hume with helps to the study of berkeley

Preface

IN two essays upon the life and work of Descartes, which will be found in the first volume of this collection, I have given some reasons for my conviction that he, if any one, has a claim to’ the title of father of modern philosophy. By this I mean that his general scheme of things, his conceptions of scientific method and of the conditions and limits of certainty, are far more essentially and characteristically modern than those of any of his immediate predecessors and successors. Indeed, the adepts in some branches of science had not fully mastered the import of his ideas so late as the beginning of this century.

The conditions of this remarkable position in the world of thought are to be found, as usual, primarily, in motherwit, secondarily, in circumstance. Trained by the best educators of the seventeenth century, the Jesuits; naturally endowed with a dialectic grasp and subtlety, which even they could hardly improve; and with a passion for getting at the truth, which even they could

Nal vi PREFACE hardly impair, Descartes possessed, in addition, a rare mastery of the art of literary expression. If the “Discours de la Méthode” had no other merits, it would be worth study for the sake of the luminous simplicity and sincerity of its style. A mathematician of the very first rank, Descartes knew all that was to be known of mechanical and optical science in his day; he was a skilled and zealous practical anatomist; he was one of the first to recognise the prodigious importance of the discovery of his contemporary Harvey; and he penetrated more deeply into the physiology of the nervous system than any specialist in that science, for a century, or more, after his time. To this encyclopedic and yet first-hand acquaintance with the nature of things, he added an acquaintance with the nature of men (which is a much more valuable chapter of experience to philosophers than is commonly imagined), gathered in the opening campaigns of the Thirty Years’ War, in wide travels, and amidst that brilliant French society in which Pascal was his worthy peer. Even a “Traité des Passions,” to be worth anything, must be based upon observation and experiment; and, in this subject, facilities for laboratory practice of the most varied and extensive character were offered by the Paris of Mazarin and the Duchesses; the Paris, in which Descartes’ great friend and ally, Father Mersenne, reckoned atheists by the thousand ; and, in which,

PREFACE Vii political life touched the lowest depths of degradation, amidst the chaotic personal intrigues of the Fronde. Thus endowed, thus nurtured, thus tempered in the fires of experience, it is intelligible enough that a resolute, clear-headed man, haunted from his youth up, as he tells us, with an extreme desire to learn how to distinguish truth from falsehood, in order to see his way clearly and walk surely through life,t should have early come to the conclusion, that the first thing to be done was to cast aside, at any rate temporarily, the crutches of traditional, or other, authority ; and stand upright on his own feet, trusting to no support but that of the solid ground of fact.

It was in 1619, while meditating in solitary winter quarters, that Descartes (being about the same age as Hume when he wrote the “ Treatise on Human Nature”) made that famous resolution, to “take nothing for truth without clear knowledge that it is such,” the great practical effect of which is the sanctification of doubt; the recognition that the profession of belief in propositions, of the truth of which there is no sufficient evidence, is immoral ; the discrowning of authority as such; the repudiation of the confusion, beloved of sophists of all sorts, between free assent and mere piously gagged dissent; and the admission of the obligation to reconsider even one’s axioms on due demand.

These, if I mistake not, are the notes of the

1 Discours de la Méthode. 1° Partie, vill PREFACE modern, as contrasted with the ancient spirit. It is true that the isolated greatness of Socrates was founded on intellectual and moral claracteristics of the same order. He also persisted in demanding that no man should “take anything for truth without a clear knowledge that it is such,” and so constantly and systematically shocked authority and shook traditional security, that the fact of his being allowed to live for seventy years, if one comes to think of it, is evidence of the patient and tolerant disposition of his Athenian compatriots, which should obliterate the memory of the final hemlock. That which it may be well for us not to forget is, that the first-recorded judicial murder of a scientific thinker was compassed and effected, not by a despot, nor by priests, but was brought about by eloquent demagogues, to whom, of all men, thorough searchings of the intellect are most dangerous and therefore most hateful. The first agnostic, the man who, so far as the records of history go, was the first to see that clear knowledge of what one does not know is Just as important as knowing what one does know, had no true disciples; and the greatest of those who listened to him, if he preserved the fame of his master for all time, did his best to counteract the impulse towards intellectual clearness which Socrates gave. The Platonic philosophy is probably the grandest example of the unscientific use of the imagination extant; and it

PREFACE — 1x would be hard to estimate the amount of detriment to clear thinking effected, directly and indirectly, by the theory of ideas, on the one hand, and by the unfortunate doctrine of the baseness of matter, on the other.

