Introduction

1. Division of the subject

What?

• The distinction between impressions and ideas remains in the first Enquiry.
• But note Hume’s increased preference for the term “sentiment” instead of “impression”.
• There are echoes of the distinction between direct and indirect passions in the structure of the Dissertation. But the terms, and any explicit mention of the distinction, are gone.

Why?

• Why the increased preference for “sentiment”?
• Why did the direct/indirect distinction disappear?

1. Division of the subject

Direct and Indirect Passions

When we take a survey of the passions, there occurs a division of them into direct and indirect. By direct passions I understand such as arise immediately from good or evil, from pain or pleasure. By indirect such as proceed from the same principles, but by the conjunction of other qualities. This distinction I cannot at present justify or explain any farther. I can only observe in general, that under the indirect passions I comprehend pride, humility, ambition, vanity, love, hatred, envy, pity, malice, generosity, with their dependants. And under the direct passions, desire, aversion, grief, joy, hope, fear, despair and security. I shall begin with the former.

T 2.1.1.4

The passions of love and hatred are always followed by, or rather conjoin’d with benevolence and anger... The conjunction of this desire and aversion with love and hatred may be accounted for by two different hypotheses. The first is, that love and hatred have not only a cause, which excites them, viz. pleasure and pain; and an object, to which they are directed, viz. a person or thinking being; but likewise an end, which they endeavour to attain, viz. the happiness or misery of the person belov’d or hated; all which views, mixing together, make only one passion... But this is evidently contrary to experience... We may, therefore, infer, that benevolence and anger are passions different from love and hatred, and only conjoin’d with them, by the original constitution of the mind.

T 2.2.6.3-6

1. Division of the subject

Original Instincts

Now ’tis certain, there are certain calm desires and tendencies, which, tho’ they be real passions, produce little emotion in the mind, and are more known by their effects than by the immediate feeling or sensation. These desires are of two kinds; either certain instincts originally implanted in our natures, such as benevolence and resentment, the love of life, and kindness to children; or the general appetite to good, and aversion to evil, consider’d merely as such.

T 2.3.3.8

When I receive any injury from another, I often feel a violent passion of resentment, which makes me desire his evil and punishment, independent of all considerations of pleasure and advantage to myself.

T 2.3.3.9

Beside good and evil, or in other words, pain and pleasure, the direct passions frequently arise from a natural impulse or instinct, which is perfectly unaccountable. Of this kind is the desire of punishment to our enemies, and of happiness to our friends; hunger, lust, and a few other bodily appetites. These passions, properly speaking, produce good and evil, and proceed not from them, like the other affections.

T 2.3.9.8

1. Division of the subject

Primary vs Secondary Desires

There are bodily wants or appetites, acknowledged by every one, which necessarily precede all sensual enjoyment, and carry us directly to seek possession of the object. Thus, hunger and thirst have eating and drinking for their end; and from the gratification of these primary appetites arises a pleasure, which may become the object of another species of desire or inclination, that is secondary and interested. In the same manner, there are mental passions, by which we are impelled immediately to seek particular objects, such as fame, or power, or vengeance, without any regard to interest; and when these objects are attained, a pleasing enjoyment ensues, as the consequence of our indulged affections. Nature must, by the internal frame and constitution of the mind, give an original propensity to fame, ere we can reap any pleasure from that acquisition, or pursue it from motives of self-love, and desire of happiness. If I have no vanity, I take no delight in praise: If I be void of ambition, power gives me no enjoyment: If I be not angry, the punishment of an adversary is totally indifferent to me...

Now where is the difficulty in conceiving, that this may likewise be the case with benevolence and friendship, and that, from the original frame of our temper, we may feel a desire of another’s happiness or good, which, by means of that affection, becomes our own good, and is afterwards pursued, from the combined motives of benevolence and self-enjoyment? Who sees not that vengeance, from the force alone of passion, may be so eagerly pursued, as to make us knowingly neglect every consideration of ease, interest, or safety; and, like some vindictive animals, infuse our very souls into the wounds we give an enemy?

M App.2.12-3

2. The main indirect passions

What?

• The discussion is significantly shortened and streamlined.
• The moral defence of pride has gone.
• Apart from a couple of hints, the associationist account of sympathy has gone.
• Possible change of mind on the nature/definition of pride, humility, love, and hatred.
• Flip-flopping on ambition.

Why?

• Is there a general cooling of interest in associationism?
• Echoes of Hobbes and Mandeville are fainter in the later work.
• He possibly came to believe pride, humility, love, and hatred were complex; possibly because of a problem with the double relation theory.

