which, according to popular conceptions, its primary truths derive
from physiology. We have already noticed how with Locke metaphysic
begs defence of physic; [1] how, having undertaken to answer by
the impossible method of self-observation the question as to what
consciousness is to itself at its beginning, he in fact tells us what
it is to the natural philosopher, who accounts for the production of
sensation by the impact of matter ‘on the outward parts, continued
to the brain.’ To those, of course, who hold that the only possible
theory of knowledge and of the human spirit is physical, it must seem
that this was his greatest merit; that, an unmeaning question having
been asked, it was the best thing to give an answer which indeed
is no answer to the question, but has some elementary truth of its
own. According to them, though he may have been wrong in supposing
consciousness to be to itself what the physiologist explains it to
be--since any supposition at all about it except as a phenomenon,
to which certain other phenomena are invariably antecedent, is at
best superfluous--he was not wrong in taking the physiological
explanation to be the true and sufficient one. To such persons we can
but respectfully point out that they have not come in sight of the
problem which Locke and his followers, on however false a method,
sought to solve; that, however certain may be the correlation between
the brain and thought, in the sense that the individual would be
incapable of the processes of thought unless he had brain and nerves
of a particular sort, yet it is equally certain that every theory of
the correlation must presuppose a knowledge of the processes, and
leave that knowledge exactly where it was before; that thus their
science, valuable like every other science within its own department,
takes for granted just what metaphysic, as a theory of knowledge,
seeks to explain. When the origin, for instance, of the conception
of body or of that of an organic structure is in question, it is
in the strictest sense preposterous to be told that body makes the
conception of body, and that unless the brain were organic to thought
I should not now be thinking. ‘The brain is organic to thought;’ here
is a proposition involving conceptions within conceptions--a whole
hierarchy of ideas. How am I enabled to re-think these in order, to
make my way from the simpler to the more complex, by any iteration
or demonstration of the proposition, which no one disputes, or by
the most precise examination of the details of the organic structure
itself?
[1] See above, paragraph 17.
Those who think it will don’t understand the question.
199. The quarrel of the physiologist with the metaphysician is, in
fact, due to an _ignorantia elenchi_ on the part of the former, for
which the behaviour of English ‘metaphysicians,’ in attempting to
assimilate their own procedure to that of the natural philosophers,
and thus to win the popular acceptance which these alone can fairly
look for, has afforded too much excuse. The question really at issue
is not between two co-ordinate sciences, as if a theory of the human
body were claiming also to be a theory of the human soul, and the
theory of the soul were resisting the aggression. The question is,
whether the conceptions which all the departmental sciences alike
presuppose shall have an account given of them or no. For dispensing
with such an account altogether (life being short) there is much
to be said, if only men would or could dispense with it; but the
physiologist, when he claims that his science should supersede
metaphysic, is not dispensing with it, but rendering it in a
preposterous way. He accounts for the formal conceptions in question,
in other words for thought as it is common to all the sciences, as
sequent upon the antecedent facts which his science ascertains--the
facts of the animal organisation. But these conceptions--the
relations of cause and effect, &c.--are necessary to constitute the
facts. They are not an _ex post facto_ interpretation of them, but an
interpretation without which there would be no ascertainable facts
at all. To account for them, therefore, as the result of the facts
is to proceed as a geologist would do, who should treat the present
conformation of the earth as the result of a certain series of past
events, and yet, in describing these, should assume the present
conformation as a determining element in each.
Hume’s psychology will not answer it either.
200. ‘Empirical psychology,’ however, claims to have a way of its
own for explaining thought, distinct from that of the physiologist,
but yet founded on observation, though it is admitted that the
observation takes place under difficulties. Its method consists in
a history of consciousness, as a series of events or successive
states observed in the individual by himself. By tracing such a chain
of _de facto_ sequence it undertakes to account for the elements
common to all knowledge. Its first concern, then, must be, as we
have previously put it, to ascertain what consciousness is to itself
at its beginning. No one with Berkeley before him, and accepting
Berkeley’s negative results, could answer this question in Locke’s
simple way by making the primitive consciousness report itself as an
effect of the operation of body. To do so is to transfer a later and
highly complex form of consciousness, whose growth has to be traced,
into the earlier and simple form from which the growth is supposed to
begin. This, upon the supposition that the process of consciousness
by which conceptions are formed is a series of psychical events--a
supposition on which the whole method of empirical psychology
rests--is in principle the same false procedure as that which we
have imagined in the case of a geologist above. But the question
is whether, by any procedure not open to this condemnation, the
theory could seem to do what it professes to do--explain thought
or ‘cognition by means of conceptions’ as something which happens
in sequence upon previous psychical events. Does it not, however
stated, carry with it an implication of the supposed later state in
the earlier, and is it not solely in virtue of this implication that
it seems to be able to trace the genesis of the later? No one has
pursued it with stricter promises, or made a fairer show of being
faithful to them, than Hume. He will begin with simple feeling,
as first experienced by the individual--unqualified by complex
conceptions, physical or metaphysical, of matter or of mind--and
trace the process by which it generates the ‘ideas of philosophical
relation.’ If it can be shown, as we believe it can be, that, even
when thus pursued, its semblance of success is due to the fact that,
by interpreting the earliest consciousness in terms of the latest, it
puts the latter in place of the former, some suspicion may perhaps
be created that a natural history of self-consciousness, and of the
conceptions by which it makes the world its own, is impossible,
since such a history must be of events, and self-consciousness is
not reducible to a series of events; being already at its beginning
formally, or potentially, or implicitly all that it becomes actually
or explicitly in developed knowledge.
