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

the limits of common life and practice. Nothing, therefore, can

be more contrary than such a philosophy to the supine indolence of the

mind, its rash arrogance, its lofty pretensions, and its superstitious

credulity. Every passion is mortified by it, except the love of truth;

and that passion never is, nor can be, carried to too high a degree. It

is surprising, therefore, that this philosophy, which, in almost every

instance, must be harmless and innocent, should be the subject of so

much groundless reproach and obloquy. But, perhaps, the very

circumstance which renders it so innocent is what chiefly exposes it to

the public hatred and resentment. By flattering no irregular passion, it

gains few partizans: By opposing so many vices and follies, it raises to

itself abundance of enemies, who stigmatize it as libertine profane, and

irreligious.

 

Nor need we fear that this philosophy, while it endeavours to limit our

enquiries to common life, should ever undermine the reasonings of common

life, and carry its doubts so far as to destroy all action, as well as

speculation. Nature will always maintain her rights, and prevail in the

end over any abstract reasoning whatsoever. Though we should conclude,

for instance, as in the foregoing section, that, in all reasonings from

experience, there is a step taken by the mind which is not supported by

any argument or process of the understanding; there is no danger that

these reasonings, on which almost all knowledge depends, will ever be

affected by such a discovery. If the mind be not engaged by argument to

make this step, it must be induced by some other principle of equal

weight and authority; and that principle will preserve its influence as

long as human nature remains the same. What that principle is may well

be worth the pains of enquiry.

 

35. Suppose a person, though endowed with the strongest faculties of

reason and reflection, to be brought on a sudden into this world; he

would, indeed, immediately observe a continual succession of objects,

and one event following another; but he would not be able to discover

anything farther. He would not, at first, by any reasoning, be able to

reach the idea of cause and effect; since the particular powers, by

which all natural operations are performed, never appear to the senses;

nor is it reasonable to conclude, merely because one event, in one

instance, precedes another, that therefore the one is the cause, the

other the effect. Their conjunction may be arbitrary and casual. There

may be no reason to infer the existence of one from the appearance of

the other. And in a word, such a person, without more experience, could

never employ his conjecture or reasoning concerning any matter of fact,

or be assured of anything beyond what was immediately present to his

memory and senses.

 

Suppose, again, that he has acquired more experience, and has lived so

long in the world as to have observed familiar objects or events to be

constantly conjoined together; what is the consequence of this

experience? He immediately infers the existence of one object from the

appearance of the other. Yet he has not, by all his experience, acquired

any idea or knowledge of the secret power by which the one object

produces the other; nor is it, by any process of reasoning, he is

engaged to draw this inference. But still he finds himself determined to

draw it: And though he should be convinced that his understanding has no

part in the operation, he would nevertheless continue in the same course

of thinking. There is some other principle which determines him to form

such a conclusion.

 

36. This principle is Custom or Habit. For wherever the repetition of

any particular act or operation produces a propensity to renew the same

act or operation, without being impelled by any reasoning or process of

the understanding, we always say, that this propensity is the effect of

Custom. By employing that word, we pretend not to have given the

ultimate reason of such a propensity. We only point out a principle of

human nature, which is universally acknowledged, and which is well known

by its effects. Perhaps we can push our enquiries no farther, or pretend

to give the cause of this cause; but must rest contented with it as the

ultimate principle, which we can assign, of all our conclusions from

experience. It is sufficient satisfaction, that we can go so far,

without repining at the narrowness of our faculties because they will

carry us no farther. And it is certain we here advance a very

intelligible proposition at least, if not a true one, when we assert

that, after the constant conjunction of two objects—heat and flame, for

instance, weight and solidity—we are determined by custom alone to

expect the one from the appearance of the other. This hypothesis seems

even the only one which explains the difficulty, why we draw, from a

thousand instances, an inference which we are not able to draw from one

instance, that is, in no respect, different from them. Reason is

incapable of any such variation. The conclusions which it draws from

considering one circle are the same which it would form upon surveying

all the circles in the universe. But no man, having seen only one body

move after being impelled by another, could infer that every other body

will move after a like impulse. All inferences from experience,

therefore, are effects of custom, not of reasoning[7].

