EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
1
Hume’s philosophic writings are to be read with great caution.
His pages, especially those of the Treatise, are so full of matter, he
says so many different things in so many different ways and different
connexions, and with so much indifference to what he has said before,
that it is very hard to say positively that he taught, or did not teach,
this or that particular doctrine. He applies the same principles to such
a great variety of subjects that it is not surprising that many verbal,
and some real inconsistencies can be found in his statements.
[N1] He is
ambitious rather than shy of saying the same thing in different ways,
and at the same time he is often slovenly and indifferent about his
words and formulae. This makes it easy to find all philosophies in Hume,
or, by setting up one statement against another, none at all. Of
Professor Green’s criticism of Hume it is impossible to speak, here in
Oxford, without the greatest respect. Apart from its philosophic
importance, it is always serious and legitimate; but it is also
impossible not to feel that it would have been quite as important and a
good deal shorter, if it had contained fewer of the verbal victories
which are so easily won over Hume.
[N2]
2
The question whether Hume’s philosophy is to be judged by his
Treatise or his Enquiries is of some interest, and this Introduction
aims chiefly at making clear the relation between them.
Hume composed his Treatise between the
ages of twenty-one and twenty-five, finishing it in the year 1736. The
first two books were published in 1739, and the third book in 1740. The
first edition of the Enquiry into the Human Understanding
appeared in 1748; the Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals
appeared in 1751, and the Dissertation on the Passions
(corresponding to Bk. II of the Treatise) in 1757[1].
Hume says himself that the Treatise
‘fell dead-born from the press without reaching such distinction as even
to excite a murmur among the zealots.’ That distinction was, to the end
of his life, particularly dear to Hume, and it will be seen that in the
Enquiries he made a bold bid for it in his quite superfluous section on
Miracles and a Particular Providence. He entertained the notion,
however, that his want of success in publishing the Treatise ‘had
proceeded more from the manner than the matter,’ and that he had been
‘guilty of a very usual indiscretion in going to the press too early.’
He therefore ‘cast the first part of that work anew in the Enquiry
concerning the Human Understanding,’ and afterwards continued the
same process in his Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals,
which, he says, ‘in my own opinion is of all my writings, historical,
philosophical, or literary, incomparably the best.’ In the posthumous
edition of his Collected Essays of 1777, the Advertisement, on which so
much stress has been laid, first appeared. It is printed at the
beginning of this reprint, and declares the author’s desire that ‘the
following pieces may alone be regarded as containing his philosophical
sentiments and principles.’
[N3]
This declaration has not only been
taken seriously by some writers, but they have even complied with it and
duly ignored the Treatise. By others it has been treated as an
interesting indication of the character of a man who had long ago given
up philosophy, who always had a passion for applause, and little respect
or generosity for his own failures. By Mr. Grose the Advertisement is
regarded as ‘the posthumous utterance of a splenetic invalid,’ and Mr.
Green’s elaborate criticism is directed almost entirely against the
Treatise. [N4]
3
To discuss a question of literary justice would be out of place
in an Introduction which aims at estimating philosophic importance. Two
remarks, however, may be made before passing on.
The first is, that even in Hume’s
philosophical writings the author’s personal character continually
excites our interest. The Treatise, as was noticed at the time of its
publication, is full of egoisms. Even in this severe work, together with
a genuine ardour and enthusiasm, there is an occasional note of
insincerity, arrogance or wantonness which strikes the serious student
painfully. The following pages will perhaps show that Hume, in
re-casting the Treatise into its new form, displayed the less admirable
sides of his temper rather freely.
[N5]
In the second place, it is undeniable
that Hume’s own judgement on the style of his earlier work was quite
correct. The Treatise was ill-proportioned, incoherent, ill-expressed.
There are ambiguities and obscurities of expression in important
passages which are most exasperating. Instead of the easy language,
familiar and yet precise, of the Enquiries, we have an amount of verbal
vagueness and slovenliness for which it is hard to excuse even ‘a
solitary Scotchman.’ How far the difference between the two works is
merely one of style is considered below, but whether it be due to matter
or manner, it remains that the Enquiries are an easy book and the
Treatise a very hard one. In the Treatise he revels in minutiae, in
difficulties, in paradoxes: he heaps questions upon himself, and
complicates argument by argument: he is pedantic and captious. In the
Enquiry he ignores much with which he had formerly vexed his own and his
readers’ souls, and like a man of the world takes the line of least
resistance (except as touching the ‘zealots’). He gives us elegance,
lucidity and proportion.
