An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume (good e books to read TXT) 📖
- Author: David Hume
- Performer: -
Book online «An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume (good e books to read TXT) 📖». Author David Hume
this we are so far from being immediately conscious, that it must for
ever escape our most diligent enquiry.
For first; is there any principle in all nature more mysterious than
the union of soul with body; by which a supposed spiritual substance
acquires such an influence over a material one, that the most refined
thought is able to actuate the grossest matter? Were we empowered, by a
secret wish, to remove mountains, or control the planets in their orbit;
this extensive authority would not be more extraordinary, nor more
beyond our comprehension. But if by consciousness we perceived any power
or energy in the will, we must know this power; we must know its
connexion with the effect; we must know the secret union of soul and
body, and the nature of both these substances; by which the one is able
to operate, in so many instances, upon the other.
Secondly, We are not able to move all the organs of the body with a
like authority; though we cannot assign any reason besides experience,
for so remarkable a difference between one and the other. Why has the
will an influence over the tongue and fingers, not over the heart or
liver? This question would never embarrass us, were we conscious of a
power in the former case, not in the latter. We should then perceive,
independent of experience, why the authority of will over the organs of
the body is circumscribed within such particular limits. Being in that
case fully acquainted with the power or force, by which it operates, we
should also know, why its influence reaches precisely to such
boundaries, and no farther.
A man, suddenly struck with palsy in the leg or arm, or who had newly
lost those members, frequently endeavours, at first to move them, and
employ them in their usual offices. Here he is as much conscious of
power to command such limbs, as a man in perfect health is conscious of
power to actuate any member which remains in its natural state and
condition. But consciousness never deceives. Consequently, neither in
the one case nor in the other, are we ever conscious of any power. We
learn the influence of our will from experience alone. And experience
only teaches us, how one event constantly follows another; without
instructing us in the secret connexion, which binds them together, and
renders them inseparable.
Thirdly, We learn from anatomy, that the immediate object of power in
voluntary motion, is not the member itself which is moved, but certain
muscles, and nerves, and animal spirits, and, perhaps, something still
more minute and more unknown, through which the motion is successively
propagated, ere it reach the member itself whose motion is the immediate
object of volition. Can there be a more certain proof, that the power,
by which this whole operation is performed, so far from being directly
and fully known by an inward sentiment or consciousness, is, to the last
degree mysterious and unintelligible? Here the mind wills a certain
event: Immediately another event, unknown to ourselves, and totally
different from the one intended, is produced: This event produces
another, equally unknown: Till at last, through a long succession, the
desired event is produced. But if the original power were felt, it must
be known: Were it known, its effect also must be known; since all power
is relative to its effect. And vice versa, if the effect be not known,
the power cannot be known nor felt. How indeed can we be conscious of a
power to move our limbs, when we have no such power; but only that to
move certain animal spirits, which, though they produce at last the
motion of our limbs, yet operate in such a manner as is wholly beyond
our comprehension?
We may, therefore, conclude from the whole, I hope, without any
temerity, though with assurance; that our idea of power is not copied
from any sentiment or consciousness of power within ourselves, when we
give rise to animal motion, or apply our limbs to their proper use and
office. That their motion follows the command of the will is a matter of
common experience, like other natural events: But the power or energy by
which this is effected, like that in other natural events, is unknown
and inconceivable.[12]
[12] It may be pretended, that the resistance which we meet
with in bodies, obliging us frequently to exert our force, and
call up all our power, this gives us the idea of force and
power. It is this nisus, or strong endeavour, of which we are
conscious, that is the original impression from which this idea
is copied. But, first, we attribute power to a vast number of
objects, where we never can suppose this resistance or exertion
of force to take place; to the Supreme Being, who never meets
with any resistance; to the mind in its command over its ideas
and limbs, in common thinking and motion, where the effect
follows immediately upon the will, without any exertion or
summoning up of force; to inanimate matter, which is not
capable of this sentiment. Secondly, This sentiment of an
endeavour to overcome resistance has no known connexion with
any event: What follows it, we know by experience; but could
not know it � priori. It must, however, be confessed, that
the animal nisus, which we experience, though it can afford
no accurate precise idea of power, enters very much into that
vulgar, inaccurate idea, which is formed of it.
53. Shall we then assert, that we are conscious of a power or energy in
our own minds, when, by an act or command of our will, we raise up a new
idea, fix the mind to the contemplation of it, turn it on all sides, and
at last dismiss it for some other idea, when we think that we have
surveyed it with sufficient accuracy? I believe the same arguments will
prove, that even this command of the will gives us no real idea of force
or energy.
