Chapter II: 1734-1739. æt. 23-27 (2)

The vulgar notion of this theory was, that it destroyed all our notions of regularity and system in the order of nature; that it made no provision for unseen causes, and contemplated only the application of the doctrines of cause and effect to things which were palpably seen following each other. But the inventor of the theory never questioned the regularity of the operations of nature as established by the inductive philosophy; he only endeavoured to show how far and within what limits we could acquire a cognizance of the machinery of that regularity. He denied not that when the spark was applied, the gunpowder would ignite, or that when the ball was dropped, it would proceed to the earth with the accelerated motion of gravitation; but he denied that we could see any other connexion between the cause and effect in either case, than that of uniform sequence. When it was scientifically adopted, the theory was found to be productive of the most important results. The view that when any effect was observed, that phenomenon which was most uniform in its precedence was the one entitled to be termed the cause, was a salutary incentive to close and patient investigation, by laying before the philosopher the simple, numerical question--what was that phenomenon which, by the uniformity of its precedence, was entitled to be termed the cause?[81:1] The test became of the simplest kind; and, if the experimentalist had at a particular time considered some phenomenon as a cause,--if the farther progress of patient and unprejudiced inquiry showed that another, by the occurrence of instances in which it preceded the effect while the former did not, had a preferable title to be termed the cause, the mind in its unbiassed estimate of numbers at once admitted the claim. But when, according to the antagonist system,[82:1] it became settled that any given phenomenon had in it the power of bringing into existence another, that power was viewed as a quality of the object. When things are admitted to have qualities, it is not easy for the mind at once to assent to their non-existence and to admit that others have the proper title to these qualities. Analogy, the great source of fallacies, comes to increase the difficulty, by a confusion of what are termed the qualities of bodies, and those endowments with which we invest our fellow-creatures. In this respect Hume's theory of cause and effect has been of great service to inductive philosophy.

It was an objection to it that it made no allowance for unseen causes; but it was part of its author's system, that the uniformity which our observation teaches us, proceeds unseen in those cases to which our observation cannot penetrate. It was part of the theory, that where there is a want of the absolute uniformity in the sequence of two phenomena, they are not respectively cause and effect. This principle is of vital importance in physical science. It is a notion with the vulgar, and one that sometimes perhaps lurks unseen in scientific operations, that the cause sometimes does not produce its effect by reason of some failure in the operating power. It is from a vague amplification of this heresy, that the popular notion of chance is derived. Hume's theory nips the bud of such a fallacy by denying, whenever there is a break in the sequence, that the phenomena which have in other instances followed each other, really are cause and effect. It is perhaps in the unscientific application of therapeutics, that the popular fallacy is most widely and most dangerously exemplified. The whole of the complexity of that wondrous science consists in the immediate causes and effects being unseen--in the phenomena immediately conjoined not being ascertained, but in attempts being made to estimate them through the connexion between those external causes to which the internal causes may have had the relation of effects, and those external effects of which these internal effects may have been the causes. The character of unseen causes was aptly illustrated by Hume himself, from the throwing of a die. The vulgar mind can see no cause and effect in the operation, because there is a series of causes and effects, which are hidden from the sight, in the interior of the box; but the philosopher knows not the less, that those laws of motion, which induction has established to him as truths, are taking place; and that there is no turn made by the die, which is not as much the effect of some cause, as the turning of the hands of a watch, or the parallel motion in a steam engine.

It is one of the peculiar features of the history of mental philosophy, that there is scarcely ever a new principle, associated with the name of a great author, but it is shown that it has been anticipated, in some oracular sentence, probably by an obscure writer. Joseph Glanvill is pretty well known as the author of "Saducismus Triumphatus," a vindication of the belief in witches and apparitions, which must have been perused by all the curious in this species of lore. Glanvill was the author of various tracts on biblical subjects, but it was not generally known that he wrote a book on sceptical philosophy, called "Scepsis Scientifica, or, Confest Ignorance the Way to Science," until it was unearthed by the persevering inquiries of Mr. Hallam. In that book there is the passage, "all knowledge of causes is _deductive_, for we know none by simple intuition, but through the medium of their effects; so that we cannot conclude any thing to be the cause of another but from its continual accompanying it, for the causality itself is _insensible_."[84:1] This is an addition to the many instances where writers have almost, as it were by chance, laid down principles, of which they show, by neglecting to follow them to their legitimate conclusions, that they have not understood their full meaning; if it do not rather illustrate the view already noticed, that in metaphysics our assent is secured, not to general propositions as such, but to their particular applications; and that it is not in the laying down of first principles that important truths are exhibited to the world, but in those subsidiary expositions by which the discoverer endeavours to show their application.

