of expectation, and exactly reverses the positions severally given
to belief and reality in the actual procedure of science, [1] should
have been ostensibly adopted by scientific men as their own--with
every allowance for Hume’s literary skill and for the charm which the
prospect of overcoming the separation between reason and instinct
exercises over naturalists--would have been unaccountable if the
doctrine had been thus nakedly put or consistently maintained.
But it was not so. Hume’s sense of consistency was satisfied when
expectation determined by remembrance had been put in the place
of necessary connexion, as the basis of ‘inference to matters of
fact.’ It does not lead him to adjust his view of the fact inferred
to his view of the basis on which the inference rests. Expectation
is an ‘impression of reflection,’ and if the relation of cause and
effect is no more than expectation, that which seemed most strongly
to resist reduction to feeling has yet been so reduced. But if the
expectation is to be no more than an impression of reflection, the
object expected must itself be no more than an impression of some
kind or other. The expectation must be expectation of a feeling,
pure and simple. Nor does Hume in so many words allow that it is
otherwise, but meanwhile though the expectation itself is not openly
tampered with, the remembrance that determines it is so. This is
being taken to be that, which it cannot be unless ideas unborrowed
from impressions are operative in and upon it. It is being regarded,
not as the recurrence of a multitude of feelings with a liveliness
indefinitely less than that in virtue of which they are called
impressions of sense, and indefinitely greater than that in virtue of
which they are called ideas of imagination, but as the recognition
of a world of experience, one, real and abiding. An expectation
determined by such remembrance is governed by the same ‘fictions’ of
identity and continued existence which are the formative conditions
of the remembrance. Expectation and remembrance, in fact, are one and
the same intellectual act, one and the same reference of feelings,
given in time, to an order that is not in time, distinguished
according to the two faces which, its ‘matter’ being in time, it
has to present severally to past and future. The remembrance is the
measure of the expectation, but as the remembrance carries with it
the notion of a world whose existence does not depend on its being
remembered, and whose laws do not vary according to the regularity
or looseness with which our ideas are associated, so too does the
expectation, and only as so doing becomes the mover and regulator of
‘inference from the known to the unknown.’
[1] It is by a curious fate that Hume should have been remembered,
at any rate in the ‘religious’ world, chiefly by the argument
against miracles which appears in the ‘Essays’--an argument which,
however irrefragable in itself, turns wholly upon that conception of
nature as other than our instinctive expectations and imaginations,
which has no proper place in his system (see Vol. IV. page 89). If
‘necessary connexion’ were really no more than the transition of
imagination, as determined by constant association, from an idea to
its usual attendant--if there were no conception of an objective
order to determine belief other than the belief itself--the fact that
such an event, as the revival of one four-days-dead at the command of
a person, had been believed, since it would show that the imagination
was at liberty to pass from the idea of the revival to that of the
command (or _vice versa_) with that liveliness which constitutes
reality, would show also that no necessary connexion, no law of
nature in the only sense in which Hume entitles himself to speak of
such, was violated by the sequence of the revival on the command.
At the same time there would be nothing ‘miraculous,’ according to
his definition of the miraculous as distinct from the extraordinary,
in the case. Taken strictly, indeed, his doctrine implies that a
belief in a miracle is a contradiction in terms. An event is not
regarded as miraculous unless it is regarded as a ‘transgression
of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity or by
the interposition of some invisible agent’ (page 93, note 1); but
it could not transgress a law of nature in Hume’s sense unless it
were so inconsistent with the habitual association of ideas as that
it could not be believed. Hume’s only consistent way of attacking
miracles, then, would have been to show that the events in question,
as _miraculous_, had never been believed. Having been obliged to
recognize the belief in their having happened, he is open to the
retort ‘ad hominem’ that according to his own showing the belief
in the events constitutes their reality. Such a retort, however,
would be of no avail in the theological interest, which requires not
merely that the events should have happened but that they should have
been _miraculous_, _i.e._ ‘transgressions of a law of nature by a
particular volition of the Deity.’
325. In the passage already quoted, where Hume is speaking of the
expectation in question as depending simply on habit, he yet speaks
of it as an expectation ‘of the _same train of objects_ to which
we have been accustomed.’ These words in effect imply that it is
_not_ habit, as constituted simply by the repetition of separate
sequences of feelings, that governs the expectation--in which case,
as we have seen, the expectation would be made up of expectations
as many and as various in strength as have been the sequences and
their several degrees of regularity--but, if habit in any sense,
habit as itself governed by conceptions of ‘identity and distinct
continued existence,’ in virtue of which, as past experience is
not an indefinite series of perishing impressions of separate men
but represents one world, so all fresh experience becomes part ‘of
the same train of objects;’ part of a system of which, as a whole,
‘the change lies only in the time’. [1] If now we look back to the
account given of the relation of memory to belief we shall find that
it is just so far as, without distinct avowal, and in violation of
his principles, he makes ‘impressions of memory’ carry with them the
conception of a real system, other than the consciousness of their
own liveliness, that he gains a meaning for belief which makes it in
any respect equivalent to the judgment, based on inference, of actual
science.
