Study Edition · Essay 32
Of the Dignity or Meanness of Human Nature
Source: Essays, Moral and Political (1741). Text from Hume's Essays (Routledge, n.d.), Project Gutenberg #36120. Archaic verb forms modernized; vocabulary kept and glossed.
Are human beings noble or contemptible? Hume, the great Scottish philosopher of the Enlightenment, argues that much of this old quarrel is a dispute about words, because “great” and “small,” “wise” and “foolish” are always comparisons. Compared with animals, we are magnificent; compared with perfect wisdom, we are nothing. He then takes on the cynics who claim that all human kindness is secretly selfish, and answers them with calm good sense: we enjoy helping our friends because we love them, not the other way round.
68 sentences: 13 simple, 26 moderate, 29 complex. Hover a number for its paraphrase; click it for the full note.
Key Vocabulary
- secta group with shared, distinctive opinions
- factiona group within a larger body, often quarrelling
- rupturea break; an open split
- divinestheologians; clergymen
- demigoda being who is partly divine
- declamationdramatic, rhetorical speech
- depreciateto belittle; to lower in value
- spleneticbad-tempered; irritable
- prepossessedalready filled with an opinion
- odioushateful; disgusting
- approbationapproval
- sagacitywisdom; shrewd judgement
- appellationa name or title
- epitheta descriptive word or phrase
- actuatingdriving into action; motivating
- confoundto confuse; to mix up
- subjointo add at the end
- disinterestednot motivated by self-interest; unselfish
- vaingloriousexcessively proud; boastful
- tincturea slight trace; a tinge
- laudabledeserving praise
The Essay
There are certain sects which secretly form themselves in the learned world, as well as factions in the political; and though sometimes they come not to an open rupture, they give a different turn to the ways of thinking of those who have taken part on either side.1 The most remarkable of this kind are the sects founded on the different sentiments with regard to the dignity of human nature; which is a point that seems to have divided philosophers and poets, as well as divines, from the beginning of the world to this day.2 Some exalt our species to the skies, and represent man as a kind of human demigod, who derives his origin from heaven, and retains evident marks of his lineage and descent.3 Others insist upon the blind sides of human nature, and can discover nothing, except vanity, in which man surpasses the other animals, whom he affects so much to despise.4 If an author possess the talent of rhetoric and declamation, he commonly takes part with the former: if his turn lie towards irony and ridicule, he naturally throws himself into the other extreme.5
I am far from thinking that all those who have depreciated our species have been enemies to virtue, and have exposed the frailties of their fellow-creatures with any bad intention.6 On the contrary, I am sensible that a delicate sense of morals, especially when attended with a splenetic temper, is apt to give a man a disgust of the world, and to make him consider the common course of human affairs with too much indignation.7 I must, however, be of opinion, that the sentiments of those who are inclined to think favourably of mankind, are more advantageous to virtue than the contrary principles, which give us a mean opinion of our nature.8 When a man is prepossessed with a high notion of his rank and character in the creation, he will naturally endeavour to act up to it, and will scorn to do a base or vicious action which might sink him below that figure which he makes in his own imagination.9 Accordingly, we find, that all our polite and fashionable moralists insist upon this topic, and endeavour to represent vice unworthy of man, as well as odious in itself.10
We find few disputes that are not founded on some ambiguity in the expression; and I am persuaded that the present dispute, concerning the dignity or meanness of human nature, is not more exempt from it than any other.11 It may therefore be worth while to consider what is real, and what is only verbal, in this controversy.12
That there is a natural difference between merit and demerit, virtue and vice, wisdom and folly, no reasonable man will deny, yet it is evident that, in affixing the term, which denotes either our approbation or blame, we are commonly more influenced by comparison than by any fixed unalterable standard in the nature of things.13 In like manner, quantity, and extension, and bulk, are by every one acknowledged to be real things: but when we call any animal great or little, we always form a secret comparison between that animal and others of the same species; and it is that comparison which regulates our judgment concerning its greatness.14 A dog and a horse may be of the very same size, while the one is admired for the greatness of its bulk, and the other for the smallness.15 When I am present, therefore, at any dispute, I always consider with myself whether it be a question of comparison or not that is the subject of controversy; and if it be, whether the disputants compare the same objects together, or talk of things that are widely different.16
