Project Gutenberg #4705
A Treatise of Human Nature
David Hume
1739Hume's major work on knowledge, mind, and morality, prepared section by section from Project Gutenberg HTML.
Project Gutenberg #4705 Public domain in the United States Cover source Local typographic cover created for MojiMori from public-domain source metadata
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AI Summary
Chapter 40 — SECT. IV. OF THE MODERN PHILOSOPHY. Central question What is wrong with modern theories of matter and perception? Main argument Hume criticizes modern philosophy for claiming more certainty than...
two stones, which press each other; it will readily be allowed, that these two cases are not in every respect alike, but that in the former there is conjoined with the solidity, a feeling or sensation, of which there is no appearance in the latter. In order, therefore, to make these two cases alike, it is necessary to remove some part of the impression, which the man feels by his hand, or organ of sensation; and that being impossible in a simple impression, obliges us to remove the whole, and proves that this whole impression has no archetype or model in external objects. To which we may add, that solidity necessarily supposes two bodies, along with contiguity and impulse; which being a compound object, can never be represented by a simple impression. Not to mention, that though solidity continues always invariably the same, the impressions of touch change every moment upon us; which is a clear proof that the latter are not representations of the former.
Thus there is a direct and total opposition betwixt our reason and our senses; or more properly speaking, betwixt those conclusions we form from cause and effect, and those that persuade us of the continued and independent existence of body. When we reason from cause and effect, we conclude, that neither colour, sound, taste, nor smell have a continued and independent existence. When we exclude these sensible qualities there remains nothing in the universe, which has such an existence.