reciprocal phenomenon. The spectator takes pains to share the sentiments of
the person observed; and the latter, on his part, endeavors to reduce the
emotions which move him to a degree which will render participation in them
possible for the former. In these reciprocal efforts we have the beginnings
of the two classes of virtues--the gentle, amiable virtues of sympathy
and sensibility, and the exalted, estimable virtues of self-denial and
self-command. Both of these conditions of mind, however, are considered
virtues only when they are manifested in unusual intensity: humanity is
a remarkably delicate fellow-feeling, greatness of soul a rare degree of
self-command. (The consideration for those about one which is ethically
demanded is given, moreover, to a certain extent involuntarily. The man
in trouble and the merry man alike restrain themselves in the company of
persons who are indifferent, or in an opposite mood, while they give rein
to their emotions when with those similarly affected. Joy is enhanced by
sympathy, and grief mitigated.) Thus the perfection of human nature and the
divinely willed harmony among the feelings of men are dependent on every
man feeling little for himself and much for others; on his holding his
selfish inclinations in check and giving free course to his benevolent
ones. This is the injunction of Christianity as well as of nature. And
as, on the one hand, the content of the moral law is thus deduced from
sympathy, so, on the other, this yields the formal criterion of good:
Look upon thy sentiments and actions in the light in which the impartial
spectator would see them. Conscience is the spectator taken up into our own
breast. It remains to consider the origin of this third, imperative stage.
From daily experience of the fact that we judge the conduct of others, and
they ours, and from the wish to gain their approval, arises the habit of
subjecting our own actions to criticism. We learn to look at ourselves
through the eyes of others, we assign the spectator and judge a place in
our own heart, we make his calm objective judgment our own, and hear the
man within calling to us: Thou art responsible for thy acts and intentions.
In this way we are placed in a position to overcome two great delusions,
one of passion, which overestimates the present at the expense of the
future, and one of self-love, which overestimates the individual at the
expense of other men; delusions from which the impartial spectator is free,
for the pleasure of the moment seems to him no more desirable than pleasure
to come, and one person is just the same to him as another. Through
comparison of like cases in the exercise of self-examination certain rules
or principles are formed concerning what is right and good. Reverence for
these general rules of living is called the sense of duty. The last step in
the process consists in our enhancement of the binding authority of moral
rules by looking on them as commands of God. Here Smith adds subtle
discussions of the question, in what cases actions ought to be done simply
out of regard for these abstract maxims, and in what others we welcome the
co-operation of a natural impulse or passion. We ought to be angry and to
punish with reluctance, merely because reason enjoins it, but, on the other
hand, we should be benevolent and grateful from affection; she is not a
model wife who performs her duties merely from a sense of duty, and not
from inclination also. Further, in all cases where the rules cannot be
formulated with perfect exactness and definiteness (as they can in the case
of justice), and are not absolutely valid without exception, reverence for
them must be assisted by a natural taste for modifying and supplementing
the general maxims to suit particular instances.
In this sketch of the course of Smith's moral philosophy much that is fine
and much that is of importance has of necessity been passed over--his
excellent analysis of the relations of benevolence and justice, and
numerous descriptions of traits of character, _e. g_., his ingenious
parallel between pride and vanity. We may briefly mention, in conclusion,
his observations on the irregularities of moral judgment. Prosperity and
success exert an influence on this, which, though hurtful to its purity,
must, on the whole, be considered advantageous to mankind. Our lenience
toward the defects of princes, the great, and the rich, and our over-praise
for their excellent qualities are, from the moral standpoint, an injustice,
but one which has this advantage, that it encourages ambition and industry,
and maintains social distinctions intact, which without loyalty and respect
toward superiors would be broken down. For most men the road to fortune
coincides with the path to virtue. Again, it is a beneficent provision of
nature that we put a higher estimate on a successfully executed act of
benevolence, and reward it more, than a kind intention which fails of
execution; that we judge and punish the purposed crime which is not carried
out more leniently than the one which is completed; that we even ascribe
a certain degree of accountability to an unintentional act of good or
evil--although in these cases the moralist is compelled to see an ethically
unjustifiable corruption of the judgment by external success or failure
beyond the control of the agent. The first of these irregularities does
not allow the man of good intentions to content himself with noble desires
merely, but spurs him on to greater endeavors to carry them out--man
is created for action; the second protects us from the inquisitorial
questioning of motives, for it is easy for the most innocent to fall under
grave suspicion. To this inconsistency of feeling we owe the necessary
legal principle that deeds only, not intentions, are punishable. God
has reserved for himself judgment concerning dispositions. The third
irregularity, that he who inflicts unintentional injury is not guilty, even
in his own eyes, but yet seems bound to make atonement and reparation,
is useful in so far as it warns everyone to be prudent, while the
corresponding illusion, in virtue of which we are grateful to an
involuntary benefactor--for instance, the bearer of good tidings--and
reward him, is at least not harmful, for any reason appears sufficient for
the bestowal of kind intentions and actions.
It is impossible to explain in brief the relation of Smith's ethical
theory to his political economy. His merit in the former consists in his
comprehensive and characteristic combination of the results reached by his
predecessors, and in his preparation for Kantian views, so far as this
was possible from the empirical standpoint of the English. His impartial
spectator was the forerunner of the categorical imperative.
English ethics after Smith may, almost without exception, be termed
eclecticism. This is true of Ferguson _(Institutes of Moral Philosophy_,
1769); of Paley (1785); of the Scottish School (Dugald Stewart, 1793).
Bentham's utilitarianism was the first to bring in a new phase.
