Notes on Hume's Treatise

by G. J. Mattey

PART IV. OF THE SCEPTICAL AND OTHER SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY

SECTION III. Of the antient philosophy.

We may learn from the naïve philosophy of the ancients as we can from analysis of our dreams, which "several moralists" have recommended as revealing our own character. The targets will be: substances, and substantial forms, and accidents, and occult qualities. Though like dreams, these "fictions" are "unreasonable and capracious, [they] have a very intimate connection with the principles of human nature."

"The most judicious philosophers" (i.e., Berkeley) consider ideas of bodies as nothing but collections formed of ideas of the sensible qualities composing the objects and which are constantly united with them. Though the qualities are distinct, we regard the compound as a unity ("ONE thing") which is preserved ("continuing the SAME") through considerable changes in the body. But we immediately fall into contradictions: that a simple unity is composed of various qualities, and that an identical body remains upon considerable alteration. Why do we do this, and how do we try to cover up the conflicts?

Identity is applied to a succession when the change is insensible (as much as it is in contemplating the same unchangeable object), thus affording an easy transition which is "the effect, or rather the essence of relation." Thus we treat the changing object in the same way as we treat the unchanging object, as identical.

But if we survey the body at two distinct periods of its duration, the variations "now appear of consequence, and seem entirely to destroy the identity." This pits nearness against remoteness, a contrariety in points of view. To reconcile this contradiction, the mind feigns "something unknown and invisible, which it supposes to continue the same under all these variations, and this unintelligible something it calls a substance, or original and first matter."

With simplicity, there is also an easy transition when the co-existent parts of a complex body are connected "by a strong relation," where "the fancy feels not the transition in passing from one part to the other." This case is little different from that of identity, in that there is the same kind of reaction to what really has the property, i.e., "an object perfectly simple and indivisible." And the result is the same as with identity, in that examination reveals "that all these qualities are different, and distinguishable, and separable from each other." Once again, substance is brought in as "a principle of union or cohesion among these qualities, and as what may give the compound object a title to be call'd one thing, notwithstanding its diversity and composition."

Peripatetic philosophy asserts a homogenous original matter, so that the four elements are "of the very same substance; on account of their gradual revolutions and changes into each other." It goes on to assign a substantial form to each species to account for "all those different qualities they possess, and to be a new foundation [along with matter] of simplicity and identity to each particular species." Again, this to be attributed to two points of view: when similarity is noticed, original substance is thought of, and when difference is noticed, substantial form is posited. "And in order to indulge ourselves in both these ways of considering our objects, we suppose all bodies to have at once a substance and substantial form."

The notion of accidents comes in unavoidably. The substance/accident transition is on the same footing as cause/effect. We customarily imagine a dependence, which has the same strength as observing it. We always fancy a substance on which the properties of bodies (colours, sounds, tastes, figures) depend. But in fact, "every quality being a distinct thing from another, may be conceiv'd to exist apart, and may exist apart, not only from every other quality, but from that unintelligible chimera of a substance."

A further extension of the fictions is occult qualities. The whole system is unintelligible: philosophers talk of support and being supported, neither of which they understand. Yet the system "is deriv'd from principles as natural as any of these above explain'd."

There are three degrees of opinion: the vulgar, a false philosophy, and the true philosophy. The true philosophy is closer to the vulgar "than those of a mistaken knowledge." The false philosophy sees the vulgar error that there is a perceived connection "betwixt such objects as they have constantly found united together" and which are difficult to separate. But they can be separated, and so it is discovered that "there is no known connexion amongst objects." Rather than drawing the "just inference" and concluding that there is no idea of power apart from the mind, they replace the vulgar perceived connection with an unperceived connection, searching in vain "for the qualities, in which this agency consists, and are displeas'd with every system, which their reason suggests to them, in order to explain it." They are in the position of a Sisyphus . "For what can be imagin'd more tormenting, than to seek with eagerness, what for ever flies us; and seek for it in a place, where 'tis impossible it can ever exist?"

Nature, which "seems to have observ'd a kind of justice and compensation in every thing," gives solace to the philosophers by providing a consolation in the invention of words like 'faculty' and 'occult quality.' There is a natural tendency to omit ideas we actually have after the connection of words is familiar enough; and just so we become at ease when unintelligible words are used frequently. Thus the practitioners of the false philosophy approach the indifference of the vulgar (which is due to "stupidity"), and the moderate scepticism of the true philosophy, which, however, repudiates the stupidity of the vulgar. "They need only say, that any phænomenon, which puzzles them, arises from a faculty or an occult quality, and there is an end of all dispute and enquiry upon the matter."

The worst excesses are the conceptions of sympathies, antipathies, and horrors of a vacuum. This is transference of human emotions onto nature. "This inclination, 'tis true, is suppress'd by a little reflection, and only takes place in children, poets, and the antient philosophers." We must pardon children (for beating the stones that hurt them) because of their age, poets (for personifying everything) because they are openly following the fancy, "But what excuse shall we find to justify our philosophers in so signal a weakness?"

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