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Preliminaries
&
Overview
 "[M]any advantages . . . result from an accurate
scrutiny into the powers and faculties of human nature."(Enquiry I)
7 [Morality] is
entirely relative to the Sentiment or mental Taste of each particular Being;
in the same Manner as the Distinctions of sweet and bitter, hot and cold, arise
from the particular feeling of each Sense or Organ. (Enquiry I)
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- It must be some one impression that gives rise to every
real idea. But self or person is not any one impression, but that to
which our several impressions and ideas are supposed to have a
reference. If any impression gives rise to the idea of self, that
impression must continue invariably the same, through the whole course
of our lives; since self is supposed to exist after that manner. But
there is no impression constant and invariable. Pain and pleasure, grief
and joy, passions and sensations succeed each other, and never all exist
at the same time. It cannot therefore be from any of these impressions,
or from any other, that the idea of self is derived; and consequently
there is no such idea. (Treatise
I:4:vi)
- For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I
call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of
heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never
can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe
any thing but the perception. When my perceptions are removed for any
time, as by sound sleep, so long am I insensible of myself, and may
truly be said not to exist. And were all my perceptions removed by
death, and could I neither think, nor feel, nor see, nor love, nor hate,
after the dissolution of my body, I should be entirely annihilated, nor
do I conceive what is further requisite to make me a perfect nonentity.
If any one, upon serious and unprejudiced reflection, thinks he has a
different notion of himself, I must confess I can reason no longer with
him. All I can allow him is, that he may be in the right as well as I,
and that we are essentially different in this particular. He may,
perhaps, perceive something simple and continued, which he calls
himself; though I am certain there is no such principle in me. (Treatise
I:4:vi)
- [Selves are] nothing but a bundle or collection of
different perceptions which succeed each other with an incomparable
rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and motion. Our eyes cannot turn
in their sockets without varying our perceptions. (Treatise
I:4:vi)
- The mind is a kind of theatre, where several perceptions
successively make their appearance; pass, repass, glide away, and mingle
in an infinite variety of postures and situations. (Treatise
I:4:vi)
- The comparison of the theatre must not mislead us. They are
the successive perceptions only, that constitute the mind; nor have we
the most distant notion of the place there these scenes are represented,
or of the materials of which it is composed. (Treatise
I:4:vi)
- 6. It is remarkable concerning the
operations of the mind, that, though most intimately present to us, yet,
whenever they become the object of re-lexion, they seem involved in
obscurity; nor can the eye readily find those lines and boundaries,
which discriminate and distinguish them.(Enquiry I)
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Origin
of Ideas
VIVACITY OBJECTION: impressions may be very faint (with things seen in bad
light, far away) and hallucinations can be very vivid.
REPLY: "except the mind be disordered by disease or madnes they can
never arrive at such a pitch of vivacity as to render these perceptions
altogether in-istinguishable.” (Enquiry II)
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- [A]ll our ideas or more feeble perceptions are copies of
our impressions or more lively ones. (Enquiry II)
- [A]ll this creative power of the mind amounts to no more
than the faculty of compounding, transposing, augmenting, or diminishing
the materials afforded us by the senses and experience. When we think of
a golden mountain, we only join two consistent ideas, gold, and mountain,
with which we were formerly acquainted. (Enquiry II)
- The idea of God, as meaning an infinitely intelligent,
wise, and good Being, arises from reflecting on the operations of our
own mind, and augmenting, without limit, those qualities of goodness and
wisdom. (Enquiry
II)
- [T]his instance is so singular that it is scarcely worth
our observing, and does not merit that for it alone we should alter our
general maxim" (Enquiry II)
- When we entertain ... suspicion that a philosophical
term is employed without any meaning or idea ... we need but enquire,
from what impression is that supposed idea derived? And if it be
impossible to assign any, this will ... confirm our suspicion. (Enquiry II)
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Association
of Ideas
To
me, there appear to be only three principles of connexion among ideas,
namely, Resemblance, Contiguity in time or place, and Cause or Effect. (Enquiry III)
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- It is evident that there is a principle of connexion
between the different thoughts or ideas of the mind, and that in their
appear-ance to the memory or imagination, they introduce each other with
a certain degree of method and regularity. (Enquiry III)
- Among different languages, even where we cannot suspect
the least connexion or communication, it is found, that the words,
expressive of ideas, the most compounded, do yet nearly correspond to
each other: a certain proof that the simple ideas, comprehended in the
compound ones, were bound together by some universal principle, which
had an equal influence on all mankind. (Enquiry III)
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Doubts Concerning the
Operations of the Understanding
11. In
vain do you pretend to have learned the nature of bodies from your past experience.
