BERKELEY AND HUME
=The Life and Writings of George Berkeley= (1685–1753). In Bishop
Berkeley we have the finest type of Irish mind. In his brilliant
mental powers and idealistic theory he reminds us of that wonderful
Irish scholar of the Middle Ages, John Scotus Erigena. Berkeley was
acutely critical, and yet he possessed a childlike religious faith. He
combined an insatiable longing for knowledge with an ardent missionary
zeal. “Berkeley was a born child of Plato, a lineal descendant of
a race whose origin is afar off and is divine.”[40] He was one of
those exceptional minds that begin to bring forth their intellectual
offspring when they are young. Berkeley began to publish at the age
of twenty-four, Hume at twenty-eight, Descartes at forty-one, Locke
at fifty-eight.
We shall divide the life of Berkeley into three periods.
1. _His Early Training_ (1685–1707). Nothing is known of Berkeley’s
early years, except that he was born in Kilkenny, Ireland. He was
educated at the Eton of Ireland, the Kilkenny school, where Swift had
been a pupil; and it is known that one of Berkeley’s schoolmates was
Thomas Prior. Berkeley entered Trinity College, Dublin, at fifteen, and
graduated at nineteen. Scholasticism was still influential at Trinity,
but new sciences, such as botany, chemistry, and anatomy, had been
added to the curriculum. There, too, the young Berkeley found that
Locke’s _Essay_ was much discussed, and that Newton, Boyle, Malebranche,
Descartes, and Leibnitz were widely read. From this early date Berkeley
began to keep a book of his own philosophical reflections, calling
it his _Commonplace Book_. From it and from his philosophy it would
appear that Locke and Malebranche were the most powerful philosophical
influences upon him.
2. _As Author_ (1707–1721).
Berkeley remained at Dublin as tutor and fellow five years after
his graduation. In 1709 he was ordained deacon in the English church.
He published two mathematical tracts in 1707, his _Theory of Vision_
in 1709, his _Principles of Human Knowledge_ in 1710. The _Theory
of Vision_ and the _Principles of Human Knowledge_ were practically
a statement of his philosophy. They have been compared thus: the
_Theory of Vision_ teaches that “all that we see is our sensation”; the
_Principles of Human Knowledge_ teaches that “all that exists is our
knowledge.” Berkeley then went to London, where he was admitted to the
court of Queen Anne and also to the circle that included Steele, Swift,
Addison, and Pope. Berkeley showed himself humble, wise, considerate,
and unselfish, and although he was shocked at the court life, he on
his side charmed every one whom he met. He wanted to make his idealism
better understood, and so he published it in the form of a dialogue
between a realist and an idealist. This publication was called _Three
Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous_ (1713). He then made two
journeys to the Continent――1713–1714 and 1716–1720――and spent much
of the time in Italy, where he absorbed its literature. The South Sea
swindle turned him to economics, and in 1721 he published an _Essay
toward Preventing the Ruin of Great Britain_.
3. _As Priest and Missionary_ (1721–1753).
Berkeley was appointed Dean of Derry in 1721 at a salary of £1100.
Although he threw himself into his work with his accustomed zeal, there
had already appeared in his mind the conception of an ideal society,
where church and state would be united. He was disgusted with the
worn-out European society, and wanted to remove the youth to a colony
where there would be no temptations. He raised a large sum of money for
this purpose, and obtained the promise of a grant from the government
of £20,000, gave up his deanery, and sailed for America. He intended to
settle in Bermuda and there to found an ideal State, which should also
be a centre for the conversion of the American Indians to Christianity.
The promised grant from the English government did not come, and
Berkeley got no farther than Newport, R. I., where he lived three
years. While at Newport he wrote _Alciphron, the Minute Philosopher_,
and published it in England in 1732. The records of Trinity Church
in Newport show that he preached there many Sundays. He gave several
books to Harvard and Yale Colleges. At Newport he was visited by Samuel
Johnson, an Episcopal missionary, who afterwards became president
of King’s College in New York. Johnson was converted to Berkeley’s
idealism, and through Johnson the doctrine was received by Jonathan
Edwards, his pupil.
From 1734 to 1752 Berkeley was Bishop of Cloyne. He was devoted
to missionary work among the poor, and many of his people being
afflicted with an epidemic of influenza, he treated them effectively
with tar-water――a remedy he had learned from the Indians. He published
_Siris_, an essay on the philosophical virtues of tar-water, in 1744.
In 1752 he went to Oxford to live, and in 1753 he died.
=The Influences upon the Thought of Berkeley.= Berkeley’s philosophy
shows little development after his first publications. With the
exception of _Siris_, which contains much Platonic idealism, the later
works of Berkeley are scarcely more than an elaboration of his early
thought in the _Theory of Vision_ and the _Principles of Human Nature_.
We should infer, therefore, that the only philosophical influences
upon Berkeley were the original springs at which he drank as a youth.
Moreover, he always speaks with the dogmatic certainty of one who has
drawn his material from but few sources. Never does he exhibit the
indecision of a man who is embarrassed by many points of view. The two
chief influences upon him were Locke and Malebranche. The influence of
Locke was partly of the nature of a reaction: Berkeley accepted Locke’s
psychological analysis, but reacted from Locke’s “common sense” dualism
as early as the time of his student life at Trinity. Malebranche, with
his theory of “occasional causes,” reinforced his opinion along the
line that his reaction took. But Berkeley’s own incisive genius had a
relatively greater influence in dictating the course of his philosophy
than is usually the case. His mind was precocious, fertile, and
continuously versatile. Furthermore, Berkeley’s simple religious nature
seems to have been an important factor in determining his intellectual
belief. His peculiar idealism could take root only in a mind inspired
by faith.