[N6]
4
Perhaps it may be allowed the writer here to record his own
adherence to those who judge Hume’s philosophy by his Treatise. Bk. I of
the Treatise is beyond doubt a work of first-rate philosophic
importance, and in some ways the most important work of philosophy in
the English language. It would be impossible to say the same of the
Enquiries, and although in one sense the Enquiry concerning the
Principles of Morals is the best thing Hume ever wrote, to ignore
the Treatise is to deprive him of his place among the great thinkers of
Europe.
At the same time it is perhaps well
worth while to examine rather closely the actual relations between the
contents of the earlier and later works. The comparative tables of
contents which are printed at the end of this Introduction may perhaps
save the student some ungrateful labour, and show, in a graphic form, at
all events the relative amount of space assigned to various subjects in
the two works. The difference in the method of treatment, conclusions,
and general tone can of course only be gathered by reading the different
passages side by side. The results of such a reading are presented in
the following pages.
5
Taking the Enquiry concerning the Human
Understanding separately, we are at once struck by the entire
omission of Bk. I, part ii of the Treatise. Space and time are not
treated of at all in the Enquiry as independent subjects interesting in
themselves; they are only introduced incidentally in §§ 124–5 of the
Enquiry, as illustrating the absurdity of the abstract sciences and in
support of a sceptical position.
We are also struck by the introduction
of the two theological sections (x-xi) of the Enquiry, and by the very
small space given to the general questions concerning knowledge and the
relation of subject and object.
Sections 116–132, covering only
seventeen pages in all, do duty in the Enquiry for the whole of Bk. I,
part iv of the Treatise, where ninety-four pages are devoted to the same
topics.
This wholesale omission and insertion
cannot well be due to philosophical discontent with the positions or
arguments, or to a general desire to fill up a gap in the system, but
must be ascribed rather to a general desire to make the Enquiry
readable. Parts ii and iv are certainly the hardest in the Treatise, and
the least generally interesting to the habitués of coffee-houses,
especially at a period when ‘the greatest part of men have agreed to
convert reading into an amusement;’ whereas a lively and sceptical
discussion of miracles and providence could hardly fail to find readers,
attract attention, and excite that ‘murmur among the zealots’ by which
the author desired to be distinguished.
Taking the two works rather more in
detail, we find these notable differences:—
6
Psychology. Even in the Treatise we feel that the introductory
psychology is rather meagre and short to serve as a foundation for so
large a system, but in the Enquiry it is still more cut down.
Thus the Enquiry omits the distinction
between simple and complex ideas; between impressions of sensation and
reflexion, which is of importance afterwards for the explanation of the
idea of necessary connexion; between ideas of memory and imagination: in
the treatment of association little is said about causation as a
principle of association, and the account of the products of
association, the three classes of complex ideas, relations, modes and
substances, and abstract ideas, disappears.
Thus the list of philosophic relations
and the distinction between philosophic and natural relation are
omitted, and do not appear at all in the Enquiry. The question of
abstraction is only alluded to incidentally near the end of the Enquiry
(§§ 122 and 125 n). Substance is passed over, as it is also in §
xii of the Enquiry, probably both from the difficulty of the subject,
and because in the Enquiry Hume is not nearly so anxious to show that
the fundamental popular conceptions are fictitious. There is something
solid to which the popular conception of causation can be reduced, but
when substance and body are analyzed, as they are in the Treatise, the
importance of the materials out of which they are said to be formed is
out of all proportion to the place which the finished products occupy in
thought and language.
The slight treatment of association
again is quite characteristic of the temper of the Enquiry. The details
of psychical mechanism, which are rather tiresomely paraded in the
Treatise, are consistently passed over in the Enquiry, notably so in the
case of sympathy.
7
Space and Time. It must be admitted that the subject of space and
time, as treated in the Treatise, is not very attractive. There is
nothing in the Enquiry corresponding to the forty-two pages of the
Treatise, in which space and time are treated, except two pages in §
xii.
Of the philosophical importance of
Hume’s treatment of them in the Treatise it is unnecessary to speak; it
is apparent from the large amount of criticism which Professor Green
thought fit to bestow on it. It is to be noted, however, that the
account of causation which Hume gives afterwards in the Enquiry, is left
hanging in the air when the support of the theory of succession has been
withdrawn. The omission of the section on the ideas of existence and
external existence is, like the omission of the various accounts of
substance, only a part of Hume’s avoidance of the general question of
the relation of knowledge and reality.
