Human Nature Theory (Volume 1 and 2)

Author: David Hume
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-07-01
Features: Excerpt: Section IV on the Connection or Union of Ideas
All simple ideas can be separated by imagination and freely combined into any form, so if this faculty were not governed by certain universal principles that ensure consistency to some degree across all times and places, its various functions would be unexplainable. If ideas were entirely disconnected and unrelated, their connection would depend solely on chance. Without some guiding (thread) or property that links simple ideas, causing one idea to naturally evoke another, these simple ideas would not systematically combine into complex ideas (which is, in fact, usually the case). This principle of connection between ideas should not be regarded as an inseparable bond, as such a connection has been excluded from imagination. At the same time, we should not assert that the mind cannot combine two ideas without this connection, for nothing is as free as this faculty. We can only consider this connection as a mild force that frequently prevails—it is also the reason why languages correspond so closely to one another (in addition to linking other things). Nature seems to indicate to everyone which simple ideas are suitable for combining into a complex idea. There are three properties that generate this connection and enable the mind to move between ideas in this way: resemblance, spatial and temporal proximity, and causality.
This book is a significant philosophical work by David Hume, an 18th-century British idealist philosopher and skeptic. He believed that all sciences are related to human nature and that the study of human nature should be the foundation of all sciences. This work attempts to reveal the principles governing human intellect, emotions, and moral behavior through the study of human nature. The book is divided into three volumes: the first volume discusses intellect; the second volume discusses emotions; and the third volume discusses morality.