Hume
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EDITED BY JOHN MORLEY
HUME
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HUME
BY
PROFESSOR HUXLEY
London
MACMILLAN AND CO
1879
_The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved_
LONDON:
R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR,
BREAD STREET HILL.
* * * * *
CONTENTS.
_PART I.--HUME'S LIFE._
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
EARLY LIFE: LITERARY AND POLITICAL WRITINGS 1
CHAPTER II.
LATER YEARS: THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND 26
_PART II.--HUME'S PHILOSOPHY._
CHAPTER I.
THE OBJECT AND SCOPE OF PHILOSOPHY 48
CHAPTER II.
THE CONTENTS OF THE MIND 60
CHAPTER III.
THE ORIGIN OF THE IMPRESSIONS. 74
CHAPTER IV.
THE CLASSIFICATION AND THE NOMENCLATURE OF MENTAL
OPERATIONS 89
CHAPTER V.
THE MENTAL PHENOMENA OF ANIMALS 103
CHAPTER VI.
LANGUAGE--PROPOSITIONS CONCERNING NECESSARY TRUTHS 114
CHAPTER VII.
THE ORDER OF NATURE: MIRACLES 129
CHAPTER VIII.
THEISM: EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY 140
CHAPTER IX.
THE SOUL: THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY 165
CHAPTER X.
VOLITION: LIBERTY AND NECESSITY 183
CHAPTER XI.
THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALS 197
* * * * *
HUME.
PART I.
_HUME'S LIFE._
CHAPTER I.
EARLY LIFE: LITERARY AND POLITICAL WRITINGS.
David Hume was born, in Edinburgh on the 26th of April (O.S.), 1711. His
parents were then residing in the parish of the Tron church, apparently
on a visit to the Scottish capital, as the small estate which his father
Joseph Hume, or Home, inherited, lay in Berwickshire, on the banks of
the Whitadder or Whitewater, a few miles from the border, and within
sight of English ground. The paternal mansion was little more than a
very modest farmhouse,[1] and the property derived its name of
Ninewells from a considerable spring, which breaks out on the slope in
front of the house, and falls into the Whitadder.
Both mother and father came of good Scottish families--the paternal line
running back to Lord Home of Douglas, who went over to France with the
Douglas during the French wars of Henry V. and VI. and was killed at the
battle of Verneuil. Joseph Hume died when David was an infant, leaving
himself and two elder children, a brother and a sister, to the care of
their mother, who is described by David Hume in _My Own Life_ as "a
woman of singular merit, who though young and handsome devoted herself
entirely to the rearing and education of her children." Mr. Burton says:
"Her portrait, which I have seen, represents a thin but pleasing
countenance, expressive of great intellectual acuteness;" and as Hume
told Dr. Black that she had "precisely the same constitution with
himself" and died of the disorder which proved fatal to him, it is
probable that the qualities inherited from his mother had much to do
with the future philosopher's eminence. It is curious, however, that her
estimate of her son in her only recorded, and perhaps slightly
apocryphal utterance, is of a somewhat unexpected character. "Our
Davie's a fine goodnatured crater, but uncommon wake-minded." The first
part of the judgment was indeed verified by "Davie's" whole life; but
one might seek in vain for signs of what is commonly understood as
"weakness of mind" in a man who not only showed himself to be an
intellectual athlete, but who had an eminent share of practical wisdom
and tenacity of purpose. One would like to know, however, when it was
that Mrs. Hume committed herself to this not too flattering judgment of
her younger son. For as Hume reached the mature age of four and thirty,
before he obtained any employment of sufficient importance to convert
the meagre pittance of a middling laird's younger brother into a decent
maintenance, it is not improbable that a shrewd Scots wife may have
thought his devotion to philosophy and poverty to be due to mere
infirmity of purpose. But she lived till 1749, long enough to see more
than the dawn of her son's literary fame and official importance, and
probably changed her mind about "Davie's" force of character.
David Hume appears to have owed little to schools or universities. There
is some evidence that he entered the Greek class in the University of
Edinburgh in 1723--when he was a boy of twelve years of age--but it is
not known how long his studies were continued, and he did not graduate.