The subsequent history of Hume's theory of Cause and Effect, is a marked illustration of the danger of bringing forward as an argument against theories purely metaphysical, the statement that they are dangerous to religion. It is difficult to see where there is a difference between adducing that argument in the sphere of natural philosophy, from which it has been long scouted by common consent, and bringing it forward as an answer to the theories of the metaphysician. In either case it is a threat, which, in the days of Galileo, bore the terror of corporal punishment, and in the present day carries the threat of unpopularity, to the person against whom it is used.[86:1] If any one should suppose that he finds lurking in the speculations of some metaphysical writer, opinions from which it may be inferred that he is not possessed of the hopes and consolations of the Christian, humanity to the unhappy author should suggest that he ought rather to be pitied than condemned, and respect for the religious feelings of others should teach that there is no occasion to endeavour, by a laborious pleading, to demonstrate that a man who has said nothing against religion is in reality an enemy to Christianity. They are surely no enlightened friends to religion, who maintain that the suppression of inquiry as to the material or the immaterial world, is favourable to the cause of revealed truth. The blasphemer who raises his voice offensively and contentiously against what his fellow citizens hold sacred, invokes the public wrath, and is no just object of sympathy. The extent of his punishment is regretted only when, by its vindictive excess, it is liable to excite retaliatory attacks from the same quarter. But the speculative philosopher, who does not directly interfere with the religion of his neighbours, should be left to the peaceful pursuit of his inquiries; and those who, instead of meeting him by fair argument, cry out irreligion, and call in the mob to their aid, should reflect first, whether it is absolutely certain that they are right in their conclusion, that his inquiries, if carried out, would be inimical to religion--whether some mind more acute and philosophical than their own, may not either finally confute the sceptical philosopher's argument, or prove that it is not inimical to religion; and secondly, whether they are not likely to be themselves the greatest foes to religion, by holding that it requires such defence, and the practical blasphemers, by proclaiming that religion is in danger?

Kant, the most illustrious opponent of Hume, in allusion to those who have appealed against him to our religious feelings, asks, what the man is doing that we should meddle with him; says he is but trying the strength of human reason, and bids us leave him to combat with those who are giving him specimens of the fabric on which to try his skill--tells us to wait and see who will produce one too strong to be broken to pieces--and not cry treason, and appeal to the angry multitude, who are strangers to these refined reasonings, to rush in. Shall we ask reason to give us lights, and prescribe beforehand what they are to show us?[88:1] "The observation of human blindness and weakness," says Hume himself, "is the result of all philosophy, and meets us at every turn, in spite of our endeavours to elude or avoid it." A solemn saying, and characteristic of one who has done more than any other man to show the feebleness of poor human reason, and to teach man that he is not all sufficient to himself.

Those revelations in astronomy and geology, the first glimmerings of which made the timid if not doubting friends of their cause tremble, have enlarged year by year in rapid progression; but revealed religion is not less firm on her throne; and many of those who held that Hume's theory of Cause and Effect was inimical to revelation, lived to see how startlingly that argument could be turned against themselves. It has been well observed by Dugald Stewart, that this theory is the most effectual confutation of the gloomy materialism of Spinoza, "as it lays the axe to the very root from which Spinozism springs." "The cardinal principle," he says, "on which the whole of that system turns is, that all events, physical and moral, are _necessarily_ linked together as causes and effects; from which principle all the most alarming conclusions adopted by Spinoza follow as unavoidable and manifest corollaries. But if it be true, as Mr. Hume contends, and as most philosophers now admit, that physical causes and effects are known to us merely as _antecedents_ and _consequents_; still more if it be true that the word _necessity_, as employed in this discussion, is altogether unmeaning and insignificant, the whole system of Spinoza is nothing better than a rope of sand, and the very proposition which it professes to demonstrate is incomprehensible by our faculties."[89:1]

It will be remembered how signally, in the question in the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, as to Sir John Leslie's professorship, the argument of irreligion was retaliated; and it was shown that, in the theory of an existing machinery in nature enabling the universe to proceed in its regular course, the cause having within it the adequate power for producing its effect, the omnipresence of a Deity was dispensed with, and there was substituted for the all-pervading influence of a superior wisdom, a mere material machine, having within itself the elements of its own regular motion. Thus, in instances where writers have claimed credit for having aided the cause of religion by carrying out the principles of natural theology, this merit has in many cases, and among certain classes of devout religious thinkers, been sternly denied them; and it has been said that their labours are rather adverse than favourable to revealed religion, because, through their tendency to make people believe in an established order in nature, by which causes produce their effects according to a fixed system, they have the effect of making mankind forget the existence of a revealed, omnipresent Deity, whose all-competent superintendence regulates the world, and they supply a religion independent of the religion of revelation.

Perhaps in this little history we may find an illustration of the view, that the greatest service which the Treatise has done to philosophy is that purely incidental one of teaching human reason its own weakness--of showing how easily the noblest fabric of human thought may be undermined, by a destroying agency of power not greater than that of the constructive genius which has raised it. In this respect it has done to philosophy the invaluable service of teaching philosophers their own fallibility. In all the departments of thought, and not only in the world of thought but in that of action, the spirit of human infallibility is the greatest obstacle to truth and goodness. Whether it appear to protect a system which the thinker has framed for himself, or assume the more modest shape of maintaining, that among conflicting systems he has made choice of that which is absolutely and certainly right, while all others which in any way differ from it are as absolutely and certainly wrong; this offspring of the pride of human intellect is an equally dangerous enemy of human improvement; and to have contributed to its downfal is of itself no small achievement for one mind.

