Hume's Theory of Relations

Author(s): Alan Hausman

Source: Noûs, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Aug., 1967), pp. 255-282
Published by: Blackwell Publishing
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 Hume's Theoryof Relations

ALAN HAUSMAN
THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

What is logically distinct is not always distinguished. In the

Treatise,' Hume often fails to distinguish matters of psychology
from matters of philosophy. Perhaps he doesn't see the difference
or, even worse, doesn't believe there is any. In this paper I shall
show that at least in one crucial case they can be distinguished
without doing violence to Hume's views. I shall show, to be explicit,
that Hume's insights about causation are logically independent of
his psychological view, i.e., that the two do not stand or fall to-
gether. The key to the distinction is found in Hume's theory of
relations.
Despite the importance of Hume's theory of relations, it is
one of the least understood of his doctrines. In Section I of this
paper I lay out its main features. Philosophical relations, e.g., re-
semblance, contiguity in space and time, and cause and effect,
connect ordinary objects; natural relations connect our thoughts
about them. The two categories are radically different. The first is
ontological, the second, psychological. The distinction corresponds
to the two distinct strands of the Treatise.2 In Section II some com-
mon misunderstandings of Hume's views on causation are dis-
cussed. They either stem or derive comfort from confusion about
the distinction between the two kinds of relations and, what goes
with it, confusion over the difference between Hume's psychologi-
'David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Ed. by L. A. Selby-Bigge
(Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1960).
2 My views on the two kinds of relation are closest to those of R. W.
Church in his "Hume's Theory of Philosophical Relations," The Philosophical
Review, Vol. L (July, 1941): 353-367, and J. A. Robinson in his "Hume's
Two Definitions of Cause," The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 12 (April,
1962):162-171. However, the view presented here differs markedly from
these others: see footnotes 4 and 18.

255
 256 NOtS

cal and philosophical views. Prichard, for example, believes that

Hume exorcises necessary connections from the world of ordinary
objects, but not from the mind. Hendel believes that Hume's onto-
logical view of the philosophical relations is shaped by his views
of natural relations. I shall show that both of these interpretations
of Hume are mistaken.

I. THE TWO KINDS OF RELATIONS

A. NATURAL RELATIONS

Consider a person, S, who is the subject of a psychological

study. The objects under investigation are S's ideas. An idea,
which is mental, stands to what it is an idea of as a picture stands
to what is pictured. An idea of a chair, for example, manages to
represent a chair because the idea and the chair have elements in
common. So conceived, ideas are mental images of ordinary physi-
cal objects.3
Let II, I2, Ij, . i., represent S's ideas, the subscripts
indicating their sequence. The psychologist examines the sequence
to determine the causes of S's ideas. For example, consider the
following sequence of events. S sees a red ball, then closes his eyes.
Now he has an idea of the red ball, Ij, followed by an idea of a red
coat, Ij+1. Finally, the idea of his desk at home, Ii +2, occurs to S.
The psychologist examines the sequence of ideas. He determines
that Ij is caused by the immediately preceding perception of the
red ball. But what are the causes of the next two ideas?
The psychologist notices that I+1 and Ij resemble one another.
Ij+1 and Ij+2 do not. When questioned about this sequence, how-
ever, S says that he keeps a red coat hanging on a chair next to the
desk in his room. The psychologist examines a considerable number
of S's ideas and finds patterns quite similar to the ones just de-
scribed. The result is that he is able to class pairs of S's ideas into
two major groups. The first group has the following characteristic:
Given any first member of a pair, it resembles the second member
of the pair with respect to one or more characteristics. In the
second group, the first member of any given pair represents an
object which is or has been spatially or temporally contiguous to
3In this paper I do not consider either ideas of ideas, or impressions
and ideas of reflection. Naturally, all three would have to be included in a
complete statement of associationism, but no harm will be done if they are
ignored here.
HUME'S THEORY OF RELATIONS 257

the object represented by the second idea of the pair. The psychol-
ogist draws the following conclusions: With respect to the first
group, the fact that the members of the pairs resemble one another
is the crucial factor in the analysis of the causes of the second
member of each pair. With respect to the second, the fact that the
objects represented by the ideas are spatially or temporally con-
tiguous is a crucial factor in explaining the causes of the second
members. nTe psychologist knows, too, that in the case of the first
group, the objects represented by the ideas also resemble one
another since, after all, the ideas are of these objects.
Thus it seems to be the case that S's mind is so built that,
having been acquainted with two objects which resemble one an-
other or are spatially or temporally contiguous, an idea of the one
causes an idea of the other. Ij is said to be the cause of Ij+1, and
the latter the cause of Ij+2, just as the heating of a sample of water
is the cause of its boiling. This phenomenon is labelled association.
The general laws which explain why Ij+l causes IJ+2, however,
include variables whose values are ordinary objects as well as
variables whose values are ideas and, in addition, a reference to
the relation between the objects. Thus, it is because an object A
lies contiguous to an object B, and S perceives this fact, that we
may say that the idea of A causes the idea of B. The psychologist
has discovered two different ways in which ideas are associated
on the basis of such facts, namely, resemblance and contiguity. The
terms resemblance and contiguity are used to designate the causal
connections between ideas. These connections obtain because
(a) the objects represented by the ideas are related in certain ways
and (b) the mind has the ability to mirror the relations among
objects it finds in nature.4
(a) and (b), I submit, embody a psychological theory which
is essentially that of Hume in the Treatise. So articulated, it neither

'Notice that S's perceiving that A resembles B, for example, is a

necessary causal condition for the idea of A causing the idea of B. Therefore
it is misleading to speak as Robinson, op. cit., does, of the philosophical
relation of resemblance between A and B as also being a natural relation if it
has the property of naturalness. One may define a predicate "natural"which
belongs to the philosophical relation of resemblance, but the definiens would
contain a reference to the natural causal relation of resemblance as well. All
the natural relations are causal relations, and causation is a philosophical
relation as well. Robinson, by taking the philosophical relations as logically
prior to the natural ones implies a kind of interdependence which opens
Hume to the classical objection that, since his psychological views are wrong,
his philosophical ones are also.
258 NOUS

is itself nor does it presuppose any ontological analysis of either

ideas or ordinary objects. It is true that Hume begins the Treatise
by distinguishing ideas from impressions, and one may rightly inter-
pret this distinction as ontological. But as an ontological distinction
it plays no role in Hume's psychological theory. For (a) insofar
as we commonsensically distinguish between ordinary objects and
t-he ideas we have of them, the distinction between impressions
and ideas merely corresponds to that between ordinary objects
and ideas and (b) although Hume, like Berkeley, speaks of im-
pressions (Berkeley says "ideas") as mental, this use of mental
in perfectly hannless outside of a philosophical context. To see that
clearly, consider that Hume follows Berkeley in distinguishing two
kinds of ideas-the first kind Hume labels impressions (to rescue
the word idea) and the second, more properly, ideas.5 Even
though both kinds are 'mental', there is a second sense of mental
in which only what Hume calls ideas are mental. Impressions,
indeed, are simply chairs and tables, etc. One need only recall
Berkeley's explanation in the Principles of his use of the word
idea.6 Hume is often criticized for his use of physical object terms
after he has explicitly introduced the term impression and forsworn
the former. That Hume often speaks like a representationalist
cannot be denied. But I suspect this lapse is not always into an
unnoticed representationalism, but just as often into a more com-
mon mode of speech. Impressions are ordinary objects, after all;
the word merely marks the kind of entity an ordinary object is; it
is not meant to divide the world into impressions and mysterious
entities called ordinary objects.
Nor is any analysis of relations presupposed in the psycho-
logical theory. If an object A resembles an object B, and S has per-
ceived both, then the thought of A may cause the thought of B.
No ontological analysis of the state of affairs expressed by "A re-
sembles B" need be given insofar as Hume speaks as a psycholo-
gist. All that is supposed is that it is true that A resembles B.
Unfortunately, Hume quite misleading characterizes the ways in
which ideas come to be causally connected. He speaks of resem-
blance and contiguity as relations or connections, but one must not
be misled into thinking that these are connections among ideas.
ITreatise, Part I, Section I: 1-2.
George Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human
6