=The Purpose of Berkeley.= The life and teaching of Berkeley were
dedicated to the true interests of religion. He may be called the
religious Enlightener. He would not, like the deists, strip religion
bare of dogma, but he would unlimber dogma and rational philosophy so
that they would be of service to religion. _His purpose was to free
scholasticism on the one hand, and rationalism on the other, from
abstractions and obscure terms, and thereby bring about a union of
faith and knowledge._ Berkeley looked upon himself as a crusader who
would retake the Holy Land for the spiritual individual.
We have remarked that one of the presuppositions of this period of the
Enlightenment is the independence of the individual. The individual
around which Berkeley’s philosophy centres is the spiritual individual,
and is therefore unique even for this period. Such an individual is
superior to his environment because he belongs not to a material world,
but to a community of religious beings who can talk and walk with God.
The English Enlightenment passed from Locke to Berkeley. The inner life
came into complete ascendency and the spiritual individual emerged.
From the Lockian philosophy, with its many contradictory motives,
there appeared the audacious one-sided philosophy of Berkeley, with its
proclamation of the reign of spirituality. It stood in marked contrast
with the development of the Enlightenment in France――a development
of materialism and material atoms. The spectral although stubborn
boundaries of the unknowable material world, which Locke supposed to
shut around the powers of the human intellect, crumbled before the hand
of Berkeley.
The casual reader of the history of thought is, however, often
disconcerted at the appearance of such a philosophy as Berkeley’s in
this period of empiricism, and especially as the immediate follower
of Locke. The English school is called the empirical school, and
yet Berkeley is also called an idealist. But we must remember that
empiricism and idealism are not antithetical. Empiricism refers to the
source of our knowledge; it means that all our knowledge is primarily
derived from sense-perceptions. These sense-perceptions may be of two
kinds: they may be (1) psychological facts, or (2) material facts.
Berkeley was, like Locke and Hume, an empiricist of the first class;
and yet because he denied the independent existence of material facts,
he was also an idealist. He was an empirical idealist, just as the
French philosophers of the Enlightenment were empirical materialists.
The critic may find that Berkeley is not a consistent empiricist,
to be sure, but neither was Locke. Berkeley started out by affirming
the testimony of experience against scholastic ♦speculation and
abstraction; yet all along he assumed the scholastic conception of
mind. Nevertheless, this assumption of the individual makes Berkeley
a true child of the Enlightenment.[41]
=Berkeley’s General Relation to Locke and Hume.= The growth of this
English school from Locke to Hume is not difficult to understand or
to remember. It is not so much a page in the history of metaphysics
(the nature of reality) as in epistemology (the theory of knowledge).
Locke asks, What can we know? And he replies to his own question, that
we can know our “ideas.” At the same time he assumes the existence
of a spiritual substance on the one side, and a material substance
on the other. Neither of these is an idea, in the sense that it is an
object of knowledge. The advance of Berkeley from Locke and of Hume
from Berkeley was one of cancellation. Berkeley cancelled the material
substance, because the material substance is not an idea. Hume then
consistently enough asked, Why not for the same reason cancel the
spiritual substance? The spiritual substance is not an idea or object
of knowledge. We have no more right to assume it than the material
substance. The only things we know to exist are our ideas. The
development of the English school may be briefly put as follows:――
Locke, Spiritual substance――ideas――material substance.
Berkeley, Spiritual substance――ideas.
Hume, ideas.
Hume is Locke made logically consistent. Berkeley went only halfway.
Hume among these three was the only self-consistent empiricist. On
the assumption that all knowledge is derived from sense-perception
the history of the English empirical school was a history of the
restriction of knowledge.
=Berkeley’s Points of Agreement with Locke.= Berkeley starts from
Locke’s psychological analysis as the basis of his own theory. The
purely scientific aspect of the contents of mind as classified by Locke
does not call for particular criticism from him. Logical classification
does not seem to concern him very much, and while he accepts Locke’s
analysis, he often calls Locke’s classes by other names. He commits
himself to Locke’s psychological empiricism in the first sentence in
his _Principles_: “It is evident to any one who takes a survey of the
objects of knowledge, that they are either ideas actually imprinted on
the senses; or else such as are perceived by attending to the passions
and operations of the mind; or, lastly, ideas formed by the help
of memory and imagination――either compounding, dividing, or barely
representing those originally perceived in the aforesaid ways.” Our
knowledge, therefore, deals only with ideas. There are the simple ideas
of sensation and reflection, and ideas compounded from these.
Besides accepting the psychological analysis of Locke, Berkeley also
adopts without question the assumption common to Locke and all the
philosophers of the Enlightenment,――the assumption of the independence
of the individual soul. “But besides all the endless variety of ideas
or objects of knowledge, there is likewise something that knows or
perceives them――what I call mind, spirit, soul, or self. By which I
do not denote any one of my ideas, but a thing entirely distinct from
them, wherein they exist, or, which is the same thing, whereby they are
perceived.”
Berkeley, therefore, (1) agrees with Locke that all knowledge is
derived from sense-perception, _i. e._ he agrees with Locke’s empirical
psychology, and (2) he also agrees with one of Locke’s assumptions,
viz., that the spiritual substances exist.
=The Negative Side of Berkeley’s Philosophy.= We have now pointed out
Berkeley’s general relation to Locke and Hume, and more in particular
his agreements with Locke. We are now prepared to examine the teaching
of Berkeley by itself.
Berkeley was obliged to devote a good deal of time to the negative
side of his philosophy. Just as Locke could not construct an empirical
psychology until he had disclaimed all allegiance to innate ideas, so
Berkeley could not construct an idealism until he had brought to bear
in a polemical fashion all his forces against abstract ideas. Of his
two masterpieces he devotes the entire essay on the _Theory of Vision_
and a good part of his _Principles of Human Nature_ to this end.