%4. Theory of Knowledge.%
(a) %Berkeley%.--George Berkeley, a native of Ireland, Bishop of Cloyne
(1685-1753; _An Essay toward a New Theory of Vision_, 1709; _A Treatise
concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge_, 1710; _Three Dialogues
between Hylas and Philonous_, 1713; _Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher_,
1732, against the freethinkers; _Works_, 1784. Fraser's edition of the
Collected Works appeared in 1871, in four volumes),[1] is related to Locke
as Spinoza to Descartes. He notices blemishes and contradictions allowed by
his predecessor to remain, and, recognizing that the difficulty is not to
be remedied by minor corrections and artificial hypotheses, goes back to
the fundamental principles, takes these more earnestly than their author,
and, by carrying them out more strictly, arrives at a new view of the
world. The points in Locke's doctrines which invited a further advance were
the following: Locke proclaims that our knowledge extends no further
than our ideas, and that truth consists in the agreement of ideas among
themselves, not in the agreement of ideas with things. But this principle
had scarcely been announced before it was violated. In spite of his
limitation of knowledge to ideas, Locke maintains that we know (if not the
inner constitution, yet) the qualities and powers of things without us, and
have a "sensitive" certainty of their existence. Against this, it is to be
said that there are no primary qualities, that is, qualities which exist
without as well as within us. Extension, motion, solidity, which are cited
as such, are just as purely subjective states in us as color, heat, and
sweetness. Impenetrability is nothing more than the feeling of resistance,
an idea, therefore, which self-evidently can be nowhere else than in the
mind experiencing it. Extension, size, distance, and motion are not even
sensations (we see colors only, not quantitative determinations), but
relations which we in thinking add to the sense-qualities (secondary
qualities), and which we are not able to represent apart from them; their
relativity alone would forbid us to consider them objective. And material
substances, the "support" of qualities invented by the philosophers, are
not only unknown, but entirely non-existent. Abstract matter is a phrase
without meaning, and individual things are collections of ideas in us,
nothing more. If we take away all sense-qualities from a thing, absolutely
nothing remains. Our ideas are not merely the only; objects of knowledge,
but also the only existing things--_nothing exists except minds and
their ideas_. Spirits alone are active beings, they only are indivisible
substances, and have real existence, while the being of bodies (as
dependent, inert, variable beings, which are in a constant process of
becoming) consists alone in their appearance to spirits and their being
perceived by them. Incogitative, hence passive, beings are neither
substances, nor capable of producing ideas in us. Those ideas which we do
not ourselves produce are the effects of a spirit which is mightier than
we. With this a second inconsistency was removed which had been overlooked
by Locke, who had ascribed active power to spirits alone and denied it to
matter, but at the same time had made the former affected by the latter. If
external sense is to mean the capacity for having ideas occasioned by the
action of external material things, then there is no external sense. A
third point wherein Locke had not gone far enough for his successor,
concerned the favorite English doctrine of nominalism. Locke, with his
predecessors, had maintained that all reality is individual, and that
universals exist only in the abstracting understanding. From this point
Berkeley advances a step further, the last, indeed, which was possible in
this direction, by bringing into question the possibility even of abstract
ideas. As all beings are particular things, so all ideas are particular
ideas.
[Footnote 1: Cf. also Fraser's _Berkeley_ (Blackwood's Philosophical
Classics) 1881; Eraser's _Selections from Berkeley_, 4th ed., 1891; and
Krauth's edition of the _Principles_, 1874, with notes from several
sources, especially those translated from Ueberweg.--TR.]
Berkeley looks on the refutation of these two fundamental mistakes--the
assumption of general ideas in the mind, and the belief in the existence
of a material world outside it--as his life work, holding them the chief
sources of atheism, doubt, and philosophical discord. The first of these
errors arises from the use of language. Because we employ words which
denote more than one object, we have believed ourselves warranted in
concluding that we have ideas which correspond to the extension of the
words in question, and which contain only those characteristics which are
uniformly found in all objects so named. This, however, is not the case.[1]
We speak of many things which we cannot represent: names do not always
stand for ideas. The definition of the word triangle as a three-sided
figure bounded by straight lines, makes demands upon us which our faculties
of imagination are never fully able to meet; for the triangle that we
represent to ourselves is always either right-angled or oblique-angled, and
not--as we must demand from the abstract conception of the figure--both and
neither at once. The name "man" includes men and women, children and the
aged, but we are never able to represent a man except as an individual of a
definite age and sex. Nevertheless we are in a position to make a safe
use of these non-presentative but useful abbreviations, and by means of a
particular idea to develop truths of wider application. This takes place
when, in the demonstration, those qualities are not considered which
distinguish the idea from others with a like name. In this case the
given idea stands for all others which are known by the same name; the
representative idea is not universal, but serves as such. Thus when I have
demonstrated the proposition, the sum of all the angles of a triangle is
equal to two right angles, for a given triangle, I do not need to prove
it for every triangle thereafter. For not only the color and size of the
triangle are indifferent, but its other peculiarities as well; the question
whether it is right-angled or obtuse-angled, whether it has equal
sides, whether it has equal or unequal angles, is not mentioned in the
demonstration, and has no influence upon it. _Abstracta_ exist only in this
sense. In considering the individual Paul I can attend exclusively to those
characteristics which he has in common with all men or with all living
beings, but it is impossible for me to represent this complex of common
qualities apart from his individual peculiarities. Self-observation shows
that we have no general concepts; reason, that we can have none, for the
combination of opposite elements in one idea would be a contradiction in
terms. Motion in general, neither swift nor slow, extension in general,
at once great and small, abstract matter without sensuous
determinations--these can neither exist nor be perceived.
[Footnote 1: Against the Berkeleyan denial of abstract notions the popular
philosopher, Joh. Jak. Engel, directed an essay, _Ueber die Realität
allgemeiner Begriffe_ (Engel's _Schriften_, vol. x.), to which attention
has been called by O. Liebmann, _Analysis tier Wirklichkeit_, 2d ed., p.
473.]
The "materialistic" hypothesis--so Berkeley terms the assumption that a
material world exists apart from perceiving mind, and independently of
being perceived--is, first, unnecessary, for the facts which it is to
explain can be explained as well, or even better, without it; and, second,
false, since it is a contradiction to suppose that an object can exist
unperceived, and that a sensation or idea is the copy of anything itself
not a sensation or idea. Ideas are the only objects of the understanding.
Sensible qualities (white, sweet) are subjective states of the soul; sense
objects (sugar), sensation-complexes. If sensations need a substantial
support, this is the soul which perceives them, not an external thing which
can neither perceive nor be perceived. Single ideas, and those combined
into objects, can exist nowhere else than in the mind; the being of sense
objects consists in their being perceived (_esse est percipi_). I see light
and feel heat, and combine these sensations of sight and touch into the
substance fire, because I know from experience that they constantly
accompany and suggest each other.[1] The assumption of an "object" apart
from the idea is as useless as its existence would be. Why should God
create a world of real things without the mind, when these can neither
enter into the mind, nor (because unperceived) be copied by its ideas, nor
(because they themselves lack perception and power) produce ideas in it?
Ideas signify nothing but themselves, _i. e_., affections of the subject.
[Footnote 1: The fire that I see is not the cause of the pain which I
experience in approaching it, but the visual image of the flame is only a
sign which warns me not to go too near. If I look through a microscope
I see a different object from the one perceived with the naked eye. Two
persons never see the same object, they merely have like sensations.]
The further question arises, What is the origin of ideas? Men have been led
into this erroneous belief in the reality of the material world by the
fact that certain ideas are not subject to our will, while others are.
Sensations are distinguished from the ideas of imagination, which we can
excite and alter at pleasure, by their greater strength, liveliness, and
distinctness, by their steadiness, regular order, and coherence, and by
the fact that they arise without our aid and whether we will or no. Unless
these ideas are self-originated they must have an external cause. This,
however, can be nothing else than a willing, thinking Being; for without
will it could not be active and act upon me, and without ideas of its own
it could not communicate ideas to me. Because of the manifoldness and
regularity of our sensations the Being which produces them must, further,
possess infinite power and intelligence. The ideas of imagination are
produced by ourselves, real perceptions are produced by God. The connected
whole of divinely produced ideas we call nature, and the constant
regularity in their succession, the laws of nature. The invariableness of
the divine working and the purposive harmony of creation reveal the wisdom
and goodness of the Almighty more clearly than "astonishing and exceptional
events." When we hear a man speak we reason from this activity to his
existence. How much less are we entitled to doubt the existence of God, who
speaks to us in the thousandfold works of nature.