 

[7] Nothing is more useful than for writers, even, on moral,

political, or physical subjects, to distinguish between

reason and experience, and to suppose, that these species

of argumentation are entirely different from each other. The

former are taken for the mere result of our intellectual

faculties, which, by considering � priori the nature of

things, and examining the effects, that must follow from their

operation, establish particular principles of science and

philosophy. The latter are supposed to be derived entirely from

sense and observation, by which we learn what has actually

resulted from the operation of particular objects, and are

thence able to infer, what will, for the future, result from

them. Thus, for instance, the limitations and restraints of

civil government, and a legal constitution, may be defended,

either from reason, which reflecting on the great frailty and

corruption of human nature, teaches, that no man can safely be

trusted with unlimited authority; or from experience and

history, which inform us of the enormous abuses, that ambition,

in every age and country, has been found to make of so

imprudent a confidence.

 

The same distinction between reason and experience is

maintained in all our deliberations concerning the conduct of

life; while the experienced statesman, general, physician, or

merchant is trusted and followed; and the unpractised novice,

with whatever natural talents endowed, neglected and despised.

Though it be allowed, that reason may form very plausible

conjectures with regard to the consequences of such a

particular conduct in such particular circumstances; it is

still supposed imperfect, without the assistance of experience,

which is alone able to give stability and certainty to the

maxims, derived from study and reflection.

 

But notwithstanding that this distinction be thus universally

received, both in the active speculative scenes of life, I

shall not scruple to pronounce, that it is, at bottom,

erroneous, at least, superficial.

 

If we examine those arguments, which, in any of the sciences

above mentioned, are supposed to be the mere effects of

reasoning and reflection, they will be found to terminate, at

last, in some general principle or conclusion, for which we can

assign no reason but observation and experience. The only

difference between them and those maxims, which are vulgarly

esteemed the result of pure experience, is, that the former

cannot be established without some process of thought, and some

reflection on what we have observed, in order to distinguish

its circumstances, and trace its consequences: Whereas in the

latter, the experienced event is exactly and fully familiar to

that which we infer as the result of any particular situation.

The history of a TIBERIUS or a NERO makes us dread a like

tyranny, were our monarchs freed from the restraints of laws

and senates: But the observation of any fraud or cruelty in

private life is sufficient, with the aid of a little thought,

to give us the same apprehension; while it serves as an

instance of the general corruption of human nature, and shows

us the danger which we must incur by reposing an entire

confidence in mankind. In both cases, it is experience which is

ultimately the foundation of our inference and conclusion.

 

There is no man so young and unexperienced, as not to have

formed, from observation, many general and just maxims

concerning human affairs and the conduct of life; but it must

be confessed, that, when a man comes to put these in practice,

he will be extremely liable to error, till time and farther

experience both enlarge these maxims, and teach him their

proper use and application. In every situation or incident,

there are many particular and seemingly minute circumstances,

which the man of greatest talent is, at first, apt to overlook,

though on them the justness of his conclusions, and

consequently the prudence of his conduct, entirely depend. Not

to mention, that, to a young beginner, the general observations

and maxims occur not always on the proper occasions, nor can be

immediately applied with due calmness and distinction. The

truth is, an unexperienced reasoner could be no reasoner at

all, were he absolutely unexperienced; and when we assign that

character to any one, we mean it only in a comparative sense,

and suppose him possessed of experience, in a smaller and more

imperfect degree.

 

Custom, then, is the great guide of human life. It is that principle

alone which renders our experience useful to us, and makes us expect,

for the future, a similar train of events with those which have appeared

in the past.

 

Without the influence of custom, we should be entirely ignorant of every

matter of fact beyond what is immediately present to the memory and

senses. We should never know how to adjust means to ends, or to employ

our natural powers in the production of any effect. There would be an

end at once of all action, as well as of the chief part of speculation.

 

37. But here it may be proper to remark, that though our conclusions

from experience carry us beyond our memory and senses, and assure us of

matters of fact which happened in the most distant places and most

remote ages, yet some fact must always be present to the senses or

memory, from which we may first proceed in drawing these conclusions. A

man, who should find in a desert country the remains of pompous

buildings, would conclude that the country had, in ancient times, been

cultivated by civilized inhabitants; but did nothing of this nature

occur to him, he could never form such an inference. We learn the events

of former ages from history; but then we must peruse the volumes in

which this instruction is contained, and thence carry up our inferences

from one testimony to another, till we arrive at the eyewitnesses and

spectators of these distant events. In a word, if we proceed not upon

some fact, present to the memory or senses, our reasonings would be

merely hypothetical; and however the particular links might be connected

with each other, the whole chain of inferences would have nothing to

support it, nor could we ever, by its means, arrive at the knowledge of

any real existence. If I ask why you believe any particular matter of

fact, which you relate, you must tell me some reason; and this reason

will be some other fact, connected with it. But as