An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume (good e books to read TXT) 📖
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after this manner, in infinitum, you must at last terminate in some
fact, which is present to your memory or senses; or must allow that your
belief is entirely without foundation.
38. What, then, is the conclusion of the whole matter? A simple one;
though, it must be confessed, pretty remote from the common theories of
philosophy. All belief of matter of fact or real existence is derived
merely from some object, present to the memory or senses, and a
customary conjunction between that and some other object. Or in other
words; having found, in many instances, that any two kinds of
objects—flame and heat, snow and cold—have always been conjoined
together; if flame or snow be presented anew to the senses, the mind is
carried by custom to expect heat or cold, and to believe that such a
quality does exist, and will discover itself upon a nearer approach.
This belief is the necessary result of placing the mind in such
circumstances. It is an operation of the soul, when we are so situated,
as unavoidable as to feel the passion of love, when we receive benefits;
or hatred, when we meet with injuries. All these operations are a
species of natural instincts, which no reasoning or process of the
thought and understanding is able either to produce or to prevent.
At this point, it would be very allowable for us to stop our
philosophical researches. In most questions we can never make a single
step farther; and in all questions we must terminate here at last, after
our most restless and curious enquiries. But still our curiosity will be
pardonable, perhaps commendable, if it carry us on to still farther
researches, and make us examine more accurately the nature of this
belief, and of the customary conjunction, whence it is derived. By
this means we may meet with some explications and analogies that will
give satisfaction; at least to such as love the abstract sciences, and
can be entertained with speculations, which, however accurate, may still
retain a degree of doubt and uncertainty. As to readers of a different
taste; the remaining part of this section is not calculated for them,
and the following enquiries may well be understood, though it be
neglected.
PART II.
39. Nothing is more free than the imagination of man; and though it
cannot exceed that original stock of ideas furnished by the internal and
external senses, it has unlimited power of mixing, compounding,
separating, and dividing these ideas, in all the varieties of fiction
and vision. It can feign a train of events, with all the appearance of
reality, ascribe to them a particular time and place, conceive them as
existent, and paint them out to itself with every circumstance, that
belongs to any historical fact, which it believes with the greatest
certainty. Wherein, therefore, consists the difference between such a
fiction and belief? It lies not merely in any peculiar idea, which is
annexed to such a conception as commands our assent, and which is
wanting to every known fiction. For as the mind has authority over all
its ideas, it could voluntarily annex this particular idea to any
fiction, and consequently be able to believe whatever it pleases;
contrary to what we find by daily experience. We can, in our conception,
join the head of a man to the body of a horse; but it is not in our
power to believe that such an animal has ever really existed.
It follows, therefore, that the difference between fiction and
belief lies in some sentiment or feeling, which is annexed to the
latter, not to the former, and which depends not on the will, nor can be
commanded at pleasure. It must be excited by nature, like all other
sentiments; and must arise from the particular situation, in which the
mind is placed at any particular juncture. Whenever any object is
presented to the memory or senses, it immediately, by the force of
custom, carries the imagination to conceive that object, which is
usually conjoined to it; and this conception is attended with a feeling
or sentiment, different from the loose reveries of the fancy. In this
consists the whole nature of belief. For as there is no matter of fact
which we believe so firmly that we cannot conceive the contrary, there
would be no difference between the conception assented to and that which
is rejected, were it not for some sentiment which distinguishes the one
from the other. If I see a billiard-ball moving towards another, on a
smooth table, I can easily conceive it to stop upon contact. This
conception implies no contradiction; but still it feels very differently
from that conception by which I represent to myself the impulse and the
communication of motion from one ball to another.
