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

unavoidable in every age and nation. This pertinacious bigotry, of which

you complain, as so fatal to philosophy, is really her offspring, who,

after allying with superstition, separates himself entirely from the

interest of his parent, and becomes her most inveterate enemy and

persecutor. Speculative dogmas of religion, the present occasions of

such furious dispute, could not possibly be conceived or admitted in the

early ages of the world; when mankind, being wholly illiterate, formed

an idea of religion more suitable to their weak apprehension, and

composed their sacred tenets of such tales chiefly as were the objects

of traditional belief, more than of argument or disputation. After the

first alarm, therefore, was over, which arose from the new paradoxes and

principles of the philosophers; these teachers seem ever after, during

the ages of antiquity, to have lived in great harmony with the

established superstition, and to have made a fair partition of mankind

between them; the former claiming all the learned and wise, the latter

possessing all the vulgar and illiterate.

103. It seems then, say I, that you leave politics entirely out of the

question, and never suppose, that a wise magistrate can justly be

jealous of certain tenets of philosophy, such as those of Epicurus,

which, denying a divine existence, and consequently a providence and a

future state, seem to loosen, in a great measure, the ties of morality,

and may be supposed, for that reason, pernicious to the peace of

civil society.

I know, replied he, that in fact these persecutions never, in any age,

proceeded from calm reason, or from experience of the pernicious

consequences of philosophy; but arose entirely from passion and

prejudice. But what if I should advance farther, and assert, that if

Epicurus had been accused before the people, by any of the sycophants

or informers of those days, he could easily have defended his cause, and

proved his principles of philosophy to be as salutary as those of his

adversaries, who endeavoured, with such zeal, to expose him to the

public hatred and jealousy?

I wish, said I, you would try your eloquence upon so extraordinary a

topic, and make a speech for Epicurus, which might satisfy, not the mob

of Athens, if you will allow that ancient and polite city to have

contained any mob, but the more philosophical part of his audience, such

as might be supposed capable of comprehending his arguments.

The matter would not be difficult, upon such conditions, replied he: And

if you please, I shall suppose myself Epicurus for a moment, and make

you stand for the Athenian people, and shall deliver you such an

harangue as will fill all the urn with white beans, and leave not a

black one to gratify the malice of my adversaries.

Very well: Pray proceed upon these suppositions.

104. I come hither, O ye Athenians, to justify in your assembly what I

maintained in my school, and I find myself impeached by furious

antagonists, instead of reasoning with calm and dispassionate enquirers.

Your deliberations, which of right should be directed to questions of

public good, and the interest of the commonwealth, are diverted to the

disquisitions of speculative philosophy; and these magnificent, but

perhaps fruitless enquiries, take place of your more familiar but more

useful occupations. But so far as in me lies, I will prevent this abuse.

We shall not here dispute concerning the origin and government of

worlds. We shall only enquire how far such questions concern the public

interest. And if I can persuade you, that they are entirely indifferent

to the peace of society and security of government, I hope that you will

presently send us back to our schools, there to examine, at leisure, the

question the most sublime, but at the same time, the most speculative of

all philosophy.

The religious philosophers, not satisfied with the tradition of your

forefathers, and doctrine of your priests (in which I willingly

acquiesce), indulge a rash curiosity, in trying how far they can

establish religion upon the principles of reason; and they thereby

excite, instead of satisfying, the doubts, which naturally arise from a

diligent and scrutinous enquiry. They paint, in the most magnificent

colours, the order, beauty, and wise arrangement of the universe; and

then ask, if such a glorious display of intelligence could proceed from

the fortuitous concourse of atoms, or if chance could produce what the

greatest genius can never sufficiently admire. I shall not examine the

justness of this argument. I shall allow it to be as solid as my

antagonists and accusers can desire. It is sufficient, if I can prove,

from this very reasoning, that the question is entirely speculative, and

that, when, in my philosophical disquisitions, I deny a providence and a

future state, I undermine not the foundations of society, but advance

principles, which they themselves, upon their own topics, if they argue

consistently, must allow to be solid and satisfactory.

105. You then, who are my accusers, have acknowledged, that the chief or

sole argument for a divine existence (which I never questioned) is

derived from the order of nature; where there appear such marks of

intelligence and design, that you think it extravagant to assign for its

cause, either chance, or the blind and unguided force of matter. You

allow, that this is an argument drawn from effects to causes. From the

order of the work, you infer, that there must have been project and

forethought in the workman. If you cannot make out this point, you

allow, that your conclusion fails; and you pretend not to establish the

conclusion in a greater latitude than the phenomena of nature will

justify. These are your concessions. I desire you to mark the

consequences.