Ancient thought, so far as it is positive, fails on account of its neglect to criticise its assumptions; so far as it is negative, it fails, because it forgets that proof of the inconsistencies of the terms in which we symbolise things has nothing to do with the cogency of the logic of facts. The negations of Pyrrhonism are as shallow, as the assumptions of Platonism are empty. Modern thought has by no means escaped from perversions of the same order. But, thanks to the sharp discipline of physical science, it is more and more freeing itself from them. In face of the incessant verification of deductive reasoning by experiment, Pyrrhonism has become ridiculous ; in face of the ignominious fate which always befalls those who attempt to get at the secrets of nature, or the rules of conduct, by the high a@ priort road, Platonism and its modern progeny show themselves to be, at best, splendid follies.

The development of exact natural knowledge in all its vast range, from physics to history and criticism, is the consequence of the working out, in this province, of the resolution to “take nothing for truth without clear knowledge that it is such ;” to consider all beliefs open to criticism; to regard x PREFACE the value of authority as neither greater nor less, than as much as it can prove itself to be worth. The modern spirit is not the spirit “which always denies,” delighting only in destruction ; still less is it that which builds castles in the air rather than not construct; it is that spirit which works and will work “without haste and without rest,” gathering harvest after harvest of truth into its barns and devouring error with unquenchable fire.

In the reform of philosophy, since Descartes, I think that the greatest and the most fruitful results of the activity of the modern spirit—it may -be, the only great and lasting results—are those first presented in the works of Berkeley and of Hume.

The one carried out to its logical result the Cartesian principle, that .absolute certainty attaches only to the knowledge of facts of consciousness; the other, extended the Cartesian criticism to the whole range of propositions commonly “taken for truth ;” proved that,in a multitude of important instances, so far from possessing “ clear knowledge” that they may be so taken, we have none at all; and that our duty therefore is to remain silent; or to express, at most, suspended judgment.

My earliest lesson on this topic was received from Hume’s keen-witted countryman Hamilton;

PREFACE xl afterwards I learned it, more fully, from the fountain head, the “Discours de la Méthode”; then from Berkeley and from Hume themselves. So that when, in 1878, my friend Mr. John Morley asked me to write an account of Hume for the “English Men of Letters” series, I thought I might undertake the business, without too much presumption ; also, with some hope of passing on to others the benefits which I had received from the study of Hume’s works. And, however imperfect the attempt may be, I have reason to believe that it has fulfilled its purpose. I hoped, at one time, to be able to add an analogous exposition of Berkeley’s views; and, indeed, undertook to supply it. But the burdens and distractions of a busy life led to the postponement of this, as of many other projects, till too late. My statement of Hume’s philosophy will have to be provided with its counterpart and antithesis by other hands. But I have appended to the “ Hume” a couple of preliminary studies, which may be of use to students of Berkeley.

One word, by way of parting advice to the rising generation of English readers. If it is your desire to discourse fluently and learnedly about philosophical questions, begin with the Ionians and work steadily through to the latest new speculative treatise. If you have a good memory and a fair knowledge of Greek, Latin, ‘French, and xu PREFACE

German, three or four years spent in this way should enable you to attain your object.

If, on the contrary, you are animated by the much rarer desire for real knowledge; if you want to get a clear conception of the deepest problems set before the intellect of man, there is no need, so far as I can see, for you to go beyond the limits of the English tongue. Indeed, if you are pressed for time, three English authors will suffice ; namely, Berkeley, Hume, and Hobbes.

If you will lay your minds alongside the works of these great writers—not with the view of merely ascertaining their opinions, still less for the purpose of indolently resting on their authority, but to the end of seeing for yourselves how far what each says has its foundation in right reason—you will have had as much sound philosophical training as is good for any one but an expert. And you will have had the further advantage of becoming familiar with the manner in which three of thé greatest masters of the English language have handled that noble instrument of thought,

T H. Huxtey,

HoprstEA, EAsTBOURNE, January, 1894.

