws of society; so it is natural to add it to the relation

•x’s having y in his possession right now,

because this resembles the ownership relation. . . .

[2] Some philosophers [notably Locke] account for the right of occupation by saying that everyone is the owner of his own labour, and that when he joins that labour to something, this gives him ownership of the whole. But: (i) There are several kinds of occupation where we can’t be said to join our labour to the object we acquire, e.g. when we possess a meadow by grazing our cattle on it. (ii) This ·labour theory of ownership· accounts for ownership by means of accession; which is taking a needlessly roundabout route. (iii) We can’t be said to join our labour to anything except in a figurative sense. Strictly speaking, all we do is to alter something by our labour. This gives us a relation to the thing we have altered, and thence arises the property, according to the preceding principles. [The last ten words are Hume’s.]

[3] [The in-text key to this footnote is high on the next page.] If we try to solve these difficulties in terms of reason and the public interest we’ll get nowhere. And if instead we look to the imagination for help, ·we’ll find that it can’t help us either, because· obviously the qualities that operate on the imagination run into each other so imperceptibly and gradually that we can’t assign any precise boundaries to them; ·which means that the concepts of our imagination are shot through with just the kind of gradualness that we are trying to cure·. And there are other difficulties as well, because our judgment alters very noticeably according to the subject, and the same power and proximity that will count as possession in one case won’t be so counted in another. Someone who has hunted a hare to the last degree of weariness would regard it as an injustice for someone else to push ahead of him and seize his prey. But when that same person is moving towards a tree to pick an apple, he has no reason to complain if someone else, more alert, gets there first and takes possession of the apple. What is the reason for this difference? It must be that the hare’s immobility is not natural to it but is a result of the hunter’s work, which creates a strong relation between hare and hunter that is absent between apple and man in the other case.

So it seems from this that x’s certain and infallible power of enjoying y, not accompanied by touch or some other sensible relation, is often not enough to put y into the possession of x. [Hume is thinking here of the person who could easily pick the apple, when there is no rival picker in the vicinity. He certainly has power to enjoy the apple; but he doesn’t possess it.] And I further observe that a sensible relation between x and y, without any present power ·on x’s part to make use of y·, is sometimes sufficient to qualify x as owning y. Consider the statement that x sees y: that is usually not a considerable relation between them, but it is regarded as considerable when y is hidden or very obscure. When that is the case, we find that x’s seeing y is enough to make y x’s property, according to the maxim that even a whole continent belongs to the nation that first discovered it. Notice, though, that x’s discovering y isn’t enough to put y in x’s possession unless x intends to be y’s owner. . . .

All this makes it easy to see how tangled many questions may become concerning the acquisition of property by occupation; and we don’t have to think hard to come up with examples for which there is no reasonable decision. If you prefer real examples to invented ones, try this: Two Greek colonies, leaving their native country in search of new places to live, were told that a nearby city had been deserted by its inhabitants. To check on the truth of this, each colony sent a messenger; as they neared the city the messengers found that the information was true, and they began to race towards the city, each intending to take possession of it for his colony. The messenger who was losing the race launched his spear at the gates of the city, and had the good luck to fix it there before the other man’s arrival. This created a dispute between the two colonies as to which of them owned the empty city; and this dispute still continues among philosophers. For my part, I find that the dispute can’t be settled because the whole question depends on the imagination, which in this case has no precise determinate standard on which to base a decision. . . .

[4] Present possession is obviously also a relation between a person and an object; but unless the possession is long and interrupted it doesn’t have enough force to outweigh the relation of first possession. . . .

[5] If morality were discoverable by reason and not by sentiment, it would be even clearer that promises (·understood as acts of the will·) couldn’t make any moral difference. Morality ·on this reason-based theory of it· is supposed to consist in relations. So every new imposition of morality must arise from some new relation between objects; so the will couldn’t produce any change in morals •immediately, but only •by producing a change in the objects. But the moral obligation of a promise is purely an effect of the will, making not the slightest change to any part of the universe; and it follows that ·on this based-upon-reason theory· promises have no natural obligation. . . .

[6] First in time, I mean, not first in dignity or force.

[7] This proposition is strictly true with regard to every quality that is determined merely by sentiment. In what sense can we talk either of a right or a wrong taste in morals, eloquence, or beauty? I shall come to that in due course; but I would remark in the meantime that there’s so much uniformity in the general sentiments of mankind that such questions are of small importance.

[8] I’m not saying that present possession or conquest are sufficient to entitle someone to govern a territory that has long been held by someone else with a backing of positive law; but only that they have some force, and can tip the balance when the other claims are equal, and may even be enough sometimes to sanctify the weaker claim. How much force present possession and conquest have is difficult to determine. I believe all moderate men will agree that they have great force in all disputes concerning the rights of monarchs.

[9] I am not talking about succession as it occurs in hereditary monarchies where •custom has fixed the right of succession; what happens there falls under the principle of long possession, which I explained earlier. ·What I am discussing is the succession that it is natural for men to accept when there isn’t any •custom to guide them·.

Part iii: The other virtues and vices

1: The origin of the natural virtues and vices

We now start to examine the virtues and vices that are entirely natural, not depending in any way on the artifice and contrivance of men. This is the last part of my system of morals.

The chief spring or actuating principlec of the human mind is pleasure or pain; when these sensations are removed from our thought and feeling, that leaves us to a large extent incapable of passion or action, of desire or volition. The most immediate effects of pleasure and pain are the mind’s motions towards or away from things, which can generate

volition, desire and aversion, joy and grief, hope and fear,

depending on what changes there are in how pleasure or pain come into the picture—whether as probable or improbable, certain or uncertain, or as considered as out of our power for the present moment. But when the objects that cause pleasure or pain come to be related to ourselves or others, they still arouse desire or aversion, grief or joy, but they also cause the indirect passions of pride or humility, love or hatred, which in this case have a double relation of impressions and ideas to the pain or pleasure. [To unpack this condensed sentence, see II.i.5.]

I have already remarked that moral distinctions depend entirely on certain specific sentiments of pain and pleasure, and that •any mental quality in ourselves or others that gives us satisfaction when we observe it or think about it is automatically virtuous, while •everything of this kind that gives us uneasiness is vicious. Now,

•every quality in ourselves that gives pleasure always causes pride, and •every quality in others that gives pleasure always causes love.

Furthermore,

•every quality in ourselves that produces uneasiness causes humility, and •every quality in others that produces uneasiness causes hatred.

It follows from all this that so far as our mental qualities are concerned,

•virtue is equivalent to the power of producing love or pride, and •vice is equivalent to the power of producing humility or hatred.

So we must always judge one through the other, designating as ‘virtuous’ any quality of the mind that causes love or pride, and as ‘vicious’ any mental quality that causes hatred or humility.

An action can count as either virtuous or vicious only when considered as a sign of some quality or character-trait. It must depend on durable principlesc in that mind—ones that extend over all the person’s conduct and are part of his character. Actions themselves, when they don’t come from any constant principlec in the person, have no influence on love or hatred, pride or humility, which is why they are never considered in morality.

This thought is self-evident, and should be attended to as something of the utmost importance in our present subject. In our enquiries concerning the origin of morals we should never consider any single action but only the •quality or •character from which the action proceeded. •These are the only items durable enough to affect our sentiments concerning the person. A person’s actions are indeed better indications of his character than what he says, or even what he wants and feels; but it is only to the extent that they are such indications that they bring love or hatred, praise or blame.

To discover the true origin of morals, and of the love or hatred that arises from mental qualities, we must explore at greater depth some of the principlesc that I have already examined and explained.

Let us start by considering again the nature and force of sympathy. The minds of all men are similar in their feelings and operations; any affection [= ‘feeling’] that anyone has could be had by anyone else. When ·violin· strings have the same tension, the vibration of one communicates itself to the others; and in the same way all the affections easily pass from one person to another, and create corresponding movements ·of mind and body· in every human creature. When I see the effects of passion in someone’s voice and gestures, my mind immediately passes from these effects to their causes, and forms an idea of the passion that is so lively that it soon becomes the passion. Similarly, when I see the causes of an emotion, my mind is conveyed to the effects, and comes to have such an emotion. If I were present at any of the more terrible operations of surgery, the preparation of the instruments, the laying out of the bandages, the heating of the irons, along with all the signs of anxiety and concern in the patient and assistants, would have a great effect on my mind, arousing the strongest sentiments of pity and terror—before the operation had even begun! No-one’s passion is immediately displayed to the mind of someone else. All that our senses shows us are a passion’s •causes or effects; from •these we infer the passion; and consequently •these arouse our sympathy.

Our sense of beauty depends to a large extent on this principlec. Any object with a tendency to produce pleasure in its possessor is regarded as beautiful; just as any object that tends to produce pain is disagreeable and ugly. Thus,

•the convenience of a house,

•the fertility of a field,

•the strength of a horse,

•the capacity, soundness and speed of a vessel,

form the principal beauty of these various objects. The object called ‘beautiful’ in these cases pleases us only by its tendency to produce a certain effect. That effect is the pleasure or advantage of some other person. Now, the only way the pleasure of a stranger, someone we don’t know, can bring pleasure to us is through sympathy. So it’s sympathy that is responsible for the beauty that we find in everything that is useful. Think about it and you’ll easily see how large a part of beauty consists in usefulness. Wherever an object has a tendency to give its owner pleasure. . . ., it is sure to please the spectator through a delicate sympathy with the owner. Most of the works of •art [here = ‘things made through human skill’] are regarded as beautiful in proportion to their usefulness to us, and even many of the products of •nature derive their beauty from that source. In most cases a thing’s handsomeness or beauty is not an intrinsic quality of it but rather a relative quality, which pleases purely by its tendency to produce an end that is agreeable.