1. In proof of this he advances his analysis of abstract ideas. He not
only denies that abstract ideas have a corresponding external reality,
but he even denies that abstract ideas exist in the mind itself. The
deception in abstract ideas arises from the use of words as general
terms. Words are always general; ideas are always particular. There
is never an idea that exactly corresponds to a word. Words are useful
not as a conveyance of ideas, but for inciting men to action and
arousing the passions. Whenever a word is used, what we think of is
the particular sense, idea, or group of sense objects that give rise to
it. For example, the word “yellow” cannot be employed by us except in
connection with the thought of some particular yellow thing. Berkeley
is a nominalist of the extremest type.
2. Again Berkeley seeks to show, by demolishing the distinction between
primary and secondary qualities, that matter as an abstract idea has
no existence. This distinction was as old as the Greek, Democritus, and
was accepted by Locke. We have already described it: of a thing like a
lump of sugar, the sense qualities of whiteness, roughness, sweetness,
etc., are secondary because they depend upon our sensations for their
existence; they are the ways in which our organisms are affected, and
not true copies of things; the mathematical qualities, form, size,
density, impenetrability, are primary because they exist independent
of our senses and are true copies of things. Hobbes had already
shown that such a distinction is erroneous, and Berkeley followed
him by maintaining that all qualities are secondary. The size and
impenetrability of a body depends as much on sense-perception as
its sweetness and color. At some length in his _Theory of Vision_
Berkeley takes up the question of the solidity, or third dimension,
of a material body, and shows that it is an inference depending on
sensations arising from the convergence of the two eyes and complicated
by the sensations of touch.
Berkeley professed to be pleading the cause of the man in the street
who wants a philosophy that is real “common sense.” He maintained that
the conception of matter is only a philosophical subtlety for those
philosophers who seek for something beyond perception. The man in
the street wishes to explain things as he finds them, and not to seek
mysterious abstractions which philosophers say in one breath that we
know, and in another that we cannot know.
Therefore, while Berkeley agreed with Locke’s assumption of the
existence of the spiritual substance, he departed from Locke in denying
the existence of a material substance. Berkeley accepted, therefore,
one of the two assumptions common to the Enlightenment, but he denied
the other. Now Berkeley was trying to prove a thesis. He was controlled
by the ideal of his ardent religious nature to free religion from
false philosophy. He felt that the foes of religion――atheism and
materialism――had employed effectively abstract ideas, which had been
one of the weapons of religion, against religion itself. Berkeley
concentrated his attack against the traditional scholastic conception
of abstract ideas in general and the abstract idea of matter in
particular. Abstract ideas have no existence; the idea of a material
substance is an abstract idea and therefore has no existence. Berkeley
was bound from the beginning of his religious crusade to explain away
the existence of material substance.
=The Positive Side of Berkeley’s Philosophy.=[42] In the construction
of his theory in a positive way Berkeley abridged the dualism of
“common sense,” and asserted that the abridged form was better. He
converted the dualism into a religious hypothesis, but it was a dualism
still,――a dualism of minds and their ideas. Berkeley then set to
work to show how much better his theory would explain the problems of
knowledge. “Berkeley sought to humanize science.” He set the spirit
free by relieving it of the falsities of the old dualistic assumption,
but the usefulness of his abridgment lay in its solution not of
metaphysical, but of epistemological problems.
1. Berkeley’s theory may be summed up in his own abbreviated
statement of it,――_Esse est percipi_ (to be is to be perceived). Or it
may be stated in that figurative and oft-quoted paragraph, “Some truths
there are so near and obvious to the mind that a man need only open
his eyes to see them. Such I take this important one to be, viz., that
all the choir of heaven and the furniture of the earth, in a word all
those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world, have not
any subsistence without a mind――that their being is to be perceived or
known.” Or we may state Berkeley’s position in the terms of a modern
interpreter[43] of him: “All objects are mentally discerned; all
objects are mentally constituted.” Berkeley means that the existence
and character of all objects are within the confines of consciousness,
and there are no objects outside of consciousness. As sense-perceptions
they have reality; as memories they lose their warmth and distinctness;
but they are not objects at all when neither perceived nor remembered.
These objects are always colored by the sense-perception. They
are received through the consciousness, and constituted by the
consciousness. Minds and their ideas are all that exist.
2. Berkeley does not try to prove the existence of the mind or soul,
nor does he attempt to show that we perceive the soul. But in the
spirit of the Enlightenment he hardly questions its reality. He takes
its existence for granted, and like the philosophers of the period he
makes a direct appeal to consciousness. “I know I am conscious of my
own being.” Like Locke and Descartes he alleges the direct intuition of
the self. In the _Principles_ he speaks of “a notion of our own minds
or spirits.” Since the ideas are copies of other ideas, there can be
no idea of the soul; but the “notion is like the spirit that knows
it.” We have therefore direct knowledge or _notion_ of ourselves in
knowing our ideas; we have direct knowledge of something superior to
the ideas, an activity whose reality consists not in being perceived,
but in perceiving. Indeed, he made the assertion in his _Commonplace
Book_, which he began in college, that nothing properly does exist but
conscious persons. All other things are not so much existences as signs
of the existences of persons. One is absolutely certain of what one
means by “I.”
3. Spiritual substances are sufficient and adequate to explain all
ideas. There is no difficulty in explaining the images of our own minds,
for our minds control them. But what explains the existence of our
percepts over which we have no control? What substantial support have
they if we remove the “material hypothesis”? Suppose I grant that I
exist and have control of my imaginative ideas, and that other minds
exist and have control of their imaginative ideas, how then, I ask
Berkeley, am I to explain the great world of perceptions over which
neither I nor other men have control?
Berkeley’s general psychological position must be summarized
here in order to answer this important question. It is as follows:
(1) All things are nothing more than perceptions. (2) All ideas,
both perceptions and images, are passive, and must be caused by
something in itself active. (3) Souls are active and the cause of
ideas. The question then is, What soul is the cause of our perceptions?