Contents

HUME

Part I.—hume’s Life. Paga

EARLY LIFE: LITERARY AND POLITICAL WRITINGS ,., 3

II Later Years: The History Of England ...... 3980

PART I1.—HUME’S PHILOSOPHY.

I

THE OBJECT AND SCOPE OF PHILOSOPHY ......, &7 II

THE CONTENTS OF THE MIND At ee ieee, pal xiv ‘CONTENTS

PAGE III THE ORIGIN OF THE IMPRESSIONS . «2» ee ee 0 2 « 688 IV THE CLASSIFICATION AND THE NOMENCLATURE OF MENTAL, OPERATIONS — << cllels sae ot aliclis tatemeo

THE MENTAL PHENOMENA OF ANIMALS . 2. 2 2. se « « 121

VI

LANGUAGE — PROPOSITIONS CONCERNING NECESSARY TRUTHS: .pie-.ve je) la Caller 6 Merete tens) Scene meee

Vil

THE, ORDER OF NATURES) MIRAOLES 9)2 .0 5 au el ualteineilco

Vin

THEISM ; EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY. . . «se « « « « 165

THE SOUL: THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY ..... 192

CONTENTS xv

FPAGN x

VOGITION © LIBERTY AND NECESSITY 2 6 6 0 fe oe ss BID

XI iii PRINGEPEES OF-MORATS 9. < 0.0 6 0 » « 6 «+ .« 228

HELPS TO THE STUDY OF BERKELEY

BISHOP BERKELEY ON THE METAPHYSICS OF SENSATION Pere ee er, 2 he EB

ON SENSATION AND THE UNITY OF STRUCTURE OF SENSIFEROUS ORGANS (1879) . » «6 0 « se eo - 289

PART I

HUME’S LIFE

HUME

Chapter I Early Life: Literary And Political Writings

David HvuME was born in Edinburgh on the 26th of April (O.8.), 1711. His parents were then residing in the parish of the Tron church, apparently on a visit to the Scottish capital, as the small estate which his father, Joseph Hume, or Home, inherited, lay in Berwickshire, on the banks of the Whitadder or Whitewater, a few miles from the border, and within sight of English ground. The paternal mansion was little more than a very modest farmhouse, and the property derived its name of Ninewells from a considerable

1 A picture of the house, taken from Drummond’s History of Noble British Families, is to be seen in Chambers’s Book of Days (April 26th); and if, as Drummond says, ‘‘It is a favourable specimen of the best Scotch lairds’ houses,” all that can be said is that the worst Scotch lairds must have been poorly lodged indeed.

spring, which breaks out on the slope in front of the house, and falls into the Whitadder.

Both mother and father came of good Scottish families--the paternal line running back to Lord Home of Douglas, who went over to France with the Douglas during the French wars of Henry V. and VI. and was killed at the battle of Verneuil. Joseph Hume died when David was an infant, leaving himself and two elder children, a brother and a sister, to the care of their mother, who is described by David Hume in “ My Own Life” as “a woman of singular merit, who though young and handsome devoted herself entirely to the rearing and education of her children.” Mr. Burton says: “Her portrait, which I have seen, represents a thin but pleasing countenance, expressive of great intellectual acuteness;” and as Hume told Dr. Black that she had “ precisely the same constitution with himself” and died of the disorder which proved fatal to him, it is probable that the qualities inherited from his mother had much to do with the future philosopher’s eminence. It is curious, however, that her estimate of her son in her only recorded, and perhaps slightly apocryphal utterance, is of a somewhat unexpected character. “Our Davie’s a fine good-natured crater, but uncommon wake-minded.” The first part of the judgment was indeed verified by “Davie’s” whole life; but one might seek in vain for signs of what is commonly understood as

“weakness of mind” in a man who not only showed himself to be an intellectual athlete, but who had an eminent share of practical wisdom and tenacity of purpose. One would like to know, however, when it was that Mrs. Hume committed herself to this not too flattering judgment of her younger son. For as Hume reached the mature age of four and thirty, before he obtained any employment of sufficient importance to convert the meagre pittance of a middling laird’s younger brother into a decent maintenance, it is not improbable that a shrewd Scots wife may have thought his devotion to philosophy and poverty to be due to mere infirmity of purpose. But she lived till 1749, long enough to see more than the dawn of her son’s literary fame and official importance, and probably changed her mind about “ Davie’s” force of character.