Our moral sentiments often come from the same principlec as our sentiments of beauty. No virtue is more esteemed than justice, and no vice more detested than injustice; and no qualities contribute more to a character’s being lovable or odious. Now, what makes •justice a moral virtue is its tendency to produce good for mankind; indeed, justice is nothing but an artifact that was made for that purpose. The same may be said of •allegiance, of •the laws of nations, •of modesty, and of •good manners.

[That last phrase means ‘good behaviour’ generally, not restricted to the relatively minor range of conduct that defines ‘manners’ in our present sense of the word. When here Hume wants to talk about something more like manners in our sense of that word, he speaks of ‘good-breeding’.]

All these are mere human constructs that were made in the interests of society. And since they have, always and everywhere, brought with them a very strong moral sentiment, we must allow that •thinking about the tendency of a given character or mental quality is sufficient to give us •the sentiments of approval and blame. [When Hume speaks of a thing’s ‘tendency’—not its tendency to do such-and-such—he means ‘the facts about what the thing causes or is apt to cause’.] Now, we couldn’t like something because it is apt to produce x unless we liked x; in our present case x = the good of society; and what makes us favour the good of society—setting aside cases involving our own interests or those of our friends—is sympathy. It follows that sympathy is the source of our esteem for all the artificial virtues.

Thus it appears •that sympathy is a very powerful principlec in human nature, •that it has a great influence on our sense of beauty, and •that it produces our moral sentiments regarding all the artificial virtues. This creates a presumption that sympathy also gives rise to many of the other virtues, and that qualities get our approval because of their tendency to produce good for mankind. And we should become certain that this is so when we find that

•most of the qualities that we naturally approve of do in fact have that tendency, making the person fit to be member of society, while

•the qualities that we naturally disapprove of have a contrary tendency, making the person dangerous or disagreeable to have any dealings with.

·Why should we become certain of this·? Because after we find that such tendencies have force enough to produce the strongest moral sentiment, it would unreasonable for us in these cases to look for any other cause of approval or blame. ·Why·? Because it is an unbreakable rule in philosophy ·and science· that where any particular cause is sufficient for an effect we ought to be satisfied with it, and ought not to multiply causes without necessity. [Hume is here echoing the famous Occam’s Razor: ‘Entities should not be multiplied more than is necessary’.] We have had the good fortune to find cases of the artificial virtues where a quality’s tendency to produce the good of society is the sole cause of our approval ·of it·, with not a hint of input from any other principlec. From that we learn the power of that principlec; and where that principlec could be operating and the quality approved of really is beneficial to society, a true philosopher won’t require any other principlec—·any cause other than the belief that the item in question is apt to produce good for society·—to account for any approval and esteem, even the strongest.

No-one can doubt that many of the natural virtues have this tendency to produce good for society. Meekness, beneficence, charity, generosity, clemency, moderation, fairness, loom largest among the moral qualities, and are commonly called ‘social virtues’ to mark their tendency to produce good for society. This goes so far that some philosophers have claimed that all moral distinctions arise from artifice and education. ·Perhaps they were encouraged in this when they saw· skillful politicians using the notions of honour and shame in an attempt to restrain men’s turbulent passions and make them operate for the public good. But this theory of morality is not consistent with experience. ·There are two things wrong with it·. (1) There are virtues and vices other than the ones that have this tendency to produce profit or loss for the public. (2) If men didn’t have a natural sentiment of approval and blame, there would be nothing for the politicians to arouse, and such words as ‘praiseworthy’ ‘blameworthy’ and ‘odious’ would mean nothing to us; they would be like words in a foreign language that was perfectly unknown to us. . . . Although this system is erroneous, however, it can teach us that •moral distinctions arise in a great measure from the tendency of qualities and characters to further the interests of society, and that •our concern for those interests is what makes us approve or disapprove of them. But it is only from sympathy that we have this extensive concern for society, so sympathy is the principlec that takes us so far out of ourselves as to give us the same pleasure or uneasiness in the characters of others as if they had a tendency to produce profit or loss for ourselves.

Justice differs from the natural virtues in only one way, namely:

•The good that results from the natural virtues arises from every single act, and is the object of some natural passion; whereas •a single act of justice, considered in itself, may well be contrary to the public good.

The advantageousness of justice comes not from this or that individual just act but from mankind’s agreeing in a general scheme or system of action ·that produces good for society·. When I bring help to someone who is in distress, what moves me to action is my natural humaneness; and to the extent that I really do help him, to that extent I have promoted the happiness of my fellow-creatures. But look at the questions that come before any court of law! Taking each case on its own, the humane thing to do would go against the laws of justice as often as it would conform to them. Judges take from a poor man to give to a rich; they make industrious people work on behalf of dissolute people; and they put into the hands of vicious people the means of harming both themselves and others. The whole system of law and justice, however, is advantageous to the society; and it was this advantage that men wanted to secure through the voluntary conventions that established the system. Once it has been established by these ·•artificial· conventions, it is •naturally accompanied by a strong moral sentiment, which can only come from our sympathy with the interests of society. That’s all the explanation we need of the esteem that is given to natural virtues that have a tendency to produce good for the public.

[Hume now offers a paragraph making the point that his theory of sympathy as the basis of morality is ‘much more probable’ for the natural virtues than for the artificial virtues. [He seems to mean ‘much more prima facie plausible’.] That is because ‘the imagination is more affected by what is particular than by what is general’; so that we are more stirred by a single act of generosity, beneficence etc. which itself does good to one or more particular people, than by a single instance of justice that may have nothing going for it except its belonging to an advantageous system.] Before I go on, I must comment on two remarkable facts that may seem to be objections to my theory of morality. ·I shall state them as objections·:

(1) When any quality or character has a tendency to do good for mankind, we are pleased with it and approve of it because it presents a lively idea of pleasure, an idea that affects us by sympathy and is itself a kind of pleasure. But this sympathy is very variable, so you might think that our moral sentiments vary in the same way. We sympathize more with persons who are close than with ones who are far away; more with people we know than with strangers; more with our countrymen than with foreigners. But despite this variation of our sympathy, we give the same approval to the same moral qualities in China as in England. They appear equally virtuous, and equally good candidates for the esteem of a judicious spectator. The sympathy varies without a variation in our esteem. So our esteem doesn’t come from sympathy.

[Hume replies that attempts to base morality on reason or on ‘comparison of ideas’ are dead. Any credible theory of morality must base it on sentiments—i.e. feelings—of pleasure or disgust that we get from seeing or thinking about particular qualities or characters. Now, any such feelings —whether or not sympathy has anything to do with them—are very variable. So if the above objection has force against the theory that sympathy lies at the root of everything in morality,] it must have equal force against every other theory. But really it has no force at all; and here is why. There is a continual fluctuation in how we are situated in relation to people and to things; a man who is a long way away now may in a little time become a familiar acquaintance. Besides, each particular man has his own unique set of relations to others; if he had to consider characters and persons only as they appear from this unique point of view, he couldn’t possibly have a reasonable conversation with anyone else. [Although he doesn’t say so in this sentence, Hume evidently holds that in those circumstances conversation would be impossible because there would be so many conflicts between one person’s judgments and the other’s.] In order to prevent those continual contradictions and arrive at a more stable judgment of things, we settle on some steady and general points of view, and always think in terms of them, whatever our present situation may be. Similarly, external beauty is determined by pleasure; and a beautiful face can’t give as much pleasure when seen from twenty paces away as when it is brought closer. But we don’t say that ‘it appears to us less beautiful’ from that distance, because we know what effect it will have at that distance, and by reflecting on that we correct its momentary appearance.

Our sentiments of blame or praise vary according to how we relate to the person blamed or praised and according to our present frame of mind. But we ignore these variations in our •general decisions, and apply the terms expressing our liking or dislike in the way we would if we remained in one point of view.

[When Hume speaks of our •‘general decisions’, he isn’t talking about

(i) general moral views as distinct from moral views about particular cases;

but rather about

(ii) a general way of viewing particular cases.

It seems that (ii) amounts to

(iii) judging a particular case by applying our general moral views to it rather than consulting our present feelings about it.

Three or four further instances of ‘general’ in this section (and one here) are of this kind; its occurrence in the phrase ‘general rules’ is not one of them.]

Experience soon teaches us this method of correcting our sentiments, or (when the sentiments are more stubborn and unalterable) of correcting our language. . . . Such corrections are common with regard to all the senses; and indeed we couldn’t possibly make any use of language, or report our sentiments to one another, if we didn’t correct the momentary appearances of things and overlook our present situation.

So we blame or praise a person on the basis of the influence of his character and qualities on those with whom he has dealings. We don’t consider whether the people he affects are acquaintances of ours or strangers, compatriots or foreigners. Indeed, even when we are among the people affected, we set that fact aside in our general judgments; we don’t blame a man for opposing us in one of our claims when his own interests are particularly concerned. We make allowance for a certain degree of selfishness in men, because we know it to be inseparable from human nature, built into us all. By these thoughts we correct the sentiments of blame that so naturally arise whenever we meet with opposition.

