HUME.
As already remarked, Locke had not been wholly consistent with the
standpoint of empiricism. Though conceding to material objects a decided
superiority above the thinking subject, there was yet one point, viz.,
the recognition of substance, where he claimed for the thinking a power
above the objective world. Among all the complex ideas which are formed
by the subjective thinking, the idea of substance is, according to
Locke, the only one which has objective reality; all the rest being
purely subjective, with nothing actually corresponding to them in the
objective world. But in the very fact that the subjective thinking
places the conception of substance, which it has formed, in the
objective world, it affirms an objective relation of things, an
objective connection of them among each other, and an existing
rationality. The reason of the subject in this respect stands in a
certain degree above the objective world, for the relation of substance
is not derived immediately from the world of sense, and is no product of
sensation nor of perception through the sense. On a pure empirical
standpoint—and such was Locke’s—it was therefore illogical to allow the
conception of substance to remain possessed of objective being. If the
understanding is essentially a bare and empty space, a white unwritten
paper, if its whole content of objective knowledge consists in the
impressions made upon it by material things, then must the conception of
substance also be explained as a mere subjective notion, a union of
ideas joined together at the mind’s pleasure, and the subject itself,
thus fully deprived of every thing to which it could lay claim, must
become wholly subordinated to the material world. This stride to a
logical empiricism Hume has made in his criticism on the conception of
causality.
David Hume was born at Edinburgh 1711. Devoted in youth to the study of
law, then for some time a merchant, he afterwards gave his attention
exclusively to philosophy and history. His first literary attempt was
hardly noticed. A more favorable reception was, however, given to his
“_Essays_,”—of which he published different collections from 1742 to
1757, making in all five volumes. In these Hume has treated
philosophical themes as a thoughtful and cultivated man of the world,
but without any strict systematic connection. In 1752 he was elected to
the care of a public library in Edinburgh, and began in this same year
his famous history of England. Afterwards he became secretary of
legation at Paris, where he became acquainted with Rousseau. In 1767 he
became under secretary of state, an office, however, which he filled for
only a brief period. His last years were spent in Edinburgh, in a quiet
and contented seclusion. He died 1776.
The centre of Hume’s philosophizing is his criticism of the conception
of cause. Locke had already expressed the thought that we attain the
conception of substance only by the _habit_ of always seeing certain
modes together. Hume takes up this thought with earnestness. Whence do
we know, he asks, that two things stand to each other in the relation of
cause and effect? We do not know it apriori, for since the effect is
something other than the cause, while knowledge apriori embraces only
that which is identical, the effect cannot thus be discovered in the
cause; neither do we know it through experience, for experience reveals
to us only the succession in time of two facts. All our conclusions from
experience, therefore, rest simply upon habit. Because we are in the
habit of seeing that one thing is followed in time by another, do we
form the notion that the latter _must_ follow out of the former: we make
the relation of causality out of the relation of succession; but a
connection in time is naturally something other than a causal
connection. Hence, with the conception of causality, we transcend that
which is given in perception and form for ourselves, notions to which we
are properly not entitled.—That which belongs to causality belongs to
every necessary relation. We find within us conceptions, as those of
power and expression, and in general that of necessary connection; but
let us note how we attain these: not through sensation, for though
external objects seem to us to have coetaneousness of being, they show
as no necessary connection. Do they then come through reflection? True,
it seems as if we might get the idea of power by seeing that the organs
of our body move in consequence of the dictate of our mind. But since we
do not know the means through which the mind works, and since all the
organs of the body cannot be moved by the will, it follows, that we are
indeed pointed to experience in reference to this activity; but since
experience can show us only a frequent conjunction, but no real
connection, it follows also that we come to the conception of power as
of every necessary connection, only because we are _accustomed_ to a
transcending process in our notions. All conceptions which express a
relation of necessity, all knowledge presumptive of a real objective
connection of things, rests therefore ultimately only upon the
association of ideas. Having denied the conception of substance, Hume
was led also to deny that of the Ego or self. If the Ego or self really
exists, it must be a substance possessing inherent qualities. But since
our conception of substance is purely subjective, without objective
reality, it follows that there is no correspondent reality to our
conception of the self or the Ego. The self or the Ego is, in fact,
nothing other than a compound of many notions following rapidly upon
each other; and under this compound we lay a conceived substratum, which
we call soul, self, Ego (I). The self, or the Ego, rests wholly on an
illusion. Of course, with such premises, nothing can be said of the
immortality of the soul. If the soul is only the compound of our
notions, it necessarily ceases with the notions—that which is compounded
of the movements of the body dies with those movements.
There needs no further proof, than simply to utter these chief thoughts
of Hume, to show that his scepticism is only a logical carrying out of
Locke’s empiricism. Every determination of universality and necessity
must fall away, if we derive our knowledge only from perceptions through
the sense; these determinations cannot be comprised in sensation.