8
Causation. In the account of causation Hume passes over the very
interesting and fundamental question raised in the Treatise of the
position of cause in the fabric of our knowledge. On p. 78 of the
Treatise (Bk. I, iii, § 3; cf. p. 157), he asks why a cause is always
necessary, and concludes that there is no reason for the presumption
that everything must have a cause.
[N7] This conclusion he supports by his
analysis of the idea of a particular cause, and asserts again (p. 172)
that there is ‘no absolute metaphysical necessity’ that one object
should have another associated with it in such a way that its idea shall
determine the mind to form the idea of the other. This conclusion is of
the gravest importance for Hume’s theory of causation in general, and is
difficult to reconcile with his negation of the reality of chance and
his assumption of secret causes (Treatise, pp. 130, 132). His failure in
the Enquiry to take the opportunity of treating this question over again
is significant of the lower philosophic standard of the later work,
especially as he does take the opportunity to add a good deal to his
previous discussion of the origin of the idea of power (Enquiry, §§
51–3, 60 n; cf. Treatise, p. 632, Appendix). In the same spirit
the distinction between essential and accidental circumstances, and the
question of the employment of general rules (Treatise, pp. 145f, 173f),
subjects of great speculative as well as practical interest, are ignored
in the Enquiry.
9
A good deal of psychological detail is omitted in the Enquiry.
Thus §§ v, ix, x and xiii of Bk. I, part iii, of the Treatise are
omitted bodily, partly no doubt to shorten the discussion, and partly on
Hume’s new principle of not trying to penetrate beneath the obvious
explanations of phenomena. He adds, however, a detailed discussion
(Enquiry, §§ 51–3) of the possibility of deriving the idea of power from
an internal impression, such as the feeling of initiative or effort
accompanying a bodily or mental movement. These sections would appear to
be occasioned by contemporary discussions, and are excellently
expressed. On the same footing stands the discussion of the theory of
occasional causes, which is very well done in §§ 54–7 of the Enquiry
(cf. Treatise, p. 171). The omission of the practical § xv of the
Treatise, on the rules by which to judge of causes and effects, appears
rather strange, unless we regard it as raising a difficult general
question which Hume has already shown his anxiety to avoid in his
omission of § iii. With regard to the account of the origin, in
particular cases, of the idea of cause and effect, there is little
difference between the Treatise and Enquiry, except that in the Enquiry
‘contiguity’ practically drops out altogether. A good deal was said
about contiguity in § ix of the Treatise, which disappears in the
Enquiry; and again in the final definitions of cause given in § xiv, pp.
170–172 of the Treatise, contiguity appears on the same level as
resemblance, whereas in the definitions given in the Enquiry, § 60, no
mention is made of it at all.
10
A comparison of the definitions given on pp. 170–2 of the
Treatise and § 60 of the Enquiry, shows that in the Enquiry the
distinction between causation as a philosophical and a natural relation
is altogether dropped. In the Treatise this distinction is very hard to
follow, and there is little doubt that the sacrifice of it in the
Enquiry is deliberate. In the Enquiry Hume asserts more clearly than in
the Treatise (though with some of the old inconsistencies) that there is
nothing at the bottom of causation except a mental habit of transition
or expectation, or, in other words, a ‘natural relation.’ Thus the
omission of the chapter on the rules by which to judge of cause and
effect and the sacrifice of contiguity are both part of the same policy:
succession cannot be got rid of altogether, and this, it is true, is a
philosophical relation (Treatise, p. 14), but it is one which is a
matter of perception rather than reasoning (Treatise, p. 73), and is not
one which raises much discussion—we seldom have much difficulty in
discovering whether A or B came first, and you cannot strictly say that
B was more consequent on A than C was, or vice versa.
[N8] But men of
science are very curious about contiguity, and the examination of it as
a philosophical relation would often run counter to the connexions
established by contiguity as a natural relation. Contiguity therefore
drops out of the Enquiry as a philosophical relation, though it must be
supposed to exert its influence as a natural relation (cf. Treatise, p.
92).
Resemblance was not treated in the
Treatise as a philosophical relation, in connexion with causation, but
rather as a natural relation, i. e. not as a relation between A and B
which men of science would take into consideration, but as the relation
between a1 b1, a2 b2, a3
b3, &c., which was the foundation of the unconscious habit of
proceeding to assert a4 b4 or A B. This position
is still more clearly given to resemblance in the Enquiry, where Hume
asserts roundly that one instance is as good philosophically (or as we
should say, ‘scientifically’) as a thousand (cf. Enquiry, § 31). The
only effect of resemblance or repetition is to produce a habit.
