The Scottish Philosophy [82]
it. The associating qualities are said by him to be three in number: resemblance, contiguity in time or place, and cause or effect. "I do not find," he says, "that {136} any philosopher has attempted to enumerate all the principles of association." But the classification propounded by him bears so close a resemblance to that of Aristotle, that we must believe that the one given by the Stagyrite had, in the course of his reading, fallen under his notice, though he had forgotten the circumstance. The difference between the two lies in Hume giving us cause and effect, instead of contrast as proposed by the Greek philosopher. It has often been remarked that Hume's arrangement is redundant, inasmuch as cause and effect, according to him, are nothing but contiguity in time and place.
He now shows how our complex ideas are formed. Following Locke, he represents these as consisting of substances, modes, and relations. He dismisses substance very summarily. He proceeds on the view of substance given by Locke, one of the most defective and unsatisfactory parts of his philosophy. Locke stood tip for some unknown thing, called substance, behind the qualities. Berkeley had shown that there is no evidence of the existence of such a substratum. Hume assumes that we have no idea of external substance different from the qualities, and he proceeds to show that we have no notion of the substance mind distinct from particular perceptions. " I believe none will assert that substance is either a color, or a sound, or a taste. The idea of substance must therefore be derived from an impression of reflection, if it really exist. But the impressions of reflection resolve themselves into our passions and emotions, none of which can possibly represent a substance." A substance is thus nothing else than a collection of particular qualities united by the imagination. He thus suits the idea to his preconceived theory, instead of looking at the peculiar idea, and suiting his theory to the facts. I give up the idea of an unknown substratum behind the qualities. I stand up only for what we know. In consciousness, we know self, and in sense- perception we know the external objects as. In this is involved what I reckon the true idea of substance. We can as little know the qualities apart from an object exercising them, as we can an object apart from qualities. We know both in one concrete act, and we have the same evidence of the one as the other.
When he comes to modes, he examines them by the doctrine {137} of abstract or general ideas propounded by Berkeley, which he characterizes "as one of the greatest and most valuable discoveries that has been made of late years in the republic of letters." According to this very defective theory (as it appears to us), all abstract or general ideas are nothing but particular ones annexed to a certain term. Like Locke, Hume confounds abstract and general ideas, which should be carefully distinguished: the former meaning the notion of the part of an object as a part, more particularly an attribute; the other, the notion of objects possessing common attributes, the notion being such that it embraces all the objects possessing the common attributes. Abstraction and generalization are most important intellectual operations, the one bringing specially to view what is involved in the concrete knowledge (not impression) of the individual, and the other exhibiting the qualities in respect of which objects agree. Without such elaborative processes, we should never know all that is involved in our original perceptions by sense and consciousness. Nor is it to be forgotten, that when the concrete is a real object, the abstract is a real quality existing in the object; and that when the singulars are real, the universal is also real, that is, a class all the objects in which possess common qualities. Here again we find Hume overlooking one of the most essential of our mental attributes, and thus degrading human intelligence. In relation to the particular end for which he introduces
He now shows how our complex ideas are formed. Following Locke, he represents these as consisting of substances, modes, and relations. He dismisses substance very summarily. He proceeds on the view of substance given by Locke, one of the most defective and unsatisfactory parts of his philosophy. Locke stood tip for some unknown thing, called substance, behind the qualities. Berkeley had shown that there is no evidence of the existence of such a substratum. Hume assumes that we have no idea of external substance different from the qualities, and he proceeds to show that we have no notion of the substance mind distinct from particular perceptions. " I believe none will assert that substance is either a color, or a sound, or a taste. The idea of substance must therefore be derived from an impression of reflection, if it really exist. But the impressions of reflection resolve themselves into our passions and emotions, none of which can possibly represent a substance." A substance is thus nothing else than a collection of particular qualities united by the imagination. He thus suits the idea to his preconceived theory, instead of looking at the peculiar idea, and suiting his theory to the facts. I give up the idea of an unknown substratum behind the qualities. I stand up only for what we know. In consciousness, we know self, and in sense- perception we know the external objects as
When he comes to modes, he examines them by the doctrine {137} of abstract or general ideas propounded by Berkeley, which he characterizes "as one of the greatest and most valuable discoveries that has been made of late years in the republic of letters." According to this very defective theory (as it appears to us), all abstract or general ideas are nothing but particular ones annexed to a certain term. Like Locke, Hume confounds abstract and general ideas, which should be carefully distinguished: the former meaning the notion of the part of an object as a part, more particularly an attribute; the other, the notion of objects possessing common attributes, the notion being such that it embraces all the objects possessing the common attributes. Abstraction and generalization are most important intellectual operations, the one bringing specially to view what is involved in the concrete knowledge (not impression) of the individual, and the other exhibiting the qualities in respect of which objects agree. Without such elaborative processes, we should never know all that is involved in our original perceptions by sense and consciousness. Nor is it to be forgotten, that when the concrete is a real object, the abstract is a real quality existing in the object; and that when the singulars are real, the universal is also real, that is, a class all the objects in which possess common qualities. Here again we find Hume overlooking one of the most essential of our mental attributes, and thus degrading human intelligence. In relation to the particular end for which he introduces