The natural or created ideas which God impresses on us are copies of
the eternal ideas which he himself perceives, not, indeed, by passive
sensation, but through his creative reason. Accordingly when it was
maintained that things do not exist independently of perception, the
reference was not to the individual spirit, but to all spirits. When I
turn my eyes away from an object it continues to exist, indeed, after
my perception has ended--in the minds of other men and in that of the
Omnipresent One. The pantheistic conclusion of these principles, in the
sense of Geulincx and Malebranche,[1] which one expects, was really
suggested by Berkeley. Everything exists only in virtue of its
participation in the one, permanent, all-comprehensive spirit; individual
spirits are of the same nature with the universal reason, only they are
less perfect, limited, and not pure activity, while God is passionless
intelligence. But if, in the last analysis, God is the cause of all, this
does not hold of the free actions of men, least of all of wicked ones. The
freedom of the will must not be rejected because of the contradictions
which its acceptance involves; motion, also, and mathematical infinity
imply incomprehensible elements. In the philosophy of nature Berkeley
prefers the teleological to the mechanical view, since the latter is able
to discover the laws of phenomena only, but not their efficient and
final causes. Sense and experience acquaint us merely with the course
of phenomenal effects; the reason, which opens up to us the realm of
causation, of the spiritual, is the only sure guide to science and truth.
The understanding does not feel, the senses do not know. We have no
(sensuous) idea of other spirits, but only a notion of them; instead of
themselves we perceive their activities merely, from which we argue
to souls like ourselves, while we know our own mind by immediate
self-consciousness.[2]
[Footnote 1: The example of Arthur Collier shows that the same results
which Berkeley reaches empirically can be obtained from the standpoint of
rationalism. Following Malebranche, and developing further the idealistic
tendencies of the latter, Collier had, independently of Berkeley, conceived
the doctrine of the "non-existence or impossibility of an external world ";
but had not worked it out in his _Clavis Universalis_, 1713, until after
the appearance of Berkeley's chief work, and not without consideration of
this. The general point of view and the arguments are the same: Existence
is equivalent to being perceived by God; the creation of a real world of
matter apart from the ideal world in God and from sensuous perceptions in
us would have been a superfluous device, etc.]
[Footnote 2: It should be remembered, however, that this immediate
knowledge of ourselves is also "not after the manner of an idea or
sensation." Our knowledge of spirits is always mediated by "notions" not by
"ideas" in the strict sense, that is, not by "images." Cf. _Principles_,
§§ 27, 135 _seq_., especially in the second edition.--TR.]
In contrast to the fearlessness with which Berkeley propounds his
spiritualism, his anxious endeavors to take away the appearance of paradox
from his immaterialistic doctrine, and to show its complete agreement with
common sense, excite surprise. Even the common man, he argues, desires
nothing more than that his perceptions be real; the distinction between
idea and object is an invention of philosophers. Here Berkeley cannot be
acquitted of a certain sophistical play upon the term "idea," which, in
fact, is ambiguous. He understands by it _that which_ the soul perceives
(its immediate, inner object), but the popular mind, _that through which_
the soul perceives an object. The reality of an idea in us is different
from the idea of a real thing, or from the reality of that which is
perceived without us by means of the idea, and it is just this last meaning
which common sense affirms and Berkeley denies. In any case it was a work
of great merit to have transferred the existence of objects beyond our
ideas, of things-in-themselves, out of the region of the self-evident into
the region of the problematical. We never get beyond the circle of our
ideas, and if we posit a thing-in-itself as the ground and object of the
idea, this also is simply a thought, an idea. For us there is no being
except that of the perceiver and the perceived. Later we shall meet two
other forms of idealism, in Leibnitz and Fichte. Both of these agree with
Berkeley that spiritual beings alone are active, and active beings alone
real, and that the being of the inactive consists in their being perceived.
But while in Berkeley the objective ideas are impressed upon finite spirits
by the Infinite Spirit from without and singly, with Leibnitz they appear
as a fullness of germs, which God implanted together in the monads at the
beginning, and which the individual develops into consciousness, and with
Fichte they become the unconscious productions of the Absolute Ego acting
in the individual egos. For the two former as many worlds exist as there
are individual spirits, their harmony being guaranteed, in the one case, by
the consistency of God's working, and, in the other, by his foresight. For
Fichte, on the other hand, there is but one world, for the absolute is not
outside the individual spirits, but the uniformly working force within
them.
(b) Hume.--David Hume was born in Edinburgh in 1711, and died in the same
city, 1776. His position as librarian, which he held in the place of
his birth, 1752-57, gave the opportunity for his _History of England_(
1754-62). His chief work, the _Treatise on Human Nature_, which, however,
found few readers, was composed during his first residence in France in
1734-37. Later he worked over the first book of this work into his
_Enquiry concerning Human Understanding_ (1748); the second book into _A
Dissertation on the Passions_; and the third _into An Enquiry concerning
the Principles of Morals_. These, and others of his essays, found so much
favor that, during his second sojourn in France, as secretary to Lord
Hertford, in 1763-66, he was already honored as a philosopher of world-wide
renown. Then, after serving for some time as Under-Secretary of State, he
retired to private life at home (1769).
The three books of the _Treatise on Human Nature_, which appeared in
1739-40, are entitled _Of the Understanding, Of the Passions, Of Morals_.
Of the five volumes of the Essays, the first contains the _Essays Moral,
Political, and Literary_, 1741-42; the second, the _Enquiry concerning
Human Understanding_, 1748; the third, the _Enquiry concerning the
Principles of Morals_, 1751; the fourth, the _Political Discourses_, 1752;
the fifth, 1757, the _Four Dissertations_, including that _On the Passions_
and the _Natural History of Religion_. After Hume's death appeared the
_Autobiography_, 1777; the _Dialogues concerning Natural Religion_, 1779;
and the two small essays on _Suicide_ and the _Immortality of the Soul_,
1783.[1] The _Philosophical Works_ were published in 1827, and frequently
afterward.[2]
[Footnote 1: Or 1777, cf. Green and Grose's edition, vol. iii. p. 67
_seq_.--Tr.]
[Footnote 2: Among the works on Hume we may mention Jodl's prize treatise,
1872, and Huxley's _Hume_ (English Men of Letters), 1879. [The reader may
be referred also to Knight's _Hume_ (Blackwood's Philosophical Classics),
1886; to T.H. Green's "Introductions" in Green and Grose's edition of the
collected works in four volumes, 1874 (new ed. 1889-90), which is now
standard; and to Selby-Bigge's reprint of the original edition of the
_Treatise_, I vol., 1888, with a valuable Analytical Index.]]
