Context

In Section 1, the author had distinguished between direct and indirect passions, and in Section 2, he explained the objects and causes of the indirect passions of pride and humility. In Section 3, he argued that while pride and humility are natural passions, it is not the case that they are caused by distinct original qualities. Section 4 describes some ways in which impressions and ideas are related to one another, which in Section 5 are then mobilized to explain the origin of the passions of pride and humility.

Background

The system, whose limitations are discussed here, is unique to the author, so the limitations are unique to the author’s system.

The Treatise

1. The general system developed in the preceding five sections is summarized in a single proposition, that all agreeable objects, related to ourselves, by an association of ideas, and of impressions, produce pride, and disagreeable ones, humility. In subsequent Sections, the author will investigate all the causes of pride and humility. But in before so doing, he thinks it proper to describe the limitations of the general system, which derive from the very nature of the subject. [Each of the limitations involves a causal factor beynd the relation of agreeable or disagreeable objects related to ourselves.]

2. The first limitation is that it is not merely the existence of a relation to ourselves that causes the passion, but also a specific aspect of that relation. The author maintains that the first passion brought about by the relation of an agreeable object to ourselves is joy. [Joy is a direct passion, described in Part Three, Section 9, as caused by a good that is certain and probable.] The relation needed to produce joy is slighter than that which is required to produce pride. An example is the joy felt as the guest at a great feast; generally only the host feels pride in addition. Although in some cases people will boast of having attended, in general a more substantial relation is needed for there to be pride, and many things, which are too foreign to produce pride, are yet able to give us delight and pleasure. The author explains the need for a tighter relation in this way. A relation of an object to ourselves will produce the passion of joy through our satisfaction with it. But something beyond this is required to convert this satisfaction in the object from joy to pride. As it has a double task to perform, it [the relation] must be endow’d with double force and energy. The author adds an additional consideration regarding the strength of relation required to induce pride.

He observes that agreeable objects which are not closely related to ourselves are often closely related to other people. The effect of this is not only that the latter relation is stronger, but that it can diminish or destroy the former relation.

[Footnote. An example is given in Part II, Section 4. In the example from Part II, Section 14, a man marries my widowed mother and thereby is closely related to her. I have a strong relation to my mother. My relation to my mother can be weakened or destroyed by my step-father’s new relation to my mother. It should be noted that this example, though cited by the author, takes the first relation to be very close, whereas in this Section, the first relation is described as being not very close.]

3. The result is that of the discussion of the last paragraph is that the general system must be modified. It is not sufficient (as with the formulation in the first paragraph) that agreeable objects be related to us to produce pride and disagreeable ones to produce humility. The relation must in addition be a close one, and closer than one that produces mere joy [or grief, respectively].

4. The second limitation applies to the amended version of the general condition for the production of pride. Not only must the object that causes pride or humility be closely related to our selves, but it must also be peculiar to ourselves, or at least common to us with a few persons. The author makes an observation that he will try to explain afterwards, that being accustomed to something for a long time makes it lose its value and even become despis’d and neglected in short order. [The explanation comes in Part III, Section 5. Custom makes for a greater facility in conceiving an object. If the conception becomes too easy, it may lose its value, particularly when that value is emotional, as with something like music. And when we become indifferent to the object, it easily becomes disagreeable.] Another observation is that we judge the value of things more by comparison than by their intrinsic worth, to the point that we can lose sight of the value of something essentially good if we cannot enhance it by some contrast. The valuation of things by comparison affects our passions of joy and pride, and ’tis remarkable, that goods, which are common to all mankind, and have become familiar to us by custom, give us little satisfaction; tho’ perhaps of a more excellent kind, than those on which, for their singularity, we set a much higher value. The influence of comparison on pride is much greater than on joy. For example, we are joyous about the return of our good health after a long period of convalescence, but we do rarely feel proud of it, because health is a quality so widely shared.

5. The author now offers an explanation for why pride is so much more sensitive to uncommonness than is joy. There is a structural difference between the two. Pride requires that there be a relation between its cause (which is an object) and its proper object (the self). Joy, on the other hand, does not require a proper object, but only an object in the sense of a cause. This object must have a relation of to the self, in that it is agreeable to it, but the self is not its proper object, in that our view is not directed toward it. [One is joyful in the presence of an object which it finds pleasing, but one is proud of one’s self.] Because pride involves two objects, it must be weakened more if both are common than is a passion such as joy, which is weakened when its single object is common. Upon comparing ourselves with others, as we are every moment apt to do, we find we are not in the least distinguish’d [the first weakening]; and upon comparing the object we possess, we discover still the same unlucky circumstance [the second weakening]. Two comparisons that are so unfavorable will entirely destroy the passion of pride.

6. The third extrinsic condition for the production of pride and humility is that the object that is pleasant or painful be very discernible and obvious, not only to ourselves, but to others also. [Hidden virtues, for example, are not productive of pride.] As with the other conditions, this one applies to joy, in that we think of ourselves as happier when others see us that way. We think of ourselves as virtuous and beautiful when we appear to be so in the eyes of others more so than we think of ourselves as happier. The author will try to explain the causes of this phenomenon later. [The explanation is given in Section 11 in terms of sympathy, by which the feelings of others induce a similar feeling in ourselves.]

