An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - David Hume (free ereaders .txt) 📗
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unavoidable in every age and nation. This pertinacious bigotry, of which
you complain, as so fatal to philosophy, is really her offspring, who,
after allying with superstition, separates himself entirely from the
interest of his parent, and becomes her most inveterate enemy and
persecutor. Speculative dogmas of religion, the present occasions of
such furious dispute, could not possibly be conceived or admitted in the
early ages of the world; when mankind, being wholly illiterate, formed
an idea of religion more suitable to their weak apprehension, and
composed their sacred tenets of such tales chiefly as were the objects
of traditional belief, more than of argument or disputation. After the
first alarm, therefore, was over, which arose from the new paradoxes and
principles of the philosophers; these teachers seem ever after, during
the ages of antiquity, to have lived in great harmony with the
established superstition, and to have made a fair partition of mankind
between them; the former claiming all the learned and wise, the latter
possessing all the vulgar and illiterate.
103. It seems then, say I, that you leave politics entirely out of the
question, and never suppose, that a wise magistrate can justly be
jealous of certain tenets of philosophy, such as those of Epicurus,
which, denying a divine existence, and consequently a providence and a
future state, seem to loosen, in a great measure, the ties of morality,
and may be supposed, for that reason, pernicious to the peace of
civil society.
I know, replied he, that in fact these persecutions never, in any age,
proceeded from calm reason, or from experience of the pernicious
consequences of philosophy; but arose entirely from passion and
prejudice. But what if I should advance farther, and assert, that if
Epicurus had been accused before the people, by any of the sycophants
or informers of those days, he could easily have defended his cause, and
proved his principles of philosophy to be as salutary as those of his
adversaries, who endeavoured, with such zeal, to expose him to the
public hatred and jealousy?
I wish, said I, you would try your eloquence upon so extraordinary a
topic, and make a speech for Epicurus, which might satisfy, not the mob
of Athens, if you will allow that ancient and polite city to have
contained any mob, but the more philosophical part of his audience, such
as might be supposed capable of comprehending his arguments.
The matter would not be difficult, upon such conditions, replied he: And
if you please, I shall suppose myself Epicurus for a moment, and make
you stand for the Athenian people, and shall deliver you such an
harangue as will fill all the urn with white beans, and leave not a
black one to gratify the malice of my adversaries.
Very well: Pray proceed upon these suppositions.
104. I come hither, O ye Athenians, to justify in your assembly what I
maintained in my school, and I find myself impeached by furious
antagonists, instead of reasoning with calm and dispassionate enquirers.
Your deliberations, which of right should be directed to questions of
public good, and the interest of the commonwealth, are diverted to the
disquisitions of speculative philosophy; and these magnificent, but
perhaps fruitless enquiries, take place of your more familiar but more
useful occupations. But so far as in me lies, I will prevent this abuse.
We shall not here dispute concerning the origin and government of
worlds. We shall only enquire how far such questions concern the public
interest. And if I can persuade you, that they are entirely indifferent
to the peace of society and security of government, I hope that you will
presently send us back to our schools, there to examine, at leisure, the
question the most sublime, but at the same time, the most speculative of
all philosophy.
The religious philosophers, not satisfied with the tradition of your
forefathers, and doctrine of your priests (in which I willingly
acquiesce), indulge a rash curiosity, in trying how far they can
establish religion upon the principles of reason; and they thereby
excite, instead of satisfying, the doubts, which naturally arise from a
diligent and scrutinous enquiry. They paint, in the most magnificent
colours, the order, beauty, and wise arrangement of the universe; and
then ask, if such a glorious display of intelligence could proceed from
the fortuitous concourse of atoms, or if chance could produce what the
greatest genius can never sufficiently admire. I shall not examine the
justness of this argument. I shall allow it to be as solid as my
antagonists and accusers can desire. It is sufficient, if I can prove,
from this very reasoning, that the question is entirely speculative, and
that, when, in my philosophical disquisitions, I deny a providence and a
future state, I undermine not the foundations of society, but advance
principles, which they themselves, upon their own topics, if they argue
consistently, must allow to be solid and satisfactory.
105. You then, who are my accusers, have acknowledged, that the chief or
sole argument for a divine existence (which I never questioned) is
derived from the order of nature; where there appear such marks of
intelligence and design, that you think it extravagant to assign for its
cause, either chance, or the blind and unguided force of matter. You
allow, that this is an argument drawn from effects to causes. From the
order of the work, you infer, that there must have been project and
forethought in the workman. If you cannot make out this point, you
allow, that your conclusion fails; and you pretend not to establish the
conclusion in a greater latitude than the phenomena of nature will
justify. These are your concessions. I desire you to mark the
consequences.