But these corrective devices are not entirely effective, and our passions seldom correspond exactly to the theory I have been presenting. It rarely happens that men heartily love what lies at a distance from them and can’t bring any benefit to them in particular; and it equally rarely happens that •someone can pardon someone else for opposing •his interests, however justifiable that opposition may be by the general rules of morality. I shall have to settle for saying

that reason requires such impartial conduct, that we can’t often bring ourselves to it, and that our passions don’t readily follow the decisions of our judgment.

You will easily understand what I mean by this if you bear in mind what I said earlier concerning the reason that can oppose our passion—which we found to be nothing but a general calm determination of the passions, based on thinking about things as though from a distance. When we judge people merely on the basis of how their characters are likely to affect our own or our friends’ interests, we find so many contradictions to our sentiments in society and conversation [those eight words are Hume’s], and such an uncertainty from the constant changes of our situation, that we look for some other, less variable, standard of merit and demerit. Being thus loosened from our first viewpoint, the most serviceable replacement for it that we can find is sympathy with those who have any dealings with the person we consider. This sympathy is much less lively than what we have when our own interests or those of our particular friends are involved; and it has less influence on our love and hatred; but it fits our calm and general principles just as well, and is said to have an equal authority over our ‘reason’, and to command our judgment and opinion. We blame a bad action that we read of in history just as much as we blame one performed in our neighbourhood yesterday; and what that means is that we know from reflection that •the historical action would arouse ·in us· sentiments of disapproval as strong as those aroused by the recent-nearby action if •it related to us in the same way.

I now come to the second noteworthy fact that I said I would discuss; ·and I shall state this too as an objection·:

(2) If someone has a character the natural tendency of which is beneficial to society, we judge him to be virtuous, and are delighted by the thought of his having such a character, even if particular events have prevented it from operating and have made it impossible for him to be serviceable to his friends and country. Virtue in rags is still virtue; and the love that it arouses accompanies a man into a dungeon or desert, where the virtue can no longer be expressed in action and is lost to all the world. That is an objection to the present system [i.e. to Hume’s theory of the moral sentiments]. Our sympathy gives us an interest in the good of mankind; and if sympathy were the source of our esteem for virtue, that sentiment of approval couldn’t occur except when the virtue actually attained its end and was beneficial to mankind. Where it fails of its end, it is only an incomplete •means, and therefore can’t acquire any merit from that •end. The goodness of •an end can give merit to •means to it only if the means are complete, and actually produce the end.

My answer is this: If an object is, in all its parts, fitted to attain some agreeable end, it naturally gives us pleasure and is judged to be beautiful even if it isn’t completely effectual because of something lacking in the external circumstances. It is sufficient ·for our judgment of beauty· if everything is complete in the object itself. [Hume gives examples: a splendidly designed house that we know won’t ever be occupied; a beautiful landscape in a place where no-one lives; a handsome man who will never be allowed out of prison. Then:] Our imagination is associated with a set of passions on which our sentiments of beauty largely depend. These passions are moved by ideas that •aren’t as lively and strong as the ideas that constitute belief and •don’t imply the real existence of their objects. When a character is in every respect fitted to be beneficial to society, our imagination passes easily from the cause to the effect, ignoring the fact that some of the circumstances needed to make the cause a complete one are missing. General rules create a kind of probability that influences the judgment sometimes and the imagination always.

[In the next paragraph ‘fortune’ means something like ‘luck’, the way things happen to turn out.]

It’s true that when the cause is complete, and a good •disposition is accompanied by good •fortune which makes it really beneficial to society, the spectator’s pleasure is stronger and is accompanied by a more lively sympathy. We are more affected by it; yet we don’t say that it is more virtuous or that we esteem it more. We know that an alteration of •fortune may make the benevolent •disposition entirely powerless, which leads us to separate the •fortune from the •disposition as much as we can. This is the same as what happens when we correct the different sentiments of virtue that come from differences in how closely or remotely we relate to the person whose virtue is in question. Our passions don’t always follow our corrections; but these corrections serve well enough to regulate our abstract notions, and they are all we go by when we pronounce in general concerning the degrees of vice and virtue. . . . All this makes it easy for us to remove any contradiction there may seem to be between the •extensive sympathy on which our sentiments of virtue depend and •the limited generosity that is natural to men. (I have often mentioned this limited generosity, and have argued [see here] that it is what brings the notions of justice and property into play.) My sympathy with someone else may give me the sentiment of pain and disapproval when I see something that has a tendency to give him uneasiness, even if I am not willing to sacrifice any of my own interests, or thwart any of my passions, for his satisfaction. A house may displease me by being poorly planned from the point of view of its owner’s convenience, yet I may refuse to give a shilling towards the rebuilding of it. For sentiments to control our passions they must touch the heart, but to influence our taste they needn’t reach further than the imagination. When a building seems clumsy and tottering to the eye, it is ugly and disagreeable even if we are perfectly sure of the solidity of its workmanship. What causes this sentiment of disapproval—·this judgment of ugliness·—is a kind of fear, but it’s not the passion ·of fear· that we feel when have to stand under a wall that we think really is tottering and insecure. . . .

Most of the qualities that are attributed to great men when their praises are sung can be divided into two kinds— •those that make the man perform his part in society, and •those that make him serviceable to himself, enabling him to promote his own interests. The prudence, temperance, frugality, industry, assiduity, enterprise and dexterity of great men are celebrated, as well as their generosity and humaneness. Of the qualities that might disable a man from making a figure in life, the one we treat most leniently is indolence: we think of this as not depriving the person of his skills and abilities, but only suspending his exercise of them; and it does this without any inconvenience to the person himself, because it comes to some extent from his own choice. But we do count extreme indolence as a fault, and a very great one; and a man’s friends will never acknowledge him to be subject to it unless they are using this to defend his character against accusations of more significant flaws. ‘He could cut a fine figure’, they say, ‘if only he put his mind to it. His understanding is sound, his conception quick, and his memory tenacious; but he hates business and doesn’t care about his fortune.’ And sometimes a man will say such things about himself, with the air of someone confessing a fault, but really boasting—because he thinks that this incapacity for business implies much more noble qualities, such as a philosophical spirit, a fine taste, a delicate wit, or a liking for pleasure and society. But take any quality that doesn’t indicate any other good qualities, and that does incapacitate a man always for business and is destructive to his interests—e.g. a blundering understanding, a wrong judgment of everything in life, inconstancy and irresolution, or a lack of skill in the management of men and business. These are all agreed to be imperfections in a man’s character, and many men would rather •admit to the greatest crimes than •be suspected of being in any degree subject to them.

When we are engaged in philosophical researches it’s very satisfactory when we find that •different circumstances produce different varieties of the same ·basic· phenomenon, and that •we can discover what is common to all of them; this gives extra support to any hypothesis that we use in this discovery. Even if nothing was regarded as virtuous except what was beneficial to society, I’m convinced that my explanation of the moral sense ought still to be accepted, because the evidence for it would be good enough; but the evidence gets better when we find other kinds of virtue that can’t be explained except on my hypothesis. Here is a man who is not remarkably defective in his social qualities, but what principally counts in his favour is his dexterity in business, by which he has extricated himself from great difficulties and conducted the most sensitive affairs with notable skill and prudence. I find an esteem for him immediately arising in me; his company is a satisfaction to me; and without knowing anything more about him I would rather do a service to him than to someone whose character is in every other respect equal but is lacking in this man’s practical dexterity. In this case, the qualities that please me are all considered as useful to the man who has them, and as having a tendency to promote his interests. They are regarded only as means to an end, and please me in proportion to their fitness for that end. So the end must be agreeable to me. But what makes it agreeable? The person is a stranger, my interests are in no way connected with him, and I have no obligations towards him. His happiness doesn’t concern me and more than the happiness of every human, and indeed of every sentient creature, which is to say that it affects me only by sympathy. Whenever I discover his happiness and good, whether in its causes or effects, my sympathy draws me so deeply into it that it gives me an actual emotion. The appearance of qualities that have a tendency to promote it have an agreeable effect on my imagination, and command my love and esteem.

This theory may serve to explain why the same qualities, in all cases, produce both pride and love, humility and hatred; and why any man who regards himself as virtuous or vicious, accomplished or despicable, is regarded in the same way by others. (i) A person in whom we discover any passion or habit that is basically inconvenient only to himself always becomes disagreeable to us merely because of it; just as, on the other hand, (ii) someone whose character is dangerous and disagreeable only to others can’t be satisfied with himself as long as he is aware of that disadvantage. And we find this not only with characters and conduct but also with the most minute circumstances. (i) When someone else has a violent cough, that makes us uneasy even though in itself it doesn’t affect us in the least. (ii) A man will be humiliated if you tell him that his breath stinks, although obviously this is no annoyance to himself. Our imagination easily changes its viewpoint; and by surveying ourselves as we appear to others, or considering others as they feel to themselves, we enter into sentiments that are in no way ours and which can’t be of any concern to us unless sympathy comes into play. We sometimes carry this sympathy so far that we are displeased with a quality ·of ours· that is advantageous for us, merely because it displeases others and makes us disagreeable in their eyes; even if we can never have any interest in making ourselves agreeable to them.