Hume's object, like that of Berkeley, is the improvement of Locke's
doctrine of knowledge. In several respects he does not go so far as
Berkeley, in others very much farther. In agreement with Berkeley's
ultra-nominalism, which combats even the possibility of abstract ideas, he
yet does not follow him to the extent of denying external reality. On the
other hand, he carries out more consistently Berkeley's hint that immediate
sensation includes less than is ascribed to it (_e.g._, that by vision
we perceive colors only, and not distance, etc.), as well as his
principle--destructive to the certainty of our knowledge of nature--that
there is no causality among phenomena; and brings the question of substance
to, the negative conclusion, that there is no need whatever for a support
for groups of qualities, and, therefore, that substantiality is to be
denied to immaterial as well as to material beings. The points in Locke's
philosophy which seemed to Hume to need completion were different from
those at which Berkeley had struck in. The antithesis of rational and
empirical knowledge is more sharply conceived; the combination of ideas is
not left to the choice of the understanding but placed under the dominion
of psychological laws; and to the distinction between outer and inner
experience (to the former of which priority is conceded, on the ground that
we must have had an external sensation before we can, through reflection,
be conscious of it as an internal phenomenon), there is added a second, as
important as the other and crossing it, between impressions and ideas, of
which the former are likewise made prior to the latter.
Everyone will acknowledge the considerable difference between a sensation
actually present (of heat, for instance) and the mere idea of one
previously experienced, or shortly to come. This consists in the greater
force, liveliness, and vividness of the former. Although these two classes
of states (the idea of a landscape described by a poet and the perception
of a real one, anger and the thought of anger) are only quantitatively
distinct, they are scarcely ever in danger of being confused--the most
lively idea is always less so than the weakest perception. The actual,
outer or inner, sensations may be termed impressions; the weaker images of
memory or imagination, which they leave behind them, ideas. Since nothing
can gain entrance to the soul except through the two portals of outer and
inner experience, there is no idea which has not arisen from an impression
or several such; every idea is the image and copy of an impression. But
as the understanding and imagination variously combine, separate, and
transpose the elements furnished by the senses and lingering in memory, the
possibility of error arises. A hidden, and, therefore more dangerous source
of error consists in the reference of an idea to a different impression
than the one of which it is the copy. The concepts substance and causality
are examples of such false reference.
The combination of ideas takes place without freedom, in a purely
mechanical, way according to fixed rules, which in the last analysis
reduce to three fundamental laws of association: Ideas are associated
(1) according to their resemblance and contrast; (2) according to their
contiguity in space and time; (3) according to their causal connection.
Mathematics is based on the operation of the first of these laws, on
the immediate or mediate knowledge of the resemblance, contrariety, and
quantitative relations of ideas; the descriptive and experimental part of
the sciences of nature and of man on the second; religion, metaphysics, and
that part of physical and moral science which goes beyond mere observation
on the third. The theory of knowledge has to determine the boundaries of
human understanding and the degree of credibility to which these sciences
are entitled.
The objects of human thought and inquiry are either relations of ideas or
matters of fact. To the former class belong the objects of mathematics, the
truths of which, since they are analytic (_i. e_., merely explicate in the
predicate the characteristics already contained in the subject, and add
nothing new to this), and since they concern possible relations only,
not reality, possess intuitive or demonstrative certainty. It is only
propositions concerning quantity and number that are discoverable _a
priori_ by the mere operation of thought, without dependence on real
existence, and that can be proved from the impossibility of their
opposites--mathematics is the only demonstrative science.
We reach certainty in matters of fact by direct perception, or by
inferences from other facts, when they transcend the testimony of our
senses and memory. These arguments from experience are of an entirely
different sort from the rational demonstrations of mathematics; as the
contrary of a fact is always thinkable (the proposition that the sun will
not rise to-morrow implies no logical contradiction), they yield, strictly
speaking, probability only, no matter how strong our conviction of their
accuracy may be. Nevertheless it is advisable to separate this species of
inferences from experience--whose certainty is not doubted except by the
philosophers--from uncertain probabilities, as a class intermediate between
the latter and demonstrative truth (demonstrations--proofs--probabilities).
All reasonings concerning matters of fact are based on the relation of
cause and effect. Whence, then, do we obtain the knowledge of cause and
effect? Not by _a priori_ thought. Pure reason is able only to analyze
concepts into their elements, not to connect new predicates with them. All
its judgments are analytic, while synthetic judgments rest on experience.
Judgments concerning causation belong in this latter class, for effects are
entirely distinct from causes; the effect is not contained in the cause,
nor the latter in the former. In the case of a phenomenon previously
unknown we cannot tell from what causes it has proceeded, nor what
its effect will be. We argue that fire will warm us, and bread afford
nourishment, because we have often perceived these causal pairs closely
connected in space and time. But even experience does not vouchsafe all
that we desire. It shows nothing more than the coexistence and succession
of phenomena and events; while the judgment itself, _e. g_., that the
motion of one body stands in causal connection with that of another,
asserts more than mere contiguity in space and time, it affirms not merely
that the one precedes the other, but that it produces it--not merely that
the second follows the first, but that it results from it. The bond which
connects the two events, the force that puts forth the second from the
first, the necessary connection between the two is not perceived, but added
to perception by thought, construed into it.[1] What, then, is the occasion
and what the warrant for transforming perceived succession in time into
causal succession, for substituting _must_ for _is_, for interpreting the
observed connection of fact into a necessary connection which always eludes
observation?
[Footnote 1: The weakness of the concept of cause had been recognized
before Hume by the skeptic, J. Glanvil (1636-80). Causality itself cannot
be perceived; we infer it from the constant succession of two phenomena,
without being able to show warrant for the transformation of _thereafter_
into _thereby_.]
We do not causally connect every chance pair of successive events, but
those only which have been repeatedly observed together. The wonder is,
then, that through oft-repeated observation of certain objects we come to
believe that we know something about the behavior of other like objects,
and the further behavior of these same ones. From the fact that I have seen
a given apple fall ten times to the ground, I infer that all the apples in
the world do the same when loosened, instead of flying upward, which, in
itself, is quite as thinkable; I infer further that this has always
been the case, and will continue to be so to all eternity. Where is the
intermediate link between the proposition, "I have found that such an
object has always been attended with such an effect," and this other, "I
foresee that other objects which are, in appearance, similar, will be
attended with similar effects"? This postulate, that the future will be
like the past, and that like causes will have like effects, rests on a
purely psychological basis. In virtue of the laws of association the sight
of an object or event vividly recalls the image of a second, often observed
in connection with the former, and leads us involuntarily to expect its
appearance anew. The idea of causal connection is based on feeling (the
feeling of inner determination to pass from one idea to a second), not upon
insight; it is a product of the imagination, not of the understanding. From
the habitual perception of two events in connection (sunshine and heat)
arises the mental determination to think of the second when we perceive the
first, and, anticipating the senses, to count on its appearance. It is now
possible to state of what impression the idea of the causal nexus is the
copy: the impression on which it is based is the habitual transition from
the idea of a thing to its customary attendant. Hence the idea of causality
has a purely subjective significance, not the objective one which we
ascribe to it. It is impossible to determine whether there is a real
necessity of becoming corresponding to the felt necessity of thought.
