32. In what sense, we have first to ask, do Hume’s principles justify him in speaking of desire for an object at all. ‘The appearance of an object to the senses’ is the same thing as ‘an impression becoming present to the mind,’ [1] and if this is true of impressions of sense it cannot be less true of impressions of reflection. If sense ‘offers not its object as anything distinct from itself,’ neither can desire. Its object, according to Hume, is an idea of a past impression; but this, if we take him at his word, can merely mean that a feeling which, when at its liveliest, was pleasant, has passed into a fainter stage, which, in contrast with the livelier, is pain—the pain of want, which is also a wish for the renewal of the original pleasure. In fact, however, when Hume or anyone else (whether he admit the possibility of desiring an object not previously found pleasant, or no), speaks of desire for an object, he means something different from this. He means either desire for an object that causes pleasure, which is impossible except so far as the original pleasure has been—consciously to the subject feeling it—pleasure caused by an object, i.e., a feeling determined by the conception of a thing under relations to self; or else desire for pleasure as an object, i.e., not merely desire for the revival of some feeling which, having been pleasant as ‘impression,’ survives without being pleasant as ‘idea,’ but desire determined by the consciousness of self as a permanent subject that has been pleased, and is to be pleased again. It is here, then, as in the case of the attempted derivation of space, or of identity and substance, from impressions of sense. In order to give rise to such an impression of reflection as desire for an object is, either the original impression of sense, or the idea of this, must be other than Hume could allow it to be. Either the original impression must be other than a satisfaction of appetite, other than a sight, smell, sound, &c., or the idea must be other than a copy of the impression. One or other must be determined by conceptions not derived from feeling, the correlative conceptions of self and thing. Thus, in order to be able to interpret his primary class of impressions of reflection [2] as desires for objects, or for pleasures as good, Hume has already made the assumption that is needed for the transition to that secondary class of impressions through which he has to account for morality. He has assumed that thought determines feeling, and not merely reproduces it. Even if the materials out of which it constructs the determining object be merely remembered pleasures, the object is no more to be identified with these materials than the living body with its chemical constituents.
[1] See General Introduction, paragraph 208.
[2] See above, sec. 19.
Pride determined by reference to self.
33. In the account of the ‘indirect passions’ the term object is no longer applied, as in the account of the direct ones, to the pleasure or pain which excites desire or aversion. It is expressly transferred to the self or other person, to whom the ‘exciting causes’ of pride and love must be severally related. ‘Pride and humility, though directly contrary, have yet the same object,’ viz., self; but since they are contrary, ‘’tis impossible this object can be their cause, or sufficient alone to excite them … We must therefore make a distinction betwixt that idea which excites them, and that to which they direct their view when excited…. The first idea that is presented to the mind is that of the cause or productive principle. This excites the passion connected with it; and that passion, when excited, turns our view to another idea, which is that of self…. The first idea represents the cause, the second the object of the passion.’ [1] Again a further distinction must be made ‘in the causes of the passion betwixt that quality which operates, and the subject on which it is placed. A man, for instance, is vain of a beautiful house which belongs to him, or which he has himself built or contrived. Here the object of the passion is himself, and the cause is the beautiful house; which cause again is subdivided into two parts, viz., the quality which operates upon the passion, and the subject in which the quality inheres. The quality is the beauty, and the subject is the house, considered as his property or contrivance.’ [2] It is next found that the operative qualities which produce pride, however various, agree in this, that they produce pleasure—a ‘separate pleasure,’ independent of the resulting pride. In all cases, again, ‘the subjects to which these qualities adhere are either parts of ourselves or something nearly related to us.’ The conclusion is that ‘the cause, which excites the passion, is related to the object which nature has attributed to the passion; the sensation, which the cause separately produces, is related to the sensation of the passion: from this double relation of ideas and impressions the passion is derived.’ [3] The ideas, it will be observed, are severally those of the exciting ‘subject’ (in the illustrative case quoted, the beautiful house) and of the ‘object’ self; the impressions are severally the pleasure immediately caused by the ‘subject’ (in the case given, the pleasure of feeling beauty) and the pleasure of pride. The relation between the ideas may be any of the ‘natural ones’ that regulate association. [4] In the supposed case it is that of cause and effect, since a man’s property ‘produces effects on him and he on it.’ The relation between the impressions must be that of resemblance—this, as we are told by the way (somewhat strangely, if impressions are only stronger ideas), being the only possible relation between impressions—the resemblance of one pleasure to another.
[1] Vol. II., pp. 77 and 78. [Book II., part I., sec. II.]
[2] Ibid., p. 79. [Book II., part I., sec. II.]
[3] Vol. II., pp. 84, 85. [Book II., part I., sec. V.]
[4] Book I., part 1, secs. 4 and 5.
This means that it takes its character from that which is not a possible ‘impression’.