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

after this manner, in infinitum, you must at last terminate in some

fact, which is present to your memory or senses; or must allow that your

belief is entirely without foundation.

38. What, then, is the conclusion of the whole matter? A simple one;

though, it must be confessed, pretty remote from the common theories of

philosophy. All belief of matter of fact or real existence is derived

merely from some object, present to the memory or senses, and a

customary conjunction between that and some other object. Or in other

words; having found, in many instances, that any two kinds of

objects—flame and heat, snow and cold—have always been conjoined

together; if flame or snow be presented anew to the senses, the mind is

carried by custom to expect heat or cold, and to believe that such a

quality does exist, and will discover itself upon a nearer approach.

This belief is the necessary result of placing the mind in such

circumstances. It is an operation of the soul, when we are so situated,

as unavoidable as to feel the passion of love, when we receive benefits;

or hatred, when we meet with injuries. All these operations are a

species of natural instincts, which no reasoning or process of the

thought and understanding is able either to produce or to prevent.

At this point, it would be very allowable for us to stop our

philosophical researches. In most questions we can never make a single

step farther; and in all questions we must terminate here at last, after

our most restless and curious enquiries. But still our curiosity will be

pardonable, perhaps commendable, if it carry us on to still farther

researches, and make us examine more accurately the nature of this

belief, and of the customary conjunction, whence it is derived. By

this means we may meet with some explications and analogies that will

give satisfaction; at least to such as love the abstract sciences, and

can be entertained with speculations, which, however accurate, may still

retain a degree of doubt and uncertainty. As to readers of a different

taste; the remaining part of this section is not calculated for them,

and the following enquiries may well be understood, though it be

neglected.

PART II.

39. Nothing is more free than the imagination of man; and though it

cannot exceed that original stock of ideas furnished by the internal and

external senses, it has unlimited power of mixing, compounding,

separating, and dividing these ideas, in all the varieties of fiction

and vision. It can feign a train of events, with all the appearance of

reality, ascribe to them a particular time and place, conceive them as

existent, and paint them out to itself with every circumstance, that

belongs to any historical fact, which it believes with the greatest

certainty. Wherein, therefore, consists the difference between such a

fiction and belief? It lies not merely in any peculiar idea, which is

annexed to such a conception as commands our assent, and which is

wanting to every known fiction. For as the mind has authority over all

its ideas, it could voluntarily annex this particular idea to any

fiction, and consequently be able to believe whatever it pleases;

contrary to what we find by daily experience. We can, in our conception,

join the head of a man to the body of a horse; but it is not in our

power to believe that such an animal has ever really existed.

It follows, therefore, that the difference between fiction and

belief lies in some sentiment or feeling, which is annexed to the

latter, not to the former, and which depends not on the will, nor can be

commanded at pleasure. It must be excited by nature, like all other

sentiments; and must arise from the particular situation, in which the

mind is placed at any particular juncture. Whenever any object is

presented to the memory or senses, it immediately, by the force of

custom, carries the imagination to conceive that object, which is

usually conjoined to it; and this conception is attended with a feeling

or sentiment, different from the loose reveries of the fancy. In this

consists the whole nature of belief. For as there is no matter of fact

which we believe so firmly that we cannot conceive the contrary, there

would be no difference between the conception assented to and that which

is rejected, were it not for some sentiment which distinguishes the one

from the other. If I see a billiard-ball moving towards another, on a

smooth table, I can easily conceive it to stop upon contact. This

conception implies no contradiction; but still it feels very differently

from that conception by which I represent to myself the impulse and the

communication of motion from one ball to another.

40. Were we to attempt a definition of this sentiment, we should,

perhaps, find it a very difficult, if not an impossible task; in the

same manner as if we should endeavour to define the feeling of cold or

passion of anger, to a creature who never had any experience of these

sentiments. Belief is the true and proper name of this feeling; and no

one is ever at a loss to know the meaning of that term; because every

man is every moment conscious of the sentiment represented by it. It may

not, however, be improper to attempt a description of this sentiment;