In 1727, at any rate, he was living at Ninewells, and already possessed
by that love of learning and thirst for literary fame, which, as _My Own
Life_ tells us, was the ruling passion of his life and the chief source
of his enjoyments. A letter of this date, addressed to his friend
Michael Ramsay, is certainly a most singular production for a boy of
sixteen. After sundry quotations from Virgil the letter proceeds:--
"The perfectly wise man that outbraves fortune, is much greater
than the husbandman who slips by her; and, indeed, this pastoral
and saturnian happiness I have in a great measure come at just now.
I live like a king, pretty much by myself, neither full of action
nor perturbation--_molles somnos_. This state, however, I can
foresee is not to be relied on. My peace of mind is not
sufficiently confirmed by philosophy to withstand the blows of
fortune. This greatness and elevation of soul is to be found only
in study and contemplation. This alone can teach us to look down on
human accidents. You must allow [me] to talk thus like a
philosopher: 'tis a subject I think much on, and could talk all day
long of."
If David talked in this strain to his mother her tongue probably gave
utterance to "Bless the bairn!" and, in her private soul, the epithet
"wake-minded" may then have recorded itself. But, though few lonely,
thoughtful, studious boys of sixteen give vent to their thoughts in such
stately periods, it is probable that the brooding over an ideal is
commoner at this age, than fathers and mothers, busy with the cares of
practical life, are apt to imagine.
About a year later, Hume's family tried to launch him into the
profession of the law; but, as he tells us, "while they fancied I was
poring upon Voet and Vinnius, Cicero and Virgil were the authors which I
was secretly devouring," and the attempt seems to have come to an abrupt
termination. Nevertheless, as a very competent authority[2] wisely
remarks:--
"There appear to have been in Hume all the elements of which a good
lawyer is made: clearness of judgment, power of rapidly acquiring
knowledge, untiring industry, and dialectic skill: and if his mind
had not been preoccupied, he might have fallen into the gulf in
which many of the world's greatest geniuses lie
buried--professional eminence; and might have left behind him a
reputation limited to the traditional recollections of the
Parliament house, or associated with important decisions. He was
through life an able, clear-headed, man of business, and I have
seen several legal documents, written in his own hand and evidently
drawn by himself. They stand the test of general professional
observation; and their writer, by preparing documents of facts of
such a character on his own responsibility, showed that he had
considerable confidence in his ability to adhere to the forms
adequate for the occasion. He talked of it as 'an ancient prejudice
industriously propagated by the dunces in all countries, that _a
man of genius is unfit for business_,' and he showed, in his
general conduct through life, that he did not choose to come
voluntarily under this proscription."
Six years longer Hume remained at Ninewells before he made another
attempt to embark in a practical career--this time commerce--and with a
like result. For a few months' trial proved that kind of life, also, to
be hopelessly against the grain.
It was while in London, on his way to Bristol, where he proposed to
commence his mercantile life, that Hume addressed to some eminent London
physician (probably, as Mr. Burton suggests, Dr. George Cheyne) a
remarkable letter. Whether it was ever sent seems doubtful; but it shows
that philosophers as well as poets have their Werterian crises, and it
presents an interesting parallel to John Stuart Mill's record of the
corresponding period of his youth. The letter is too long to be given in
full, but a few quotations may suffice to indicate its importance to
those who desire to comprehend the man.
"You must know then that from my earliest infancy I found always a
strong inclination to books and letters. As our college education
in Scotland, extending little further than the languages, ends
commonly when we are about fourteen or fifteen years of age, I was
after that left to my own choice in my reading, and found it
incline me almost equally to books of reasoning and philosophy, and
to poetry and the polite authors. Every one who is acquainted
either with the philosophers or critics, knows that there is
nothing yet established in either of these two sciences, and that
they contain little more than endless disputes, even in the most
fundamental articles. Upon examination of these, I found a certain
boldness of temper growing on me, which was not inclined to submit
to any authority in these subjects, but led me to seek out some new
medium, by which truth might be established. After much study and
reflection on this, at last, when I was about eighteen years of
age, there seemed to be opened up to me a new scene of thought,
which transported me beyond measure, and made me, with an ardour
natural to young men, throw up every other pleasure or business to
apply entirely to it. The law, which was the business I designed to
follow, appeared nauseous to me, and I could think of no other way
of pushing my fortune in the world, but that of a scholar and
philosopher. I was infinitely happy in this course of life for some
months; till at last, about the beginning of September, 1729, all
my ardour seemed in a moment to be extinguished, and I could no
longer raise my mind to that pitch, which formerly gave me such
excessive pleasure."