7. The fourth condition or limitation is that there be some measure of constancy in the object whose perception causes that passion and the duration of its relation to ourselves. What is casual and inconstant gives but little joy, and less pride. Inconstant objects are not very satisfying, and accordingly they do little or nothing to increase our satisfaction with ourselves for being related to them. We are little satisfied with the object because our imagination foresees and anticipates the changes in it. These changes seem magnified when compared to the durability of ourselves. It seems ridiculous to infer an excellency in ourselves from an object, which is so much shorter duration, and attends us during so small a part of our existence. Because the idea of the self is not as essential to the direct passion of joy as to the indirect passion of pride, the effects of inconstancy and short duration on the former will be less than on the latter.

8. The fifth limitation perhaps better described as an enlargement of this system. [That is, it is not a further necessary condition for the production of pride and humility, but rather it is a way in which the relationship lying at the basis of those passions can be established without there being agreeableness or disagreeableness of objects of certain kinds.] We attribute pride to certain ranks of men on the basis of their wealth or power, despite the fact that they are not able to find their wealth and power agreeable, due to ill-health, ill-temper, etc. The same principle which accounted for the effects of general rules on the understanding can be applied to their effects on the passions. [In Part I, Section 13, the author had accounted for the influence of general rules in terms of our tendency to mistake what is accidental for what is essential, when the accidental becomes customary.] Just as general rules subvert the proper use of our understanding, their use generate inappropriate passions. Custom readily carries us beyond the just bounds in our passions, as well as in our reasonings.

9. At this point, the author anticipates his later findings that general rules have a great influence on all the causes of the passions to be uncovered later in Part II. He illustrates the point with a thought-experiment. If a being of a nature similar to the human, but with no experience of life on earth were to drop into our midst, he would be at a loss as to which passions of pride or humility, love or hatred, he should feel regarding any object. [Note that the author has introduced a normative conception here, the passion that one ought attribute to an object.] The problem that would cause this individual to be very much embarrassed are that the principles that contribute to the production of the passions are very inconsiderable, and do not always play with a perfect regularity, especially on the first trial. [Presumably these principles would be such as peculiarity to the individual, constancy and inconstancy, etc.] However, custom and practice have established the right (just) values for objects, which must certainly contribute to the easy production of the passions, and guide us, by means of generally establish’d maxims, in the proportions we ought to observe in preferring one object to another. This observation about the influence of general rules, the author believes, may help overcome objections to some of his accounts of the particular causes of the passions. We find the causes to operate universally and with certainty, yet they might be thought too refin’d to do so. [Thus, general rules may be invoked to supplement their force. Apparent examples are personal wealth as the cause of pride (Section 10) and riches power in another as the cause of love of him (Part II, Section 5). What the two cases have in common is that particular circumstances might block the efficacy of those causes in producing pleasure in their possessors, yet the passions remain because of a general belief that they are good things to have.]

10. The subject of the limitations [and expansions] of the general account of the production of the passions of pride and humility is closed with a reflection derived from them. This reflection is, that the persons, who are proudest, and who in the eyes of the world have most reason for their pride, are not always the happiest; nor the most humble always the most miserable, as may at first sight be imagin’d from this system. [According to the system, pride results from finding objects related to the self to be agreeable and humility from finding such objects to be disagreeable. A generally proud person, then, would be one who finds most objects related appropriately to him to be agreeable, in which case, presumably, he would be happy.] The reason for this incongruity is that the reality of evils and goods [what are disagreeable and agreeable to us, respectively] need not stimulate pride and humility. There may be a real evil which has a cause that is not related to us. Similarly, a real evil or good need not be peculiar to ourselves, apparent to others, constant, or fall under a general rule. Such evils as these will not fail to render us miserable, tho’ they have little tendency to diminish pride. The author speculates that evils of this kind may be the most real and solid evils of life.

Dissertation II: Of the Passions

The final four of the five limitations discussed in this Section are re-described by Hume in item 11 of Section II. Rather than framing them as limitations of the system, the author describes them as explaining why the opinions of others seem to have more influence on the passions of pride and humility than on any other passion. The first circumstance that extends beyond the double relations of impressions and ideas described in the previous two Sections of the Treatise, is that there are few objects that incite pride unless they are also obvious to others, and engage the approbation of the spectators. (This corresponds to the third limitation.) Hume describes a contented state of mind that goes largely un-noticed as a virtuous state, but one that is seldom the foundation of great vanity or self-applause; having no brillancy or exterior lustre, and rather cheering the heart, than animating the behaviour and conversation. This holds for many other qualities of the mind, body, or fortune. The second circumstance, which corresponds to the fourth limitation, is the constancy and durableness of the object. Not only does the short duration of the object produce little satisfaction in ourselves when it is related to us, but the object suffers in comparison with our own duration. The third circumstance, corresponding to the second limitation, is that in order to produce pride, objects must be peculiar to us, or at least common to us with a few others. Advantages of good weather and such things do not raise us above our companions. General good health also does not instill pride, but an irreversible lack of health induces humility, to the extent that people try to hide their maladies. The fact that we are only humbled by relatively rare bodily infirmities is due to the fact that we are led by custom to judge things by comparison, rather than by their intrinsic worth. Moreover, we are ashamed of medical problems that are transmittable to others, due to their being contagious or hereditary. Men always consider the sentiments of others in the judgments of themselves. The fourth circumstance (and the limitation) is the influence of general rules. The text here is the same as in the Treatise.

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