A Treatise of Human Nature · David Hume
GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO VOL. I.
29. The two considerations here mentioned, of ‘ideas as actually in our minds,’ of ‘things as actually without us,’ are meant severally to represent the two ways of reflection and sensation, by which the idea of existence is supposed to be suggested. But sensation, according to Locke, is an organ of ‘ideas,’ just as much as reflection. Taking his doctrine strictly, there are no ‘objects’ but ‘ideas’ to suggest the idea of existence, whether by the way of sensation or by that of reflection, and no ideas that are not ‘in the mind.’ (Book II. chap. ix. sec. 3, &c.) Existence as the mere presence of a feeling. 30. The designation of the idea of existence, then, as ‘suggested by every idea within,’ covers every possible suggestion. It can mean nothing else than that it is given in every act and mode of consciousness; that it is inseparable from feeling as such, being itself at the same time a distinct simple idea. This, we may remark by the way, involves the conclusion that every idea is composite, made up of whatever distinguishes it from other ideas together with the idea of existence. Of this idea of existence itself, however, it will be impossible to say anything distinctive; for, as it accompanies all possible objects of consciousness, there will be no cases where it is absent to be distinguished from those where it is present. Not merely will it be undefinable, as every simple idea is; it will be impossible ‘to send a man to his senses’ (according to Locke’s favourite subterfuge) in order to know what it is, since it is neither given in one sense as distinct from another, nor in all senses as distinct from any other modification of consciousness. Thus regarded, to treat it as a simple idea alongside of other simple ideas is a palpable contradiction.
It is the mere ‘It is felt,’ the abstraction of consciousness, no more to be reckoned as one among other ideas than colour in general is to be co-ordinated with red, white, and blue. Whether I smell a rose in the summer or recall the smell in winter; whether I see a horse or a ghost, or imagine a centaur or think of gravitation or the philosopher’s stone--in every case alike the idea or ‘immediate object of the mind’ _exists_. Yet we find Locke distinguishing between real ideas, as those that ‘have a conformity with the existence of things,’ and fantastic ideas, as those which have no such conformity (Book II. chap. xxx. sec. 1); and again in the fourth book (chap. i. sec. 7, chap. iii. sec. 21, &c.) he makes the perception of the agreement of an idea with existence a special kind of knowledge, different from that of agreement of idea with idea; and having done so, raises the question whether we have such a knowledge of existence at all, and decides that our knowledge of it is very narrow. Existence as reality.
31. How are such a distinction and such a question to be reconciled with the attribution of existence to every idea? The answer of course will be, that when he speaks of ideas as not conforming to existence, and makes knowledge or the agreement of ideas with each other something different from their agreement with existence, he means and generally says ‘real actual existence,’ or the ‘existence of _things_,’ _i.e._ an existence, whatever it be, which is opposed to mere existence in consciousness. Doubtless he so means, but this implies that upon mere consciousness, or the simple presence of ideas, there has supervened a distinction, which has to be accounted for, of ideas from things which they represent on the one hand, and from a mind of which they are affections on the other. Even in the passage first quoted (Book II. chap. vii. sec. 7), where existence is ascribed to every idea, on looking closely we find this distinction obtruding itself, though without explicit acknowledgment. In the very same breath, so to speak, in which the idea of existence is said to be suggested by every idea, it is further described as being either of two considerations--either the consideration of an idea as actually in our mind, or of a thing as actually without us.
Such considerations at once imply the supervention of that distinction between ‘mind’ and ‘thing,’ which gives a wholly new meaning to ‘existence.’ They are not, in truth, as Locke supposed, two separate considerations, one or other of which, as the case may be, is interchangeable with the ‘idea of existence.’ One is correlative with the other, and neither is the same as simple feeling. Considered as actually in the mind, the feeling is distinguished from the mind as an affection from the subject thereof, and just in virtue of this distinction is referred to a thing as the cause of the affection, or becomes representative of a thing. But for such consideration there would for us, if the doctrine of ideas means anything, be no ‘thing without us’ at all. To ‘consider things as actually without us’ is to consider them as causes of the ideas in our mind, and this is to have an idea of existence quite different from mere consciousness. It is to have an idea of it which at once suggests the question whether the existence is real or apparent; in other words, whether the thing, to which an affection of the mind is referred as its cause, is really its cause or no. By confusion of these two meanings, reality and its conditions are represented as given in simple feeling.