Perceptions are ideas, are passive, but they are the ideas of whom?
Repudiate the material substance, and what is the cause of perceptions?
Perceptions are not originated by me; they cannot be self-originated,
because they are passive and not active; they cannot be originated by
a material substance, because it does not exist. Their origin must be
sought in the infinite spirit, or God. If you will examine the ideas
which constitute what we call nature objects, you will observe these
significant characteristics about them, to which attention has already
been called. They have, as we have said, a strength, liveliness,
distinctness, and orderliness that distinguish them from imaginations.
They are God speaking to us in His orderly way. Nature objects are
the language of God. The regularity and dependability of the world of
nature reveal the character of the Being whose language the world of
nature is. They reveal a Being who is intelligent, infinite, omnipotent,
and benevolent. The regularity of the changing seasons, the constancy
of the heavenly bodies to their orbits, the provision of the earth for
man――all the laws of nature are the language of an orderly Being.
Now we see the importance of Berkeley’s deviation from Locke in his
(Berkeley’s) conception of all ideas as passive. All ideas being
passive, there must be a cause of them. The only active causes are
spirits. I am the cause or perceiver of my own imaginations. I perceive
another’s movements and know that another person or spirit must be the
cause. When nature speaks in its invariable and purposive harmony, I
know that an infinite spirit is the cause. We are indeed living in a
society of spirits, who speak to one another in their own language.
The doctrine of Berkeley strikes beginners and people who
temperamentally cannot understand it, as absurd. The reduction of the
trees, sky, etc., to ideas is a theory that has brought down all kinds
of ridicule upon it. When Dr. Johnson heard of it, he is said to have
stamped his foot upon the ground, and thereby refuted it. Byron is
quoted as saying, “If there is no matter, and Berkeley has proved
it, it is no matter what he said.” Others have asked if we eat and
drink ideas and are clothed with ideas. But Berkeley never doubted the
existence of material objects, and the point of his theory is missed
if we think that he did. What he denied is the existence of an unknown
substance, matter, behind external objects. “The table I write on
exists, that is, I see and feel it; and if I were out of my study
I should say it existed, meaning thereby that if I were in my study
I might perceive it or that some other person does perceive it.”
Another question has been asked of Berkeley which goes deeper. If to be
is to be perceived, what existence has a tree in the forest that no one
has ever perceived. What existence have past events that are forgotten?
Berkeley has considered this objection and has answered it. When he
says that existence depends upon perception, he does not mean merely
my own perception. Berkeley is not what in philosophy is called a
solipsist (_solus_ and _ipse_), _i. e._ one who believes that nothing
exists but himself and his modifications. A thing may have existence
in the mind of some one else. If the thing has never been perceived
by any human being, it is perceived, if the thing exists, by the mind
of God. The modern scientist assumes the existence of matter in the
whole universe. Berkeley assumes the existence of a perceiving God.
One is the materialistic and the other the religious explanation of
the universe.
=The Life and Writings of David Hume[44]= (1711–1776). Hume’s life
bears some marks of external resemblance to Berkeley’s. After periods
of training that differed very greatly in point of discipline, but were
almost the same in point of time, both produced, at about the age of
twenty-five, their most important philosophical works. Both turned from
philosophy to other pursuits――Berkeley to missionary work at the age
of thirty-six, and Hume to politics at the age of forty-one. There
the resemblance between the two men ceases; for they were antipodal
by nature, and animated by different purposes. The enthusiastic nature
of Berkeley is in marked contrast with the unimpassioned nature of
the Scot. Hume was unimaginative to the last. He was unimpressed by
the legends of the border where he lived; he had no love for nature
and no appreciation of art. “While Hume’s intellect was imperial,
his sympathies were provincial.” Berkeley’s sympathies were imperial
and his intellect was in their service. Hume was a man of kindly
disposition and of moderate temper, yet he was vain, and interested
above everything else in his own reputation. No object seemed worth
while to him, unless it made for the improvement of his talents in
literature. The failure of the _Treatise_ was a blow from which he
never recovered. Always afterward he had an eye to popularity, and this
is important in making up our judgment about him. All his works after
the _Treatise_ were written to please his readers and for personal
success. Locke the Englishman, Berkeley the Irishman, and Hume the
Scotchman came from the same middle class of society, had university
training, were engaged in public service, and are to be classed in
the same empirical school of philosophy. But they were personally
very different kinds of men, and were types, although perhaps not
representatives, of their nationalities.
1. _Period of Training_ (1711–1734). Hume was born in Edinburgh
and lived there and at Ninewells on the border. He was a student at
Edinburgh University (1723–1726) and studied law the next year. He was
in business in Bristol in 1734. In all the occupations of this period
he was unhappy.
2. _Period of Philosopher_ (1734–1752). From 1734 to 1737 Hume was
in retirement in France, especially at La Flèche, where he wrote
his _Treatise on Human Nature_. He returned to Edinburgh in 1737 and
published his _Treatise_ (1739–1740). It was read by nobody and was
an absolute failure. So he rewrote Book I in 1748 and called it the
_Enquiry concerning Human Understanding_. Hume’s full statement of
his theory of knowledge is contained in the _Treatise_ and not in
the _Enquiry_. He rewrote Book III in 1751 and called it the _Enquiry
concerning Principles of Morals_, “of all my writings, incomparably the
best,” and in 1757 he published Book II as an _Essay on the Passions in
Four Dissertations_. He became acquainted with Adam Smith in 1740; he
published _Essays, Moral and Political_, in 1741–1742, and was a tutor
in 1745, because he needed money. In 1746–1748 he became secretary in
the English military embassy to Vienna. In 1751, the same year that he
was recasting the third book of the _Treatise_, he wrote his _Dialogues
concerning Natural Religion_, which was not published until 1779. His
autobiography was also published posthumously.
