him in speaking of desire _for an object_ at all. ‘The appearance of
an object to the senses’ is the same thing as ‘an impression becoming
present to the mind,’ [1] and if this is true of impressions of sense
it cannot be less true of impressions of reflection. If sense ‘offers
not its object as anything distinct from itself,’ neither can desire.
Its object, according to Hume, is an idea of a past impression; but
this, if we take him at his word, can merely mean that a feeling
which, when at its liveliest, was pleasant, has passed into a fainter
stage, which, in contrast with the livelier, is pain--the pain of
want, which is also a wish for the renewal of the original pleasure.
In fact, however, when Hume or anyone else (whether he admit the
possibility of desiring an object not previously found pleasant, or
no), speaks of desire for an object, he means something different
from this. He means either desire for an object that causes pleasure,
which is impossible except so far as the original pleasure has
been--consciously to the subject feeling it--pleasure caused by an
object, _i.e._, a feeling determined by the conception of a thing
under relations to self; or else desire for pleasure as an object,
_i.e._, not merely desire for the revival of some feeling which,
having been pleasant as ‘impression,’ survives without being pleasant
as ‘idea,’ but desire determined by the consciousness of self as a
permanent subject that has been pleased, and is to be pleased again.
It is here, then, as in the case of the attempted derivation of
space, or of identity and substance, from impressions of sense. In
order to give rise to such an impression of reflection as desire for
an object is, either the original impression of sense, or the idea
of this, must be other than Hume could allow it to be. Either the
original impression must be other than a satisfaction of appetite,
other than a sight, smell, sound, &c., or the idea must be other
than a copy of the impression. One or other must be determined by
conceptions not derived from feeling, the correlative conceptions of
self and thing. Thus, in order to be able to interpret his primary
class of impressions of reflection [2] as desires for objects, or
for pleasures as good, Hume has already made the assumption that is
needed for the transition to that secondary class of impressions
through which he has to account for morality. He has assumed that
thought determines feeling, and not merely reproduces it. Even if the
materials out of which it constructs the determining object be merely
remembered pleasures, the object is no more to be identified with
these materials than the living body with its chemical constituents.
[1] See General Introduction, paragraph 208.
[2] See above, sec. 19.
Pride determined by reference to self.
33. In the account of the ‘indirect passions’ the term _object_ is no
longer applied, as in the account of the direct ones, to the pleasure
or pain which excites desire or aversion. It is expressly transferred
to the self or other person, to whom the ‘exciting causes’ of pride
and love must be severally related. ‘Pride and humility, though
directly contrary, have yet the same object,’ viz., self; but since
they are contrary, ‘’tis impossible this object can be their cause,
or sufficient alone to excite them ... We must therefore make a
distinction betwixt that idea which excites them, and that to which
they direct their view when excited.... The first idea that is
presented to the mind is that of the cause or productive principle.
This excites the passion connected with it; and that passion, when
excited, turns our view to another idea, which is that of self....
The first idea represents the _cause_, the second the _object_ of
the passion.’ [1] Again a further distinction must be made ‘in the
causes of the passion betwixt that _quality_ which operates, and
the _subject_ on which it is placed. A man, for instance, is vain
of a beautiful house which belongs to him, or which he has himself
built or contrived. Here the object of the passion is himself, and
the cause is the beautiful house; which cause again is subdivided
into two parts, viz., the quality which operates upon the passion,
and the subject in which the quality inheres. The quality is the
beauty, and the subject is the house, considered as his property or
contrivance.’ [2] It is next found that the operative qualities which
produce pride, however various, agree in this, that they produce
pleasure--a ‘separate pleasure,’ independent of the resulting pride.
In all cases, again, ‘the subjects to which these qualities adhere
are either parts of ourselves or something nearly related to us.’
The conclusion is that ‘the cause, which excites the passion, is
related to the object which nature has attributed to the passion;
the sensation, which the cause separately produces, is related to
the sensation of the passion: from this double relation of ideas
and impressions the passion is derived.’ [3] The ideas, it will be
observed, are severally those of the exciting ‘subject’ (in the
illustrative case quoted, the beautiful house) and of the ‘object’
self; the impressions are severally the pleasure immediately caused
by the ‘subject’ (in the case given, the pleasure of feeling beauty)
and the pleasure of pride. The relation between the ideas may be
any of the ‘natural ones’ that regulate association. [4] In the
supposed case it is that of cause and effect, since a man’s property
‘produces effects on him and he on it.’ The relation between the
impressions must be that of resemblance--this, as we are told by the
way (somewhat strangely, if impressions are only stronger ideas),
being the only possible relation between impressions--the resemblance
of one pleasure to another.
