CHAPTER III.

_DAVID HUME AS A METAPHYSICIAN._

But the mischief lieth here; that when men of less leisure see them

who are supposed to have spent their whole time in the pursuit of

knowledge professing an entire ignorance of all things, or

advancing such notions as are repugnant to plain and commonly

received principles, they will be tempted to entertain suspicions

concerning the most important truths which they had hitherto held

sacred and unquestionable.--Berkeley's _Hylas and Philonous_.

In no department of science is it possible for an enquirer to advance

considerably beyond all his predecessors without serving as a light by

whose aid his successors may advance somewhat beyond him. This is the

only apology that I feel disposed to offer for the freedom with which I

am about to criticize one who, having been, by judges so competent as

Adam Smith and Professor Huxley, pronounced to be 'by far the greatest

philosopher' and 'acutest thinker' of his own age, would, doubtless, be

at least on a level with the greatest philosophers of the present age if

he were living now. The veriest cripple that can manage to sit on

horseback may contrive to crawl some few steps beyond the utmost point

to which his steed has borne him, and, if those steps be uphill, may, by

looking back on the course he has come, perceive where the animal has

deviated from the right road. Yet he does not on that account suppose

that his own locomotive power is in any respect to be compared to his

horse's; neither need an annotator on Hume, when pointing to holes in

his author's metaphysical coat, be supposed not to be perfectly aware

that it is the strength, not of his own eyes, but of the spectacles

furnished to him by his author, that enables him to perceive them.

The concentrated essence of Hume's metaphysics is to be found in 'An

Enquiry concerning Human Understanding,' forming part of a volume of

Essays which Hume published somewhat late in life, and which he desired

might 'alone be regarded as containing his philosophical sentiments and

principles.' To a formal, though necessarily rapid, examination of the

results of this 'Enquiry,' the present chapter will be almost

exclusively devoted. Often as the operation has been performed already,

there are two reasons why its repetition here may not be without

utility: for, first, its subject is a treatise containing the germs of

much subsequent and still current speculation which, in so far as it is

merely a development of those germs, cannot but be infected by whatever

unsoundness may be inherent in them; and, secondly, because the subject,

hackneyed as it may seem, is so far from being exhausted, that there is

scarcely one among the doctrines embodied in it to which, as I proceed

at once to show, fresh objection, more or less grave, may not be taken

by a fresh investigator.

To begin very near indeed to the beginning, let us take, first, the

section of the 'Enquiry' which treats of the 'Origin of Ideas.' All the

perceptions of the mind may, according to Hume, be divided into two

classes, whereof the one consists of all those 'more lively

perceptions,' termed by him indifferently Impressions or Sensations,

which we experience when we 'hear, or see, or feel, or love, or hate, or

desire, or will:' the other, of those 'less lively perceptions of which

we are conscious when we reflect on any of the sensations

above-mentioned,' and which are commonly denominated thoughts or ideas.

'All our ideas or more feeble perceptions,' he continues, 'are copies of

our impressions or more lively ones,' the 'entire creative power of the

mind amounting to no more than the faculty of compounding, transposing,

augmenting, or diminishing the materials afforded by the senses and

experience.' So confident is he of the literal accuracy of this

statement, as to proceed to intimate that whenever we find in

conversation or argument 'a philosophical term employed seemingly

without any idea or meaning,' we have only to enquire from what

impression its idea, if it have one, is derived, when, if no impression

can be adduced, we may be sure that no idea is present either. The only

phenomenon opposed to this rule, which he professes himself able to

think of, is that of a person who, of a colour--as, for instance,

blue--with which he is familiar, is able to conceive a shade somewhat

different from any of the shades which he has actually seen; but this

instance he disregards as too singular to affect the general maxim, to

which, as he might have added, it is not really an exception, any more

than would be the power of a person who had never seen a mountain higher

than Snowdon or Mont Blanc to conceive one as high as Chimborazo or

Mount Everest, for, equally in both cases, the ideas are copies of

sensible impressions, although of complex, not simple, ones--of colour

and graduation in the first case, of size and increase in the second.

Still, there is at least one genuine exception, which it is the more

remarkable that Hume should have overlooked, as it may be said to have

stared him in the face from the very subject-matter he was considering.

Our idea of idea itself, from what sensible impression is that derived?

We have just been told that the difference between an idea and a

sensation is that the first is a copy of the second, a feeble copy of a

lively original. The idea therefore is not itself a sensation; the copy

is not itself an original. Neither consequently can the idea or notion

which the mind proceeds to form of any of its previous ideas be derived

from or be a copy of a sensation: it cannot have entered the mind 'in

the only manner by which,' according to Hume, 'an idea can have access

to the mind, to wit, by actual feeling and sensation.'

Let me not be misunderstood. Let me not be supposed to be courting

collision with the Berkleian thesis of the non-existence of abstract

ideas. I do not for one moment doubt that all our general or class

notions of sensible objects or events are merely concrete ideas of

individual objects or events--that, for instance, whenever we talk of

man or motion in general, we are really thinking of some particular man

or motion, which, as possessing all properties common to all men or

motions, serves as a representative of the entire _genus_. Neither am I

prepared to deny, although scarcely either prepared to admit, that even

of abstract qualities all our general or class notions are equally ideas

of particular specimens of those qualities; that, when we speak, for

instance, of virtue or vice in general, we are thinking of some

particular exhibition of some particular kind of virtue or vice. Nay, I

am not even concerned to deny that our idea of idea in general may

possibly be a copy of some particular one of our previous ideas which,

for the nonce, serves to represent all our other previous ideas. I limit

myself to saying that our idea of idea in general, whether it be or be

not itself an abstraction, is, at all events, not a copy of sensation. I

admit that it thereby differs essentially from most, if not all, other

general ideas. Possibly it may be only through my having myself felt

the promptings of some particular virtue or vice, that I am able to form

an idea of that particular virtue or vice. If so, I admit that my idea

of that particular virtue or vice is but, as Hume would say, a copy of

my feeling. And since, undoubtedly, I can feel myself thinking, or

perceiving, or performing any other mental operation, I am bound to

admit, further, that my idea of any such operation may equally be

described as a copy of a sensation which I have experienced. All I

contend for is that if, after having formed my idea, either of a mental

operation or of anything else whatever, I proceed to ask myself what

sort of an entity that idea is, the answer which I give myself, or, in

other words, the idea which I form of my previous idea, being a copy of

idea, cannot be a copy of sensation.

So much must surely be conceded to me, for that white, being white,

cannot be also black is not nearly so certain as that idea and

sensation, being two distinct things, idea of idea cannot be idea of

sensation. The concession, indeed, is likely enough to be accompanied by

an exclamation of wonder that so microscopic a flaw in an elaborate

exposition should be thought worth pointing out; but Hume himself would

certainly not have so retorted. Of the doctrine which I am impugning,

viz., that every _idea_ is copied from some preceding _sensation_, he

had spoken as follows:--'Those who would assert that this position is

not universally true, nor without exception, have only one, and that an

easy, method of refuting it, by producing the idea which, in their

opinion, is not derived from this source. It will then be incumbent on

us, if we would maintain our doctrine, to produce the impression or

lively perception which corresponds to it.' He was much too candid not

to have acknowledged that this challenge of his had been fairly and

fully met. He was not a man to refuse to own himself refuted when, after

distinctly intimating that the production of one single idea, having no

perception correspondent to it amongst those which we experience 'when

we see, or hear, or feel, or love, or hate, or will, or desire,' would

suffice for his entire refutation, he found such an idea produced. He

knew too well also to what enormous errors of thought minute errors of

expression may lead, to disregard any speck of inaccuracy in any one of

his definitions. The apparently slight oversight committed by him on

this occasion will, indeed, be presently seen to have sensibly

contributed to lead him subsequently into a mistake of no small

practical moment.

