A Treatise of Human Nature

Front Cover
Clarendon Press, 1896 - 709 pages
 

Contents

I
xvii
II
1
V
26
VI
69
VII
180
VIII
275
IX
329
X
399
XI
455
XIII
477
XIV
574

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Page 1 - I comprehend all our sensations, passions and emotions, as they make their first appearance in the soul. By ideas, I mean the faint images of these in thinking and reasoning...
Page 271 - Where am I, or what ? From what causes do I derive my existence, and to what condition shall I return ? Whose favour shall I court, and whose anger must I dread? What beings surround me, and on whom have I any influence, or who have any influence on me ? I am confounded with all these questions, and begin to fancy myself in the most deplorable condition imaginable, environed with the deepest darkness, and utterly deprived of the use of every member and faculty.
Page xix - It is evident that all the sciences have a relation, greater or less, to human nature; and that, however wide any of them may seem to run from it, they still return back by one passage or another. Even Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and Natural Religion, are in some measure dependent on the science of man; since they lie under the cognizance of men, and are judged of by their powers and faculties.
Page 254 - For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception.
Page 271 - I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when, after three or four hours...
Page 471 - So that •when you pronounce any action or character to be vicious, you mean nothing, but that from the constitution of your nature you have a feeling or sentiment of blame from the contemplation of it.
Page 262 - For from thence it evidently follows, that identity is nothing really belonging to these different perceptions and uniting them together ; but is merely a quality, which we attribute to them, because of the union of their ideas in the imagination, when we reflect upon them.
Page 270 - The intense view of these manifold contradictions and imperfections in human reason has so wrought upon me, and heated my brain, that I am ready to reject all belief and reasoning, and can look upon no opinion even as more probable or likely than another.
Page 256 - In order to justify to ourselves this absurdity, we often feign some new and unintelligible principle, that connects the objects together, and prevents their interruption or variation. Thus we feign the continu'd existence of the perceptions of our senses, to remove the interruption ; and run into the notion of a soul, and self, and substance, to disguise the variation.
Page 471 - In every system of morality which I have hitherto met with, ' I have always remarked that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs ; when of a sudden I am surprised to find that instead of the usual copulations of propositions is...

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