Context

The author has concluded his examination of the human understanding, the cognitive side of human nature, in Book I. In Book II, he will examine the passions, human nature’s affective side. At the end of Book I, Part I, Section 2, the author had stated his intention to examine ideas (derivative perceptions) before his examination of impressions (original perceptions). Treating what is derivative before what is original is a reversal of what is apparently the most natural method. However, in the case of one of the two classes of impressions, those of reflection (the other being sensation), there is a reason to do so. “[T]he impressions of reflection, viz. passions, desires, and emotions, which principally deserve our attention, arise mostly from ideas . . . .” [This passage intimates that the author believed Book II to be of more direct interest than Book I.]

Background

A number of philosophers, both British and continental, had written on the passions prior to Hume. A summary of their views can be found here. The account of the author most resembles that of Francis Hutcheson, whose theory of the passions is summarized here. Hutcheson distinguished between “affections” and “passions,” but both are defined as “those Modifications, or Actions of the Mind, consequent upon the Apprehension of certain Objects or Events, in which the Mind generally conceives Good or Evil” (An Essay on the Natural Conduct of the Passions, Section 1.) The apprehension of objects and events is by sensation, and sensation not only provides images or representations of objects and events, but also “some Feelings of Pleasure or Pain.” We may call feelings of pleasure “grateful” and feelings of pain “ungrateful” perceptions. Objects which produce grateful perceptions are deemed good, and those which produce ungrateful perceptions evil. There are other modifications of the mind which are not sensations, but rather occur on the occasion of our having grateful or ungrateful perceptions. These are called desire and aversion, respectively. So, we desire what produces pleasure and are averse to what produces pain. Desires and aversions are produced by reflection on the good or evil in objects and events. This reflection generates a certainty that pleasure or pain will result from them, and this in turn produces a different kind of pleasure or pain. For example, someone afflicted with gout and not presently in pain is averse to its future occurrence and feels an affection of sorrow, which itself could be thought of as a kind of sensation. Affections may be either general (such as desire for the happiness of others) or particular (such as love for a particular person). A general affection is a calm desire or aversion, while a particular affection, called a “passion,” is lacking in calmness. Hutcheson notes that there is a notion of a passion which accompanies an affection and

includes a strong Brutal Impulse of the Will, sometimes without any distinct notions of Good . . ., attended with a ’confused sensation, either of Pleasure or Pain, occasioned or attended by some violent bodily Motions, which keeps the Mind much employed upon the present Affair, to the exclusion of every thing else, and prolongs or strengthens the Affection sometimes to such a degree, as to prevent all deliberate Reasoning about our Conduct. (An Essay on the Natural Conduct of the Passions, Section II)

The Treatise

1. All perceptions are either impressions or ideas, and the earlier division of impressions into those of sensation and reflection is now called a division into original and secondary impressions, respectively. Original impressions are preceded by no antecedent perception, and “arise in the soul, from the constitution of the body, from the animal spirits, or from the application of objects to the external organs.” Original impressions include “impressions of the senses, and all bodily pains and pleasures.” Secondary impressions are those that arise from original impressions, either immediately or on the occasion of ideas that follow original impressions, and they include “the passions, and other emotions resembling them.”

2. The author argues for the original/secondary distinction of perceptions by noting that perception must begin somewhere, and thus some impressions must “without any introduction make their appearance in the soul.” They will not be discussed in the present work, since they are the result of “natural and physical causes,” whose explanation requires the sciences of anatomy and natural philosophy. Secondary or reflective impressions will be considered here. Bodily pains and pleasures do not arise from preceding perceptions, and hence are not passions, but they or the ideas of them do cause passions: “A fit of the gout produces a long train of passions, as grief, hope, fear; but is not deriv’d immediately from any affection or idea.”

3. The author now makes a further division of the secondary impressions: the calm (e.g., the sense of beauty and deformity), and the violent passions (which are passions “properly call’d,” such as those of love and hatred, grief and joy, pride and humility). The division is not exact, as the emotion felt due to the beauty of music shades into violent sense of rapture, and the violent passions can decay into something soft enough to be imperceptible. Generally, the passions are more violent than emotions of beauty, etc., and the vulgar distinction between the passions and the softer emotions is a useful ordering, given the variety of extent of the content of the human mind. The author will presently explain the “nature, origin, causes, and effects” of the violent passions.

4. Another distinction can me made with respect to the passions: they may be direct (arising immediately from good or evil, pain or pleasure; e.g., desire, aversion, grief, joy, hope, fear, despair, security) or indirect (requiring other properties; e.g., pride, humility, ambition, vanity, love, hatred, envy, pity, malice, generosity). The author will begin his investigation of the “violent passions” with those that are indirect, and specifically with pride and humility, which is the subject of the remainder of Part I.

Dissertation II, Of the Passions

In the Dissertation, Hume does not invoke the distinction between impressions and ideas. He distinguishes between agreeable sensations (pleasures) and disagreeable sensations (pains). Objects which immediately produce agreeable sensations are called good, and those which immediately produce disagreeable sensations are called evil. Thus, a fire is called good if it warms us or evil if it burns us. Objects may also produce pleasure or pain, and thus are termed good or evil, by their relation to the passions. The passion of vengeance, for example, is gratified by punishment. “All good or evil, whence-ever it arises, produces various passions and affections, according to the light in which it is surveyed” (Section I). Viewing an object in a single “light” produces passions such as fear or hope. Besides these passions, which “arise from a direct pursuit of good and aversion to evil, there are others which are of a more complicated nature, and imply more than one view or consideration” (Section II). An example is the pair of passions pride and humility. Hume identifies what is popularly called “reason” with calm passion.

What is commonly, in a popular sense, called reason, and is so much recommended in moral discourses, is nothing but a general and a calm passion, which takes a comprehensive and a distant view of its object, and actuates the will, without exciting any sensible emotion. A man, we say, is diligent in his profession from reason; that is, from a calm desire of riches and a fortune. A man adheres to justice from reason; that is, from a calm regard to public good, or to a character with himself and others. (Section V)

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