We come next to the 'Association of Ideas,' the influence of which

almost all of Hume's successors, as well as himself, seem to me to have

greatly over-rated. That there is a 'principle of connection between the

different thoughts or ideas of the mind' is, as he says, sufficiently

evident; and that this principle is, as he was apparently the first to

remark, threefold, deriving its efficacy from resemblance, contiguity in

time or place, and cause or effect, may also be admitted with little

qualification. But I presume to think that he is quite incorrect in

adding that, in virtue of the aforesaid principle, ideas 'introduce each

other with a certain degree of method or regularity.' You are walking,

let us suppose, through Hyde Park, thinking of nothing more particular

than that the morning is a pleasant one, when you suddenly find yourself

in imagination pacing the shore of the Dead Sea, and, pausing to ask

yourself how you got there, you discover, perhaps, that it was by the

following steps. Remarking some landscape effect in the distance, you

were reminded of a similar one which you had remarked years before while

taking a walk fifty miles off in Sussex. Here resemblance operated. Then

you recollected how during that walk you were thinking about Mr. Buckle,

whose lucubrations you had been conning over before starting. Here

entered contiguity both of time and space. The name of Buckle reminded

you how that promising writer ended his travels abroad by dying of a

fever which he caught while sailing over the sites of the engulphed

cities of the plain. Here cause and effect came into action; and, so

far, everything accords with Hume's theory. But if you repeat the same

walk to-morrow, the same landscape effect will almost certainly suggest

a train of ideas quite different from that of to-day. Perhaps it may

begin by reminding you of landscape effects in general; then of Mr.

Ruskin, who has discoursed so eloquently on that topic, and next of Mr.

Ruskin's 'Stones of Venice,' from whence it is equal chances whether

your thoughts radiate, on one side of the compass, to stone china, or

Stoney Stratford, or Stonewall Jackson, or, on the other, to the

'Venetian Bracelet,' L. E. L. and Fernando Po, or to that effective

adaptation of the Venetian style of architecture, the Railway Station at

St. Pancras, and thence to some town or other on the Midland Line.

These examples will be readily recognized as fair average specimens of

those unpremeditated trains of thought with which we are all familiar.

Is there, then, in the arrangement of the consecutive thoughts of which

the several trains are composed, any method or regularity common, I will

not say to all, but to any two of them? According to Hume and to most of

his successors in the same path of enquiry, there ought to be. Thus the

illustrious author of the 'Analysis of the Human Mind' affirms, without

rebuke or protest from any one of his not less illustrious commentators,

that 'our ideas spring up or exist in the order in which the sensations

existed of which they are the copies: that of those sensations which

occurred synchronically, the ideas also spring up synchronically, and

that of the sensations which occurred successively, the ideas rise

successively.' And he adds, 'this is the general law of the Association

of Ideas,' remarking, by way of illustration, that, as 'I have seen the

sun, and the sky in which it is placed, synchronically, if I think of

the one I think of the other at the same time'; and that, as when

committing to memory a passage of words, as, for instance, the Lord's

Prayer, we pronounce the words in successive order, and have

consequently the sensation of the words in successive order, so when we

proceed to repeat the passage, 'the ideas of the words also rise in

succession, _Our_ suggesting _Father, Father_ suggesting _which, which_

suggesting _art_, and so on to the end.'[29]

Oh Law! Law! most abused of scientific terms, what an infinity of

dogmatic illegalities are committed in thy name! The one thing which

scientific law implies is regularity of occurrence, but what regulation

is it that is obeyed in common by a number of sequences commencing at

the same point in Hyde Park, yet terminating, one in Africa, another in

America, a third in Palestine, and a fourth in the centre of England?

Can it have been seriously said that it is impossible for us to think of

the sky without thinking simultaneously of the sun which illuminates

the sky? Is it impossible for us to think instead of the ether which

constitutes it, or peradventure even of the resemblance between its

celestial azure and what Moore calls the 'most unholy blue' of some

frolicsome Cynthia's eyes? And is it not notorious that when saying the

Lord's Prayer--a prayer which, in spite of the injunction by which its

original dictation was accompanied, to 'avoid vain repetitions, as the

heathen do,' many Anglican clergymen insist on repeating half-a-dozen

times in a single service--is it not notorious that, so far from the

idea of one word suggesting to us the idea of the next, no small effort

of attention is requisite to enable us to have any idea at all of what

we are saying?

It would seem that the author of the 'Analysis' either could not help

asking himself questions like these, or, without asking the questions,

could not help seeing the commonplace truths involved in the inevitable

replies to them. It would seem to have been semi-consciousness of the

utter inability of the evidence first cited by him to justify belief in

the necessarily simultaneous or successive occurrence of the ideas of

simultaneously or successively experienced sensations, which made him

have recourse for help to _complex_ ideas. 'If,' he says, 'from a stone

I have had synchronically the sensation of colour, the sensation of

hardness, the sensations of shape and size, the sensation of

weight,--when the idea of one of these sensations occurs, the ideas of

all of them occur.' Because, then, I may have ascertained by experience

that a stone is white, hard, and round, two feet in diameter, and twenty

pounds in weight, am I really incapable, if I happen to break my shin

against it, of thinking how hard it is, without thinking also how heavy;

or, when trying to lift it, of thinking how heavy it is without

thinking likewise of its shape and colour? Elsewhere the same writer

speaks of 'ideas which have been so often conjoined that whenever one

exists in the mind, the others immediately exist along with it, seem to

run into one another, to coalesce, as it were, and out of many to form

one idea.' But which are the ideas whereof this can be said? The writer

instances those simple ideas, colour, hardness, extension, weight,

which, he says, make up our complex ideas of gold or iron. He instances,

too, the ideas of resistance, muscular contractility, direction,

extension, place, and motion, of which he says our apparently simple

idea, weight, is compounded. Does he mean, then, that we cannot

entertain the idea of yellowness without entertaining at the same time

all the other ideas necessary for composing the idea of gold, and

entertaining, too, that idea in addition to all the rest? Does he mean

that a train of thought cannot commence with place without terminating

with weight? Of course he means nothing of the kind, although so he

distinctly says. Rather, he appears to mean the direct converse, viz.,

that we cannot have the idea of gold or of weight present to the mind,

without having present also all the simple ideas of which those complex

ideas are compounded--in other words, not that the occurrence of any one

component necessarily calls up all the other components, and forms with

them the compound, but that the appearance of the compound brings with

it all its separate components.

But neither does this seem to be a strictly correct representation. I am

not sure that I can think of gold without thinking of yellowness, but I

am positive that I can without thinking of hardness. Nor is there any

doubt that the youngest child knows perfectly well what it means when,

trying to lift a stone, it calls the stone heavy, although it might not

be more difficult to make the stone itself than the child understand

what is meant by muscular contractility. I own that if it be here

demanded of me how a compound can be present unless every one of its

components be present also, I may under pressure be constrained to

suggest that possibly, after all, the very term _compound_ or _complex

idea_ may be somewhat of a misnomer, or at any rate that the

constituents of such an idea are much fewer than is commonly supposed.

Be it admitted that the idea, so styled, could not have been formed

without the instrumentality of other and previously-formed ideas, still

it does not follow that the instruments of production should for ever

after accompany the product. The rackful of dry toast which is brought

to you for breakfast could scarcely have been so neatly sliced without

the help of a knife, but the toast is not the less in bodily presence on

the breakfast-table because the knife that cut it has been left behind

in the kitchen. Neither, although you may probably be aware that salt,

suet, sugar, and spice enter into the composition of a Christmas

pudding, do you necessarily think of those separate ingredients when you

think of the pudding, any more than you would see them separately if you

saw the pudding. The only qualities which you apparently cannot help

thinking of when you think of the pudding are its size, shape, and

colour.

One word more about the assumed regularity in the succession of ideas.

