Philosophical Works, v. 2 (of 4): Including All the Essays, and Exhibiting the More Important Alterations and Corrections in the Successive Editions Published by the Author — David Hume — John Shaqi
Philosophical Works, v. 2 (of 4): Including All the Essays, and Exhibiting the More Important Alterations and Corrections in the Successive Editions Published by the Author
David Hume · en
break in the line of ancestors. The imagination runs not along them
with facility, nor is able to transfer the honour and credit of the
ancestors to their posterity of the same name and family so readily,
as when the transition is conformable to the general rules, and passes
from father to son, or from brother to brother.
[3] Part II. Sect. 2.
SECTION X.
OF PROPERTY AND RICHES.
But the relation which is esteemed the closest, and which, of all
others, produces most commonly the passion of pride, is that of
_property_. This relation 'twill be impossible for me fully to explain
before I come to treat of justice and the other moral virtues. 'Tis
sufficient to observe on this occasion, that property may be defined,
_such a relation betwixt a person and an object as permits him, but
forbids any other, the free use and possession of it, without violating
the laws of justice and moral equity_. If justice therefore be a
virtue, which has a natural and original influence on the human mind,
property may be looked upon as a particular species of _causation_;
whether we consider the liberty it gives the proprietor to operate
as he pleases upon the object, or the advantages which he reaps
from it. 'Tis the same case, if justice, according to the system of
certain philosophers, should be esteemed an artificial and not a
natural virtue. For then honour, and custom, and civil laws supply
the place of natural conscience, and produce in some degree, the same
effects. This, in the mean time, is certain, that the mention of the
property naturally carries our thought to the proprietor, and of the
proprietor to the property; which being a proof of a perfect relation
of ideas, is all that is requisite to our present purpose. A relation
of ideas, joined to that of impressions, always produces a transition
of affections; and therefore, whenever any pleasure or pain arises
from an object, connected with us by property, we may be certain, that
either pride or humility must arise from this conjunction of relations,
if the foregoing system be solid and satisfactory. And whether it be so
or not, we may soon satisfy ourselves by the most cursory view of human
life.