Philosophers have advanced many systems of morality down the centuries; but when we look into them closely we find that basically there are just two that merit our attention. Moral good and evil are certainly distinguished by our sentiments, not by reason; but these sentiments can arise either from (1) how people’s characters and passions strike us, considered just in themselves, or from (2) our reflections on what they tend to do for the happiness of mankind and of particular persons.

[In that sentence, ‘how characters etc. strike us’ replaces Hume’s ‘the mere species or appearance of characters etc.’. That uses ‘species’ as a mediaeval technical term belonging to an Aristotelian theory of sense-perception. Hume doesn’t use ‘species’ in that sense anywhere else in the Treatise except here, where this version replaces it by ‘the mere look of the thing’.]

My opinion is that both these causes are intermixed in our moral judgments, just as they are in our judgments about most kinds of external beauty; though I also think that (2) reflections on the likely consequences of actions have by far the greatest influence, and settle where our duty lies in all the major practical questions. Still, in some less important cases our approval comes from (1) immediate taste or sentiment. Wit, and a certain easy and disengaged behaviour, are qualities immediately agreeable to others, and command their love and esteem. Some of these qualities produce satisfaction in others through particular principlesc in human nature that can’t be accounted for because they are basic [Hume: ‘original’]; others are special cases of more general principlesc. I can show this best by getting further into details.

Just as some qualities get their merit from being immediately agreeable to •others, without having any tendency to produce results that serve the interests of the public, so also some are called virtuous because they are immediately agreeable to •the person who has them. Each of the mind’s passions and operations has a particular feeling, which must be either agreeable or disagreeable. The first is virtuous, the second vicious. This particular feeling constitutes the very nature of the passion, so it’s not something we need to explain.

But however directly the vice/virtue distinction may seem to flow from the immediate pleasure or uneasiness that particular qualities cause to ourselves or others, it’s easy to see that it also has a considerable dependence on the principlec of sympathy that I have so often insisted on. •We approve of a person who has qualities that are immediately agreeable to those he has any dealings with, even if we ourselves never got any pleasure from them. •We also approve of someone who has qualities that are immediately agreeable to himself, even if they are of no service to anyone else. To account for •these two facts we must appeal to the force of sympathy.

Now for a general overview of the theory of morality that I am defending. A quality of the mind is called ‘virtuous’ if the very thought of it gives pleasure, and every quality that produces pain is called ‘vicious’. This pleasure and this pain different sources. We get pleasure from the thought of a character that is

(1) naturally fitted to be useful to others, or

(2) naturally fitted to be useful to the person himself, or

(3) agreeable to others, or

(4) agreeable to the person himself.

It may be surprising that amidst all these interests and pleasures—·of ‘the person himself’ and of ‘others’·—we should forget our own, which concern us so much on every other occasion. But we’ll stop being surprised when we consider this:

Because no two persons’ pleasures and interests are the same, men could never agree in their sentiments and judgments unless ·each of them dethroned his own viewpoint and· they chose some one point of view from which they could all survey their object, so that it could appear the same to all of them.

What common viewpoint will it be? Well, in judging characters the only interest or pleasure that appears the same to every spectator is •that of the person himself whose character is being examined or •that of persons who are connected with him in some way. Such interests and pleasures touch us more faintly than our own do, but because they are more constant and universal they counterbalance our own pleasures and interests—·not just in theory but· even in practice. They are the only standard of virtue and morality that we recognise in theorising about morality; they are the only source of the particular feeling or sentiment that moral distinctions depend on.

As for the good or ill desert—·the rewards or punishments·—of virtue or vice: this is an obvious consequence of the sentiments of pleasure or uneasiness. These sentiments produce love or hatred; and it’s a basic fact about the human constitution that love and hatred are accompanied by benevolence and anger, i.e. with a desire to make happy the person we love, and to make miserable the one we hate. I discuss this more fully elsewhere [in Treatise II].

2: Greatness of mind

It is time now to illustrate this general theory of morals by applying it to particular instances of virtue or vice, showing how the merit or demerit of each of them arises from the four sources listed above. Let us start by examining the passions of pride and humility, and consider the vice that lies in having too much of one of them and the virtue that consists in having them in the right proportions. An excessive pride or overweening conceit is always regarded as vicious and is hated by everyone, whereas modesty—i.e. a proper sense of one’s own weakness—is regarded as virtuous and procures everyone’s good-will. Of the four sources of moral distinctions, this is to be ascribed to (3) others’ finding a quality to be agreeable or disagreeable—finding this immediately, without thinking about the tendency [see note here] of that quality.

In order to show this, I have to bring in two principlesc that are very conspicuous in human nature.

(i) The first is the sympathy and passing on of sentiments and passions that I have talked about. Human souls correspond to one another very closely and intimately; as soon as someone approaches me, he spreads all his opinions onto me, drawing along my judgment to a greater or lesser extent. My sympathy with him often stops short of entirely changing my sentiments and way of thinking, but it is usually strong enough to •disturb the easy flow of my thought, and •give authority to the opinion that is recommended to me by his assent and approval. It makes no difference what the topic is that he and I are thinking about. Whether we are making judgments about someone who is of no concern to either of us, or about my own character, my sympathy gives equal force to his decision; and even his sentiments regarding his own merit make me consider him in the same light in which he regards himself.

This principlec of sympathy is so powerful and penetrating that it plays a part in most of our sentiments and passions, and is often at work when there’s an appearance of its contrary! Whenever someone opposes me in something that I care a lot about, arousing my passion by contradicting me, I have some sympathy with him, nor does my •commotion proceed from any other origin. [This means: ‘and it’s only because of this element of sympathy that I am so upset’. Hume presumably thinks that if I had no sympathy for your opposition to my project I wouldn’t get into a turmoil about it, but would just hate you steadily and calmly.] We find here an obvious conflict or collision between opposite principlesc and passions. On the one side, there is the passion or sentiment that is natural to me; and it is observable that the stronger this passion is, the greater is the •commotion. There must also be some passion or sentiment on the other side, and there’s nothing that this passion can come from except sympathy. Other people’s sentiments can’t affect us except by becoming to some extent our own; and then they operate on us, opposing some of our passions and increasing others, just as they would have done if their basic source had been our own temperament and disposition. While they remain concealed in the minds of others, they can’t have any influence on us; and even when they are known, if our knowledge of them consisted only in our having ideas of them, that still wouldn’t enable them to affect us. Why not? Because our ·idea-having faculty, i.e.· our imagination or ·power of· conception, is so accustomed to objects of all different kinds that a mere idea ·of something· contrary to our sentiments and inclinations wouldn’t be able to stir us up.

(ii) The second principlec I shall take notice of is that of comparison, i.e. the mechanism [not Hume’s word] through which our judgment concerning one object varies according to how the object compares with some other object that we choose to compare it with. We judge objects more by comparison than by their intrinsic worth and value, and regard things as mean [= ‘not much good’] when they are contrasted with better things of the same kind. The most obvious thing to compare things with is oneself, which is why we make that comparison constantly, letting it influence most of our passions. This kind of comparison is directly contrary to sympathy in its operation, as I remarked when discussing compassion and malice:

‘In every kind of comparison of one object x with another object y, y makes us get from x a sensation contrary to the one we get from x when we consider it individually and non-comparatively.’ ‘The direct survey of someone else’s pleasure naturally gives us pleasure, and therefore produces unpleasure when compared with our own. His unpleasure considered in itself is unpleasant to us, but it augments the idea we have of our own happiness and so gives us pleasure.’ (II.ii.8).

So the principlesc of •sympathy and of •comparison with ourselves are directly contrary to one another. Can we form general rules to govern which of them should prevail in this or that case—apart from the temperament of the particular person? If I am safely on land, and want to get some pleasure from this fact, I must •think about the miserable condition of those who are at sea in a storm, and must •try to make this idea as strong and lively as possible, so as to make myself conscious of my own good fortune. But however hard I work at this, the comparison won’t be as effective as it would be if I were down at the shore and saw a ship at a distance tossed by a tempest and in danger every moment of being wrecked on a rock or sand-bank. Now suppose that my idea ·of the endangered ship· becomes still more lively. Suppose the ship is driven so near to me that I can clearly see the horror on the faces of the seamen and passengers, hear their wailing cries, see dearest friends give their last adieu or embrace with a resolve to perish in each other’s arms; no man has a heart so savage that he could get any pleasure from such a scene, or prevent himself from being filled with the tenderest compassion and sympathy. So it’s obvious that there is a medium in these matters: if the idea is too faint it has no influence through comparison; if it is too strong it operates on us entirely through sympathy, which is the opposite of comparison. Because sympathy is the conversion of an idea into an impression, it requires more force and vivacity in the idea than is needed for comparison.

