An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume (good e books to read TXT) 📖
- Author: David Hume
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granted, or why ascribe to the cause any qualities but what actually
appear in the effect? Why torture your brain to justify the course of
nature upon suppositions, which, for aught you know, may be entirely
imaginary, and of which there are to be found no traces in the course
of nature?
The religious hypothesis, therefore, must be considered only as a
particular method of accounting for the visible phenomena of the
universe: but no just reasoner will ever presume to infer from it any
single fact, and alter or add to the phenomena, in any single
particular. If you think, that the appearances of things prove such
causes, it is allowable for you to draw an inference concerning the
existence of these causes. In such complicated and sublime subjects,
every one should be indulged in the liberty of conjecture and argument.
But here you ought to rest. If you come backward, and arguing from your
inferred causes, conclude, that any other fact has existed, or will
exist, in the course of nature, which may serve as a fuller display of
particular attributes; I must admonish you, that you have departed from
the method of reasoning, attached to the present subject, and have
certainly added something to the attributes of the cause, beyond what
appears in the effect; otherwise you could never, with tolerable sense
or propriety, add anything to the effect, in order to render it more
worthy of the cause.
108. Where, then, is the odiousness of that doctrine, which I teach in
my school, or rather, which I examine in my gardens? Or what do you find
in this whole question, wherein the security of good morals, or the
peace and order of society, is in the least concerned?
I deny a providence, you say, and supreme governor of the world, who
guides the course of events, and punishes the vicious with infamy and
disappointment, and rewards the virtuous with honour and success, in all
their undertakings. But surely, I deny not the course itself of events,
which lies open to every one’s inquiry and examination. I acknowledge,
that, in the present order of things, virtue is attended with more peace
of mind than vice, and meets with a more favourable reception from the
world. I am sensible, that, according to the past experience of mankind,
friendship is the chief joy of human life, and moderation the only
source of tranquillity and happiness. I never balance between the
virtuous and the vicious course of life; but am sensible, that, to a
well-disposed mind, every advantage is on the side of the former. And
what can you say more, allowing all your suppositions and reasonings?
You tell me, indeed, that this disposition of things proceeds from
intelligence and design. But whatever it proceeds from, the disposition
itself, on which depends our happiness or misery, and consequently our
conduct and deportment in life is still the same. It is still open for
me, as well as you, to regulate my behaviour, by my experience of past
events. And if you affirm, that, while a divine providence is allowed,
and a supreme distributive justice in the universe, I ought to expect
some more particular reward of the good, and punishment of the bad,
beyond the ordinary course of events; I here find the same fallacy,
which I have before endeavoured to detect. You persist in imagining,
that, if we grant that divine existence, for which you so earnestly
contend, you may safely infer consequences from it, and add something
to the experienced order of nature, by arguing from the attributes which
you ascribe to your gods. You seem not to remember, that all your
reasonings on this subject can only be drawn from effects to causes; and
that every argument, deducted from causes to effects, must of necessity
be a gross sophism; since it is impossible for you to know anything of
the cause, but what you have antecedently, not inferred, but discovered
to the full, in the effect.
109. But what must a philosopher think of those vain reasoners, who,
instead of regarding the present scene of things as the sole object of
their contemplation, so far reverse the whole course of nature, as to
render this life merely a passage to something farther; a porch, which
leads to a greater, and vastly different building; a prologue, which
serves only to introduce the piece, and give it more grace and
propriety? Whence, do you think, can such philosophers derive their idea
of the gods? From their own conceit and imagination surely. For if they
derived it from the present phenomena, it would never point to anything
farther, but must be exactly adjusted to them. That the divinity may
possibly be endowed with attributes, which we have never seen exerted;
may be governed by principles of action, which we cannot discover to be
satisfied: all this will freely be allowed. But still this is mere
possibility and hypothesis. We never can have reason to infer any
attributes, or any principles of action in him, but so far as we know
them to have been exerted and satisfied.
Are there any marks of a distributive justice in the world? If you
answer in the affirmative, I conclude, that, since justice here exerts
itself, it is satisfied. If you reply in the negative, I conclude, that
you have then no reason to ascribe justice, in our sense of it, to the
gods. If you hold a medium between affirmation and negation, by saying,
that the justice of the gods, at present, exerts itself in part, but not
in its full extent; I answer, that you have no reason to give it any
particular extent, but only so far as you see it, at present,
exert itself.