In life we never doubt the fact, but for science our conviction of the
uniformity of nature remains a merely probable (though a very highly
probable) conviction. Complete certainty is vouchsafed only by rational
demonstration and immediate experience. The necessary bond which we
postulate between cause and effect can neither be demonstrated nor felt.
If all experiential reasonings depend on the idea of causality, and this
has no other support than subjective mental habit, it follows that all
knowledge of nature which goes beyond mere observed fact is not knowledge
(neither demonstrative knowledge nor knowledge of fact), but belief.[1] The
probability of our belief in the regularity of natural phenomena increases,
indeed, with every new verification of the assumptions based thereon; but,
as has been shown, it never rises to absolute certainty. Nevertheless
inferences from experience are trustworthy and entirely sufficient for
practical life, and the aim of the above skeptical deliverances was not
to shake belief--only a fool or a lunatic can doubt in earnest the
immutability of nature--but only to make it clear that it is mere belief,
and not, as hitherto held, demonstrative or factual knowledge. Our doubt
is intended to define the boundary between knowledge and belief, and to
destroy that absolute confidence which is a hindrance rather than a help to
investigation. We should recognize it as a wise provision of nature that
the regulation of our thoughts and the belief in the objective validity
of our anticipation of future events have not been confided to the weak,
inconstant, inert, and fallacious reason, but to a powerful instinct. In
life and action we are governed by this natural impulse, in spite of all
the scruples of the skeptical reason.
[Footnote 1: Hume distinguishes belief as a form of knowledge from
religious faith, both in fact and in name. In the _Treatise_--the passage
is wanting in the _Enquiry_--our conviction of the external existence of
the objects of perception is also ascribed to the former, which later
formed Jacobi's point of departure. Religious faith is referred to
revelation.]
In Hume's earlier work his destructive critique of the idea of cause
is accompanied by a deliverance in a similar strain on the concept of
substance, which is not included in the shorter revision. Substances are
not perceived through impressions, but only qualities and powers. The
unknown something which is supposed to have qualities, or in which these
are supposed to inhere, is an unnecessary fiction of the imagination. A
permanent similarity of attributes by no means requires a self-identical
support for these. A thing is nothing more than a collection of qualities,
to which we give a special name because they are always found together. The
idea of substance, like the idea of cause, is founded in a subjective habit
which we erroneously objectify. The impression from which it has arisen
is our inner perception that our thought remains constant in the repeated
experience of the same group of qualities (whenever I see sugar, _I do the
same thing_, that is, I combine the qualities white color, sweet taste,
hardness, etc., with one another), or the impression of a uniform
combination of ideas. The idea of substance becomes erroneous through the
fact that we refer it not to the inner activity of representation, to which
it rightly belongs, but to the external group of qualities, and make it
a real, permanent substratum for the latter. Mental substances disappear
along with material substances. The soul or mind is, in reality, nothing
more than the sum of our inner states, a collection of ideas which flow
on in a continuous and regular stream; it is like a stage, across which
feelings, perceptions, thoughts, and volitions are passing while it does
not itself come into sight. A permanent self or ego, as a substratum of
ideas, is not perceived; there is no invariable, permanent impression. That
which leads to the assumption of personal identity is only the frequent
repetition of similar trains of ideas, and the gradual succession of
our ideas, which is easily confused with constancy. Thus robbed of its
substantiality, the soul has no further claims to immateriality and
immortality, and suicide ceases to be a crime.[1]
[Footnote 1: Cf. the essays on _Suicide_ and the _Immortality of the Soul_,
1783, whose authorship by Hume, however, is not absolutely established [of.
Green and Grose, as above, p. 221, note first.--TR.]]
Is Hume roundly to be called a skeptic? [1] He never impugned the validity
of mathematical reasonings, nor experimental truths concerning matters of
fact; in regard to the former his thought is rationalistic, in regard to
the latter it is empirical or, more accurately, sensationalistic. His
attitude toward the empirical sciences of nature and of mind is that of a
semi-skeptic or probabilist, in so far as they go beyond the establishment
of facts to the proof of connections under law and to inferences concerning
the future. Habit is for him a safe guide for life, although it does not go
beyond probabilities; absolute knowledge is unattainable for us, but
not indispensable. Toward metaphysics, as an alleged science of the
suprasensible, he takes up an entirely negative attitude. If an argument
from experience is to be assured of merely that degree of probability which
is sufficient for belief, it must not only have a well-established fact (an
impression or memory-image) for its starting point, but, together with its
conclusion, it must keep within the limits of possible experience. The
limits of possible experience are also the limits of the knowable;
inferences to the continued existence of the soul after death and to the
being of God are vain sophistry and illusion. According to the famous
conclusion of the _Essay_, all volumes which contain anything other than
"abstract reasonings concerning quantity or number" or "experimental
reasonings concerning matter of fact and existence" deserve to be committed
to the flames. In view of this limitation of knowledge to that which is
capable of exact measurement and that which is present in experience, as
well of the principle that the elements added by thought are to be
sharply distinguished from the positively given (the immediate facts of
perception), we must agree with those who call Hume the father of modern
positivism.[2]
[Footnote 1: In the _Essay_, Hume describes his own standpoint as mitigated
or academical skepticism in antithesis to the Cartesian, which from doubt
and through doubt hopes to reach the indubitable, and to the excessive
skepticism of Pyrrhonism, which cripples the impulse to inquiry. This
moderate skepticism asks us only, after resisting the tendency to
unreflecting conclusions, to make a duty of deliberation and caution in
judging, and to restrain inquiry within those fields which are accessible
to our knowledge, _i.e._, the fields of mathematics and empirical fact. In
the _Treatise_ Hume had favored a sharper skepticism and extended his doubt
more widely, _e.g._, even to the trustworthiness of geometry. Cf. on this
point Ed. Grimm, _Zur Geschichte des Erkenntnissproblems_, 1890, p, 559
_seq_.]
[Footnote 2: So Volkelt, _Erfahrung und Denken_, 1886, p. 105.]
* * * * *
As a philosopher of religion Hume is the finisher and destroyer of deism.
