Process and Reality — the Gifford Lectures, 1929

It is a great mistake to attribute to Hume any disbelief in the importance of the notion of ‘cause and effect.’ Throughout the Treatise he steadily affirms its fundamental importance; and finally, when he cannot fit it into his metaphysics, he appeals beyond his metaphysics to an ultimate justification outside any rational systematization. This ultimate justification is ‘practice.’

Hume writes: “As our senses show us in one instance two bodies, or motions, or qualities, in certain relations of succession and contiguity, so our memory presents us only with a multitude of instances wherein we always find like bodies, motions, or qualities, in like relations. From the mere repetition of any past impression, even to infinity, there never will arise any new original idea, such as that of a necessary connection; and the number of impressions has in this case no more effect than if we confined ourselves to one only. But though this reasoning seems just and obvious, yet, as it would be folly to despair too soon, we shall continue the thread of our discourse; and having found, that after the discovery of the constant conjunction of any objects, we always draw an inference from one object to another, we shall now examine the nature of that inference, and of the transition from the impression to the idea. Perhaps it will appear in the end, that the necessary connection depends on the inference, instead of the inference’s depending onp. 204 the necessary connection. . . . The only connection or relation of objects which can lead us beyond the immediate impressions of our memory and senses, is that of cause and effect; and that because it is the only one, on which we can found a just inference from one object to another. The idea of cause and effect is derived from experience [italics Hume’s], which informs us, that such particular objects, in all past instances, have been constantly conjoined with each other; and as an object similar to one of these is supposed to be immediately present in its impression, we thence presume on the existence of one similar to its usual attendant. According to this account of things, which is, I think, in every point unquestionable, probability is founded on the presumption of a resemblance betwixt those objects of which we have had experience, and those of which we have had none; and, therefore, it is impossible that this presumption can arise from probability.” *

Hume’s difficulty with ‘cause and effect’ is that it lies ‘beyond the immediate impressions of our memory and senses.’ In other words, this manner of connection is not given in any impression. Thus the whole basis of the idea, its propriety, is to be traced to the repetition of impressions. At this point of his argument, Hume seems to have overlooked the difficulty that ‘repetition’ stands with regard to ‘impressions’ in exactly the same position as does ‘cause and effect.’ Hume has confused a ‘repetition of impressions’ with an ‘impression of repetitions of impressions.’ In Hume’s own words on another topic (Part II, Sect. V): “For whence should it be derived? Does it arise from an impression of sensation or of reflection? Point it out distinctly to us, that we may know its nature and qualities. But if you cannot point out any such impression [Hume’s italics], you may be certain you are mistaken, when you imagine you have any such idea,”

Hume’s answer to this criticism would, of course, be

® Cf. Treatise, Part III, Sect. VI. Italics not in Treatise.

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that he admits ‘memory.’ But the question is what is consistent with Hume’s own doctrine. This is Hume’s doctrine of memory (cf. Part III, Sect. V): “Since therefore the memory is known, neither by the order of its complex ideas, nor by the nature of its simple ones; it follows, that the difference betwixt it and the imagination lies in its superior force and vivacity.” But (in Part I, Sect. I) he writes: “By ideas I mean the faint images of these (1.e. impressions) in thinking and reasoning,” and tater on he expands ‘faint’ into “degree of force and vivacity.” ° Thus, purely differing in ‘force and vivacity,’ we have the order: impressions, memories, ideas.

This doctrine is very unplausible; and, to speak bluntly, is in contradiction to plain fact. But, even worse, it omits the vital character of memory, namely, that it is memory. In fact the whole notion of repetition is lost in the ‘force and vivacity’ doctrine. What Hume does explain is that with a number of different perceptions immediately concurrent, he sorts them out into three different classes according to force and vivacity. But the repetition character, which he ascribes to simple ideas, and which is the whole point of memory, finds no place in his explanation. Nor can it do so, without an entire recasting of his fundamental philosophic notions.

SECTION III

Hume’s argument has become circular. In the beginning of his Treatise, he lays down the ‘general proposition’: “That all our simple ideas in their first appearance, are derived from simple impressions, . . .” He proves this by an empirical survey. But the proposition itself employs—covertly, so far as language is concerned—the notion of ‘repetition,’ which itself is not an ‘impression.’ Again, later he finds ‘necessary connection’: he discards

® This doctrine of ‘force and vivacity’ is withdrawn in the last sentence of Hume’s Appendix to the Treatise. But the argument in the Treatise is substantially built upon it. In the light of the retraction the whole

‘sensationalist’? doctrine requires reconsideration. The withdrawal cannot be treated as a minor adjustment.

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this because he can find no corresponding impression. But the original proposition was only founded on an empirical survey; so the argument for dismissal is purely circular. Further, if Hume had only attended to his own excellent Part II, Section VI, ‘Of Ideas of Existence, and of External Existence,’ he would have remembered that whatever we do think of, thereby in some sense ‘exists.’ Thus, having the idea of ‘necessary connection,’ the only question is as to its exemplification in the connectedness of our ‘impressions.’ He muddles the importance of an idea with the fact of our entertainment of the idea. We cannot even be wrong in thinking that we think of ‘necessary connection,’ unless we are thinking of ‘necessary connection.’ Of course, we may be very wrong in believing that the notion is important.

The reasons for this examination of Hume, including the prolonged quotations, are (i) that Hume states with great clearness important aspects of our experience; (11) that the defects in his statements are eminently natural defects which emerge with great clearness, owing to the excellence of his presentation; and (ili) that Hume differs from the great majority of his followers chiefly by the way in which he faces up to the problems raised by his own philosophy.

The first point to notice is that Hume’s philosophy is pervaded by the notion of ‘repetition,’ and that memory is a particular example of this character of experience, that in some sense there is entwined in its fundamental nature the fact that it is repeating something. Tear ‘repetition’ out of ‘experience,’ and there is nothing left. On the other hand, ‘immediacy,’ or ‘first-handedness,’ is another element in experience. Feeling overwhelms repetition; and there remains the immediate, first-handed fact, which is the actual world in an immediate complex unity of feeling.

There is another contrasted pair of elements in experience, clustering round the notion of time, namely, ‘endurance’ and ‘change.’ Descartes, who emphasizes the notion

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