History of Western Philosophy - Bertrand Russell [375]
As for 'mind', when substance has been rejected a mind must be some group or structure of events. The grouping must be effected by some relation which is characteristic of the sort of phenomena we wish to call 'mental'. We may take memory as typical. We might—though this would be rather unduly simple—define a 'mental' event as one which remembers or is remembered. Then the 'mind' to which a given mental event belongs is the group of events connected with the given event by memory-chains, backwards or forwards.
It will be seen that, according to the above definitions, a mind and a piece of matter are, each of them, a group of events. There is no reason why every event should belong to a group of one kind or the other, and there is no reason why some events should not belong to both groups; therefore some events may be neither mental nor material, and other events may be both. As to this, only detailed empirical considerations can decide.
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17
HUME
David Hume (1711–76) is one of the most important among philosophers, because he developed to its logical conclusion the empirical philosophy of Locke and Berkeley, and by making it self-consistent made it incredible. He represents, in a certain sense, a dead end: in his direction, it is impossible to go further. To refute him has been, ever since he wrote, a favourite pastime among metaphysicians. For my part, I find none of their refutations convincing; nevertheless, I cannot but hope that something less sceptical than Hume's system may be discoverable.
His chief philosophical work, the Treatise of Human Nature, was written while he was living in France during the years 1734 to 1737. The first two volumes were published in 1739, the third in 1740. He was a very young man, not yet in his thirties; he was not well known, and his conclusions were such as almost all schools would find unwelcome. He hoped for vehement attacks, which he would meet with brilliant retorts. Instead, no one noticed the book; as he says himself, 'it fell dead-born from the press'. 'But,' he adds, 'being naturally of a cheerful and sanguine temper, I very soon recovered from the blow.' He devoted himself to the writing of essays, of which he produced the first volume in 1741. In 1744 he made an unsuccessful attempt to obtain a professorship at Edinburgh; having failed in this, he became first tutor to a lunatic and then secretary to a general. Fortified by these credentials, he ventured again into philosophy. He shortened the Treatise by leaving out the best parts and most of the reasons for his conclusions; the result was the Inquiry into Human Understanding, for a long time much better known than the Treatise. It was this book that awakened Kant from his 'dogmatic slumbers'; he does not appear to have known the Treatise.
He wrote also Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, which he kept unpublished during his lifetime. By his direction, they were published posthumously in 1779. His Essay on Miracles, which became famous, maintains that there can never be adequate historical evidence for such events.
His History of England, published in 1755 and following years, devoted itself to proving the superiority of Tories to Whigs and of Scotchmen to Englishmen; he did not consider history worthy of philosophic detachment. He visited Paris in 1763, and was made much of by the philosophes. Unfortunately, he formed a friendship with Rousseau, and had a famous quarrel with him. Hume behaved with admirable forbearance, but Rousseau, who suffered from persecution mania, insisted upon a violent breach.
Hume has described his own character in a self-obituary, or 'funeral oration', as he calls it: 'I was a man of mild dispositions, of command of temper, of an open, social and cheerful humour, capable of