In forming our notions of human nature, we are apt to make a comparison between men and animals, the only creatures endowed with thought that fall under our senses.17 Certainly this comparison is favourable to mankind.18 On the one hand, we see a creature whose thoughts are not limited by any narrow bounds, either of place or time; who carries his researches into the most distant regions of this globe, and beyond this globe, to the planets and heavenly bodies; looks backward to consider the first origin, at least the history of the human race; casts his eye forward to see the influence of his actions upon posterity and the judgments which will be formed of his character a thousand years hence; a creature, who traces causes and effects to a great length and intricacy, extracts general principles from particular appearances; improves upon his discoveries; corrects his mistakes; and makes his very errors profitable.19 On the other hand, we are presented with a creature the very reverse of this; limited in its observations and reasonings to a few sensible objects which surround it; without curiosity, without foresight; blindly conducted by instinct, and attaining, in a short time, its utmost perfection, beyond which it is never able to advance a single step.20 What a wide difference is there between these creatures!21 And how exalted a notion must we entertain of the former, in comparison of the latter.22
There are two means commonly employed to destroy this conclusion: First, by making an unfair representation of the case, and insisting only upon the weakness of human nature.23 And, secondly, by forming a new and secret comparison between man and beings of the most perfect wisdom.24 Among the other excellences of man, this is one, that he can form an idea of perfections much beyond what he has experience of in himself; and is not limited in his conception of wisdom and virtue.25 He can easily exalt his notions, and conceive a degree of knowledge, which, when compared to his own, will make the latter appear very contemptible, and will cause the difference between that and the sagacity of animals, in a manner, to disappear and vanish.26 Now this being a point in which all the world is agreed, that human understanding falls infinitely short of perfect wisdom, it is proper we should know when this comparison takes place, that we may not dispute where there is no real difference in our sentiments.27 Man falls much more short of perfect wisdom, and even of his own ideas of perfect wisdom, than animals do of man; yet the latter difference is so considerable, that nothing but a comparison with the former can make it appear of little moment.28
It is also usual to compare one man with another; and finding very few whom we can call wise or virtuous, we are apt to entertain a contemptible notion of our species in general.29 That we may be sensible of the fallacy of this way of reasoning, we may observe, that the honourable appellations of wise and virtuous are not annexed to any particular degree of those qualities of wisdom and virtue, but arise altogether from the comparison we make between one man and another.30 When we find a man who arrives at such a pitch of wisdom, as is very uncommon, we pronounce him a wise man: so that to say there are few wise men in the world, is really to say nothing; since it is only by their scarcity that they merit that appellation.31 Were the lowest of our species as wise as Tully or Lord Bacon, we should still have reason to say that there are few wise men.32 For in that case we should exalt our notions of wisdom, and should not pay a singular homage to any one who was not singularly distinguished by his talents.33 In like manner, I have heard it observed by thoughtless people, that there are few women possessed of beauty in comparison of those who want it; not considering that we bestow the epithet of beautiful only on such as possess a degree of beauty that is common to them with a few.34 The same degree of beauty in a woman is called deformity, which is treated as real beauty in one of our sex.35
As it is usual, in forming a notion of our species, to compare it with the other species above or below it, or to compare the individuals of the species among themselves; so we often compare together the different motives or actuating principles of human nature, in order to regulate our judgment concerning it.36 And, indeed, this is the only kind of comparison which is worth our attention, or decides any thing in the present question.37 Were our selfish and vicious principles so much predominant above our social and virtuous, as is asserted by some philosophers, we ought undoubtedly to entertain a contemptible notion of human nature.38
There is much of a dispute of words in all this controversy.39 When a man denies the sincerity of all public spirit or affection to a country and community, I am at a loss what to think of him.40 Perhaps he never felt this passion in so clear and distinct a manner as to remove all his doubts concerning its force and reality.41 But when he proceeds afterwards to reject all private friendship, if no interest or self-love intermix itself; I am then confident that he abuses terms, and confounds the ideas of things; since it is impossible for any one to be so selfish, or rather so stupid, as to make no difference between one man and another, and give no preference to qualities which engage his approbation and esteem.42 Is he also, say I, as insensible to anger as he pretends to be to friendship?43 And does injury and wrong no more affect him than kindness or benefits?44 Impossible: he does not know himself: he has forgotten the movements of his heart; or rather, he makes use of a different language from the rest of his countrymen and calls not things by their proper names.45 What say you of natural affection? (I subjoin), Is that also a species of self-love?46 Yes; all is self-love.47 Your children are loved only because they are yours: your friend for a like reason; and your country engages you only so far as it has a connection with yourself.48 Were the idea of self removed, nothing would affect you: you would be altogether unactive and insensible: or, if you ever give yourself any movement, it would only be from vanity, and a desire of fame and reputation to this same self.49 I am willing, reply I, to receive your interpretation of human actions, provided you admit the facts.50 That species of self-love which displays itself in kindness to others, you must allow to have great influence over human actions, and even greater, on many occasions, than that which remains in its original shape and form.51 For how few are there, having a family, children, and relations, who do not spend more on the maintenance and education of these than on their own pleasures?52 This, indeed, you justly observe, may proceed from their self-love, since the prosperity of their family and friends is one, or the chief of their pleasures, as well as their chief honour.53 Be you also one of these selfish men, and you are sure of every one's good opinion and good-will; or, not to shock your ears with their expressions, the self-love of every one, and mine among the rest, will then incline us to serve you, and speak well of you.54
