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

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