2. The main indirect passions

The (in)definability of the passions

THE passions of pride and humility being simple and uniform impressions, ’tis impossible we can ever, by a multitude of words, give a just definition of them, or indeed of any of the passions.

T 2.1.2.1

’TIS altogether impossible to give any definition of the passions of love and hatred; and that because they produce merely a simple impression, without any mixture or composition.

T 2.2.1.1

Pride is a certain satisfaction in ourselves, on account of some accomplishment or possession, which we enjoy: Humility, on the other hand, is a dissatisfaction with ourselves, on account of some defect or infirmity. Love or Friendship is a complacency in another, on account of his accomplishments or services: Hatred, the contrary.

P 2.2-3

2. The main indirect passions

Flip-flopping on vanity: Treatise

Among these phænomena we may esteem it a very favourable one to our present purpose, that tho’ fame in general be agreeable, yet we receive a much greater satisfaction from the approbation of those, whom we ourselves esteem and approve of, than of those, whom we hate and despise. In like manner we are principally mortify’d with the contempt of persons, upon whose judgment we set some value, and are, in a great measure, indifferent about the opinions of the rest of mankind. But if the mind received from any original instinct a desire of fame, and aversion to infamy, fame and infamy wou’d influence us without distinction; and every opinion, according as it were favourable or unfavourable, wou’d equally excite that desire or aversion. The judgment of a fool is the judgment of another person, as well as that of a wise man, and is only inferior in its influence on our own judgment.

T 2.1.11.11

2. The main indirect passions

Flip-flopping on vanity: Moral Enquiry

There are bodily wants or appetites, acknowledged by every one, which necessarily precede all sensual enjoyment, and carry us directly to seek possession of the object. Thus, hunger and thirst have eating and drinking for their end; and from the gratification of these primary appetites arises a pleasure, which may become the object of another species of desire or inclination, that is secondary and interested. In the same manner, there are mental passions, by which we are impelled immediately to seek particular objects, such as fame, or power, or vengeance, without any regard to interest; and when these objects are attained, a pleasing enjoyment ensues, as the consequence of our indulged affections. Nature must, by the internal frame and constitution of the mind, give an original propensity to fame, ere we can reap any pleasure from that acquisition, or pursue it from motives of self-love, and desire of happiness.

M App2.12

2. The main indirect passions

Flip-flopping on vanity: Dissertation

Our opinions of all kinds are strongly affected by society and sympathy, and it is almost impossible for us to support any principle or sentiment, against the universal consent of every one, with whom we have any friendship or correspondence. But of all our opinions, those, which we form in our own favour; however lofty or presuming; are, at bottom, the frailest, and the most easily shaken by the contradiction and opposition of others. Our great concern, in this case, makes us soon alarmed, and keeps our passions upon the watch: Our consciousness of partiality still makes us dread a mistake: And the very difficulty of judging concerning an object, which is never set at a due distance from us, nor is seen in a proper point of view, makes us hearken anxiously to the opinions of others, who are better qualified to form just opinions concerning us. Hence that strong love of fame, with which all mankind are possessed. It is in order to fix and confirm their favourable opinion of themselves, not from any original passion, that they seek the applauses of others. And when a man desires to be praised, it is for the same reason, that a beauty is pleased with surveying herself in a favourable looking-glass, and seeing the reflection of her own charms.

P 2.33

3. Experiments to confirm this system

What?

• The “square of the passions” is cut.
• The general approach and all talk of “experiments” is cut.
• The first, second, fourth, and fifth experiments are cut.
• A couple of points from the sixth and seventh experiments are repeated in P 4.
• An example from the third experiment is repurposed into the concluding paragraph of P 4.

Why?

• Because it’s not that good, and doesn’t really add much.

4. The role of intention

What?

• It’s gone.

Why?

• ...?

FOR a like reason, the tendencies of actions and characters, not their real accidental consequences, are alone regarded in our moral determinations or general judgments; though in our real feeling or sentiment, we cannot help paying greater regard to one whose station, joined to virtue, renders him really useful to society, then to one, who exerts the social virtues only in good intentions and benevolent affections. Separating the character from the fortune, by an easy and necessary effort of thought, we pronounce these persons alike, and give them the same general praise. The judgment corrects or endeavours to correct the appearance: But is not able entirely to prevail over sentiment.

M 5.41n24.1

5. Passions related to love and hatred

What?

• P 3 follows the structure of T 2.4-11 exactly, but is massively abridged. Each section is reduced to just one or two short paragraphs.
• Some egoistic accounts of these passions are removed.

Why?

• To keep things short.
• He’s no longer a psychological egoist.