In my opinion, there are two things which have led astray those philosophers that have insisted so much on the selfishness of man.55 In the first place, they found that every act of virtue or friendship was attended with a secret pleasure; whence they concluded, that friendship and virtue could not be disinterested.56 But the fallacy of this is obvious.57 The virtuous sentiment or passion produces the pleasure, and does not arise from it.58 I feel a pleasure in doing good to my friend, because I love him; but do not love him for the sake of that pleasure.59
In the second place, it has always been found, that the virtuous are far from being indifferent to praise; and therefore they have been represented as a set of vainglorious men, who had nothing in view but the applauses of others.60 But this also is a fallacy.61 It is very unjust in the world, when they find any tincture of vanity in a laudable action, to depreciate it upon that account, or ascribe it entirely to that motive.62 The case is not the same with vanity, as with other passions.63 Where avarice or revenge enters into any seemingly virtuous action, it is difficult for us to determine how far it enters, and it is natural to suppose it the sole actuating principle.64 But vanity is so closely allied to virtue, and to love the fame of laudable actions approaches so near the love of laudable actions for their own sake, that these passions are more capable of mixture, than any other kinds of affection; and it is almost impossible to have the latter without some degree of the former.65 Accordingly we find, that this passion for glory is always warped and varied according to the particular taste or disposition of the mind on which it falls.66 Nero had the same vanity in driving a chariot, that Trajan had in governing the empire with justice and ability.67 To love the glory of virtuous deeds is a sure proof of the love of virtue.68
Sentence Notes
In plain English: In the world of learning, as in politics, rival groups quietly form. Even when they never openly break apart, they shape the thinking of people on each side differently.
In plain English: The most striking of these are the groups divided by their views on the dignity of human nature, a question that has split philosophers, poets and theologians from the beginning of the world until now.
In plain English: Some praise humanity to the skies and present man as a sort of half-god who comes from heaven and still clearly shows signs of his divine ancestry.
Reference & context: For example the Renaissance humanist Pico della Mirandola's Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486), or Hamlet's “What a piece of work is a man!”
In plain English: Others stress the weak points of human nature and can find nothing except vanity in which humans are better than the animals they pretend to look down on so much.
Reference & context: Hume has in mind writers such as Thomas Hobbes, La Rochefoucauld and Bernard Mandeville, who traced all human behaviour to self-interest and pride.
In plain English: An author with a gift for grand, stirring speech usually sides with the first group; one with a taste for irony and mockery naturally goes to the opposite extreme.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A witty point: our view of humanity may depend on our writing style rather than on the evidence.
In plain English: I don't at all think that everyone who has run down humanity was against goodness or exposed people's weaknesses with bad motives.
In plain English: On the contrary, I know that a sensitive conscience, especially combined with a bad temper, tends to make a man disgusted with the world and too angry about ordinary human behaviour.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A shrewd, sympathetic diagnosis of the moralist turned misanthrope.
In plain English: Still, I believe that thinking well of humanity does more to encourage goodness than the opposite view, which gives us a low opinion of ourselves.
In plain English: When a man has a high opinion of his place and character in the world, he naturally tries to live up to it, and refuses to do anything low or wicked that would drop him below the image he has of himself.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: The psychology of self-respect: we tend to become what we believe we are.
In plain English: So we find that all our refined, fashionable moral writers stress this point and try to show vice as beneath human dignity as well as hateful in itself.
Reference & context: In a footnote Hume adds that young women are flattered more than young men partly because their “chief point of honour” (chastity) is thought harder to keep and needs the support of pride.
In plain English: Few arguments aren't based on some ambiguity of language, and I'm convinced that this debate about whether human nature is noble or base is no exception.
Reference & context: The Gutenberg text reads “new disputes,” a misprint for “few,” corrected here.
In plain English: So it may be worth working out what in this debate is a real disagreement and what is only about words.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: Hume's characteristic philosophical move: separate real questions from verbal ones.