Such are a few remarks on the matter of the first part of the "Treatise of Human Nature"--given not by any means as an analysis of the doctrines there taught, but merely as an attempt to characterize them by their prominent features. It will naturally be expected that a similar attempt should be made to characterize the form in which these doctrines were promulgated. As to the style of the Treatise, it possesses the clearness, flexibility, and simplicity that distinguish the maturity of its author's literary career, though not quite in all the perfection in which they afterwards attended his pen. There are occasional Scoticisms--a defect which he took infinite pains to cure, but of which he was never entirely rid. He uses a few obsolete and now harsh sounding forms of expression, from which he afterwards abstained: such as the elliptical combination 'tis, for it is. Here, and in the first editions of his History, he frequently neglects the increment on the perfect tense, as by saying, "I have forgot," instead of, I have forgotten; "I have wrote," instead of I have written.

The Treatise has that happy equality of flight, which distinguishes the author's maturer productions. There is no attempt to soar, and none of those ambitious inequalities which often deform the works of young authors. His imagination and language seem indeed to have been kept permanently chained down by the character of his inquiries. His constant aim is to make his meaning clear; and in the subtleties of a new and intricate system of metaphysics, he seems to have felt that there lay upon him so heavy a responsibility to make use on all occasions of the clearest and simplest words, that any flight of imagination or eloquence would be a dangerous experiment.

There is a corresponding absence of pedantic ornament. A young writer who has read much, is generally more anxious to show his learning and information than his own power of thought. With many the defect lasts through maturer years, and they write as if to find a good thing in some unknown author, were more meritorious than to have invented it. Montesquieu, whom Hume has been accused of imitating, carried this defect to a vice, and often distorted the order of his reasoning, that he might introduce an allusion to something discovered in the course of his peculiar learning. That Hume had read much in philosophy before he undertook his great work, cannot be doubted, but he does not drag his readers through the minutiæ of his studies, and is content with giving them results. In many respects, indeed, one would have desired to know more of his appreciation of his predecessors. The name of Aristotle is, it is believed, not once mentioned in the work, and there are only some indirect allusions to him, and these not very respectful, in casual remarks on the opinions of the Peripatetics. One would have expected from Hume a kindred sympathy with the great master of intellectual philosophy, and a respectful appreciation of one whose inquiries were conducted with a like acute severity, but whose mind took so much more wide and comprehensive a grasp of the sources of human knowledge.

It has been often observed, that a person so original in his opinions as Hume, ought to have made a new nomenclature for the new things which he taught. But he has no philosophical nomenclature; he appears indeed to have despised that useful instrument of method, and means of communicating clear ideas to learners. This want has prevented his system from being clearly and fully learned by the student, while it has at the same time probably made his works less repulsive to the general reader. He seems indeed hardly to have been conscious of the advantage to all philosophy, of uniformity of expression. Using the words "force," "vivacity," "solidity," "firmness," and "steadiness," all with the same meaning, he speaks of this usage as a "variety of terms which may seem so unphilosophical;" and then observes, more in the style of one who is tired of philosophical precision than of a philosopher, "Provided we agree about the thing, 'tis needless to dispute about the terms."

This is a kindred defect to that absence of method which has been already taken notice of. A fixed nomenclature is a beacon against repetition and discursiveness. But the Treatise has no pretension to be a work of which he who omits paying attention to any part, thereby drops a link in a chain, the loss of which will make the whole appear broken and inconsistent. There are, it is true, places where the essential parts of the author's philosophy are developed, the omission of which would render that which follows hard to be understood, but in general each department of the work is intelligible in itself. Its author appears to have composed it in separate fragments; holding in view, while he was writing each part, the general principle of his theory, but not taking it for granted that the reader is so far master of that principle, as not to require it to be generally explained in connexion with the particular matter under consideration. He seems indeed rather desirous to dwell on it, as something that the reader may have seen in the earlier part of the work, but may have neglected to keep in his mind while he reads the other parts. Perhaps the true model of every philosophical work is to be found in the usual systems of geometry, where, whatever is once proposed and proved, is held a fixed part of knowledge, and is never repeated; but as far as psychological reasoning is from the certainty of geometrical, so distant perhaps, will ever be the precision of its method from that of geometry.

It may safely be pronounced, that no book of its age presents itself to us at this day, more completely free from exploded opinions in the physical sciences. With the exception perhaps of occasional allusions to "animal spirits," as a moving influence in the human body, the author's careful sifting sceptical mind seems, without having practically tested them, to have turned away from whatever doctrines were afterwards destined to fall before the test of experiment and induction. It was not that he was so much of a natural philosopher himself as to be able to test their truth or falsehood, but that with a wholesome jealousy, characteristic of the mind in which the Disquisition on Miracles was working itself into shape, he avoided them as things neither coming within the scope of his own analysis, nor bearing the marks of having been satisfactorily established by those whose more peculiar province it was to investigate their claims to be believed. At a later date, his friend D'Alembert admitted judicial astrology and alchemy as branches of natural philosophy in his "Systême Figuré des Connoissances Humaines." Cudworth, and even the scrutinizing Locke, dealt gravely with matters doomed afterwards to be ranked among popular superstitions, and Sir Thomas Browne, in some respects a sceptic, eloquently defended more "vulgar errors" than he exposed. Hobbes was, in the midst of the darkest scepticism, a practical believer in the actual presence of the spirits of the air; and Johnson, whose name, however, it may scarcely be fair to class in this list, as he did not profess, except for conversational triumph, to be a reducer and demolisher of unfounded beliefs, along with his partial admission of the existence of spectres, has left behind him many dogmatic announcements of physical doctrines, which the progress of science has now long buried under its newer systems.