It’s easy to apply all this to the present subject. When we are in the presence of a great man, or one whose abilities and intellect are far above ours, we sink very much in our own eyes; and this humility is a considerable ingredient in the respect that we pay our superiors—or so I argued in II.ii.10 when discussing respect. Sometimes even envy and hatred arise from the comparison, but in most men it goes no further than respect and esteem. Because sympathy has such a powerful influence on the human mind, it causes •pride to have an effect rather like that of •merit; and by making us enter into ·and share· the proud man’s elevated feelings about himself presents the comparison that is so humiliating and disagreeable. Our judgment doesn’t go the whole way with him in the flattering •idea of himself that he enjoys, but still it is shaken up enough to admit into our minds the •idea it presents and to give it a greater influence than would be had by the loose conceptions of the imagination. A man who idly passed the time by forming a notion of a person of a merit very much superior to his own wouldn’t be humiliated by that fiction; but when we are confronted by a man who really is—we think—of inferior merit, if we see him as having any extraordinary degree of pride and self-conceit, his firm belief in his own merit takes hold of our imagination and diminishes us in our own eyes, just as though he had all the good qualities that he so liberally attributes to himself. Our idea is here precisely in the medium that is required for it to operate on us through comparison. If our idea were accompanied by belief, and the person seemed ·to us· to have the merit that he claims to have, that would have a contrary effect and would operate on us through sympathy. The influence of that principlec—·i.e. of sympathy·—would then be superior to that of comparison, contrary to what happens where the person’s merit seems to be below his pretensions.

From these results it follows rigorously that pride—i.e. an overweening conceit of ourselves—must be a vice, because it causes uneasiness in all men and constantly presents them with a disagreeable comparison. It’s a commonplace in philosophy and even in everyday life and conversation that •what makes us dislike so much the pride of other people is our own pride, and that •we can’t bear vanity ·in others· only because we are vain. Cheerful people naturally keep company with others who are cheerful; amorous people keep company with others who are amorous; but the proud can’t bear the proud! They seek instead the company of those who are of an opposite disposition, ·i.e. those who are humble·. . . .

But although it is vicious and disagreeable for us to have an arrogantly exaggerated idea of our own merit, it is utterly praiseworthy for us to regard ourselves as valuable if we really do have valuable qualities. A quality can be a source of virtue in us not only through being •agreeable to others but also through its being •useful and advantageous to us; and certainly nothing is more useful to us in the conduct of life than a proper level of pride, •making us aware of our own merit and •giving us confidence and assurance in all our projects and enterprises. Whatever abilities someone has, they are entirely useless to him if he isn’t acquainted with them and doesn’t make plans that are suitable to them. We always need to know our own force; and if it were allowable to err about this, it would be more advantageous to overrate our merit than to form ideas of it that don’t do it justice. Fortune commonly favours the bold and enterprising; and nothing inspires us with more boldness than a good opinion of ourselves. . . .

Thus, self-satisfaction and vanity may be not only •allowable but •required in a character. However, there can be no doubt that good-breeding [see note here] and decency require us to avoid all signs and expressions that tend directly to show that we are satisfied with ourselves. We have—we all have—a wonderful partiality for ourselves, and if we were always to give vent to our self-satisfaction we would make one another extremely indignant—not only by the immediate presence of such a disagreeable a subject of comparison, but also by the conflicts of our judgments. And so, just as

•we establish the laws of nature so as to secure ownership in society and prevent conflicts among opposing self-interests,

so also

•we establish the rules of good-breeding so as to prevent conflicts among different men’s pride, and make conversation agreeable and inoffensive.

Nothing is more disagreeable than a man’s arrogant too-high opinion about himself. Almost everyone has a strong propensity to this vice; and no-one can within himself sharply distinguish that vice from ·the neighbouring· virtue, because that would require him to be certain that his estimation of his own merit is well founded. For these ·two· reasons, all direct expressions of personal pride are condemned, including those of men of sense and merit. They aren’t allowed to do themselves justice openly in •words, any more than other people are; and it is regarded as virtue in them if they even show a reserve and secret doubt in doing themselves justice in their own •thoughts. The absurd propensity that most men have to over-value themselves has given us such a prejudice against self-applause that we are apt to condemn it by a general rule wherever we meet with it; we have difficulty in exempting men of sense from the rule, even in their most secret thoughts. It can’t be denied that some disguise of one’s self-estimate is absolutely needed; and that if we are secretly proud of ourselves we must. . . .have the appearance of modesty and mutual deference in all our conduct and behaviour. We must always be ready •to prefer others to ourselves, and •to treat even our equals with a kind of deference—acting as the lowest and least in any company where we are not very much distinguished above the rest. If we observe these rules in our conduct, men will have more indulgence for our secret sentiments when we reveal them in an oblique manner.

I don’t think that anyone who has had any experience of living in society and can penetrate into the inward sentiments of men will assert that the humility required of us by good-breeding and decency concerns anything more than our outward behaviour, or that a thorough sincerity about this is regarded as a real part of our duty.

[The insincerity that Hume is permitting here consists in (i) thinking of yourself as a highgrade specimen while (ii) speaking and acting as though you regarded yourself as something much lower. The demand for ‘thorough sincerity’ that he says we don’t make would be a demand that your thoughts about yourself match your modest behaviour, not that your behaviour match your proud thoughts!]

On the contrary, we can see that •a genuine and hearty pride or self-esteem, if it is justified and well concealed, is essential to the character of a man of honour; and that •this quality of the mind is absolutely required for someone to get the admiration and approval of mankind. . . .

When we turn to history we find that all the great actions and sentiments that have become the admiration of mankind are based on nothing but pride and self-esteem. [Hume illustrates that with the example of Alexander the Great. Then:] In general we can see that anything that we call heroic virtue, and admire as an example of high-mindedness or greatness of mind, •has as a major ingredient a steady and well-established pride and self-esteem or even •consists of nothing but that.

[That sentence contains Hume’s only use of ‘greatness of mind’ in the body of this section. He will go on to speak of ‘magnanimity’, which comes from Latin meaning ‘greatness of mind’, but he seems to think of magnanimity as just one component in greatness of mind.]

Courage, intrepidity, ambition, love of glory, magnanimity, and all the other shining virtues of that kind, clearly have a strong mixture of self-esteem in them, and get much of their merit from that. And so we find that many religious activists decry those virtues as purely ‘pagan’ and ‘natural’, and point us to the excellence of the Christian religion, which counts humility among the virtues and corrects the judgment of the world—even of philosophers, who usually admire all the efforts of pride and ambition. I’m not discussing whether this virtue of humility has been rightly understood. I am content with the concession that the world naturally esteems a well-regulated pride, which secretly energizes our conduct without breaking out into improper expressions of vanity that might offend the vanity of others.

The merit of pride or self-esteem has two sources: (1) its utility, by which it capacitates us for getting things done, and (2) its agreeableness to ourselves, by which it gives us an immediate satisfaction. When it goes beyond its just bounds, pride loses the first advantage, and even becomes prejudicial; which is why we condemn extravagant pride and ambition even when it is regulated by the rules of good-breeding and politeness. But such an extravagant passion is still agreeable to the person who has it, giving him an elevated and sublime sensation; and our sympathy with that sensation reduces the intensity of our blame for it because of its dangerous influence on his conduct and behaviour. And so we find that someone’s having excessive courage and magnanimity, especially in threatening and dangerous situations, •contributes greatly to his counting as a hero and being admired by posterity, while it also •ruins his affairs and leads him into dangers and difficulties that he would never have encountered otherwise.

Most people greatly admire heroism, i.e. military glory, considering it as the most sublime kind of merit. Coolly reflective men are not so sanguine [Hume’s word] in their praises of it. The infinite confusions and disorder that military heroism has caused in the world greatly reduce its merit in their eyes. When they want to oppose the common view of •heroism, they depict the evils that •this supposed virtue has produced in human society, the subversion of empires, the devastation of provinces, the destruction of cities. While we are thinking about these we’re more inclined to hate heroic ambition than to admire it. But when we fix our view on the individual person who is the author of all this mischief, there’s something so dazzling in his character. . . .that we can’t refuse it our admiration. The pain that we get from its tendency to harm society is overpowered by a stronger and more immediate sympathy.

Thus, my account of the merit or demerit of different degrees of pride or self-esteem can serve as a strong argument for my over-all theory, by showing how the principlesc that I explained earlier create all the variations of our judgments concerning pride. This reasoning doesn’t just show that the vice/virtue distinction arises from the four principlesc of the advantage and of the pleasure of the person himself and of others [here] it can also give strong support to some of the more detailed applications of that hypothesis.

No-one who thinks hard about this matter will hesitate to agree that any piece of ill-breeding, or any expression of pride and haughtiness, is displeasing to us merely because it shocks our own pride and leads us by sympathy into a comparison that causes the disagreeable passion of humility. Now, insolence of this kind is blamed even in someone who has always been civil to ourselves in particular—indeed, to someone whose name is known to us only from historybooks—so our disapproval of it must come from our sympathy with others, and from the thought that such a character is highly displeasing and odious to everyone who has any conversation or other dealings with the person who has it. We sympathize with those people in their uneasiness; and as their uneasiness proceeds in part from a sympathy with the person who insults them, we see here a double rebound of the sympathy, which is a principlec very like the one I called attention to in II.ii.5.

3: Goodness and benevolence

Having thus explained the origin of the •praise and approval that greets everything we call great in human affections, I now proceed to give an account of their •goodness, showing what the origin is of their merit.