[1] Vol. II., pp. 77 and 78. [Book II., part I., sec. II.]
[2] Ibid., p. 79. [Book II., part I., sec. II.]
[3] Vol. II., pp. 84, 85. [Book II., part I., sec. V.]
[4] Book I., part 1, secs. 4 and 5.
This means that it takes its character from that which is not a
possible ‘impression’.
34. Pride, then, is a special sort of pleasure excited by another
special sort of pleasure, and the distinction of the two sorts of
pleasure from each other depends on the character which each derives
from an idea--one from the idea of self, the other from the idea of
some ‘quality in a subject,’ which may be the beauty of a picture, or
the achievement of an ancestor, or any other quality as unlike these
as these are unlike each other, so long as the idea of it is capable
of association with the idea of self. Apart from such determination
by ideas, the pleasure of pride itself and the pleasure which excites
it, on the separateness of which from each other Hume insists, could
only be separate in time and degree of liveliness--a separation
which might equally obtain between successive feelings of pride. Of
neither could anything be said but that it was pleasant--more or less
pleasant than the other, before or after it, as the case might be.
Is the idea, then, that gives each impression its character, itself
an impression grown fainter? It should be so, of course, if Hume’s
theory of consciousness is to hold good, either in its general form,
or in its application to morals, according to which all actions,
those moved by pride among the rest, have pleasure for their ultimate
motive; and no doubt he would have said that it was so. The idea of
the beauty of a picture, for instance, is the original impression
which it ‘makes on the senses’ as more faintly retained by the mind.
But is the original impression _merely_ an impression--an impression
undetermined by conceptions, and of which, therefore, as it is to the
subject of it, nothing can be said, but simply that it is pleasant?
This, too, in the particular instance of beauty, Hume seems to hold;
[1] but if it is so, the idea of beauty, as determined by reference
to the impression, is determined by reference to the indeterminate,
and we know no more of the separate pleasure that excites the
pleasure of pride, when we are told that its source is an impression
of beauty, than we did before. Apart from any other reference, we
only know that pride is a pleasure excited by a pleasure which is
itself excited by a pleasure grown fainter. Of effect, proximate
cause, and ultimate cause, only one and the same thing can be said,
viz., that each feels pleasant. Meanwhile in regard to that other
relation from which the pleasure of pride, on its part, is supposed
to take its character, the same question arises. This pleasure ‘has
self for its object.’ Is self, then, an impression stronger or
fainter? Can one feeling be said without nonsense to have another
feeling for its object? If it can, what specification is gained for
a pleasure or pain by reference to an object of which, as a mere
feeling, nothing more can be said than that it is a pleasure or pain?
If, on the other hand, the idea of self, relation to which makes the
feeling of pride what it is, and through it determines action, is
not a copy of any impression of sense or reflection--not a copy of
any sight or sound, any passion or emotion [2]--how can it be true
that the ultimate determination of action in all cases arises from
pleasure or pain?
[1] Vol. II., p. 96; IV [Book II., part I., sec. VIII.],
‘Dissertation on the Passions,’ II. 7.
[2] Intr. to Vol. I., paragraph 208.
Hume’s attempt to represent idea of self as derived from impression.
35. From the pressure of such questions as these Hume offers us two
main subterfuges. One is furnished by his account of the self, as
‘that succession of related ideas and impressions of which we have
an intimate memory and consciousness’ [1]--an account which, to an
incurious reader, conveys the notion that ‘self,’ if not exactly an
impression, is something in the nature of an impression, while yet it
seems to give the required determination to the impression which has
this for its ‘object.’ It is evident, however, that its plausibility
depends entirely on the qualification of the ‘succession, &c.,’ as
that of which we have an ‘intimate consciousness.’ The succession
of impressions, simply as such, and in the absence of relation to
a single subject, is nothing intelligible at all. Hume, indeed,
elsewhere represents it as constituting time, which, as we have
previously shown, [2] by itself it could not properly be said to do;
but if it could, the characterisation of pleasure as having time
for its object would not be much to the purpose. The successive
impressions and ideas are further said to be ‘related,’ _i.e._,
_naturally_ related, according to Hume’s sense of the term; but
this we have found means no more than that when two feelings have
been often felt to be either like each other or ‘contiguous,’ the
recurrence of one is apt to be followed by the recurrence in fainter
form of the other. This characteristic of the succession brings it
no nearer to the intelligible unity which it must have, in order
to be an object of which the idea makes the pleasure of pride what
it is. The notion of its having such unity is really conveyed by
the statement that we have an ‘intimate consciousness’ of it. It is
through these words, so to speak, that we read into the definition
of self that conception of it which we carry with us, but of which
it states the reverse. Now, however difficult it may be to say what
this intimate consciousness is, it is clear that it cannot be one of
the feelings, stronger or fainter--impressions or ideas--which the
first part of the definition tells us form a succession, for this
would imply that one of them was at the same time all the rest. Nor
yet can it be a compound of them all, for the fact that they are a
succession is incompatible with their forming a compound. Here, then,
is a consciousness, which is not an impression, and which we can
only take to be derived from impressions by supposing these to be
what they first become in relation to this consciousness. In saying
that we have such a consciousness of the succession of impressions,
we say in effect that we are other than the succession. How, then,
without contradiction, can our self be said to _be_ the succession of
impressions, &c.--a succession which in the very next word has to be
qualified in a way that implies we are other than it? This question,
once put, will save us from surprise at finding that in one place,
among frequent repetitions of the account of self already given, the
‘succession &c.’ is dropped, and for it substituted ‘_the individual
person_ of whose actions and sentiments each of us is intimately
conscious.’ [3]
[1] Vol, II., p. 77, &c. [Book II., part I., sec. II.]
