Quiz: A Treatise of Human Nature

All 50 questions. A perfect score earns the gold medal; 80% earns silver.

1. 1. According to the Advertisement, which two subjects do the first two volumes treat?

   The passions and the foundations of government The understanding and the passions Morals, politics and the principles of criticism The understanding, morals and politics together
2. 2. From what does Hume say justice derives its origin?

   The command of the first magistrates, obeyed through custom Selfishness and confined generosity, with nature’s scanty provision for our wants Eternal relations of ideas discovered by reason, binding on every rational being A natural love of mankind, implanted in every human breast
3. 3. What does Hume say a mind is, in Section II?

   A blank tablet on which experience writes A simple, indivisible thinking substance in which perceptions inhere An immaterial soul known by intuition A heap or collection of perceptions united by certain relations
4. 4. According to Hume, where do you find the vice when you examine a wilful murder?

   In the falsehood which the murderer’s action signifies to others In the law that forbids the act In the relation between the murderer and the victim he kills In a sentiment of disapprobation in your own breast
5. 5. How do merchants, in Hume’s example, secure long accounts?

   By having every sum checked by a mathematician before it is entered By the artificial structure of the accounts, which adds probability beyond the accountant’s skill By keeping no written accounts and trusting to memory alone By relying on the infallible certainty of numbers, which admit no error
6. 6. Which prejudice does Hume give as an example of general rules rashly formed?

   That a Dutchman cannot be brave and a Spaniard cannot be industrious That an Italian cannot be honest and a German cannot be witty That an Irishman cannot have wit and a Frenchman cannot have solidity That a Scotsman cannot be generous and that an Englishman cannot be polite
7. 7. What does Hume’s example of five notes played on a flute show?

   Time is infinitely divisible Time is the manner in which perceptions succeed each other, not a separate impression Music produces impressions of reflexion Hearing is the only sense that conveys the idea of time
8. 8. In “Of personal identity”, to what does Hume compare the mind, while warning that the comparison must not mislead us?

   A mirror that passively reflects the external objects set before it A blank tablet written on by experience A theatre where perceptions make their appearance A clock wound up by its maker
9. 9. What does Hume say about the day-labourer and the man of quality?

   They differ in body but are alike in mind and manners Station shapes body as well as sentiments, actions and manners They differ only in fortune, being otherwise identical They differ by birth alone, which no station can alter
10. 10. What does Hume say he has always noticed in systems of morality?

    Authors define virtue as conformity to nature Authors begin from revelation and end with reason Authors ignore the passions entirely Authors pass imperceptibly from “is” to “ought” without explaining how
11. 11. To what does Hume compare the way affections pass from one person to another?

    Water finding its level between connected vessels An echo returning from a distant wall A fire spreading from house to house Strings equally wound up, where the motion of one communicates itself to the rest
12. 12. Which of these is not one of the four circumstances Hume names as giving rise to property once society is established?

    Labour Prescription Occupation Accession
13. 13. Which is not one of Hume’s three principles of the association of ideas?

    Contiguity in time or place Resemblance Contrariety Cause and effect
14. 14. What relation does Hume discover, besides contiguity and succession, in our idea of cause and effect?

    Identity of cause and effect A visible power in the cause Constant conjunction Resemblance between cause and effect
15. 15. Whose system does Hume say is “almost the same” as the popular doctrine of the immateriality of the soul?

    Epicurus’s Hobbes’s Spinoza’s Locke’s
16. 16. What does Hume say he finds when he enters most intimately into what he calls myself?

    Nothing whatsoever, not even perceptions Always some particular perception, never a self without one A simple and continuing self that lies beneath all his perceptions An impression of the soul’s own substance, distinct from its thoughts
17. 17. Which of these is not one of Hume's four sources of the pleasure that makes a quality virtuous?

    Its usefulness to the person himself Its conformity to the will of God Its usefulness to others Its being immediately agreeable to others or to the person himself
18. 18. What does Hume say follows when two tradesmen compete for work in a town that cannot support both?

    Love, because they share the same trade Hatred, whether the rival's fortune is good or bad Respect, mixed with humility Indifference, since no relation of ideas connects them
19. 19. Which section of the Treatise does Hume say, in the Appendix, has led him into a labyrinth?

    The section on personal identity The section on the infinite divisibility of space The section on the immateriality of the soul The section on necessary connexion
20. 20. How does Hume illustrate a convention that involves no promise?

    Two men pulling the oars of a boat Two merchants signing a bill of exchange Two soldiers keeping step on the march Two neighbours sharing a well
21. 21. Which example does Hume use to show that the relations found in parricide carry no guilt by themselves?

    A river that undermines and at last carries away the hill it springs from A clock that runs down its own spring A wolf that kills its own cub A sapling that grows from an oak and destroys the parent tree
22. 22. In Hume’s example of reasoning from contrary experiments, how many of twenty ships that go to sea return?

    Fifteen Ten All twenty Nineteen
23. 23. Whose portraits of Caesar and Cato does Hume use to show that different virtues excite different feelings?

    Plutarch's Sallust's Tacitus's Cicero's
24. 24. To what interval does Hume compare the gap between Bacon and the recent English philosophers of human nature?

    The interval from Aristotle to Descartes The interval from Plato to Cicero The interval from Thales to Socrates The interval from Socrates to Aristotle
25. 25. According to the Conclusion of Book I, what cures Hume of his “philosophical melancholy and delirium”?

    Reading the ancient Stoics on tranquillity of mind Religious faith, which no sceptical argument can shake A new demonstration that the senses can be trusted Nature, through dining, backgammon and company
26. 26. How does Hume define riches in the section “Of property and riches”?

