The Nature of General Rules

According to my system, all reasonings are nothing but the effects of custom.

Custom has no influence, but by:

• enlivening the imagination, and
• giving us a strong conception of any object.

We can conclude that:

• our judgment and imagination can never be contrary, and
• custom cannot operate on imagination which will render it opposite to judgement.

We can only remove this difficulty by supposing the influence of general rules.

We shall afterwards notice (Section 15) some general rules which should regulate our judgment on causes and effects.

These rules are formed on:

• the nature of our understanding, and
• our experience of its operations in the judgments we form concerning objects.

By them we learn to distinguish the accidental circumstances from the effective causes.

When we find that an effect can be produced without the concurrence of any particular circumstance, we conclude that that circumstance does not make a part of the effective cause, however frequently conjoined with it.

This necessity of frequent conjunction makes it have some effect on the mind.

Despite the opposite conclusion from general rules, the opposition of these two principles:

• produces a contrariety in our thoughts
• causes us to ascribe the:
  • one inference to our judgment, and
  • other inference to our imagination.

The general rule is attributed to our judgment, as being more extensive and constant.

The exception to the imagination is attributed as being more capricious and uncertain. Thus our general rules oppose each other in a way.

General rules have 2 influences:

1. When an object, that resembles any cause, appears in very considerable circumstances, the imagination carries us to a lively conception of the usual effect even if the object has different circumstances from that cause.

When we review this act of the mind and compare it with the more general and authentic operations of the understanding, we find it to be:

• irregular, and
• destructive of all the most established principles of reasonings.

This is why we reject it.

This influence condemnts the first influence.

Sometimes the one, sometimes the other prevails, according to the person’s disposition and character. The vulgar are commonly guided by the first influence. The wise are guided by the second influence.

Meanwhile, the skeptics may here have the pleasure of:

• observing a new and notable contradiction in our reason, and
• seeing all philosophy:
  • ready to be subverted by a principle of human nature, and
  • saved by a new direction of the very same principle.

The following of general rules is a very unphilosophical species of probability.

Yet it is only by following them that we can correct this and all other unphilosophical probabilities.

Since general rules operate on the imagination even against our judgment, we need not be surprised to:

• see their effects increase, when conjoined with judgment, and
• observe that general rules bestow a superior force on their presented ideas.

Everyone knows that there is an indirect way of insinuating praise or blame, which is much less shocking than open flattery or censure.

The influence of a man’s feelings is not equally strong and powerful, even if he:

• communicates them by such secret insinuations, and
• makes them known with equal certainty through their open discovery.

One who lashes me with concealed strokes of satire, does not move my indignation as if he flatly told me I were a fool, even if

I would equally understand his meaning, as if he actually told me.

This difference is attributed to the influence of general rules.

I do not immediately perceive a person’s feeling whether he:

• openly abuses me, or
• slyly intimates his contempt.

I only become sensible of it by signs and its effects.

The only difference between these two cases is that in the open discovery of his feelings, he uses general and universal signs.

In the secret intimation, he uses more singular and uncommon signs.

This causes the imagination to make the transition with greater facility, in running from the present impression to the absent idea.

The imagination consequently conceives the object with greater force, where the connection is common and universal, than where it is more rare and particular.

The open declaration of our feelings is called the taking off the mask.

The secret intimation of our opinions is the veiling of them.

The difference between an idea produced by a general connection, and an idea arising from a particular connection is here compared to the difference between an impression and an idea.

This difference in the imagination has a suitable effect on the passions.

This effect is augmented by another circumstance.

A secret intimation of anger or contempt shows that we:

• still have some consideration for the person
• avoid abusing him directly.

This makes a concealed satire less disagreeable.

But this still depends on the same principle.

Indirect speech is a mark of greater respect than direct speech.

Sometimes direct insults that we throw are less displeasing than indirect satire because it revenges us for the injury done to us.

It gives us a reason to condemn the person who injures us.

But this phenomenon also depends on the same principle.

We blame injurious language because it is contrary to good breeding and humanity.