[1] P. 492. [Book I, part IV., sec. II.]
This explains his occasional inconsistent ascription of an objective
character to causation.
326. Any one who has carefully read the chapters on inference and
belief will have found himself frequently doubting whether he has
caught the author’s meaning correctly. A clear line of thought may
be traced throughout, as we have already tried to trace it [1]--one
perfectly consistent with itself and leading properly to the
conclusion that ‘all reasonings are nothing but the effect of custom,
and that custom has no influence but by enlivening the imagination’
[2]--but its even tenour is disturbed by the exigency of showing
that proven fact, after turning out to be no more than enlivened
imagination, is still what common sense and physical science take it
to be. According to the consistent theory, ideas of memory are needed
for inference to cause or effect, simply because they are lively.
Such inference is inference to a ‘real existence,’ that is to an
‘idea assented to,’ that is to a feeling having such liveliness as,
not being itself one of sense or memory, it can only derive from one
of sense or memory through association with it. That the inferred
idea is a cause or effect and, as such, has ‘real existence,’ merely
means that it has this derived liveliness or is believed; just as
the reality ascribed to the impression of memory lies merely in its
having this abundant liveliness from which to communicate to its
‘usual attendant.’ But while the title of an idea to be reckoned a
cause or effect is thus made to depend on its having the derived
liveliness which constitutes belief, [3] on the other hand we find
Hume from time to time making belief depend on causation, as on a
relation of objects distinct from the lively suggestion of one by
the others. ‘Belief arises only from causation, and we can draw no
inference from one object to another except they be connected by
this relation.’ ‘The relation of cause and effect is requisite to
persuade us of any real existence’. [4] In the context of these
disturbing admissions we find a reconsideration of the doctrine of
memory which explains them, but only throws back on that doctrine the
inconsistency which they exhibit in the doctrine of belief.
[1] Above, paragraphs 289 and ff.
[2] P. 445. [Book I, part III., sec. XIII.]
[3] It may be as well here to point out the inconsistency in Hume’s
use of ‘belief.’ At the end of sec. 5 (Part III.) the term is
extended to ‘impressions of the senses and memory.’ We are said to
believe when ‘we feel an _immediate impression_ of the senses, or a
repetition of that impression in the memory. But in the following
section the characteristic of belief is placed in the _derived_
liveliness of an _idea_ as distinct from the immediate liveliness of
impression.
[4] Pp. 407 & 409. [Book I, part III., sec. IX.]
Reality of remembered ‘system’ transferred to ‘system of judgment’.
327. This reconsideration arises out of an objection to his doctrine
which Hume anticipates, to the effect that since, according to it,
belief is a lively idea associated ‘to a present impression,’ any
suggestion of an idea by a resembling or contiguous impression
should constitute belief. How is it then that ‘belief arises only
from causation’? His answer, which must be quoted at length, is as
follows:--‘’Tis evident that whatever is present to the memory,
striking upon the mind with a vivacity which resembles an immediate
impression, must become of considerable moment in all the operations
of the mind and must easily distinguish itself above the mere
fictions of the imagination. Of these impressions or ideas of the
memory we form a kind of system, comprehending whatever we remember
to have been present either to our internal perception or senses, and
every particular of that system, joined to the present impressions,
we are pleased to call a _reality_. But the mind stops not here.
For finding that with this system of perceptions there is another
connected by custom or, if you will, by the relation of cause and
effect, it proceeds to the consideration of their ideas; and as it
feels that ’tis in a manner necessarily determined to view these
particular ideas, and that the custom or relation by which it is
determined admits not of the least change, it forms them into a new
system, which it likewise dignifies with the title of _realities_.
The first of these systems is the object of the memory and senses;
the second of the judgment. ’Tis this latter principle which peoples
the world, and brings us acquainted which such existences as, by
their removal in time and place, lie beyond the reach of the senses
and memory’. [1]
[1] P. 408. [Book I, part III., sec. IX.]
Reality of the former ‘system’ other than vivacity of impressions.