Of the three principles of the deists--religion, its origin and its truth
are objects of scientific investigation; religion has its origin in the
reason and the consciousness of duty; natural religion is the oldest, the
positive religions are degenerate or revived forms of natural religion--he
accepts the first, while rejecting the other two. Religion may correspond
to reason or contradict it, but not proceed from it. Religion has its basis
in human nature, yet not in its rational but its sensuous side; not in
the speculative desire for knowledge, but in practical needs; not in the
contemplation of nature, but in looking forward with fear or joy to the
changing events of human life. Anxiety and hope concerning future events
lead us to posit unseen powers as directing our destiny, and to seek their
favor. The capriciousness of fortune points to a plurality of gods;
the tendency to conceive all things like ourselves gives them human
characteristics; the powerful impression made by all that comes within the
sphere of the senses incites us to connect the divine power with visible
objects; the allegorical laudation and deification of eminent men leads to
a completed polytheism. That this and not (mono-) theism was the original
form of religion, Hume assumes to be a fact for historical times, and a
well-founded conjecture for prehistoric ages. Those who hold that humanity
began with a perfect religion find it difficult to explain the obscuration
of the truth, endow immature ages with a developed use of the reason which
they can scarcely have possessed, make error grow worse with increasing
culture, and contradict the historical progress upward which is everywhere
else observed. The philosophical knowledge of God is a very late product of
mature reflection; even monotheism, as a popular religion, did not arise
from rational reflection, although its chief principle is in agreement
with the results of philosophy, but from the same irrational motives
as polytheism. Its origin from polytheism is accomplished by the
transformation of the leading god (the king of the gods or the tutelary
deity of the nation) through the fear and emulous flattery of his votaries
into the one, infinite, spiritual ruler of the world. Amid the folly of the
superstitious herd, however, this refined idea is not long preserved in its
purity; the more exalted the conception entertained of the supreme deity,
the more imperatively the need makes itself felt for the interpolation
between this being and mankind of mediators and demi-gods, partaking more
of the human nature of the worshipers and more familiar to them. Later
a new purification takes place, so that the history of religion shows a
continuous alternation of the lower and higher forms.
After depriving theism of its prerogative of originality, Hume further
takes away from it its fame as in every respect the best religion. It is
disadvantageously distinguished from polytheism by the fact that it is more
intolerant, makes its followers pusillanimous, and, by its incomprehensible
dogmas, puts their faith to severer tests; while it is on a level with
polytheism in that most of its adherents exalt belief in foolish mysteries,
fanaticism, and the observance of useless customs above the practice of
virtue.
The _Natural History of Religion_, which far outbids the conclusions of
the deists by its endeavors to explain religion, not on rational, but on
historical and psychological grounds, and to separate it entirely
from knowledge by relegating it to the sphere of practice, leaves the
possibility of a philosophical knowledge of God an open question. The
_Dialogues concerning Natural Religion_ greatly diminish this hope.
The most cogent argument for the intelligence of the world-ground, the
teleological argument, is a hypothesis which has grave weaknesses, and one
to which many other equally probable hypotheses may be opposed. The finite
world, with its defects and abounding misery amid all its order and
adaptation, can never yield an inference to an infinite, perfect
unit-cause, to an all-powerful, all-wise, and benevolent deity. To this
the eleventh section of the _Enquiry_ adds the argument, that it is
inadmissible to ascribe to the inferred cause other properties than those
which are necessary to explain the observed effect. The tenth section of
the same _Essay_ argues that there is no miracle supported by a sufficient
number of witnesses credible because of their intelligence and honesty, and
free from a preponderance of contradictory experiences and testimony of
greater probability. In short, the reason is neither capable of reaching
the existence of God by well-grounded inference nor of comprehending the
truth of the Christian religion with its accompanying miracles. That which
transcends experience cannot be proven and known, but only believed in.
Whoever is moved by faith to give assent to things which contradict all
custom and experience, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own
person.
Hume never denied the existence of God, never directly impugned revelation.
His final word is doubt and uncertainty. It is certain that his counsel not
to follow the leadership of the reason in religious matters, but to submit
ourselves to the power of instinct and common opinion, was less earnest and
less in harmony with the nature of the philosopher than his other advice,
to take refuge from the strife of the various forms of superstition in the
more quiet, though dimmer regions of--naturally, the skeptical--philosophy.
Hume's originality and greatness in this field consist in his genetic view
of the historical religions. They are for him errors, but natural ones,
grounded in the nature of man, "sick men's dreams," whose origin and course
he searches out with frightful cold-bloodedness, with the dispassionate
interest of the dissector.
* * * * *
In his moral philosophy[1] Hume shows himself the empiricist only, not the
skeptic. The laws of human nature are capable of just as exact empirical
investigation as those of external nature; observation and analysis promise
even more brilliant success in this most important, and yet hitherto so
badly neglected, branch of science than in physics. As knowledge and
opinion have been found reducible to the associative play of ideas, and the
store of ideas, again, to original impressions and shown derivable from
these; so man's volition and action present themselves as results of the
mechanical working of the passions, which, in turn, point further back to
more primitive principles. The ultimate motives of all action are pleasure
and pain, to which we owe our ideas of good and evil. The direct passions,
desire and aversion, joy and sorrow, hope and fear, are the immediate
effects of these original elements. From the direct arise in certain
circumstances the indirect passions, pride and humility, love and hatred
(together with respect and contempt); the first two, if the objects which
excite feeling are immediately connected with ourselves, the latter, when
pleasure and pain are aroused by the accomplishments or the defects of
others. While love and hate are always conjoined with a readiness
for action, with benevolence or anger, pride and humility are pure,
self-centered, inactive emotions.
[Footnote 1: Cf. G. von Gizycki, _Die Ethik David Humes_, 1878.]
All moral phenomena, will, moral judgment, conscience, virtue, are not
simple and original data, but of a composite or derivative nature. They are
without exception products of the regular interaction of the passions. With
such views there can be, of course, no question of a freedom of the will.
If anyone objects to determinism, that virtues and vices, if they are
involuntary and necessary, are not praise-or blame-worthy, he is to be
referred to the applause paid to beauty and talent, which are considered
meritorious, although they are not dependent upon our choice. The legal
attitude of theology and law first caused all desert to be based upon
freedom, whereas the ancient philosophers spoke unhesitatingly of
intellectual virtues.
Hume does not, like nearly all his predecessors and contemporaries, find
the determining grounds of volition in ideas, but in the feelings. After
curtailing the rights of the reason in the theoretical field in favor of
custom and instinct, he dispossesses her also in the sphere of practice.
Impassive reason, judging only of truth and falsehood, is an inactive
faculty, which of itself can never inspire us with inclination and desire
toward an object, can never itself become a motive. It is only capable
of influencing the will indirectly, through the aid of some affection.
Abstract relations of ideas, and facts as well, leave us entirely
indifferent so long as they fail to acquire an emotional value through
their relation to our state of mind. When we speak of a victory of reason
over passion it is nothing but a conquest of one passion by another, _i.
e_., of a violent passion by a calm one. That which is commonly called
reason here is nothing but one of those general and calm affections _(e.
g_., the love of life) which direct the will to a distant good, without
exciting any sensible emotion in the mind; by passion we commonly
understand the violent passions only, which engender a marked disturbance
in the soul and the production of which requires a certain propinquity of
the object. A man is said to be industrious "from reason," when a calm
desire for money makes him laborious. It is a mistake to consider all
violent passions powerful, and all calm ones weak. The prevalence of calm
affections constitutes the essence of strength of mind.
As reason is thus degraded from a governor of the will to a "slave of the
passions," so, further, judgment concerning right and wrong is taken away
from her. Moral distinctions are determined by our sense of the agreeable
and the disagreeable. We pass an immediate judgment of taste on the actions
of our fellow-men; the good pleases, evil displeases. The sight of virtue
gives us satisfaction; that of vice repels us. Accordingly an action or
trait of mind is virtuous when it calls forth in the observer an agreeable,
disinterested sentiment of approbation.