3. _Period of Politician_ (1752–1776). In 1752 Hume published his
_Political Discourses_, “the only work of mine that was successful on
its first publication.” In 1754–1761, while Librarian at Edinburgh, he
wrote and published his _History of England_. This work was the first
serious attempt since the Revolution to give an impartial account
of the earlier struggles against the Stuarts. Through it he at last
got great fame, and fortune followed in its wake. In 1757 came his
restatement of Book II of the _Treatise_. In 1763–1765 Hume was
secretary of the English Embassy at Paris, and he was made much of by
French society. The thought of the French Enlightenment had advanced
far enough to entertain him and his doctrines. Hume met Rousseau at
this time. Later Hume was visited by Rousseau in England and was badly
treated by the eccentric Frenchman. He says that Rousseau sins at the
foundation. Hume was appointed Under Secretary of State in 1766; he
returned to Edinburgh in 1769, and died in 1776.
=Influences upon the Thought of Hume.= The writings of Hume show
no erudition, and for that reason it is uncertain what were all the
sources from which he drew. He does not mention Descartes, for example,
although he wrote his _Treatise_ at La Flèche in the shadow of the
school where Descartes was educated. It is probable, however, that Hume
was influenced at least by the Greek philosophers of the Hellenic-Roman
Period, and by Locke. During the years after Hume’s student life at
the university, he pored over the writings of the Roman Stoics in the
library at Ninewells, and he felt the influence of Cicero, Seneca,
and Plutarch. Hume read extensively, and he reacted from his reading.
He became so dissatisfied with the past that he put it aside, in the
belief that the true philosophy had not yet been written. In this
reaction from the past he was influenced along the lines of Locke and
Berkeley. He admired the advance that Berkeley had made over Locke,
and naturally took a further step in the same direction. Hume was also
acquainted with the writings of Hobbes and with the history of the
English theories of morals.
In 1740 he became acquainted with Adam Smith, the political economist,
and Hume’s _Political Discourses_ (1752) anticipated Smith’s classic
_Wealth of Nations_. At this time (1752) he turned with all other
Englishmen from the discussion of philosophical to political topics.
There are many points of resemblance between Smith and Hume, especially
in their ethical doctrine.
=Dogmatism, Phenomenalism, and Skepticism.= Hume liked to speak of
himself as a skeptic, but philosophically speaking he was skeptical
only of the dogmatic Rationalism of the Renaissance, which had made
unlimited claims for the human reason. Hume maintained in the spirit
of the Enlightenment that the human mind deals with ideas and not with
reality. Human knowledge has therefore its limits. More consistently
than Locke or any one else in the Enlightenment, he tried to show the
limits and extent of human knowledge.
Pure skepticism is the denial that there is any such thing as truth;
pure dogmatism would be the deductive explanation of all problems from
a set of infallible principles. It would be hard to find an absolutely
true example of skepticism or dogmatism, for generally philosophical
theories are a mixture of dogmatism and skepticism. Pyrrho is often
given as an example of the pure skeptic, but Pyrrho, like all other
Greeks, never for a moment doubted the existence of an external,
material object (vol. i, chapter xii). Spinoza is a fairly good
example of a pure dogmatist, but he developed his _Ethics_ by
means of interpolated principles not in his original assumptions. A
thorough-going skeptic would have to be a modern――not a Greek――who
would deny that truth can be known and that things exist. This was
not Hume’s contention. He affirmed the validity (1) of mathematical
reasoning (2) and of matters of fact, and (3) the probability of
the natural sciences. Hume may correctly be called a phenomenalist,
a positivist, or an agnostic. So far as he maintained that there are
some things which the reason cannot know, he is an agnostic. In his
affirmation that we can know ideas and only ideas, he is a positivist.
In his affirmation that ideas are the only existences, he is a
phenomenalist. Are external objects the cause of sensations? Experience
is dumb. Have external objects an existence? Experience is dumb.
Are souls the substance of our thoughts? Experience is dumb. But
mathematics has truth, experience is beyond question, and the workings
of nature are probable.
We shall find Hume to be the keenest critical mind of this
critical period of the Enlightenment. He is profoundly serious
in his examination of the roots of the intellectual life. He is
past-master in the art of raising questions. He not only shows that
the fundamental theoretical problems are still unsolved, but he also
calls to account the hitherto untested assumptions of practical life.
But this is criticism, positivism, phenomenalism, or agnosticism, and
not skepticism. He speaks of his doctrine as like that of the Middle
Academy, in contrast with that of Pyrrho. He says that excessive
skepticism upsets activity, employment, and common occupations. The
conclusions of the intellect never agree with our natural instincts.
Every time positive skepticism appears, nature destroys it.
Hume’s conclusion as to the practical attitude of the positivist
toward life can best be stated in his own words (_Treatise_, Book I,
Conclusion): “Shall we then establish it for a general maxim, that no
refined or elaborate reasoning is ever to be received? If we embrace
this principle, we run into the most manifest absurdities. If we
reject it in favor of those reasonings, we subvert entirely the human
understanding. We have, therefore, no choice left, but between a
false reason and none at all. Most fortunately it happens that since
reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, nature suffices to that
purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melancholy. I dine, I play
a game of backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends.――No:
If I must be a fool, as all who reason or believe anything certainly
are, my follies shall at least be natural and agreeable. In all the
incidents of life we ought still to preserve our skepticism. Where
reason is lively and mixes itself with some propensity it ought to be
assented to.”
=The Origin of Ideas.= Locke did not proceed to the construction of
his theory of knowledge until he had disclaimed at length his belief
in the existence of innate ideas. Berkeley went further and made his
polemic against the existence of all abstract ideas. Hume went still
further and denied that any ideas existed except those derived from
impressions. Locke’s attack upon innate ideas was an attack upon
unverified tradition; Berkeley’s attack upon abstract ideas was an
attack upon materialism; Hume made a general attack upon rationalism.