David Hume appears to have owed little to schools or universities. There is some evidence that he entered the Greek class in the University of Edinburgh in 1723—when he was a boy of twelve years of age—but it is not known how long his studies were continued, and he did not graduate. In 1727, at any rate, he was living at Ninewells, and already possessed by that love of learning and thirst for literary fame, which, as “My Own Life” tells us, was the ruling passion of his life and the chief source of his enjoymeuts. A letter of this date, addressed to his friend

6 HUME ¥

Michael Ramsay, is certainly a most singular production for a boy of sixteen. After sundry quotations from Virgil the letter proceeds :— ccThe perfectly wise man that outbraves fortune, is much greater than the husbandman who slips by her ; and, indeed, this pastoral and saturnian happiness I have in a great measure come at just now. I live like a king, pretty much by myself, neither full of action nor perturbation—molles somnos. This state, however, I can foresee is not to be relied on. My peace of mind is not sufficiently confirmed by philosophy to withstand the blows of fortune. This greatness and elevation of soul is to be found only in study and contemplation. This alone can teach us to look down on human accidents. You must allow [me] to talk thus like a philosopher: ‘tis a subject I think much on, and could talk all day long of.”

If David talked in this strain to his mother her tongue probably gave utterance to “Bless the baim!” and, in her private soul, the epithet “wake-minded ” may then have recorded itself. But, though few lonely, thoughtful, studious boys of sixteen give vent to their thoughts in such stately periods, it is probable that the brooding over an ideal] is commoner at this age, than fathers and mothers, busy with the cares of practical life, are apt to imagine.

About a year later, Hume’s family tried to launch him into the profession of the law; but, as he tells us, “while they fancied I was poring upon Voet and Vinnius, Cicero and Virgil were the authors which I was secretly devouring,” and the attempt seems to have come to an abrupt termin-

I EARLY LIFE t ation. Nevertheless, as a very competent authority | wisely remarks :—

“There appear to have been in Hume all the elements of which a good lawyer is made: clearness of judgment, power of rapidly acquiring knowledge, untiring industry, and dialectic skill: and if his mind had not been preoccupied, he might have fallen into the gulf in which many of the world’s greatest geniuses lie buried—professional eminence ; and might have left behind him a reputation limited to the traditional recollections of the Parliament house, or associated with important decisions. He was through life an able, clear-headed man of business, and I have seen several legal documents written in | his own hand and evidently drawn by himself. They stand the test of general professional observation ; and their writer, by preparing documents of facts of such a character on his own responsibility, showed that he had considerable confidence in his ability to adhere to the forms adequate for the occasion. He talked of it as ‘an ancient prejudice industriously propagated by the dunces in all countries, that a man of genius is unfit for business,’ and he showed, in his general conduct through life, that he did not choose to come voluntarily under this proscription.”

Six years longer Hume remained at Ninewells before he made another attempt to embark in a practical career—this time commerce—and with a like result. For a few months’ trial proved that kind of life, also, to be hopelessly against the grain.

It was while in London, on his way to Bristol, where he proposed to commence his mercantile

1 Mr. John Hill Burton, in his valuable Life of Hume, on which, I need hardly say, I have drawn ay for the materials of the present biographical sketch.

life, that Hume addressed to some eminent London physician (probably, as Mr. Burton suggests, Dr. George Cheyne) a remarkable letter. Whether it was ever sent seems doubtful; but it shows that philosophers as well as poets have their Werterian crises, and it presents an interesting parallel to John Stuart Mill’s record of the corresponding period of his youth. The letter is too long to be given in full, but a few quotations may suffice to indicate its importance to those who desire to comprehend the man.