Knowledge (Indianapolis: The Library of Liberal Arts, 1957). Sections 38

and 39: 40-41.
HUME'S THEORY OF RELATIONS 259

It is true that In resembles I,+,, but it is not this resemblance that

accounts for the existence of I,+ 1. Rather, it is the fact that In
represents an ordinary object which is related by resemblance to
an ordinary object represented by I,+, that, together with the laws
of association, explains the occurrence of I.+1. Hume suggests, in
fact, that given any two objects X and Y with a relation R between
them, the mind is capable of mirroring that relation by association.7

B. THE CAUSAL RELATION

The total set of all the ideas which occur in the pairs classified
under resemblance and contiguity do not exhaust S's ideas. Some
are simply random or wild. But there is also a third major set of
pairs. The first of each pair is said to be the cause of the entity
represented by the second. This set of pairs is unusual for three
reasons.
One. The first member of each pair is not an idea but an
impression. Thus there seems to be an associative connection be-
tween an impression, i.e., an ordinary object, and an idea. But this
is impossible, since the relations of association are seemingly be-
tween mental entities, in that deeper sense of "mental" described
earlier.
The roughness is only apparent. Hume does not clearly dis-
tinguish between an act of mind, e.g., perceiving, remembering,
and its intention or object, e.g., a tree, a chair. If he did, he could
and, I believe, would make clear that what he means in the present
case is that the perception of the first object causes the idea of the
second.8
Two. The second member of the pair is an idea for which
there has been no previous impression. Hume does not mean that
S has had no previous experience of the properties 'in' the idea,
but rather that the idea does not represent any particular (indi-

7Hume claims that all objects resemble one another to some extent,
but this resemblance does not always produce an association (Treatise, p. 14).
Nevertheless, it is obvious that the mind can pick whatever such associations
it desires. And, different minds can notice different things resembling one
another and hence have different patterns of association. In fact, one might
not even be conscious of the patterns chosen by the association mechanism.
8 I fully realize that this is a quite controversialpoint. Hume's confusion

over mental acts is notorious. In the case at hand, I simply do not know
how else to make sense of his contention that the impression of a cause
causes the idea of an effect. See Section II of this paper.
260 NONS

vidual) thing with which S has been previously acquainted. Since

the imagination is the faculty of mind which can produce such
ideas, Hume naturally assigns the cause of this idea to it. Accom-
panying this idea is a strong feeling of belief, namely, the belief
that this idea represents some future occurrence. As it turns out,
Hume explains this feeling of belief by means of the first member
of the pair, that is, the impression. Only an impression is forceful
enough to cause, via association, such a strong feeling. Thus the
third major class of ideas is dintinguished from the others. In the
case of resemblance, an idea causes a second idea of a thing once
experienced. In the case of causation, an impression (i.e., a per-
ception) causes an idea of a thing not yet experienced.
Three. However, this simple account by association will not
do. In the case of resemblance and contiguity, the associated ideas
represent objects which have been previously experienced. Indeed,
the reason that Ij is said to be the cause of Ij+I is not only that what
the ideas represent are related by resemblance, but also that the
mind has taken note of the resemblance. Consider now S's percep-
tion of a sample of water, which he has never before perceived,
being heated over a fire. This perception causes the idea that
the water will boil. But this particular idea does not represent
an object which has been experienced before, hence it could not
have been associated with the impression of this sample of water
being heated. It is precisely the disanalogy between the case of
causation and the other two cases of natural relations that must
send Hume looking for the ground of the association, thus to the
philosophical relations.

C. PHILOSOPHICAL RELATIONS

Assume that the following sentences are true: "A resembles

B", "C is contiguous to D", "E is the cause of F". What are the
grounds for their truth? The question is ontological; to fully answer
it, one must present an adequate analysis of relations. Hume's
analysis of them is inadequate, but still of considerable interest.
He gives relations, however hesitatingly, objective ontological
status.
Hume believes there are seven kinds of philosophical rela-
tions. That he considers them to be relations among objects and
thus, in the relevant sense, independent of minds (unlike ideas)
is clear from the following passages:
HUME'S THEORY OF RELATIONS 261

Thus distance will be allowed by philosophers to be a true

relation, because we acquire an idea of it by the comparing
of objects.9
It may perhaps be esteemed an endless task to enumerate
those qualities, which make objects admit of comparison,and
by which the ideas of philosophical relation are produced.'0
'Tis from the idea of a triangle, that we discover the relation
of equality."
("Philosophical" is italicized in the text; all other italics have
been added.)
Unlike Locke, who misleadingly states that relations arise from a
comparison,'2 Hume claims that we gain ideas of relations by dis-
covering them among objects. One cannot discover what is not
there to be discovered. At best, however, Hume's statement is a
mere affirmation of common sense, refreshing though it may be.
Giving the analysis which will do it justice is another matter. Hume
does not provide it. Instead, he turns to another matter, the expli-
cation of the notion of necessary connection. Some preliminary
explanation will facilitate the exposition.
In the tradition, relations are divided into two groups. An
internal relation is one grounded in the entities it relates and in
nothing else. More accurately, the ontological ground of each in-
stance of such a relation is entirely in the two or more entities
which in this instance it relates, and not wholly or in part in any
other entity. As philosophers have used "nature", an entity's nature
is in it. Or, as one says, internal relations among entities are
grounded in their natures. An external relation is one grounded in
some entity wholly outside the entities related. Traditional exam-
ples of internal relations are higher-in-pitch (middle E is 'by its
very nature' higher in pitch than middle C) and causation (it is
'in the very nature' of fire to cause pain upon contact) . Examples of
external relations are rare before Russell. He considers to-the-left-of
(in space) to be one, precedes (in time) to be another.
9 Treatise, Part I, Section V, p. 14.
lo Ibid.
11Ibid., Part III, Section I, p. 69.
12
According to Locke "relation is a way of comparing or considering
two things together, and giving one or both of them some appellation from
that comparison."John Locke, Essay Concerning the Human Understanding,
Ed. by A. C. Fraser (New York: Dover Publications, Inc. 1959). Book II,
Chapter XXV: 429-430.
262 NOUS