Philosophical relations are those which
a man of science perceives or establishes when he consciously compares
one object with another. Natural relations are those which unconsciously
join one idea to another in his mind. In the case of causation,
therefore, a philosophical relation must be between A and B, a1
and b1, a2 and b2: natural relation
must be between one particular case of A B and another, e. g. between a1
b1 and a2 b2, a3 b3,
&c. The philosophical relation of causation is what a man of science
sees in one case of A B taken by itself, and that is nothing but
succession and contiguity. Hume feeling the difficulty of maintaining
philosophical relations at all, wisely says nothing in the Enquiry about
their difference from natural relations, and says as little as possible
about those elements of causation which he cannot spare, and which in
the Treatise appeared as philosophical relations. The distinction in the
Treatise is indeed most bewildering, but, with its disappearance in the
Enquiry, the relation of causation becomes more completely subjective,
and it becomes even more hard than in the Treatise to see how there can
be any difference between real and apparent causes, or any room for
concealed causes. On the other hand, it may be said that, so long as
natural was opposed to philosophical relation, there was still possible
an invidious contrast between the subjectivity of the one and the
objectivity of the other, while in the Enquiry some credit is restored
to causation, because nothing is said about its seven philosophical
rivals. Both in the Enquiry and Treatise the operations of resemblance,
contiguity and succession, are described in language which is far from
precise and clear, and which justifies many of the lively strictures
passed on the association theory by Mr. Bradley in his Principles of
Logic; but it is certainly easier to grasp Hume’s meaning in the Enquiry
than in the Treatise, and a comparison of the passages containing the
definitions is decidedly instructive.
11
It will be noted that in the Enquiry, § 60, Hume interjects a
curious little explanation of his first definition: ‘We may define a
cause to be an object followed by another, and when all the objects
similar to the first are followed by objects similar to the second,
or, in other words, where if the first object had not been, the second
never had existed.’ The words in italics can hardly be regarded as a
paraphrase or equivalent of the main definition, and must be added to
the rather large collection of unassimilated dicta which so much
occupied Professor Green.
[N9]
Liberty and necessity.—Hume has certainly effected an improvement in
the Enquiry by bringing this subject into closer connexion with his
theory of causation. In the Treatise he deals with it under the general
heading of the ‘will and direct passions,’ and with an interval of more
than 200 pages from the main treatment of cause. The only important
differences between the two discussions of the freedom of the will are (a)
the omission in the Enquiry of the preliminary definition of the will
(Treatise, p. 399), (b) the insertion in the Enquiry of the
definition of ‘liberty,’ § 73, (c) the more emphatic assertion in
the Enquiry that the whole dispute is one of words, and that all men
have really been always agreed on the matter. (Cf. Enquiry, §§ 62–3, 71,
73, and Treatise, pp. 399, 407, 409.) (d) The development of the
religious aspect of the question, Enquiry, §§ 76–81. To this nothing
corresponds in the Treatise, and like the following sections in the
Enquiry it may be ascribed to Hume’s ambition to disturb ‘the zealots’
at all costs.
The discussion has been carefully
re-written in the Enquiry, many of the illustrations used are different
and more elegant, and the whole section in the Enquiry is an excellent
instance of the general improvement in style and construction which
appears in the later work.
Miracles, providence, and a future
state. §§ x and xi of the Enquiry, in which these subjects are
treated, belong to Hume’s applied philosophy, and, important and
interesting as they are in themselves, they do not add anything to his
general speculative position. Their insertion in the Enquiry is due
doubtless rather to other considerations than to a simple desire to
illustrate or draw corollaries from the philosophical principles laid
down in the original work.
[N10]
13
Knowledge and reality. § 12 of the Enquiry very
inadequately represents the whole of Book I, part iv of the Treatise,
occupying as it does only seventeen pages as against ninety-four in the
earlier work. In details the correspondence is necessarily very
imperfect.
Brevity is, it is true, legitimately
attained in some cases by compression. Thus the rather rambling general
discussions of Scepticism in the Treatise contained in § i and § vii
(some eighteen pages) are fairly represented by § 116 and §§ 126–132 of
the Enquiry (some nine pages). So also there is not much reason to
complain of the abbreviation to one page of the criticism of the
distinction between primary and secondary qualities (Treatise, § iv, pp.