First, It must be allowed, that, when we know a power, we know that
very circumstance in the cause, by which it is enabled to produce the
effect: For these are supposed to be synonimous. We must, therefore,
know both the cause and effect, and the relation between them. But do we
pretend to be acquainted with the nature of the human soul and the
nature of an idea, or the aptitude of the one to produce the other? This
is a real creation; a production of something out of nothing: Which
implies a power so great, that it may seem, at first sight, beyond the
reach of any being, less than infinite. At least it must be owned, that
such a power is not felt, nor known, nor even conceivable by the mind.
We only feel the event, namely, the existence of an idea, consequent to
a command of the will: But the manner, in which this operation is
performed, the power by which it is produced, is entirely beyond our
comprehension.
Secondly, The command of the mind over itself is limited, as well as
its command over the body; and these limits are not known by reason, or
any acquaintance with the nature of cause and effect, but only by
experience and observation, as in all other natural events and in the
operation of external objects. Our authority over our sentiments and
passions is much weaker than that over our ideas; and even the latter
authority is circumscribed within very narrow boundaries. Will any one
pretend to assign the ultimate reason of these boundaries, or show why
the power is deficient in one case, not in another.
Thirdly, This self-command is very different at different times. A man
in health possesses more of it than one languishing with sickness. We
are more master of our thoughts in the morning than in the evening:
Fasting, than after a full meal. Can we give any reason for these
variations, except experience? Where then is the power, of which we
pretend to be conscious? Is there not here, either in a spiritual or
material substance, or both, some secret mechanism or structure of
parts, upon which the effect depends, and which, being entirely unknown
to us, renders the power or energy of the will equally unknown and
incomprehensible?
Volition is surely an act of the mind, with which we are sufficiently
acquainted. Reflect upon it. Consider it on all sides. Do you find
anything in it like this creative power, by which it raises from nothing
a new idea, and with a kind of Fiat, imitates the omnipotence of its
Maker, if I may be allowed so to speak, who called forth into existence
all the various scenes of nature? So far from being conscious of this
energy in the will, it requires as certain experience as that of which
we are possessed, to convince us that such extraordinary effects do ever
result from a simple act of volition.
54. The generality of mankind never find any difficulty in accounting
for the more common and familiar operations of nature—such as the
descent of heavy bodies, the growth of plants, the generation of
animals, or the nourishment of bodies by food: But suppose that, in all
these cases, they perceive the very force or energy of the cause, by
which it is connected with its effect, and is for ever infallible in its
operation. They acquire, by long habit, such a turn of mind, that, upon
the appearance of the cause, they immediately expect with assurance its
usual attendant, and hardly conceive it possible that any other event
could result from it. It is only on the discovery of extraordinary
phaenomena, such as earthquakes, pestilence, and prodigies of any kind,
that they find themselves at a loss to assign a proper cause, and to
explain the manner in which the effect is produced by it. It is usual
for men, in such difficulties, to have recourse to some invisible
intelligent principle[13] as the immediate cause of that event which
surprises them, and which, they think, cannot be accounted for from the
common powers of nature. But philosophers, who carry their scrutiny a
little farther, immediately perceive that, even in the most familiar
events, the energy of the cause is as unintelligible as in the most
unusual, and that we only learn by experience the frequent Conjunction
of objects, without being ever able to comprehend anything like
Connexion between them.
[13] [Greek: theos apo maechanaes.]
55. Here, then, many philosophers think themselves obliged by reason to
have recourse, on all occasions, to the same principle, which the vulgar
never appeal to but in cases that appear miraculous and supernatural.
They acknowledge mind and intelligence to be, not only the ultimate and
original cause of all things, but the immediate and sole cause of every
event which appears in nature. They pretend that those objects which are
commonly denominated causes, are in reality nothing but occasions;
and that the true and direct principle of every effect is not any power
or force in nature, but a volition of the Supreme Being, who wills that
such particular objects should for ever be conjoined with each other.
Instead of saying that one billiard-ball moves another by a force which
it has derived from the author of nature, it is the Deity himself, they
say, who, by a particular volition, moves the second ball, being
determined to this operation by the impulse of the first ball, in
consequence of those general laws which he has laid down to himself in
the government of the universe. But philosophers advancing still in
their inquiries, discover that, as we
Comments (0)