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All this creative power of the mind amounts to no more than the faculty of compounding, transposing, augmenting, or diminishing the materials afforded us the by senses and experience.

David Hume

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David Hume
Age: 65 †
Born: 1711
Born: April 26
Died: 1776
Died: August 25
Economist
Essayist
Historian
Librarian
Philosopher
Writer
Edinburgh
Scotland
David Home
Hume
Experience
Diminishing
Power
Amounts
Mind
Faculty
Senses
Materials
Creativity
Augmenting
Amount
Compounding
Creative
Afforded

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Rousseau was mad but influential Hume was sane but had no followers.
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Habit may lead us to belief and expectation but not to the knowledge, and still less to the understanding, of lawful relations.
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In the sphere of natural investigation, as in poetry and painting, the delineation of that which appeals most strongly to the imagination, derives its collective interest from the vivid truthfulness with which the individual features are portrayed.
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Avarice, the spur of industry.
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It forms a strong presumption against all supernatural and miraculous relations, that they are observed chiefly to abound among ignorant and barbarous nations or if a civilized people has ever given admission to any of them, that people will be found to have received them from ignorant and barbarous ancestors.
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We may observe that, in displaying the praises of any humane, beneficent man, there is one circumstance which never fails to be amply insisted on, namely, the happiness and satisfaction, derived to society from his intercourse and good offices.
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Does a man of sense run after every silly tale of hobgoblins or fairies, and canvass particularly the evidence? I never knew anyone, that examined and deliberated about nonsense who did not believe it before the end of his enquiries.
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.. that which renders morality an active principle and constitutes virtue our happiness, and vice our misery: it is probable, I say, that this final sentence depends on some internal sense or feeling, which nature has made universal in the whole species.
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[Rousseau] has not had the precaution to throw any veil over his sentiments and as he scorns to dissemble his contempt of established opinions, he could not wonder that all the zealots were in arms against him.
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...virtue is attended by more peace of mind than vice, and meets with a more favourable reception from the world. I am sensible, that, according to the past experience of mankind, friendship is the chief joy of human life and moderation the only source of tranquillity and happiness.
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Custom, then, is the great guide of human life. It is that principle alone, which renders our experience useful to us, and makes us expect, for the future, a similar train of events with those which have appeared in the past.
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The feelings of our heart, the agitation of our passions, the vehemence of our affections, dissipate all its conclusions, and reduce the profound philosopher to a mere plebeian
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He sees such a desperate rapaciousness prevail such a disregard to equity, such contempt of order, such stupid blindness to future consequences, as must immediately have the most tragical conclusion, and most terminate in destruction to the greater number, and in a total dissolution of society to the rest.
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God is an ever-present spirit guiding all that happens to a wise and holy end.
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As every inquiry which regards religion is of the utmost importance, there are two questions in particular which challenge our attention, to wit, that concerning its foundation in reason, and that concerning it origin in human nature.
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I may venture to affirm the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.
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A propensity to hope and joy is real riches one to fear and sorrow real poverty.
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That the sun will not rise tomorrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction, than the affirmation, that it will rise.
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Let us fix our attention out of ourselves as much as possible let us chase our imagination to the heavens, or to the utmost limits of the universe we never really advance a step beyond ourselves, nor can conceive any kind of existence, but those perceptions, which have appeared in that narrow compass.
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But to proceed in this reconciling project with regard to the question of liberty and necessity the most contentious question of metaphysics, the most contentious science.
David Hume