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    The Essential Philosophical Works
    The Essential Philosophical Works
    The Essential Philosophical Works
    Ebook1,259 pages23 hours

    The Essential Philosophical Works

    By David Hume, Charlotte R. Brown and William Edward Morris

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    With an introduction by Charlotte R. Brown and William Edward Morris.

    David Hume (1711–1776) was the most important philosopher ever to write in English, as well as a master stylist. This volume contains his major philosophical works. A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–1740), published while Hume was still in his twenties, consists of three books on the understanding, the passions, and morals. It applies the experimental method of reasoning to human nature in a revolution that was intended to make Hume the Newton of the moral sciences. Disappointed with the Treatise’s failure to bring about such a revolution, Hume later recast Book I as An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1751), and Book III as An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, which he regarded as ‘incomparably the best’ of all his works. Both Enquiries went through several editions in his lifetime.

    Hume’s works, controversial in his day, remain deeply and widely influential in ours, especially for his contributions to our understanding of the nature of morality, political and economic theory, philosophy of religion, and philosophical naturalism.

    This volume also includes Hume’s anonymous Abstract of Books I and II of the Treatise, and the short autobiographical essay, ‘My Own Life’, which he wrote just before his death.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWordsworth Editions
    Release dateMay 1, 2012
    ISBN9781848705449
    The Essential Philosophical Works
    Author

    David Hume

    David Hume was an eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher, historian, and essayist, and the author of A Treatise of Human Nature, considered by many to be one of the most important philosophical works ever published. Hume attended the University of Edinburgh at an early age and considered a career in law before deciding that the pursuit of knowledge was his true calling. Hume’s writings on rationalism and empiricism, free will, determinism, and the existence of God would be enormously influential on contemporaries such as Adam Smith, as well as the philosophers like Schopenhauer, John Stuart Mill, and Karl Popper, who succeeded him. Hume died in 1776.

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      The Essential Philosophical Works - David Hume

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      Contents

      A Treatise of Human Nature

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      Introduction

      Book 1: Of the Understanding

      Part 1: Of Ideas, their Origin, Composition, Connexion, Abstraction, etc.

      Section 1: Of the origin of our ideas

      Section 2: Division of the subject

      Section 3: Of the ideas of the memory and the imagination

      Section 4: Of the connexion or association of ideas

      Section 5: Of relations

      Section 6: Of modes and substances

      Section 7: Of abstract ideas

      Part 2: Of the Ideas of Space and Time

      Section 1: Of the infinite divisibility of our ideas of space and time

      Section 2: Of the infinite divisibility of space and time

      Section 3: Of the other qualities of our idea of space and time

      Section 4: Objections answered

      Section 5: The same subject continued

      Section 6: Of the idea of existence, and of external existence

      Part 3: Of Knowledge and Probability

      Section 1: Of knowledge

      Section 2: Of probability, and of the idea of cause and effect

      Section 3: Why a cause is always necessary

      Section 4: Of the component parts of our reasonings concerning cause and effect

      Section 5: Of the impressions of the senses and memory

      Section 6: Of the inference from the impression to the idea

      Section 7: Of the nature of the idea or belief

      Section 8: Of the causes of belief

      Section 9: Of the effects of other relations and other habits

      Section 10: Of the influence of belief

      Section 11: Of the probability of chances

      Section 12: Of the probability of causes

      Section 13: Of unphilosophical probability

      Section 14: Of the idea of necessary connexion

      Section 15: Rules by which to judge of causes and effects

      Section 16: Of the reason of animals

      Part 4: Of the Sceptical and other Systems of Philosophy

      Section 1: Of scepticism with regard to reason

      Section 2: Of scepticism with regard to the senses

      Section 3: Of the ancient philosophy

      Section 4: Of the modern philosophy

      Section 5: Of the immateriality of the soul

      Section 6: Of personal identity

      Section 7: Conclusion of this book

      Book 2: Of the Passions

      Part 1: Of Pride and Humility

      Section 1: Division of the subject

      Section 2: Of pride and humility, their objects and causes

      Section 3: Whence these objects and causes are derived

      Section 4: Of the relations of impressions and ideas

      Section 5: Of the influence of these relations on pride and humility

      Section 6: Limitations of this system

      Section 7: Of vice and virtue

      Section 8: Of beauty and deformity

      Section 9: Of external advantages and disadvantages

      Section 10: Of property and riches

      Section 11: Of the love of fame

      Section 12: Of the pride and humility of animals

      Part 2: Of Love and Hatred

      Section 1: Of the object and causes of love and hatred

      Section 2: Experiments to confirm this system

      Section 3: Difficulties solved

      Section 4: Of the love of relations

      Section 5: Of our esteem for the rich and powerful

      Section 6: Of benevolence and anger

      Section 7: Of compassion

      Section 8: Of malice and envy

      Section 9: Of the mixture of benevolence and anger with compassion and malice

      Section 10: Of respect and contempt

      Section 11: Of the amorous passion, or love between the sexes

      Section 12: Of the love and hatred of animals

      Part 3: Of the Will and Direct Passions

      Section 1: Of liberty and necessity

      Section 2: The same subject continued

      Section 3: Of the influencing motives of the will

      Section 4: Of the causes of the violent passions

      Section 5: Of the effects of custom

      Section 6: Of the influence of the imagination on the passions

      Section 7: Of contiguity and distance in space and time

      Section 8: The same subject continued

      Section 9: Of the direct passions

      Section 10: Of curiosity, or the love of truth

      Book 3: Of Morals

      Part 1: Of Virtue and Vice in general

      Section 1: Moral distinctions not derived from reason

      Section 2: Moral distinctions derived from a moral sense

      Part 2: Of Justice and Injustice

      Section 1: Justice, whether a natural or artificial virtue?

      Section 2: Of the origin of justice and property

      Section 3: Of the rules which determine property

      Section 4: Of the transference of property by consent

      Section 5: Of the obligation of promises

      Section 6: Some farther reflections concerning justice and injustice

      Section 7: Of the origin of government

      Section 8: Of the source of allegiance

      Section 9: Of the measures of allegiance

      Section 10: Of the objects of allegiance

      Section 11: Of the laws of nations

      Section 12: Of chastity and modesty

      Part 3: Of the other Virtues and Vices

      Section 1: Of the origin of the natural virtues and vices

      Section 2: Of greatness of mind

      Section 3: Of goodness and benevolence

      Section 4: Of natural abilities

      Section 5: Some farther reflections concerning the natural virtues

      Section 6: Conclusion of this book

      Appendix

      An Abstract of a Book lately published entitled A Treatise of Human Nature, &c.

