Book 2, Part 1, Of Pride and Humility Summary and Analysis

The Treatise of Human Nature is a theory about human nature as a whole. It does not merely cover the understanding, but also the passions and society and morality. Book I covered the understanding. Book II covers the passions. Book III will cover society and morality. Book II makes great use of the impressions from Book I, specifically passions or 'impressions of reflection'. The passions just are immediate sensations of your internal states. Hume wants to explain where the passions come from and what their nature is. He will not discuss physiology, just experience. Passions will include bodily feelings like pleasure, pain, hot and cold and also emotions like pride, rage, love, etc.

Hume divides the passions into two types - productive and responsive. Productive passions are those the produce pleasure...