In plain English: No sensible person denies that there is a real difference between merit and its lack, good and bad, wisdom and foolishness. But clearly, when we choose a word of praise or blame, we usually go by comparison rather than by any fixed, permanent standard.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: The key idea of the essay: our moral labels are relative.
In plain English: Similarly, everyone accepts that size and amount are real. But when we call an animal big or small, we are silently comparing it with others of its kind, and that comparison decides our judgement.
In plain English: A dog and a horse could be exactly the same size, yet we'd admire the dog for being huge and the horse for being tiny.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A simple, memorable example that makes an abstract point instantly clear.
In plain English: So whenever I hear an argument, I ask myself whether it is about a comparison; and if so, whether both sides are comparing the same things or talking about completely different ones.
In plain English: When we form ideas about human nature, we tend to compare humans with animals, the only other thinking creatures we can observe.
In plain English: This comparison certainly makes humans look good.
In plain English: On one side we see a creature whose thinking has no narrow limits of place or time. He explores the farthest parts of the earth and beyond it the planets and stars; he looks back to the origins, or at least the history, of humanity; he looks forward to how his actions will affect future generations and how he'll be judged a thousand years from now. He follows long, complicated chains of cause and effect, draws general laws from particular observations, builds on his discoveries, corrects his mistakes, and even learns from his errors.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A magnificent tribute to human reason, ending with the paradox that even our mistakes are useful.
In plain English: On the other side is a creature that is the exact opposite: its observations and reasoning are limited to the few physical things around it; it has no curiosity and no foresight; it is guided blindly by instinct, and quickly reaches the best it can be, after which it never progresses a single step.
In plain English: What a huge difference between these two creatures!
In plain English: And how highly we must think of the first compared with the second.
In plain English: People usually try to knock down this conclusion in two ways. First, by presenting the case unfairly, talking only about human weakness.
In plain English: And second, by quietly switching to a new comparison: between man and perfectly wise beings.
In plain English: One of humanity's excellent qualities is that we can imagine perfections far beyond anything we experience in ourselves; our idea of wisdom and goodness has no limit.
In plain English: He can easily raise his ideas and imagine a level of knowledge that makes his own look pitiful by comparison, and that makes the gap between his intelligence and an animal's seem almost to disappear.
In plain English: Since everyone agrees that human understanding falls infinitely short of perfect wisdom, we should recognise when this comparison is being made, so that we don't argue where we don't really disagree.
In plain English: Humans fall much further short of perfect wisdom, and even of their own idea of it, than animals fall short of humans. Yet the gap between animals and humans is so large that only the comparison with perfect wisdom could make it seem unimportant.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: Hume shows that both sides in the debate are right, because they are measuring against different standards.
In plain English: We also often compare one person with another, and finding very few we can call wise or good, we tend to think badly of humanity as a whole.
In plain English: To see why this reasoning is wrong, note that the honourable labels “wise” and “good” aren't attached to any fixed amount of wisdom or goodness; they come entirely from comparing one person with another.
In plain English: When we find someone unusually wise, we call him a wise man. So saying there are few wise men in the world says nothing at all, since it is only their rarity that earns them the title.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A neat logical trap: “wise” means “wiser than most,” so the wise must always be few.
In plain English: Even if the dullest person alive were as wise as Cicero or Francis Bacon, we would still say there are few wise men.
Reference & context: “Tully” is the old English name for Marcus Tullius Cicero, the Roman orator and philosopher. Francis Bacon is the author of the first five essays in this collection.
In plain English: Because then we would raise our idea of wisdom, and wouldn't give special honour to anyone who wasn't exceptionally gifted.
In plain English: Likewise, I've heard thoughtless people say that few women are beautiful compared with those who aren't, forgetting that we call a woman beautiful only if her degree of beauty is shared by just a few others.
In plain English: The same degree of good looks that would be called ugliness in a woman counts as real handsomeness in a man.
Reference & context: Hume's point is about standards of comparison, but it also reveals the double standard his age applied to men's and women's looks.
In plain English: Just as we judge humanity by comparing it with species above or below it, or by comparing individuals, we also compare the different motives that drive human nature.
In plain English: In fact, this is the only comparison that really matters or settles anything in this debate.
In plain English: If our selfish and wicked motives really outweighed our social and good ones as much as some philosophers claim, we certainly should think poorly of human nature.
Reference & context: In a footnote Hume says that great moralists of his time have proved the social passions are the strongest, and recommends Lord Shaftesbury's Inquiry Concerning Virtue (1699).