That when you are repeating a familiar form of words or playing a

familiar piece of music, every word uttered or note struck, by reason of

connexion of some sort between itself and the word or note next in

order, enables you without the smallest mental effort to utter that

word or strike that note, is too notorious to be questioned. But I do

very earnestly question whether the connexion that thus operates is an

association of ideas. How can it be, when, as frequently happens, you

have not the smallest idea of what it is you are saying or playing? Have

you not often, after reverently saying grace, like the decent

paterfamilias you probably are, occasioned a giggle round the table by

saying it again a minute or two afterwards, in utter unconsciousness

that you had said it just before? Or, if I may so far flatter myself as

to fancy my reader a fair daughter of the house instead of the staid

house father--has it never happened to you, Miss, while executing a

brilliant performance on the piano, to have been so entirely engrossed

by an animated flirtation carried on simultaneously, that, if at the

conclusion of the piece you had been asked what you had been playing,

you could not have replied whether it was _La ci darem la mano_ or _Non

mi voglio maritar_? And is it not evident that non-existent ideas cannot

have called real ideas into existence?

My own modest contribution towards explanation of these mysterious

phenomena is as follows. Apart from association of _ideas_, there is a

separate and independent association--to wit, association of

_volitions_. While committing to memory a form of words, or trying a new

piece of music, every separate movement of your tongue or of your

fingers is consequent on some separate volition. Each series of

movements is consequent on a series of volitions. By being repeatedly

made to follow each other in the same order, the several volitions

become connected with each other, so that whenever the mind desires to

marshal them in the aforesaid order, each one, as it presents itself,

brings with it the next in succession, until the whole series is

completed; while, as each volition has consequent upon it a

corresponding movement, a series of corresponding movements

simultaneously takes place. The mind meanwhile is quite unconscious of

the muscular movements that are going on. What it is conscious of are

the volitions without which no voluntary movements of the muscles could

have been made, and of which the mind must needs be conscious, because a

volition of which the mind was not conscious would be an involuntary

volition, a birth too monstrous for even metaphysics to be equal to. But

although necessarily conscious of these volitions, the mind is only

momentarily conscious. It pays them barely an instant's attention, and

therefore instantaneously forgets them, retaining no more trace of them

than if they had never been.

The doctrine of Hume's which next confronts us is his famous one

concerning Cause and Effect. He commences it by explaining that all

objects of human enquiry are divisible into two kinds--1. Relations of

Ideas, like those of which geometry, algebra, and arithmetic treat, and

which are either intuitively certain, or 'discoverable by the mere

operation of thought, without dependence on what is anywhere existent in

the universe,' as, for example, the truths demonstrated by Euclid, which

would be equally incontestable even 'though there were never a circle or

a triangle in nature:' 2. Matters of Fact, as, for example, the sun's

rising and setting, or the emission of light and heat by fire, which are

never discoverable by unassisted reason, because of no one of them would

the opposite imply a contradiction or be consequently inconceivable; and

in our knowledge of any one of which we can never 'go beyond the

evidence of our memory and senses,' except by means of reasons derived

from experience of some fact or facts connected in some way or other

with the particular matter of fact we are considering.

So far, all is comparatively plain sailing, but Hume now propounds a

difficulty which he at first presents as seemingly insurmountable, but

which I cannot help thinking to be mainly of his own creation, and which

he himself, almost immediately afterwards, suggests a mode, though a

very inadequate mode, of overcoming. His language here is not marked by

his usual perspicuity, or rather--to speak without respect of

persons--it contradicts itself in most astounding fashion; but his

meaning is not the less certainly the following, for there is no other

construction which his words will bear.

'What,' he asks, 'is the foundation of all conclusions from experience?'

Why is it that, having found that such an object has always been

attended with such an effect, we infer that similar objects will always

be attended with similar effects? The proposition that a certain

antecedent has always been followed by a certain consequent, and the

proposition that the same antecedent will be followed by the same

consequent, are not identical. What, then, is the connexion between them

which causes one to be inferred from the other? The connexion is

unhesitatingly pronounced by him to be neither intuitively perceived,

nor yet to be 'founded on any process of the understanding.' If you

insist that the inference is made by a chain of reasoning, he challenges

you to produce that reasoning, and taking for granted that you have none

to produce, he proceeds to indicate what principle it is which, in his

opinion, does determine us to form the inference. That principle he

declares to be custom or habit, by which alone, he asserts, we are,

after the constant conjunction of two objects, determined to expect the

one from the appearance of the other; adding that all inferences from

experience are effects of custom, not of reasoning.

What is the correct answer to this question of Hume's I shall be rash

enough to endeavour to indicate a little further on; meanwhile there can

be no temerity in saying that whatever be the right answer, Hume's is

certainly a wrong one. Habit plainly cannot be its own parent. It

enables us to repeat more easily what we have already repeatedly done,

but it cannot be the cause of our doing or being able to do anything for

the first time. An infant that has once burnt its fingers by touching

the flame of a candle, expects that if it touch the flame again it will

burn its fingers again, but it does not expect this because it has been

in the habit of expecting it. Neither, if we be here bidden to

understand that the habit referred to is not any mental habit of our

own, but a habit which we have observed certain phenomena to have of

following each other, shall we thereby be brought one whit nearer the

truth. Our infant with the burnt finger has not observed that flame is

in the habit of burning. It only knows that flame did burn on the one

occasion on which it tried the experiment, which experiment it

consequently declines to repeat. Besides, no one needs to be told that

inferences, though thus capable of being drawn from single occurrences,

are drawn with increased confidence from observation of habit. We all

know already that, having always found that fire burns, we infer that it

always will burn. What we want to know is, why we draw this inference.

This is the question which Hume puts, and respecting which he gives

very positively the negative reply that the inference is not drawn

either intuitively, nor yet by any process of the understanding. Yet

that a body when not moving must needs be at rest, is not more certainly

demonstrable than that inferences cannot possibly be drawn except in one

or other of these two ways. Is not every inference a species of belief,

and must not every belief be either innate within us, or have been

acquired artificially; and, as in the latter case, it is a mental

acquisition, must it not in that case have been acquired by an operation

of the mind or understanding? Is it not clear, then, that inferences

must always be either intuitive or ratiocinative; and is it not strange

that Hume should deny that they ever are so? Yet stranger still is it,

that even while denying them to be either one or the other, he, almost

in the same breath, pronounces them to be both. For, after having on one

page denied that they are founded on reason, or any process of the

understanding, he describes them on the next page as being not simply

founded on, but as being themselves 'processes of the mind,' 'processes

of thought,' and immediately afterwards 'arguments,' nay, '_reasonings_

from experience;' and, yet again, after as short a pause, these very

same 'reasonings,' and 'arguments,' and 'processes of the mind and

thought,' he concludes by styling 'natural instincts which no reason or

process of the thought or understanding is able either to produce or to

prevent'--'operations of the soul as unavoidable' when the mind is

placed in certain circumstances, as it is 'to feel the passion of love

when we receive benefits, or hatred when we meet with injuries.'

What are we to say to a description of mental operations which are and

are not 'arguments' and 'reasonings,' which are and are not 'processes

of thought,' which are not 'intuitive,' and which yet are 'instincts?'

How are we to account for such amazing inconsistencies in an exposition

of one of the greatest of philosophers? With all humility, I submit the

following as a possible solution of the enigma.

The one solitary ground on which Hume denies the argumentative and

ratiocinative character of what he nevertheless terms arguments and

reasonings, is the impossibility of producing the _chains_ of argument

or reasoning of which they are composed. But this impossibility can at

most only prove that the reasonings are elementary, and have,

consequently, no component parts into which they can be resolved. But

reasoning is not the less reasoning for being elementary, or for being

only a single link in a chain, instead of being itself a chain composed

of many links. Still, being elementary, it may occur to, and pass

through, the mind with extreme rapidity--with not less rapidity than an

intuition or instinct, for which therefore it may easily be mistaken, as

accordingly it has actually been by Hume. But that a reasoning from

experience is not really an instinct is certain, firstly, because

intuitive or instinctive reasoning, if not a phrase absolutely devoid of

meaning, is a contradiction in terms; and, secondly, because, if it were

instinctive, it would precede instead of following experience, and a

baby, instead of finding out that flame burns by touching it, would know

beforehand that flame burns, and would therefore not touch it.

