Hume Part I and II

Introduction: Hume believes that all people “know” that their views and beliefs are the best. He also points out that science has become a field of debate. He claims that it is filled with opinions and that nothing seems certain anymore. He also says that eloquence will win over reason and questions whether truth can ever be reached. He later goes on to talk about how the understanding of human nature can directly lead to the understanding of all other sciences.
Part I: Of the Passions; Of pride and humility
There are two perceptions of the mind (impressions and ideas). Impressions can be split up into sensations (which are like senses) or reflections (which are like interpretations or emotions). Then, he describes how the passions that arise out of these impressions can be further split up into direct or indirect. The passions, although contrary, have the same object. This object he determined is the self. Hume also explains how the products of pride differ from the cause of it. Country, family or riches can cause pride whereas good-sense, learning and courage are products of pride. He later delves deeper into the subject and states how the combination of quality and subject produce pride. Then, he explained how the causes of pride and humility are natural to all beings, but are not original.
He stated how vice and virtue are causes of passions and are part of our character because pain and pleasure cause vice and virtue. Also, he explained how beauty produced delight which lead to pride, and how deformity produced pain which lead to humility. He added how beauty and strength along with force make up pride.
Hume talked about how pride can only occur if the external object acquires a particular relation to self. When this connection or relationship is developed, vanity can occur.
Hume later commented that property has the greatest relationship to people, which in turn produces the greatest passion of pride, and the existence of power allows for us to satisfy our desires.
Then, he claims that sympathy is the most remarkable quality of human nature. He finds it interesting how people with such different make ups can get along and understand each other enough to sympathize with. And he states that the pleasure we receive from praise arises form a community of sentiments, not just a single source.
He concluded Part I by reiterating that no passion can exist unless it is related to us and produces a pleasure or pain independent of passion. Also, he stated that the causes of passions are the power of producing agreeable or uneasy sensations. He tied the existence of this in humans to that of animals.

Part II: Of Love and Hatred
Hume made it very clear that love and hatred had a different object than pride and humility (which is the self). He stated that the object of love and hatred in another person. He stated how this passion must be applied to another thinking being. Then, he went on to explain how circumstance plays a major role in diminishing passions, but can rarely remove them completely from play.
He made it a point to express that blood relation among family members produced the strongest relationship. He then took that strong relationship and tied it with the strongest sense of love. He explained how the mind finds satisfaction and is at ease with objects it is accustomed to. The mind prefers the familiar over the unfamiliar.
Hume stated that esteem comes from power and riches and that contempt comes from poverty and meanness. To build off of this point he explains how the minds of men are like mirrors. They reflect each other’s emotions.
Hume then connected benevolence and anger to that of love and anger. He stated that passions of love and anger are followed by or conjoined with benevolence and anger, and that loves end is happiness of another person. Love has a goal thru which people work towards.
Then, he spoke of pity (concern for) and malice (joy of misery of others). He explained how malice initiates effects of hatred and that pity initiates love. He then concluded by stating every object is attended with some emotion that has proper proportion to it.
Interesting Passage: “In general we may remark, that the minds of men are mirrors to one another, not only because they reflect each other’s emotions, but also because those rays of passions, sentiments and opinions may be often reverberated, and may decay away by insensible degrees. Thus, the pleasure a rich man receives from his possessions, being thrown upon the beholder, causes a pleasure and esteem; which sentiments again, being perceived and sympathized with, increases the pleasure of the possessor;…” (p. 236)
I find this passage central to Humes point and quite interesting. I think that this point explains a lot about people’s behavior. People are always looking towards one another for reassurance and for positive feedback. People look towards others in order to see if they are following the correct norms. We always judge ourselves against others. Other people are our standards of behavior.
Puzzling Passage: “’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.” (p.215)
I find this central to Humes point, but very confusing and puzzling. I do not agree that people can only love a thinking person. Can’t a person love money? Can’t a person love a deceased person? I do not find the logic Hume has behind this point. I found that section (Section 1 of Part II) to be difficult to read and understand.