In plain English: A lot of this whole controversy is just an argument about words.
In plain English: When someone denies that anyone sincerely cares about the public good or loves their country and community, I don't know what to make of him.
In plain English: Maybe he has never felt this feeling clearly enough to be sure it is strong and real.
In plain English: But when he goes on to deny that any private friendship exists without self-interest, I'm sure he is misusing words and confusing ideas. Nobody could be so selfish, or rather so stupid, as to see no difference between one person and another and prefer no qualities that win his approval and respect.
In plain English: Is he also, I ask, as immune to anger as he claims to be to friendship?
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A clever trap: if anger is real and unselfish, why not friendship?
In plain English: Do injuries and insults affect him no more than kindness and favours?
In plain English: Impossible. He doesn't know himself; he has forgotten how his heart works; or rather, he is using a different language from everyone else and not calling things by their proper names.
In plain English: “What about family love?” I add. “Is that also a kind of self-love?”
In plain English: “Yes,” he replies, “everything is self-love.”
Reference & context: Hume now imagines the cynic's answer, in the style of La Rochefoucauld's Maxims (1665): “Our virtues are most often only vices in disguise.”
In plain English: “You love your children only because they are yours, your friend for the same reason, and your country interests you only as far as it is connected with you.”
In plain English: “Take away the self and nothing would move you: you would be completely inactive and unfeeling; or if you ever did act, it would only be out of vanity and a wish for fame for that same self.”
In plain English: “I'm happy to accept your way of describing human actions,” I reply, “as long as you admit the facts.”
Why this phrase is worth keeping: Hume's master-stroke: call it “self-love” if you like; the behaviour is the same.
In plain English: You must admit that the kind of self-love that shows itself as kindness to others has a great influence on what people do, often greater than self-love in its raw form.
In plain English: After all, how many people with a family, children and relatives don't spend more on supporting and educating them than on their own pleasures?
In plain English: You're right that this may come from self-love, since their family's and friends' success is one of their pleasures, or the main one, as well as their greatest pride.
In plain English: Be one of these ‘selfish’ people yourself, and you can be sure everyone will think well of you and wish you well; or, so as not to offend your ears with such words, everyone's self-love, mine included, will make us want to help you and speak well of you.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: Gentle irony: if this is selfishness, it is the kind everyone loves.
In plain English: I think two things have misled the philosophers who keep insisting that humans are selfish.
In plain English: First, they noticed that every good or friendly act brings a private pleasure, and so they decided that friendship and goodness couldn't be unselfish.
In plain English: But the mistake here is obvious.
In plain English: The good feeling causes the pleasure; it doesn't come from the pleasure.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: The central argument of the essay, put in one clear sentence.
In plain English: I enjoy helping my friend because I love him; I don't love him in order to get that enjoyment.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A simple, memorable illustration that has been quoted by philosophers ever since.
In plain English: Second, good people have always been found to care about praise, so they have been painted as vain show-offs interested only in applause.
In plain English: But this is also a mistake.
In plain English: It is very unfair of people, when they find a trace of vanity in a good deed, to belittle it for that reason or say vanity was the only motive.
In plain English: Vanity is different from other feelings in this respect.
In plain English: When greed or revenge is part of an apparently good action, it is hard to tell how much it contributes, and it's natural to assume it is the only motive.
In plain English: But vanity is so close to goodness, and loving the fame of good deeds is so close to loving good deeds for their own sake, that these two feelings mix more easily than any others, and it is almost impossible to love doing good without also enjoying some credit for it.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A generous, realistic view: wanting praise for good deeds is nearly the same as loving good deeds.
In plain English: So we find that the love of glory always takes a different shape depending on the tastes and character of the person who feels it.
In plain English: Nero was just as vain about his chariot-racing as Trajan was about ruling the empire fairly and well.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: The same vanity, two utterly different results: it is the object of our pride that matters.
Reference & context: Nero (emperor AD 54–68) was notorious for performing as a chariot driver and singer. Trajan (98–117) was remembered as one of the “good emperors.”
In plain English: Loving the glory of good deeds is clear evidence of loving goodness itself.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A crisp, optimistic last line that answers the cynics.
Fun Fact
Hume died calmly in 1776, without religious faith, which shocked many of his contemporaries. James Boswell visited him on his deathbed hoping to find him afraid, and came away disturbed that Hume seemed perfectly cheerful. Adam Smith wrote that he considered Hume “as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man, as perhaps the nature of human frailty will permit.” That is a fine tribute for the author of this essay.