From the species of Belief constituted by an inference from experience,

Hume, by an easy transition, passes on to Belief in general, which he

defines to be 'nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady

conception of an object, than what the imagination alone is ever able

to attain,' referring, by way of illustration, to an animal with the

head of a man and the body of a horse, which anyone can imagine, but no

one can believe in, and desiring us apparently to suppose that if our

groom were to come and tell us that he had found a centaur feeding in

the paddock beside our favourite saddle-horse, our sole reason for

believing in the horse and for not believing in the centaur would be our

greater ability to conceive the one than the other. That such a

definition should for a moment have satisfied its author's curiosity, is

itself a psychological curiosity which must not, however, be suffered to

detain us. Whoever, not content with knowing perfectly well what belief

is, desires to have his knowledge of it set down in writing, should read

the admirable notes on the subject, with which Mr. John Mill and Mr.

Bain have enriched the last edition of Mr. James Mill's 'Analysis of the

Human Mind.' Most readers, however, will probably be disposed to avail

themselves here of a rather favourite phrase of Hume himself, and to

plead that, 'if we agree about the thing, it is needless to dispute

about terms;' and it is not unlikely that such of them as may have

formed their notion of metaphysical discussions in general from the

specimens given above, may go so far as to hint a doubt whether any of

the nice verbal distinctions which metaphysicians so much affect, are

really worth the trouble required to understand them. Nor would anyone,

perhaps, be much the worse for acting upon this suspicion, provided

that, in accordance with it, he kept altogether aloof from the studies

which it disparages. His ideas need not be the less clear because he

neither knows nor cares of what they are copies, nor whether they are

copies of anything; nor will the order of their occurrence be at all

affected in consequence of his being similarly careless, whether that

order is or is not governed by a _law_ of association; neither need his

inferences from experience be the less sound in consequence of his never

having enquired how or why they are deduced. But although the most

absolute ignorance and corresponding indifference about these and

kindred topics may not tend in the least to disqualify him for

performance of the whole duty of man, it is not the less important that,

if he do care to know aught about them, his knowledge should be exact,

for there is no knowing beforehand how luxuriantly the minutest germ of

theoretical error may ramify in practice, or into what substantive

quagmire trust in deceitful shadows may lead. These respectable

aphorisms may be beneficially borne in mind during perusal of what is

about to be said.

If the fact were really, as Hume supposed, that we have _no_ reason for

our inferences from experience, and draw them only because either we

have been in the habit of drawing them, or because we are so constituted

as to be unable to help drawing them, the reason of our drawing them

plainly could not be that we perceive any necessary connection between

antecedent and consequent events, or any force or power binding these

together as cause and effect. Accordingly, Hume does not scruple to

affirm that 'we have no idea of connection or power at all, and that

these words are absolutely without meaning when employed either in

philosophical reasoning or in common life.' Every idea, he argues,

referring to a rule which he somewhat hastily supposes himself to have

already proved to be without exception, must needs have been copied from

some preceding sensible impression, but neither from within nor from

without can we have received an impression from which this particular

idea can have been copied. No keenest scrutiny of any portion of matter,

no study of its external configuration or internal structure could,

previously to experience, enable us to conjecture that it could produce

any effect whatever, still less any particular effect: could enable us

to guess, for instance, that flame would burn, or ice would chill, if

touched. Nor even though on once touching flame we get our fingers

burnt, are mature philosophers like us to conclude, as if we had no more

intelligence than so many babies, that if we touch again we shall be

burnt again. All we have as yet learnt from the experiment is that the

sensation of touching fire has once been followed by the sensation of

burning, but nothing has occurred to suggest that in the first sensation

lurked any secret power of producing the second. And what a single

experiment does not prove, no number of repetitions of precisely the

same experiment with precisely the same results can prove. Even though

on a lengthened course of experience we have found that in every case of

our touching flame our fingers have been burnt, we are still as far as

ever from perceiving any bond of connection between the two events. We

do indeed believe that as flame when touched has hitherto invariably

burnt, so, whenever touched hereafter, it will hereafter invariably

burn; but this, according to Hume, we believe simply because by long

practice we have contracted such a habit of associating the idea of

touched flame with burnt fingers, that whenever we witness the one we

cannot help expecting the other.

Neither, if, withdrawing our eyes from the outward world, we cast them

inwardly upon the operations of our own minds, shall we, according to

Hume, any the more discover what we are in search of. What though we

know by experience that whatever, within certain limits, our will

appoints, our bodily organs or mental faculties will ordinarily perform;

that our limbs will move as we wish them, and our memory, reason, or

imagination bring forward ideas which we desire to contemplate, what

knowledge have we here beyond that of certain volitions and certain

other acts taking place in succession? What smallest evidence have we of

any connection between the volitions and the other acts? A volition is

an operation of the mind, is it not? and body is matter, is it not? And

do you pretend to know--can you form the smallest approach to a

guess--how mind is united with body, and how it is possible therefore

for the refined spiritual essence to actuate the gross material

substance. If you 'were empowered by a secret wish to remove mountains

or to control the planets in their orbit,' would such extensive

authority be one whit more inexplicable than the supposed ability of

your will to raise your hand to your head or to cause your foot to make

one forward step?

If, nevertheless, you fancy you understand in what manner the will has

some of the bodily organs under its government, how, pray, do you

account for its not having all equally--the heart and liver as well as

the tongue and fingers? Without trying, you never would have discovered

that your bowels _will not_, any more than without trying you could have

known that your limbs _will_, ordinarily move in conformity with your

wishes. Neither, if one of your limbs were to be suddenly paralysed,

would you, until you tried, become aware that it would no longer move as

you wished. If there be, then, a power attached to the will, it is

plainly experience alone which apprises you of its existence; whereas

if you were independently conscious of it, you would know beforehand

precisely what it can and what it cannot effect, and would, moreover,

when you lost it, become instantly aware of your loss.

Again, and above all, does not anatomy teach us that when the mind wills

the movement of any bodily member, it 'is not the member itself which is

immediately moved, but certain intervening nerves, muscles, and animal

spirits, or possibly something still more minute and more unknown,'

through which the motion is successively propagated until it reach the

member? So that when the mind wills one event, a series of other events,

quite different and quite unthought of, take place instead; and it is

only by their means that the will's purpose is finally achieved. But how

can the mind be conscious, how can it form the remotest conception, of a

power which not only never does what the mind desires, but never does

aught of which the mind is cognisant?

And as we are thus utterly unable to perceive any power that the mind

has over the body, so are we equally unconscious of any power of the

mind over itself. We know as little of its internal nature and

constitution as we do of its mode of connection with the body. We know

by experience that at the bidding of the will ideas are continually

brought forward; but by what means they are brought forward we are

absolutely ignorant, as we are also of the reasons of the fluctuation of

mental activity, and why mental operations are more vigorous in health

than in sickness, before breakfast than after a heavy dinner or deep

carouse.

Such, on the issue immediately before us, is Hume's reasoning, to

which--though necessarily very greatly condensing it--I shall, I am

sure, be acknowledged to have conscientiously striven to do full

justice, by bringing all its points into the strongest light, and

arranging them in the most effective order. Still, with its utmost

strength thus displayed before us, we are fully warranted in asserting

_a priori_ that its whole utmost strength is weakness. If, by following

a leader who has engaged to conduct us to a certain spot, we find

ourselves at our journey's end in a quite different place, no appeal

that the guide can make to maps or finger-posts will persuade us that he

has not mistaken the way. Nor need our judgment be otherwise, even

though our guide be Hume, if, having started with him in pursuit of

truth, we are finally landed in a patent absurdity. With all due respect

for logic, we protest with Tony Lumpkin against being argufied out of

our senses, as we plainly should be if we allowed ourselves to be

persuaded that whenever we use the words _power_ or _connection_ we have

no idea thereto correspondent. Since, then, Hume tells us this, we may

be quite sure that he has been deluded by some fallacy which may be

detected by adequate search; and being, moreover, sensible that we

really have the idea our possession of which is denied by him, we may be

equally sure that the original of which the idea is a copy is similarly

discoverable. In sooth, neither the one nor the other is far to seek.