When we infer any particular cause from an effect, we must proportion
the one to the other, and can never be allowed to ascribe to the cause
any qualities, but what are exactly sufficient to produce the effect. A
body of ten ounces raised in any scale may serve as a proof, that the
counterbalancing weight exceeds ten ounces; but can never afford a
reason that it exceeds a hundred. If the cause, assigned for any effect,
be not sufficient to produce it, we must either reject that cause, or
add to it such qualities as will give it a just proportion to the
effect. But if we ascribe to it farther qualities, or affirm it capable
of producing other effects, we can only indulge the licence of
conjecture, and arbitrarily suppose the existence of qualities and
energies, without reason or authority.
The same rule holds, whether the cause assigned be brute unconscious
matter, or a rational intelligent being. If the cause be known only by
the effect, we never ought to ascribe to it any qualities, beyond what
are precisely requisite to produce the effect: Nor can we, by any rules
of just reasoning, return back from the cause, and infer other effects
from it, beyond those by which alone it is known to us. No one, merely
from the sight of one of Zeuxis’s pictures, could know, that he was also
a statuary or architect, and was an artist no less skilful in stone and
marble than in colours. The talents and taste, displayed in the
particular work before us; these we may safely conclude the workman to
be possessed of. The cause must be proportioned to the effect; and if
we exactly and precisely proportion it, we shall never find in it any
qualities, that point farther, or afford an inference concerning any
other design or performance. Such qualities must be somewhat beyond what
is merely requisite for producing the effect, which we examine.
106. Allowing, therefore, the gods to be the authors of the existence or
order of the universe; it follows, that they possess that precise degree
of power, intelligence, and benevolence, which appears in their
workmanship; but nothing farther can ever be proved, except we call in
the assistance of exaggeration and flattery to supply the defects of
argument and reasoning. So far as the traces of any attributes, at
present, appear, so far may we conclude these attributes to exist. The
supposition of farther attributes is mere hypothesis; much more the
supposition, that, in distant regions of space or periods of time, there
has been, or will be, a more magnificent display of these attributes,
and a scheme of administration more suitable to such imaginary virtues.
We can never be allowed to mount up from the universe, the effect, to
Jupiter, the cause; and then descend downwards, to infer any new effect
from that cause; as if the present effects alone were not entirely
worthy of the glorious attributes, which we ascribe to that deity. The
knowledge of the cause being derived solely from the effect, they must
be exactly adjusted to each other; and the one can never refer to
anything farther, or be the foundation of any new inference and
conclusion.
You find certain phenomena in nature. You seek a cause or author. You
imagine that you have found him. You afterwards become so enamoured of
this offspring of your brain, that you imagine it impossible, but he
must produce something greater and more perfect than the present scene
of things, which is so full of ill and disorder. You forget, that this
superlative intelligence and benevolence are entirely imaginary, or, at
least, without any foundation in reason; and that you have no ground to
ascribe to him any qualities, but what you see he has actually exerted
and displayed in his productions. Let your gods, therefore, O
philosophers, be suited to the present appearances of nature: and
presume not to alter these appearances by arbitrary suppositions, in
order to suit them to the attributes, which you so fondly ascribe to
your deities.
107. When priests and poets, supported by your authority, O Athenians,
talk of a golden or silver age, which preceded the present state of vice
and misery, I hear them with attention and with reverence. But when
philosophers, who pretend to neglect authority, and to cultivate reason,
hold the same discourse, I pay them not, I own, the same obsequious
submission and pious deference. I ask; who carried them into the
celestial regions, who admitted them into the councils of the gods, who
opened to them the book of fate, that they thus rashly affirm, that
their deities have executed, or will execute, any purpose beyond what
has actually appeared? If they tell me, that they have mounted on the
steps or by the gradual ascent of reason, and by drawing inferences from
effects to causes, I still insist, that they have aided the ascent of
reason by the wings of imagination; otherwise they could not thus change
their manner of inference, and argue from causes to effects; presuming,
that a more perfect production than the present world would be more
suitable to such perfect beings as the gods, and forgetting that they
have no reason to ascribe to these celestial beings any perfection or
any attribute, but what can be found in the present world.
Hence all the fruitless industry to account for the ill appearances of
nature, and save the honour of the gods; while we must acknowledge the
reality of that evil and disorder, with which the world so much abounds.
The obstinate and intractable qualities of matter, we are told, or the
observance of general laws, or some such reason, is the sole cause,
which controlled the power and benevolence of Jupiter, and obliged him
to create mankind and every sensible creature so imperfect and so
unhappy. These attributes then, are, it seems, beforehand, taken for
granted, in their greatest latitude. And upon that supposition, I own
that such conjectures may, perhaps, be admitted as plausible solutions
of the ill phenomena. But still I ask;
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