It is by no means maintained that Hume was beyond his age--or even on a par with its scientific ornaments, in physical knowledge; but merely that he showed a judicious caution in distinguishing, in his published work, those parts of physical philosophy which had been admitted within the bounds of true and permanent science, from those which were still in a state of mere hypothesis. His knowledge of physical science was probably not very extensive. A small portion of a collection of his notes on subjects that attracted his attention bear on this subject. The collection from which they are taken will be noticed in the next chapter; but as those which are set apart from the others, and are headed "Natural Philosophy," seem to have been written at an earlier period than the rest of the collection, and are appropriate to the present subject, they are here given. It is not expected that they will awaken in the natural philosopher any great respect for the extent of Hume's inquiries in this department of knowledge.

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.

"A ship sails always swiftest when her sides yield a little.

"Two pieces of timber, resting upon one another, will bear as much as both of them laid across at the distance of their opening.

"Calcined antimony more heavy than before.[95:1]

"A proof that natural philosophy has no truth in it, is, that it has only succeeded in things remote, as the heavenly bodies; or minute, as light.

"'Tis probable that mineral waters are not formed by running over beds of minerals, but by imbibing the vapours which form these minerals, since we cannot make mineral waters with all the same qualities.

"Hot mineral waters come not a-boiling sooner than cold water.

"Hot iron put into cold water soon cools, but becomes hot again.

"There falls usually at Paris, in June, July, and August, as much rain as in the other nine months.

"This seems to be a strong presumption against medicines, that they are mostly disagreeable, and out of the common use of life. For the weak and uncertain operation of the common food, &c. is well known by experience. These others are the better objects of quackery."

The system of philosophy to which the foregoing remarks apply, was published when its author was twenty-six years old, and he completed it in voluntary exile, and in that isolation from the counsel and sympathy of early friends, which is implied by a residence in an obscure spot in a foreign country. While he was framing his metaphysical theory, Hume appears to have permitted no confidential adviser to have access to the workings of his inventive genius; and as little did he take for granted any of the reasonings and opinions of the illustrious dead, as seek counsel of the living. Nowhere is there a work of genius more completely authenticated, as the produce of the solitary labour of one mind; and when we reflect on the boldness and greatness of the undertaking, we have a picture of self-reliance calculated to inspire both awe and respect. The system seems to be characteristic of a lonely mind--of one which, though it had no enmity with its fellows, had yet little sympathy with them. It has few of the features that characterize a partaker in the ordinary hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows, of humanity; little to give impulse to the excitement of the enthusiast; nothing to dry the tear of the mourner. It exposes to poor human reason her own weakness and nakedness, and supplies her with no extrinsic support or protection. Such a work, coming from a man at the time of life when our sympathies with the world are strongest, and our anticipations brightest, would seem to indicate a mind rendered callous by hardship and disappointment. But it was not so with Hume. His coldness and isolation were in his theories alone; as a man he was frank, warm, and friendly. But the same impulses which gave him resolution to adopt so bold a step, seem at the same time to have armed him with a hard contempt for the opinions of the rest of mankind. Hence, though his philosophy is sceptical, his manner is frequently dogmatical, even to intolerance; and while illustrating the feebleness of all human reasoning, he seems as if he felt an innate infallibility in his own. He afterwards regretted this peculiarity; and in a letter, written apparently at an advanced period of life, we find him deprecating not only the tone of the Inquiry, but many of its opinions. He says:--

"Allow me to tell you, that I never asserted so absurd a proposition as _that any thing might arise without a cause_. I only maintained that our certainty of the falsehood of that proposition proceeded neither from intuition nor demonstration, but from another source. _That Cæsar existed_, that there is such an island as Sicily,--for these propositions, I affirm, we have no demonstration nor intuitive proof,--would you infer that I deny their _truth_, or even their certainty? There are many different kinds of certainty; and some of them as satisfactory to the mind, though perhaps not so regular as the demonstrative kind.

"Where a man of sense mistakes my meaning, I own I am angry; but it is only with myself, for having expressed my meaning so ill, as to have given occasion to the mistake.