The fallacy consists simply in confusion of the definite with the

indefinite article. The original of our idea of power Hume himself

indicates even while rejecting it. Although constrained by Hume's

demonstration to confess that we cannot even conjecture of what kind is

_the_ authority which the will exercises over the limbs, we are not the

less sensible that it does exercise _an_ authority of some sort or

other, which they are unable to disobey. We know that in ordinary

circumstances our limbs will move when we wish them to move, and will

remain quiet when we wish them not to move. Nor this only. We moreover

know, or at any rate fancy we know, that they would not have moved

unless we had wished them. In examples like these of volitions followed,

as the case may be, by _premeditated_ motion or rest, we have something

more than the simple sequence observable in the succession of external

events. We do not perceive simply that, as when fire is lighted, heat is

emitted, so when the mind wills the body moves. We perceive clearly that

there must be a connection of some sort between antecedent and

consequent, without which the first certainly _would not_ and, we fancy,

_could not_ have followed the first. We perceive, in short, that the

second followed _because_ the first preceded. If fire were an animated

being, capable of forming and manifesting volitions; and if we observed

that whenever it wished to emit heat, heat was emitted; and that

whenever it wished to withhold heat, heat was withheld; and if we were

thereupon to say that fire has the power of emitting or withholding heat

at its pleasure, our words surely would not be destitute of

signification; they would certainly possess some meaning, and that a

very obvious one. And so they as certainly do when we say that the mind

has power over those bodily movements which we observe to take place and

to cease in constant conformity with its will. I am not saying that what

they mean is necessarily truth--we will come to that presently--all I

say as yet is, that they mean something, and that that something,

whether it be a real or only an imaginary perception, is perfectly

fitted to be the original of that idea of 'power' _connecting_ cause and

effect, or of 'connection' _between_ cause and effect, which Hume

maintains does not exist, because there is no original from which it

can have been copied. It matters not that we are quite ignorant of what

nature is the something from which our idea of power possessed by the

mind over the body is derived, and which, for aught we know, may reside,

not in the mind, but in the body, and may consist, not of any strength

inherent in the former, but of loyalty and docility inherent in the

latter. Just as the authority of a popular general over a

well-disciplined army is not the less real because the soldiers, every

one of whose lives is at the general's disposal, might, if so inclined,

mutiny _en masse_, so it can make no difference in the mind's power over

the body whether the mind be intrinsically able to enforce obedience, or

the limbs be so constituted as to be unable to disobey. As little does

it matter that we are also ignorant of the mode in which the mind's

behests are communicated to the members. It is not the less certain that

in some mode or other they are communicated. Neither does it signify

more that the mind does not communicate directly with the part of the

body which it desires to influence, and acts upon that part only by

means of action propagated through a series of intervening parts; or

that it is able to direct only some organs, and not others, or cannot

direct even those, if by some accident they have become seriously

deranged. A strong-armed blockhead is not the less obviously able to

pump up water because the terms 'muscular contractility' and

'atmospheric pressure' are as heathen Greek to him; or because the

pump-handle, which alone is directly moved by him, touches, not the

water itself, but only the first link in a chain of mechanism connecting

it with the water; or because, if the sucker of the pump got choked, or

the well were to dry up, it would be vain for him to go on moving the

pump-handle. Blockhead as he is, nothing of all this in the least

diminishes his conviction that as long as the pump continues in order

and there remains water in the well, he can oblige the water to rise by

moving the pump-handle; nor can anything analogous prevent the mind from

feeling that whenever, in ordinary circumstances, it wills that the

limbs be moved, the limbs not only will be moved, but cannot help being

moved accordingly. But it is simply impossible that, from the exercise

of volitions which it knows will be obeyed, the mind should not receive

the sensation of exercising causal power; and having thus got the

sensation, it has nothing to do but to copy the sensation in order to

get the idea of causal power. _Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute_;

the first step being taken the others cost nothing. The mind having, by

introspection of its own operations, discovered what Hume, though

professing to look in the same direction, unaccountably contrived to

overlook--the idea, namely, of causal power--proceeds to apply that idea

to the connection of external phenomena. Not only do we, whenever we see

a horse or an ox walking of its own accord, infer that the animal walks

_because_ it wishes to walk; but having observed that, when a stone is

thrown into the air it invariably falls presently afterwards towards the

ground; that a magnet invariably attracts any light piece of iron placed

near it; that red-hot coals always burn; and that water always moistens,

we infer that the second constituent of each brace of phenomena takes

place _because_ of the first, meaning thereby that there is some strong

bond _connecting_ the two and _compelling_ one to follow the other. If

called upon to justify this inference, we may do so by reducing to

absurdity its only possible alternative. If there be supposed to be no

connection between two phenomena constituting one of those invariable

sequences which we are accustomed to denominate cause and effect, the

sequence which they constitute must needs be an unconnected sequence,

and the only reason for styling one of the phenomena a cause is, that it

is an antecedent which the other invariably follows. But according to

this, as has been pointed out over and over again, day would be the

cause of night, and night the cause of day, and tidal flux and reflux

likewise would be each other's causes; and Mr. J. S. Mill has therefore

proposed to interpolate a word, and to define the cause of a phenomenon

as 'the antecedent on which it (the phenomenon) is invariably and

_unconditionally_ consequent.'[30] I must, however, confess myself

unable to perceive how the definition is improved by this emendation.

There is not, and cannot possibly be, such a thing as _unconditionally_

invariable sequence, as, indeed, Mr. Mill himself virtually admits by

expressly assuming as an indispensable condition of all causation that

'the present constitution of things endure.' But if, notwithstanding the

presence of this indispensable condition, it be permissible to call any

sequence unconditionally invariable, then the sequences of night upon

day and of day upon night are such sequences, and day and night continue

consequently entitled to be styled each other's causes as much under the

amended as under the original definition. For as long as 'the present

constitution of things endures,' that is, as long as the earth continues

to revolve on its axis, and the sun continues to shine, and no opaque

substance intervenes between earth and sun, day and night will continue

to be as invariably and unconditionally each other's antecedents as

sunlight will continue to be the antecedent or concomitant of day.

True, Mr. Mill denies that the earth's diurnal motion is part of the

present constitution of things, because, according to him, 'nothing can

be so called which might possibly be terminated or altered by natural

causes:' but, if so, then neither ought sunlight to be so called, for it

too quite possibly may, nay, in the opinion of many philosophers, most

certainly will, be extinguished eventually by natural causes. If day

ought not to be called the unconditionally invariable consequent of

night merely because it would cease to be so if the earth were to cease

turning on its axis, then neither ought it to be called the

unconditionally invariable consequent of the unshrouded proximity of the

sun, inasmuch as it would cease to be thereupon consequent if the sun

were to become burnt out. If night be not, and if sunlight be, the cause

of day, the reason is not that sunlight always hitherto has been, and,

on one indispensable condition, always will be followed by day, for so

equally has hitherto been, and on the same condition will hereafter be,

night. The real reason is, that sunlight not only always has been and

will be, but also always _must_ be followed by day; that unless the

constitution of nature very materially change, wherever is sunlight day

_must_ be; whereas not only might day be, although night had never

preceded, but unless night had preceded, day must have been from the

beginning. In short, to constitute cause, invariability, however

unconditional, will not suffice. Another quality must be added, and that

quality I contend to be obligatoriness. A cause, I maintain, would not

be a cause unless its effect not only do or will, but _must_ necessarily

follow it. In common with the great unphilosophic mass of mankind, I

hold that between cause and effect there is a binding power which

constrains the one to follow the other. If asked whence we suppose that

power can have been derived, such of us, as conscious that we are 'no

very great wits,' don't mind confessing that we 'believe in a God,' will

not mind either suggesting that the power, wherever not exerted by an

animated creature, may possibly be directly from God. One thing certain

is, that inanimate matter cannot possibly possess or exercise any force

or power whatever, so that, unless matter, although apparently dead, be

really alive, attraction, cohesion, gravitation, and all its other so

called forces, being incompatible with dead inertness, must needs be

manifestations of some living, and possibly divine, power. Far from

there being any difficulty in conceiving Omnipresent Deity to be

exhibiting its might in every speck of universal space in every instant

of never-ending time, it is, on the contrary, impossible to conceive

otherwise. We cannot conceive one single minutest point in limitless

extension to be for one moment exempt from the immediate control of a

divine nature assumed to be

Diffused throughout infinity's expanse

And co-existent with eternity.