32. Between these two meanings of existence--its meaning as interchangeable with simple consciousness, and its meaning as reality--Locke failed to distinguish. Just as, having announced ‘ideas’ to be the sole ‘materials of knowledge,’ he allows himself at his convenience to put ‘things’ in the place of ideas; so having identified existence with momentary consciousness or the simple idea, he substitutes for existence in this sense _reality_, and in consequence finds reality given solely in the simple idea. Thus when the conceptions of cause or substance, or relations of any kind, come under view, since these cannot be represented as given in momentary consciousness, they have to be pronounced not to exist, and since existence is reality, to be unreal or ‘fictions of the mind.’ But without these unreal relations there could be no knowledge, and if they are not given in the elements of knowledge, it is difficult to see how they are introduced, or to avoid the appearance of constructing knowledge out of the unknown. Given in the elements of knowledge, however, they cannot be, if these are simple ideas or momentary recurrences of the ‘it is felt.’ But by help of Locke’s equivocation between the two meanings of existence, they can be covertly introduced as the real. Existence is given in the simple idea, existence equals the real, therefore the real is given in the simple idea. But think or speak of the real as we will, we find that it exhibits itself as substance, as cause, and as related; _i.e._ according to Locke as a ‘complex’ or ‘invented’ or ‘superinduced’ idea.
Yet reality involves complex ideas which are made by the mind. 33. In the second book of his Essay, which treats of ideas, he makes the grand distinction between ‘the simple ideas which are all from things themselves, and of which the mind can have no more or other than what are suggested to it,’ and the ‘complex ideas which are the workmanship of the mind.’ (Book II. chap. xii.) In his account of the latter there are some curious cross-divisions, but he finally enumerates them as ideas either of _modes_, _substances_, or _relations_. The character of these ideas he then proceeds to explain in the order given, one after the other, and as if each were independent of the rest; though according to his own statement the idea of mode presupposes that of substance, and the idea of substance involves that of relation. ‘Modes I call such complex ideas, which, however compounded, contain not in them the supposition of subsisting by themselves, but are considered as dependencies on, or affections of, substances; such are the ideas signified by the words ‘triangle,’ ‘gratitude,’ ‘murder,’ &c. Of these there are two sorts.
First, there are some which are only variations or different combinations of the same simple idea without the mixture of any other--as a dozen, or score--which are nothing but the ideas of so many distinct units added together; and these I call simple modes, as being contained within the bounds of one simple idea. Secondly, there are others compounded of simple ideas of several kinds, put together to make one complex one; e. g. beauty, ... and these I call _mixed modes_.’ (Book II. chap. xii. secs. 4, 5.) So soon as he comes to speak more in detail of simple modes, he falls into apparent contradiction with his doctrine that, as complex ideas, they are the mere workmanship of the mind. All particular sounds and colours are simple modes of the simple ideas of sound and colour. (Book II. chap, xviii. sees. 3, 4.) Again, the ideas of figure, place, distance, as of all particular figures, places, and distances, are simple modes of the simple idea of space. (Book II. chap, xiii.) To maintain, however, that the ideas of space, sound, or colour _in general_ (as simple ideas) were taken from things themselves, while those of _particular_ spaces, sounds, and colours (as complex ideas) were ‘made by the mind,’ was for Locke impossible.
Thus in the very next chapter after that in which he has opposed all complex ideas, those of simple modes included, as made by the mind to all simple ones as taken from things themselves, he speaks of simple modes ‘either _as found in things existing_, or as made by the mind within itself.’ (Book II. chap. xiii. sec. 1.) It was not for Locke to get over this confusion by denying the antithesis between that which the mind ‘makes’ and that which it ‘takes from existing things’ and for the present we must leave it as it stands. We must further note that a mode being considered ‘as an affection of a substance,’ space must be to the particular spaces which are its simple modes, as a substance to its modifications. So too colour to particular colours, &c., &c. But the idea of a substance is a complex idea ‘framed by the mind.’ Therefore the idea of space--at any rate such an idea as we have of it when we think of distances, places, or figures, and when else do we think of it at all?--must be a complex and artificial idea. But according to Locke the idea of space is emphatically a simple idea, given immediately _both_ by sight and touch, concerning which if a man enquire, he ‘sends him to his senses.’ (Book II. chap, v.)
Such are substance and relation which must be found in every object of knowledge. 34. These contradictions are not avoidable blunders, due to carelessness or want of a clear head in the individual writer, ‘The complex idea of substance’ will not be exorcised; the mind will show its workmanship in the very elements of knowledge towards which its relation seems most passive--in the ‘existing things’ which are the conditions of its experience no less than in the individual’s conscious reaction upon them. The interrogator of the individual consciousness seeks to know that consciousness, and just for that reason must find in it at every stage those formal conceptions, such as substance and cause, without which there can be no object of knowledge at all. He thus substantiates sensation, while he thinks that he merely observes it, and calls it a sensible thing. Sensations, thus unconsciously transformed, are for him the real, the actually existent. Whatever is not given by immediate sense, outer or inner, he reckons a mere ‘thing of the mind.’ The ideas of substance and relation, then, not being given by sense, must in his eyes be things of the mind, in distinction from, really existent things. But speech bewrayeth him.