      Author’s Advertisement

      An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding

      Section 1: Of the different species of philosophy

      Section 2: Of the origin of ideas

      Section 3: Of the association of ideas

      Section 4: Sceptical doubts concerning the operations of the understanding

      Section 5: Sceptical solution of these doubts

      Section 6: Of probability

      Section 7: Of the idea of necessary connexion

      Section 8: Of liberty and necessity

      Section 9: Of the reason of animals

      Section 10: Of miracles

      Section 11: Of a particular providence and of a future state

      Section 12: Of the academical or sceptical philosophy

      An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals

      Section 1: Of the general principles of morals

      Section 2: Of benevolence

      Section 3: Of justice

      Section 4: Of political society

      Section 5: Why utility pleases

      Section 6: Of qualities useful to ourselves

      Section 7: Of qualities immediately agreeable to ourselves

      Section 8: Of qualities immediately agreeable to others

      Section 9: Conclusion

      Appendix 1: Concerning moral sentiment

      Appendix 2: Of self-love

      Appendix 3: Some farther considerations with regard to justice

      Appendix 4: Of some verbal disputes

      A Dialogue

      My own Life

      Introduction

      The most important philosopher ever to write in English, David Hume was also well known in his own time as an historian and essayist. A master stylist in any genre, his major philosophical works – A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–1740), the Enquiries concerning Human Understanding (1748) and concerning the Principles of Morals (1751), as well as his posthumously published Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779) – remain widely and deeply influential.

      Hume was the outstanding philosopher of what we now call the Scottish Enlightenment, the extraordinary outburst of Scottish intellectual and scientific activity in the eighteenth century that was pivotal in creating the modern world. Edinburgh was the epicenter of the Scottish Enlightenment, and Hume was one of the leading lights in this ‘hotbed of genius’.

      Although Hume’s more conservative contemporaries denounced his writings as works of scepticism and atheism, his influence is evident in the moral philosophy and economic writings of his close friend Adam Smith. Hume also awakened Immanuel Kant from his ‘dogmatic slumbers’ and ‘caused the scales to fall’ from Jeremy Bentham’s eyes. Charles Darwin counted Hume as a central influence, as did ‘Darwin’s bulldog’, Thomas Henry Huxley. The diverse directions in which these writers took what they gleaned from reading Hume reflect not only the richness of their sources but also the wide range of his empiricism. Today, philosophers recognize Hume as a precursor of contemporary cognitive science, as well as one of the most thoroughgoing exponents of philosophical naturalism.

      Life and Works

      Born in Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital, in 1711, Hume’s family was socially well connected, but not wealthy. His mother realized that he was ‘uncommonly wake-minded’ or precocious, so when his older brother went up to Edinburgh University, Hume went with him, although he was only 10 or 11. There he studied Latin and Greek language and culture and read widely in history, literature and philosophy. He was supposed to pursue a legal career, but found the law ‘nauseous’ and decided instead to become a ‘Scholar & Philosopher’. He followed a rigorous program of reading and reflection for several years until there ‘open’d up to me a New Scene of Thought’. The intensity of developing his philosophical vision precipitated a psychological crisis in the isolated scholar. But the crisis passed, and Hume remained intent on developing his ‘new scene of thought’. As a second son, his inheritance was meager, so he moved to France, where he could live cheaply. In 1734, when he was only 23, he began writing A Treatise of Human Nature.

      Hume returned to England in 1737 to ready the Treatise for the press. In hopes of receiving the favorable opinion of a leading philosopher and theologian, he ‘castrated’ his manuscript, deleting his controversial discussion of miracles, along with other ‘nobler parts’. Book 1, ‘Of the Understanding’, and Book 2, ‘Of the Passions’, appeared anonymously in 1739. The next year saw the publication of Book 3, ‘Of Morals’ and his anonymous ‘Abstract’ of Books 1 and 2, which features a clear, succinct account of ‘one simple argument’ concerning causation.

      The Treatise’s poor reception prompted Hume to recast it. In 1748, An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding appeared, covering the central ideas of Book 1 of the Treatise and his discussion of free will from Book 2. He also included material he had excised from the Treatise. In 1751 An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals was published, a rewritten version of Book 3 of the Treatise which Hume described as ‘incomparably the best’ of all his work.

      From time to time Hume made forays into the wider world. He served as a secretary in several diplomatic missions, was the librarian of the law library in Edinburgh, and held important diplomatic posts in France. During his stay in Paris, he became the rage of its salons, enjoying the company of famous European intellectuals.

      Hume’s reputation as an atheist and sceptic dogged him throughout his life. Twice turned down for professorships, he never held an academic post. As a librarian, one of his orders for ‘indecent Books’ prompted a move for his dismissal and excommunication. Friends and publishers persuaded him to hold off publishing some of his more controversial writings, especially those on religion, during his lifetime.

      In 1775, Hume was diagnosed with intestinal cancer. He died in 1776, just after writing his short autobiography, ‘My Own Life’. There was much curiosity about how ‘the great infidel’ would face his death, but his friends agreed that he prepared himself with the same peaceful cheer that characterized his life.

      In addition to the Treatise and the Enquiries, Hume’s other writings include collections of his popular essays on politics, economics, history and aesthetics. During his stint as law librarian, he used the library’s resources to research his six-volume History of England, which was a bestseller well into the next century. He also wrote extensively on topics in the philosophy of religion. His most controversial work, Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, posthumously published in 1779, is a devastating critique of the argument from design.

      This volume contains the Treatise, the Abstract and the Enquiries, in addition to his autobiographical essay. The relation between the Treatise and the Enquiries, however, presents a problem for Hume scholars, since he seems to disavow the Treatise in an advertisement he attached to late editions of his works. Should we take his statement literally and let the Enquiries represent his considered view? Or is the Treatise the best statement of his position?