328. From this it appears that ‘what we are pleased to call
reality’ belongs, not merely to a ‘present impression,’ but to
‘every particular of a system joined to the present impression’ and
‘comprehending whatever we remember to have been present either
to our internal perception or senses.’ This admission already
amounts to an abandonment of the doctrine that reality consists in
liveliness of feeling. It cannot be that every particular of the
system comprehending all remembered facts, which is joined with the
present impression, can have the vivacity of that impression either
along with it or by successive communication. We can only feel one
thing at a time, and by the time the vivacity had spread far from the
present impression along the particulars of the system, it must have
declined from that indefinite degree which marks an impression of
sense. It is not, then, the derivation of vivacity from the present
impression, to which it is joined, that renders the ‘remembered
system’ real; and what other vivacity can it be? It may be said
indeed that each particular of the system had once the required
vivacity, was once a present impression; but if in ceasing to be so,
it did not cease to be real--if, on the contrary, it could not become
a ‘particular of the system,’ counted real, without becoming other
than the ‘perishing existence’ which an impression is--it is clear
that there is a reality which lively feeling does not constitute
and which involves the ‘fiction’ of an existence continued in the
absence, not only of lively feeling, but of all feelings whatsoever.
So soon, in short, as reality is ascribed to a system, which cannot
be an ‘impression’ and of which consequently there cannot be an
‘idea,’ the first principle of Hume’s speculation is abandoned. The
truth is implicitly recognized that the reality of an individual
object consists in that system of its relations which only exists for
a conceiving, as distinct from a feeling, subject, even as the unreal
has no meaning except as a confused or inadequate conception of such
relations; and that thus the ‘present impression’ is neither real
nor unreal in itself, but may be equally one or the other according
as the relations, under which it is conceived by the subject of
it, correspond to those by which it is determined for a perfect
intelligence. [1]
[1] See above, paragraphs 184 & 183.
It is constituted by relations, which are not impressions at all;
and in this lies explanation of the inference from it to ‘system of
judgment’.
329. A clear recognition of this truth can alone explain the nature
of belief as a result of inference from the known to the unknown,
which is, at the same time, inference to a matter of fact. The
popular notion, of course, is that certain facts are given by feeling
without inference and then other facts inferred from them. But what
is ‘fact’ taken to mean? If a feeling, then an inferred fact is a
contradiction, for it is an unfelt feeling. If (as should be the
case) it is taken to mean the relation of a feeling to something,
then it already involves inference--the interpretation of the feeling
by means of the conception of a universal, self or world, brought
to it--an inference which is all inference _in posse_, for it
implies that a universe of relations is there, which I must know if
I would know the full reality of the individual object: so that no
fact can be even partially known without compelling an inference to
the unknown, nor can there be any inference to the unknown without
modification of what already purports to be known. Hume, trying to
carry out the equivalence of fact and feeling, and having clearer
sight than his masters, finds himself in the presence of this
difficulty about inference. Unless the inferred object is other than
one of sense (outer or inner) or of memory, there is no reasoning,
but only perception; [1] but if it is other, how can it be real
or even an object of consciousness at all, since consciousness is
only of impressions, stronger or fainter? The only consistent way
out of the difficulty, as we have seen, is to explain inference as
the expectation of the recurrence of a feeling felt before, through
which the unknown becomes known merely in the sense that from the
repetition of the recurrence the expectation has come to amount
to the fullest assurance. But according to this explanation the
difference between the inferences of the savage and those of the man
of science will lie, not in the objects inferred, but in the strength
of the expectation that constitutes the inference. Meanwhile, if a
semblance of explanation has been given for the inference from cause
to effect, that from effect to cause remains quite in the dark. How
can there be inference from a given feeling to that felt immediately
before it?
[1] Pp. 376 & 388. [Book I, part III., secs. II. and VI.]
Not seeing this, Hume has to explain inference to latter system as
something forced upon us by habit.
330. From the avowal of such paradoxical results, Hume only saved
himself by reverting, as in the passage before us, to the popular
view--to the distinction between two ‘systems of reality,’ one
perceived, the other inferred; one ‘the object of the senses and
memory,’ the other ‘of the judgment.’ He sees that if the educated
man erased from his knowledge upon us by of the world all ‘facts’ but
those for which he has ‘the evidence of his senses and memory,’ his
world would be unpeopled; but he has not the key to the true identity
between the two systems. Not recognizing the inference already
involved in a fact of sense or memory, he does not see that it is
only a further articulation of this inference which gives the fact of
judgment; that as the simplest fact for which we have the ‘evidence
of sense’ is already not a feeling but an explanation of a feeling,
which connects it by relations, that are not feelings, with an unfelt
universe, so inferred causes and effects are explanations of these
explanations, by which they are connected as mutually determinant
in the one world whose presence the simplest fact, the most primary
explanation of feeling, supposes no less than the most complete. Not
seeing this, what is he to make of the system of merely inferred
realities? He will represent the relation of cause and effect, which
connects it with the ‘system of memory,’ as a habit derived from the
constant _de facto_ sequence of this or that ‘inferred’ upon this
or that remembered idea. The mind, ‘feeling’ the unchangeableness
of this habit, regards the idea, which in virtue of it follows upon
the impression of memory, as equally real with that impression.