It only seems to do so by assuming the ‘fiction’ it has to account
for; by assuming that impression represents a real world.
201. If Hume were consistent in allowing no other determination to
the impression than that of its having the maximum of vivacity, or
to other modes of consciousness than the several degrees of their
removal from this maximum, he would certainly have avoided the
difficulties which attend Locke’s use of the metaphor of impression,
while at the same time he would have missed the convenience, involved
in this use, of being able to represent the primitive consciousness
as already a recognition of a thing impressing it, and thus an
‘idea of a quality of body.’ But at the outset he remarks that ‘the
examination of our sensations’ (_i.e._ our impressions of sensation)
‘belongs more to anatomists and natural philosophers than to moral,’
and that for that reason he shall begin not with them but with
ideas. [1] Now this virtually means that he will begin, indeed,
with the feelings he finds in himself, but with these as determined
by the notion that they are results of something else, of which
the nature is not for the present explained. Thus, while he does
not, like Locke, identify our earliest consciousness with a rough
and ready physical theory of its cause, he gains the advantage of
this identification in the mind of his reader, who from sensation,
thus apparently defined, transfers a definiteness to the ideas and
secondary impressions as derived from it, though in the sequel the
theory turns out, if possible at all, to be at best a remote result
of custom and association. We shall see this more clearly if we look
back to the general account of impressions and ideas quoted above.
‘An impression first strikes upon the senses and makes us perceive
pleasure or pain, of which a copy is taken by the mind,’ called
an idea. Now if we set aside the notion of a body making impact
upon a sensuous, and through it upon a mental, tablet, pleasure or
pain _is_ the impression, which, again, is as much or as little in
the mind as the idea. Thus the statement might be re-written as
follows:--‘Pleasure or pain makes the mind perceive pleasure or pain,
of which a copy is taken by the mind.’ This, of course, is nonsense;
but between this nonsense and the plausibility of the statement as it
stands, the difference depends on the double distinction understood
in the latter--the distinction _(a)_ between the producing cause of
the impression and the impression produced; and _(b)_ between the
impression as produced on the senses, and the idea as preserved by
the mind. This passage, as we shall see, is only a sample of many of
the same sort. Throughout, however explicitly Hume may give warning
that the difference between impression and idea is only one of
liveliness, however little he may scruple in the sequel to reduce
body and mind alike to the succession of feelings, his system gains
the benefit of the contrary assumption which the uncritical reader
is ready to make for him. As often as the question returns whether
a phrase, purporting to express an ‘abstract conception,’ expresses
any actual idea or no, his test is, ‘Point out the impression from
which the idea, if there be any, is derived’--a test which has
clearly no significance if the impression is merely the idea itself
at a livelier stage (for a person, claiming to have the idea,
would merely have to say that he had never known it more lively,
and that, therefore, it was itself an impression, and the force of
the test would be gone), but which seems so satisfactory because
the impression is regarded as the direct effect of outward things,
and thus as having a prerogative of reality over any perception to
which the mind contributes anything of its own. By availing himself
alternately of this popular conception of the impression of sensation
and of his own account of it, he gains a double means of suppressing
any claim of thought to originate. Every idea, by being supposed in a
more lively state, can be represented as derived from an impression,
and thus (according to the popular notion) as an effect of something
which, whatever it is, is not thought. If thereupon it is pointed out
that this outward something is a form of substance which, according
to Hume’s own showing, is a fiction of thought, there is an easy
refuge open in the reply that ‘impression’ is only meant to express
a lively feeling, not any dependence upon matter of which we know
nothing.
[1] p. 317 [Book I, part I., sec. III.]
So the ‘Positivist’ juggles with ‘phenomena’.
202. Thus the way is prepared for the juggle which the modern popular
logic performs with the word ‘phenomenon’--a term which gains
acceptance for the theory that turns upon it because it conveys the
notion of a relation between a real order and a perceiving mind,
and thus gives to those who avail themselves of it the benefit
of an implication of the ‘noumena’ which they affect to ignore.