    As a store of gold and silver As land held by a family and handed down through the generations As the labour a man has performed As the power of acquiring the property of what pleases
27. 27. Where does Hume say the first rudiments of government arise?

    From the natural authority of fathers over their families From quarrels between different societies, in war From disputes over property arising within one society From an original contract agreed among all the people
28. 28. Why, according to the Appendix, can belief not consist in a new idea joined to the conception of an object?

    Because the mind commands its ideas, so we could then believe whatever we pleased Because ideas are always fainter than impressions Because no idea can be joined to another without contradiction Because belief is produced by reason, not by ideas
29. 29. According to Hume, why are men ashamed of the king’s-evil in particular?

    Because it horrifies everyone present at the sight Because it is held to be a sign of vice or debauchery Because it commonly passes to their descendants Because it is infectious and drives company away
30. 30. To what does Hume ascribe the uniformity of humours and turn of thinking among people of the same nation?

    Soil and climate The laws of the government Sympathy A common religion
31. 31. What does Hume tell readers about Book III in its advertisement?

    It replaces the arguments of Book II It is in some measure independent of the first two volumes It will be followed by a fourth volume treating politics and criticism It can only be understood after mastering Book I
32. 32. Which example does Hume use to show that contiguity strengthens belief?

    A man on a mountain-top looking out over the distant ocean Pilgrims who have seen Mecca or the Holy Land The relics of saints The picture of an absent friend
33. 33. What does Hume hold about the reasoning of animals?

    They reason by demonstrative arguments, comparing ideas much as philosophers do They are endowed with thought and reason, and infer by custom from experience They are machines without thought or feeling, as Descartes and his followers held They act from instinct alone and never learn from experience
34. 34. What did Aristides tell the Athenians about Themistocles's secret plan?

    That it would ruin Athens's trade That it was just but impossible to carry out That nothing could be more advantageous, and nothing more unjust That it should be put to the vote of the whole of Greece
35. 35. How does Hume answer the objection that a good character prevented by misfortune from doing any good should not be esteemed?

    Esteem depends on the person's intentions alone, known by reason and not by feeling Such a person is not in fact esteemed until fortune improves and the good is done God will reward the virtue that the world cannot see A character fitted to do good pleases the imagination even when fortune keeps it idle
36. 36. Whose observation does Hume cite on how absence affects the passions?

    Bernard Mandeville, in the Fable Blaise Pascal, in his Pensées Michel de Montaigne, in his Essays The Duc de la Rochefoucault
37. 37. According to Hume, whom does a common soldier envy more than his general?

    The king His fellow private soldiers His sergeant or corporal The enemy's commander
38. 38. What example does Hume give of a common project that two people can manage but a thousand cannot without government?

    Building a parish church Defending a mountain pass Clearing a common forest Draining a meadow
39. 39. Why, according to Hume, does the evidence of ancient history not fade away over a long chain of transmission?

    Historical facts are known by demonstration rather than probability The links are all of the same kind, copies by printers and copyists, so the mind runs along them easily Tradition is guaranteed by the authority of the church Each historian independently re-examines the original witnesses
40. 40. What does Hume propose as the “capital or center” of all the sciences?

    Mathematics and the art of demonstration Human nature itself Natural philosophy as Newton reformed it Natural religion and the being of a God
41. 41. What does Hume identify as the common object of pride and humility?

    Virtue and vice Self Riches and property The opinions of others
42. 42. What, for Hume, distinguishes impressions from ideas?

    Whether they are innate or acquired Their degree of force and liveliness Whether they are simple or complex Whether they come from the body or the soul
43. 43. What remedy does Hume offer for sceptical doubt about reason and the senses?

    Trust in the veracity of God Carelessness and inattention A demonstrative proof of the external world Further and more intense reflection
44. 44. Why does the wealthy hunter take pleasure in shooting partridges but not crows?

    Crows are harder to hit and so spoil the sport Partridges fetch a high price at market, which the hunter means to collect Shooting crows was forbidden by the game laws Partridges are fit for the table, giving the pursuit an idea of utility
45. 45. How does Hume picture the relations among pride, humility, love and hatred?

    As two separate pairs with no connexion between them As a circle, all derived from a single principle of self-love As a ladder, ranked from the noblest passion to the basest As a square, connected by their objects on two sides and by their sensations on the other two
46. 46. What office does Hume assign to reason in relation to the passions?

    It judges which passions are true and which false It is, and ought only to be, their slave It is their equal partner in directing the will It ought to govern them as a sovereign
47. 47. Where, according to Section XIV, does necessity exist?

    In both cause and effect equally, as a real tie In the objects themselves, as a hidden power that produces the effect In the mind, as the determination to pass from cause to effect In the deity, as the only truly active being, who moves all bodies
48. 48. Hume says we establish the rules of good-breeding for a purpose parallel to that of the laws of nature. What do the rules of good-breeding prevent?

    The spread of irreligion in conversation The opposition of self-interest over property Quarrels between the different ranks The opposition of men's pride
49. 49. What exception to the priority of impressions over ideas does Hume admit?

    A dreamer could feel heat without a fire A person could imagine a shade of blue never seen A child could taste a pine-apple in thought before eating one A man born blind could form the ideas of all the colours
50. 50. What image does Hume use for the way sympathy passes pleasure and esteem between a rich man and his admirers?

    Minds are magnets, each attracting those of a temper like its own, as iron does Minds are mirrors to one another, reflecting each other's emotions Minds are vessels that pour their contents into one another until all are level Minds are clocks that keep the same time