"That you may see I would no way scruple of owning my mistakes in argument, I shall acknowledge (what is infinitely more material) a very great mistake in conduct, viz. my publishing at all the 'Treatise of Human Nature,' a book which pretended to innovate in all the sublimest paths of philosophy, and which I composed before I was five-and-twenty; above all, the positive air which prevails in that book, and which may be imputed to the ardour of youth, so much displeases me, that I have not patience to review it. But what success the same doctrines, better illustrated and expressed, may meet with, _adhuc sub judice lis est_. The arguments have been laid before the world, and by some philosophical minds have been attended to. I am willing to be instructed by the public; though human life is so short, that I despair of ever seeing the decision. I wish I had always confined myself to the more easy parts of erudition; but you will excuse me from submitting to a proverbial decision, let it even be in Greek."[98:1]

The reader, who passes from the first book of the Treatise, on "the Understanding," to the second, on "the Passions," will, in many instances, feel like one who is awakened from a dream, or as if, after penetrating in solitude and darkness into the unseen world of thought, he had come forth to the cheerful company of mankind, and were holding converse with a shrewd and penetrating observer of the passing world. As Hume was never totally insensible to the elements of social enjoyment, but had indeed an ample sympathy with the joys and sorrows of his fellow men, he appears occasionally, in the midst of his most subtle speculations, to experience a desire to burst from the dark prison of solitude, into which he had voluntarily immured himself, and bask in the sunshine of the world. "Man," he says, in his Treatise, "is the creature of the universe who has the most ardent desire of society, and is fitted for it by the most advantages. We can form no wish which has not a reference to society. A perfect solitude is, perhaps, the greatest punishment we can suffer. Every pleasure languishes when enjoyed apart from company, and every pain becomes more cruel and intolerable." In a remarkable passage, in which, after having long proceeded in enthusiasm with his solitary labours, he seems to have stopped for a moment, and recalling within himself the feelings and sympathies of an ordinary man, to have reflected on the scope and tendency of the system in which he was involving himself, he thus expresses himself, regarding its gloomy tendency, and the effect it has in destroying, in the mind of its fabricator, those stays of satisfactory belief in which it is so comfortable for the wearied intellect to find a resting-place:--

Before I launch out into those immense depths of philosophy
which lie before me, I find myself inclined to stop a moment
in my present station, and to ponder that voyage which I have
undertaken, and which undoubtedly requires the utmost art and
industry to be brought to a happy conclusion. Methinks I am
like a man, who, having struck on many shoals, and having
narrowly escaped shipwreck in passing a small frith, has yet
the temerity to put out to sea in the same leaky
weather-beaten vessel, and even carries his ambition so far as
to think of compassing the globe under these disadvantageous
circumstances. My memory of past errors and perplexities makes
me diffident for the future. The wretched condition, weakness,
and disorder of the faculties, I must employ in my inquiries,
increase my apprehensions. And the impossibility of amending
or correcting these faculties, reduces me almost to despair,
and makes me resolve to perish on the barren rock, on which I
am at present, rather than venture myself upon that boundless
ocean which runs out into immensity. This sudden view of my
danger strikes me with melancholy; and, as 'tis usual for that
passion, above all others, to indulge itself, I cannot forbear
feeding my despair with all those desponding reflections which
the present subject furnishes me with in such abundance.

I am first affrighted and confounded with that forlorn
solitude in which I am placed in my philosophy, and fancy
myself some strange uncouth monster, who, not being able to
mingle and unite in society, has been expelled all human
commerce, and left utterly abandoned and disconsolate. Fain
would I run into the crowd for shelter and warmth, but cannot
prevail with myself to mix with such deformity. I call upon
others to join me, in order to make a company apart, but no
one will hearken to me. Every one keeps at a distance, and
dreads that storm which beats upon me from every side. I have
exposed myself to the enmity of all metaphysicians, logicians,
mathematicians, and even theologians; and can I wonder at the
insults I must suffer? I have declared my disapprobation of
their systems; and can I be surprised if they should express a
hatred of mine and of my person? When I look abroad, I foresee
on every side dispute, contradiction, anger, calumny, and
detraction. When I turn my eye inward, I find nothing but
doubt and ignorance. All the world conspires to oppose and
contradict me; though such is my weakness, that I feel all my
opinions loosen and fall of themselves, when unsupported by
the approbation of others. Every step I take is with
hesitation, and every new reflection makes me dread an error
and absurdity in my reasoning.

For with what confidence can I venture upon such bold
enterprises, when, beside those numberless infirmities
peculiar to myself, I find so many which are common to human
nature? Can I be sure that, in leaving all established
opinions, I am following truth? and by what criterion shall I
distinguish her, even if fortune should at last guide me on
her footsteps? After the most accurate and exact of my
reasonings, I can give no reason why I should assent to it,
and feel nothing but a _strong_ propensity to consider objects
_strongly_ in that view under which they appear to me.[101:1]

Occasionally, seduced by some impulse of playful candour, we find him giving us admission as it were into the chamber of his thoughts, and desiring that some one would drag him into the common circle of the world. When there, he consents for a short time to comport himself as a man, is social and sympathetic with his kind, and pleased with what is passing around; when anon the ambition which had prompted his solitary musings stirs his soul, tells him that in active life and the world at large, the sphere of his true greatness is not placed, and prompts him to reimprison himself, and pursue the great aim of his existence.