      Both options presuppose that there are substantial enough differences between the two works to warrant our taking one or the other as best representing Hume’s position. But there are good reasons to doubt this. Hume himself claims that the ‘philosophical principles are the same in both’. His project in the Enquiries was to ‘cast the whole anew . . . where some negligences in his former reasoning and more in the expression, are . . . corrected’, since he believed that the Treatise’s lack of success ‘proceeded more from the manner than the matter’. Perhaps Hume’s recasting of the Treatise was designed to correct its ‘manner’ of presentation – its structure – more than its ‘matter’ – its philosophical content, which suggests that we might understand him best by reading both works, despite their differences, together.

      Hume is a major player in two important debates of the modern period, the debates about causation and the foundation of ethics. After briefly sketching the philosophical background to these debates, we look at his criticisms of his predecessors, his understanding of the problems that need to be solved, as well as his radically innovative solutions to them.

      Hume’s Project, Method and Machinery

      Before we look at Hume’s contributions to these debates, we need to understand how he conceives of his philosophical project. What are its aims? What methodology should it employ? He answers these questions in his ‘Introduction’ to the Treatise, in the Abstract, and in the first sections of both Enquiries.

      As the title of the Treatise proclaims, Hume’s subject is human nature. He summarizes his project in its subtitle: ‘an attempt to introduce the experimental method of reasoning into moral subjects’. In Hume’s day, ‘moral’ meant anything concerned with human beings, not just morality or ethics. Moral philosophy contrasts with natural philosophy, or what we now call natural science. Hume aims to bring the scientific method to the study of human nature.

      Hume’s reading convinced him that the philosophical study of human nature was in a sorry state. While he had reservations about the ancient philosophers for depending ‘more on Invention than Experience’, he found modern philosophers – his contemporaries and immediate predecessors – disturbing. Their theories were too speculative, paying too little attention to what human nature was actually like. Instead of helping us understand ourselves, they were mired in interminable debates about inadequately supported suppositions.

      He begins by asking why philosophers haven’t made the spectacular progress in trying to understand human nature that natural scientists have recently achieved in the physical sciences. His answer is that scientists have cured themselves of their ‘passion for hypotheses and systems’, which in Hume’s day was code for any theory that depended more on speculative conjecture than experience and observation. In studying human nature, philosophers haven’t yet purged themselves of this temptation.

      To make progress, Hume says, we need first to ‘reject every system . . . however subtle or ingenious, which is not founded on fact and observation’. These ‘systems’ cover a wide range of entrenched and influential philosophical and theological views. They have in common that they attempt to discover the ‘ultimate original principles’ – principles that purport to give us a deeper and more certain knowledge of ultimate reality – of human nature. But Hume argues that in attempting to go beyond anything we can possibly experience, these metaphysical theories try to ‘penetrate into subjects utterly inaccessible to the understanding’. As a result, their claims to have found the ‘ultimate principles’ of human nature are unintelligible. In its incoherent efforts to go deeper, metaphysics loses any claim to be a science. These ‘airy sciences’ only have the ‘air’ of science.

      Worse still, these metaphysical systems serve as smokescreens for ‘popular superstitions’ that attempt to overwhelm us with religious fears and prejudices. Although ‘superstition’ was code during this period for Catholicism, Hume was confident that his readers, most of whom were Protestants, would know that organized religion in general is his real target.

      The only way to resist the allure of these pseudo-sciences is to engage with them, countering their ‘abstruse philosophy and metaphysical jargon’ with ‘accurate and just reasoning’. Thus the initial phase of Hume’s project is essentially critical. It aims to eliminate metaphysics by showing that these theories are not just false, but unintelligible.

      Until recently, scholars emphasized this critical phase at the expense of the rest of Hume’s project, which encouraged the charge that he was a negative sceptic. But while Hume is indeed sceptical about the possibility of metaphysical insights that go deeper than science can, he is not at all sceptical about the prospect of a science of human nature. His critique of metaphysics clears the way for the constructive phase of his project: an investigation of ‘the proper province of human reason’, which Hume believes will lead to the development of an empirical science of human nature based on ‘the only solid foundation’ of experiment and observation.

      Metaphysics tempts us to think we can find principles that show us the ultimate nature of reality. Hume shows us how to resist that temptation. His project takes us away from an incoherent search for ‘ultimate principles’ to the principles that actually govern human nature. Hume believes that his proposed descriptive ‘delineation of the distinct parts and powers of the mind’, offers a genuine alternative to the unintelligible speculations of previous philosophies. His preferred terms, ‘mental geography’ and ‘anatomy of the mind’, aptly characterize the way he thinks we should pursue the science of human nature.

      By answering empirical questions in the only way they can be intelligibly answered, Hume thinks we shall finally achieve a clear understanding of how we think, feel, and act, of our various powers and capacities as well as our limitations.

      He proposes to explain how we think, feel and act by accounting for ‘all effects from the simplest and fewest causes’. He believes that if he follows the same caution Newton displayed in developing his physics, he will be able to explain the workings of our minds in an equally economical manner. To do so, he introduces the minimal amount of machinery necessary to account for the operations of our understanding, all of which is warranted by our experience of how our minds work.

      He begins with an account of perceptions, because he believes that any intelligible philosophical question can be asked and answered in those terms. Although every modern philosopher held some version of this ‘theory of ideas’, Hume’s version is distinctive for three reasons. First, he distinguishes between impressions and ideas. Next, he bases his account of the cognitive content or meaning of our ideas on that distinction; and finally, he uses the principles of association to account for the connections among perceptions.

      Hume uses the term perception to designate any mental content. He divides perceptions into two categories, impressions and ideas. Impressions include sensations as well as passions, desires and sentiments. Ideas are ‘faint images of these in thinking and reasoning’. He thinks everyone is familiar with his distinction, since it is simply the difference between feeling something (the present pain of sun-burn) and thinking of something (recalling a painful childhood sunburn). Hume also distinguishes between impressions of sensation (‘outward sentiment’ or ‘original impressions’) and impressions of reflection (‘inward sentiment’ or ‘secondary impressions’). Impressions of sensation include the feelings that come from our five senses as well as sensations of pain and pleasure, all of which arise ‘from unknown causes’. Impressions of reflection include desires, emotions, passions, and sentiments. They are so called because most are caused by our reactions to ideas, as when remembering a very unpleasant experience causes the strong desire to avoid further experiences like it.

