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An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748; 1777 edition, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge)

David Hume · c. 1748

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David Hume did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this book, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The book prints chapter headings its extracted text does not preserve, so the claims below are in the book's order but not grouped. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

  1. Our reading

    All our ideas, the fainter perceptions, are copies of our impressions, the more lively ones

    Their wordsOr, to express myself in philosophical language, all our ideas or more feeble perceptions are copies of our impressions or more lively ones.

  2. Our reading

    Knowledge of cause and effect is never reached by reasoning a priori; it comes entirely from experience of things constantly conjoined

    Their wordsI shall venture to affirm, as a general proposition, which admits of no exception, that the knowledge of this relation is not, in any instance, attained by reasonings a priori; but arises entirely from experience, when we find that any particular objects are constantly conjoined with each other.

  3. Our reading

    Custom is the great guide of human life; it alone makes experience useful by leading us to expect the future to resemble the past

    Their wordsCustom, then, is the great guide of human life. It is that principle alone which renders our experience useful to us, and makes us expect, for the future, a similar train of events with those which have appeared in the past.

  4. Our reading

    A wise person proportions their belief to the evidence

    Their wordsA wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.

  5. Our reading

    Because uniform experience establishes the laws of nature, the proof against any miracle is as complete as an argument from experience can be

    Their wordsA miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined.

  6. Our reading

    No testimony suffices to establish a miracle unless its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact it seeks to establish

    Their wordsThe plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), 'That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish; and even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force, which remains, after deducting the inferior.'

  7. Our reading

    A book with neither abstract reasoning about quantity or number nor experimental reasoning about fact should be burned as sophistry and illusion

    Their wordsIf we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

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