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

granted, or why ascribe to the cause any qualities but what actually

appear in the effect? Why torture your brain to justify the course of

nature upon suppositions, which, for aught you know, may be entirely

imaginary, and of which there are to be found no traces in the course

of nature?

The religious hypothesis, therefore, must be considered only as a

particular method of accounting for the visible phenomena of the

universe: but no just reasoner will ever presume to infer from it any

single fact, and alter or add to the phenomena, in any single

particular. If you think, that the appearances of things prove such

causes, it is allowable for you to draw an inference concerning the

existence of these causes. In such complicated and sublime subjects,

every one should be indulged in the liberty of conjecture and argument.

But here you ought to rest. If you come backward, and arguing from your

inferred causes, conclude, that any other fact has existed, or will

exist, in the course of nature, which may serve as a fuller display of

particular attributes; I must admonish you, that you have departed from

the method of reasoning, attached to the present subject, and have

certainly added something to the attributes of the cause, beyond what

appears in the effect; otherwise you could never, with tolerable sense

or propriety, add anything to the effect, in order to render it more

worthy of the cause.

108. Where, then, is the odiousness of that doctrine, which I teach in

my school, or rather, which I examine in my gardens? Or what do you find

in this whole question, wherein the security of good morals, or the

peace and order of society, is in the least concerned?

I deny a providence, you say, and supreme governor of the world, who

guides the course of events, and punishes the vicious with infamy and

disappointment, and rewards the virtuous with honour and success, in all

their undertakings. But surely, I deny not the course itself of events,

which lies open to every one’s inquiry and examination. I acknowledge,

that, in the present order of things, virtue is attended with more peace

of mind than vice, and meets with a more favourable reception from the

world. I am sensible, that, according to the past experience of mankind,

friendship is the chief joy of human life, and moderation the only

source of tranquillity and happiness. I never balance between the

virtuous and the vicious course of life; but am sensible, that, to a

well-disposed mind, every advantage is on the side of the former. And

what can you say more, allowing all your suppositions and reasonings?

You tell me, indeed, that this disposition of things proceeds from

intelligence and design. But whatever it proceeds from, the disposition

itself, on which depends our happiness or misery, and consequently our

conduct and deportment in life is still the same. It is still open for

me, as well as you, to regulate my behaviour, by my experience of past

events. And if you affirm, that, while a divine providence is allowed,

and a supreme distributive justice in the universe, I ought to expect

some more particular reward of the good, and punishment of the bad,

beyond the ordinary course of events; I here find the same fallacy,

which I have before endeavoured to detect. You persist in imagining,

that, if we grant that divine existence, for which you so earnestly

contend, you may safely infer consequences from it, and add something

to the experienced order of nature, by arguing from the attributes which

you ascribe to your gods. You seem not to remember, that all your

reasonings on this subject can only be drawn from effects to causes; and

that every argument, deducted from causes to effects, must of necessity

be a gross sophism; since it is impossible for you to know anything of

the cause, but what you have antecedently, not inferred, but discovered

to the full, in the effect.

109. But what must a philosopher think of those vain reasoners, who,

instead of regarding the present scene of things as the sole object of

their contemplation, so far reverse the whole course of nature, as to

render this life merely a passage to something farther; a porch, which

leads to a greater, and vastly different building; a prologue, which

serves only to introduce the piece, and give it more grace and

propriety? Whence, do you think, can such philosophers derive their idea

of the gods? From their own conceit and imagination surely. For if they

derived it from the present phenomena, it would never point to anything

farther, but must be exactly adjusted to them. That the divinity may

possibly be endowed with attributes, which we have never seen exerted;

may be governed by principles of action, which we cannot discover to be

satisfied: all this will freely be allowed. But still this is mere

possibility and hypothesis. We never can have reason to infer any

attributes, or any principles of action in him, but so far as we know

them to have been exerted and satisfied.

Are there any marks of a distributive justice in the world? If you

answer in the affirmative, I conclude, that, since justice here exerts

itself, it is satisfied. If you reply in the negative, I conclude, that

you have then no reason to ascribe justice, in our sense of it, to the

gods. If you hold a medium between affirmation and negation, by saying,

that the justice of the gods, at present, exerts itself in part, but not

in its full extent; I answer, that you have no reason to give it any

particular extent, but only so far as you see it, at present,

exert itself.