225–231; Enquiry, § 122, pp. 154–5), this part of the Treatise being
undeniably cumbrous. Two pages more in the Enquiry are occupied with an
illustration of the absurdity of the abstract sciences, drawn from their
doctrine of infinite divisibility, this having originally appeared in
Book I, p. ii, § ii of the Treatise.
This leaves only §§ 117–121 and 123 of
the Enquiry (about four pages) to do duty for the whole of §§ ii, iii,
v, vi of the Treatise (some sixty-nine pages).
In the Enquiry Hume merely confines
himself to asserting the opposition between the vulgar belief, based on
instinct and natural propensity, in external objects on the one side,
and the conclusions of philosophy, that we know nothing but perceptions
in the mind, on the other side.
[N11] He does not attempt any further
investigation beyond rejecting an appeal to the veracity of God which
was not mentioned in the Treatise (Enquiry, § 120), but simply falls
back on the position that sceptical arguments, if they admit of no
answer, at all events produce no conviction. Perhaps the most
interesting part of the whole Treatise is that in which Hume tried to
explain (§ ii, pp. 187–218) our belief in the existence of body, which
he reduced to the continued and distinct existence of perceptions, by
the influence of their constancy and coherence on our imagination. This
is entirely dropped in the Enquiry, together with the account of our
idea of substance (Treatise, § iii, ‘Of the antient philosophy’), and of
our idea of mind (Treatise, § vi, ‘Of personal identity’). A
considerable part of the discussion on the immateriality of the soul
(Treatise, § v), may appear to us antiquated, just as it may fairly have
appeared to Hume too dry for a popular work, and not absolutely
necessary to his system. But it is not too much to say on the whole,
that the omissions in § 12 of the Enquiry are alone amply sufficient to
render it quite impossible to comply with Hume’s wish and treat the
Enquiry as representing the whole of his philosophic system.
[N12]
14
The Dissertation on the Passions, first published in 1757,
together with the Natural History of Religion and two essays on tragedy
and taste, and printed in the edition of 1777 between the two Enquiries,
is not reprinted in this volume.
It consists largely, as Mr. Grose says,
of verbatim extracts from Bk. II of the Treatise, with some trifling
verbal alterations.
As it stands, the Dissertation is a
very uninteresting and unsatisfactory work. The portion of Bk. II of the
Treatise which was perhaps of most general interest, namely the
discussion of Liberty and Necessity, had been previously transferred to
the Enquiry into Human Understanding, and so was no longer available for
the Dissertation. But the Dissertation suffers, not only by this
transference of matter, but also by omissions of other really important
matters.
(1) In the Treatise an elaborate
account was given of pride and humility, love and hatred, and an attempt
was made to explain the mechanism of the passions, by the relation of
impressions and ideas, which was at all events a serious essay towards
something less superficial than the prevalent psychology. Its bearing on
Hume’s general system is, it is true, not very great and not at all
clear, and it is easy to understand how, as a matter of literary policy,
it was omitted by Hume. But in connexion with other omissions it has a
decided philosophical significance.
(2) The psychology of sympathy,
which occupies so much space in Bk. II, and on which so much depends in
Bk. III of the Treatise, is almost entirely ignored in the Enquiry. How
it is possible to find room for sympathy in so atomistic or
individualistic a psychology as Hume’s, is one of the most interesting
questions which are raised by his system. How I can not only know but
enter into the feelings of another person, when I can only know my own
feelings, is indeed a problem worthy of grave consideration.
[N13] When we
come to consider the treatment of sympathy in the Enquiry concerning the
Principles of Morals by the side of its treatment in the Treatise, we
shall see reason to think that Hume has very considerably modified his
views, not only as to the functions of sympathy, but also as to the
proper limits of psychological analysis.
(3) The discussion in the Treatise, Bk.
II, § iii, of the relation of passion to reason is of great importance
for the subsequent question of the source of moral distinctions, as also
are the distinction between calm and violent passions and the
identification of reason with the former; but the Dissertation is
contented with the barest mention of them.
In general, we may say that, whereas
Bk. II of the Treatise was not only valuable as an independent essay in
psychology, and interesting from its wealth of observation and
illustration, but also important from its preliminary treatment of
questions which were going to be of vital importance in Bk. III, the
Dissertation is neither interesting in itself nor of any assistance for
the interpretation or criticism of the Enquiry concerning the Principles
of Morals. The extent of its correspondence with Bk. II of the Treatise
is shown in the accompanying comparative Table of Contents.
