"A man's natural inclination works incessantly upon him ... The force of the greatest gravity, say the philosophers, is infinitely small, in comparison of that of the least impulse: yet it is certain, that the smallest gravity will, in the end, prevail above a great impulse; because no strokes or blows can be repeated with such constancy as attraction and gravitation."
— Hume, David (1711-1776)
Author
Work Title
Date
1779
Metaphor
"A man's natural inclination works incessantly upon him ... The force of the greatest gravity, say the philosophers, is infinitely small, in comparison of that of the least impulse: yet it is certain, that the smallest gravity will, in the end, prevail above a great impulse; because no strokes or blows can be repeated with such constancy as attraction and gravitation."
Metaphor in Context
And so will all religion, said Philo, except the philosophical and rational kind. Your reasonings are more easily eluded than my facts. The inference is not just, because finite and temporary rewards and punishments have so great influence, that therefore such as are infinite and eternal must have so much greater. Consider, I beseech you, the attachment which we have to present things, and the little concern which we discover for objects so remote and uncertain. When divines are declaiming against the common behaviour and conduct of the world, they always represent this principle as the strongest imaginable (which indeed it is); and describe almost all human kind as lying under the influence of it, and sunk into the deepest lethargy and unconcern about their religious interests. Yet these same divines, when they refute their speculative antagonists, suppose the motives of religion to be so powerful, that, without them, it were impossible for civil society to subsist; nor are they ashamed of so palpable a contradiction. It is certain, from experience, that the smallest grain of natural honesty and benevolence has more effect on men's conduct, than the most pompous views suggested by theological theories and systems. A man's natural inclination works incessantly upon him; it is for ever present to the mind, and mingles itself with every view and consideration: whereas religious motives, where they act at all, operate only by starts and bounds; and it is scarcely possible for them to become altogether habitual to the mind. The force of the greatest gravity, say the philosophers, is infinitely small, in comparison of that of the least impulse: yet it is certain, that the smallest gravity will, in the end, prevail above a great impulse; because no strokes or blows can be repeated with such constancy as attraction and gravitation.
(p. 221)
(p. 221)
Categories
Provenance
Searching at Past Masters
Citation
At least 7 entries in ESTC (1779, 1780, 1782, 1793).
See Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. By David Hume, Esq. ([London?]: [s.n.], 1779). <Link to ESTC>
Searching in Past Masters: The Complete Works and Correspondence of David Hume, ed. Mark C. Rooks (Charlottesville: InteLex Corporation, 1995). [Text of Dialogues is a corrected version of that published in the 1854 Works]
Reading Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, 2nd ed., ed. Richard H. Popkin (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1998).
See Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. By David Hume, Esq. ([London?]: [s.n.], 1779). <Link to ESTC>
Searching in Past Masters: The Complete Works and Correspondence of David Hume, ed. Mark C. Rooks (Charlottesville: InteLex Corporation, 1995). [Text of Dialogues is a corrected version of that published in the 1854 Works]
Reading Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, 2nd ed., ed. Richard H. Popkin (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1998).
Date of Entry
03/07/2011