110. Thus I bring the dispute, O Athenians, to a short issue with my

antagonists. The course of nature lies open to my contemplation as well

as to theirs. The experienced train of events is the great standard, by

which we all regulate our conduct. Nothing else can be appealed to in

the field, or in the senate. Nothing else ought ever to be heard of in

the school, or in the closet. In vain would our limited understanding

break through those boundaries, which are too narrow for our fond

imagination. While we argue from the course of nature, and infer a

particular intelligent cause, which first bestowed, and still preserves

order in the universe, we embrace a principle, which is both uncertain

and useless. It is uncertain; because the subject lies entirely beyond

the reach of human experience. It is useless; because our knowledge of

this cause being derived entirely from the course of nature, we can

never, according to the rules of just reasoning, return back from the

cause with any new inference, or making additions to the common and

experienced course of nature, establish any new principles of conduct

and behaviour.

111. I observe (said I, finding he had finished his harangue) that you

neglect not the artifice of the demagogues of old; and as you were

pleased to make me stand for the people, you insinuate yourself into my

favour by embracing those principles, to which, you know, I have always

expressed a particular attachment. But allowing you to make experience

(as indeed I think you ought) the only standard of our judgement

concerning this, and all other questions of fact; I doubt not but, from

the very same experience, to which you appeal, it may be possible to

refute this reasoning, which you have put into the mouth of Epicurus.

If you saw, for instance, a half-finished building, surrounded with

heaps of brick and stone and mortar, and all the instruments of masonry;

could you not infer from the effect, that it was a work of design and

contrivance? And could you not return again, from this inferred cause,

to infer new additions to the effect, and conclude, that the building

would soon be finished, and receive all the further improvements, which

art could bestow upon it? If you saw upon the sea-shore the print of one

human foot, you would conclude, that a man had passed that way, and that

he had also left the traces of the other foot, though effaced by the

rolling of the sands or inundation of the waters. Why then do you refuse

to admit the same method of reasoning with regard to the order of

nature? Consider the world and the present life only as an imperfect

building, from which you can infer a superior intelligence; and arguing

from that superior intelligence, which can leave nothing imperfect; why

may you not infer a more finished scheme or plan, which will receive its

completion in some distant point of space or time? Are not these methods

of reasoning exactly similar? And under what pretence can you embrace

the one, while you reject the other?

112. The infinite difference of the subjects, replied he, is a

sufficient foundation for this difference in my conclusions. In works of

human art and contrivance, it is allowable to advance from the effect

to the cause, and returning back from the cause, to form new inferences

concerning the effect, and examine the alterations, which it has

probably undergone, or may still undergo. But what is the foundation of

this method of reasoning? Plainly this; that man is a being, whom we

know by experience, whose motives and designs we are acquainted with,

and whose projects and inclinations have a certain connexion and

coherence, according to the laws which nature has established for the

government of such a creature. When, therefore, we find, that any work

has proceeded from the skill and industry of man; as we are otherwise

acquainted with the nature of the animal, we can draw a hundred

inferences concerning what may be expected from him; and these

inferences will all be founded in experience and observation. But did we

know man only from the single work or production which we examine, it

were impossible for us to argue in this manner; because our knowledge of

all the qualities, which we ascribe to him, being in that case derived

from the production, it is impossible they could point to anything

farther, or be the foundation of any new inference. The print of a foot

in the sand can only prove, when considered alone, that there was some

figure adapted to it, by which it was produced: but the print of a human

foot proves likewise, from our other experience, that there was probably

another foot, which also left its impression, though effaced by time or

other accidents. Here we mount from the effect to the cause; and

descending again from the cause, infer alterations in the effect; but

this is not a continuation of the same simple chain of reasoning. We

comprehend in this case a hundred other experiences and observations,

concerning the usual figure and members of that species of animal,

without which this method of argument must be considered as fallacious

and sophistical.

113. The case is not the same with our reasonings from the works of

nature. The Deity is known to us only by his productions, and is a

single being in the universe, not comprehended under any species or

genus, from whose experienced attributes or qualities, we can, by

analogy, infer any attribute or quality in him. As the universe shews

wisdom and goodness, we infer wisdom and goodness. As it shews a

particular degree of these perfections, we infer a particular degree of

them, precisely adapted to the effect which we examine. But farther

attributes or farther degrees of the same attributes, we can never be

authorised to infer or suppose, by any rules of just reasoning. Now,

without some such licence of supposition, it is impossible for us to