An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume (a book to read .txt) 📕

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