15
Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals.
Hume has recorded his own opinion that the Enquiry concerning the
Principles of Morals was, of all his writings, ‘historical,
philosophical, or literary, incomparably the best.’
[N14] It was first
published in 1751, the corresponding book in the Treatise having been
published in 1740. Hume himself considered that the failure of the
Treatise ‘had proceeded more from the manner than the matter,’ and in
this Enquiry it is evident that he has given the greatest attention to
the style, and with such success as to justify Mr. Grose’s estimate of
him as ‘the one master of philosophic English.’
It is far less easy to compare the
matter of this Enquiry with that of Bk. III of the Treatise, because the
earlier work has, in this case, been really re-written. The comparative
Table of Contents will show in a graphic form the difficulty of making
out a correspondence between them. The arrangement is largely different.
The omissions are not in this case so important as the additions, and
there is a great change in the proportions and emphasis with which
various subjects are treated. There is also, the writer ventures to
believe, a very remarkable change of tone or temper, which, even more
than particular statements, leads him to suppose that the system of
Morals in the Enquiry is really and essentially different from that in
the Treatise.
16
In the Treatise nothing is more clear than his intention to
reduce the various principles of human nature, which appear distinct to
ordinary men, to some more general and underlying principle, and indeed
his philosophy differed from that of the moral sense school, represented
by Hutcheson, in precisely that particular. In other words, he attempted
a philosophical explanation of human nature, and was not content to
accept the ordinary distinctions of ‘faculties’ and ‘senses’ as final.
Thus the temper of the Treatise is well expressed by his emphatic
declaration (Bk. III, part iii, § i, p. 578), that it is ‘an inviolable
maxim in philosophy, that where any particular cause is sufficient for
an effect, we ought to rest satisfied with it, and ought not to multiply
causes without necessity’; and again (Bk. II, part i, § iii, p. 282),
‘we find in the course of nature that though the effects be many, the
principles from which they arise are commonly but few and simple, and
that it is the sign of an unskilful naturalist to have recourse to a
different quality in order to explain every different operation. How
much more must this be true with regard to the human mind?’ (Cf. also
Treatise, Bk. III, part iii, § ii, p. 473.)
With these passages we may compare,
observing the caution inculcated at the beginning of this Introduction,
§ 250 of the Enquiry, where speaking of self-love, he says, ‘The obvious
appearance of things . . . must be admitted till some hypothesis be
discovered which, by penetrating deeper into human nature, may prove the
former affections to be nothing but modifications of the latter. All
attempts of this kind have hitherto proved fruitless, and seem to have
proceeded entirely from that love of simplicity which has been the
source of so much false reasoning in philosophy.’ (Cf. § 9,
‘Philosophers have sometimes carried the matter too far by their passion
for some one general principle.’)
[N15]
Without laying undue stress on these
express statements (which go for less in Hume than in most authors), we
can hardly help feeling that Hume is approximating to the position of
Hutcheson, as expressed in his Preface to the Essay on the Nature and
Conduct of the Passions (p. ix, ed. 3, Lond. 1742): ‘Some strange
love of simplicity in the structure of human nature . . . has engaged
many writers to pass over a great many simple Perceptions which we may
find in ourselves: . . . had they . . . considered our affections
without a previous notion that they were all from self-love, they might
have felt an ultimate desire of the happiness of others as easily
conceivable and as certainly implanted in the human breast, though
perhaps not so strong as self-love.’ (Cf. ib. p. xiv: ‘This difficulty
probably arises from our previous notions of a small number of senses,
so that we are unwilling to have recourse in our theories to any more;
and rather strain out some explication of Moral Ideas, with relation to
some of the natural Powers of Perception universally acknowledged.’)
17
This change of attitude is, I think, seen in several points, some
of which have been already pointed out in dealing with the Dissertation
on the Passions, and which are here only distinguished for convenience
of reference.
Benevolence. In the Treatise
there are passages, it is true, which seem to admit an original
unaccountable instinct of benevolence (Treatise, Bk. II, part iii, §
iii, p. 417; ib. § ix, p. 439; Bk. II, part ii, § vi, p. 368; cf. Bk.
III, part ii, § i, p. 478). There are also passages which sternly limit
its extent and influence. Thus he says (Treatise, Bk. III, part ii, § i,
p. 481), ‘In general it may be affirmed that there is no such passion in
human minds as the love of mankind merely as such, independent of
personal qualities, of services, or of relation to oneself. It is true
there is no human and indeed no sensible creature whose happiness does
not, in some measure, affect us, when brought near to us and represented
in lively colours. But this proceeds merely from sympathy, and is no
proof of such an universal affection to mankind, since this concern
extends itself beyond our own species.’ (Cf. Bk. III, part ii, § ii, p.