When experience has made us reasonably well-informed about human affairs, and has taught us how their scope relates to the scope of the human passions, we see that men’s generosity is very limited, seldom extending beyond their friends and family and never extending beyond their native country. When we know this about the nature of man, we don’t expect any impossibilities from him; and when we want to form a judgment of someone’s moral character we confine our view to the narrow circle in which he moves. If the natural tendency of his passions leads him to be useful within his sphere, we approve of his character and love him as a person, through our sympathy with the sentiments of those who are more closely connected with him. In making judgments of this kind we soon have to forget our own interests, because ·if we don’t· we’ll perpetually be running into contradictions—in speech and other behaviour—with people whose situations and interests are different from ours. For our sentiments about a person to harmonize with those of other people, we must all adopt a single point of view, namely the person’s influence on those who have some immediate connection or dealings with him. And although the help or harm he brings to them is often very remote from ourselves, sometimes it is very near to us and is of great concern to us, because of our sympathy. We readily extend this concern to •other cases that resemble the given one; and when •these are very remote, our sympathy is correspondingly weaker and our praise or blame fainter and more hesitant. This is like what happens in our judgments concerning external bodies. When objects move away from us they seem to shrink; but although our basic standard for judging objects is how they appear to our senses, we don’t say that they actually shrink as they move away; rather, we correct the appearance by thinking ·about the effects of distance on apparent size·, and thus arrive at a more constant and established judgment about them. Similarly, although sympathy is much fainter than our concern for ourselves, and our sympathy with distant persons is much fainter than our sympathy with persons who are nearby, we neglect all these differences when we are forming calm judgments about the characters of men. [Hume now says again that if each person x judges the character of a person y purely from the standpoint of how y’s character affects x, it would often be impossible for x to discuss y’s character with a third person z, because x will relate to y differently from how z relates to him. And Hume adds a further point: how x relates to y is liable to change through time, so that x’s basis for judging x’s character may in fact be not a single viewpoint but a sequence of different viewpoints.]

So the interplay of sentiments in society and conversation requires us to form some general fixed unalterable standard by which we may approve or disapprove of characters and manners. The heart doesn’t always go along with those general notions, or let them regulate its love and hatred, but they are sufficient for discourse—serving all our purposes in company, in the pulpit, on the stage, and in the schools.

From these principles we can easily account for the merit that is commonly ascribed to generosity, humaneness, compassion, gratitude, friendship, fidelity, zeal, disinterestedness, liberality, and all those other qualities that make up a good and benevolent character. If a man tends to have the tender passions, that makes him agreeable and useful in all the parts of life, and steers all his other qualities, which otherwise might do harm to society, in the right direction. Courage and ambition, when not regulated by benevolence, are fit only to make someone a tyrant or a public robber. Similarly with good judgment and versatility and all the qualities of that kind. In themselves they are neither good for society nor bad for it, and which kind of influence they have will depend on whether and how they are directed by these other passions.

Something else that may be a considerable reason why we praise all the passions that include love, and blame all those in which hatred is a considerable ingredient, is the fact that love is immediately agreeable, and hatred immediately disagreeable, to the person who has it. We are infinitely touched by a tender sentiment, as well as by a great one. The very thought of such a sentiment brings tears to our eyes, and we can’t help feeling the same tenderness towards the person whose sentiment it is. All this seems to me good evidence that in those cases our approval has a different origin from the prospect of utility and advantage, either to ourselves or others. And I should add that men naturally and unreflectively approve of a character that is most like their own. When a man with a mild disposition and tender affections forms a notion of ‘the most perfect virtue’ he includes in the mix a greater amount of benevolence and humaneness than does a brave and enterprising man, who naturally thinks of the most accomplished character as consisting in a certain elevation of mind. This must come from men’s having an immediate sympathy with characters similar to their own. . . .

Nothing touches a humane man more than any instance of extraordinary delicacy in love or friendship, where a person is attentive to the smallest concerns of his friend, and is willing to sacrifice to them his own most considerable interests. Such delicacies have little influence on society, because they make us regard the greatest trifles [those eight words are Hume’s]; but their very smallness makes them all the more engaging, and they show the highest merit in anyone who is capable of them. The passions are so contagious that they easily pass from one person to another, and produce corresponding feelings in all human breasts. When I encounter a really striking example of friendship, my heart catches the same passion—and is warmed by the same sentiments—that display themselves before me. Such agreeable feelings must give me an affection towards everyone who arouses them. This is the case with everything that is agreeable in any person. The transition from pleasure to love is ·always· easy; but in our present case the transition is especially easy, because the agreeable sentiment that is aroused by sympathy is love itself, so that all that’s needed is to change the object.

That’s why there is a special merit in benevolence in all its shapes and appearances. It’s why even the weaknesses of benevolence are virtuous and lovable, so that someone whose grief over the loss of a friend is excessive will still be esteemed on that account. His tenderness bestows a merit on his melancholy, and also bestows a pleasure.

All the angry passions are disagreeable, but it doesn’t follow that they are all vicious. Our human nature entitles us to a certain licence in this respect, because anger and hatred are passions that are built into our constitution. Sometimes a person’s lack of anger and hatred is ·not a virtue in him but rather· evidence of his feebleness. And where anger and hatred appear only in low intensity, we don’t merely excuse them because they are natural but even applaud them because they are less intense than they would be in most people ·in those circumstances·.

Where these angry passions are strong enough to generate cruelty they are the most detested of all vices. All our pity and concern for the miserable sufferers of this cruelty turns against the person guilty of it, producing in us a stronger hatred than we are aware of on any other occasion.

Even when the vice of inhumanity is not as intense as that extreme, our sentiments concerning it are greatly influenced by our thoughts of the harm that results from it. This brings up a general point:If we find in someone any quality that makes him have an adverse effect on those who live and have dealings with him, we always count this as a fault or blemish, without any further examination. On the other hand, when we list a person’s good qualities we always mention the parts of his character that make him a safe companion, an easy friend, a gentle master, an agreeable husband, or an indulgent father. We consider him with all his relationships with others, and love or hate him according to how he affects those who have any direct dealings with him. And it is a most certain rule that

what Hume wrote next: if there be no relation of life in which I could not wish to stand to a particular person, his character must so far be allowed to be perfect. If he be as little wanting to himself as to others, his character is entirely perfect.

what he meant: if I would be willing to relate in any such ways to a person—e.g. as a companion, a friend, a pupil, a son—that shows that his character is perfect in its relations to other people. And if he is as kind and decent to himself as he is to others, his character is entirely perfect.

This is the ultimate test of merit and virtue.

4: Natural abilities

All systems of ethics distinguish •natural abilities from •moral virtues, placing the former on a level with bodily endowments and supposing them to have no merit or moral worth. If you think about it you’ll see that a dispute about it would be merely about words, and that although •these qualities are not of exactly the same kind they are alike in the ways that matter most. They are both mental qualities, are equally able to give pleasure, and so have an equal tendency to procure the love and esteem of mankind. Nearly everyone is as touchy and concerned about his •good sense and knowledge as about his •honour and courage, and much more than he is about his •temperance and sobriety. Men are even afraid of being thought to be good-natured, in case that is taken to show that they are stupid; they often boast of more debauches than they have really taken part in, to give themselves airs of fire and spirit. In short,

•the figure a man makes in the world,

•the reception he meets with in company,

•the esteem he gets from those who know him

—all these advantages depend almost as much on his good sense and judgment as on any other part of his character. Suppose a man has the best intentions in the world, and is the furthest from all injustice and violence, he still won’t be able to get much respect unless he has at least a moderate share of abilities and understanding. . . .

[Hume in fact does call them ‘virtues’. In four places in this section he contrasts natural abilities with ‘the other virtues’, and in the next section he calls them ‘the natural virtues’.] You may want to claim that the sentiment of approval that those natural abilities produce . . . .is somewhat different from the sentiment that accompanies the other virtues. But I don’t think that this is a sufficient reason for excluding them from the catalogue of 'virtues'.

Each of the virtues—even benevolence, justice, gratitude, integrity—arouses its own special sentiment or feeling in the spectator. The characters of Caesar and Cato, as drawn by ·the Roman historian· Sallust, are both virtuous in the strictest sense of the word, but in different ways, and the sentiments they cause in us are different also. Caesar produces love, Cato produces esteem; Caesar is lovable, Cato is awe-inspiring; we could wish to meet Caesar and have him as a friend, whereas we would be ambitious to be Cato!

In the same way the approval that natural abilities are greeted with can feel somewhat different from the approval produced by the other virtues, without putting them into an entirely different species. Notice also that the natural abilities don’t all produce the same kind of approval, any more than the other virtues do. Good sense and creative intelligence generate esteem; wit and humour arouse love.[1]

Those who attach great importance to the distinction between •natural abilities and •moral virtues may say that natural abilities are entirely involuntary, and so have no merit attached to them because they don’t depend on liberty and free will. ·I have three things to say in reply to this·. (1) Many of the qualities that all moralists (especially the ancients) bring under the label ‘moral virtues’ are just as involuntary and necessary as the qualities of judgment and imagination. Virtues of this kind include constancy, fortitude, magnanimity and—in short—all the qualities that make someone a great man. Something similar can be said of the other virtues: it is almost impossible for the mind to change its character to any significant extent, or to cure itself of a passionate or angry temperament if these are natural to it. The more intense these blameworthy qualities are, the •more vicious they become, and yet the •less voluntary! (2) Tell me why virtue and vice can’t be involuntary in the way that beauty and ugliness can be. The moral distinction between virtue and vice arises from the natural distinction between pain and pleasure; we call a quality or character vicious or virtuous according to the feelings we get from considering it. I don’t think anyone will say that a quality can’t cause pain or pleasure to the person who considers it unless it is perfectly voluntary in the person whose quality it is! (3) As for free will: I have shown that it doesn’t come into men’s actions any more than it does into their qualities. ·There is a place here for the notion of involuntariness, but it’s no help to the people I am arguing against·. The inference from ‘That item was voluntary’ to ‘That item was free’ is not valid; our actions are more voluntary than our judgments, but they aren’t any freer.

