An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume (good e books to read TXT) 📖
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on which depends the mutual operation of bodies, we are no less ignorant
of that power on which depends the operation of mind on body, or of body
on mind; nor are we able, either from our senses or consciousness, to
assign the ultimate principle in one case more than in the other. The
same ignorance, therefore, reduces them to the same conclusion. They
assert that the Deity is the immediate cause of the union between soul
and body; and that they are not the organs of sense, which, being
agitated by external objects, produce sensations in the mind; but that
it is a particular volition of our omnipotent Maker, which excites such
a sensation, in consequence of such a motion in the organ. In like
manner, it is not any energy in the will that produces local motion in
our members: It is God himself, who is pleased to second our will, in
itself impotent, and to command that motion which we erroneously
attribute to our own power and efficacy. Nor do philosophers stop at
this conclusion. They sometimes extend the same inference to the mind
itself, in its internal operations. Our mental vision or conception of
ideas is nothing but a revelation made to us by our Maker. When we
voluntarily turn our thoughts to any object, and raise up its image in
the fancy, it is not the will which creates that idea: It is the
universal Creator, who discovers it to the mind, and renders it
present to us.
56. Thus, according to these philosophers, every thing is full of God.
Not content with the principle, that nothing exists but by his will,
that nothing possesses any power but by his concession: They rob nature,
and all created beings, of every power, in order to render their
dependence on the Deity still more sensible and immediate. They consider
not that, by this theory, they diminish, instead of magnifying, the
grandeur of those attributes, which they affect so much to celebrate. It
argues surely more power in the Deity to delegate a certain degree of
power to inferior creatures than to produce every thing by his own
immediate volition. It argues more wisdom to contrive at first the
fabric of the world with such perfect foresight that, of itself, and by
its proper operation, it may serve all the purposes of providence, than
if the great Creator were obliged every moment to adjust its parts, and
animate by his breath all the wheels of that stupendous machine.
But if we would have a more philosophical confutation of this theory,
perhaps the two following reflections may suffice.
57. First, it seems to me that this theory of the universal energy and
operation of the Supreme Being is too bold ever to carry conviction with
it to a man, sufficiently apprized of the weakness of human reason, and
the narrow limits to which it is confined in all its operations. Though
the chain of arguments which conduct to it were ever so logical, there
must arise a strong suspicion, if not an absolute assurance, that it has
carried us quite beyond the reach of our faculties, when it leads to
conclusions so extraordinary, and so remote from common life and
experience. We are got into fairy land, long ere we have reached the
last steps of our theory; and there we have no reason to trust our
common methods of argument, or to think that our usual analogies and
probabilities have any authority. Our line is too short to fathom such
immense abysses. And however we may flatter ourselves that we are
guided, in every step which we take, by a kind of verisimilitude and
experience, we may be assured that this fancied experience has no
authority when we thus apply it to subjects that lie entirely out of the
sphere of experience. But on this we shall have occasion to touch
afterwards.[14]
[14] Section XII.
Secondly, I cannot perceive any force in the arguments on which this
theory is founded. We are ignorant, it is true, of the manner in which
bodies operate on each other: Their force or energy is entirely
incomprehensible: But are we not equally ignorant of the manner or force
by which a mind, even the supreme mind, operates either on itself or on
body? Whence, I beseech you, do we acquire any idea of it? We have no
sentiment or consciousness of this power in ourselves. We have no idea
of the Supreme Being but what we learn from reflection on our own
faculties. Were our ignorance, therefore, a good reason for rejecting
any thing, we should be led into that principle of denying all energy in
the Supreme Being as much as in the grossest matter. We surely
comprehend as little the operations of one as of the other. Is it more
difficult to conceive that motion may arise from impulse than that it
may arise from volition? All we know is our profound ignorance in
both cases[15].
[15] I need not examine at length the vis inertiae which is
so much talked of in the new philosophy, and which is ascribed
to matter. We find by experience, that a body at rest or in
motion continues for ever in its present state, till put from
it by some new cause; and that a body impelled takes as much
motion from the impelling body as it acquires itself. These are
facts. When we call this a vis inertiae, we only mark these
facts, without pretending to have any idea of the inert power;
in the same manner as, when we talk of gravity, we mean certain
effects, without comprehending that active power. It was never
the meaning of Sir ISAAC NEWTON to rob second causes of all
force or energy; though some of his followers have endeavoured
to establish that theory upon his authority. On the contrary,
that great philosopher had recourse to an etherial active fluid
to explain his universal attraction; though he was so cautious
and modest as to allow, that it was a mere hypothesis, not to
be insisted on, without more experiments. I must confess, that
there is something in the fate of opinions a little
extraordinary. DES CARTES insinuated that doctrine of the
universal and sole efficacy of the Deity, without insisting on
it. MALEBRANCHE and other CARTESIANS made it the foundation of
all their philosophy. It had, however, no authority in England.
