ديفد هيوم

وقد يكون من الملائم أن نلاحظ في هذا الموضع أنه على الرغم من أن النتائج التي نستخرجها من خبرتنا تجاوز بنا حدود ذاكرتنا وحواسنا، وتؤكد لنا أمورا من الواقع حدثت في أبعد الأماكن عنا وفي أنأى العصور عن زمننا، إلا أنه لا بد دائما من أن تكون واقعة ما حاضرة أمام الحواس أو الذاكرة، تكون لنا نقطة بداية للسير في طريق استنتاجنا لتلك النتائج، فإن من يجد في أرض يباب آثار مبان شامخة، ليستنتج أن تلك الأرض قد كانت في العصور القديمة مأهولة بسكان متحضرين؛ أما إذا لم يصادف في تلك الأرض شيئا من هذا القبيل، فقد كان يستحيل عليه أن يقوم باستدلال كهذا، إننا نحيط علما بحوادث العصور الماضية من التاريخ، لكننا في هذه الحالة لا بد لنا أن نقرأ الكتب الحاوية لهذه المعلومات، بحيث نجعلها نقطة ابتداء لاستدلالاتنا التي نسير بها من شاهد إلى شاهد، حتى نصل في النهاية إلى شهود العيان والرائين الذين رأوا تلك الحوادث البعيدة؛ وبعبارة موجزة، إننا إذا لم نبدأ سيرنا من واقعة معينة حاضرة أمام الذاكرة أو الحواس، كانت تدليلاتنا العقلية فرضية خالصة، ومهما تكن - بعد ذلك - الروابط التي تربط الحلقات الجزئية، فإن سلسلة الاستدلالات بصفة عامة تكون بغير دعامة تستند إليها، ويكون محالا علينا أن نصل بوساطتها إلى معرفة بأي وجود حقيقي؛ إنني إذا سألتك لماذا تعتقد في وقوع أمر من أمور الواقع مما تروي لنا عنه، تحتم عليك أن تدلني على سبب يبرر ذلك، ولا بد أن يكون هذا السبب واقعة أخرى مرتبطة بالواقعة التي تروي عنها؛ ولما كنت لا تستطيع أن تمضي على هذا النحو [راجعا بواقعة إلى واقعة] إلى ما لا نهاية، فلا مندوحة لك عن أن يكون ختام سيرك واقعة ما تكون حاضرة أمام ذاكرتك أو حواسك، وإلا وجب عليك الاعتراف بأن اعتقادك ذاك لا يستند إطلاقا إلى أساس. «بحث في العقل البشري» (نشر سلبي بج) ص42-46

THE IDEA OF CAUSE AND EFFECT

Suppose a person, though endowed with the strongest faculties of reason and reflection, to be brought on a sudden into this world; he would, indeed, immediately observe a continued succession of objects, and one event following another; but he would not be able to discover anything farther. He would not, at first, by any reasoning, be able to reach the idea of cause and effect; since the particular powers, by which all natural operations are performed, never appear to the senses; nor is it reasonable to conclude, merely because one event, in one instance, precedes another, that therefore the one is the cause, the other the effect. Their conjunction may be arbitrary and casual. There may be no reason to infer the existence of one from the appearance of the other. And in a word, such a person, without more experience, could never employ his conjecture or reasoning concerning any matter of fact, or be assured of anything beyond what was immediately present to his memory and senses.

Suppose, again, that he has acquired more experience, and has lived so long in the world as to have observed familiar objects or events to be constantly conjoined together; what is the consequence of this experience? He immediately infers the existence of one object from the appearance of the other. Yet he has not, by all his experience, acquired any idea or knowledge of the secret power by which the one object produces the other; nor is it, by any process of reasoning, he is engaged to draw this inference. But still he finds himself determined to draw it: And though he should be convinced that his understanding has no part in the operation, he would nevertheless continue in the same course of thinking. There is some other principle which determines him to form such a conclusion.

This principle is custom or Habit. For wherever the repetition of any particular act or operation produces a propensity to renew the same act or operation, without being impelled by any reasoning or process of the understanding, we always say, that this propensity is the effect of 'Custom’. By employing that word, we pretend not to have given the ultimate reason of such a propensity. We only point out a principle of human nature; which in universally acknowledge, and which is well known by its effects. Perhaps we can push our enquiries no farther, or pretend to give the cause of this cause; but must rest contented with it as the ultimate principle, which we can assign, of all our conclusions from experience. It is sufficient satisfaction, that we can go so far, without repining at the narrowness of our faculties because they will carry us no farther. And it is certain we here advance a very intelligible proposition at least, if not a true one, when we assert that, after a constant conjunction of two objects-heat and flame, for instance, weight and solidity-we are determined by custom alone to expect the one from the appearance of the other. This hypothesis seems even the only one which explains the difficulty, why we draw, from a thousand instances, an inference which we are not able to draw from one instance, that is, in no respect, different from them. Reason is incapable of any such variation. The conclusions which it draws from considering one circle are the same which it would form upon surveying all the circles in the universe. But no man, having seen only one body move after being impelled by another, could infer that every other body will move after a like impulse. All inferences from experience, therefore, are effects of custom, not of reasoning.

Custom, then, is the great guide of human life. It is that principle alone which renders our experience useful to us, and makes us expect, for the future, a similar train of events with those which have appeared in the past. Without the influence of custom, we should be entirely ignorant of every matter of fact beyond what is immediately present to the memory and senses. We should never know how to adjust means to ends, or to employ our natural powers in the productions of any effect. There would be an end at once of all action, as well as of the chief part of speculation.

But here it may be proper to remark, that though our conclusions from experience carry us beyond our memory and senses, and assure us of matters of fact which happened in the most distant places and most remote ages, yet some fact must always be present to the senses or memory, from which we may first proceed in drawing these conclusions. A man, who should find in a desert country the remains of pompous buildings, would conclude that the country had, in ancient times, been cultivated by civilized inhabitants; but did nothing of this nature occur to him, he could never form such an inference. We learn the events of former ages from history; but then we must peruse the volumes in which this instruction is contained, and thence carry up our inferences from one testimony to another, till we arrive at the eyewitnesses and spectators of these distant events. In a word, if we proceed not upon some fact, present to the memory or senses, our reasonings would be merely hypothetical; and however the particular links might be connected with each other, the whole chain of inferences would have nothing to support it, nor could we ever, by its means, arrive at the knowledge of any real existence. If I ask why you believe any particular matter of fact, which you relate, you must tell me some reason; and this reason will be some other fact, connected with it. But as you cannot proceed after this manner, in infinitum, you must at last terminate in some fact, which is present to your memory or senses; or must allow that your belief is entirely without foundation.

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (ed. Selby-Bigge) pp. 42-46

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