496.) With this we may compare the Enquiry, § 184, where he speaks of
‘our natural philanthropy’; § 135, ‘a feeling for the happiness of
mankind and a resentment of their misery’; § 252, ‘these and a thousand
other instances are marks of a general benevolence in human nature.’
(Cf. § 178 n; § 250 n.)
The fact that in the Enquiry Hume
inserts a section on Benevolence (§ 2) before the treatment of Justice
is in itself significant. In the Treatise benevolence is treated among
the natural virtues and vices (Treatise, Bk. III, part iii, § iii, p.
602) immediately before ‘natural abilities.’ In the Enquiry it is
treated as the chief of the social virtues, and though a main object of
its treatment is to show its ‘utility,’ its independence is fully
recognized.
18
But the impression produced by the comparison of such passages as
the above is very much strengthened when we consider the functions and
position of Sympathy in the Treatise and Enquiry respectively. It
has been already noticed that in the Dissertation on the Passions
sympathy was almost ignored, though it was perhaps the most important
subject of Bk. II of the Treatise.
Speaking broadly, we may say that in
the Treatise nothing more is clear than that sympathy is used as a
solvent to reduce complex feelings to simpler elements. In the Enquiry
sympathy is another name for social feeling, humanity, benevolence,
natural philanthropy, rather than the name of the process by which the
social feeling has been constructed out of non-social or individual
feeling (§§ 180, 182, 186, 199, 203, 210, 221–3). Hume may have felt
that the machinery assigned to sympathy in Bk. II of the Treatise did
not work very well, and so have decided to get rid of it, but in so
doing he may be said to have abandoned perhaps the most distinctive
feature of his moral system as expounded in the Treatise, so that in the
Enquiry there is little to distinguish his theory from the ordinary
moralsense theory, except perhaps a more destructive use of ‘utility.’
In the Treatise his difference from the moralsense school lay precisely
in his attempt to resolve social feeling into a simple sensitivity to
pleasure and pain, which has become complicated and transformed by
sympathy. In reading Hutcheson we feel that he makes out a good case for
his ‘benevolence’ against Hobbes and Mandeville and the more insidious
selfishness of Shaftesbury, but that it would fall an easy prey to the
‘sympathy’ of Hume’s Treatise.
19
Self-love is much more fully and fairly dealt with by Hume in the
Enquiry than in the Treatise. He had declined, even in the Treatise,
with excellent good sense, to accept the popular reduction of
benevolence as given by the selfish school, but he certainly tried to
reduce benevolence to something which was neither selfish nor unselfish,
but rather physical.
In the Enquiry (Bk. V, §§ 173–8, and
App. ii, §§ 247–254) he carries the war into the enemy’s camp, and
introduces the conception of self-love which we find in Hutcheson’s
later works, and especially in Butler. Section 253 is especially
remarkable, insisting as it does on the necessity of appetites
antecedent to self-love. The germ of the same thought is perhaps to be
found in an obscure passage in the Treatise (Bk. III, part ii, § i, p.
478), though it is used for a significantly different purpose.
Benevolence is suggested in the
Enquiry as the primary, and self-love as the secondary passion, and the
suggestion is supported by the appeal to accept ‘the simplest and most
obvious cause which can be assigned’ for any passion or operation of the
human mind.
It is true that he makes even freer use
of Utility in the Enquiry than in the Treatise, and that it would
be easy to draw consequences from this principle which would neutralize
the concessions made to benevolence, but he is content himself to leave
it without developement, and to say in effect that utility pleases
simply because it does please.
20
His tenderness towards benevolence is also seen in his treatment
of Justice. In the Treatise he insisted vigorously, though not
very intelligibly, that justice was not a natural but only an artificial
virtue, and it is pretty plain that he meant to be offensive in doing
so. His argument in the Treatise was, to say the least, awkward, and he
may have been glad to get rid of an ungainly and unnecessary discussion.
In the Enquiry he dismisses the question in a few words as a vain one (§
258), and contents himself with pointing out the superior sociality of
justice as compared with benevolence (§§ 255–6).