      Although we may freely separate and combine ideas to form complex ideas of things we haven’t experienced (adding my idea of a bull’s horn to my idea of a horse to form an idea of a unicorn), our creative powers extend no farther than what we’re given in experience. Complex ideas are composed of simple ideas, which are fainter copies of the simple impressions from which they are ultimately derived, to which they correspond and which they exactly represent.

      Hume offers this claim as his ‘first principle . . . in the science of human nature’, presenting it as an empirical thesis. Usually called the ‘Copy Principle’, it is most often identified with his distinctive brand of empiricism. His use of the principle’s reverse in his account of definition, however, is perhaps the most innovative element of his system.

      Hume touts his account of definition as ‘a new microscope or species of optics’, with which we will surmount ‘the chief obstacle . . . to our improvement in the moral or metaphysical sciences . . . the obscurity of the ideas, and ambiguity of the terms’.

      It is a device for determining the cognitive content of words and ideas, using a simple series of tests. Begin with a term. Ask what idea is annexed to it. If there is no such idea, then the term has no cognitive content, however prominently it figures in philosophy or theology. If there is an idea annexed to the term, and it is complex, break it down into the simple ideas that compose it, and trace them back to their original impressions. If the process fails at any point, the idea in question lacks cognitive content. When carried through successfully, however, it yields a ‘just definition’ – a precise account of the troublesome idea or term.

      Hume uses his account of definition in his project’s critical phase to show that the central concepts of traditional metaphysics lack any intelligible content. He also uses it in its constructive phase to determine the precise meaning of our terms and ideas.

      Our ideas are also regularly connected, and a science of human nature should account for this ‘secret tie or union’ among them. Hume explained this ‘union’ in terms of the mind’s natural ability to associate certain ideas. Association is ‘a gentle force, which commonly prevails’, by means of which one idea or impression naturally introduces another. Hume locates three principles of association: resemblance (a photo calls up your idea of its subject), contiguity (passing a church reminds you of the theater that once stood next to it), and causation (someone’s son makes you think of his father).

      Causation is the strongest associative principle, and the only one that takes us ‘beyond our senses’, establishing a link between our past and present experiences and our expectations about the future. It is also the least understood, but Hume intimates that he will soon rectify this deficiency.

      Hume regarded his use of the principles of association as his most distinctive contribution, one that entitled him to call himself an ‘inventor’. He advertised the associative principles as the philosophical equivalent of Newton’s Law of Gravitation: ‘Here is a kind of Attraction, which in the mental world will be found to have as extraordinary effects as in the natural.’ Like the inverse square law, its ‘effects are every where conspicuous’ but their causes ‘are mostly unknown, and must be resolv’d into original qualities of human nature, which I pretend not to explain.’ Trying to account for them further would take us illegitimately beyond the bounds of experience. Nonetheless, since the associative principles ‘are the only ties of our thoughts, they are really to us the cement of the universe, and all the operations of the mind must, in great measure, depend on them.’

      Causation

      The medieval synthesis Thomas Aquinas (1224–1274) forged between Christian theology and Aristotle’s science and metaphysics set the terms for the early modern causation debate. Aristotle (384–322 BCE) believed there was an absolute categorical distinction between scientific knowledge (scientia) and belief (opinio). Scientific knowledge was knowledge of causes and scientific explanation was an activity of intellect consisting in demonstration – proving the necessary connection between a cause and its effect from intuitively obvious premises independently of experience.

      Modern philosophers thought of themselves as scientific revolutionaries because they rejected Aristotle’s account of causation. Even so, they accepted his distinction between knowledge and belief, and regarded causal inference as an exercise of reason, which aimed at demonstrating the necessary connection between cause and effect. Nicholas Malebranche (1638–1715) and others following Descartes (1596–1650) were optimistic about the possibility of obtaining demonstrative scientific knowledge, while those in the British experimental tradition were more pessimistic. John Locke (1632–1704) was sufficiently sceptical about what knowledge we could attain that he constructed one of the first accounts of probable inference.

      When Hume enters the debate, he translates the traditional distinction between knowledge and belief into his own terms, dividing ‘all the objects of human reason or enquiry’ into two categories: relations of ideas and matters of fact. Propositions concerning relations of ideas are intuitively or demonstratively certain. They are known a priori – discoverable independently of experience by ‘the mere operation of thought’, so their truth doesn’t depend on anything actually existing. That the interior angles of a Euclidean triangle sum to 180 degrees is true whether or not there are any Euclidean triangles to be found in nature.

      In sharp contrast, the truth of propositions concerning matters of fact depends on the way the world is. Their contraries are always possible, and their denials never imply contradictions. Matters of fact can’t be the subjects of demonstration, and can’t have the certainty demonstrations provide. However certain it may be that the sun will rise tomorrow, it can’t be demonstrated, and however false, the claim that it won’t involves no contradiction.

      Hume’s method dictates his strategy. He begins with the causal inferences we make. In the critical phase, he argues that his predecessors were wrong: our causal inferences aren’t determined by ‘reason or any other operation of the understanding’. He supplies an alternative in the constructive phase: the associative principles are their basis. He then examines the idea of necessary connection. While he agrees with his predecessors that that idea is an essential part of our idea of causation, in the critical phase, he argues that their various attempts to characterize it are unintelligible. In the constructive phase, he offers his own positive account of that idea, by determining its source in impressions.

      Hume’s contributions to the critical phase of the causation debate are contained in Treatise 1.3.6 and in Section 4 of the first Enquiry, appropriately titled ‘Sceptical doubts concerning the operations of the understanding’. The constructive phase in the Enquiry is in the following section, also appropriately titled, ‘Sceptical solution of these doubts’, while his constructive account in the Treatise stretches from 1.3.7 through 1.3.10. His critical and constructive accounts of our idea of necessary connection are found in single sections of both works: Treatise 1.3.14 and Enquiry 8. Even though his discussion of causation is neither ‘simple’ nor a ‘single argument’, Hume summarizes it in the Abstract as the ‘one simple argument’ he showcases.

      Causal Inference: the critical phase. Causal inferences are the only way we can go beyond the evidence of our senses and memories. In making them, we suppose there is some connection between present facts and what we infer from them. But what is this connection? How is it established?

      If the connection is established by reasoning, it must concern either relations of ideas or matters of fact.