Hume is not unaware of the distinction. He begins his dis-

cussion of the seven philosophical relations by dividing them into
two groups, namely, those that depend on the entities related and
those that do not.'3 To grasp the distinction, consider the following
example. A and B are spots of the same shade of red, the former
to the left of the latter. Thus, "A resembles B" and "A is to the left
of B" are true statements. What, according to Hume, is the onto-
logical ground of their truth?
In the first sections of the Treatise Hume, like Berkeley, ana-
lyzes an ordinary things as the collection of its properties.14 That
makes A and B two collections, each having the member red. If
one considers the list of properties which constitute A and the
list which constitutes B, one can, from the lists alone, know that
A resembles B. Thus resemblance is an internal relation grounded
in the very nature of the spots themselves. Furthermore, such a
relation, according to Hume, is an object of "knowledge and cer-
tainty," because it depends solely on the entities related.'5 What
does he mean?
Consider two classes X and Y, with members a,b,c, and
c,d,e, respectively. X and Y overlap. If and only if two classes
overlap is there some entity, in this case, c, that is both a member
of X and a member of Y. "c is a member of X" is an analytic truth.
The fact it expresses is necessary or, if you prefer, there is a neces-
sary connection between c and X. When we are aware of such
facts, we are very certain of them. Certainty, though, is a property
of beliefs; necessity is a property of what is believed. About this
difference Hume is none too clear. Right now the blur makes no
difference; later, it will make a considerable one (Section II).
"c is a member of X" is analytic. So is "c is a member of Y."
That makes their conjunction analytic. So, then, is "X and Y over-
lap." The sentence expresses a necessary connection between X
and Y. Since it is necessary, we are very certain of it. This model,
I submit, explicates what is meant by calling "A resembles B"
a certain truth.
Hume does not apply this criterion of necessity to all four
of the "certain" philosophical relations. Difference in degree of
quality "we always pronounce at first sight, without any enquiry

1 Treatise, Part III, Section I, p. 69.

l&Ibid., Part I, Section I, p. 2.
15
Ibid., Part III, Section I, p. 69.
HUME'S THEORY OF RELATIONS 263

or reasoning." Hume's meaning is not clear. The reason is his half-

hearted nominalism. Sometimes he speaks as if qualities were sim-
ple entities which have distinct ontological status. If that were so,
"Middle E is higher than middle C" would express the fact that
two simple entities are connected by a relation of higher-than.'6
Such truths have often been labelled synthetic a priori; the relation
is said to be grounded in the very nature of the pitches. At other
times, Hume treats higher-than as if it were a relation among
individual tones that have pitches as properties.'7 In that case, the
statement that middle E is higher than middle C is a universal
generalization. In neither case does the explication of necessity
given in the last paragraph fit. I know none that does. Yet, if one
believes that pitches have natures and has the nominalistic tend-
ency to assimilate qualities and their instances, one could well
include middle E is higher than middle C among necessary truths.
That Hume has the belief is clear from the quotation in the second
sentence of this paragraph; of the nominalistic tendency, which
he also clearly has, more in section II.
Hume's division of relations into two kinds is not so much an
analysis of the kind of entity a relation is, as an attempt to expli-
cate what is meant by calling a relation necessary. I do not suggest
that Hume clearly sees the difference, but merely that there is one.
Traditionally, philosophers who have held that relations are inter-
nal have done so because they have a certain idea of necessity in
mind. But grounding relations and explicating necessity are two
tasks and not one. Consider, for example, Hume's claims about
spatial and temporal relations. "A is to the left of B" does not
represent a necessary truth in either of the senses explicated.
There is nothing in either A or B to ground the relation. That
makes the statement a synthetic truth or, as he says, a statement
of probability (though we may be quite certain of it). Since such
facts are discovered by a perceiver, and since one cannot discover
them from the natures of the relata alone, it seems that Hume will

" In the Appendix to the Treatise, p. 637, Hume claims that blue and
green are simple ideas which resemble one another more than blue and
scarlet. They have no common circumstance the same, yet resemble, "and
yet from their very nature, which excludes all composition, this circumstance,
in which they resemble, is not distinguishable nor separable from the rest."
17 Hume refuses to distinguish a property from what it is a property
of as often as he claims that properties are simple. For example, see the
Treatise, Part I, Section VIII where he claims that objects, not their qualities,
are simple.
264 NOUS

be forced to say that spatial relations are external.'8 However, he

simply drops the matter as if there were nothing more to say. As
one might suspect, the impasse stems from his so-called logical
atomism. I say so-called since Hume's atomism is more of a psycho-
logical than a logical doctrine. The psychological atomism leads
to nominalism. I shall return to this point in Section II.
Whatever their ontological status, Hume seems willing to
grant that we find spatial and temporal relations among objects.
As we have already seen, it is on the basis of some of these relations
that the mind associates ideas. More accurately, one is sometimes
directly aware of such facts as A is simultaneous with B and A is
to the left of B. The difference between these facts is not in the
relata but in the relation. What, then, distinguishes A is to the
left of B from A causes B?

D. TiH CAUSAL RELATION ANALYZED

Hume's momentous answerl9 is, of course, that although we

are directly acquainted with such facts as A is to the left of B, we
are not acquainted with such facts as A causes B. That means the
following:
(1) In line with his distinction between the two kinds of
philosophical relations, Hume searches first for the causal relation
among its relata. He examines two objects called cause and effect,
"turns them over on all sides" and finds no quality to ground the
relation.20 In the case of resemblance, a similar search yields the
relation. One might argue at this point that the causal connection
is more akin to higher-than-in-pitch than to resemblance and, as
such, holds between two qualities because of their very nature.

18 Church insists in "Hume's Theory of Philosophical Relations," op. cit.,

that resemblance is the primary philosophical relation upon which all others
depend. He then shows, correctly, I think, that Hume considers resemblance
to be an internal relation. From this Church concludes that all philosophical
relations are internal. It is true that Hume says that resemblance is the
foundation for all other philosophical relations. But he never explains what
he means, and I have found no commentator who explicates the passage. It
seems clear, however, that Hume's distinction between two kinds of philosoph-
ical relations corresponds precisely to the traditional dichotomy between
internal and external relations.
19 I do not wish to argue about the novelty of Hume's claim. It is not
true, of course, that he was the first to make it, but perhaps he was the first
philosopher to drive it home.
" Treatise, Part III, Section II, p. 75.
HUME'S THEORY OF RELATIONS 265

For example, the quality of being-water-and-heated might be so

connected to the quality of being-water-and-boiling. Hume at
this point quite explicitly rejects this kind of analysis (but see
part E, below).
At first sight, I perceive, that I must not search for it in any
of the particular qualities of the objects; since, which-ever of
these qualities I pitch on, I find some object, that is not pos-
sest of it, and yet falls under the denomination of cause and
effect.21