The psychology of Hume is thus made simple. It is a cancellation of the
factors incompatible with strict empiricism――the factors which he found
in Locke and Berkeley. Hume’s empirical psychology is simply this:
_every idea is the image or copy of an impression_.
What is an impression? Impressions are of two classes: (1) sensations
or outer impressions; (2) feelings or emotions or inner impressions.
Impressions are never mistaken, because they always have a very lively
and vivid character. What is an idea? It is the copy of an impression.
An idea should never be mistaken for an impression, because it is
fainter and more feeble than the impression of which it is the copy.
For example, the sensation of yellow is more vigorous than the thought
of yellow; the feeling of anger more vivid than the thought of anger.
Impressions are simple and elemental. Can we go back of them and find
their origin? We cannot. We receive impressions; echoes of impressions
linger as ideas; ideas may be compounded with other ideas. Hume deals
in his criticism mostly with the compounding or combining of ideas,
but this is the sum and substance of his psychological analysis of our
mental life. The following table will help us.
{ Sensations or outer
{ Impressions { impressions
{ (= original) { Feelings or inner
{ { impressions
Perceptions {
(= mental { { Memories or an exact
states) { { reproduction of an
{ { impression or of a
{ Ideas { combination of impressions
{ (= derived) { Imagination or a combination,
{ separation, and transposition
{ of impressions according to
{ the imagination’s own laws.
It should be noted, however, that the above classes are not coördinate
according to Hume. Impressions are prior to ideas, and of the
impressions the feelings or inner impressions are “posterior to the
sensations and derived from them.” Hume is a sensationalist, for the
most original of the impressions are sensations.
=The Association of Ideas.= Since nothing can enter the mind except
through the two portals of outer and inner impressions, every idea
in the mind is the copy of one or several impressions. How then can
there be any such thing as error? Error arises from the understanding
and imagination in their manipulation of the impressions――from
the faculties of the mind combining, separating, and transposing
the impressions and their memories. An idea resulting from such
transposition may and often is referred to an impression different
from the one of which it is the copy.
What does Hume mean by the faculties and powers of the mind? He does
not mean that the mind with its functions exists as a reality, since
all that exist are impressions and the copies of impressions or ideas.
Hume means by mental faculties and powers the various modes by which
ideas combine. Hume makes no distinction between memory, imagination,
judgment, conception, etc., except (1) as different groupings of ideas
and (2) as accompanied by different feelings. _The whole mental life
and the faculties of the mental life are nothing but an association of
ideas._ Isolated ideas are explained as copies of isolated impressions;
and from these ideas are derived groups of ideas which we call trains
of thought. Why do ideas group themselves together? The only answer
is that it is the nature of ideas. Hume frequently speaks of these
associative relations as “the manner of conceiving ideas.” He also
says that there is a “gentle force” or “determination” of the ideas
to relate themselves with other ideas. Given the impressions and their
relations, and Hume will explain the whole knowing process. Associative
relations take an important place in Hume’s theory, but some critics
say that they are interlopers; that he has introduced them by a back
door; that they are not mentioned in his psychological inventory.
But to Hume there is nothing mysterious about the association of ideas.
They are combined, transposed, augmented, and diminished according
to fixed rules under mechanical laws. Their relationship takes place
without freedom. Impressions occur in the way they happen to occur.
Ideas combine in the way they happen to combine. Relations between
ideas are accidental and external. There is only one quality of ideas
that does not depend on its accidental relation to other ideas. This is
the quality of non-contradiction. This is the necessary property of an
impression. An impression must be what it is, and cannot be conceived
as having properties contrary to its own nature. The quality of
identity in an impression is intrinsic and necessary.
According to Hume, there are three fundamental ways in which ideas
associate, called the three laws of association. (1) There is the _law
of resemblance_ or contrast, by which the occurrence of a thing calls
up a similar thing or its opposite. Mathematics is based upon this law
of the resemblance, the contrariety, and the quantitative relations of
ideas. (2) There is _the law of contiguity in time and space_, by which
things happening together in time and space are recalled together. Upon
this law are based the descriptive and experimental sciences. (3) There
is the _law of causation_, upon which religion and the metaphysics of
the world of nature are based. The question with Hume is, How is he
to explain all these laws of association as derived from impressions?
If they cannot be derived from impressions, then his theory that
all knowledge is derived from impressions goes to the wall. The
Rationalists and even his predecessors, Locke and Berkeley, had
conceived mathematical propositions and causation as underived and in
the nature of things. If Hume is to establish his doctrine of complete
sensational empiricism, here is his test.
These associations, and not isolated impressions, are the objects
of human interest, inquiry, and investigation. Hume makes a further
reduction of associations by his well-known classification of them
as either “relations of ideas” or “matters of fact.” Associations of
contiguity and associations of causation are “matters of fact,” while
associations of resemblance are “relations of ideas.” Furthermore, Hume
looks upon associations of contiguity as those of outer impressions,
associations of resemblance as those of inner impressions, while
associations of causation are not what they are alleged to be, but
are derived from some inner impressions.
{ { 1. Contiguity Outer Descriptive
{ Matters { association impressions Sciences
Objects of { of Fact {
Knowledge { { 2. Causation Inner Metaphysics
{ { association[45] impressions
{
{ Relations { 3. Resemblance Inner Mathematics
{ of Ideas { association impressions
=The Association of Contiguity.= This is the most elementary of the
three classes of association, and concerns the spatial and temporal
order in which impressions come to us. Two impressions come at the same
time or in succession, and when one of them is remembered, the other is
likely to be remembered also. We see a man and hear his name; when we
remember the man’s face, we may remember his name also. Hume maintains
that this association of succession or coexistence is given with the
impressions themselves. It is the order of the _outer impressions_.