      Hume argues that the connection can’t involve relations of ideas. Effects are distinct events from their causes, so there is no contradiction in conceiving of a cause occurring, and its usual effect not occurring. Ordinary causal judgments are so familiar that we tend to overlook this; they seem immediate and intuitive. But suppose you were suddenly brought into the world as an adult, armed with the intellectual firepower of an Einstein. Could you, simply by examining an aspirin tablet, determine that it will relieve your headache?

      If causal inferences don’t involve a priori reasoning about relations of ideas, they must concern matters of fact and experience. When we’ve had many experiences of one kind of event constantly conjoined with another, we begin to think of them as cause and effect and infer the one from the other. This describes what we all do, but what is the foundation of our inferences?

      Hume argues that even after we’ve had many experiences of a cause being conjoined with its effect, our inferences aren’t determined by reason, or by any other process of the understanding.

      In the past my headaches have been relieved by taking aspirin, so I believe taking aspirin will relieve the headache I’m having now. My inference is based on the superficial sensible qualities of the aspirin – its size, shape, color, and taste, which have nothing to do with headache relief. Even if I assume that the aspirin has ‘secret powers’ – powers unknown to me and not accessible through my senses – that are doing the heavy lifting in relieving my headache, these qualities are unknown, so they can’t be the basis of my inference.

      How, then, do I draw the conclusions I draw from the constant conjunction of objects in my experience?

      When I infer that this aspirin will cure my present headache, I’m doing more than just citing remembered constant conjunctions. I’m projecting my past experience into the future, to objects that may only appear similar.

      These two propositions are clearly different:

      (1) I’ve found that taking aspirin has always been followed by headache relief and

      (2) Taking aspirin similar to the ones I’ve taken in the past will relieve my present headache.

      We do infer propositions like (2) from propositions like (1). But if our inferences are determined by reason, then what chain of reasoning takes me from (1) to (2), since Hume has shown that their connection obviously isn’t intuitive?

      Notice that while (1) summarizes my past experience, (2) makes a claim about what will happen in the immediate future. The chain of reasoning I need must show me how my past experience is relevant to my future experience. I need some proposition or propositions that will establish an appropriate link between past and future, and take me from (1) to (2) using either demonstrative reasoning, concerning relations of ideas, or probable reasoning, concerning matters of fact.

      From Hume’s earlier points about demonstrative reasoning, we can see that it won’t establish the link we need. However unlikely it may be, we can always intelligibly conceive of a change in the course of nature. Even though aspirin relieved my past headaches, it implies no contradiction to suppose that it won’t relieve the one I’m having now, so it can’t be proven false by any reasoning involving relations of ideas.

      That leaves probable reasoning. But probable reasoning can’t establish the connection, either, since it is based on the relation of cause and effect. What we understand about the relation of cause and effect is based on experience, and our inferences from experience are based on the principle that nature is uniform – that the future will be like the past.

      But this Uniformity Principle isn’t intuitive, either, and trying to prove it by probable arguments is either viciously circular or question-begging. For any such appeal must assume some version of the Uniformity Principle itself – the very principle we need to justify.

      This exhausts the ways reason might establish a connection between cause and effect, and so completes the critical phase of Hume’s project. Hume insists that he offers his remarks not as ‘discouragement, but rather an incitement . . . to attempt something more full and satisfactory’. Having cleared a space for his constructive account, he is ready to do just that.

      Causal Inference: the constructive phase. We make causal inferences all the time. If they aren’t determined by reason, then ‘some principle of equal weight and authority’ must lead us to make them. ‘What that principle is may well be worth the pains of enquiry’. We’ve discovered that we make them only after we’ve experienced the regular conjunction of different kinds of events, and ‘whenever 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.’

      Custom and habit are general names for the principles of association. It is therefore custom, and not reason, that ‘determines the mind . . . to suppose the future conformable to the past’. Since causation is the operative associative principle here, Hume is presenting a causal account of causal inference. It is only because our minds are governed by the associative principles that we’re able to draw an inference from many cases that we can’t from one exactly similar case.

      Causal inference leads us not only to conceive of the effect, but also to expect it. When I expect the aspirin will relieve my headache, I’m not just thinking about headache relief, I believe that aspirin will relieve it. What more is involved in my belief that my headache will be relieved by taking aspirin than in my conceiving that it will be?

      It can’t be that there is some additional idea that beliefs have – the idea of belief, perhaps – that conceptions lack. If there were, given our ability to freely combine ideas, we could by an act of will, just add that idea to any conception whatsoever, and believe anything we like.

      Hume concludes that belief must be some sentiment or feeling aroused in us independently of our wills, which accompanies those ideas that constitute them. It is a particular way or manner of conceiving an idea that is generated by the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

      We’ve been focusing on the background circumstances – experienced constant conjunctions. But if only constant conjunctions were involved, my thoughts about aspirin and headaches would only be hypothetical. For belief, one of the conjoined objects must be present to my senses or memories; I must be taking, or just have taken, the aspirin. In these circumstances, believing that my headache will soon be relieved is as unavoidable as feeling affection for a close friend, or anger when someone harms us. ‘All these operations are a species of natural instincts, which no reasoning . . . is able either to produce or to prevent’.

      Defining this sentiment may well be impossible, just as difficult as it is to define how cold or anger feels to someone who has never experienced those feelings. But Hume thinks we can describe belief, if only by analogy, although he was never completely satisfied with his efforts to do so. Belief is a livelier, firmer, more vivid, steady and intense conception of an object. His characterizations are intended to go beyond merely recording intensity of feeling in order to capture ‘that act of the mind, which renders realities . . . more present to us than fictions, causes them to weigh more in the thought, and gives them a superior influence on the passions and imagination.’

      But how does an idea come to be conceived in such a manner that it constitutes a belief?

      Hume’s explanation is that as I become accustomed to aspirin’s relieving my headaches, I develop a propensity – a tendency – to expect headache relief to follow taking aspirin. That propensity is due to the associative bond that my repeated experiences of taking aspirin and headache relief have formed. My present impressions of taking an aspirin are as forceful and vivid as anything could be, and some of their force and vivacity transfer through the associative path to the idea of headache relief, enlivening it with enough force and vivacity to give it the ‘strength and solidity’ that constitutes belief.