Their secret nature, and consequently all their effects and influence, may
change, without any change in their sensible qualities. This happens
sometimes, and with regard to some objects: Why may it not happen always, and
with regard to all objects? (Enquiry IV)
12. [I]t is
not reasoning which engages us to suppose the past resembling the future, and
to expect similar effects from causes which are, to appea-rance, similar. (Enquiry IV)
13. Adam, though his rational faculties be supposed, at the very first,
entirely perfect, could not have inferred from the fluidity and transparency
of water that it would suffocate him, or from the light and warmth of fire
that it would consume him. (Enquiry IV)
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- All the objects of human reason or enquiry may naturally
be divided into two kinds, to wit, Relations of Ideas, and Matters of
Fact. (Enquiry
IV)
- The contrary of every matter of fact is still possible;
because it can never imply a contradiction, and is conceived by the mind
with the same facility and distinctness, as if ever so conformable to
reality. That the sun will not rise to-morrow is no less intelligible a
proposition, and implies no more contradiction than the affirmation,
that it will rise. (Enquiry IV)
- [W]hat is the nature of that evidence which assures us
of any real existence and matter of fact, beyond the present testimony
of our senses, or the records of our memory[?] (Enquiry IV)
- All reasonings concerning matter of fact seem to be
founded on the relation of Cause and Effect. By means of that relation
alone we can go beyond the evidence of our memory and senses. (Enquiry IV)
- I shall venture to affirm, as a general proposition,
which admits of no exception, that the knowledge of this [cause-effect]
relation . . . arises entirely from experience, when we find that any
particular objects are constantly conjoined with each other. (Enquiry IV)
- When we reason a priori, and consider merely any object
or cause, as it appears to the mind, independent of all observation, it
never could suggest to us the notion of any distinct object, such as its
effect; much less, show us the inseparable and inviolable connexion
between them. (Enquiry IV)
- We have said that all arguments concerning existence are
founded on the relation of cause and effect; that our knowledge of that
relation is derived entirely from experience; and that all our
experimental conclusions proceed upon the supposition that the future
will be conformable to the past. To endeavour, therefore, the proof of
this last supposition by probable arguments, or arguments regarding
existence, must be evidently going in a circle, and taking that for
granted, which is the very point in question. (Enquiry IV)
- When a child has felt the sensation of pain from
touching the flame of a candle, he will be careful not to put his hand
near any candle; but will expect a similar effect from a cause which is
similar in its sensible qualities and appearance. (Enquiry IV)
- It is impossible, therefore, that any arguments from
experience can prove this resemblance of the past to the future; since
all these arguments are founded on the supposition of that resemblance.
(Enquiry
IV)
- Let the course of things be allowed hitherto
ever so regular; that alone, without some new argument or inference,
proves not that, for the future, it will continue so. (Enquiry IV)
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V.
Skeptical Solution to These Doubts
"All
inferences from experience, therefore, are effects of custom, not of
reasoning." (Enquiry V)
"All these operations are a species of natural instincts, which no
reasoning . . . is able either to produce or prevent." (Enquiry V)
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- [I]n all reasonings from experience, there is a step
taken by the mind which is not supported by any argument or process of
the understanding. (Enquiry V)
- [A person suddenly brought into the world] would not, at
first, by any reasoning, be able to reach the idea of cause and effect;
since the particular powers, by which all natural operations are
performed, never appear to the senses; nor is it reasonable to conclude,
merely because one event, in one instance, precedes another, that
therefore the one is the cause, the other the effect. Their conjunction
may be arbitrary & casual. (Enquiry V)
- [Having] observed familiar objects or events to be
constantly conjoined together . . . . He immediately infers the
existence of one object from the appearance of the other. Yet he has
not, by all his experience, acquired any idea or knowledge of the secret
power by which the one object produces the other; nor is it by any
process of reasoning, he is engaged to draw this inference. (Enquiry V)
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VI.
Of Probability
1.
Though there be no such thing as Chance in the world; our ignorance of the
real cause of any event has the same influence on the understanding, and
begets a like species of belief or opinion. (Enquiry VI)
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2.
It is
true, when any cause fails of producing its usual effect, philosophers
ascribe not this to any irregularity in nature; but suppose, that some secret
causes, in the particular structure of parts, have prevented the operation.
Our reasonings, however, and conclusions concerning the event are the same as
if this principle had no place. (Enquiry VI)
3.
Being
determined by custom to transfer the past to the future, in all our
inferences; where the past has been entirely regular and uniform, we expect
the event with the greatest assurance, and leave no room for any contrary
supposition. But where different effects have been found to follow from
causes, which are to appearance exactly similar, all these various effects
must occur to the mind in transferring the past to the future, and enter into
our consideration, when we determine the probability of the event. (Enquiry VI)
4.
There
are some causes, which are entirely uniform and constant in producing a
particular effect; and no instance has ever yet been found of any failure or
irregularity in their operation. Fire has always burned, and water suffocated
every human creature: the production of motion by impulse and gravity is an
universal law, which has hitherto admitted of no exception. But there are
other causes, which have been found more irregular and uncertain; nor as
rhubarb always proved a purge, or opium a soporific to every one, who has
taken these medicines. (Enquiry VI)
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