In this he finds an answer to the two questions which he himself
raises: _(a)_ ‘Why is it that we draw no inference from one object
to another, except they be connected by the relation of cause and
effect;’ or (which is the same, since inference to an object implies
the ascription of reality to it), ‘Why is this relation requisite to
persuade us of any real existence?’ and _(b)_, ‘How is it that the
relations of resemblance and contiguity have not the same effect?’
The answer to the first is, that we do not ascribe reality to an
idea recalled by an impression, unless we find that, owing to its
customary sequence upon the impression, we cannot help passing from
the one to the other. The answer to the second corresponds. The
contiguity of an idea to an impression, if it has been repeated
often enough and without any ‘arbitrary’ action on our part, is
the relation of cause and effect, and thus does ‘persuade us of
real existence.’ A ‘feigned’ contiguity, on the other hand, because
we are conscious that it is ‘of our mere good-will and pleasure’
that we give the idea that relation to the impression, can produce
no belief. ‘There is no reason why, upon the return of the same
impression, we should be determined to place the same object in the
same relation to it’. [1] In like manner we must suppose (though this
is not so clearly stated) that when an impression--such as the sight
of a picture--calls up a resembling idea (that of the man depicted)
with much vivacity, it does not ‘persuade us of his real existence’
because we are conscious that it is by the ‘mere good-will and
pleasure’ of some one that the likeness has been produced.
[1] P. 409. [Book I, part III., sec. IX.]
But if so, ‘system of judgment’ must consist of feelings constantly
experienced;
331. Now this account has the fault of being inconsistent with Hume’s
primary doctrine, inasmuch as it makes the real an object of thought
in distinction from feeling, without the merit of explaining the
extension of knowledge beyond the objects of sense and memory. It
turns upon a conception of the real, as the unchangeable, which the
succession of feelings, in endless variety, neither is nor could
suggest. It implies that not in themselves, but as representing
such an unchangeable, are the feelings which ‘return on us whether
we will or no,’ regarded as real. The peculiar sequence of one idea
on another, which is supposed to constitute the relation of cause
and effect, is not, according to this description of it, a sequence
of feelings simply; it is a sequence reflected on, found to be
unchangeable, and thus to entitle the sequent idea to the prerogative
of reality previously awarded (but only by the admission as real
of the ‘fiction’ of distinct continued existence) to the system of
memory. But while the identification of the real with feeling is
thus in effect abandoned, in saving the appearance of retaining it,
Hume makes his explanation of the ‘system of judgment’ futile for
its purpose. He saves the appearance by intimating that the relation
of cause and effect, by which the inferred idea is connected with
the idea of memory and derives reality from it, is only the repeated
sequence of the one idea upon the other, of the less lively feelings
upon the more lively, or a habit that results from such repetition.
But if the sequence of the inferred idea upon the other must have
been so often repeated in order to the existence of the relation
which renders the inference possible, the inferred idea can be no
new one, but must itself be an idea of memory, and the question, how
any one’s knowledge comes to extend beyond the range of his memory,
remains unanswered.
... which only differ from remembered feelings inasmuch as their
liveliness has faded. But how can it have faded, if they have been
constantly repeated?
332. What Hume himself seems to mean us to understand is, that the
inferred idea is one of imagination, as distinct from memory; and
that the characteristic of the relation of cause and effect is that
through it ideas of imagination acquire the reality that would
otherwise be confined to impressions of sense and memory. But,
according to him, ideas of imagination only differ from those of
memory in respect of their less liveliness, and of the freedom with
which we can combine ideas in imagination that have not been given
together as impressions. [1] Now the latter difference is in this
case out of the question. A compound idea of imagination, in which
simple ideas are put together that have never been felt together, can
clearly never be connected with an impression of sense or memory by
a relation derived from constant experience of the sequence of one
upon the other, and specially opposed to the creations of ‘caprice’.
[2] We are left, then, to the supposition that the inferred idea,
as idea of imagination, is one originally given as an impression
of sense, but of which the liveliness has faded and requires to be
revived by association in the way of cause and effect with one that
has retained the liveliness proper to an idea of memory. Then the
question recurs, how the restoration of its liveliness by association
with an impression, on which it must have been constantly sequent in
order that the association may be possible, is compatible with the
fact that its liveliness has faded. And however this question may be
dealt with, if the relation of cause and effect is merely custom, the
extension of knowledge by means of it remains unaccounted for; the
breach between the expectation of the recurrence of familiar feelings
and inductive science remains unfilled; Locke’s ‘suspicion’ that
‘a science of nature is impossible,’ instead of being overcome, is
elaborated into a system.
[1] Part I., sec. 3; cf. note on p. 416 [Book I, part III., sec. IX.].
[2] P. 409. [Book I, part III., sec. IX.]
Inference then can give no new knowledge.