40. Were we to attempt a definition of this sentiment, we should,
perhaps, find it a very difficult, if not an impossible task; in the
same manner as if we should endeavour to define the feeling of cold or
passion of anger, to a creature who never had any experience of these
sentiments. Belief is the true and proper name of this feeling; and no
one is ever at a loss to know the meaning of that term; because every
man is every moment conscious of the sentiment represented by it. It may
not, however, be improper to attempt a description of this sentiment;
in hopes we may, by that means, arrive at some analogies, which may
afford a more perfect explication of it. I say, then, that belief is
nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of
an object, than what the imagination alone is ever able to attain. This
variety of terms, which may seem so unphilosophical, is intended only to
express that act of the mind, which renders realities, or what is taken
for such, more present to us than fictions, causes them to weigh more in
the thought, and gives them a superior influence on the passions and
imagination. Provided we agree about the thing, it is needless to
dispute about the terms. The imagination has the command over all its
ideas, and can join and mix and vary them, in all the ways possible. It
may conceive fictitious objects with all the circumstances of place and
time. It may set them, in a manner, before our eyes, in their true
colours, just as they might have existed. But as it is impossible that
this faculty of imagination can ever, of itself, reach belief, it is
evident that belief consists not in the peculiar nature or order of
ideas, but in the manner of their conception, and in their feeling
to the mind. I confess, that it is impossible perfectly to explain this
feeling or manner of conception. We may make use of words which express
something near it. But its true and proper name, as we observed before,
is belief; which is a term that every one sufficiently understands in
common life. And in philosophy, we can go no farther than assert, that
belief is something felt by the mind, which distinguishes the ideas of
the judgement from the fictions of the imagination. It gives them more
weight and influence; makes them appear of greater importance; enforces
them in the mind; and renders them the governing principle of our
actions. I hear at present, for instance, a person’s voice, with whom I
am acquainted; and the sound comes as from the next room. This
impression of my senses immediately conveys my thought to the person,
together with all the surrounding objects. I paint them out to myself as
existing at present, with the same qualities and relations, of which I
formerly knew them possessed. These ideas take faster hold of my mind
than ideas of an enchanted castle. They are very different to the
feeling, and have a much greater influence of every kind, either to give
pleasure or pain, joy or sorrow.
Let us, then, take in the whole compass of this doctrine, and allow,
that the sentiment of belief is nothing but a conception more intense
and steady than what attends the mere fictions of the imagination, and
that this manner of conception arises from a customary conjunction of
the object with something present to the memory or senses: I believe
that it will not be difficult, upon these suppositions, to find other
operations of the mind analogous to it, and to trace up these phenomena
to principles still more general.
41. We have already observed that nature has established connexions
among particular ideas, and that no sooner one idea occurs to our
thoughts than it introduces its correlative, and carries our attention
towards it, by a gentle and insensible movement. These principles of
connexion or association we have reduced to three, namely,
Resemblance, Contiguity and Causation; which are the only bonds
that unite our thoughts together, and beget that regular train of
reflection or discourse, which, in a greater or less degree, takes place
among all mankind. Now here arises a question, on which the solution of
the present difficulty will depend. Does it happen, in all these
relations, that, when one of the objects is presented to the senses or
memory, the mind is not only carried to the conception of the
correlative, but reaches a steadier and stronger conception of it than
what otherwise it would have been able to attain? This seems to be the
case with that belief which arises from the relation of cause and
effect. And if the case be the same with the other relations or
principles of associations, this may be established as a general law,
which takes place in all the operations of the mind.
We may, therefore, observe, as the first experiment to our present
purpose, that, upon the appearance of the picture of an absent friend,
our idea of him is evidently enlivened by the resemblance, and that
every passion, which that idea occasions, whether of joy or sorrow,
acquires new force and vigour. In producing this effect, there concur
both a relation and a present impression. Where the picture bears him no
resemblance, at least was not intended for him, it never so much as
conveys our thought to him: And where it is absent, as well as the
person, though the mind may pass from the thought of the one to that of
the other, it feels its idea to be rather weakened than enlivened by
that transition. We take a pleasure in viewing the picture of a friend,
when it is set before us; but when it is removed, rather choose to
consider him directly than by reflection in an image, which is equally
distant and obscure.
The ceremonies of the Roman Catholic religion may be considered as
instances of the same nature. The devotees of that superstition usually
plead in excuse for the mummeries, with which they are upbraided, that
they feel the good effect of those external motions, and postures, and
actions, in enlivening their devotion and quickening their fervour,
which otherwise would decay, if directed entirely to distant and
immaterial objects. We shadow out the objects of our faith, say they, in
sensible types and images, and render them more present to us by the
immediate presence of these types, than it is possible for us to do
merely by an intellectual view and contemplation. Sensible objects have
always a greater influence on the fancy than any other; and this
influence they readily convey to those ideas to which they are related,
and which they resemble. I shall only infer from these practices, and
this reasoning, that the effect of resemblance in enlivening the ideas
is very common; and as in every case a resemblance and a present
impression must
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