That is, Hume assumes that the ground of the causal relation must
be the same in each thing called a cause and in each thing called
an effect. But there is no common quality that all things called
causes possess.22 To reject his assumption is tantamount to claiming
that there are a many causal connections as there are pairs of
properties related by cause and effect.28 Hume concludes that cau-
sation is not a philosophical connection which yields knowledge.
(2) Hume does find, however, that it is true of every entity
called a cause that it (a) is spatially contiguous with its effect, and
(b) is temporally prior to it. But in considering any given pair of
objects, one said to be the cause of the other, Hume can find no
other relation which every other causal pair manifests.
Having thus discover'd or suppos'd the two relations of con-
tiguity and succession to be essential to causes and effects, I
find I am stopt short, and can proceed no farther in considering
any single iristance of cause and effect. Motion in one body is
regarded upon impulse as the cause of the motion in another.
When we consider these objects with the utmost attention, we
find only that the one body approaches the other, but without
any sensible interval. 'Tis in vain to rack ourselves with farther

21 Ibid.
22
For an argument in a similar vein concerning internal connections,
see Gustav Bergmann's "Synthetic A Priori," Logic and Reality (Madison:
The University of Wisconsin Press, 1964): 274ff.
23 Suppose that an object A causes B, and C causes D. Hume assumes

that if the relation of causality is grounded in the pairs, then there must be
something in both members of one pair in common with both members of
the other. If this is denied, and one still wishes to ground the relation in the
relata, one could only do it by claiming there are as many causal con-
nections as there are qualities connected. For example, being-water-and-
heated would be connected with being-water-and-boiling, but this connec-
tion would differ from that connecting being-hot with being-S's-pain,
266 NOUS

thought and reflexion upon this subject. We can go no farther

in considering this particular instance.24
Put succinctly, Hume's point is that there is no primitive
relation of causality in rerum natura. Call this the negative claim.
Every cause is spatially contiguous and immediately prior to its
effect. Call this the positive claim. Despite the fact that Hume dis-
cusses his search for the causal connection in the same context
as his distinction between the two kind of relations, neither claim
rests upon that distinction. As we have seen, the latter is meant
to be an explication of necessity, not an analysis of what a relation
is; as such, it plays a role in Hume's discussion of the necessity of
the causal relation. But Hume's point here is that there is no
distinct primitive relation of causality so, quite naturally, it cannot
be found among either the primitive relations that yield knowledge
or the ones that yield probability. The claim rests upon a criterion
of direct acquaintance. That there is no relation of causation is
purported to be a fact. That causes are spatially contiguous and
immediately prior to their effects is also purported to be a fact.
Either can be verified by the man in the street. The positive and
negative claims are food for ontological analysis, not its results.
The positive claim, of course, is horribly misguided. It is indeed
ironic that one who aspired to be the Newton of the mental world
could have made it. The negative claim, I believe, stands. This I
shall not argue. Instead, for purposes of exposition, I shall assume
both claims to be true.
Hume does not claim that the causal relation is 'nothing.'
He calls it a philosophical relation. As a relation among objects it
is not primitive. To put the point linguistically, "cause" is defined
in terms of the relational predicates "contiguous to," "immediately
prior to" and (see below) "resemblance." That is all there is to the
relation of cause as a philosophical relation.25
We are now in a position to fully appreciate why Hume's
theory of philosophical relations provides the key to his theory of
causation. One. The philosophical relations are neither products
24 Treatise, Part III, Section IV: 76-77. One may object that Hume's
entire discussion of this point invokes philosophical categories, e.g., quality,
when he speaks, for example, of turning the object over on all sides in order
to find the quality that produces the idea of cause. One need only ask whether
Hume's claim would be any different if he did not invoke this terminology.
I think not. "Quality" is not being used philosophically in his discussion, and
his claims are factual, not ontological.
2S Treatise, Part III, Section VI, p. 94.
HUME'S THEORY OF RELATIONS 267

of the mind nor dependent on it. They are an irreducible feature

of the world of objects. If causation is such a relation, then it, too,
must connect objects. The theory of philosophical relations focuses
our attention on the kind of argument Hume must give against
the claim that there are real primitive causal connections in
nature, namely, that one is not directly acquainted with them.
Two. The theory of philosophical relations includes an explication
of necessity. It also includes at least the hint that there is a distinc-
tion between the feeling of certainty we have about objects and
the relations in which they stand, and the property of necessity
which some relations manifest. According to Hume, of course, the
causal connection does not manifest this property. Everyone,
though, believes that it does. Therefore, some psychological ex-
planation of our belief, our feeling of certainty, must be forth-
coming.

E. OUR IDEA OF THE CAUSAL RELATION ANALYZED

The positive and negative claims exhaust all there is to say

about any two objects that are causally connected, insofar as we
limit ourselves to speaking of the qualities of these objects and the
relations in which they stand to one another. But Hume's task is
far from over. As a psychologist, he wants to account for the causes
of our ideas. In the case of resemblance, as we have seen, this is
done rather handily. But in the case of causation things are not so
easy, for we believe that causal connections constitute much more
than the positive and negative claims.

Shall we then rest contented with these two relations of con-

tiguity and succession, as affording a compleat idea of causa-
tion? By no means. An object may be contiguous and prior to
another, without being considered its cause. There is a NEC-
ESSARY CONNEXION to be taken into consideration; and
that relation is of much greater importance, than any of the
other two above-mention'd.26

According to Hume, then, the beliefs we have about causation

include not only the idea that causation is a relation but that it is a
necessary relation. Yet it is not a primitive relation at all and,
assuming the positive claim to be true, it is not a necessary one.
28 Ibid., p. 77.
268 NO16S

Or, to put the latter point as Hume does, many objects fulfill the
conditions of the positive claim and are not considered to be
causally related. How account for our beliefs?
It is precisely at this point that Hume has misled many of
his critics. To repeat, he wants to analyze why people believe
certain things about the causal relation. He has already found that
he cannot answer this question by providing what would amount to
a justification for these beliefs. Sometimes it is proper to answer
the question "Why does S believe X?" by showing that X is a fact.
But if X is not a fact, then one must turn elsewhere to explain why
S believes it. And this is what Hume does. He provides a psycho-
logical explanation for why we believe what is false. The trouble
is that Hume himself is often unclear about what he is doing and
what questions he is answering, as we shall soon see. It is best to
begin by distinguishing three questions about our ideas of the
causal relation to which Hume definitely addresses himself. (1)
How does S's awareness of the fact that A causes B affect him so
that when he is perceiving something like A he thinks of something
like B? (2) Why does S believe that not all objects meeting the
requirement of the positive claim are causally related? (3)
Why does S believe that causal connections are necessary?
(1) is a question for psychology. Indeed, it is one of those
questions with which Hume begins the Treatise and which he
tries to answer by means of associationism. Notice that the ques-
tion is not (4) "Why does S believe that things like A cause
things like B (e.g., that the heating of water causes boiling)?" but
rather, "Why does S think of things like B when he perceives things
like A?." The questions are logically independent. It could be a
fact about human psychology, though, that if S does believe that,
say, water when heated boils, he will, upon seeing a specimen of
water heated, get the idea that it will boil. I say could since there
is no logical requirement that this be so; S could 'believe' that
water boils if heated and still not think of water boiling when he
sees water heated. If associationist psychology is correct, however,
it is because S 'believes' that water boils if heated that, upon seeing
water heated, he gets the idea it will boil. The single quotes
around "believe" indicate what Hume does not often make clear,
namely, that such a belief need not be conscious. To believe that
water if heated boils is, according to Hume, to have a certain habit
of associating perceptions of heating water and ideas of boiling
water. One need not be conscious of the habit, however, in order
HUME'S THEORY OF RELATIONS 269