We perceive the order of the outer impressions with the same certainty
that we perceive the contents of the impressions. _This is the only
certainty we have about “matters of fact,”_――a certainty of the exact
order of our immediate outer impressions. We know the order in which
our impressions do occur, but, as we shall see, when we argue from this
that our impressions must recur in the same order we are involved in a
fallacy. Any order may recur. The fact that the sun rises in the east
to-day does not make certain that it will rise in the east to-morrow.
It is only a matter of probability, however many times repeated. There
is no certain science of “matters of fact.”
=The Association of Resemblance.= This is a clear and distinct
association which is given with the impressions. When we have an
impression, we see intuitively its similarity or difference to other
impressions, and the degrees of likeness and unlikeness. The face of
one man reminds us of another man, or we contrast it with a brute’s
face. _This association concerns only inner impressions_, while the
association of contiguity concerns outer impressions. This has to do
with the “relation of ideas,” while the association of contiguity has
to do with “matters of fact.”
=1. Mathematics.= But there is this difference between the association
of resemblance and that of contiguity――upon resemblance is founded
a demonstrative science. This is mathematics――the sole demonstrative
science. The subject-matter of mathematics consists of the possible
relations between the contents of our ideas――the possible relations
between our inner impressions. These relations are intuitively known
by us, and out of them we get a science of complete certainty. We make
a comparison between the magnitudes in the contents of ideas, and we
analyze their regularity. This is mathematics, and it is a perfectly
legitimate science. Because it confines itself to the relations between
ideas, and has nothing to do with “matters of fact,” it can be a
demonstrative science. All mathematical knowledge is restricted to the
study and verification of ideas, and has therefore nothing to do with
the external world.
=2. The Conception of Substance: Hume’s Attack on Theology.= But the
association of resemblance has been made the basis of a common illusion.
It has been made to transcend its proper sphere of a relationship among
inner impressions; and resemblance between ideas has been taken by
people generally to mean metaphysical identity or substance. It has
been transformed from a relationship between ideas to a relationship
between “matters of fact.” Now substance is evidently not an
association given with the impressions, like their temporal and spatial
order in the association of contiguity, nor is it mere impression of
resemblance. Substance is the conception of an unknown, indescribable
something back of impressions. There is the conception of the material
substance or matter, and the spiritual substance or the soul. How did
such illusory conceptions arise? If Hume rejects them as matters of
real knowledge, he must nevertheless explain their psychological origin.
The illusory idea of substance originates from the similarity of the
frequent conjoining of certain impressions. The impressions――sweet,
rough, white, etc.――occur together so often that the imagination
creates the conception of the substance of sugar behind them. This
arises not from the first experience, but after the association
of impressions has been observed a large number of times. From the
frequent association of ideas arises the _feeling_ of their necessary
coexistence. Thus do we come to have the idea of a material substance.
Hume evidently follows Berkeley in his criticism of material substance.
But Berkeley went only halfway. Berkeley had found that bodies were
only conjunctions of sensations, and he had rejected as meaningless
the unknown substance behind them. He did not see that the same attack
could be made upon spiritual substances. Berkeley’s argument against
the substance of the cherry could be used against the Ego or the Soul.
Have I the impression of my Ego? Can I touch it or see it? The simple
test shows that I know nothing about it, and I cannot affirm whether
or not it exists. But if the conception of the Soul has no reality as
an object of knowledge, how can it be psychologically explained? How
does it arise in the mind? The idea of the Soul is due to the frequent
reappearance of the same trains of thought in my mind. Their similarity
gives rise to the feeling that a metaphysical identity, or Soul, exists
behind them.
=The Association of Causation: Hume’s Attack on Science.= Among
the many traditional conceptions upon which Hume turned his critical
examination, that of causation occupies the most of his attention.
He discusses it both in the _Treatise_ and in the _Enquiry_. He
is the first philosopher since Aristotle to give it comprehensive
treatment. He saw that all philosophical, theological, and indeed
scientific knowledge rests upon this conception of causation. It was
accepted without question by the Scholastics of the Middle Ages, the
Rationalists of the Renaissance, and the scientists of his own time.
If the conception is valid, Hume’s criticism goes for naught; for “by
means of that relation we can go beyond the evidence of our memory and
senses.” In that case what becomes of Hume’s psychological analysis
that all knowledge consists of impressions and ideas? And if Hume’s
psychology falls, all his criticism of the spiritual and the material
substance falls also. Upon the validity of the concept of cause depend
many of the scholastic arguments for the existence of God, whose
existence we can demonstrate although He is not an object of sense
impression. Imagination can then go on unrestricted; for God is
accepted not only as cause, but as first or uncaused cause. Descartes,
Leibnitz, and even Berkeley and Locke had accepted the causal argument
for the existence of God, although the latter two had pretended to
restrict knowledge to sense-perceptions and ideas. Again, the causal
concept has been the foundation for the belief in a functioning soul
behind the mental and physical activities of a human being; and on the
same causal concept man has argued from sensations to their material
substrate. All this is unwarranted and unrestricted knowledge because
it “goes beyond the memory and senses.” Not only theology, but science
itself has gone “beyond the memory and senses.” Hume dares to doubt
the certainty of the causal principle even in scientific knowledge. Is
there any necessary connection among events so that with certainty we
can predict the occurrence of one event if another is given? Is there
in nature and history any causal law so binding that every event is a
necessary result of what has gone before and a necessary cause of what
will come? The question of cause is, therefore, paramount with Hume.
If he is successful in impeaching cause as he has been in the case of
substance, scientific theory must fall with theological dogma.
In his review of the conceptions of time and space (association by
contiguity), Hume had found succession to be a quality of impressions
and to be given with them. But that is all that can be said――the
relation is one of time order, but not a relation that is necessary.
