78 HUME II 



latter are the passions or the emotions (which 

 Hume employs as equivalent terms). Thus the 

 elementary states of consciousness, the raw 

 materials of knowledge, so to speak, are either 

 sensations or emotions ; and whatever we discover 

 in the mind, beyond these elementary states of 

 consciousness, results from the combinations and 

 the metamorphoses which they undergo. 



It is not a little strange that a thinker of 

 Hume's capacity should have been satisfied with 

 the results of a psychological analysis which 

 regards some obvious compounds as elements, 

 while it omits altogether a most important class 

 of elementary states. 



With respect to the former point, Spinoza's 

 masterly examination of the Passions in the third 

 part of the " Ethics " should have been known to 

 Hume. 1 But, if he had been acquainted with 

 that wonderful piece of psychological anatomy, he 

 would have learned that the emotions and 

 passions are all complex states, arising from the 

 close association of ideas of pleasure or pain with 

 other ideas; and, indeed, without going to 

 Spinoza, his own acute discussion of the passions 

 leads to the same result, 2 and is wholly inconsistent 



1 On the whole, it is pleasant to find satisfactory evidence 

 that Hume knew nothing of the works of Spinoza ; for the 

 invariably abusive manner in which he refers to that type of the 

 philosophic hero is only to be excused, if it is to be excused, by 

 sheer ignorance of his life and work. 



2 For example, in discussing pride and humility, Hume says : 

 " According as our idea of ourselves is more or less advantageous, 