for the idea of the water boiling to arise in the mind after the
perception of it being heated.27
How does the belief that water if heated boils form in the
mind? Suppose that S has seen several different specimens of
water being heated followed on each occasion by the water boiling.
Given any one of the specimens, say X, since the heating and
boiling of X are spatially and temporally contiguous, S might think
of X boiling when he remembers X being heated. However, each
specimen of water heating resembles all others in that it is a
specimen of water heating, and each specimen of water boiling
resembles all other specimens of water boiling in that respect.
Hume refers to this phenomenon as constant conjunction of water
heating and water boiling.28 Constant conjunction is one of those
features which often (but not always) distinguishes a causal from
a non-causal pair. It also is what causes the belief that water boils
if heated. Instead of associating a particular thing with another
on the basis of resemblance or contiguity, the mind associates,
as it were, the property of water-being-heated with the property
of water-boiling. Hume rather neatly speaks of a habit being formed.
Just as in the world of objects water heated is habitually found
with water boiling, so in the mind the perception of water heated
is habitually associated with the idea of water boiling. The mind
indeed mirrors the world, or, perhaps better, imitates it.29 When S
perceives a specimen of water heating the habit of association
causes the imagination to form the mental image of that specimen
of water boiling.
The belief that water if heated boils is a habit of mind. What
about the world does this habit mirror? The most natural answer
is that it reflects a generality. Hume, though, is strangely silent on
27 Ibid., Section VIII: 103-104. Hume does not clearly distinguish the
belief that A causes B, in the sense that belief is a thought of something, and
belief in a different sense, exemplified by the man who leaps automatically
out of the way of speeding cars. We say of the latter that he believes that
speeding cars cause pain if they hit you, but he may not have any conscious
thought of this law either when he leaps out of the way or at any other time.
I use "belief" in this wider sense in the present discussion.
28
ibid., Section VI: 86ff.
29David Hume, An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding (New
York: The Library of Liberal Arts, 1955): 67 ff. Hume says: "Here, then,
is a kind of pre-established harmony between the course of nature and the
succession of our ideas; and though the powers and forces by which the
former is governed be wholly unknown to us, yet our thoughts and con-
ceptions have still, we find, gone on in the same train with the other works
of nature."
270 NOUS

the question; nowhere in the Treatise does he give an analysis of

generalities such as water if heated boils. We have seen, however,
that he tends to confuse generalities with relational statements
about properties. There is the case of middle E being higher than
middle C. What one in fact experiences, speaking as we ordinarily
would, is that on each occasion on which the two are struck, the
tone exemplifying the former is higher than that exemplifying the
latter. Similarly, on each occasion that a specimen of water is
heated, it boils. Why not conclude that there is something in the
very nature of heating water that causes the boiling of water?
Hume claims that there is no quality common to all those entities
which are called causes that could ground the causal relation.
(One wonders, though, what he finds in the nature of the quality
middle E to ground its relation to middle C. For doesn't G above
middle C bear the same relation to middle E as the latter
does to middle C?30). It is just this constancy of relation, however,
between the heating and boiling of water which finally causes the
mind to think that causal connections are necessary.
Why does S believe that not all objects meeting the posi-
tive requirement are causally related? Hume has already declared
that there is no intrinsic difference between two entities which do
and two which do not stand in the relation of cause and effect.
Consider now a so-called accidental generality, the fact that all
and only Irishmen sit on benches in Central Park, and assume that
it is true. If what has been said in the last paragraphs is correct,
then insofar as causation is a relation among objects, there is a
causal relation between being an Irishman and being a bench
sitter in Central Park. No one accepts this as a causal law, of
course. But that is not Hume's point. There is no intrinsic difference
between this situation and the heating and boiling of water. The
ground for our belief that the situations differ, then, is not anything
about either the properties themselves or relations between them,
or the relations between the things themselves. It can only be on
the grounds of relations in which these things stand to other objects
including, of course, perceivers, that any distinction between the
cases can be made. The criterion for such a distinction is now
the subject of the vast literature that goes under the weighty title
of the justification of induction. Hume himself makes an attempt
to explain how to tell a causal from a non-causal situation in the

30 Bergmann, op. cit.: 292-294.

HUME S THEORY OF RELATIONS 271

section of the Treatise entitled "Rules by which to judge of causes

and effects." There he says
Where objects are not contrary, nothing hinders them from
having that constant conjunction, on which the relation of
cause and effect totally depends.
Since therefore 'tis possible for all objects to become
causes or effects to each other, it may be proper to fix some
general rules, by which we may know when they really are
so.31

I think it is safe to say that Hume's rules are not adequate.

Nor do I wish to add to the vast literature just mentioned. I shall
merely make some very general remarks which are, I think, con-
sonant with what Hume says (I shall not argue the case, how-
ever). We call those constant conjunctions causal which are useful
to us in the pursuing of some goal. It does not follow that we make
what we choose. That things stand in the relations they do to other
things is not determined by one's wishes. That one chooses to invest
some relational patterns with significance is. Yet we all know of
people who choose rather strange patterns, e.g., the paranoid. Nor
need we go to the mental hospitals for examples. Primitive societies
will do just as well. But neither the madman nor the savage makes
the same kind of mistake as one does, say, when he mistakes an
apple for an orange.32
Why does S believe that causal connections are necessary? In
the discussion of philosophical relations we saw that Hume speaks
of two kinds of necessary connection. One kind is exemplified by
A resembles B, (where A and B are objects33) the other, by middle
E is higher than middle C. A causes B is not necessary in either
sense. Yet everyone, including Hume, believes that if "A causes B"
is true, it is a necessary truth. What accounts for this mass delusion?
The delusion can only be explained psychologically. Since
Hume finds no ground for the belief, he must give a psychological,
i.e., causal, account of why people believe what is false. In his
discussion of necessity, Hume once again misled many of his
critics. Accounting for (1) S's belief that A causes B is necessary
31
Treatise, Part III, Section XV, p. 173.
32
One cannot help but feel that this point has been missed in many
of the articles now appearing on induction.
33Some may object to my continual use of the term "object" when
speaking of causation. After all, are not events causally related to other
events? For the purpose at hand, the distinction makes no difference.
272 NO~TS