‘You must know then that from my earliest infancy I found always a strong inclination to books and letters. As our college education in Scotland, extending little further than the languages, ends commonly when we are about fourteen or fifteen years of age, I was after that left to my own choice in my reading, and found it incline me almost equally to books of reasoning and philosophy, and to poetry and the polite authors. Every one who is acquainted either with the philosophers or critics, knows that there is nothing yet established in either of these two sciences, and that they contain little more than endless disputes, even in the most fundamental articles. Upon examination of these, I founda certain boldness of temper growing on me, which was not inclined to submit to any authority in these subjects, but led me to seek out some new medium, by which truth might be established. After much study and reflection on this, at last, when I was about eighteen years of age, there seemed to be opened up to me a new scene of thought, which transported me beyond measure, and made me, with an ardour natural to young men, throw up every other pleasure or business to apply entirely to it. The law, which was the business I designed to follow, appeared nauseous to me, and I could think of no other way of pushing my fortune in the world, but that of a scholar and philosopher,

I was infinitely happy in this course of life for some months 2 till at last, about the beginning of September, 1729, all my ardour seemed in a moment to be extinguished, and I could no longer raise my mind to that pitch, which formerly gave me such excessive pleasure.”

- This “ decline of soul” Hume attributes, in part, to his being smitten with the beautiful representation of virtue in the works of Cicero, Seneca, and Plutarch, and being thereby led to discipline his temper and his will along with his reason and understanding,

**T was continually fortifying myself with reflections against death, and poverty, and shame, and pain, and all the other calamities of life,”

And he adds very characteristically :—

**These no doubt are exceeding useful when joined with an active life, because the occasion being presented along with the reflection, works it into the soul, and makes it take a deep impression: but, in solitude, they serve to little other purpose than to waste the spirits, the force of the mind meeting no resistance, but wasting itself in the air, like our arm when it misses its aim.”

Along with all this mental perturbation, symptoms of scurvy, a disease now almost unknown among landsmen, but which, in the days of winter salt meat, before root crops flourished in the Lothians, greatly plagued our forefathers, made their appearance. And, indeed, it may be suspected that physical conditions were, at first, at the bottom of the whole business ; for, in 1731, @ ravenous appetite set in and, in six weeks from being tall, lean, and raw-boned, Hume says he became sturdy and robust, with a ruddy complexion and a cheerful countenance—eating, sleeping, and feeling well, except that the capacity for intense mental application seemed to be gone. He, therefore, determined to seek out a more active life; and, though he could not and would not “quit his pretensions to learning, but with his last breath,” he resolved “to lay them aside for some time, in order the more effectually to resume them.”

The careers open to a poor Scottish gentleman in those days were very few; and, as Hume’s option lay between a travelling tutorship and a stool in a merchant’s office, he chose the latter.

**And having got recommendation to a considerable trader in Bristol, I am just now hastening thither, with a resolution to forget myself, and everything that is past, to engage myself, as far as is possible, in that course of life, and to toss about the world from one pole to the other, till I leave this distemper behind me.”’?

But it was all of no use—Nature would have her way—and in the middle of 17386, David Hume, aged twenty-three, without a profession or any assured means of earning a guinea; and having doubtless, by his apparent vacillation, but real tenacity of purpose, once more earned the

? One cannot but be reminded of young Descartes’ renunciation of study for soldiering,

1 : EARLY LIFE 11 title of “wake-minded ” at home; betook himself to a foreign country.

“*T went over to France, with a view of prosecuting my studies in a country retreat: and there I laid that plan of life which I have steadily and successfully pursued. I resolved to make a very rigid frugality supply my deficiency of fortune, to maintain unimpaired my independency, and to regard every object as contemptible except the improvement of my talents in literature.” 2

Hume passed through Paris on his way to Rheims, where he resided for some time; though the greater part of his three years’ stay was spent at La Fléche, in frequent intercourse with the Jesuits of the famous college in which Descartes was educated. Here he composed his first work, the “Treatise of Human Nature”; though it would appear from the following passage in the letter to Cheyne, that he had been accumulating materials to that end for some years before he left Scotland.