21
Reason. He devotes much less space in the Enquiry to proving that
moral distinctions are not derived from reason, than to showing that
they are derived from a sentiment of humanity. He is more tolerant to
the claims of reason, and shows some approach to the indifference of
Butler. ‘These arguments on each side are so plausible that I am apt to
suspect they may, the one as well as the other, be solid and
satisfactory, and that reason and sentiment concur in almost all moral
determinations and conclusions’ (§ 137). In the same place he gives
reason an important function in the correction of our sentiments of
moral and natural beauty, a point which is of great importance in the
moral philosophy of that time, and indeed was not ignored in the
Treatise. Similarly in the Treatise he laid some stress on the identity
of what was usually called ‘reason’ with the calm passions (Bk. II, part
iii, § iii, p. 417; ib. § viii, p. 437), whereas he only mentions it
incidentally in the Enquiry in connexion with strength of mind (§ 196).
22
The old difficulty about ‘general rules,’ ‘the general and
unalterable point of view,’ re-appears in the Enquiry, though I think it
is dealt with in a manner quite foreign to the Treatise. In the Treatise
the universality of our moral judgements and their detachment from
private interest was accounted for by sympathy (Treatise, Bk. III, part
ii, § ii, p. 500; Bk. III, part iii, § i, p. 577; § vi, p. 618). But
sympathy itself varies with time, place and person, and consequently
requires correction, which is supplied by the use of general rules (Bk.
III, part iii, § i, pp. 581–5). How these corrective rules are obtained
he does not explain in the Treatise, and indeed they seem to work in a
circle with sympathy. In the Enquiry they again appear, and are in the
first place ascribed to the ‘intercourse of sentiments in society and
conversation’ (§ 186), arising apparently in the same way as ‘general
ideas,’ which are really only particular ideas with their particularity
rubbed off by wear and tear. But in §§ 221–2 of the Enquiry he asserts
the universality of moral judgements in quite a new style. ‘The notion
of morals implies some sentiment common to all mankind which recommends
the same object to general approbation and makes every man, or most men,
agree in the same opinion or decision concerning it. It also implies
some sentiment, so universal and comprehensive as to extend to all
mankind, and render the actions and conduct even of persons the most
remote, an object of applause and censure. . . . These two requisites
belong alone to the sentiment of Humanity.’ This sentiment is the only
‘universal principle of the human frame,’ and ‘can alone be the
foundation of morals or of any general system of blame or praise.’ ‘One
man’s ambition is not another’s ambition, nor will the same event or
object satisfy both: but the humanity of one man is the humanity of
every one, and the same object touches the passion in all human
creatures.’ This may not be the ‘moral sense,’ but it certainly is not
the doctrine of the Treatise.
23
There does not seem to be any trace in the Enquiry of the appeal
to the ‘natural and usual force of the passions,’ as the standard
of morals, of which considerable use is made in the Treatise, and which
has been considered to brand Hume’s moral system as one of sheer
respectability (Treatise, Bk. III, part ii, § i, pp. 483–4; § ii, p.
488; § v, p. 518; § vi, p. 532).
24
The interest of Hume’s philosophical writings must not be judged
by the dryness of the foregoing discussion of them. The question of the
relation of the two versions with which Hume himself has endowed and
puzzled us, appears of sufficient general interest to warrant a serious
examination. But such questions cannot be decided by general
impressions, and this Introduction aims at supplying, or rather
indicating, the material for a more exact determination of Hume’s
relations to himself, than has been previously attempted. The writer has
also had the temerity to relieve the rather mechanical toil of
tabulating differences and correspondences by attempts to distinguish
the purely philosophical from the non-philosophical and personal
considerations which influenced a philosopher who was often both more
and less than a philosopher. How much in the matter and manner of Hume’s
work is due to peculiarities of his character is hard to say, but the
personal element continually challenges, even if it eludes, our
appreciation.
The Introduction undoubtedly supposes
that the reader has some acquaintance with the Treatise, and may serve
as a guide to those students who wish to see for themselves what Hume’s
last word on philosophy was. The present Edition also is intended rather
as a recognition of that wish than as a concession to those who would
substitute the Enquiries for the Treatise as the authoritative
exposition of Hume’s system. It would be a considerable misfortune for
our native philosophy if the Treatise were left unread. But the Treatise
is hard, and many of us are weak, and it is better to read Hume in the
Enquiries than not to read him at all. By those who begin on the
Enquiries the Introduction may be read, as it were, backwards, and it
may, perhaps, serve to point out the road to a fuller knowledge of a
philosopher, who, at his greatest, is very great indeed.