Here, indeed, we hasten to acknowledge with Hume that 'our line is too

short to fathom the immense abyss' which we have now reached. But we

need not, therefore, follow Hume to the lengths to which his insidious

mock-modesty would fain entice us. We may concede to him that 'we have

no idea of a Supreme Being but what we learn from reflection on our own

faculties,' but we need not imitate him by perversely shutting our eyes

to the evidences of an energy inherent in our own faculties, and thereby

entitle him to insist on our joining him in denying that there is any

evidence of energy in the Supreme Being. We need not, because

constrained to admit that we know no more of the essence of divine, than

we do of human, power, pretend that we cannot even conceive such a thing

as divine power. Hume's affectation of profound ignorance on the subject

must have occasioned unusual amusement in a certain quarter. The Devil

can seldom have had a more hearty grin at his darling sin than when

witnessing this peculiar exhibition of the pride that apes humility.

That Hume's ignorance was nothing but affectation is proved by his

veering completely round immediately afterwards, and in his very next

chapter, and almost in his very next page, pronouncing it to be

'universally allowed that matter in all its operations is actuated by a

necessary force, and that every natural effect is so precisely

determined by the energy of its cause that no other effect in such

particular circumstances could possibly have resulted from it.'

Throughout the same chapter he argues in the same sense, and quite

forgetting how obstinately he had just before contended that there are

absolutely no such things as connection or power at all, he defies any

one to 'define a cause without comprehending, as part of the definition,

_necessary_ connection with its effect.' So highly, indeed, does he now

rate that connecting power, whose very existence he had previously so

vehemently denied, that he professes himself unable to set any limit to

its efficacy. Even for those who should undertake to deduce from it the

impossibility of any liberty of human will, and consequently of any

human responsibility, pleading that, inasmuch as with a continued chain

of necessary causes, reaching from the first great cause of all to every

separate volition of every single human creature, it must needs be the

Creator of the world who is the ultimate author of all volitions, and

consequently solely accountable for every crime which man commits, he

affects, with exceedingly ill-sitting sanctimoniousness, to have no

better answer than that such belief, being impious, must be absurd and

cannot be true. It did not suit his purpose to point out that the

volitions of Omnipotence itself, equally with human volitions, are

necessary effects of causes--the causes in their case being the other

attributes with which Omnipotence is conjoined--and that as it is

nevertheless impossible for the volitions of Omnipotence to be otherwise

than absolutely free and uncontrolled, so there is no reason why human

volitions likewise should not, in spite of the same objection, be as

thoroughly free as our own feelings assure us they are.

Hume's sudden conversion, so amazing at first sight, from flattest

denial to positivest assertion of causal power, becomes intelligible

when he is seen immediately afterwards using his newly adopted creed as

a fulcrum whereon to rest his argumentative lever in his assault upon

Miracles. About that celebrated piece of reasoning, startling as the

avowal may sound, there is, to my mind, nothing more remarkable than its

celebrity, for, on close inspection, it will be found to be entirely

made up of (1) the demonstration of a truism, and (2) the inculcation of

a confessedly misleading rule. Not far from its commencement will be

found a definition which, if correct, would leave nothing to dispute

about. A miracle, we are told, is 'a violation of the laws of nature,'

of laws which a firm and unalterable experience has established. But if

so, _cadit quaestio_. Of course, there can be no alteration of the

unalterable. No need, of course, of further words to prove that a

miracle thus defined is an impossibility.

Let us suppose, however, the word _unalterable_ to have been used here

by a slip of the pen instead of _unaltered_, and that Hume really meant

by a miracle any alteration of what had previously appeared to be the

constant course of nature. Even so, we shall have him contending that no

amount, however great, of testimony however unimpeachable, ought to be

accepted as adequate proof of such an alteration. Of what he urges in

support of this position much may be at once dismissed as altogether

irrelevant. That the most honest witness may be the dupe of optical or

auricular illusion, or of a distorting or magnifying imagination; that

there is in many minds a natural predisposition to believe in the

marvellous, and that the love of astonishing often gives exaggerated

expression to the exaggerations of the fancy; that self-interest and

religious zeal often furnish additional motives for mendacity, and that

testimony, even when sincere at first, is apt to become corrupted at

every stage as it passes from hand to hand, or is committed to

paper--all this, together with any further enumeration of circumstances

calculated to invalidate testimony, is quite beside the real question.

It merely proves what no one needs to have proved, the propriety, viz.,

of weighing evidence and balancing adverse probabilities; and even

though it proved in addition that of all the so-styled miracles on

record, there is not a single one the evidence for which is sufficient,

it would still prove nothing to the purpose. For Hume is arguing against

the credibility, not of any miracles in particular, but of all miracles

in general, those included the witnesses for which are of indisputable

intelligence and undisputed veracity. Be the quality of the testimony

what it may, no quantity of it, according to him, can be sufficient.

This is the essence of his thesis, the only part of it in which there

is any novelty, and in behalf of this part all that he has to say may be

resolved into a sophism, followed by a repetition of the same begging of

the question, as is involved in his afore-cited definition of a miracle.

In substance it runs as follows. All testimony is at best but a

description of the results of sensible experience--of observations of

the senses--but the most faithful description must needs be a less vivid

presentation of truth than the reality described. A single original is

better evidence than any number of copies. Your own personal experience

is more trustworthy than any number of mere records of the experience of

other people, and where the two conflict, the former always deserves

preference. Now the personal experience of each one of us assures us

that many sets of natural phenomena take place in perfectly invariable

sequences, in sequences so invariable as to appear to be, and to be

familiarly spoken of as, manifestations or operations of certain

inflexible laws of nature. Within our experience there has never been a

single deviation from any such law. Wherefore, though all the rest of

mankind should unite in asserting that they have observed such a

deviation, we ought not to believe them. Even though, for example--the

example, however, being not Hume's, but my own--we were, on leaving home

some morning, to hear on all sides that, while we were yet in bed, the

sun was seen to rise in the west instead of the east, and though we

found the statement repeated in the 'Times' and 'Daily News,' and

presently afterwards saw it posted up at the Exchange as having been

flashed by electric wire from New York and Kurrachee, we are not for a

moment to doubt that these reiterated and mutually corroborative

statements are utterly false. For, numerous and consistent as they may

be, they are but copies of the experience of other people, while,

although we may have to oppose to them only our own single experience,

still that single experience is original, and therefore of more worth.

The value, moreover, of any experience is, irrespective of originality,

determined by the difference in number between the results of opposite

kinds which it has discovered. The smaller number is deducted from the

larger, and the balance represents the probability that the results

which have most frequently occurred hitherto will continue to occur

henceforward. The larger the deduction thus to be made, the smaller the

probability, and _vice versa_; and when the deduction is _nil_, or when

there has hitherto been complete uniformity, the probability becomes

virtual certainty. When two original experiences are opposed to each

other, their respective values, ascertained in the same manner, are

compared, and trust is reposed in one or the other accordingly. Now,

according to these principles, difficult as it might be in the case

supposed for any one to conceive what motive all the rest of the world

could have for lying, it would be still more difficult to believe them

to be speaking truth. For why do we ever believe anything that anyone

says? Why but because we have learnt by experience that, when people

have no apparent motive for lying, they commonly do speak the truth? But

the same experience which has taught us this has taught us likewise that

people do now and then lie without apparent motive. At best, therefore,

there is never more than a probability that people are speaking the

truth, while in this instance, the supposition that they might be

speaking the truth would imply that there may be a truth against which

there is proof amounting to certainty. For what they affirm is that

something has happened the very reverse of what has invariably happened

before in the same circumstances. Is it not infinitely more likely that

people should be lying as they have often done before, than that the

invariable course of nature should have undergone a variation? With

evidence on the one side that has never yet deceived, with no evidence

on the other save what has often proved deceptive, how can we hesitate

which to accept? Even though the unanimity of testimony be such as might

otherwise be deemed complete proof, it is here met by absolutely

complete proof in the shape of a law of nature. The greater probability

overwhelms the lesser. The stronger proof annihilates the weaker,

leaving none of it behind, so that whoever still persists in believing

that a law of nature has been violated, must be content to do so without

one particle of proof. No quantity of testimony can furnish the smallest

proof of a miracle unless the falsehood of the testimony would be a

greater departure from antecedent uniformity--in other words, would be a

greater miracle--than the miracle which it attests. Unfortunately it is

but too notorious that there is not, and never has been, such a thing as

uniform truthfulness of testimony to depart from.