is one thing, for (2) S's belief that A causes B, another, and for
(3) A causes B, yet a third. To see that clearly, consider that even
if (3) expressed a necessary connection between A and B, one
would still need to account for (1) and (2). Hume himself rightly
considers (1) and (2) to require separate attention. After claim-
ing that contiguity and constant conjunction do not exhaust our
idea of the causal relation, and that there is a necessary connec-
tion to contend with, he says
Here again I turn the object on all sides, in order to discover
the nature of the necessary connexion, and find the irnpres-
sion or impressions from which its idea may be deriv'd.34
(Italics mine)
And, once again, Hume finds nothing that would ground our idea
of necessity in the objects related or in any relation between them.
Thus he must "beat about all the neighbouring fields" to find the
source of the idea.35
. Anyone who confuses (1), (2) and (3) is in danger of be-
lieving that Hume's account of (3) is psychological. Then, if he
believes the psychological theory to be false, he may believe he
has some grounds for rejecting the negative as well as the positive
claim. Hume himself provides grounds for the confusion. To see
that, one need only recall his discussion of the principle of the
uniformity of nature. He asks whether or not S, when perceiving
A (a cause), arrivesat the idea of B by inference.36 Such an infer-
ence, he says, could be justified by invoking a principle of the
uniformity of nature. But this principle is itself only a causal law.
Hence we cannot justify our belief in the occurrence of B by
inference. Hume's confusion here should be clear. Even if one
could justify the principle of the uniformity of nature objectively
as it were, and thus provide rational grounds for the inference
from A to B, nothing whatever follows about S's thoughts about
A and B. That is, Hume confuses the question of the validity of
The future has always resembled the past.
All specimens of water heated so far have boiled.
This heated specimen will boil.
with the psychological task of explaining the origin of ideas.
Despite such mistakes, Hume's analysis of the idea of neces-
34 Treatise, Part III, Section II, p. 77.
35Ibid., p. 78.
36Ibid., Section VI: 87 ff.
lIUME S THEORY OF RELATIONS 273

sary connection clearly fits the psychological pattern he has by now

firmly established. He takes his cue from the causal analysis he has
given of the production of an idea of an effect, e.g., the idea of
a boiling specimen of water, from the impression of the water
being heated. The habit of mind, the gentle force of association,
triggered by the impression, causes the idea. The impression of
necessary connection arises from the mind watching this associative
connection. It is a feeling of certainty we have arising from the
mind's operations.37 The certainty, though, has no ground. We
literally project this feeling onto the objects represented by our
ideas.38 That is why S believes that causal connections are
necessary.
Hume's explanation certainly leaves a great deal to be de-
sired. Indeed, it is hopelessly fuzzy. Nevertheless, the psychologi-
cal explanation is secondary in importance (to us, if not to
Hume) to his main point, namely, that there is no other kind of
explanation one can give for our certainty but a psychological one.
There is nothing outside the mind, or for that matter, nothing in it,
that grounds the feeling. Prichard, we shall see, believes otherwise.
Before turning to his views, I shall summarize the main results of
this section.
As a psychologist, the Newton of the mental world, Hume's
task is to find causes for ideas. Finding these causes neither pre-
supposes nor implies any particular ontological theory. As a philos-
opher, Hume is interested in finding the grounds for factual as-
sertions about objects. The theory of philosophical relations is not
an adequate ontological analysis of what relations are, but an
attempt to explicate the notion of necessary connection. The
theory of philosophical relations thus has ontological significance,
while the theory of natural relations is psychological. Why mention
them together? Hume discovers that many of our beliefs concerning
the causal relation have no ontological ground. One of these beliefs
is that causal connections are necessary. His task is to account for
our certainty in psychological tenns. It is at this point that the
philosophical task runs tangent to the psychological.

II. TWO VIEWS OF HUME

In this section I shall examine two views of Hume which
have enjoyed and continue to enjoy some fashion. The first, Prich-
37 Ibid., Section XIV, p. 165.
38 Ibid., p. 167.
274 NOUS

ard's, is a mistaken criticism of Hume's account of necessity. The

second, Hendel's, is an exposition of Hume's theory of relations
which leaves Hume open to a set of classical objections. With
regard to Hendel, I shall be content to merely present but not
discuss in detail his views of relations in Hume. Their refutation,
I believe, is provided by section I. I merely wish to show how easy
it is to misinterpret Hume by misreading the difference between
his psychological and philosophical views.

A. PRICHARDS OBJECTIONS

Prichard's commentaries on Hume,39 though caustic and dis-

paraging, are on the whole among the most lucid ever written. I
find it impossible not to agree with most of his analyses and criti-
cisms, including his remark that there is "no adequate epithet"
for Book I of the Treatise (this does not mean, however, that
there is nothing in Hume to which one can agree or that is
important). Yet in evaluating Hume's analysis of necessity Prichard
makes a common mistake which, I think, leads him to reject, un-
justifiably, Hume's entire theory of causation. Prichard believes
that although Hume claims there are no necessary causal con-
nections between ordinary objects, there are such connections be-
tween ideas. Consider the following passage:
Though Hume's object is to show that the idea of necessary
connection is not applicable to physical nature, yet in explain-
ing our mental processes by association he throughout pre-
supposes that the idea is applicable to the mind, i.e., that
the mind's behaviour does exhibit necessity. He implies that
in the case of a mind we really know that what takes place
exhibits necessity. And this is actually asserted in the positive
half of his statement 'upon the whole necessity . . . exists
in the mind, not in objects'. For here, though what he is
emphasizing is the second clause, the first clause is required
if his view of the idea of cause and effect is to be stated.
The same view appears in the statement 'necessity is the
determination of thought' (i.e., the necessity which thought
is under) 'to pass from causes to effects and vice versa'.
Hume cannot reply that what he refers to as this necessity is

"9H. A. Prichard, Knowledge and Perception. (Oxford: The Clarendon

Press, 1950): 174-199.
IHUMES THEORY OF RELATIONS 275

really only a custom which the mind is under to pass from one
thought to another, for unless what he refers to is really a
necessity it will not serve as the required impression from
which the idea of causation is derived.40
He concludes, quite naturally, that if there are necessary con-
nections between ideas, they could as well exist between what
the ideas represent.
What does Hume mean when he says necessity exists in
the mind? Necessity is a property of states of affairs. When we
are aware of such states of affairs, we are very certain of them.
Certainty is not a property of states of affairs, but of beliefs about
them. Yet "certain" and "necessary" are often used interchangeably.
We speak of certain truths. In the next breath we say such truths
are necessary. For understanding Hume the difference between
certainty and necessity is crucial. He finds, for example, that we
all believe that a specimen of water necessarily boils when heated.
There is no ground for this necessity. Why, then, are we so
certain of it? It is this question which dominates the discussion
of necessary connection in the Treatise. Unfortunately, Hume does
not put the matter in quite this way. He claims that he is looking
for the origin of our idea of necessity with respect to causal
connections. He does not find it among objects. So he must explain
the origin of the idea in some other way. What he means, I submit,
is that he must find the origin of the certainty that we feel about
such situations as the heating and boiling of water. Or, at least, I
do not know what else he could mean. To grasp the point more
clearly, recall that when Hume claims that the mind observes its
own operations, i.e., the transition from the impression of water
being heated to the idea that it will boil, an impression of necessity
arises. But this is an impression of reflection.4' Such impressions
are feelings. In this case what we have is more properly de-
scribed as a feeling of certainty than an impression of necessity.
Hume's point seems to me unmistakeable, despite his unfortunate
choice of terminology.
Prichard is at worst a victim of this terminology. Since Hume
claims that he is looking for the impression of necessity, Prichard
assumes that he is looking for the ground for our belief that this
specimen of water will necessarily boil when heated. But Hume
" Ibid.: 188-189.
41Treatise, Part III, Section XIV: 164-165.
276 NOUS