But what have I here said, that reflections very refined and
metaphysical have little or no influence upon us? This opinion
I can scarce forbear retracting, and condemning from my
present feeling and experience. The _intense_ view of these
manifold contradictions and imperfections in human reason has
so wrought upon me, and heated my brain, that I am ready to
reject all belief and reasoning, and can look upon no opinion
even as more probable or likely than another. Where am I, or
what? From what causes do I derive my existence, and to what
condition shall I return? Whose favour shall I court, and
whose anger must I dread? What beings surround me? and on whom
have I any influence, or who have any influence on me? I am
confounded with all these questions, and begin to fancy myself
in the most deplorable condition imaginable, environed with
the deepest darkness, and utterly deprived of the use of every
member and faculty.

Most fortunately it happens, that since Reason is incapable of
dispelling these clouds, Nature herself suffices to that
purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melancholy and
delirium, either by relaxing this bent of mind, or by some
avocation, and lively impression of my senses, which
obliterate all these chimeras. I dine, I play a game of
backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and
when, after three or four hours' amusement, I would return to
these speculations, they appear so cold, and strained, and
ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them
any farther.

Here, then, I find myself absolutely and necessarily
determined to live, and talk, and act like other people in the
common affairs of life. But notwithstanding that my natural
propensity, and the course of my animal spirits and passions
reduce me to this indolent belief in the general maxims of the
world, I still feel such remains of my former disposition,
that I am ready to throw all my books and papers into the
fire, and resolve never more to renounce the pleasures of life
for the sake of reasoning and philosophy. For those are my
sentiments in that splenetic humour which governs me at
present. I may, nay I must yield to the current of nature, in
submitting to my senses and understanding; and in this blind
submission I show most perfectly my sceptical disposition and
principles. But does it follow that I must strive against the
current of nature, which leads me to indolence and pleasure;
that I must seclude myself, in some measure, from the commerce
and society of men, which is so agreeable; and that I must
torture my brain with subtilties and sophistries, at the very
time that I cannot satisfy myself concerning the
reasonableness of so painful an application, nor have any
tolerable prospect of arriving by its means at truth and
certainty? Under what obligation do I lie of making such an
abuse of time? And to what end can it serve, either for the
service of mankind, or for my own private interest? No: if I
must be a fool, as all those who reason or believe any thing
_certainly_ are, 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
a-wandering into such dreary solitudes, and rough passages, as
I have hitherto met with.

These are the sentiments of my spleen and indolence; and
indeed I must confess, that philosophy has nothing to oppose
to them, and expects a victory more from the returns 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, 'tis only because it costs us too
much pains to think otherwise. Nay, if we are philosophers, it
ought only to be upon sceptical principles, and from an
inclination which we feel to the employing ourselves after
that manner. Where reason is lively, and mixes itself with
some propensity, it ought to be assented to. Where it does
not, it never can have any title to operate upon us.

At the time, therefore, that I am tired with amusement and
company, and have indulged a _reverie_ in my chamber, or in a
solitary walk by a river side, I feel my mind all collected
within itself, and am naturally _inclined_ to carry my view
into all those subjects, about which I have met with so many
disputes in the course of my reading and conversation. I
cannot forbear having a curiosity to be acquainted with the
principles of moral good and evil, the nature and foundation
of government, and the cause of those several passions and
inclinations which actuate and govern me. I am uneasy to think
I approve of one object, and disapprove of another; call one
thing beautiful, and another deformed; decide concerning truth
and falsehood, reason and folly, without knowing upon what
principles I proceed. I am concerned for the condition of the
learned world, which lies under such a deplorable ignorance in
all these particulars. I feel an ambition to arise in me of
contributing to the instruction of mankind, and of acquiring a
name by my inventions and discoveries. These sentiments spring
up naturally in my present disposition; and should I
endeavour to banish them, by attaching myself to any other
business or diversion, I _feel_ I should be a loser in point
of pleasure; and this is the origin of my philosophy.[104:1]

The acuteness which the solitary metaphysician brought to his aid when he chose to contemplate mankind, is not the least interesting feature in his book. That he could have seen much of men, since his life had been but brief and his converse with books great, is not probable; yet Chesterfield and Rochefoucauld did not observe men more clearly and truly, though they may have done so more extensively. The following sketch of the mental features of a vain man, would not have been unworthy of Theophrastus.

Every thing belonging to a vain man is the best that is any
where to be found. His houses, equipage, furniture, clothes,
horses, hounds, excel all others in his conceit; and 'tis easy
to observe, that from the least advantage in any of these, he
draws a new subject of pride and vanity. His wine, if you'll
believe him, has a finer flavour than any other; his cookery
is more exquisite; his table more orderly; his servant more
expert; the air in which he lives more healthful; the soil he
cultivates more fertile; his fruits ripen earlier, and to
greater perfection; such a thing is remarkable for its
novelty; such another for its antiquity: this is the
workmanship of a famous artist; that belonged to such a prince
or great man; all objects, in a word, that are useful,
beautiful, or surprising, or are related to such, may, by
means of property, give rise to this passion. These agree in
giving pleasure, and agree in nothing else. This alone is
common to them, and therefore must be the quality that
produces the passion, which is their common effect.[104:2]

FOOTNOTES:

[48:1] A literary friend suggests that Hume has a quiet allusion to the intellectual faculties of the people of Bristol, in the description of James Naylor's attempts to personify our Saviour, where it is said, "he entered Bristol mounted on a horse--I suppose from the difficulty in that place of finding an ass." Retrospect of manners &c., at the end of the History of the Commonwealth.