Such, unless most unintentionally injured by compression, is Hume's

famous argument against miracles, of which the author was sufficiently

proud to boast openly that in it he had discovered what 'will be useful,

as long as the world endures,' as 'an everlasting check to all kinds of

superstitious delusion,' but which, as I nevertheless venture to repeat,

is compounded in about equal moieties of transparent sophism and

baseless assumption. For is it not the veriest juggle of words to insist

on the necessary inferiority of copies to an original, without adverting

to the indispensable proviso that the original with which the copies

are compared should be the original from which the copies have been

taken? May not a copy of Leonardo Da Vinci's 'Last Supper' quite

possibly be equal in force and vividness of expression to the original

painting by Benjamin West bearing the same name? Might it not be wise to

trust rather to an Airy, or a De la Rue, or a Lockyer's account of what

he had observed during a solar eclipse than to your own immediate

observations on the same occasion? Besides, this first branch of Hume's

argument, if sound, would tell quite as much for, as against, miracles,

rendering it equally incumbent on actual witnesses to believe, as on all

but actual witnesses to disbelieve. If you are always to prefer your own

original experience to mere descriptions given by other people of

theirs, then should it happen to be yourself to whom the sun appeared in

the west at an hour when, according to custom, he ought to have been in

the east, you are not to allow the protestations of any number of

persons who, happening at the time to have been looking the other way,

saw the sun in his usual place, to persuade you that what you saw was a

mock sun or an _ignis fatuus_. Rather than imagine that your own senses

can have deceived you, you are to suppose that all about you are in a

league to deceive you. For precisely the same reason for which you

should reject even universal testimony in favour of a miracle which you

have not witnessed, you are equally to reject universal testimony in

opposition to a miracle the similitude of which you have witnessed.

Or is it possible for a question to be more distinctly begged than when,

to the question whether a miracle has occurred, it is answered that a

miracle is not a miracle unless there be uniform experience against it;

that uniformly adverse experience is direct and full proof against

anything; and that therefore there must always be full proof against

miracles? What is here taken for granted to be full proof is the very

thing requiring to be proved. If past uniformity really be a pledge for

continued uniformity, of course there can be no departure from

uniformity. If the whole question does not at once fall to the ground,

it is because no question has ever really arisen. But what shadow of

pretext is there for treating an hitherto unvaried course of events as

necessarily invariable? From past experience we have deduced what we are

pleased to call _laws_ of nature, but it is morally impossible that we

can seriously think, whatever we are in the habit of saying, that these

laws are self-denying ordinances whereby nature's God has voluntarily

abdicated part of His inalienable prerogative. The utmost efficacy we

are warranted in ascribing to them is that of lines marking certain of

the courses within which God's providence is pleased to move. But how

can we pretend to know for how long a season such may continue to be the

divine pleasure? How do we know that the present season may not be the

first of an alternating series, and that it may not at any moment

terminate, and be succeeded by one of an opposite character? What though

we have some shadow of historical evidence that most physical phenomena

have been going on in much the same order for some six thousand years,

is that a basis whereon to theorise with regard to the proceedings of

Him in whose sight one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years

as one day? Might not as well some scientific member of an insect tribe

of ephemera, whom ancestral tradition, confirmed by personal experience,

had assured that an eight-day clock had already gone on for six days,

pronounce it to be a law of the clock's nature that it should go on for

ever without being again wound up? Would the insect philosopher's

dogmatism be one whit less absurd than that of those human ephemera who

so positively lay down the law about the clockwork of the universe?

Those laws of nature to which unerring regularity and perpetuity of

operation are so confidently attributed, may they not, perchance, be but

single clauses of much farther reaching laws, according to whose other

provisions the force of these isolated clauses may, in novel

combinations of circumstances, be counteracted by some latent and

hitherto unsuspected force? Or is it not, at all events, open to their

divine promulgator to suspend their operation at his pleasure? May it

not conceivably have been preordained that the globe of our earth, after

revolving for a given number of ages, in one direction, shall then, like

a meat-jack, or like an Ascidian's heart,[31] reverse its order of

procedure, and commence a contrary series of revolutions? Or might not

He who prescribed to the earth its rotatory movement, will that the

rotation should for some hours cease, and that the sun should in

consequence seem to stand still, as it is recorded to have done at the

command of Joshua? Improbable as these suppositions may be, who that has

not been taken into counsel by his Creator can presume to say that they

may not be correct? The events which they involve are not inconceivable,

and whatever is not utterly inconceivable may possibly occur, however

numerous the chances against its occurrence. It is not then the fact

that 'past experience,' however unvaried, affords full proof of the

future existence of any event, or constitutes certainty against the

future existence of the reverse of that event. Completest uniformity of

experience cannot create a certainty by which any opposite probability

would be completely annihilated. It only creates a probability which,

however great, is still only a probability, and which would become a

smaller probability by deduction from it of any opposite probability.

But mere probability, however great, always includes some doubt as to

its own correctness, some suspicion that its opposite may possibly be

correct. How much soever, therefore, uniform experience may vouch for

the inviolability of natural laws, it always remains possible for those

laws to be violated, and, as miracles are nothing else but violations of

natural laws, it always remains possible for miracles to happen. But

since miracles are possible, testimony to their occurrence may, with

equal possibility, be true, and no further refutation can, I submit, be

needed for an argument which insists that all such testimony should be

set aside without enquiry as self-evidently false.

Had Hume been content to insist that testimony in favour of miracles

should never be received without extreme doubt and hesitation, his

lesson might well have passed without further objection than that of its

being superfluous for any one with sense enough to profit by it. Nor

might it have been easy to discover a flaw in his logic, although he had

gone so far as to maintain that no one of the miracles as yet on record

is either adequately attested, or would, even if it had undoubtedly

occurred, afford sufficient evidence of any religious truth. The best

and only adequate evidence for any religious creed is the satisfaction

which it affords to the soul's cravings and promises to the soul's

aspirations; and no rational Christian would be at all the more disposed

to turn Mussulman, even though it should be demonstrated to his entire

conviction that Christ did not raise Lazarus from the dead, and that

Mahomet did turn the hill Safa into gold, instead of prudently confining

himself to boasting that he could have effected the transmutation if he

had thought proper. But for the purpose which Hume had in view, it was

necessary to establish, not merely the doubtfulness, but the absolute

falsehood of the miracular testimony on which, in his opinion, 'our holy

religion' rests, in order that the character of the superstructure being

inferred from that of the foundation, both might be condemned together.

There is, however, an irreligious as well as a religious fanaticism,

and, though it is difficult, while looking at Hume's portrait, to credit

the owner of that plump, good-humoured face with feeling of any sort

warm enough to be termed fanatical, it is humiliating to note from his

example into what strange inconsistency the coolest and calmest judgment

may be warped by irreligious prejudice. Having not long before, in order

to disparage _natural_ religion, emphatically denied the existence of

any causal connection between successive events, he now, in order

equally to discredit the very possibility of _revealed_ religion,

tacitly assumes that same connection, not simply to exist, but to be of

an efficacy which no disturbing forces can impair. Admitting that 'the

Indian prince who refused to believe the first relations concerning the

effects of frost' was wrong in his belief, Hume will have it that the

prince nevertheless 'reasoned justly.' Although recognising truth to be

the sole worthy object of quest, he yet enjoins rigid adherence to a

rule which he is aware must inevitably lead to frequent error.