When we infer any particular cause from an effect, we must proportion

the one to the other, and can never be allowed to ascribe to the cause

any qualities, but what are exactly sufficient to produce the effect. A

body of ten ounces raised in any scale may serve as a proof, that the

counterbalancing weight exceeds ten ounces; but can never afford a

reason that it exceeds a hundred. If the cause, assigned for any effect,

be not sufficient to produce it, we must either reject that cause, or

add to it such qualities as will give it a just proportion to the

effect. But if we ascribe to it farther qualities, or affirm it capable

of producing other effects, we can only indulge the licence of

conjecture, and arbitrarily suppose the existence of qualities and

energies, without reason or authority.

The same rule holds, whether the cause assigned be brute unconscious

matter, or a rational intelligent being. If the cause be known only by

the effect, we never ought to ascribe to it any qualities, beyond what

are precisely requisite to produce the effect: Nor can we, by any rules

of just reasoning, return back from the cause, and infer other effects

from it, beyond those by which alone it is known to us. No one, merely

from the sight of one of Zeuxis’s pictures, could know, that he was also

a statuary or architect, and was an artist no less skilful in stone and

marble than in colours. The talents and taste, displayed in the

particular work before us; these we may safely conclude the workman to

be possessed of. The cause must be proportioned to the effect; and if

we exactly and precisely proportion it, we shall never find in it any

qualities, that point farther, or afford an inference concerning any

other design or performance. Such qualities must be somewhat beyond what

is merely requisite for producing the effect, which we examine.

106. Allowing, therefore, the gods to be the authors of the existence or

order of the universe; it follows, that they possess that precise degree

of power, intelligence, and benevolence, which appears in their

workmanship; but nothing farther can ever be proved, except we call in

the assistance of exaggeration and flattery to supply the defects of

argument and reasoning. So far as the traces of any attributes, at

present, appear, so far may we conclude these attributes to exist. The

supposition of farther attributes is mere hypothesis; much more the

supposition, that, in distant regions of space or periods of time, there

has been, or will be, a more magnificent display of these attributes,

and a scheme of administration more suitable to such imaginary virtues.

We can never be allowed to mount up from the universe, the effect, to

Jupiter, the cause; and then descend downwards, to infer any new effect

from that cause; as if the present effects alone were not entirely

worthy of the glorious attributes, which we ascribe to that deity. The

knowledge of the cause being derived solely from the effect, they must

be exactly adjusted to each other; and the one can never refer to

anything farther, or be the foundation of any new inference and

conclusion.

You find certain phenomena in nature. You seek a cause or author. You

imagine that you have found him. You afterwards become so enamoured of

this offspring of your brain, that you imagine it impossible, but he

must produce something greater and more perfect than the present scene

of things, which is so full of ill and disorder. You forget, that this

superlative intelligence and benevolence are entirely imaginary, or, at

least, without any foundation in reason; and that you have no ground to

ascribe to him any qualities, but what you see he has actually exerted

and displayed in his productions. Let your gods, therefore, O

philosophers, be suited to the present appearances of nature: and

presume not to alter these appearances by arbitrary suppositions, in

order to suit them to the attributes, which you so fondly ascribe to

your deities.

107. When priests and poets, supported by your authority, O Athenians,

talk of a golden or silver age, which preceded the present state of vice

and misery, I hear them with attention and with reverence. But when

philosophers, who pretend to neglect authority, and to cultivate reason,

hold the same discourse, I pay them not, I own, the same obsequious

submission and pious deference. I ask; who carried them into the

celestial regions, who admitted them into the councils of the gods, who

opened to them the book of fate, that they thus rashly affirm, that

their deities have executed, or will execute, any purpose beyond what

has actually appeared? If they tell me, that they have mounted on the

steps or by the gradual ascent of reason, and by drawing inferences from

effects to causes, I still insist, that they have aided the ascent of

reason by the wings of imagination; otherwise they could not thus change

their manner of inference, and argue from causes to effects; presuming,

that a more perfect production than the present world would be more

suitable to such perfect beings as the gods, and forgetting that they

have no reason to ascribe to these celestial beings any perfection or

any attribute, but what can be found in the present world.

Hence all the fruitless industry to account for the ill appearances of

nature, and save the honour of the gods; while we must acknowledge the

reality of that evil and disorder, with which the world so much abounds.

The obstinate and intractable qualities of matter, we are told, or the

observance of general laws, or some such reason, is the sole cause,

which controlled the power and benevolence of Jupiter, and obliged him

to create mankind and every sensible creature so imperfect and so

unhappy. These attributes then, are, it seems, beforehand, taken for

granted, in their greatest latitude. And upon that supposition, I own

that such conjectures may, perhaps, be admitted as plausible solutions

of the ill phenomena. But still I ask;