Hume’s inconsistency, however, stops far short of that of his later
disciples. For the purpose of detraction from the work of thought he
availed himself, indeed, of that work as embodied in language, but
only so far as was necessary to his destructive purpose. He did not
seriously affect to be reconstructing the fabric of knowledge on a
basis of fact. There occasionally appears in him, indeed, something
of the charlatanry of common sense in passages, more worthy of
Bolingbroke than himself, where he writes as a champion of facts
against metaphysical jargon. But when we get behind the mask of
concession to popular prejudice, partly ironical, partly due to his
undoubted vanity, we find much more of the ancient sceptic than of
the ‘positive philosopher.’
Essential difference, however, between Hume and the ‘Positivist’.
203. The ancient sceptic (at least as represented by the ancient
philosophers), finding knowledge on the basis of distinction between
the real and apparent to be impossible, discarded the enterprise
of arriving at general truth in opposition to what appears to
the individual at any particular instant, and satisfied himself
with noting such general tendencies of expectation and desire as
would guide men in the conduct of life and enable them to get
what they wanted by contrivance and persuasion. [1] Such a state
of mind excludes all motive to the ‘interrogation of nature,’
for it recognises no ‘nature’ but the present appearance to the
individual; and this does not admit of being interrogated. The
‘positive philosopher’ has nothing in common with it but the use,
in a different sense, of the word ‘apparent.’ He plumes himself,
indeed, on not going in quest of any ‘thing-in-itself’ other than
what appears to the senses; but he distinguishes between a real
and apparent in the order of appearance, and considers the real
order of appearance, having a permanence and uniformity which
belong to no feeling as the individual feels it, to be the true
object of knowledge. No one is more severe upon ‘propensities to
believe,’ however spontaneously suggested by the ordinary sequence
of appearances, if they are found to conflict with the order of
nature as ascertained by experimental interrogation; _i.e._ with a
sequence observed (it may be) in but a single instance. Which of the
two attitudes of thought is the more nearly Hume’s, will come out as
we proceed. It was just with the distinction between the ‘real and
fantastic,’ as Locke had left it, that he had to deal; and, as will
appear, it is finally by a ‘propensity to feign,’ not by a uniform
order of natural phenomena, that he replaces the real which Locke,
according to his first mind, had found in archetypal things and their
operations on us.
[1] Cf. Plato’s ‘Protagoras,’ 323, and ‘Theaetetus,’ 167, with the
concluding paragraphs of the last part of the first book of Hume’s
‘Treatise on Human Nature.’
He adopts Berkeley’s doctrine of ideas, but without Berkeley’s saving
suppositions,
204. We have seen that Berkeley, having reduced ‘simple ideas’ to
their simplicity by showing the illegitimacy of the assumption that
they report qualities of a matter which is itself a complex idea, is
only able to make his constructive theory march by the supposition of
the reality and knowability of ‘spirit’ and relations. ‘Ideas’ are
‘fleeting, perishable passions;’ but the relations between them are
uniform, and in virtue of this uniformity the fleeting idea may be
interpreted as a symbol of a real order. But such relations, as real,
imply the presence of the ideas to the constant mind of God, and, as
knowable, their presence to a like mind in us. We have further seen
how little Berkeley, according to the method by which he disposed of
‘abstract general ideas,’ was entitled to such a supposition. Hume
sets it aside; but the question is, whether without a supposition
virtually the same he can represent the association of ideas as doing
the work that he assigned to it.
... in regard to ‘spirit’,
205. His exclusion of Berkeley’s supposition with regard to ‘spirit’
is stated without disguise, though unfortunately not till towards
the end of the first book of the ‘Treatise on Human Nature,’ which
could not have run so smoothly if the statement had been made at
the beginning. It follows legitimately from the method, which he
inherited, of ‘looking into his mind to see how it wrought.’ ‘From
what impression,’ he asks, ‘could the idea of self be derived? It
must be some one impression that gives rise to every real idea.
But self or person is not any impression, but that to which our
several impressions and ideas are supposed to have a reference.
If any impression gives rise to the idea of self, that impression
must continue invariably the same through the whole course of our
lives, since self is supposed to exist after that manner. But there
is no impression constant and invariable. Pain and pleasure, grief
and joy, passions and sensations succeed each other, and never
all exist at the same time. It cannot, therefore, be from any of
these impressions, or from any other, that the idea of self is
derived; and, consequently, there is no such idea.’ Again: ‘When I
enter most intimately into what is called myself, I always stumble
on some particular perception of heat or cold, light or shade,
love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any
time without a perception, and never can observe anything but the
perception. When my perceptions are removed for any time, as by
sound sleep, so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be
said not to exist.’ Thus ‘men are nothing but a bundle or collection
of different perceptions that succeed each other with inconceivable
rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux or movement. Our eyes cannot
turn in their sockets without varying our perceptions. Our thought
is still more variable than our sight. ... nor is there any single
power of the soul which remains unalterably the same perhaps for one
moment.... There is properly no simplicity in the mind at one time
nor identity at different’. [1]
[1] pp. 533 and 534 [Book I., part IV., sec. VI.]