‘*T found that the moral philosophy transmitted to us by antiquity laboured under the same inconvenience that has been found in their natural philosophy, of being entirely hypothetical, and depending more upon invention than experience: every one consulted his fancy in erecting schemes of virtue and happiness, without regarding human nature, upon which every moral conclusion must depend.”

This is the key-note of the “Treatise”; of which Hume himself says apologetically, in one of his letters, that it was planned before he was

1 My Own Life.

twenty-one and composed before he had reached the age of twenty-five.1

Under these circumstances, it is probably the most remarkable philosophical work, both intrinsically and in its effects upon the course of thought, that has ever been written. Berkeley, indeed, published the “Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision,” the “Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge,” and the “ Three Dialogues,” between the ages of twenty-four and twenty-eight ; and thus comes very near to Hume, both in precocity and in influence; but his investigations are more limited in their scope than those of his Scottish contemporary.

The first and second volumes of the “ Treatise,” containing Book IL, “Of the Understanding,” and Book IL, “Of the Passions,” were published in January, 1739. The publisher gave fifty pounds for the copyright; which is probably more than an unknown writer of twenty-seven years of age would get for a similar work, at the present time. But, in other respects, its success fell far short of Hume’s expectations. In a letter dated the Ist of June, 1739, he writes,—

**T am not much in the humour of such compositions at present, having received news from London of the success of

1 Letter to Gilbert Elliot of Minto, 1751. ‘*So vast an undertaking, planned before I was one-and-twenty, and com: ee before twenty-five, must necessarily be very defective,

ave repented my haste a hundred and a hundred times.

my ‘Philosophy,’ which is but indifferent, if I may judge by the sale of the book, and if I may believe my bookseller.”

This, however, indicates a very different reception from that which Hume, looking through the inverted telescope of old age, ascribes to the “Treatise” in “My Own Life.”

‘*Never literary attempt was more unfortunate than my ‘Treatise of Human Nature.’ It fell deadborn from the press without reaching such a distinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots.”

Asa matter of fact, it was fully, and, on the whole, respectfully and appreciatively, reviewed in the “ History of the Works of the Learned ” for November, 1739.1 Whoever the reviewer may have been, he was a man of discernment, for he says that the work bears “incontestable marks of a great capacity, of a soaring genius, but young, and not yet thoroughly practised ;” and he adds, that we shall probably have reason to consider “this, compared with the later productions, in the same light as we view the juvenile works of a Milton, or the first manner of a Raphael or other celebrated painter.’ In a letter to Hutcheson, Hume merely speaks of this article as “somewhat abusive ;” so that his vanity, being young and callow, seems to have been correspondingly widemouthed and hard to satiate.

1 Burton, Life, vol. i. p. 109.

14 HUME 1

It must be confessed that, on this occasion, no less than on that of his other publications, Hume exhibits no small share of the craving after mere notoriety and vulgar success, as distinct from the pardonable, if not honourable, ambition for solid and enduring fame, which would have harmonised better with his philosophy. Indeed, it appears to be by no means improbable that this peculiarity of Hume’s moral constitution was the cause of his gradually forsaking philosophical studies, after the publication of the third part (“On Morals”) of the “ Treatise,” in 1740, and turning to those political and historical topics which were likely to yield, and did in fact yield, a much better return of that sort of success which his soul loved. The “ Philosophical Essays Concerning the Human Understanding,” which afterwards became the “Inquiry,” is not much more than an abridgment and recast, for popular use, of parts of the “Treatise,” with the addition of the essays on “Miracles ” and on “ Necessity.” In style, it exhibits a great improvement on the “ Treatise”; but the substance, if not deteriorated, is certainly not improved. Hume does not really bring his mature powers to bear upon his early speculations, in the later work. The crude fruits have not been ripened, but they have been ruthlessly pruned away, along with the branches which bore them. The result is a pretty shrub enough; but not the tree of knowledge, with its roots firmly fixed in fact, its branches peremuially budding forth into new truths, which Hume might have reared. Perhaps, after all, worthy Mrs. Hume was, in the highest sense, right. Davie was “ wake-minded,” not to see that the world of philosophy was his to overrun and subdue, if he would but persevere in the work he had begun. But no—he must needs turn aside for “success”: and verily he had his reward; but not the crown he might have won.