But although this distinction between voluntary and involuntary doesn’t justify the distinction between natural abilities and moral virtues, it does give us a plausible reason why moralists have invented that distinction. Men have noticed that although natural abilities and moral qualities are mostly on the same footing, there is this difference between them:

•Natural abilities can hardly ever be changed by any skill or hard work ·or in any other way·, whereas •moral virtues—or at least the actions that come from them—can be changed by the motives of rewards and punishment, praise and blame.

So legislators and preachers and moralists have mainly worked on regulating these voluntary actions, trying to provide additional motives for being virtuous in those ways. They knew that it would be pointless to punish a man for folly, or exhort him to be prudent and wise, though the same punishments and exhortations might have a considerable influence when applied to justice and injustice. But men don’t, in their everyday life and talk, keep in mind questions about what can or can’t be altered; they just naturally praise or blame whatever pleases or displeases them, and consider •prudence as a virtue along with •benevolence, and •high intelligence as a virtue along with •justice. Indeed, we find that almost all moralists fall into this same way of thinking (the only exceptions being ones whose judgment has been perverted by their strict adherence to some theory). The ancient moralists, especially, had no qualms about putting •prudence at the head of the cardinal •virtues. There is a sentiment of esteem and approval that can be aroused in some degree by any capacity of the mind in its perfect state and condition; and it is the business of philosophers to account for this sentiment. As for the question of what qualities are entitled to the label ‘virtue’: that’s for grammarians to examine, and when they work on it they may find it harder than they had expected.

The principal reason why natural abilities are esteemed is that they tend to be useful to the person who has them. No plan can be successfully carried through unless it is done with prudence and discretion; the goodness of our intentions is never enough on its own to procure a good outcome to our enterprises. Men are superior to beasts primarily because of the superiority of their reason; and differences in level of reason are what create such infinite differences between one man and another. All the advantages of art are due to human reason, and the most considerable part of these advantages must fall to the share of those who are prudent and sagacious, except when someone has unusually good luck.

Suppose the question is raised as to which is more valuable—

•quick apprehension or slow apprehension?

•someone who can take something in at a glance but can’t get any further with careful study or someone who always has to work things out laboriously?

•a clear head or fertility in coming up with ideas?

•profound genius or sure judgment?

—in short what character or kind of mind is better than another? Obviously we can’t answer any of these questions without considering which qualities fit a man best for the world and carries him furthest in any of his undertakings.

There are many other mental qualities whose merit has the same origin. Industry, perseverance, patience, activity, vigilance, application, constancy—along with other virtues of that kind (you can easily add to the list)—are regarded as valuable purely because of the help they give in the conduct of life. Similarly with temperance, frugality, economy, resolution; just as (on the other side)

prodigality [i.e. extravagance with money],

luxury, [i.e. extreme and self-indulgent sensuality]

irresolution, [i.e. indecisiveness about what to do]

uncertainty [i.e. indecisiveness about what to believe]

are vicious merely because they draw ruin down on us and incapacitate us for business and action.

(2) Wisdom and good sense are valued because they are useful to the person who has them, and (3) wit and eloquence are valued because they are immediately agreeable to others. (4) Good humour is loved and esteemed because it is immediately agreeable to the person himself. [Those numbers match the ones given here.] Hume doesn’t here illustrate (1) usefulness to others. It is obvious that the conversation of a man of wit is very satisfactory, and that a cheerful good-humoured companion diffuses joy over the whole company through their sympathy with his gaiety. Because these qualities are agreeable, they naturally create love and esteem, and so they qualify as ‘virtues’. . . .

[Hume adds some remarks about the virtuousness of •writing or speaking in an interesting way, •being personally clean, and •having various qualities in degrees that are appropriate to one’s age. In the middle of this he writes:] Besides all the qualities that make a person lovely or valuable, there is also a certain je-ne-sais-quoi of agreeable and handsome that contributes to that same effect. In this case, as well as in the case of wit and eloquence, we must resort to a certain •sense that acts without reflection and pays no attention to the tendencies of various qualities and characters—·i.e. to that they are likely to cause·. Some moralists invoke this •sense to account for all the sentiments of virtue. That’s a very plausible theory, which can’t be dislodged by any rival unless one looks in detail into the facts. When we find that •almost all the virtues do have such particular tendencies, and also find that these tendencies can, unaided, lead to a strong sentiment of approval, we can’t doubt any longer that qualities are approved of in proportion to the advantage that results from them.

The mental faculty that matters least to a person’s character, and has the least to do with virtue or vice through all its great variety of degrees, is memory. We usually take no notice of its variations, or mention them in praise or dispraise of any person. (Except at the extremes: a memory so stupendously good that it surprises us, or so bad that it harms the person’s judgment.) It is so far from being a virtue to have a good memory that men generally put up a pretence of complaining of a bad one! They do this when trying to persuade everyone that what they say is entirely original, sacrificing their memory so as to praise their inventiveness and judgment! And yet if we consider the matter in the abstract it’s not easy to find any reason why the capacity for •recalling past ideas with truth and clearness shouldn’t have as much merit in it as the capacity for •ordering our present ideas so as to form true propositions and opinions. The ·twofold· reason for the difference has to be this:

(i) memory is exercised without any sensation of pleasure or pain, and (ii) in the practical concerns of life it doesn’t make much difference how good one’s memory is unless it is extremely good or extremely bad.

Whereas, on the other hand:

(ii) The slightest difference in quality of judgment can make a notable difference in the upshot, and (i) whenever judgment is exercised at a very high level there is extraordinary delight and satisfaction.

Our sympathy with this (ii) utility and (i) pleasure gives merit to the understanding; and the absence of such sympathy makes us think of memory as a faculty on which blame and praise get no grip.

Before I leave this subject of natural abilities, I must remark that one source of the esteem and affection that comes to them may be the importance and weight that they bestow on the person who has them. ·If someone has a high level of natural ability·, he becomes of greater consequence in life; his decisions and actions affect more of his fellow-creatures; his friendship and his enmity are important. And it’s easy to see that someone who is elevated in this way above the rest of mankind must arouse in us the sentiments of esteem and approval. Anything that is important engages our attention, fixes our thought, and is thought about with satisfaction. ·Here is another example of the same principlec at work·:

The histories of kingdoms are more interesting than domestic stories; the histories of great empires more than those of small cities and principalities; and the histories of wars and revolutions more than those of peace and order. In reading of them, we encounter people who suffer, and we sympathize with the various sentiments that their fortunes give them. The mind is occupied by the multitude of the objects, and by the strong passions that display themselves; and this occupation or agitation of the mind is commonly agreeable and amusing.

The same theory accounts for the esteem and regard we pay to men of extraordinary parts and abilities. The good and ill of multitudes are connected with their actions. Whatever they undertake is important, and challenges our attention. Nothing relating to them is to be overlooked and despised. And where any person can arouse these sentiments, he soon acquires our esteem, unless other circumstances of his character render him odious and disagreeable.

5. Further thoughts about the natural virtues

In my discussion of the passions I pointed out that pride and humility, love and hatred, are aroused by any advantages or disadvantages of the mind, body, or fortune; and that these advantages and disadvantages create those passions by producing a separate impression of pain or pleasure. The pain or pleasure arising from the general survey or view of any action or quality of the mind constitutes its vice or virtue, and gives rise to our approval or blame, which is merely a fainter and less noticeable love or hatred. I have assigned four different sources of this pain and pleasure [see here]; and I now bring in a further fact, which strengthens the case for my theory. It is that the advantages or disadvantages of the body, and of fortune, produce pain or pleasure from the very same principlesc. The tendency of anything to be useful to the person who has it or to others, or to convey pleasure to him or to others—any of these convey an immediate pleasure to the person who thinks about the item in question, and commands his love and approval.

Let us begin with advantages of the body. I start with a phenomenon that might appear somewhat trivial and ludicrous, if anything could be trivial that strengthened a conclusion of such importance, or ludicrous that was employed in philosophical reasoning. It is generally known that anyone that we would call ‘a good women’s man’—because he has shown this by his amorous exploits, or because his physical constitution indicates extraordinary vigour of that kind—will be well received by the fair sex, and will naturally draw the affections even of women whose virtue prevents them from having any thought of some day giving employment to those talents of his. It’s clear that the real source of the love and esteem that such a man meets with among the females is ·their view of· his ability to give enjoyment; and those who love and esteem him while having no chance of receiving that enjoyment themselves must be moved by their sympathy with anyone who does have a love-relationship with him. . . .