... in regard to relations. His account of these.
206. His position in regard to ideas of relation cannot be so
summarily exhibited. It is from its ambiguity, indeed, that his
system derives at once its plausibility and its weakness. In the
first place, it is necessary, according to him, to distinguish
between ‘natural’ and ‘philosophical relation.’ The latter is one
of which the idea is acquired by the comparison of objects, as
distinct from natural relation or ‘the quality by which two ideas
are connected together in the imagination, and the one naturally’
(_i.e._ according to the principle of association) ‘introduces the
other’. [1] Of philosophical relation--or, according to another form
of expression, of ‘qualities by which the ideas of philosophical
relation are produced’--seven kinds are enumerated; viz.
‘resemblance, identity, relations of time and place, proportion in
quantity and number, degrees in quality, contrariety, and causation’.
[2] Some of these do, some do not, _apparently_ correspond to the
qualities by which the mind is _naturally_ ‘conveyed from one idea
to another;’ or which, in other words, constitute the ‘gentle force’
that determines the order in which the imagination habitually puts
together ideas. Freedom in the conjunction of ideas, indeed, is
implied in the term ‘imagination,’ which is only thus differenced
from ‘memory;’ but, as a matter of fact, it commonly only connects
ideas which are related to each other in the way either of
resemblance, or of contiguity in time and place, or of cause and
effect. Other relations of the philosophical sort are the opposite
of _natural_. Thus, ‘distance will be allowed by philosophers to be
a true relation, because we acquire an idea of it by the comparing
of objects; but in a common way we say, “that nothing can be more
distant than such or such things from each other; nothing can have
less relation”’ (ibid.).
[1] p. 322 [Book I, part I., sec. V.]
[2] ibid., and p. 372 [Book I., part III., sec. I.]
It corresponds to Locke’s account of the sorts of agreement between
ideas.
207. Hume’s classification of philosophical relations evidently
serves the same purpose as Locke’s, of the ‘four sorts of agreement
or disagreement between ideas,’ in the perception of which
knowledge consists; [1] but there are some important discrepancies.
Locke’s second sort, which he awkwardly describes as ‘agreement or
disagreement in the way of relation,’ may fairly be taken to cover
three of Hume’s kinds; viz. relations of time and place, proportion
in quantity or number, and degrees in any quality. About Locke’s
first sort, ‘identity and diversity,’ there is more difficulty. Under
‘identity,’ as was pointed out above, he includes the relations
which Hume distinguishes as ‘identity proper’ and ‘resemblance.’
‘Diversity’ at first sight might seem to correspond to ‘contrariety;’
but the latter, according to Hume’s usage, is much more restricted
in meaning. Difference of number and difference of kind, which he
distinguishes as the opposites severally of identity and resemblance,
though they come under Locke’s ‘diversity,’ are not by Hume
considered relations at all, on the principle that ‘no relation of
any kind can subsist without some degree of resemblance.’ They are
‘rather a negation of relation than anything real and positive.’
‘Contrariety’ he reckons only to obtain between ideas of existence
and non-existence, ‘which are plainly resembling as implying both of
them an idea of the object; though the latter excludes the object
from all times and places in which it is supposed not to exist’.
[2] There remain ‘cause and effect’ in Hume’s list; ‘co-existence’
and ‘real existence’ in Locke’s. ‘Co-existence’ is not expressly
identified by Locke with the relation of cause and effect, but it
is with ‘necessary connection.’ It means specially, it will be
remembered [3], the co-existence of ideas, not as constituents of a
‘nominal essence,’ but as qualities of real substances in nature;
and our knowledge of this depends on our knowledge of necessary
connection between the qualities, either as one supposing the
other (which is the form of necessary connection between primary
qualities), or as one being the effect of the other (which is the
form of necessary connection between the ideas of secondary qualities
and the primary ones). Having no knowledge of necessary connection
as in real substances, we have none of ‘co-existence’ in the above
sense, but only of the present union of ideas in any particular
experiment. [4] The parallel between this doctrine of Locke’s and
Hume’s of cause and effect will appear as we proceed. To ‘real
existence,’ since the knowledge of it according to Locke’s account is
not a perception of agreement between ideas at all, it is not strange
that nothing should correspond in Hume’s list of relations.
[1] See above, paragraph 25 and the passages from Locke there
referred to.
[2] p. 323 [Book I, part I., sec. V.]
[3] See above, paragraph 122.
[4] Locke, Book IV. sec. iii. chap. xiv.; and above, paragraph 121
and 122.
Could Hume consistently admit idea of relation at all?