The outer impressions happen to occur thus and thus; they need not have
occurred thus, and may never occur in this order again. This temporal
order is not by any means a causal order. The idea of cause is that
of power transferred, but we have no impression of power. Impressions
come as sequences, not as consequences or as powers. Sequences of
impressions are the only “matters of fact”; consequences are not
“matters of fact.” They must, therefore, be only “relations between
ideas” and have no objective reality. From Hume’s point of view this
is sufficient to show that cause is not valid and real.
To deny that we have the concept of cause would, however, be nonsense.
We do have the concept, and how is its psychological origin to be
explained? How does the idea arise? It does not originate (1) as an _a
priori_ concept, _i. e._ by an analysis of ideas, nor (2) as an outer
impression, _i. e._ a sensation, nor (3) as memory, since memories
are images of impressions. The idea of cause originates from an inner
impression――a strong and lively feeling connected with the imagination.
But how does it happen that the feeling is so strong that it makes us
believe the idea, with which it is connected, is a reality? The feeling
does not arise from a single instance of conjunction of two impressions,
but from the conjunction of two ideas repeated many times. _The belief
in cause is a feeling originating in the constant conjunction of
impressions._ This explains why the ideas that fire will burn, that
poison will kill, that water will wet――are so lively. The conjunction
occurs many times, and an inner necessity or compulsion arises to
imagine the second impression after the first. Given the first idea, we
learn to expect the second. Repetition produces nothing new in objects,
but it produces in the mind a new feeling to pass from one idea to the
idea usually attending it. Necessity exists in the mind and not in the
objects.
=The Extent and Limits of Human Knowledge.= What remnants of
knowledge remain after Hume has applied his destructive criticism? His
critics would answer that, if Hume had been consistent, no knowledge
whatever would remain. Upon the basis of pure positivism, that all
knowledge is composed of impressions and their copies, knowledge is an
impossibility. But he introduced an additional element, “relations,”
that made knowledge possible because it afforded synthesis and allowed
distinctions.
Taking Hume’s doctrine as it stands, his results are these. There
are two classes of sciences, the formal and the empirical. The formal
includes logic and mathematics, and consists of knowledge of relations
between ideas. Such knowledge has certainty and validity. Empirical
sciences consist in knowledge of matters of fact. Such knowledge
never amounts to more than probability. There is no certainty or
demonstration in natural science. Its results call forth not conviction,
but belief. Beyond these subjects we have no knowledge whatever.
Metaphysics and theology are only fictions. Beyond impressions and
the copies of impressions we can make no assertions. The tendency of
thought to trench beyond its own territory is the cause of all our
metaphysical difficulties. It tries to do what it was not intended
to do, and the result is abstract ideas. Reason and the relation
of resemblance give us the erroneous idea of spiritual and material
substance; imagination and the relation of cause give the erroneous
idea of the fundamental principle of nature.
=Hume’s Theory of Religion and Ethics.= Hume is so true an empiricist
to the end that he is a remarkable exception among the philosophers
of the Enlightenment. He alone among philosophers shows the historical
sense in the application of his positivism to religion and morals. In
general the Enlightenment took no account of the past; in this Hume
differs from his contemporaries.
Hume was the destroyer of deism because he advanced historical evidence
against deism. Deism had three principles: that religion is the object
of scientific investigation; that religion had its origin in the reason;
and that “natural religion” is the oldest form. Hume agreed to the
first proposition, but he revealed his historical instinct by showing
that religion did not originate in the reason, but in the feelings; and
that not “natural religion,” but idolatry, etc., is the oldest form.
Furthermore, he stood almost alone among philosophers of the period in
building ethics upon the feelings rather than upon the intellect. The
ethical motives of man are pleasure and pain, and not an idea of the
reason. Hume’s historic sense led him to this conclusion.
Both morals and religion should be empirically investigated. As in
science, so in them the most cogent conclusions are only probable and
not intuitive. Our moral activities are under the same kind of law
of cause that exists in the world of nature-phenomena. The will is
determined by the feelings, and the reason is the slave of the passions.
Our moral judgment is based on the feeling of sympathy (Adam Smith).
It is practically probable that there is a purpose in the world and
therefore a God. But this cannot be established. On the same principle
of probability the world may have grown up mechanically or by chance.
Religion is naturally reasonable enough, but its doctrines cannot be
proved.
=The Scottish School.= This school represents in Great Britain the
reaction from the sensualism of the Enlightenment. The Scottish School
was the British reply to Hume, just as Kant was the German reply. They
were the late eighteenth century reactions in two countries to the
Enlightenment. The teaching of Kant was, however, also the beginning
of a new movement and a new period. The Scottish School has no such
importance.
Thomas Reid (1710–1796) was the founder. Reid admitted that Berkeley
and Hume drew legitimate conclusions from Locke’s general assumption
that the objects of thought are not things, but ideas. Therefore Reid
maintained that Locke’s position must be given up. Still empiricism
remains tenable and must be applied to the phenomena of mind. What are
the data of consciousness? Not individual ideas, as Locke said, but
complex ideas or judgments. The elements will be discovered later by
analysis of these complex states which are first given. The mind is not
a blank piece of paper upon which simple characters are first inscribed,
and then later the understanding introduced to form judgments and the
reflection to add belief in the existence of objects. Our knowledge
starts rather from judgments, which involve certain original truths or
“natural judgments.” Mankind possesses the faculty of “common sense,”
and this faculty makes these truths a common possession. Among the
principles that “common sense” includes are self-consciousness, the
reality of objects perceived, and the principle of cause.
The Scottish School called attention to the importance of
self-observation. The members of the school made their attack
upon sensualism from the point of empirical psychology. Philosophy
became in their hands the perfecting of psychology as a science of
inner observation. Thus they were in accord with the school of the
Enlightenment, although opposed to its sensualistic outcome. The
prominent members of the school were Reid, Dugald Stewart, Brown, and
Sir William Hamilton.