Sense Perception as Common Sense
“Lord Kames’s mind,” wrote William Smellie with respect to the Essays, “was very much inclined to metaphysical disquisitions.”18 This metaphysical inclination found expression in Part II of Essays, where Kame sexamines a number of topics surrounding belief and perception in order to counter skepticism in epistemology and theology. The eight essays in this part have three main concerns: the basis of belief, the evidence of the senses, and the knowledge of the Deity. This part of the book is of particular interest as an early example of and contribution to the Common Sense philosophy that was developed more fully by Thomas Reid. On this understanding of human nature, there are certain self-evident principles that are universally held because we find them undeniable. These include the principle of causation (every effect must have a cause) and the tenet that qualities perceived by the senses must really exist outside the perceiving mind. Thus Kames, a determined determinist, takes aim at Hume’s argument against causation. He also seeks to refute “the inveterate scepticism” of Berkeley, whose denial of “the reality of external objects, strikes at the root of the veracity of the senses” (p. 158). Though the evidence of the senses is sometimes deceptive in particular instances, the senses are basically trustworthy. Indeed, they could not be otherwise, for they have been designed by the Deity to suit the active purposes of man.
The Essays concludes with a lengthy essay on the existence of the Deity in which Kames pulls together the different strands of his argument to defend natural theology. He offers several proofs for the existence of the Deity, including arguments from causation and from design. Though skepticism is one of his targets, Kames also takes aim at rationalism. As a young man, he had initiated a correspondence with the rationalist theologian Samuel Clarke to query some of the arguments made in Clarke’s Discourse on the Being and Attributes of God. Several decades later, Kames published his dissatisfaction with Clarke’s rationalism in the final chapter of Essays. Kames objected to an approach in which evidence for the existence of the Deity depended on rational proofs intelligible only to the learned: “Is then our Maker known to none but to persons of great study and deep thinking?” (p. 317). Evidence of the Deity must be readily accessible to all people, not only philosophers and theologians, and Kames assured his readers that this was so for knowledge of the Deity depended on feeling and perception, more specifically, on the perception of causation. There was an undeniably egalitarian strain in the notion that the intuitive beliefs of the common man are more valid than the thought experiments of the skeptical philosopher.
In the third edition of his Essays, Kames makes several references to his other major contribution to the science of man, Sketches of the History of Man (1774). As a typical “conjectural history,” Sketches accounts for the gradual improvement and refinement of the mind as man progresses through the various stages from savage to civil society. At first glance, the two works might seem incompatible: where Sketches emphasizes a gradual improvement over time, Essays views human nature as static and unitary. Yet even in Sketches, Kames stopped short of a historicism which would view also justice and property as products of history rather than nature. Moreover, Essays does hint at a progressive view of human nature with the suggestion that the moral sense refines and improves over time (p. 64).19 For Kames, the natural history of the species was a gradual, providentially designed unfolding of faculties and inclinations implanted by nature. To understand the role and position of human beings within this larger and divinely ordered system was the goal of a science of human nature.
Note on the Text
The present edition is based on the third edition of 1779. However, all substantial variant readings in the first and second editions are added in the Appendix (pp. 237–64 below). Superscript roman numerals in the text refer to these variant readings.
ESSAYS ON THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY AND NATURAL RELIGION:
CORRECTED AND APPROVED,
IN A
THIRD EDITION.
SEVERAL ESSAYS ADDED CONCERNING
THE PROOF OF A DEITY
EDINBURGH:
Printed for John Bell; and John Murray, London.
M,DCC,LXXIX.
PREFACE TO THE FORMER EDITIONS
It is proper to acquaint the reader, that the following Essays are not thrown together without connection. The first, by the investigation of a particular fact, is designed to illustrate the nature of man, as a social being. The next considers him as the subject of morality. And as morality supposes freedom of action, this introduces the disquisition on Liberty and Necessity. These make the first part of the work. The rest of the Essays, ushered in by that on Belief, hang upon each other. A plan is prosecuted, in support of the authority of our senses, external and internal; where it is occasionally shown, that our reasonings on some of the most important subjects, rest ultimately upon sense and feeling. This is illustrated in a variety of instances; and from these, the author would gladly hope, that he has thrown new light upon the principles of human knowledge:—All to prepare the way for a proof of the existence and perfections of the Deity, which is the chief aim in this undertaking. The author’s manner of thinking, may, in some points, be esteemed bold, and new. But freedom of thought will not displease those who are led, in their inquiries, by the love of truth. To such only he writes: and with such, he will have the merit of a good aim, of having searched for truth, and endeavoured to promote the cause of virtue and religion.
PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION
I must acknowledge it to have been once my opinion, that there is in man a sense of being able to act against motives, or against our inclination and choice, commonly termed liberty of indifference. I was carried along in the current of popular opinion; and could not dream but that this sense really existed, when I found it vouched by so many grave writers. I had at the same time the clearest conviction that man is a necessary agent; and therefore justly concluded that this sense must be delusive. I yielded to another popular opinion, that not only praise and blame, merit and demerit, as attributed to human actions, but also contrition and remorse, are inconsistent with necessity; and must be founded on the same delusive sense of liberty of indifference. From these premises, I was led though reluctantly to admit, that some of our moral feelings and emotions must be founded on a delusion. I was sensible of the odium of a doctrine that rests virtue in any measure upon such a foundation; but so firm is my reliance on divine wisdom in the formation of man, that I was not apprehensive of harm in adhering to truth, however unpalatable it might be in some instances. Before a second edition was called for, I discovered for tunately that the feelings and emotions of the moral sense are perfectly consistent with moral necessity; and I gladly laid hold of that opportunity to acknowledge my error. Having so far rescued the moral system from this pretended delusive sense, I was strongly inclined to think, that we had no notion of being able to act against motives; and in the second edition I ventured to say so. But upon reviewing the subject for the present edition, I clearly saw that we really have a notion of being able to act against motives; which renewed my perplexity, till it occurred to me, that that notion is suggested by the irregular influence of passion, and that we never have it in our cool moments; consequently,