A Treatise of Human Nature · Chapter
Section V: Of the Effects of Custom explained
Hume explores how custom and repetition influence human passions and perceptions.
What happens
Hume explores how custom and repetition influence human passions and perceptions. He identifies two primary effects of custom: it facilitates actions or conceptions, and it creates an inclination toward them. Novelty initially excites the spirits, producing wonder and surprise, which can amplify both pleasure and pain. As repetition occurs, novelty fades, and a moderate facility becomes a source of pleasure, sometimes converting pain into pleasure. However, excessive custom can lead to languor and convert pleasure into pain. Custom also strengthens active habits while diminishing passive ones, as noted by a late eminent philosopher.
Themes in this chapter
Custom and General Rules
Central theme: custom's dual effects of facility and inclination, and its role in transforming passions.
Passions and the Self
Explores how custom modifies passions, converting pleasure into pain and vice versa, affecting the self's experience.
Characters to notice
- David Hume
Author of the section, analyzing the effects of custom on passions and perceptions.
- Mr. Philips
Referenced as 'a late eminent philosopher' whose observation about active and passive habits is cited.
Key passages
“But nothing has a greater effect both to increase and diminish our passions, to convert pleasure into pain, and pain into pleasure, than custom and repetition.”
Custom and repetition are the most powerful forces in altering our passions, capable of turning pleasure into pain and pain into pleasure.
Hume introduces the central thesis of the section.
“Custom has two original effects upon the mind, in bestowing a facility in the performance of any action or the conception of any object; and afterwards a tendency or inclination towards it.”
Custom first makes actions or ideas easier to perform or conceive, and then creates a natural inclination toward them.
Hume outlines the two primary effects of custom.
“But again, as facility converts pain into pleasure, so it often converts pleasure into pain, when it is too great, and renders the actions of the mind so faint and languid, that they are no longer able to interest and support it.”
Just as ease can turn pain into pleasure, excessive ease can turn pleasure into pain by making mental actions so weak and dull that they no longer engage us.
Hume explains how excessive custom can have the opposite effect.