Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary

By David Hume

DAVID HUME’S greatness was recognized in his own time, as it is today, but the writings that made Hume famous are not, by and large, the same ones that support his reputation now. Leaving aside his Enquiries, which were widely read then as now, Hume is known today chiefly through his Treatise of Human Nature and his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. The Treatise was scarcely read at all during Hume’s lifetime, however, and the Dialogues was not published until after his death. Conversely, most readers today pay little attention to Hume’s various books of essays and to his History of England, but these are the works that were read avidly by his contemporaries. If one is to get a balanced view of Hume’s thought, it is necessary to study both groups of writings. If we should neglect the essays or the History, then our view of Hume’s aims and achievements is likely to be as incomplete as that of his contemporaries who failed to read the Treatise or the Dialogues.… [From the Foreword by Eugene F. Miller]

Book Cover

Translator/Editor

Eugene F. Miller, ed.

First Pub. Date

1742

Publisher

Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, Inc. Liberty Fund, Inc.

Pub. Date

1987

Comments

Publication date details: Part I: 1742. Part II ( Political Discourses): 1752. Combined: 1777. Includes Political Discourses (1752), "My Own Life," by David Hume, and a letter by Adam Smith.

Copyright

Portions of this edited edition are under copyright. Picture of David Hume courtesy of The Warren J. Samuels Portrait Collection at Duke University.

OF THE DELICACY OF TASTE AND PASSION

Part I, Essay I

Published in 1742.
^a

ESSAYS,

MORAL, POLITICAL, AND LITERARY

Part I

SOME People are subject to a certain
delicacy of
passion,*1 which makes them extremely sensible to all the accidents of life, and gives them a lively joy upon every prosperous event, as well as a piercing grief, when they meet with misfortunes and adversity. Favours and good offices
° easily engage their friendship; while the smallest injury provokes their resentment. Any honour or mark of distinction elevates them above measure; but they are as sensibly touched with contempt.
° People of this character have, no doubt, more lively enjoyments, as well as more pungent
° sorrows, than men of cool and sedate tempers: But, I believe, when every thing is balanced, there is no one, who would not rather be of the latter character, were he entirely master of his own disposition. Good or ill fortune is very little at our disposal: And when a person, that has this sensibility
° of temper, meets with any misfortune, his sorrow or resentment takes entire possession of him, and deprives him of all relish in the common occurrences of life; the right enjoyment of which forms the chief part of our happiness. Great pleasures are much less frequent than great pains; so that a sensible temper must meet with fewer trials in the former way than in the latter. Not to mention, that men of such lively passions are apt to be transported beyond all bounds of prudence and discretion, and to take false steps in the conduct of life, which are often irretrievable.

There is a
delicacy of
taste observable in some men, which very much resembles this
delicacy of
passion, and produces the same sensibility to beauty and deformity of every kind, as that does to prosperity and adversity, obligations and injuries. When you present a poem or a picture to a man possessed of this talent, the delicacy of his feeling makes him be sensibly touched with every part of it; nor are the masterly strokes perceived with more exquisite relish and satisfaction, than the negligences or absurdities with disgust and uneasiness. A polite and judicious conversation affords him the highest entertainment; rudeness or impertinence is as great a punishment to him. In short, delicacy of taste has the same effect as delicacy of passion: It enlarges the sphere both of our happiness and misery, and makes us sensible to pains as well as pleasures, which escape the rest of mankind.

I believe, however, every one will agree with me, that, notwithstanding this resemblance, delicacy of taste is as much to be desired and cultivated as delicacy of passion is to be lamented, and to be remedied, if possible. The good or ill accidents of life are very little at our disposal; but we are pretty much masters what books we shall read, what diversions we shall partake of, and what company we shall keep. Philosophers have endeavoured to render happiness entirely independent of every thing external. That degree of perfection is impossible to be
attained: But every wise man will endeavour to place his happiness on such objects chiefly as depend upon himself: and
that is not to be
attained so much by any other means as by this delicacy of sentiment.
*2 When a man is possessed of that talent, he is more happy by what pleases his taste, than by what gratifies his appetites, and receives more enjoyment from a poem or a piece of reasoning than the most expensive luxury can afford.
^a

Whatever connection there may be originally
*3 between these two species of delicacy, I am persuaded, that nothing is so proper to cure us of this delicacy of passion, as the cultivating of that higher and more refined taste, which enables us to judge of the characters of men, of compositions of genius, and of the productions of the nobler arts.
° A greater or less relish for those obvious beauties, which strike the senses, depends entirely upon the greater or less sensibility of the temper: But with regard to the sciences and liberal arts, a fine taste is, in some measure, the same with strong sense, or at least depends so much upon it, that they are inseparable. In order to judge aright of a composition of genius, there are so many views to be taken in, so many circumstances to be compared, and such a knowledge of human nature requisite, that no man, who is not possessed of the soundest judgment, will ever make a tolerable critic in such performances. And this is a new reason for cultivating a relish
° in the liberal arts. Our judgment will strengthen by this exercise: We shall form juster notions of life: Many things, which please or afflict others, will appear to us too frivolous to engage our attention: And we shall lose by degrees that sensibility and delicacy of passion, which is so incommodious.
°

But perhaps I have gone too far in saying, that a cultivated taste for the polite arts extinguishes the passions, and renders us indifferent to those objects, which are so fondly pursued by the rest of mankind. On farther reflection, I find, that it rather improves our sensibility for all the tender and agreeable passions; at the same time that it renders the mind incapable of the rougher and more boisterous emotions.

Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes,
Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros.*4

For this, I think there may be assigned two very natural reasons. In the
first place, nothing is so improving to the temper as the study of the beauties, either of poetry, eloquence, music, or painting. They give a certain elegance of sentiment to which the rest of mankind are strangers. The emotions which they excite are soft and tender. They draw off the mind from the hurry of business and interest; cherish reflection; dispose to tranquillity; and produce an agreeable melancholy,
° which, of all dispositions of the mind, is the best suited to love and friendship.

In the
second place, a delicacy of taste is favourable to love and friendship, by confining our choice to few people, and making us indifferent to the company and conversation of the greater part of men. You will seldom find, that mere men of the world, whatever strong sense they may be endowed with, are very nice
° in distinguishing characters, or in marking those insensible differences and gradations, which make one man preferable to another. Any one, that has competent sense, is sufficient for their entertainment: They talk to him, of their pleasure and affairs, with the same frankness that they would to another; and finding many, who are fit to supply his place, they never feel any vacancy
° or want
° in his absence. But to make use of the allusion of a celebrated French
*5 author, the judgment
*6 may be compared to a clock or watch, where the most ordinary machine is sufficient to tell the hours; but the most elaborate alone can point out the minutes and seconds, and distinguish the smallest differences of time. One that has well digested his knowledge both of books and men, has little enjoyment but in the company of a few select companions. He feels too sensibly,
° how much all the rest of mankind fall short of the notions which he has entertained. And, his affections being thus confined within a narrow circle, no wonder he carries them further, than if they were more general and undistinguished. The gaiety and frolic of a bottle companion
° improves with him into a solid friendship: And the ardours of a youthful appetite become an elegant passion.

[In the
Treatise of Human Nature, Hume divides the perceptions of the mind into impressions and ideas. Impressions are divided into sensations and passions. Hume speaks of passions as secondary impressions, inasmuch as they usually arise from some preceding sensation or idea. He divides the passions into the calm and the violent. On occasion the term
passion is used narrowly, as in the present essay, to designate only the more violent passions, such as love and hatred, grief and joy, or pride and humility. When Hume speaks here of a “delicacy of passion,” he means a disposition to be affected strongly by the violent passions in the face of prosperity or misfortune, favors or injuries, honors or slights, and other accidents of life that lie beyond our control. What he here calls “taste”—the sense of beauty and deformity in actions or objects—is also a passion, broadly speaking, but normally a calm one. A delicacy of taste is a keen sensitivity to beauty and deformity in actions, books, works of art, companions, and such. This quality of mind is discussed at considerable length by Hume in Essay XXIII, “Of the Standard of Taste.”]

[Hume sometimes uses the term
sentiment broadly to mean passion or feeling as such, but at other times, as in this passage, he uses it synonymously with
taste to refer to a special feeling of approbation or disapprobation that arises from the contemplation of objects, characters, or actions. Taste, or sentiment in this latter sense, underlies judgments of beauty and moral worth. In the
Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Hume argues that “morals and criticism are not so properly objects of the understanding as of taste and sentiment. Beauty, whether moral or natural, is felt, more properly than perceived” (sec. xii, pt. 3).]

[An “original” connection is one in human nature itself. Hume is alluding here to the fact that “taste” is itself a passion and has more in common with the other passions than this essay might suggest. The connection of the various passions is discussed by Hume in Book II of the
Treatise (“Of the Passions”) and in a later recasting of Book II entitled “A Dissertation on the Passions.”]

[Ovid (43 B.C.-A.D. 18?),
Epistulae ex Ponto (Letters from Pontus) 2.9.47-48: “A faithful study of the liberal arts humanizes character and permits it not to be cruel” (Loeb translation by A. L. Wheeler).]

Mons. FONTENELLE,
Pluralité des Mondes. Soir. 6. [Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657-1757), French academician, poet, and popularizer of modern science, whose “Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds” was published in 1686.]

[“The judgment” is referred to by Hume in the
Treatise as that operation of mind by which we make inferences from sense impressions, as in judgments of cause and effect. Feelings of moral sentiment are also treated on occasion, but not consistently, as judgments.]

Part I, Essay II

Categories: David Hume