has already claimed that there is no such ground. Indeed, since

the connection between a perception of a specimen of water being
heated and the idea that it will boil is itself causal, Hume cannot
consistently claim that one has an idea of necessity caused by some
property of this connection. Rather, Hume's point is that there is
a causal connection between the mind's association and the im-
pression of reflection called necessity. There is no more mystery in
this than in the production of a feeling of sorrow from the memory
of a lost love.
What is mysterious in Hume's view stems from his complete
failure to consider and analyze mental acts and their relations to
their intentions. Hume claims, for example, that we project the
feeling of certainty onto the objects of nature, and so come to think
of them as necessarily connected. We feel that the connections
are necessary because we are so certain, for example, that water
boils when heated. But why do we connect the feeling of certainty
that we have when we perceive water being heated and have
the idea it will boil, with the heating and boiling of water? The
answer would seem to be that certainty is a property of a mental
act, namely a belief, whose intention is the fact that heating
water and boiling water are constantly conjoined. Hume's discus-
sion of ideas, feelings, sensations, impressions, beliefs, cries out on
every page for the distinction between acts and their intentions or,
at least, some recognition that there are acts which have inten-
tions. No such distinctions, nor even a discussion, is forthcoming.
This horrendous void is the object of much of Prichard's wrath,
and rightfully so. Yet Hume's negative claim, that one is not ac-
quainted with primitive causal connections, and his claim that
one must turn to psychology to explain our belief in the necessity
of causal connections, still stand.
But Prichard is more than a victim of Humean termi-
nology. Consider the following passage:
We have therefore, Hume continues, found a new relation
besides those of contiguity and succession between objects
thought of as cause and effect, viz. that of constant conjunc-
tion in our past experience. (This is, of course, not really a
relation between the objects at all, but a relation between
our perceptions of them, and this difference is vital. )42

'2 Prchad, op. cit., p. 183.

HUME'S THEORY OF RELATIONS 277

Prichardis mistaken.Constant conjunctionis a feature of objects.

And, since the mind mirrorsthe world by means of the mechanism
of association, it is also a feature of the ideas of those objects.
Prichard, however, believes that constant conjunction is only a
feature of the latter. Consider once again his claim that if custom
were merely causal connection,there would be no ground for the
impression of necessity which Hume claims we have. Why does
Prichard believe that Hume's account of custom involves more
than contiguity? He has the mistaken belief that constant con-
junction is a feature of ideas, not objects. Then he equates con-
stant conjunctionwith necessary connection.As we already know,
such constant conjunctionamong ideas, which Hume calls habit
or custom, is not the ground for necessity, but the cause of a
feeling of certainty. That there are difficulties with this psycho-
logical account I do not deny. But the point remains that Hume's
idea, however mistakenly he carries it out, is not to ground the
feeling of certaintybut to show psychologicallyhow it arises. It is
this point that Prichardfails to grasp.

B. HENDEL's READING OF HuMi

Hendels43 reading of Hume is the contradictoryof the one
presented in Section I of this paper. In order to understandhim,
and why he goes wrong, a bit more will have to be said about
Hume's nominalism.
The natural relations are causal. The statement of a law of
association includes a reference to philosophical relations among
ordinary objects. Some of these philosophical relations are
grounded in the entities they relate. Some, like causation itself,
are not. Amongthe formerare relationsamongstmpleentities.What
is a simple? And how can a simple entity ground a relation?
Presently I shall answer the former question. To the latter there
is no answer. Nor does Hume present any analysis of those rela-
tions which on his view seem to be patently external. The reason,
I submit, is his confusion over what is simple.
Many philosophershave been guided by the ontological pat-
tern (S) Only simples exist. Hume certainlywas. What is a simple?
Hume has two distinct and incompatible answers.

" Charles W. Hendel, Studies in the Philosophy of David Hume (New

York: The Library of Liberal Arts, 1963).
278 NOtS

One. (A) Simple entities are those with which we are

directly acquainted (they are impressions). This is the classical
acquaintance pattern. It almost invariably leads to nominalism.
In Hume's case it certainly does. In one sense of "direct ac-
quaintance"we are always directly acquainted with ordinaryob-
jects, never with their qualities. Or to put the point as Hume
does, one never perceives qualities alone, but always instances of
them." This is the heart of the refutation of the doctrine of
abstract ideas. It is also a truism. Taken together with (A) and
(S) the truism yields the doctrine of psychological atomism, (P).
Only ordinaryobjects exist. Qualities, since we are never directly
acquainted with them-in the sense expressed by the truism-do
not exist. Call this the first pattern.
Obviously, the use of "direct acquaintance"is excessively
narrow.One can tell (know) a color from a shape or, if you wish,
we are directly acquainted with the difference. We are often
directly acquainted with two ordinary objects having the same
shape or color. If we were not, how would we know what we in
fact do know, that shapes differ from colors, that two objects may
have the same color? How would we know that an object had a
color unless we were acquainted with the color?
Two. Hume's conscience over (P) is decidedly uneasy. The
discomfortis caused by the questions just raised. So he invents an
example to dispel the discomfort.45We would never dream of
distinguishingfigure from the thing figured if we did not observe
that even the simplicity of ordinary objects "contained (I) many
different resemblancesand relations."If we see a globe of white
marble and afterwardsa globe of black marble and a white cube,
we find resemblances in what is perfectly inseparable (i.e., not
decomposable). Hence we are tempted, via a "distinctionof rea-
son" to distinguish qualities from their instances. This cannot be
done. Hume seems willing at this point to put the burden of ac-
counting for similarityon the relation of resemblance.Presumably
the differencebetween color and shape would rest on some rela-
tion of difference.46
As we already know, resemblanceis taken to be an internal
relation between entities. But what entities? If between ordinary

" Treatise, Part I, Section VII: 18-19.

""Ibid.: 24-25.
4'Hune says that difference is "the negation of a relation, rather
than . . . any thing real or positive (Treatise, p. 14)." I confess I am not
sure what this means.
HUME'S THORY OF RELATIONS 279

objects, Hume cannot ground the relation without giving ontologi-

cal status to qualities. If between the qualities of ordinaryobjects,
he again must admit that qualities exist. Since Hume says so little
about the philosophicalrelations,his appeal to them at this point
merely darkens the nominalistic mystery. More of that presently.
There are at least two places in the Treatise where the evi-
dence of such cases as the white globe overwhelmsHume. (a) He
explicitly states that ordinaryobjects are composed of their qual-
ities together, i.e., a bundle of qualities together in this ordinary
thing.47 (b) In the Appendix,48Hume speaks of resemblances
between two shades of color. The shades are simplel Hume marvels
that simple things like shades can resemble one another. On this
second atomistic account, qualities indeed exist. Ordinaryobjects,
composed of them, are not simple. Hence they do not exist. Call
this the second pattern.
How do relations fit the two patterns?Since Hume gives no
direct answer, one can only guess. On the first pattern, relations
would belong to pairs of objects, just as colors belong to individual
ones. That is, just as there are no colors apart from objects that
are colored, so there are no relations apart from pairs of objects
related. This is but a variant on the pattern of internal relations.
Yet we know that some relations, according to Hume, are such
that we cannot tell what they connect from the relata alone. This
dilemma, I submit, is the structuralreason behind Hume's silence
on the ontological analysis of relationsin general, and the relations
which do not yield knowledge in particular.
Upon the second pattern at least some relations would be
external, i.e., entities distinct from their relata. But even for one
who claims there are qualities, such an admission might be too
much. Qualities may be distinct entities, but at least they are con-
stituents of ordinarythings. What, however, would it mean to say
that a relation is a constituentof two ordinarythings?
The first pattern dominates the Treatise. And, of course, it
dominates Hume's discussion of abstract ideas. Like Berkeley, he
feels it necessary to explain why we use the same term, e.g., red,
to describe two different ordinary objects if red does not exist.
Like Berkeley, he gives a psychologistic answer. We apply the
term red to all red objects. Or, perhaps better, we associate the
noise or the mark with all the red objects with which we are