[2] Intr. to Vol. I., sec. 261.
[3] Vol. II., p. 84. [Book II., part I., sec. V.]
Another device is to suggest a physiological account of pride.
36. The other way of gaining an apparent determination for the
impression, pride, without making it depend on relation to that
which is not an impression at all, corresponds to that appeal to
the ‘anatomist’ by the suggestion of which, it will be remembered,
Hume avoids the troublesome question, how the simple impressions of
sense, undetermined by relation, can have that definite character
which they must have if they are to serve as the elements of
knowledge. The question in that case being really one that concerns
the simple impression, as it is for the consciousness of the
subject of it, Hume’s answer is in effect a reference to what it
is for the physiologist. So in regard to pride; the question being
what character it can have, for the conscious subject of it, to
distinguish it from any other pleasant feeling, except such as is
derived from a conception which is not an impression, Hume is ready
on occasion to suggest that it has the distinctive character which
for the physiologist it would derive from the nerves organic to it,
if such nerves could be traced. ‘We must suppose that nature has
given to the organs of the human mind a certain disposition fitted
to produce a peculiar impression or emotion, which we call PRIDE: to
this emotion she has assigned a certain idea, viz., that of SELF,
which it never fails to produce. This contrivance of nature is easily
conceived. We have many instances of such a situation of affairs.
The nerves of the nose and palate are so disposed, as in certain
circumstances to convey such peculiar sensations to the mind; the
sensations of lust and hunger always produce in us the idea of those
peculiar objects, which are suitable to each appetite. These two
circumstances are united in pride. The organs are so disposed as to
produce the passion; and the passion, after its production, naturally
produces a certain idea.’ [1]
[1] Vol. II., p. 85. [Book II., part I., sec. V.]
Fallacy of this: it does not tell us what pride is to the subject of
it.
37. Here, it will be noticed, the doctrine, that the pleasant emotion
of pride derives its specific character from relation to the idea
of self, is dropped. The emotion we call pride is supposed to be
first produced, and then, in virtue of its specific character as
pride, to _produce_ the idea of self. [1] If the idea of self, then,
does not give the pleasure its specific character, what does? ‘That
disposition fitted to produce it,’ Hume answers, which belongs to
the ‘organs of the human mind.’ Now either this is the old story of
explaining the soporific qualities of opium by its _vis soporifica_,
or it means that the distinction of the pleasure of pride from other
pleasures, like the distinction of a smell from a taste, is due to
a particular kind of nervous irritation that conditions it, and
may presumably be ascertained by the physiologist. Whether such a
physical condition of pride can be discovered or no, it is not to
the purpose to dispute. The point to observe is that, if discovered,
it would not afford an answer to the question to which an answer is
being sought--to the question, namely, what the emotion of pride is
to the conscious subject of it. If it were found to be conditioned
by as specific a nervous irritation as the sensations of smell and
taste to which Hume assimilates it, it would yet be no more the
consciousness of such irritation than is the smell of a rose to the
person smelling it. In the one case as in the other, the feeling,
as it is to the subject of it, can only be determined by relation
to other feelings or other modes of consciousness. It is by such a
relation that, according to Hume’s general account of it, pride is
determined, but the relation is to the consciousness of an object
which, not being any form of feeling, has no proper place in his
psychology. Hence in the passage before us he tries to substitute for
it a physical determination of the emotion, which for the subject
of it is no determination at all; and, having gained an apparent
specification for it in this way, to represent as its product that
idea of a distinctive object which he had previously treated as
necessary to constitute it. Pride produces the idea of self, just as
‘the sensations of hunger and lust always produce in us the idea of
those peculiar objects, which are suitable to each appetite.’ Now
it is a large assumption in regard to animals other than men, that,
because hunger and lust move them to eat and generate, they so move
them through the intervention of any ideas _of objects_ whatever--an
assumption which in the absence of language on the part of the
animals it is impossible to verify--and one still more questionable,
that the ideas of objects which these appetites (if it be so) produce
in the animals, except as determined by self-consciousness, are ideas
in the same sense as the idea of self. But at any rate, if such
feelings produce ideas of peculiar objects, it must be in virtue
of the distinctive character which, as feelings, they have for the
subjects of them. The withdrawal, however, of determination by the
idea of self from the emotion of pride, leaves it with no distinctive
character whatever, and therefore with nothing by which we may
explain its production of that idea as analogous to the production by
hunger, if we admit such to take place, of the ‘idea of the peculiar
object suited to it.’