      Since I don’t know how aspirin relieves headaches, it is fortunate that there is ‘a kind of pre-established harmony between the course of nature and the succession of our ideas’ that teaches me to take aspirin when I have a headache. Custom, Hume maintains, in language that anticipates and influenced Darwin, ‘is that principle by which this correspondence has been effected; so necessary to the subsistence of our species, and the regulation of our conduct, in every circumstance and occurrence of human life’. Better to rely on ‘the ordinary wisdom of nature’, which ensures that beliefs are formed ‘by some instinct or mechanical tendency’, than trust it to ‘the fallacious deductions of our reason’.

      The Idea of Necessary Connection

      The early modern causation debate revolved around a family of ‘nearly synonymous’ key ideas, the most prominent of which were power and necessary connection. For Hume, ‘there are no ideas, which occur in metaphysics, more obscure and uncertain.’ He showcases the critical and constructive uses of his theory of definition as he attempts ‘to fix . . . the precise meaning of these terms, and thereby remove some part of that obscurity, which is so much complained of in this species of philosophy.’

      Necessary Connection: the critical phase. To get clear about the idea of power or necessary connection, we need to determine the impressions that are its source. He finds in his predecessors three possible sources for that idea: Locke thought we get our idea of power secondarily from external impressions of the interactions of physical objects, and primarily from internal impressions of our ability to move our bodies and to call up ideas. Malebranche argued that what we take to be causes of either bodily motion or mental activity aren’t really causes at all. They are only occasions for God, the only source of necessary connection, to act in the world. Hume rejects all three possible sources.

      He argues that external impressions of the interactions of bodies can’t give rise to our idea of power. We only observe bodies’ sensible qualities, which tell us nothing about what power they might have. While we see that the motion of one billiard ball follows another, we only observe their conjunction, but never their connection.

      Attending to the internal impressions of the operations of our minds doesn’t improve matters. We don’t get our idea of power from our ability to move our bodies. Although voluntary bodily movements follow our willing that those movements occur, this is a matter of fact I learn through experience, not from some internal impression of my will’s power. When I decide to type, my fingers move over the keyboard. When I decide to stop, they stop, but I have no idea how any of this happens. I can’t move my fingers directly, nor can I move my pancreas with equal ease. If I were aware of the power of my will, I’d know both the physical details involved and my will’s limitations.

      Our ability to control our thoughts doesn’t give us an impression of power, either. We don’t have a clue about how we call up our ideas. Our command over them is limited and varies from time to time. We learn about these limitations and variations only through experience. The mechanisms by which they operate are totally unknown and incomprehensible. If I decide to think about Istanbul, the idea of that city generally comes to mind, but I experience only the succession of decision followed by the idea’s appearance, and never the power itself.

      When ordinary people can’t determine what caused some event, they attribute it to some ‘invisible intelligent principle’. Malebranche and the occasionalists do the same thing, except they apply this principle across the boards. They argue that true causes aren’t powers or forces, either in the physical world or in human minds. The only true cause is God’s willing that certain objects should always be conjoined with certain others.

      Anyone aware of our minds’ narrow limits should realize that Malebranche’s theory takes us into ‘fairyland’. It goes so far beyond our experience that we have no way of intelligibly assessing it. It also capitalizes on how little we know about the interactions of bodies, but since our idea of God is based on extrapolations from our faculties, our ignorance in this regard should also apply to him.

      Hume admits that since we’ve canvassed the leading contenders for the source of our idea of necessary connection, it might seem that we have no such idea.

      Necessary Connection: the constructive phase. But that, Hume maintains, would be too hasty. In our discussion of causal inference, we saw that when we’ve found that one kind of event is constantly conjoined with another, we begin to expect the one to occur when the other does. We don’t hesitate to call the first, the cause, and the second, the effect. We suppose there’s some connection between them.

      But we also saw that there’s nothing different in the repetition of constantly conjoined cases from the exactly similar single case, except that after we’ve experienced their constant conjunction, habit determines us to expect the effect when the cause occurs.

      Hume concludes that it is just this felt connection – our awareness of this customary transition from one associated object to another – that is the source of our idea of power or necessary connection. When we say that one object is necessarily connected to another, what we really mean is that they have acquired an associative connection in our thoughts that gives rise to this inference.

      Having finally located the missing ingredient, Hume is now ready to offer a definition of cause. He in fact gives us two. The first,

      A cause is an object, followed by another, where all the objects similar to the first are followed by objects similar to the second,

      gives the relevant external impressions, while the second,

      A cause is an object followed by another, and whose appearance always conveys the thought to that other,

      captures the internal impression – our awareness of being determined by custom to move from cause to effect. Both are definitions on Hume’s account, but his ‘just definition’ of our idea of cause is the conjunction of the two, for only together do they capture all the relevant impressions involved.

      Conclusion. Hume’s contribution to the early modern causation debate is revolutionary in at least three respects. First, he differs radically from previous philosophers by arguing that our causal inferences aren’t based on any exercise of reason. Second, in basing our causal inferences on the associative principles, he is giving a causal explanation of causal inference. Finally, his account of our idea of necessary connection locates that idea in us, not in the connection between our ideas of the objects we regard as causes and effect. In all these respects, Hume radically changed the course of the causation debate. His account was controversial in his day, and it remains so in ours. Every subsequent account of causation must begin by confronting the challenges Hume posed for traditional ways of looking at causation.

      Hume’s discussion of causation is his flagship illustration of his method at work, and in his subsequent work he goes on to apply not only his method, but also the concrete results he has achieved, to other debates and problems prominent in the modern period: probable inference, liberty and necessity, testimony for miracles, the question of intelligent design, and as we shall see in the next section, the debate about the foundations of ethics.

      Moral Sentimentalism

      Hume steps into an ongoing debate about the foundations of ethics, often called the British Moralists debate, that began in the mid-seventeenth century and continued until the end of the eighteenth. Three types of theories are represented in this debate: self-interest theories, rationalist theories and sentimentalist theories. Hume became the most famous proponent of sentimentalism. He uses the same method here as he did in the causation debate: there is a critical phase in which he argues against his opponents, and a constructive phase in which he develops his version of sentimentalism.

      Thomas Hobbes’s (1588–1679) brilliant but shocking attempt to derive moral and political obligation from motives of self-interest initiated the British Moralists debate. Hobbes, as his contemporaries understood him, characterized us as being naturally self-centered and power-hungry creatures, concerned above all with our own preservation. In the state of nature, a pre-moral and pre-legal condition, we seek to preserve ourselves by trying to dominate others. Since we are equally powerful, the result is a state of ‘war of all against all’ in which life is ‘nasty, short and brutish’. The way out is to make a compact with one another. We agree to hand over our power and freedom to a sovereign, who makes the laws necessary for us to live together peacefully and has the power to enforce them. Acting morally requires that we comply with the laws the sovereign establishes, but the basis of morality is self-interest.

