A Treatise of Human Nature — David Hume — John Shaqi
A Treatise of Human Nature
David Hume · English
If we consider the causes of love and hatred, we shall find they are
very much diversifyed, and have not many things in common. The virtue,
knowledge, wit, good sense, good humour of any person, produce love
and esteem; as the opposite qualities, hatred and contempt. The same
passions arise from bodily accomplishments, such as beauty, force,
swiftness, dexterity; and from their contraries; as likewise from the
external advantages and disadvantages of family, possession, cloaths,
nation and climate. There is not one of these objects, but what by its
different qualities may produce love and esteem, or hatred and contempt.
From the view of these causes we may derive a new distinction betwixt
the quality that operates, and the subject on which it is placed. A
prince, that is possessed of a stately palace, commands the esteem
of the people upon that account; and that first, by the beauty of the
palace, and secondly, by the relation of property, which connects it
with him. The removal of either of these destroys the passion; which
evidently proves that the cause Is a compounded one.
Twould be tedious to trace the passions of love and hatred, through all
the observations which we have formed concerning pride and humility,
and which are equally applicable to both sets of passions. Twill be
sufficient to remark in general, that the object of love and hatred is
evidently some thinking person; and that the sensation of the former
passion is always agreeable, and of the latter uneasy. We may also
suppose with some shew of probability, THAT THE CAUSE OF BOTH THESE
PASSIONS IS ALWAYS RELATED TO A THINKING BEING, AND THAT THE CAUSE OF
THE FORMER PRODUCE A SEPARATE PLEASURE, AND OF THE LATTER A SEPARATE
UNEASINESS.
One of these suppositions, viz, that the cause of love and hatred must
be related to a person or thinking being, in order to produce these
passions, is not only probable, but too evident to be contested. Virtue
and vice, when considered in the abstract; beauty and deformity, when
placed on inanimate objects; poverty and riches when belonging to a
third person, excite no degree of love or hatred, esteem or contempt
towards those, who have no relation to them. A person looking out at a
window, sees me in the street, and beyond me a beautiful palace, with
which I have no concern: I believe none will pretend, that this person
will pay me the same respect, as if I were owner of the palace.