This book review was written by Eugene Kernes
“Man is a reasonable being; and as
such, receives from science his proper food and nourishment: But so narrow are
the bounds of human understanding, that little satisfaction can be hoped for in
this particular, either from the extent of security or his acquisitions. Man is a sociable, no less than a reasonable
being: But neither can he always enjoy company agreeable and amusing, or
preserve the proper relish for them. Man
is also an active being; and from that disposition, as well as from the various
necessities of human life, must submit to business and occupation: But the mind
requires some relaxation, and cannot always support its bent to care and
industry.” – David Hume, Section I: Of the Different Species of Philosophy,
Page 8
“Nothing is more free than the imagination of man; and
though it cannot exceed that original stock of ideas furnished by the internal
and external senses, it has unlimited power of mixing, compounding, separating,
and dividing these ideas, in all the varieties of fiction and vision. It can feign a train of events, with all the
appearance of reality, ascribe to them a particular time and place, conceive
them as existent, and paint them out to itself with every circumstance, that
belongs to any historical fact, which it believes with the greatest certainty.”
– David Hume, Section V: Sceptical Solution of these Doubts, Page 40
“The great advantage of the mathematical sciences above the
moral consists in this, that the ideas of the former, being sensible, are
always clear and determinate, the smallest distinction between them is
immediately perceptible, and the same terms are still expressive of the same
ideas, without ambiguity or variation.
An oval is never mistaken for a circle, nor an hyperbola for an
ellipsis. The isosceles and scalenum are
distinguished by boundaries more exact than vice and virtue, right and wrong.”
– David Hume, Section VII: Of the Idea of Necessary Connexion, Page 53
Is This An Overview?
Methods of science develop human society, but people are
bound to narrow understandings. People
have their biases, and nature limits self-control. The mind wants activity, but also moments of
relaxation. People can image vast
fictions and believe them to be reality.
While mathematical sciences can form relations which never change, moral
sciences maintain ambiguity. Logic is
based on operations of the mind, for abstract ideas do not exist in
nature. Experience teaches the cause and
effect between variables. That the same
causes have the same effects. Chance is
dependent on ignorance of causes for events.
Science can overcome controversy through experimentation, through trust
in past experiences.
Caveats?
This book can be difficult to read due to antediluvian
examples and explanations. Various ideas
presented have been updated. Some ideas
still hold, others have been proven false.