47 Treatise, Part I, Section I, p. 2.

48 Ibid., Appendix, p. 637.
280 NOTS

acquainted. But to make such an association, we must find a

resemblance among red objects.49This is crucial. Learning the
application of the term red involves the acquisition of a habit.
Then, upon hearing the word red, the habit causes an idea of one
of the red objects we have seen to occur to us. Thus the word
has become associatedwith a set of the ideas of red things in much
the same way as the heating of water is associated with its
boiling.50And, just as in the case of causal association,the acquisi-
tion of the habit must have some ground. The purpose of Hume's
attack on abstract ideas is not to show that there is no objective
ground for our belief that ordinarythings are red, but to show that
red is not an ordinary thing.5' What holds for quality terms, I
submit, also holds for relational ones, including the term "cause"
consideredas representinga philosophicalrelation. Otherwise,why
does Hume insist that words such as red are associated with ordi-
nary things that resemble one another? Why does he claim that
we discover relations among entities? That the first pattern does
not do justice to his psychological claim that the grounds for
associationare objects and their relations,I fully admit. The second
pattern shows how keenly Hume felt the pinch.
Hendel, in his Studies in the Philosophy of David Hume,
denies that Hume believes there is any ground for classificationof
ordinary things by either their qualities or relations. Rather, he
thinks,the mind literally creates similaritiesand distinctionsamong
ordinaryobjects, as well as relationsbetween them, such creations
being indispensibleto our survival. The result is that all qualities
and relations, including, of course, the philosophical relation of
causation, are analyzed as mind-dependent. Consider some pas-
sages:
48Ibid., Part I, Section VII: 20-22. Hume says: "When we have found
a resemblance among several objects . . . we apply the same name to all
of them . . ." "A particular idea becomes general by being annex'd to a
general term; that is, to a term, which from a customary conjunction has a
relation to many other particular ideas, and readily recalls them in the
imagination."
5" Assume that Jones leams the meaning of the word red in the follow-
ing way: each time he sees a particular red object, his mother utters the
word red. An association is formed. In the same way, Jones learns that
water boils if heated by seeing particular specimens of water heating and
then boiling.
"' For an excellent discussion of this point in Berkeley see E. B. Allaire's
"Berkeley's Idealism" in Theoria, Vol. 29, (1963). Reprinted in Iowa Pub-
lications in Philosophy, Volume 1. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1963).
See pp. 101 ff.
HUME 'S THEORY OF RELATIONS 281

There is no collection of particularsbased upon a discrimi-

nation of their abstract "kind"which is in turn supposed to
be conceived through a comparisonof the particularsin terms
of their resemblance with each other. These operations col-
lapse into a single, direct impulse of thought. Guided by
some practicalnecessity, we simply take such and such partic-
ular ideas together as forming a whole of one sort. We make
our collection and refer to it by means of some term in lan-
guage. We do not first discern the point of resemblanceand
then collect the ideas-in conceiving them as one sort we are
then and there assimilating them to each other. . . . Thus
the whole process appears to take place according to the
principle of resemblance but not on the basis of it.52
Thus causal inference is a very useful act of mind. Every such
operation represents not simply blind impulse but trained
habits. And the training one individual mind receives is gen-
erally the same as that of another, for the common purposes
of life are in all mankind very much the same....53
There must be a definite status for relations and univer-
sals. They must be . . . habits of the mind itself, opera-
tive in its thinking about particularthings.54
But associationis precisely the case of a union among ideas
where all ground in perception or reasoning is missing.55
The relation is established by the act of mind. And no "com-
mon quality"in the things thus related is there to guide the
mind in its inference.56
What underlies the finding of . . . resemblance is the assimi-
lative tendency of the mind itself, and notiing in the per-
ceived things.57
The upshot of these passages is clear. (1) There are no real
qualities or relations in nature, i.e., among ordinary objects inde-
pendent of minds. (2) Relations and qualities are mere habits of
mind. (3) The associationof ideas via relations is the ground for
52 Hendel, op. cit.: 107-108.
3 Ibid.:
109-110.
"4Ibid., p. 110.
""Ibid., p. 119.
58Ibid.
67
Ibid.,p. 125.
282 NOTS

our claim that objects have qualities and are related. What be-
comes of the philosophical relation of causality on such a view?
It is simply one more example of the mind's tendency to connect
objects to serve the purposes of life. To put the point succinctly,
the mind makes the world in a fashion 'calculated'to preserve us.
Hume thus becomes the hero of twentieth century pragmatism.
We have seen in Section I of this paper that Hume in fact
sharply distinguishesbetween the philosophical and natural rela-
tions. Causal laws of association must be stated in part in terms
of the relations found among objects and the qualities of objects.
It is true that the first pattern of Hume's nominalism,a philosophi-
cal view, forces him to claim that relations as well as qualities do
not exist. The second pattern exhibits his bad conscience. Indeed,
the very passage in the Appendix in which Hume recognizes
that shades of color are simples is taken by Hendel as evidence
for the view that he grounds relations in habits, because there is
nothing in simple shades to ground them. But in that very passage,
Hume has admitted that qualities exist! How can this be explained
on Hendel's view that a color itself is merely a habit of mind? The
fact is that neither the first nor the second pattern commits Hume
to the horrendouserror of identifying qualities and relations with
habits. Rather, the very habits which the mind acquires are
grounded in the discovery of relations among and qualities in
ordinary objects. The claim that such relations and qualities are
themselves habits reduces Hume's claims to sheer gibberish. Is
Hendel claiming that the quality red is a habit of mind which is
discoveredby means of the habit resemblance,which itself some-
how holds between ordinary objects?-one hardly knows how to
state it.
Clearly, Hendel has confused the natural with the philo-
sophical relations. He has confused the associationisticaccount of
the learning and application of quality and relational terms with
the first pattern of nominalism.The result is that Hume's philo-
sophical views and his negative and positive claims about the
relation of causation become an extension of his psychological
theory. It is small wonder that many philosophers have claimed
that Hume's theory of cause is hopelessly psychologistic. On
Hendel's interpretationof Hume, there is no other conclusion that
one could reach. I have tried to show and believe that I have
shown that views like Hendel's and their inevitable consequence
can be avoided.