An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, David Hume [online e book reader TXT] 📗

standing for any of our perceptions, our sensations

and passions, as well as thoughts. Now in this sense, I should

desire to know, what can be meant by asserting, that self-love,

or resentment of injuries, or the passion between the sexes is

not innate!

 

But admitting these terms, impressions and ideas, in the

sense above explained, and understanding by innate, what is

original or copied from no precedent perception, then may we

assert that all our impressions are innate, and our ideas

not innate.

 

To be ingenuous, I must own it to be my opinion, that LOCKE was

betrayed into this question by the schoolmen, who, making use

of undefined terms, draw out their disputes to a tedious

length, without ever touching the point in question. A like

ambiguity and circumlocution seem to run through that

philosopher’s reasonings on this as well as most other

subjects.

 

SECTION III.

 

OF THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

 

18. It is evident that there is a principle of connexion between the

different thoughts or ideas of the mind, and that, in their appearance

to the memory or imagination, they introduce each other with a certain

degree of method and regularity. In our more serious thinking or

discourse this is so observable that any particular thought, which

breaks in upon the regular tract or chain of ideas, is immediately

remarked and rejected. And even in our wildest and most wandering

reveries, nay in our very dreams, we shall find, if we reflect, that the

imagination ran not altogether at adventures, but that there was still a

connexion upheld among the different ideas, which succeeded each other.

Were the loosest and freest conversation to be transcribed, there would

immediately be observed something which connected it in all its

transitions. Or where this is wanting, the person who broke the thread

of discourse might still inform you, that there had secretly revolved in

his mind a succession of thought, which had gradually led him from the

subject of conversation. Among different languages, even where we cannot

suspect the least connexion or communication, it is found, that the

words, expressive of ideas, the most compounded, do yet nearly

correspond to each other: a certain proof that the simple ideas,

comprehended in the compound ones, were bound together by some universal

principle, which had an equal influence on all mankind.

 

19. Though it be too obvious to escape observation, that different ideas

are connected together; I do not find that any philosopher has attempted

to enumerate or class all the principles of association; a subject,

however, that seems worthy of curiosity. To me, there appear to be only

three principles of connexion among ideas, namely, Resemblance,

Contiguity in time or place, and Cause or Effect.

 

That these principles serve to connect ideas will not, I believe, be

much doubted. A picture naturally leads our thoughts to the original[2]:

the mention of one apartment in a building naturally introduces an

enquiry or discourse concerning the others[3]: and if we think of a

wound, we can scarcely forbear reflecting on the pain which follows

it[4]. But that this enumeration is complete, and that there are no

other principles of association except these, may be difficult to prove

to the satisfaction of the reader, or even to a man’s own satisfaction.

All we can do, in such cases, is to run over several instances, and

examine carefully the principle which binds the different thoughts to

each other, never stopping till we render the principle as general as

possible[5]. The more instances we examine, and the more care we employ,

the more assurance shall we acquire, that the enumeration, which we form

from the whole, is complete and entire.

 

[2] Resemblance.

 

[3] Contiguity.

 

[4] Cause and effect.

 

[5] For instance, Contrast or Contrariety is also a connexion

among Ideas: but it may, perhaps, be considered as a mixture of

Causation and Resemblance. Where two objects are contrary,

the one destroys the other; that is, the cause of its

annihilation, and the idea of the annihilation of an object,

implies the idea of its former existence.

 

SECTION IV.

 

SCEPTICAL DOUBTS CONCERNING THE OPERATIONS OF THE UNDERSTANDING.

 

PART I.

 

20. All the objects of human reason or enquiry may naturally be divided

into two kinds, to wit, Relations of Ideas, and Matters of Fact. Of

the first kind are the sciences of Geometry, Algebra, and Arithmetic;

and in short, every affirmation which is either intuitively or

demonstratively certain. _That the square of the hypothenuse is equal to

the square of the two sides_, is a proposition which expresses a

relation between these figures. _That three times five is equal to the

half of thirty_, expresses a relation between these numbers.

Propositions of this kind are discoverable by the mere operation of

thought, without dependence on what is anywhere existent in the

universe. Though there never were a circle or triangle in nature, the

truths demonstrated by Euclid would for ever retain their certainty

and evidence.

 

21. Matters of fact, which are the second objects of human reason, are

not ascertained in the same manner; nor is our evidence of their truth,

however great, of a like nature with the foregoing. The contrary of

every matter of fact is still possible; because it can never imply a

contradiction, and is conceived by the mind with the same facility and

distinctness, as if ever so conformable to reality. _That the sun will

not rise to-morrow_ is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies

no more contradiction than the affirmation, that it will rise. We

should in vain, therefore, attempt to demonstrate its falsehood. Were it

demonstratively false, it would imply a contradiction, and could never

be distinctly conceived by the mind.

