An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume (good e books to read TXT) 📖
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that this experienced uniformity in human actions is a source whence we
draw inferences concerning them. But in order to throw the argument
into a greater variety of lights we shall also insist, though briefly,
on this latter topic.
The mutual dependence of men is so great in all societies that scarce
any human action is entirely complete in itself, or is performed without
some reference to the actions of others, which are requisite to make it
answer fully the intention of the agent. The poorest artificer, who
labours alone, expects at least the protection of the magistrate, to
ensure him the enjoyment of the fruits of his labour. He also expects
that, when he carries his goods to market, and offers them at a
reasonable price, he shall find purchasers, and shall be able, by the
money he acquires, to engage others to supply him with those commodities
which are requisite for his subsistence. In proportion as men extend
their dealings, and render their intercourse with others more
complicated, they always comprehend, in their schemes of life, a greater
variety of voluntary actions, which they expect, from the proper
motives, to co-operate with their own. In all these conclusions they
take their measures from past experience, in the same manner as in their
reasonings concerning external objects; and firmly believe that men, as
well as all the elements, are to continue, in their operations, the same
that they have ever found them. A manufacturer reckons upon the labour
of his servants for the execution of any work as much as upon the tools
which he employs, and would be equally surprised were his expectations
disappointed. In short, this experimental inference and reasoning
concerning the actions of others enters so much into human life that no
man, while awake, is ever a moment without employing it. Have we not
reason, therefore, to affirm that all mankind have always agreed in the
doctrine of necessity according to the foregoing definition and
explication of it?
70. Nor have philosophers ever entertained a different opinion from the
people in this particular. For, not to mention that almost every action
of their life supposes that opinion, there are even few of the
speculative parts of learning to which it is not essential. What would
become of history, had we not a dependence on the veracity of the
historian according to the experience which we have had of mankind? How
could politics be a science, if laws and forms of goverment had not a
uniform influence upon society? Where would be the foundation of
morals, if particular characters had no certain or determinate power
to produce particular sentiments, and if these sentiments had no
constant operation on actions? And with what pretence could we employ
our criticism upon any poet or polite author, if we could not
pronounce the conduct and sentiments of his actors either natural or
unnatural to such characters, and in such circumstances? It seems almost
impossible, therefore, to engage either in science or action of any kind
without acknowledging the doctrine of necessity, and this inference
from motive to voluntary actions, from characters to conduct.
And indeed, when we consider how aptly natural and moral evidence
link together, and form only one chain of argument, we shall make no
scruple to allow that they are of the same nature, and derived from the
same principles. A prisoner who has neither money nor interest,
discovers the impossibility of his escape, as well when he considers the
obstinacy of the gaoler, as the walls and bars with which he is
surrounded; and, in all attempts for his freedom, chooses rather to work
upon the stone and iron of the one, than upon the inflexible nature of
the other. The same prisoner, when conducted to the scaffold, foresees
his death as certainly from the constancy and fidelity of his guards, as
from the operation of the axe or wheel. His mind runs along a certain
train of ideas: The refusal of the soldiers to consent to his escape;
the action of the executioner; the separation of the head and body;
bleeding, convulsive motions, and death. Here is a connected chain of
natural causes and voluntary actions; but the mind feels no difference
between them in passing from one link to another: Nor is less certain of
the future event than if it were connected with the objects present to
the memory or senses, by a train of causes, cemented together by what we
are pleased to call a physical necessity. The same experienced union
has the same effect on the mind, whether the united objects be motives,
volition, and actions; or figure and motion. We may change the name of
things; but their nature and their operation on the understanding
never change.
Were a man, whom I know to be honest and opulent, and with whom I live
in intimate friendship, to come into my house, where I am surrounded
with my servants, I rest assured that he is not to stab me before he
leaves it in order to rob me of my silver standish; and I no more
suspect this event than the falling of the house itself, which is new,
and solidly built and founded._—But he may have been seized with a
sudden and unknown frenzy.—_So may a sudden earthquake arise, and shake
and tumble my house about my ears. I shall therefore change the
suppositions. I shall say that I know with certainty that he is not to
put his hand into the fire and hold it there till it be consumed: And
this event, I think I can foretell with the same assurance, as that, if
he throw himself out at the window, and meet with no obstruction, he
will not remain a moment suspended in the air. No suspicion of an
unknown frenzy can give the least possibility to the former event, which
is so contrary to all the known principles of human nature. A man who at
noon leaves his purse full of gold on the pavement at Charing-Cross, may
as well expect that it will fly away like a feather, as that he will
find it untouched an hour after. Above one half of human reasonings
contain inferences of a similar nature, attended with more or less
degrees of certainty proportioned to our experience of the usual conduct
of mankind in such particular situations.
