[1] Pp. 404, 475, and 471. [Book I, part III., sec. VIII., part IV. sec. I. and part III., sec. XVI.]
Nor determined by any objective relation.
294. We are not entitled then, it would seem, to say that any inference to matter of fact, any proof of an ‘instructive proposition,’—as distinct from the conclusion of a syllogism, which is simply derived from the analysis of a proposition already conceded,—rests on the relation of cause and effect. Such language implies that the relation is other than the inference, whereas, in fact, they are one and the same, each being merely a particular sort of sequence of feeling upon feeling—that sort of which the characteristic is that, when the former feeling only has the maximum of vivacity, it still, owing to the frequency with which it has been attended by the other, imparts to it a large, though less, amount of vivacity. This is the naked result to which Hume’s doctrine leads—a result which, thus put, might have set men upon reconsidering the first principles of the Lockeian philosophy. But he wished to find acceptance, and would not so put it. A consideration of the points in which he had to sacrifice consistency to plausibility—since he was always consistent where he decently could be—will lead us to the true αἴτιον τοῦ ψευδοῦς [1], the impossibility on his principles of explaining the world of knowledge.
[1] [Greek αἴτιον τοῦ ψευδοῦς (aition tou pseudous) = the cause of the error. Tr.]
Definitions of cause: a. As a ‘philosophical’ relation.
295. As the outcome of his doctrine, he submits two definitions of the relation of cause and effect. Considering it as ‘a philosophical relation or comparison of two ideas, we may define a cause to be an object precedent and contiguous to another, and where all objects resembling the former are placed in like relations of precedency and contiguity to those objects that resemble the latter.’ Considering the relation as ‘a natural one, or as an association between ideas,’ we may say that ‘a cause is an object precedent and contiguous to another, and so united with it that the idea of one determines the mind to form the idea of the other, and the impression of the one to form a more lively idea of the other’. [1]
[1] P. 464. [Book I, part III., sec. XIV.]
Is Hume entitled to retain ‘philosophical’ relations as distinct from ‘natural’?
296. Our first enquiry must be how far these definitions are really consistent with the theory from which they are derived. At the outset, it is a surprise to find that the ‘philosophical relation’ of cause and effect, as distinct from the natural one, should still appear to survive. Such a distinction has no meaning unless it implies a conceived relation of objects other than the de facto sequence of feelings, of which one ‘naturally’ introduces the other. It is the characteristic of Locke’s doctrine of knowledge that in it this distinction is still latent. His language constantly implies that knowledge, as a perception of relations, is other than the sequence of feelings; but by confining his view chiefly to relation in the way of likeness and unlikeness—a relation that exists between feelings merely as felt, or as they are for the feeling consciousness—he avoids the necessity of deciding what the ‘ideas’ are in the connection of which knowledge and reasoning consist, whether objects constituted by conceived relations or feelings suggestive of each other. But when once attention had been fixed, as it was by Hume, on an ostensible relation between objects, like that of cause and effect, which, if it exist at all, is clearly not one in the way of resemblance between feelings, the distinction spoken of becomes patent. If the colour red had not the likeness and unlikeness which it has to the colour blue, the colours would be different feelings from what they are; but if the flame of fire and its heat were not regarded severally as cause and effect, it would make no difference to them as feelings; or, to put it conversely, it is not upon any comparison of two feelings with each other that we regard them as related in the way of cause and effect. In what sense then can the relation between flame and heat be a philosophical relation, as defined by Hume—a relation in virtue of which we compare objects, or an idea that we acquire upon comparison?
Examination of Hume’s language about them.