5. Passions related to love and hatred

Whoever is united to us by any connexion is always sure of a share of our love, proportion’d to the connexion, without enquiring into his other qualities. Thus the relation of blood produces the strongest tie the mind is capable of in the love of parents to their children, and a lesser degree of the same affection, as the relation lessens.

T 2.2.4.2

The affection of parents to children seems founded on an original instinct. The affection towards other relations depends on the principles here explained.

P 3.3n4

5. Passions related to love and hatred

Now in order to know what passions are related to these different kinds of sympathy, we must consider, that benevolence is an original pleasure arising from the pleasure of the person belov’d, and a pain proceeding from his pain: From which correspondence of impressions there arises a subsequent desire of his pleasure, and aversion to his pain.

T 2.2.9.15

To desire the happiness of another, from whatever motive, is a good preparative to affection; and to delight in another’s misery almost unavoidably begets aversion towards him.

P 3.9

6. Liberty and necessity

What?

• Move to the first Enquiry, immediately following the discussion of necessity.
• The framing changes from anti-liberty to compatibilist.
• The position and argument, however, remains the same.
• Quite substantialy rewritten and expanded, highlighting the relevance to religion more clearly.

Why?

• To make things better.

7. Reason and passion

What?

• All the over-the-top rhetoric is cut.
• The normative stuff is cut (left for the moral Enquiry).
• Including, in particular, the representative quality argument.

Why?

• To make things better.

8. The causes of the violent passions

What?

• Shortened, but nothing of substance changed.
• Two sections on the influence of contiguity and distance in space and time reduce to a single sentence: “What is distant, either in place or time, has not equal influence with what is near and contiguous.” (P 6.18)
• There’s a new application of the theory to the puzzle of tragedy.

Why?

• Most of the cuts are explained by the context of the Four Dissertations.
• Could the material on the effects of distance in space and time have been reworked in the abandoned dissertation on geometry?

8. The causes of the violent passions

We may add to this a remark; that in matters of religion men take a pleasure in being terrify’d, and that no preachers are so popular, as those who excite the most dismal and gloomy passions. In the common affairs of life, where we feel and are penetrated with the solidity of the subject, nothing can be more disagreeable than fear and terror; and ’tis only in dramatic performances and in religious discourses, that they ever give pleasure. In these latter cases the imagination reposes itself indolently on the idea; and the passion, being soften’d by the want of belief in the subject, has no more than the agreeable effect of enlivening the mind, and fixing the attention.

T 1.3.9.15

There is no passion of the human mind but what may arise from poetry; tho’ at the same time the feelings of the passions are very different when excited by poetical fictions, from what they are when they arise from belief and reality. A passion, which is disagreeable in real life, may afford the highest entertainment in a tragedy, or epic poem. In the latter case it lies not with that weight upon us: It feels less firm and solid: And has no other than the agreeable effect of exciting the spirits, and rouzing the attention.

T 1.3.10.10; appendix addition

8. The causes of the violent passions

There is, however, a difficulty in applying to the present subject, in its full extent, this solution, however ingenious and satisfactory it may appear. It is certain, that the same object of distress, which pleases in a tragedy, were it really set before us, would give the most unfeigned uneasiness; though it be then the most effectual cure to languor and indolence.

Tr 6

The pathetic description of the butchery, made by Verres of the Sicilian captains, is a masterpiece of this kind: But I believe none will affirm, that the being present at a melancholy scene of that nature would afford any entertainment. Neither is the sorrow here softened by fiction: For the audience were convinced of the reality of every circumstance.

Tr 8

9. The indirect passions

What?

• Most is reproduced with minor edits.
• But there are some strking changes...
• And the Natural History is added.

Why?

• Could some of the account of religious belief have been included originally in Book 2, and cut when Hume was preparing the manuscript for Butler?
• He’s no longer a psychological egoist.

10. Curiosity

What

• It’s gone.

Why?

• Any reason for cutting this, beyond the general desire to keep things brief?
• This section was originally a conclusion to Books 1 and 2; that context has gone.
• Without it, the Dissertation ends instead with the causes of the violent passions, which then leads directly into Of Tragedy.
• Also note curiosity is explicitly discounted in the Natural History as the origin of religious belief.

Rearrangements

• Liberty and necessity is revisited as early as possible, immediately following the recasting of Hume’s account of necessary connection.
• The direct passions are discussed first, leaving the Dissertation to end with the causes of the violent passions. The context of the Four Dissertations explains this (Immerwahr).
• McIntyre: “I have a different view”. But it’s unclear what that is...?
• McIntyre: “One obvious and somewhat paradoxical feature of Book II is the fact that the indirect passions are discussed before the direct.” This is because “the indirect passions are among the causes of the direct.”
• I have a different view.