110. Thus I bring the dispute, O Athenians, to a short issue with my
antagonists. The course of nature lies open to my contemplation as well
as to theirs. The experienced train of events is the great standard, by
which we all regulate our conduct. Nothing else can be appealed to in
the field, or in the senate. Nothing else ought ever to be heard of in
the school, or in the closet. In vain would our limited understanding
break through those boundaries, which are too narrow for our fond
imagination. While we argue from the course of nature, and infer a
particular intelligent cause, which first bestowed, and still preserves
order in the universe, we embrace a principle, which is both uncertain
and useless. It is uncertain; because the subject lies entirely beyond
the reach of human experience. It is useless; because our knowledge of
this cause being derived entirely from the course of nature, we can
never, according to the rules of just reasoning, return back from the
cause with any new inference, or making additions to the common and
experienced course of nature, establish any new principles of conduct
and behaviour.
111. I observe (said I, finding he had finished his harangue) that you
neglect not the artifice of the demagogues of old; and as you were
pleased to make me stand for the people, you insinuate yourself into my
favour by embracing those principles, to which, you know, I have always
expressed a particular attachment. But allowing you to make experience
(as indeed I think you ought) the only standard of our judgement
concerning this, and all other questions of fact; I doubt not but, from
the very same experience, to which you appeal, it may be possible to
refute this reasoning, which you have put into the mouth of Epicurus.
If you saw, for instance, a half-finished building, surrounded with
heaps of brick and stone and mortar, and all the instruments of masonry;
could you not infer from the effect, that it was a work of design and
contrivance? And could you not return again, from this inferred cause,
to infer new additions to the effect, and conclude, that the building
would soon be finished, and receive all the further improvements, which
art could bestow upon it? If you saw upon the sea-shore the print of one
human foot, you would conclude, that a man had passed that way, and that
he had also left the traces of the other foot, though effaced by the
rolling of the sands or inundation of the waters. Why then do you refuse
to admit the same method of reasoning with regard to the order of
nature? Consider the world and the present life only as an imperfect
building, from which you can infer a superior intelligence; and arguing
from that superior intelligence, which can leave nothing imperfect; why
may you not infer a more finished scheme or plan, which will receive its
completion in some distant point of space or time? Are not these methods
of reasoning exactly similar? And under what pretence can you embrace
the one, while you reject the other?
112. The infinite difference of the subjects, replied he, is a
sufficient foundation for this difference in my conclusions. In works of
human art and contrivance, it is allowable to advance from the effect
to the cause, and returning back from the cause, to form new inferences
concerning the effect, and examine the alterations, which it has
probably undergone, or may still undergo. But what is the foundation of
this method of reasoning? Plainly this; that man is a being, whom we
know by experience, whose motives and designs we are acquainted with,
and whose projects and inclinations have a certain connexion and
coherence, according to the laws which nature has established for the
government of such a creature. When, therefore, we find, that any work
has proceeded from the skill and industry of man; as we are otherwise
acquainted with the nature of the animal, we can draw a hundred
inferences concerning what may be expected from him; and these
inferences will all be founded in experience and observation. But did we
know man only from the single work or production which we examine, it
were impossible for us to argue in this manner; because our knowledge of
all the qualities, which we ascribe to him, being in that case derived
from the production, it is impossible they could point to anything
farther, or be the foundation of any new inference. The print of a foot
in the sand can only prove, when considered alone, that there was some
figure adapted to it, by which it was produced: but the print of a human
foot proves likewise, from our other experience, that there was probably
another foot, which also left its impression, though effaced by time or
other accidents. Here we mount from the effect to the cause; and
descending again from the cause, infer alterations in the effect; but
this is not a continuation of the same simple chain of reasoning. We
comprehend in this case a hundred other experiences and observations,
concerning the usual figure and members of that species of animal,
without which this method of argument must be considered as fallacious
and sophistical.
113. The case is not the same with our reasonings from the works of
nature. The Deity is known to us only by his productions, and is a
single being in the universe, not comprehended under any species or
genus, from whose experienced attributes or qualities, we can, by
analogy, infer any attribute or quality in him. As the universe shews
wisdom and goodness, we infer wisdom and goodness. As it shews a
particular degree of these perfections, we infer a particular degree of
them, precisely adapted to the effect which we examine. But farther
attributes or farther degrees of the same attributes, we can never be
authorised to infer or suppose, by any rules of just reasoning. Now,
without some such licence of supposition, it is impossible for us to
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