He cannot state anything that he knows save in terms which imply that substance and relation are in the things known; and hence an inevitable obtrusion of ‘things of the mind’ in the place of real existence, just where the opposition between them is being insisted on. Again, as a man seems to observe consciousness in himself and others, it has nothing that it has not received. It is a blank to begin with, but passive of that which is without, and through its passivity it becomes informed. If the ‘mind,’ then, means this or that individual consciousness, the things of the mind must be gradually developed from an original passivity. On the other hand, let anyone try to know this original passive consciousness, and in it, as in every other known object-matter, he must find these things of the mind, substance and relations. If nature is the object, he must find them in nature; if his own self-consciousness, he must find them in that consciousness. But while nature knows not what is in herself, self-consciousness, it would seem, _ex vi termini_, does know. Therefore not merely substance and relation must be found in the original consciousness, but the knowledge, the ideas, of them. Abstract idea of substance and complex ideas of particular sorts of substance.
35. As we follow Locke’s treatment of these ideas more in detail, we shall find the logical see-saw, here accounted for, appearing with scarcely a disguise. His account of the origin of the ‘complex ideas of substances’ is as follows. ‘The mind being furnished with a great number of the simple ideas, conveyed in by the senses, as they are found in exterior things, or by reflection on its own operations, takes notice also that a certain number of these simple ideas go constantly together; which being presumed to belong to one thing, and words being suited to common apprehensions and made use of for quick despatch, are called, so united in one subject, by one name; which by inadvertency we are apt afterwards to talk of and consider as one simple idea, which indeed is a complication of many ideas together; because, as I have said, not imagining how these simple ideas can subsist by themselves, we accustom ourselves to suppose some _substratum_, wherein they do subsist, and from which they do result; which therefore we call _substance_.’
(Book II. chap, xxiii. sec. 1.) In the controversy with Stillingfleet, which arose out of this chapter, Locke was constrained further to distinguish (as he certainly did not do in the original text) between the ‘ideas of distinct substances, such as man, horse,’ and the ‘general idea of substance.’ It is to ideas of the former sort that he must be taken to refer in the above passage, when he speaks of them as formed by ‘complication of many ideas together,’ and these alone are _complex_ in the strict sense. The _general_ idea of substance on the other hand, which like all general ideas (according to Locke) is made by abstraction, means the idea of a ‘substratum which we accustom ourselves to suppose’ as that wherein the complicated ideas ‘do subsist, and from which they do result.’ This, however, he regards as itself one, ‘the first and chief,’ among the ideas which make up any of the ‘distinct substances.’ (Book II. chap. xii. sec. 6.) Nor is he faithful to the distinction between the general and the complex. In one passage of the first letter to Stillingfleet, he distinctly speaks of the _general_ idea of substance as a ‘_complex_ idea made up of the idea of something plus that of relation to qualities.’ [1] Notwithstanding this confusion of terms, however, he no doubt had before him what seemed a clear distinction between the ‘abstract general idea’ of substance, as such, _i.e._ of ‘something related as a support to accidents,’ but which does not include ideas of any particular accidents, and the composite idea of a substance, made up of a multitude of simple ideas plus that of the something related to them as a support. We shall find each of these ideas, according to Locke’s statement, presupposing the other.
36. In the passage above quoted, our aptness to consider a complication of simple ideas, which we notice to go constantly together, as one simple idea, is accounted for as the result of a presumption that they belong to one thing. This presumption is again described in the words that ‘we accustom ourselves to suppose some substratum, wherein they do subsist, and from which they do result; which therefore we call substance.’ Here it is implied that the idea of substance, _i.e._ ‘the general idea of something related as a support to accidents,’ is one gradually formed upon observation of the regular coincidence of certain simple ideas. In the sequel (sec. 3 of the same chapter I. xxiii.) we are told that such an idea--‘an obscure and relative idea of substance in general--being thus made, we come to have the ideas of particular sorts of substances by collecting such combinations of simple ideas as are, by experience and observation of men’s senses, taken notice of to exist together.’ Thus a _general_ idea of substance having been formed by one gradual process, ideas of particular sorts of substances are formed by another and later one. But then the very same ‘collection of such combinations of simple ideas as are taken notice of to exist together,’ which (according to sec. 3) constitutes the later process and follows upon the formation of the _general_ idea of substance, has been previously described as preceding and conditioning that formation. It is the complication of simple ideas, noticed to go constantly together, that (according to sec. 1) leads to the ‘idea of substance in general.’ To this see-saw between the process preceding and that following the formation of the idea in question must be added the difficulty, that Locke’s account makes the general idea precede the particular, which is against the whole tenor of his doctrine of abstraction as an operation whereby ‘the mind makes the particular ideas, received from particular objects, to become general.’ (Book II. chap. xi. sec. 9.)