It is contrary to humanity because it is more shocking than delicate satire.

The rules of good breeding:

• condemn whatever is openly disobliging, and
• gives pain to those who use bad language.

After good breeding is established, abusive language:

• is universally blamed, and
• gives less pain by rendering the rude person despicable.

Under good breeding, abusive language:

• becomes less disagreeable because it is made less shocking, and
• becomes more disagreeable because it infers the general rules.

I add another analogous phenomenon to this explanation of the influence of direct or indirect flattery.

There are many specifics in the point of honour of men and women. The world never excuses when the violations of this honour are open and avowed.

The world tends to overlook those violations when:

• the appearances are saved, and
• the transgression is secret and concealed.

Those who know that the fault is committed, pardon it more easily when the proofs are oblique and equivocal, than when they are direct and undeniable.

The same idea is presented in both cases.

It is equally assented to by the judgment.

Yet its influence is different because of the different way it is presented.

There is a difference of the open and concealed violations of the laws of honour.

In the open violations of the laws of honour, the sign of the blameable action is:

• single, and
• alone enough to be the foundation of our reasoning and judgment.

In the concealed violations of the laws of honour, the signs:

• are numerous, and
• decide little or nothing when alone.

Any reasoning is always the more convincing:

• the more single and united it is to the eye, and
• the less it makes the imagination:
  • collect all its parts, and
  • run from them to the correlative idea forming the conclusion.

The labour of the thought disturbs the regular progress of the feelings (Part 4, Section 1).

The idea does not strike us with such vivacity.

Consequently, it has no such influence on the passion and imagination.

These principles explain the observation of Cardinal De Retz that the world:

• wishes to be deceived in many things, and
• more easily excuses a person in acting than in talking, contrary to the decorum of his profession and character.

A fault in words is commonly more open and distinct than a fault in actions.

A fault in actions:

• can have many excuses, and
• does not clearly show the actor’s intention and views.

Every kind of opinion or judgment, which does not amount to knowledge, is derived entirely from the perception’s force and vivacity.

These qualities form the belief of the existence of any object in the mind.

This force and vivacity are most conspicuous in the memory.

Our confidence in the veracity of memory:

• is the greatest imaginable, and
• equals the assurance of a demonstration.

The next degree of these qualities is that derived from the relation of cause and effect.

This too is very great, especially when:

• the conjunction is found by experience to be perfectly constant, and
• the object present to us, exactly resembles those that we have experienced.

But below this degree of evidence, there are many others that influence the passions and imagination, proportional to the force and vivacity which they communicate to the ideas.

By habit, we transition from cause to effect.

From some present impression, we borrow that vivacity which we diffuse over the correlative idea.

In all the following cases, the evidence reduces by the reduction of the idea’s force and intensity:

• when we have not observed a sufficient number of instances to produce a strong habit,
• when these instances are contrary to each other,
• when the resemblance is not exact,
• when the present impression is faint and obscure,
• when the experience is obliterated from the memory,
• when the connection is dependent on a long chain of objects, or
• when the inference are derived from general rules and yet not conformable to them.

This therefore is the nature of the judgment and probability.

What principally gives authority to this system is:

• the agreement of these parts, and
• the necessity of one to explain another.

The belief which attends our memory has the same nature with the belief derived from our judgments.

There is no difference between:

• that judgment derived from a constant and uniform connection of causes and effects, and
• that judgement which depends on an interrupted and uncertain.

In all determinations where the mind decides from contrary experiments, the mind is first divided within itself.

It is inclined to side in proportion to the number of experiments we have seen and remembered.

This contest is won by the side which has a superior number of these experiments, while reducing the force in the evidence from the opposite experiments.

Each possibility, which makes up the probability, operates separately on the imagination.

The larger collection of possibilities finally prevails with a force proportional to its superiority.

All these phenomena lead directly to the precedent system.

It will never be possible on any other principles to give a satisfactory and consistent explanation of those phenomena.

Without considering these judgments as the effects of custom on the imagination, we shall lose ourselves in perpetual contradiction and absurdity.