This custom obtains both in our perception which relates to sensuous nature, and in relation to law and morality. The ideas of justice and morality rest upon an instinct, on a subjective, but very often deceptive moral feeling. (6) From a sceptical point of view the opposite may likewise be demonstrated. From this side Hume considers justice, morality, religious determinations, and disputes their absolute validity. That is to say when it is assumed that our knowledge arises from experience, and that we must consider only what we obtain thereby to be the truth, we find indeed in our feeling, the sentiment e.g. that the murderer, the thief, &c., must be punished; and because this is likewise felt by others it is universally allowed. But Hume, like the sceptics of former days, appeals to the various opinions of various nations: amongst different nations and in different times various standards of right have been held. (7) There are those who in this case do not have the feeling of wrongdoing in respect of stealing, e.g. the Laced?monians or the so-called innocent inhabitants of the South Sea Islands. What is by one nation called immoral, shameful and irreligious, is by another not considered so at all. Thus because such matters rest upon experience, one subject has such and such an experience, finds, for instance, in his religious feelings this determination which inclines him to God, while another subject has different experiences altogether. We are in the habit of allowing one thing to be just and moral, others have another mode of regarding it. Hence if the truth depends upon experience, the element of universality, of objectivity, &c., comes from elsewhere, or is not justified by experience. Hume thus declared this sort of universality, as he declared necessity, to be rather subjectively than objectively existent; for custom is just a subjective universality of this kind. This is an important and acute observation in relation to experience looked at as the source of knowledge; and it is from this point that the Kantian reflection now begins.
Hume (Essays and Treatises on several subjects, Vol. 111. Sect. 8, 11) then extended his scepticism to the conceptions and doctrines of freedom and necessity, and to the proofs of the existence of God; and in fact scepticism here possesses a wide field. To such a system of reasoning from thoughts and possibilities another method of reasoning may again be opposed, and this reasoning is no better than the other. What is said to be metaphysically established regarding immortality, God, nature, &c., lacks a real ground for resting upon, such as is professed to be given; for the inferences on which men ground their proofs are subjectively formed conceptions.
But where a universality is found, it does not rest in the matter in itself, but is simply a subjective necessity which is really mere custom. Hence the result which Hume arrives at is necessarily astonishment regarding the condition of human knowledge, a general state of mistrust, and a sceptical indecision - which indeed does not amount to much. The condition of human knowledge regarding which Hume so much wonders, he further describes as containing an antagonism between reason and instinct; this instinct, it is said, which embraces many sorts of powers, inclinations, &c., deceives us in many different ways, and reason demonstrates this. But on the other side it is empty, without content or principles of its own; and if a content is in question at all, it must keep to those inclinations. In itself reason thus has no criterion whereby the antagonism between individual desires, and between itself and the desires, may be settled. (8) Thus everything appears in the form of an irrational existence devoid of thought; the implicitly true and right is not in thought, but in the form of an instinct, a desire.
1. Buhle: Geschichte der neuern Philosophie, Vol. V. Sect. 1, pp. 193-200.
2. Tennemann's Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie von Wendt (Leipzig, 1829), § 370, pp. 439, 440; Hume: Essays and Treatises on several subjects, Vol. III. containing an Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding (London, 1770), Sect. 2. pp. 21, 22; Sect. 4, P. I. p. 42;Tennemann, Vol. XI. pp. 433, 434.
3. Hume: op. cit., Vol. III. Not. A. pp. 283, 284.
4. Tennemann op. cit., § 370, p. 440; Hume: op. cit., Vol. III. Sect. 4, Pt. I. pp. 43-45; Sect. 5, pp. 66, 67; Buhle: Geschichte der neuern Philosophie, Vol. V. Sect. 1, pp. 204, 205; Tennemann, Vol. XI. pp. 435, 436.
5. Hume: op. cit., Vol. III. Sect. vii. Pt. 1, pp. 102, 103; Pt. 2, pp. 108, 109; Sect. viii. pp. 118, 119.
6. Hume: op. cit., Vol. IV. containing an Inquiry concerning the principles of morals, Sect. 1, p. 4;Appendix I. p. 170.
7. Buhle: op. cit., Vol. V. Sect. 1, pp. 230, 231; cf. Hume, ibidem, Vol. III. Sect. 12, P. II. p.
221; Vol. IV.; An Inquiry, &c., Sect. 4, pp. 62-65; A dialogue, pp. 235, 236, &c., &c.
8. Hume: op. cit.. Vol. III. Sect. 12, Pt. I. pp. 217, 218; Not. N. pp. 296, 297; Buhle:
Geschichte der neuern Philosophie, Vol. V. Sect. 1, p. 210.
Section Two: Period of the Thinking Understanding Chapter II. - Transition Period B. Scottish Philosophy 1. THOMAS REID.