 

It may, therefore, be a subject worthy of curiosity, to enquire what is

the nature of that evidence which assures us of any real existence and

matter of fact, beyond the present testimony of our senses, or the

records of our memory. This part of philosophy, it is observable, has

been little cultivated, either by the ancients or moderns; and therefore

our doubts and errors, in the prosecution of so important an enquiry,

may be the more excusable; while we march through such difficult paths

without any guide or direction. They may even prove useful, by exciting

curiosity, and destroying that implicit faith and security, which is the

bane of all reasoning and free enquiry. The discovery of defects in the

common philosophy, if any such there be, will not, I presume, be a

discouragement, but rather an incitement, as is usual, to attempt

something more full and satisfactory than has yet been proposed to

the public.

 

22. All reasonings concerning matter of fact seem to be founded on the

relation of Cause and Effect. By means of that relation alone we can

go beyond the evidence of our memory and senses. If you were to ask a

man, why he believes any matter of fact, which is absent; for instance,

that his friend is in the country, or in France; he would give you a

reason; and this reason would be some other fact; as a letter received

from him, or the knowledge of his former resolutions and promises. A man

finding a watch or any other machine in a desert island, would conclude

that there had once been men in that island. All our reasonings

concerning fact are of the same nature. And here it is constantly

supposed that there is a connexion between the present fact and that

which is inferred from it. Were there nothing to bind them together, the

inference would be entirely precarious. The hearing of an articulate

voice and rational discourse in the dark assures us of the presence of

some person: Why? because these are the effects of the human make and

fabric, and closely connected with it. If we anatomize all the other

reasonings of this nature, we shall find that they are founded on the

relation of cause and effect, and that this relation is either near or

remote, direct or collateral. Heat and light are collateral effects of

fire, and the one effect may justly be inferred from the other.

 

23. If we would satisfy ourselves, therefore, concerning the nature of

that evidence, which assures us of matters of fact, we must enquire how

we arrive at the knowledge of cause and effect.

 

I shall venture to affirm, as a general proposition, which admits of no

exception, that the knowledge of this relation is not, in any instance,

attained by reasonings a priori; but arises entirely from experience,

when we find that any particular objects are constantly conjoined with

each other. Let an object be presented to a man of ever so strong

natural reason and abilities; if that object be entirely new to him, he

will not be able, by the most accurate examination of its sensible

qualities, to discover any of its causes or effects. Adam, though his

rational faculties be supposed, at the very first, entirely perfect,

could not have inferred from the fluidity and transparency of water that

it would suffocate him, or from the light and warmth of fire that it

would consume him. No object ever discovers, by the qualities which

appear to the senses, either the causes which produced it, or the

effects which will arise from it; nor can our reason, unassisted by

experience, ever draw any inference concerning real existence and

matter of fact.

 

24. This proposition, _that causes and effects are discoverable, not by

reason but by experience_, will readily be admitted with regard to such

objects, as we remember to have once been altogether unknown to us;

since we must be conscious of the utter inability, which we then lay

under, of foretelling what would arise from them. Present two smooth

pieces of marble to a man who has no tincture of natural philosophy; he

will never discover that they will adhere together in such a manner as

to require great force to separate them in a direct line, while they

make so small a resistance to a lateral pressure. Such events, as bear

little analogy to the common course of nature, are also readily

confessed to be known only by experience; nor does any man imagine that

the explosion of gunpowder, or the attraction of a loadstone, could ever

be discovered by arguments a priori. In like manner, when an effect is

supposed to depend upon an intricate machinery or secret structure of

parts, we make no difficulty in attributing all our knowledge of it to

experience. Who will assert that he can give the ultimate reason, why

milk or bread is proper nourishment for a man, not for a lion or

a tiger?

 

But the same truth may not appear, at first sight, to have the same

evidence with regard to events, which have become familiar to us from

our first appearance in the world, which bear a close analogy to the

whole course of nature, and which are supposed to depend on the simple

qualities of objects, without any secret structure of parts. We are apt

to imagine that we could discover these effects by the mere operation of

our reason, without experience. We fancy, that were we brought on a

sudden into this world, we could at first have inferred that one

Billiard-ball would communicate motion to another upon impulse; and that

we needed not to have waited for the event, in order to pronounce with

certainty concerning it. Such is the influence of custom, that, where it

is strongest, it not only covers our natural ignorance, but even

conceals itself, and seems not to take place, merely because it is found

in the highest degree.

 

25. But to convince us that all the