[52:1] It is not improbable that the person here alluded to is the Abbé Pluche, a native of Rheims, the greatest literary ornament of that city, and one who filled no small place in the lettered aristocracy of France, where he held in many respects the position which Paley occupied in England. He filled successively the chairs of Humanity and Rhetoric, in the University of Rheims. His promotion in the Church was checked by his partiality for Jansenism. He had the rare merit of uniting to a firm belief in the great truths of Christianity a wide and full toleration for the conscientious opinions of others; and he enjoyed, what is no less rarely possessed by those who meddle in theological disputes, the good opinion of his opponents. He was a great scholar, and wrote some works on etymological and archæological subjects; but he is chiefly known for his writings on natural theology, celebrated for their clear and animated enunciation of the harmonies of nature, and not only popular in their own country, but translated into most of the European languages. His "Spectacle de la Nature," written in a series of dialogues, was sketched while he acted as instructor to the son of Lord Stafford; and the master and pupil, with the father and mother of the latter, are the interlocutors. One of its main objects is, by tracing effects in the operations of nature to their causes, to prove and illustrate the beneficence and wisdom of the Deity. This work has been a treasure to many an English schoolboy, in its well-known translation, with the title, "Nature Displayed." An answer by Pluche to some _esprits forts_, who wondered why a philosopher could believe so much, has been preserved by his contemporaries: "It is more reasonable," he said, "to believe in the dictates of the Supreme Being than to follow the feeble lights of a reason bounded in its operations and subject to error."

It must be granted that what Hume calls the association of contrariety has in some measure caused this digression, and that the Abbé Pluche would not have been so amply discussed as the possible learned man that Hume had an introduction to, had there not been so much that is common in the subjects treated of by both, and so much that is contrasted in the mode of treatment. Pluche was an opponent of Des Cartes, and thus a name far greater than his, and as many will hold greater than Hume's, is introduced into the circle of these local associations.

[53:1] The following passage in a recent work, Mrs. Shelley's "Rambles in Germany and Italy," seems appropriate to this observation:--

"By this time I became aware of a truth which had dawned on me before, that the French common people have lost much of that grace of manner which once distinguished them above all other people. More courteous than the Italians they could not be; but, while their manners were more artificial, they were more playful and winning. All this has changed. I did not remark the alteration so much with regard to myself, as in their mode of speaking to one another. The 'Madame,' and 'Monsieur,' with which stable boys, and old beggar women, used to address each other with the deference of courtiers, has vanished. No trace of it is to be found in France; a shadow faintly exists among the Parisian shopkeepers when speaking to their customers, but only there is the traditional phraseology still used: The courteous accent, the soft manner, erst so charming, exists no longer. I speak of a thing known and acknowledged by the French themselves. . . . . . Their phraseology, once so delicately and even to us more straightforward people, amusingly deferential (not to superiors only, but toward one another,) is become blunt, and almost rude. The French allege several causes for this change, which they date from the Revolution of 1830: some say it arises from every citizen turning out as one of the national guard in his turn, so that they all get a _ton de garnison_: others attribute it to their imitation of the English. Of course, in the times of the _ancien regime_, the courtly tone found an echo and reflexion, from the royal anti-chambers down to the very ends of the kingdom. This has faded by degrees, till the Revolution of 1830 gave it the _coup-de-grâce_."

[55:1] Sic in MS.

[56:1] This word is nearly obliterated. The passage appears to be a sort of caricatured pompous politeness.

[56:2] MS. R.S.E.

[57:1] Dated 7th January, 1762, and written in relation to a copy of Campbell's "Dissertation on Miracles," sent to him by Dr. Blair.

[58:1] It may be said, that, as Mackenzie's description of Hume's character, this subject belongs to a later period of his life--the time when Mackenzie was acquainted with him. But Mackenzie intended it to be a true view of Hume's character as a young man; and it appears that it properly belongs to that chronological period to which its author assigned it.

[63:1] See above, p. 50. These reasonings appeared probably in a shape more consonant with the author's later views in the "Philosophical Essays," 1748.

[64:1] Tytler, Life of Kames, i. 84.

[65:1] Tytler, Life of Kames, i. 88.

[66:1] Original MS. R.S.E.

[67:1] According to some acceptations of the word metaphysical, which seem to make it synonymous with transcendental, and referable solely to the operations of pure reason, to the rejection of whatever is founded on experiment, none of Hume's works are properly metaphysical; and by the very foundation he has given to his philosophy, he has made it empirical and consequently not metaphysical. The word metaphysical is, however, here used in its ordinary, and, as it may be termed, popular acceptation, and as applicable to any attempt to analyze mind or describe its elements,--a subject in relation to which the word ontology is also sometimes used.

