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

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