      Two kinds of moral theories developed in reaction to Hobbes – rationalism and sentimentalism. While both object to Hobbes’s moral theory, they do so on different grounds. As the eighteenth century progressed, they began to argue less with Hobbes and more with each other. In the Treatise, Hume strategically assumes that Hobbes’s theory was no longer on the table, so there were only two possibilities for him to consider – moral rationalism and sentimentalism. If one falls, the other stands. By the time Hume wrote the second Enquiry, however, he had dropped the crucial strategic assumption he made in the Treatise. His primary opponents now are self-interest theories, especially Hobbes’s self-interest theory. While he continues to oppose moral rationalism in the second Enquiry, he consigns his arguments against them to an appendix.

      Moral Rationalism: critical phase. Hume offers a battery of arguments against moral rationalism, but two are especially important. In Treatise 2.3.3, he challenges the long-cherished rationalist belief about reason’s right and even obligation to govern us. Nothing is more common, Hume says, than for philosophers and even ordinary people to talk about a combat between reason and passion. They say that we ought to govern our conduct by our reason rather than our passions. If our passions are not in line with reason’s commands, we ought to restrain them or bring them into conformity with reason.

      Hume argues that this picture is mistaken, since reason alone is incapable of moving us. The main type of reasoning that bears on action is causal reasoning, which informs us of the means to our ends. But the belief that there is a causal connection between two things will never move us by itself. When causal reasoning figures in the production of action, it always presupposes some pre-existing desire or want. Noticing a causal connection between exercising and losing weight will only move you if you want to lose weight. If reasoning is to have practical force, it must be tied to a desire or want.

      Hume’s other main argument, the first of several in Treatise 3.1.1, is the argument from motivation. This argument concerns the source of our moral concepts. Does the idea of ‘moral goodness’ or ‘virtue’ spring from reason or sentiment? His specific target is the rationalist, Samuel Clarke (1675–1729), who believes that there are demonstrable moral relations – relations of fitness and unfitness – that we discover a priori by means of reason alone. Gratitude, for example, is a fitting or suitable response to kindness, while ingratitude is an unfitting response. Clarke also thinks that the rational intuition that an action is fitting has the power to obligate us and to move us. This argument, like the last one, has implications for a much wider audience of philosophers as well as ordinary people.

      Hume argues that reason by itself is incapable of giving rise to moral ideas and offers two supporting premises. One is that moral ideas have pervasive practical effects. Experience shows that people are motivated to perform an action because they think it is obligatory and refrain because they think it is unjust. They try to cultivate the virtues in themselves and are proud when they succeed and ashamed when they fail. If moral ideas didn’t have these practical effects, moral rules would be pointless. The second premise, as Hume just argued, is simply that reason by itself is incapable of having these practical effects. By itself, reason can’t excite passions or produce actions. If moral ideas are capable of exciting passions and producing or preventing actions, but reason alone is incapable of doing these things, moral ideas can’t spring from reason alone.

      Reason, then, gives rise neither to new motives nor to moral ideas. It is essentially passive and inert. If it is incapable of giving rise to new motives or moral ideas, the rationalist claim that we ought to act in conformity with reason’s dictates is nonsensical. Having exposed reason’s pretensions to rule, Hume inverts the rationalist’s picture and provocatively concludes ‘reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.’ Reason’s role is to ‘serve and obey’ the passions.

      Sentimentalism: constructive phase. Taking the defeat of rationalism to be the triumph of sentimentalism, Hume concludes that ‘morality . . . is more properly felt.’ The moral sentiments are feelings of praise or blame, approval or disapproval that arise when we survey a person’s character. In several key passages, he describes them as calm forms of love and hatred. When we evaluate our own character traits, pride and humility replace love and hatred.

      Hume’s view of morality rests on two assumptions. One is that he identifies the moral point of view with the point of view of a spectator. The central moral concepts are those spectators use to assess their own or other people’s characters and actions rather than those agents use to deliberate about what they ought to do. The other is that what we approve and disapprove of in the first instance are people’s character traits and the motives that typically spring from them. He offers a theory about what character traits are morally good and bad – a theory of virtue and vice. Virtue is loveable and vice hateful in the eyes of beholders.

      According to Hume, the moral project in its constructive phase consists in discovering the fundamental principles of the mind that explain the origin of our moral ideas. The explanation must be naturalistic, consistent with the scientific picture of the world. Francis Hutcheson (1694–1746), Hume’s sentimentalist predecessor, claimed that God gave us a special moral sense, which disposes us to approve and disapprove. Hume rejects this view since it is unscientific.

      Hume traces the moral sentiments to the operation of more fundamental principles in human nature, in particular, to sympathy. In Book 2 of the Treatise, he describes sympathy as our capacity to receive the passions, sentiments, and even beliefs of others. It is not itself a passion, and should not be confused with feelings of empathy, compassion, or pity. It is a mechanism that explains why we are able to feel what others are feeling – feeling miserable when your friend feels miserable or cheerful when she is cheerful. It explains a wide range of phenomena: our interest in history and current affairs, our ability to enjoy literature, movies, novels, and, more generally, our sociability. It is central to Hume’s account of the passions, the sense of beauty and morality.

      Hume explains sympathy in terms of the same associative principles that explain our ability to engage in causal reasoning – resemblance, contiguity and causality. In Book 2 of the Treatise, he maintains that our ability to sympathize varies with variations in these relations. We sympathize more strongly and easily with people who resemble us, are contiguous to us, or are family members. Sympathy and the associative principles that explain it are deep-seated principles in human nature. Without sympathy and the associative principles that explain it, we would be unimaginably different.

      In Treatise 3.3.1, Hume develops his account of moral evaluation in response to two objections to his claim that the moral sentiments spring from sympathy. One is that the moral sentiments can’t be based in sympathy because the loves and hatreds that result from the natural and spontaneous workings of sympathy vary, but our moral approval doesn’t vary. The second objection is that ‘virtue in rags’ is still valued. Sympathy works by looking at the actual effects of a person’s character traits, but sometimes misfortune prevents people from exercising their good character traits, yet we still admire them.