[70:1] The term "ideas," in the philosophical nomenclature of Hume, is thus used in a sense quite distinct from its previous current acceptations, and as different from its vernacular use by Plato, in reference to the archetypes of all the empirical objects of thought, as from its employment by Locke, who used it to express "whatsoever is the object of the understanding when a man thinks."

[75:1] "If we take as the utmost bounds of this system the orbit Uranus, we shall find that it occupies a portion of space not less than three thousand six hundred millions of miles in extent. The mind fails to form an exact notion of a portion of space so immense; but some faint idea of it may be obtained from the fact, that, if the swiftest race-horse ever known, had begun to traverse it at full speed, at the time of the birth of Moses, he could only as yet have accomplished half his journey."--Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, pp. 1-2. Here an attempt is made to give a conception of abstract numbers, by calling up in the mind the ideas deposited there from actual impressions. Hume had, in the application of his theory to mathematics, to struggle with the fact that no truths had a clearer and more distinct existence in the mind than the abstract truths of the exact sciences; and feeling the difficulty he thus had to encounter, he did not recur in his subsequent works to this part of the sceptical theory. Kant seems to have filled up the blank for him, by treating those truths as synthetical intuitions anterior to experience in their abstract existence, though depending on experience in the knowledge of their concrete application; but it may be observed, that at the beginning of sect. 4. of his Inquiry, Hume seems to have nearly anticipated some such principle.

[76:1] "If any impression gives rise to the idea of self, that impression must continue invariably the same, through the whole course of our lives: since self is supposed to exist after that manner. But there is no impression constant and invariable. Pain and pleasure, grief and joy, passions and sensations, succeed each other, and never all exist at the same time. It cannot, therefore, be from any of these impressions, or from any other, that the idea of self is derived; and consequently there is no such idea. . . . . For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call _myself_, I always stumble on some perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch _myself_ at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception."--Treatise, B. i. p. iv. sect. 6.

[81:1] One cannot escape a feeling of astonishment on finding so great a philosopher as Reid saying, (Active Powers, ch. ix.) that on this theory day and night might be called mutually the cause and effect of each other, on account of their mutual sequence: as if the observation of those who have gone so far in civilisation as just to have seen ignited bodies, had not data for concluding that that phenomenon which most uniformly preceded the ramification of rays of light, was the appearance of a luminous body.

[82:1] This refers to the notion, which may now be termed obsolete, at least in philosophy, of an inherent power in the cause to produce the effect--not to Kant's theory, which does not appear to be inconsistent with the scientific application of Hume's.

[84:1] "Scepsis Scientifica; or, Confest Ignorance the Way to Science, in an essay of the vanity of dogmatizing and confident opinion." By Joseph Glanvill, M.A. 1665, 4to, p. 142. See this coincidence commented on in the _Penny Cyclopædia_, art. Scepticism. The style of Glanvill's work, in its rich variety of logical imagery and its powerful use of antithesis, is formed on that of Sir Thomas Browne, whose "Vulgar Errors" had been first published fifteen years earlier. That one who wrote a book so full of wisdom--so bold, original, and firm in its attacks on received fallacies, should also have been the champion of belief in witchcraft, in which his prototype, Sir Thomas Browne, was also a believer, is one of those inconsistencies in poor human nature, which elicit much wonder, but no explanation. The following passages from this curious and rare book are offered for the reader's amusement:--

"We conclude many things impossibilities, which yet are easie _feasables_. For by an unadvised transiliency, leaping from the effect to its remotest cause, we observe not the connexion through the interposal of more immediate causalities, which yet at last bring the extremes together without a miracle. And hereupon we hastily conclude that _impossible_ which we see not in the proximate capacity of its _efficient_."--pp. 83-84.

"From this last-noted head ariseth that other of _joyning causes with irrelevant effects_, which either refer not at all unto them, or in a remoter capacity. Hence the Indian conceived so grossly of the _letter_ that discovered his theft; and that other who thought the watch an _animal_. From hence grew the impostures of _charmes_ and _amulets_, and other insignificant ceremonies; which to this day impose upon common belief, as they did of old upon the _barbarism_ of the uncultivate _heathen_. Thus effects unusual, whose causes run under ground, and are more remote from ordinary discernment, are noted in the book of _vulgar opinion_ with _digitus Deî_, or _Dæmonis_; though they owe no other dependence to the _first_ than what is common to the whole _syntax_ of beings, nor yet any more to the _second_ than what is given it by the imagination of those unqualified judges. Thus, every unwonted _meteor_ is portentous; and the appearance of any unobserved _star_, some divine _prognostick_. Antiquity thought _thunder_ the immediate voyce of _Jupiter_, and impleaded them of impiety that referred it to natural causalities. Neither can there happen a _storm_ at this remove from _antique_ ignorance, but the multitude will have the _Devil_ in it."--pp. 84-85.

_On the Influence of Education._

"We judge all things by our _anticipations_; and condemn or applaud them, as they agree or differ from our _first receptions_. One country laughs at the _laws_, _customs_, and _opinions_ of another as absurd and ridiculous; and the other is as charitable to them in its conceit of theirs."--pp. 93-94.