But it is explicitly to substance that Locke makes them refer themselves. 38. We are estopped, however, from any such explanation of Locke as would suggest these ulterior questions by his explicit statement that ‘all simple ideas, all sensible qualities, carry with them a supposition of a substratum to exist in, and of a substance wherein they inhere.’ The vindication of himself against the pathetic complaint of Stillingfleet, that he had ‘almost discarded substance out of the reasonable part of the world,’ in which this statement occurs, was certainly not needed. Already in the original text the simple ideas, of which the association suggests the idea of substance, are such as ‘the mind finds in exterior things or by reflection on its own operations.’ But to find them in an exterior thing is to find them in a substance, a ‘something it knows not what,’ regarded as outward, just as to find them by reflection on its own operations, as its own, is to find them in such a substance regarded as inward. The process then by which, according to Locke, the general idea of substance is arrived at, presupposes this idea just as much as the process, by which ideas of particular sorts of substances are got, presupposes it, and the distinction between the two processes, as he puts it, disappears.
In the process by which we are supposed to arrive at complex ideas of substances the beginning is the same as the end. 39. The same paralogism appears under a slightly altered form when it is stated (in the first letter to Stillingfleet) that the idea of substance as the ‘general indetermined idea of _something_ is by the abstraction of the mind derived from the simple ideas of sensation and reflection.’ Now ‘abstraction’ with Locke means the ‘separation of an idea from all other ideas that accompany it in its real existence.’ (Book II. chap. xii. sec. 1.) It is clear then that it is impossible to abstract an idea which is not _there_, in real existence, to be abstracted. Accordingly, if the ‘general idea of something’ is derived by abstraction from simple ideas of sensation and reflection, it must be originally given with these ideas, or it would not afterwards be separated from them. Conversely they must carry this idea with them, and cannot be simple ideas at all, but compound ones, each made up of ‘the general idea of something or being,’ and of an accident which this something supports. How then does the general idea of substance or ‘something,’ _as derived_, differ from the idea of ‘something,’ as given in the original ideas of sensation and reflection from which the supposed process of abstraction starts? What can be said of the one that cannot be said of the other?
If the derived general idea is of something related to qualities, what, according to Locke, are the original ideas but those of qualities related to something? It is true that the general idea is of something, of which nothing further is known, related to qualities in general, not to any particular qualities. But the ‘simple idea’ in like manner can only be of an indeterminate quality, for in order to any determination of it, the idea must be put together with another idea, and so cease to be simple; and the ‘something,’ to which it is referred, must for the same reason be a purely indeterminate something. If, in order to avoid concluding that Locke thus unwittingly identified the abstract general idea of substance with any simple idea, we say that the simple idea, because not abstract, is not indeterminate but of a real quality, defined by manifold relations, we fall upon the new difficulty that, if so, not only does the simple idea become manifoldly complex, but just such an ‘idea of a particular sort of substance’ as, according to Locke, is derived from the derived idea of substance in general. As an idea of a quality, it is also necessarily an idea of a correlative ‘something;’ and if it is an idea of a quality in its reality, _i.e._ as determined by various relations, it must be an idea of a variously qualified something, _i.e._ of a particular substance. Then not merely the middle of the twofold process by which we are supposed to get at ‘complex ideas of substances’--_i.e._ the _abstract_ something; but its end--_i.e._ the _particular_ something--turns out to be the same as its beginning.
Doctrine of abstraction inconsistent with doctrine of complex ideas. 40. The fact is, that in making the general idea of substance precede particular ideas of sorts of substances (as he certainly however confusedly does, in the 23rd chapter of the Second Book, [1] as well as by implication in his doctrine of modes. Book II. chap. xii. sec. 4), Locke stumbled upon a truth which he was not aware of, and which will not fit into his ordinary doctrine of general ideas: the truth that knowledge is a process from the more abstract to the more concrete, not the reverse, as is commonly supposed, and as Locke’s definition of abstraction implies. Throughout his prolix discussion of ‘substance’ and ‘essence’ we find two opposite notions perpetually cross each other: one that knowledge begins with the simple idea, the other that it begins with the real thing as particularized by manifold relations. According to the former notion, simple ideas being given, void of relation, as the real, the mind of its own act proceeds to bring them into relation and compound them: according to the latter, a thing of various properties (_i.e._ relations [2]) being given as the real, the mind proceeds to separate these from each other. According to the one notion the intellectual process, as one of complication, ends just where, according to the other notion, as one of abstraction, it began.
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