What, then, are the actions which receive such general approval, and how is
the praise to be explained which the spectator bestows on them? We approve
such traits of character as are immediately agreeable or useful, either to
the person himself or to others. This yields four classes of praiseworthy
qualities. The first class, those which are agreeable to the possessor
(quite apart from any utility to himself or to others), includes
cheerfulness, greatness of mind, courage, tranquillity, and benevolence;
the second, those immediately agreeable to others, modesty, good manners,
politeness, and wit; the third, those useful to ourselves, strength of
will, industry, frugality, strength of body, intelligence and other mental
gifts. The fourth class comprises the highest virtues, the qualities useful
to others, benevolence and justice. Pleasure and utility are in all cases
the criterion of merit. The monkish virtues of humility and mortification
of the flesh, which bring no pleasure or advantage either to their
possessor or to society, are considered meritorious by no one who
understands the subject.
If the moral value of actions is thus made to depend on their effects, we
cannot dispense with the assistance of reason in judging moral questions,
since it alone can inform us concerning these results of action. Reason,
however, is not sufficient to determine us to praise or blame. Nothing but
a sentiment can induce us to give the preference to beneficial and useful
tendencies over pernicious ones. This feeling is evidently no other than
satisfaction in the happiness of men and uneasiness in view of their
misery--in short, it is sympathy. By means of the imagination we enter into
the experiences of others and participate in their joy and sorrow. Whatever
depresses or rejoices them, whatever inspires them with pride, fills us
with similar emotions. From the habit of sympathetically passing moral
judgment on the actions of others, and of seeing our own judged by them,
is developed the further one of keeping a constant watch over ourselves and
of considering our dispositions and deeds from the standpoint of the good
of others. This custom is called conscience. Allied to this is the love of
reputation, which continually leads us to ask, How will our behavior appear
in the eyes of those with whom we associate?
Within the fourth and most important class, the social virtues, Hume
distinguishes between the natural virtues of humanity and benevolence and
the artificial virtues of justice and fidelity. The former proceed from our
inborn sympathy with the good of others, while the latter, on the other
hand, are not to be derived from a natural passion, an instinctive love of
humanity, but are the product of reflection and art, and take their origin
in a social convention.
In order that an action may gain the approval of the spectator two other
things are required besides its salutary effects: it must be a mark
of character, of a permanent disposition, and it must proceed from
disinterested motives. Hume is obliged by this latter position to show that
disinterested benevolence actually exists, that the unselfish affections
do not secretly spring from self-love. To cite only one of the thousand
examples of benevolence in which no discernible interest is concerned,
we desire happiness for our friends even when we have no expectation
of participating in it. The accounts of human selfishness are greatly
overdrawn, and those who deduce all actions from it make the mistake of
taking the inevitable consequences of virtue--the pleasure of self-approval
and of being esteemed by others--for the only motives to virtue. Because
virtue, in the outcome, produces inner satisfaction and is praised by
others, it does not follow that it is practiced merely for the sake of
these agreeable consequences. Self-love is a secondary impulse, whose
appearance at all presupposes primary impulses. Only after we have
experienced the pleasure which comes from the satisfaction of such an
original impulse (_e. g_., ambition), can this become the object of a
conscious reflective search after pleasure, or of egoism. Power brings no
enjoyment to the man by nature devoid of ambition, and he who is naturally
ambitious does not desire fame because it affords him pleasure, but
conversely, fame affords him pleasure because he desires it. The natural
propensity which terminates directly on the object, without knowledge or
foresight of the pleasurable results, comes first, and egoistic reflection
directed toward the hoped-for enjoyment can develop only after this has
been satisfied. The case is the same with benevolence as with the love
of fame. It is implanted in the constitution of our minds as an original
impulse immediately directed toward the happiness of other men. After
it has been exercised and its exercise rewarded by self-satisfaction,
admiration, thanks, and reciprocation, it is indeed possible for the
expectation of such agreeable consequences to lead us to the repetition of
beneficent acts. But the original motive is not an egoistic, regard for
useful consequences. If, from the force of the passion alone, vengeance
may be so eagerly pursued that every consideration of personal quiet and
security is silenced, it may also be conceded that humanity causes us
to forget our own interests. Nay, further, the social affections, as
Shaftesbury has proven, are the strongest of all, and the man will rarely
be found in whom the sum of the benevolent impulses will not outweigh that
of the selfish ones.
In the section on justice Hume attacks the contract theory. Law, property,
and the sacredness of contracts exist first in society, but not first in
the state. The obligation to observe contracts is, indeed, made stronger by
the civil law and civil authority, but not created by them. Law arises from
convention, _i. e_., not from a formal contract, but a tacit agreement, a
sense of common interest, and this agreement, in turn, proceeds from an
original propensity to enter into social relations. The unsocial and
lawless state of nature is a philosophical fiction which has never existed;
men have always been social. They have all at least been born into the
society of the family, and they know no-more terrible punishment than
isolation. States are not created, however, by a voluntary act, but have
their roots in history. The question at issue between Hobbes and Hume was
thus adjusted at a later period by Kant: the state, it is true, has not
historically arisen from a contract, yet it is allowable and useful to
consider it under the aspect of a contract as a regulative idea.
Only once since David Hume, in Herbert Spencer, has the English nation
produced a mind of like comprehensive power. Hume and Locke form the
culminating points of English thought. They are national types, in that
in them the two fundamental tendencies of English thinking, clearness of
understanding and practical sense, were manifested in equal force. In Locke
these worked together in harmonious co-operation. In Hume the friendly
alliance is broken, the common labor ceases; each of the two demands its
full rights; a painful breach opens up between science and life. Reason
leads inevitably to doubt, to insight into its own weakness, while life
demands conviction. The doubter cannot act, the agent cannot know. It is
true that a substitute is found for defective knowledge in belief based
upon instinct and custom; but this is a makeshift, not a solution of the
problem, an acknowledgment of the evil, not a cure for it. Further, Hume's
greatness does not consist in the fact that he preached modesty to the
contending parties, that he banished the doubting reason into the study
and restricted life to belief in probabilities, but in the mental strength
which enabled him to endure sharp contradictions, and, instead of an
overhasty and easy reconciliation, to suspend the one impulse until the
other had made its demands thoroughly, completely, and regardlessly heard.
Though he is distinguished from other skeptics by the fact that he not
only shows the fundamental conceptions of our knowledge of nature and the
principles of religion uncertain and erroneous, but finds _necessary_
errors in them and acutely uncovers their origin in the lawful workings
of our inner life, yet his historical influence essentially rests on his
skepticism. In his own country it roused in the "Scottish School" the
reaction of common sense, while in Germany it helped to wake a kindred but
greater spirit from the bonds of his dogmatic slumbers, and to fortify him
for his critical achievements.