[1] Cf. Vol. IV., ‘Dissertation on the Passions,’ II. 2.
Account of love involves the same difficulties; and a further one as
to nature of sympathy.
38. If, in Hume’s account of pride, for _pleasure_, wherever it
occurs, is substituted _pain_, it becomes his account of humility.
A criticism of one account is equally a criticism of the other; and
with him every passion that ‘has self for its object,’ according as
it is pleasant or painful, is included under one or other of these
designations. In like manner, every passion that has ‘some other
thinking being’ for its object, according as it is pleasant or
painful, is either love or hatred. To these the key is to be found in
the same ‘double relation of impressions and ideas’ by which pride
and humility are explained. If beautiful pictures, for instance,
belong not to oneself but to another person, they tend to excite
not pride but esteem, which is a form of love. The idea of them is
‘naturally related’ to the idea of the person to whom they belong,
and they cause a separate pleasure which naturally excites the
resembling impression of which this other person is the object. Write
‘other person,’ in short, where before was written ‘self,’ and the
account of pride and humility becomes the account of love and hatred.
Of this pleasure determined by the idea of another person, or of
which such a person ‘is the object,’ Hume gives no _rationale_, and,
failing this, it must be taken to imply the same power of determining
feeling on the part of a conception not derived from feeling, which
we have found to be implied in the pleasure of which self is the
object. All his pains and ingenuity in the second part of the book
‘on the Passions,’ are spent on illustrating the ‘double relation
of impressions and ideas’--on characterising the separate pleasures
which excite the pleasure of love, and showing how the idea of the
object of the exciting pleasure is related to the idea of the beloved
person. The objection to this part of his theory, which most readily
suggests itself to a reader, arises from the essential discrepancy
which in many cases seems to lie between the exciting and the excited
pleasure. The drinking of fine wine, and the feeling of love, are
doubtless ‘resembling impressions,’ so far as each is pleasant,
and from the idea of the wine the transition is natural to that of
the person who gives it; but is there really anything, it will be
asked, in my enjoyment of a rich man’s wine, that tends to make me
love him, even in the wide sense of ‘love’ which Hume admits? This
objection, it will be found, is so far anticipated by Hume, that in
most cases he treats the exciting pleasure as taking its character
from sympathy. Thus it is not chiefly the pleasure of ear, sight,
and palate, caused by the rich man’s music, and gardens, and wine,
that excites our love for him, but the pleasure we experience through
sympathy with his pleasure in them. [1] The explanation of love being
thus thrown back on sympathy (which had previously served to explain
that form of pride which is called ‘love of fame’), we have to ask
whether sympathy is any less dependent than we have found pride to be
on an originative, as distinct from a merely reproductive, reason.
[1] Vol. II., p. 147. [Book II., part II., sec. V.]
Hume’s account of sympathy.
39. ‘When any affection is infused by sympathy, it is at first known
only by its effects, and by those external signs in the countenance
and conversation which convey an idea of it.’ By inference from
effect to cause, ‘we are convinced of the reality of the passion,’
conceiving it ‘to belong to another person, as we conceive any other
matter of fact.’ This idea of another’s affection ‘is presently
converted into an impression, and acquires such a degree of force and
vivacity as to become the very passion itself, and produce an equal
emotion as any original affection.’ The conversion is not difficult
to account for when we reflect that ‘all ideas are borrowed from
impressions, and that these two kinds of perceptions differ only
in the degrees of force and vivacity with which they strike upon
the soul.... As this difference may be removed in some measure by a
relation between the impressions and ideas’--in the case before us,
the relation between the impression of one’s own person and the idea
of another’s, by which the vivacity of the former may be conveyed to
the latter--‘’tis no wonder an idea of a sentiment or passion may
by this means be so enlivened as to become the very sentiment or
passion.’ [1]
[1] Vol. II., pp. 111-114. [Book II., part I., sec. IX.]
It implies a self-consciousness not reducible to impressions.