Another source of the pleasure we get from thinking about bodily advantages is their usefulness to the person who has them. A considerable part of the beauty of men and of other animals consists in a bodily form that we find by experience •to go with strength and agility and •to fit the creature for any action or exercise. Broad shoulders, a flat belly, firm joints, taper legs —all these are beautiful in our species because they are signs of force and vigour; and because these are advantages that we naturally sympathize with, they convey to the spectator a share of the satisfaction that they give to the person who has them.

That was about the ways in which a quality of the body may be •useful. Then there is the immediate •pleasure it can give. The beauty of a man’s body comes from his appearing to be not merely strong and agile but also healthy; ·not merely useful to himself and others, but also pleasant to himself·. And someone’s looking sickly is always disagreeable, because of the idea of pain and uneasiness that it conveys to us. [The remainder of this paragraph is basically clear enough, but it’s difficult because it is so compressed. In it Hume says that each of us is pleased with the appearance of his own face, regarding himself as fairly handsome; but, he says,

(i) this pleasure comes to us largely through our sympathy with the pleasure that others get from seeing our face.

He also writes that

(ii) our handsomeness doesn’t ‘give us any satisfaction’ unless we ‘in some measure set ourselves at a distance’.

Perhaps he intends (ii) merely as an abstract way of formulating (i). But it may be that he means (ii) as saying that we don’t enjoy our own handsomeness if we stand very close to the mirror in which we survey ourselves; in which case he is presumably offering (ii) as evidence that supports (i).] To what extent do the advantages of fortune produce esteem and approval from the principlesc that I have been talking about? You can get the answer to that by thinking back over the arguments about this that I presented ·in II.ii.5·. I remarked ·there· that our approval of people who have the advantages of fortune could have any of three different causes:

(1) the immediate pleasure that a rich man gives us by the view of the beautiful clothes, carriages, gardens, or houses that he owns [this is 3 in the list here];

(2) the advantage that we hope to get from him by his generosity and liberality [1 in the list];

(3) the pleasure and advantage that the man himself gets from his possessions and that produce an agreeable sympathy in us [2 and 4 in the list].

Whether we ascribe our esteem of the rich and great to one or all of these causes, we can clearly see the traces of the principlesc that give rise to the sense of vice and virtue. I think that most people will at first sight be inclined to ascribe our esteem of the rich to (2) self-interest and the prospect of advantage; but ·that can’t be right, because· our esteem or deference extends beyond any prospect of advantage to ourselves. Clearly, then, the sentiment in question must come from sympathy with people who have an immediate connection with—in the form of a dependence on—the person we esteem and respect. We consider him as a person capable of contributing to the happiness or enjoyment of his fellow-creatures, whose sentiments with regard to him we naturally embrace. And this consideration will serve to justify my preference ·in II.ii.5· for the third principlec over the other two, ascribing our esteem for the rich to our sympathy with (3) the pleasure and advantage that they themselves get from their possessions.

[The ‘consideration’ in question doesn’t occur anywhere in the list of possible causes displayed above. Why should it for (3)? The only answer Hume offers is in the next sentence, which is given here verbatim.]

For as even the other two principlesc cannot operate to a due extent, or account for all the phenomena, without having recourse to a sympathy of one kind or other, it is much more natural to choose the sympathy that is immediate and direct than that which is remote and indirect. . . .

Perhaps this is the place to call attention to the flexibility of our sentiments—how easily and variously they are altered by the facts about what they are aimed at—their objects. All the sentiments of approval that accompany any particular species of objects have a great resemblance to each other, even when they are derived from different sources; and, on the other hand, sentiments directed to different objects feel different even if they come from the same source. Thus, the beauty of all visible objects causes a pleasure pretty much the same, though sometimes it comes from •the mere look of the thing and sometimes from •sympathy and an idea of its utility. Similarly, when we survey the actions and characters of men without our own interests being involved, the pleasure or pain we get from the survey is pretty much of the same kind, even if there’s a great diversity in its causes. And on the other side: a convenient house and a virtuous character don’t cause the same feeling of approval, although the source of our approval, namely sympathy and an idea of their utility, is the same in both cases. There’s something quite inexplicable in this variation of our feelings, but our experience presents it to us with regard to all our passions and sentiments.

6: Conclusion of this Book

I hope I have provided everything that is needed for a detailed proof of this system of ethics. We are certain that sympathy is a very powerful principlec in human nature. We are also certain that it has a great influence on our sense of beauty—when we regard external objects and also when we make moral judgments. We find that it has enough force to give us—acting alone, with no input from any other principlec—the strongest sentiments of approval, e.g. in the cases of justice, allegiance, chastity, and good manners [see note here]. We can see that everything needed for its operation are found in most of the virtues, which for the most part bring good to society or to the person who has them. If we set all these cases side by side we won’t doubt that sympathy is the chief source of moral distinctions; especially when we realize that any objection to the ‘sympathy’ theory in one case will also hold against it in all the others. It’s perfectly clear that justice is approved of purely because it has a tendency to produce public good; and the public good matters to us only to the extent that our sympathy gives us a concern for it. We can presume that this holds for all the other virtues that have a similar tendency to serve the public good. All their merit must come from our sympathy with the people who get some advantage from them; just as the virtues that tend to procure the good of the person who has them get their merit from our sympathy with him.

Most people will freely grant that the useful qualities of the mind are virtuous because they are useful. This way of thinking is so natural, and comes up so often, that few will hesitate to admit it. And once that has been admitted, the force of sympathy must necessarily be acknowledged.

•Virtue is ·here being· considered as means to an end.

•Means to an end are valued only to the extent that the end is valued.

•The happiness of strangers—·‘the end’·—affects us only through sympathy.

So it is to that principlec, sympathy, that we must ascribe the sentiment of approval that arises from the survey of all the virtues that are useful to society or to the virtuous person. These constitute the most considerable part of morality.

My theory of morality contains many things that might make you like it—if it were proper to bribe your assent or try to win you over by anything but solid argument! All lovers of virtue (and that is all of us, in theory, however much we back-slide in practice) will surely be pleased to see moral distinctions derived from such a noble source, one that gives us a sound notion of both the •generosity and the •capacity of human nature. One doesn’t need much knowledge of human affairs to see that a sense of morals is a principlec inherent in the soul, and one of the most powerful things in the human constitution. But this ·moral· sense must become even stronger when, thinking about itself, it approves of the principlesc from which it is derived, finding in its own origin nothing that isn’t great and good. Those who hold that the sense of morals comes from basic instincts of the human mind can defend the cause of virtue with sufficient authority, but they don’t have the advantage possessed by those who account for the moral sense by an extensive sympathy with mankind. According to this latter theory, we have to approve not only of

virtue

but also of

the sense of virtue;

and not only that but also

the principlesc from which that sense is derived.

So that nothing comes into the account, from any direction, except what is praiseworthy and good.

This carries over to justice and the other virtues of that kind. Though justice is artificial, the sense of its morality is natural. What makes any act of justice beneficial to society is its bringing men together in a system of conduct. And once justice has that tendency, we naturally approve of it. If we didn’t, no combining or convening could possibly produce that sentiment of approval in us.

Most of the inventions of men are subject to change. They depend on mood and whim. They are fashionable for a while, and then are forgotten. You may be thinking that if justice is granted to be a human invention then it too must be flimsy and impermanent in that way; but the cases are quite different. The interest on which justice is founded is the greatest imaginable, and extends to all times and places. It couldn’t possibly be served by any other invention. It is obvious, and reveals itself at the very first formation of society. These facts jointly make the rules of justice steadfast and unchangeable—as unchangeable as human nature, anyway. If they rested on basic instincts, could that give them any greater stability? This same theory can help us to form a sound notion of the happiness of virtue as well as of its dignity, and can draw every principlec of our nature into caring about, embracing, and cherishing that noble quality. Everyone feels his pursuit of •knowledge and ability gathering speed when he considers that, besides the advantage that immediately result from •these acquisitions, they also give him a new lustre in the eyes of mankind, and draw esteem and approval from everyone. And no-one can think that any advantages of fortune would outweigh ·the disadvantage of· a breach of •the social virtues, however small, when he bears in mind that how other people regard his character entirely depends on his strict observance of those virtues. And so does his peace and inward satisfaction, because no mind can bear to look at itself if it hasn’t been relating as it should to mankind and society. But I shan’t go on about this. Such reflections require a separate work, very different from the basic conceptions of this present one. An anatomist ought never to try to copy the painter, as though in his minute dissections and portraitures of the smaller parts of the human body he could give his figures any graceful and engaging attitude or expression!. . . . But an anatomist is admirably fitted to give advice to a painter; indeed, it is hardly possible to excel in painting without the assistance of the anatomist. We must have an exact knowledge of the parts, their positions, and their connections, before we can draw with any elegance or correctness. And thus the most abstract speculations concerning human nature, however cold and unentertaining, become subservient to practical morality; and they can render this latter science more correct in its precepts, and more persuasive in its exhortations.

NOTES

[1] Love and esteem are basically the same passion, arising from similar causes; both are produced by qualities that are agreeable and give pleasure. But when •this pleasure is severe and serious, or •its object is great and makes a strong impression, or •it produces some level of humility and awe—in all those cases the passion arising from the pleasure is better called ‘esteem’ than ‘love’. Benevolence goes with both, but is more strongly connected with love.