Rather strikingly contrasted, in respect of execution, with Hume's

chapter on Miracles, comes the one next in order on a Providence and a

Future State, which, for the skill with which the fallacy involved in it

is disguised, may be regarded as quite a masterpiece of false reasoning.

Among its leading propositions there is but one which does not command

immediate assent. That we can argue but from what we know; that of

causes, known to us only by their effects, our estimate ought to be

exactly proportioned to the effects; that of a Creator manifested only

by His works, no higher qualities, no greater degrees of power,

intelligence, justice, or benevolence, can be confidently

predicated--whatever be conjectured--than are apparent in his

workmanship: all this, on one moment's reflection, is perceived to be

indisputable. Needs must it be, however reluctantly, admitted that

nothing can be more illogical than to return back to the cause, and

infer from it other effects beyond those by which alone it is known to

us, or to infer from creative attributes, distinctly manifested, the

existence of other and not apparent attributes, endowed with some

efficacy additional to that possessed by the former. But does it hence

follow that faith in a superintending Providence is so mere a matter of

'conceit and imagination,' a faith so absolutely irrational as Hume

considered it? A candid examination of God's works will warrant us in

coming to a widely different conclusion. Among those works is man--a

being who, in spite of the utter insignificance of his greatest

_performances_, is capable of forming most exalted _conceptions_ of

justice, benevolence, and goodness in general, and of feeling the most

eager desire to act up to his own ideal. If the divine notions of

goodness in its several varieties be not identical with the human, it

can only be because they are superior; and so, too, of the divine love

of, and zeal for, goodness. It cannot be that the Creator is inferior to

the creature in virtues which the creature derives from Him alone.

Demonstrably, therefore, God is good and just in the very highest degree

in which those qualities can be conceived by man. Demonstrably, too,

since the universe is the work of His hands, He must be possessed of

power which, if not necessarily unbounded, is at least as boundless as

the universe. Thus, rigidly arguing from effects to causes, and

scrupulously proportioning the one to the other, man sees imaged on the

face of creation a creator, both realising his highest conception of

goodness, and wielding measureless might. Is not such a being worthy to

be looked up to, and confided in, and adored and loved as a

superintending providence? Is not faith in such a providence not simply

not irrational, but the direct result of a strictly inductive process?

And would it be an irrational stretch of faith sanguinely to hope, if

not implicitly to believe, that an union of infinite justice with

measureless might may, in some future stage of existence, afford

compensation for the apparently inequitable distribution of good and

evil which, according to all experience, has hitherto taken place among

human beings?

Were it desirable to amplify the apology with which this paper

commenced, some additional justification of the freedom of the

foregoing criticisms might be found in hints thrown out by Hume in

various parts of the treatise which we have been examining, and

particularly in its concluding chapter, that in many of his most

startling doctrines he was but half in earnest. Hume's temperament, too

cool for fanaticism, had yet in it enough of a certain tepid geniality

to save him from becoming a scoffer. The character which he claims for

himself, and somewhat ostentatiously parades, is that of a sceptic or

general doubter--a character in which, when rightly understood, there is

nothing to be ashamed of. To take nothing on trust, to believe nothing

without proof, to show no greater respect for authority than may consist

in attentive and candid examination of its statements, to accept only

verified facts as bases for reasoning on matters of fact and

existence--these are golden rules of philosophical research, principles

in which lies the secret of all real progress in any of the higher

departments of science. By Hume they were adopted _con amore_, and with

keen appreciation, not more of their practical utility, than of the

sport which he perceived them to be capable of yielding. His serious

purpose was to unmask the numberless pretences which in politics,

political economy, metaphysics, morals, and theology he found

universally current as gospel truths; to expose the ambiguity and

contradictions latent in popular thought, and in the popular forms of

expression which are so apt to be mistaken for thought, and to indicate

the only safe mode of investigation and the only trustworthy tests of

genuine knowledge; his favourite amusement to put time-honoured

commonplaces on the rack, and demanding their _raison d'etre_, to pass

on them summary sentence of extinction if they failed to account

satisfactorily for their existence. Unfortunately, in his keen

enjoyment of the fun of the thing, he not unfrequently overlooked the

solid interests at stake. Like a huntsman who, for the sake of a better

run, should outrace his quarry, or who, seeing that the dogs were close

upon the hare, should, in order to prolong the chase, start a fresh

hare, kept till then snug at his saddle-bow, so Hume, in the excitement

of metaphysical pursuit, instead of stopping to gather up whatever

verified affirmations came in his way, would prefer to follow any new

negation that he espied, or, if momentarily accepting any affirmation as

established, would proceed forthwith to affirm its direct opposite with

the view of neutralising both. In this, his practice resembled that of

metaphysicians in general, who take a singular delight in setting

themselves riddle after riddle, which they either assume to be

hopelessly insoluble, or which they no sooner solve than they use the

solution as the subject of another riddle involving its predecessor in

redoubled perplexity. Now, little harm, and little, perhaps, of anything

but good, might thereby be done if the lovers of this game were content

to play it by themselves, without inviting others to join who are

constitutionally unfit for such intellectual wrestling. But mental

exercises may to philosophers be health and invigorating sport, and yet

be death to the multitude; and Hume, as an Utilitarian, stands

self-condemned for making ordinary people uncomfortable by challenging

them to disputations confessedly leading no whither, and bewildering

them with confessedly 'vain and profane babblings, and strivings after

words to no profit, but to subverting of the hearers, and overthrow of

the faith of some.' And it is as poor an excuse for this wanton

tampering with other people's creeds, as it is poor amends for its

mischievous consequences, that Hume offers when, after watching for a

while his puzzled disciples blown about by the winds of adverse doctrine

that he has let loose upon them, he proceeds to rally them on their

'whimsical condition,' which he speaks of as a mere laughing matter got

up chiefly for amusement. It is only an aggravation of offence that,

while, on the one hand, he solemnly pronounces everything to be 'a

riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery,' he, on the other hand,

cheerily exhorts us not to suffer the 'doubts raised by philosophy to

affect our actions.' 'Nature,' he says, 'is always too strong for

principles, will always maintain her rights, and prevail, in the end,

against all reasoning whatever.' 'The great subverter of Pyrrhonism,' he

continues, 'is actual employment and the occupations of common life,' in

presence of which its overstrained scruples 'vanish like smoke.'

Although real knowledge consists solely in knowing that we know nothing,

and in doubting everything, and although sceptics may 'justly triumph'

in principles which lead them to deny even the attraction of

gravitation, still they had better beware how they act on these

principles, lest by stepping unconcernedly out of window they come

fatally to grief on the stones below, and so the sect and its tenets be

annihilated together. So, or to such effect, Hume: but how can there be

just ground for pride in speculations which, as their own professors

admit, would, on the first attempt to reduce them to practice, be

shattered to pieces by hard facts? That cannot possibly, even on Hume's

recommendation, be accepted as metaphysical truth, which flatly

contradicts common sense, nor can there be any unbecoming

self-confidence in seeking, even though Hume pronounce the search

hopeless, for metaphysical truth, with which common sense may be

reconciled.

FOOTNOTES:

[29] Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind. By James Mill. Edition

of 1869, with Notes by Alexander Bain, Andrew Findlater, George Grote,

and John Stuart Mill, vol. i. pp. 78 _et seq._

[30] Mill's 'Logic.' 5th Edition. Vol. i. p. 377.

[31] 'There is a class of animals called Ascidians, which possess a

heart and a circulation, and up to the year 1824 no one would have

dreamt of questioning the propriety of the deduction, that these

creatures have a circulation in one definite and invariable direction;

nor would any one have thought it worth while to verify the point. But

in that year M. von Hasselt, happening to examine a transparent animal

of this class, found to his infinite surprise that after the heart had

beat a certain number of times, it stopped, and then began beating the

opposite way, so as to reverse the course of the current, which returned

by-and-by to its original direction.'--_Huxley's Lay Sermons_, p. 95.