(c) %The Scottish School%.--Priestley's associational psychology,
Berkeley's idealism, and Hume's skepticism are legitimate deductions from
Locke's assumption that the immediate objects of thought are not things but
ideas, and that judgment or knowledge arises from the combination of ideas
originally separate. The absurdity of the consequences shows the falsity of
the premises. The true philosophy must not contradict common sense. It
is not correct to look upon the mind as a sheet of white paper on which
experience inscribes single characters, and then to make the understanding
combine these originally disconnected elements into judgments by means of
comparison, and the belief in the existence of the object come in as a
later result added to the ideas by reflection. It is rather true that the
elements discovered by the analysis of the cognitive processes are far from
being the originals from which these arise. It is not isolated ideas that
come first, but judgments, self-evident axioms of the understanding, which
form part of the mental constitution with which God has endowed us; and
sensation is accompanied by an immediate belief in the reality of the
object. Sensation guarantees the presence of an external thing possessing a
certain character, although it is not an image of this property, but merely
a sign for something in no wise resembling itself.
This is the standpoint of the founder[1] of the Scottish School, Thomas
Reid (1710-96, professor in Aberdeen and Glasgow; _An Inquiry into the
Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense_, 1764; _Essays on the
Intellectual Powers of Man_, 1785, _Essays on the Active Powers_, 1788,
together under the title, _Essays on the Powers of the Human Mind.
Collected Works_, 1804, and often since, especially the edition by
Hamilton, with valuable notes and dissertations, 7th ed., 2 vols., 1872).
We may recognize in it a revival of the common notions of Herbert, as well
as a transfer of the innate faculty of judgment inculcated by the ethical
and aesthetic writers from the practical to the theoretical field; the
"common sense" of Reid is an original sense for truth, as the "taste"
of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson was a natural sense for the good and the
beautiful. Like Jacobi at a later period, Reid points out that mediate,
reasoned knowledge presupposes a knowledge which is immediate, and all
inference and demonstration, fixed, undemonstrable, immediately certain
fundamental truths. The fundamental judgments or principles of common
sense, which are true for us, even if [possibly] not true in themselves,
are discoverable by observation (empirical rationalism). In the enumeration
of them two dangers are to be avoided: we must neither raise contingent
principles to the position of axioms, nor, from an exaggerated endeavor
after unity, underestimate the number of these self-evident principles.
Reid himself is always more sparing with them than his disciples. He
distinguishes two classes: first principles of necessary truth, and first
principles of contingent truth or truth of fact. As first principles of
necessary truth he cites, besides the axioms of logic and mathematics,
grammatical, aesthetic, moral, and metaphysical principles (among the last
belong the principles: "That the qualities which we perceive by our senses
must have a subject, which we call body, and that the thoughts we are
conscious of must have a subject, which we call mind"; "that whatever
begins to exist, must have a cause which produced it"). He lays down twelve
principles as the basis of our knowledge of matters of fact, in which his
reference to the doubt of Berkeley and Hume is evident. The most important
of these are: "The existence of everything of which I am conscious"; "that
the thoughts of which I am conscious, are the thoughts of a being which I
call myself, my mind, my person"; "our own personal identity and continued
existence, as far back as we remember anything distinctly"; "that those
things do really exist which we distinctly perceive by our senses, and are
what we perceive them to be"; "that we have some degree of power over our
actions, and the determinations of our will"; "that there is life and
intelligence in our fellow-men"; "that there is a certain regard due... to
human authority in matters of opinion"; "that, in the phenomena of
nature, what is to be, will probably be like what has been in similar
circumstances."
[Footnote 1: In the sense of "chief founder"; cf. McCosh's _Scottish
Philosophy_, 1875, pp. 36, 68 _seq_., which is the standard authority on
the school as a whole.--TR.]
The widespread and lasting favor experienced by this theory, with its
invitation to forget all earnest work in the problems of philosophy
by taking refuge in common sense, shows that a general relaxation had
succeeded the energetic endeavors which Hume had demanded of himself and
of his readers. With this declaration of the infallibility of common
consciousness, the theory of knowledge, which had been so successfully
begun, was incontinently thrust aside, although, indeed, empirical
psychology gained by the industrious investigation of the inner life by
means of self-observation. James Beattie continued the attack on Hume
in his _Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth in Opposition to
Sophistry and Skepticism_, 1770, on the principle that wisdom must never
contradict nature, and that whatever our nature compels us to believe,
hence whatever all agree in, is true. In his briefer dissertations Beattie
discussed Memory and Imagination, Fable and Romance, the Effects of
Poetry and Music, Laughter, the Sublime, etc. While Beattie had given the
preference to psychological and aesthetic questions, James Oswald (1772)
appealed to common sense in matters of religion, describing it as an
instinctive faculty of judgment concerning truth and falsehood. The most
eminent among the followers of Reid was Dugald Stewart (professor in
Edinburgh; _Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind_, 1792-1827;
_Collected Works_, edited by Hamilton, 1854-58), who developed the
doctrines of the master and in some points modified them. Thomas
Brown (1778-1820), who is highly esteemed by Mill, Spencer, and Bain,
approximated the teachings of Reid and Stewart to those of Hume. The
philosophy of the Scottish School was long in favor both in England and in
France, where it was employed as a weapon against materialism.
By way of appendix we may mention the beginnings of a psychological
aesthetics in Henry Home (Lord Kames, 1696-1782), and Edmund Burke
(1728-97).[1] Home, in ethics a follower of Hutcheson, is fond of
supporting his aesthetic views by examples from Shakespeare. Beauty (chap.
iii.) appears to belong to the object itself, but in reality it is only an
effect, a "secondary quality," of the object; like color, it is nothing but
an idea in the mind, "for an object is said to be beautiful for no other
reason but that it appears so to the spectator." It arises from regularity,
proportion, order, simplicity--properties which belong to sublimity as well
(chap, iv.), but to which they are by no means so essential, since it is
satisfied with a less degree of them. While the beautiful excites emotions
of sweetness and gayety, the sublime rouses feelings which are agreeable,
it is true, but which are not sweet and gay, but strong and more serious.
Burke's explanation goes deeper. He derives the antithesis of the sublime
and the beautiful from the two fundamental impulses of human nature, the
instinct of self-preservation and the social impulse. Whatever is contrary
to the former makes a strong and terrible impression on the soul; whatever
favors the latter makes a weak but agreeable one. The terrible delights us
(first depressing and then exalting us), when we merely contemplate it,
without being ourselves affected by the danger or the pain--this is the
sublime. On the other hand, that is beautiful which inspires us with
tenderness and affection without our desiring to possess it. Sublimity
implies a certain greatness, beauty, a certain smallness. Delight in both
is based on bodily phenomena. Terror moderated exercises a beneficent
influence on the nerves by stimulating them and giving them tension;
the gentle impression of beauty exerts a quieting effect upon them. The
disturbances caused by the former, and the recovery induced by the latter,
are both conducive to health, and hence, experienced as pleasures.
[Footnote 1: Home, _Elements of Criticism_, 1762. Burke, _A Philosophical
Inquiry info the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful_,
1756.]