      Hume argues that moral love and hatred spring from sympathy, but only when we regulate our sympathetic reactions by taking up the general point of view. There are two regulatory features to the general point of view. The first is that we survey a person’s character from the perspective of the person and his usual associates – friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers. We sympathize with the person and the people with whom that person regularly interacts and we judge character traits in terms of whether they are good or bad for these people. Second, we regulate sympathy further by relying on general rules that specify the general effects and tendencies of character traits rather than sympathizing with their actual effects.

      The general point of view is, for Hume, the moral perspective. Its regulative features define a perspective we can share with everyone, from which we may survey a person’s character traits. When we occupy the general point of view, we sympathize with the person herself and the people with whom she interacts, and come to love the person for those traits that normally are useful and pleasant for everyone.

      Even though Hume bases morality in sentiment, he is able to show that moral judgments are impartial and objective. The regulation of sympathy ensures that we set aside considerations of self-interest and considerations derived from the special ways we may be related to others, ensuring that our moral judgments are impartial. The general point of view also explains why we tend to agree about which character traits are morally good and which are bad. The regulatory features define a perspective we share with others from which we survey a person’s character.

      Hume argues that we love and admire four sorts of character traits – those that are useful or immediately agreeable to the agent or to others. He thinks that experience confirms this hypothesis, a task he takes up in his discussion of individual virtues.

      On Hume’s view, morality is entirely a product of human nature. First-order sentiments, the passions and affections that motivate people to act, and actions expressive of them are what have moral value. Second-order, reflective sentiments we have about our own or other people’s sentiments are what make them valuable. Both the locus and source of morality are rooted in our nature.

      Self-interest theories: critical phase. On Hume’s understanding of self-interest theories, self-interest plays two distinct roles in their explanations of morality: first, moral approval and disapproval spring from a concern for our own interest and, second, the motive of which we ultimately approve is self-interest. Hume rejects both claims. He takes Hobbes’s self-interest theory to be the most powerful and philosophically interesting self-interest theory.

      In Appendix 2 of the Enquiry, Hume opposes the idea that self-interest is the motive of which we approve. On his reading of Hobbes, while we approve of kindness, friendship, and other benevolent affections, any desire to benefit others really springs from self-interest, although we may not be conscious of its influence on those desires. Hume argues that this ‘selfish hypothesis’ is empirically implausible, since we can point to ‘thousands’ of instances in which people are motivated by a genuine concern for others, even when it could not possibly benefit them and might even harm them. An individual may grieve when his friend dies, even if the friend relied on his patronage. How could his grief spring from self-interest? Parents regularly sacrifice their own interests for the sake of their children. Non-human animals care about members of their own species and us. Is their concern a ‘deduction’ of self-interest? We are by nature social and sympathetic creatures that care about others for their own sake.

      Hume also borrows an argument from Joseph Butler (1692–1752). Happiness consists in the pleasures that arise from the satisfaction of our particular appetites and desires. It is because we want food, fame and other things that we take pleasure in getting them. If you don’t have any particular appetites or desires, you won’t want anything and there will be no pleasures available to you. In order to get the pleasures that self-love aims at, you must want something other than happiness itself.

      Hume is equally adamant that selfish accounts of approval and disapproval are mistaken. He opposes them beginning in Section 2 and ending in Part 1 of the ‘Conclusion’ of the Enquiry. The question, he says, is whether moral approval arises from an interested or disinterested source. He looks at each type of virtue in turn and argues that in each case approval does not spring from self-interest.

      Hume first discusses benevolence, justice and the other social virtues that are useful to others and society as a whole. He agrees with Hobbes that justice and the other social virtues make it possible for us to live together peacefully, which is in our interest. Our own good is bound up with the good of society. But he argues against Hobbes that we do not approve of justice and the other social virtues on grounds of self-interest. If the moral sentiments were based on thoughts about their advantages and disadvantages to us, we would never approve or disapprove of people from ‘distant ages and remote countries’, since they cannot possibly affect us. We would never admire the good deeds of our enemies or rivals, since they are hurtful to us. We approve of the social virtues not because they benefit us, but because we sympathize with the benefits they bestow on others or society.

      Hume next examines virtues that are useful to the agent (industriousness), agreeable to the agent (cheerfulness) and agreeable to others (politeness, decency). He argues that we approve of them not because they are advantageous to us, but because we sympathize with the benefits they confer on others. This provides further support for his theory against Hobbes’s.

      Although Hume argues, as he did in the Treatise, that approval and disapproval arise from sympathy, there is some controversy about whether he changes his account of sympathy in the Enquiry, replacing it with feelings of humanity or even benevolence. On either reading, Hume traces the moral sentiments to a disinterested basis in human nature.

      Justice: constructive phase. In both the Treatise and the second Enquiry, Hume rightly showcases his pioneering account of justice. In the Treatise, he emphasizes the distinction between the natural virtues and the artificial virtues. The natural virtues are character traits and patterns of behavior that human beings would exhibit in their natural condition, even if there were no social order. They include such character traits as being humane, kind and charitable. The artificial virtues are dispositions based on social practices and institutions that we agree to create because they are useful to us. They include justice, fidelity in keeping promises and contracts, and allegiance to government. In saying that justice and the other practices are artificial, Hume doesn’t mean to imply that they are fake or unreal. Rather, his point is that they result from conventions or agreements we make with each other. We approve of just people because we sympathize with the benefits they bestow on others and society as a whole.

      After arguing in Treatise 3.2.1 that justice is artificial, in Treatise 3.2.2 he explains why we establish the institution of justice and why we approve of people who comply with its rules. Hume thinks of the institution of justice quite narrowly as concerned with establishing and maintaining property rights. He argues that justice is a solution to a problem. The problem is that since we care most about our family and close friends and since material goods are scarce and portable, we are tempted to take goods from others to give to our family and friends. Since we are bound to fight over these goods, we aren’t able to reap the benefits of increased power, ability and security that result from living together in society. The solution is to establish property rights. We agree that some things are yours, others are mine, and that we will keep our hands off each other’s goods. Hume was one of the first to see that what is useful is the practice or institution of justice, rather than individual acts of justice.

      Conclusion. Sentimentalism is enjoying a revival. New versions

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