LOCKE, CLARKE, and CUDWORTH, never so much as take notice of
it, but suppose all along, that matter has a real, though
subordinate and derived power. By what means has it become so
prevalent among our modern metaphysicians?
PART II.
58. But to hasten to a conclusion of this argument, which is already
drawn out to too great a length: We have sought in vain for an idea of
power or necessary connexion in all the sources from which we could
suppose it to be derived. It appears that, in single instances of the
operation of bodies, we never can, by our utmost scrutiny, discover any
thing but one event following another, without being able to comprehend
any force or power by which the cause operates, or any connexion between
it and its supposed effect. The same difficulty occurs in contemplating
the operations of mind on body—where we observe the motion of the
latter to follow upon the volition of the former, but are not able to
observe or conceive the tie which binds together the motion and
volition, or the energy by which the mind produces this effect. The
authority of the will over its own faculties and ideas is not a whit
more comprehensible: So that, upon the whole, there appears not,
throughout all nature, any one instance of connexion which is
conceivable by us. All events seem entirely loose and separate. One
event follows another; but we never can observe any tie between them.
They seem conjoined, but never connected. And as we can have no idea
of any thing which never appeared to our outward sense or inward
sentiment, the necessary conclusion seems to be that we have no idea
of connexion or power at all, and that these words are absolutely
without any meaning, when employed either in philosophical reasonings or
common life.
59. But there still remains one method of avoiding this conclusion, and
one source which we have not yet examined. When any natural object or
event is presented, it is impossible for us, by any sagacity or
penetration, to discover, or even conjecture, without experience, what
event will result from it, or to carry our foresight beyond that object
which is immediately present to the memory and senses. Even after one
instance or experiment where we have observed a particular event to
follow upon another, we are not entitled to form a general rule, or
foretell what will happen in like cases; it being justly esteemed an
unpardonable temerity to judge of the whole course of nature from one
single experiment, however accurate or certain. But when one particular
species of event has always, in all instances, been conjoined with
another, we make no longer any scruple of foretelling one upon the
appearance of the other, and of employing that reasoning, which can
alone assure us of any matter of fact or existence. We then call the one
object, Cause; the other, Effect. We suppose that there is some
connexion between them; some power in the one, by which it infallibly
produces the other, and operates with the greatest certainty and
strongest necessity.
It appears, then, that this idea of a necessary connexion among events
arises from a number of similar instances which occur of the constant
conjunction of these events; nor can that idea ever be suggested by any
one of these instances, surveyed in all possible lights and positions.
But there is nothing in a number of instances, different from every
single instance, which is supposed to be exactly similar; except only,
that after a repetition of similar instances, the mind is carried by
habit, upon the appearance of one event, to expect its usual attendant,
and to believe that it will exist. This connexion, therefore, which we
feel in the mind, this customary transition of the imagination from
one object to its usual attendant, is the sentiment or impression from
which we form the idea of power or necessary connexion. Nothing farther
is in the case. Contemplate the subject on all sides; you will never
find any other origin of that idea. This is the sole difference between
one instance, from which we can never receive the idea of connexion, and
a number of similar instances, by which it is suggested. The first time
a man saw the communication of motion by impulse, as by the shock of two
billiard balls, he could not pronounce that the one event was
connected: but only that it was conjoined with the other. After he
has observed several instances of this nature, he then pronounces them
to be connected. What alteration has happened to give rise to this new
idea of connexion? Nothing but that he now feels these events to be
connected in his imagination, and can readily foretell the existence of
one from the appearance of the other. When we say, therefore, that one
object is connected with another, we mean only that they have acquired a
connexion in our thought, and give rise to this inference, by which they
become proofs of each other’s existence: A conclusion which is somewhat
extraordinary, but which seems founded on sufficient evidence. Nor will
its evidence be weakened by any general diffidence of the understanding,
or sceptical suspicion concerning every conclusion which is new and
extraordinary. No conclusions can be more agreeable to scepticism than
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