71. I have frequently considered, what could possibly be the reason why
all mankind, though they have ever, without hesitation, acknowledged the
doctrine of necessity in their whole practice and reasoning, have yet
discovered such a reluctance to acknowledge it in words, and have rather
shown a propensity, in all ages, to profess the contrary opinion. The
matter, I think, may be accounted for after the following manner. If we
examine the operations of body, and the production of effects from their
causes, we shall find that all our faculties can never carry us farther
in our knowledge of this relation than barely to observe that particular
objects are constantly conjoined together, and that the mind is
carried, by a customary transition, from the appearance of one to the
belief of the other. But though this conclusion concerning human
ignorance be the result of the strictest scrutiny of this subject, men
still entertain a strong propensity to believe that they penetrate
farther into the powers of nature, and perceive something like a
necessary connexion between the cause and the effect. When again they
turn their reflections towards the operations of their own minds, and
feel no such connexion of the motive and the action; they are thence
apt to suppose, that there is a difference between the effects which
result from material force, and those which arise from thought and
intelligence. But being once convinced that we know nothing farther of
causation of any kind than merely the constant conjunction of objects,
and the consequent inference of the mind from one to another, and
finding that these two circumstances are universally allowed to have
place in voluntary actions; we may be more easily led to own the same
necessity common to all causes. And though this reasoning may contradict
the systems of many philosophers, in ascribing necessity to the
determinations of the will, we shall find, upon reflection, that they
dissent from it in words only, not in their real sentiment. Necessity,
according to the sense in which it is here taken, has never yet been
rejected, nor can ever, I think, be rejected by any philosopher. It may
only, perhaps, be pretended that the mind can perceive, in the
operations of matter, some farther connexion between the cause and
effect; and connexion that has not place in voluntary actions of
intelligent beings. Now whether it be so or not, can only appear upon
examination; and it is incumbent on these philosophers to make good
their assertion, by denning or describing that necessity, and pointing
it out to us in the operations of material causes.
72. It would seem, indeed, that men begin at the wrong end of this
question concerning liberty and necessity, when they enter upon it by
examining the faculties of the soul, the influence of the understanding,
and the operations of the will. Let them first discuss a more simple
question, namely, the operations of body and of brute unintelligent
matter; and try whether they can there form any idea of causation and
necessity, except that of a constant conjunction of objects, and
subsequent inference of the mind from one to another. If these
circumstances form, in reality, the whole of that necessity, which we
conceive in matter, and if these circumstances be also universally
acknowledged to take place in the operations of the mind, the dispute is
at an end; at least, must be owned to be thenceforth merely verbal. But
as long as we will rashly suppose, that we have some farther idea of
necessity and causation in the operations of external objects; at the
same time, that we can find nothing farther in the voluntary actions of
the mind; there is no possibility of bringing the question to any
determinate issue, while we proceed upon so erroneous a supposition. The
only method of undeceiving us is to mount up higher; to examine the
narrow extent of science when applied to material causes; and to
convince ourselves that all we know of them is the constant conjunction
and inference above mentioned. We may, perhaps, find that it is with
difficulty we are induced to fix such narrow limits to human
understanding: But we can afterwards find no difficulty when we come to
apply this doctrine to the actions of the will. For as it is evident
that these have a regular conjunction with motives and circumstances and
characters, and as we always draw inferences from one to the other, we
must be obliged to acknowledge in words that necessity, which we have
already avowed, in every deliberation of our lives, and in every step of
our conduct and behaviour.[17]
[17] The prevalence of the doctrine of liberty may be accounted
for, from another cause, viz. a false sensation or seeming
experience which we have, or may have, of liberty or
indifference, in many of our actions. The necessity of any
action, whether of matter or of mind, is not, properly
speaking, a quality in the agent, but in any thinking or
intelligent being, who may consider the action; and it consists
chiefly in the determination of his thoughts to infer the
existence of that action from some preceding objects; as
liberty, when opposed to necessity, is nothing but the want of
that determination, and a certain looseness or indifference,
which we feel, in passing, or not passing, from the idea of one
object to that of any succeeding one. Now we
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