All other enquiries of men regard only matter of fact and existence; and these are evidently incapable of demonstration. Whatever may . No negation of a fact can involve a contradiction. The non-existence of any being, without exception, is as clear and distinct an idea as its existence. The proposition, which affirms it not to be, however false, is no less conceivable and intelligible, than that which affirms it to be. The case is different with the sciences, properly so called. Every proposition, which is not true, is there confused and unintelligible. That the cube root of 64 is equal to the half of 10, is a false proposition, and can never be distinctly conceived. But that C/AESAR, or the angel G/ABRIEL, or any being never existed, may be a false proposition, but still is perfectly conceivable, and implies no contradiction.
The existence, therefore, of any being can only be proved by arguments from its cause or its effect; and these arguments are founded entirely on experience. If we reason
, any thing may appear able to produce any thing.
The falling of a pebble may, for aught we know, extinguish the sun; or the wish of a man control the planets in their orbits. It is only experience, which teaches us the nature and bounds of cause and effect, and enables us to infer the existence of one object from that of another.[40] Such is the foundation of moral reasoning, which forms the greater part of human knowledge, and is the source of all human action and behaviour.
Moral reasonings are either concerning particular or general facts. All deliberations in life regard the former;as also all disquisitions in history, chronology, geography, and astronomy.
The sciences, which treat of general facts, are politics, natural philosophy, physic, chemistry, &c. where the qualities, causes and effects of a whole species of objects are enquired into.
Divinity or Theology, as it proves the existence of a Deity, and the immortality of souls, is composed partly of reasonings concerning particular, partly concerning general facts. It has a foundation in , so far as it is supported by experience. But its best and most solid foundation is and divine revelation.
Morals and criticism are not so properly objects of the understanding as of taste and sentiment. Beauty, whether moral or natural, is felt, more properly than perceived. Or if we reason concerning it, and endeavour to fix its standard, we regard a new fact, to wit, the general tastes of mankind, or some such fact, which may be the object of reasoning and enquiry.
When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance;let us ask, No. No. Commit it then to the flames: For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.
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NOTES
[1][COPYRIGHT: (c) 1995, James Fieser ([email protected]), all rights reserved. Unaltered copies of this computer text file may be freely distribute for personal and classroom use.
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, ed. James Fieser (Internet Release, 1995).
EDITORIAL CONVENTIONS: letters between slashes (e.g., H/UME) designate small capitalization. Letters within angled brackets (e.g., ) designate italics. Note references are contained within square brackets (e.g., [1]).
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[2]This is not intended any way to detract from the merit of Mr. L/OCKE, who was really a great philosopher and a just and modest reasoner. It is only meant to show the common fate of such abstract philosophy. [This note was removed by Hume from later editions of the . --J.F.]
[3]That faculty by which we discern truth and falsehood, and that by which we perceive vice and virtue, had long been confounded with each other; and all morality was supposed to be built on external an immutable relations which, to every intelligent mind, were equally invariable as any proposition concerning quantity or number. But a late philosopher [Francis Hutcheson] has taught us, by the most convincing arguments, that morality is nothing in the abstract nature of things, but is entirely relative to the sentiment or mental taste of each particular being, in the same manner as the distinctions of sweet and bitter, hot and cold arise from the particular feeling of each sense or organ. Moral perceptions, therefore, ought not to be classed with the operations of the understanding, but with the tastes or sentiments.