in hopes we may, by that means, arrive at some analogies, which may

afford a more perfect explication of it. I say, then, that belief is

nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of

an object, than what the imagination alone is ever able to attain. This

variety of terms, which may seem so unphilosophical, is intended only to

express that act of the mind, which renders realities, or what is taken

for such, more present to us than fictions, causes them to weigh more in

the thought, and gives them a superior influence on the passions and

imagination. Provided we agree about the thing, it is needless to

dispute about the terms. The imagination has the command over all its

ideas, and can join and mix and vary them, in all the ways possible. It

may conceive fictitious objects with all the circumstances of place and

time. It may set them, in a manner, before our eyes, in their true

colours, just as they might have existed. But as it is impossible that

this faculty of imagination can ever, of itself, reach belief, it is

evident that belief consists not in the peculiar nature or order of

ideas, but in the manner of their conception, and in their feeling

to the mind. I confess, that it is impossible perfectly to explain this

feeling or manner of conception. We may make use of words which express

something near it. But its true and proper name, as we observed before,

is belief; which is a term that every one sufficiently understands in

common life. And in philosophy, we can go no farther than assert, that

belief is something felt by the mind, which distinguishes the ideas of

the judgement from the fictions of the imagination. It gives them more

weight and influence; makes them appear of greater importance; enforces

them in the mind; and renders them the governing principle of our

actions. I hear at present, for instance, a person’s voice, with whom I

am acquainted; and the sound comes as from the next room. This

impression of my senses immediately conveys my thought to the person,

together with all the surrounding objects. I paint them out to myself as

existing at present, with the same qualities and relations, of which I

formerly knew them possessed. These ideas take faster hold of my mind

than ideas of an enchanted castle. They are very different to the

feeling, and have a much greater influence of every kind, either to give

pleasure or pain, joy or sorrow.

Let us, then, take in the whole compass of this doctrine, and allow,

that the sentiment of belief is nothing but a conception more intense

and steady than what attends the mere fictions of the imagination, and

that this manner of conception arises from a customary conjunction of

the object with something present to the memory or senses: I believe

that it will not be difficult, upon these suppositions, to find other

operations of the mind analogous to it, and to trace up these phenomena

to principles still more general.

41. We have already observed that nature has established connexions

among particular ideas, and that no sooner one idea occurs to our

thoughts than it introduces its correlative, and carries our attention

towards it, by a gentle and insensible movement. These principles of

connexion or association we have reduced to three, namely,

Resemblance, Contiguity and Causation; which are the only bonds

that unite our thoughts together, and beget that regular train of

reflection or discourse, which, in a greater or less degree, takes place

among all mankind. Now here arises a question, on which the solution of

the present difficulty will depend. Does it happen, in all these

relations, that, when one of the objects is presented to the senses or

memory, the mind is not only carried to the conception of the

correlative, but reaches a steadier and stronger conception of it than

what otherwise it would have been able to attain? This seems to be the

case with that belief which arises from the relation of cause and

effect. And if the case be the same with the other relations or

principles of associations, this may be established as a general law,

which takes place in all the operations of the mind.

We may, therefore, observe, as the first experiment to our present

purpose, that, upon the appearance of the picture of an absent friend,

our idea of him is evidently enlivened by the resemblance, and that

every passion, which that idea occasions, whether of joy or sorrow,

acquires new force and vigour. In producing this effect, there concur

both a relation and a present impression. Where the picture bears him no

resemblance, at least was not intended for him, it never so much as

conveys our thought to him: And where it is absent, as well as the

person, though the mind may pass from the thought of the one to that of

the other, it feels its idea to be rather weakened than enlivened by

that transition. We take a pleasure in viewing the picture of a friend,

when it is set before us; but when it is removed, rather choose to

consider him directly than by reflection in an image, which is equally

distant and obscure.

The ceremonies of the Roman Catholic religion may be considered as

instances of the same nature. The devotees of that superstition usually

plead in excuse for the mummeries, with which they are upbraided, that

they feel the good effect of those external motions, and postures, and

actions, in enlivening their devotion and quickening their fervour,

which otherwise would decay, if directed entirely to distant and

immaterial objects. We shadow out the objects of our faith, say they, in

sensible types and images, and render them more present to us by the

immediate presence of these types, than it is possible for us to do

merely by an intellectual view and contemplation. Sensible objects have

always a greater influence on the fancy than any other; and this

influence they readily convey to those ideas to which they are related,

and which they resemble. I shall only infer from these practices, and

this reasoning, that the effect of resemblance in enlivening the ideas

is very common; and as in every case a resemblance and a present

impression must