This "decline of soul" Hume attributes, in part, to his being smitten
with the beautiful representations of virtue in the works of Cicero,
Seneca, and Plutarch, and being thereby led to discipline his temper and
his will along with his reason and understanding.
"I was continually fortifying myself with reflections against
death, and poverty, and shame, and pain, and all the other
calamities of life."
And he adds very characteristically:--
"These no doubt are exceeding useful when joined with an active
life, because the occasion being presented along with the
reflection, works it into the soul, and makes it take a deep
impression: but, in solitude, they serve to little other purpose
than to waste the spirits, the force of the mind meeting no
resistance, but wasting itself in the air, like our arm when it
misses its aim."
Along with all this mental perturbation, symptoms of scurvy, a disease
now almost unknown among landsmen, but which, in the days of winter salt
meat, before root crops flourished in the Lothians, greatly plagued our
forefathers, made their appearance. And, indeed, it may be suspected
that physical conditions were, at first, at the bottom of the whole
business; for, in 1731, a ravenous appetite set in and, in six weeks
from being tall, lean, and raw-boned, Hume says he became sturdy and
robust, with a ruddy complexion and a cheerful countenance--eating,
sleeping, and feeling well, except that the capacity for intense mental
application seemed to be gone. He, therefore, determined to seek out a
more active life; and, though he could not and would not "quit his
pretensions to learning, but with his last breath," he resolved "to lay
them aside for some time, in order the more effectually to resume them."
The careers open to a poor Scottish gentleman in those days were very
few; and, as Hume's option lay between a travelling tutorship and a
stool in a merchant's office, he chose the latter.
"And having got recommendation to a considerable trader in Bristol,
I am just now hastening thither, with a resolution to forget
myself, and everything that is past, to engage myself, as far as is
possible, in that course of life, and to toss about the world from
one pole to the other, till I leave this distemper behind me."[3]
But it was all of no use--Nature would have her way--and in the middle
of 1736, David Hume, aged twenty-three, without a profession or any
assured means of earning a guinea; and having doubtless, by his apparent
vacillation, but real tenacity of purpose, once more earned the title of
"wake-minded" at home; betook himself to a foreign country.
"I went over to France, with a view of prosecuting my studies in a
country retreat: and there I laid that plan of life which I have
steadily and successfully pursued. I resolved to make a very rigid
frugality supply my deficiency of fortune, to maintain unimpaired
my independency, and to regard every object as contemptible except
the improvement of my talents in literature."[4]
Hume passed through Paris on his way to Rheims, where he resided for
some time; though the greater part of his three years' stay was spent at
La Fleche, in frequent intercourse with the Jesuits of the famous
college in which Descartes was educated. Here he composed his first
work, the _Treatise of Human Nature_; though it would appear from the
following passage in the letter to Cheyne, that he had been accumulating
materials to that end for some years before he left Scotland.
"I found that the moral philosophy transmitted to us by antiquity
laboured under the same inconvenience that has been found in their
natural philosophy, of being entirely hypothetical, and depending
more upon invention than experience: every one consulted his fancy
in erecting schemes of virtue and happiness, without regarding
human nature, upon which every moral conclusion must depend."
This is the key-note of the _Treatise_; of which Hume himself says
apologetically, in one of his letters, that it was planned before he was
twenty-one and composed before he had reached the age of twenty-five.[5]
Under these circumstances, it is probably the most remarkable
philosophical work, both intrinsically and in its effects upon the
course of thought, that has ever been written. Berkeley, indeed,
published the _Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision_, the _Treatise
Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge_, and the _Three
Dialogues_, between the ages of twenty-four and twenty-eight; and thus
comes very near to Hume, both in precocity and in influence; but his
investigations are more limited in their scope than those of his
Scottish contemporary.
The first and second volumes of the _Treatise_, containing Book I., "Of
the Understanding," and Book II., "Of the Passions," were published in
January, 1739.[6] The publisher gave fifty pounds for the copyright;
which is probably more than an unknown writer of twenty-seven years of
age would get for a similar work, at the present time. But, in other
respects, its success fell far short of Hume's expectations. In a letter
dated the 1st of June, 1739, he writes,--
"I am not much in the humour of such compositions at present,
having received news from London of the success of my _Philosophy_,
which is but indifferent, if I may judge by the sale of the book,
and if I may believe my bookseller."
This, however, indicates a very different reception from that which
Hume, looking through the inverted telescope of old age, ascribes to the
_Treatise_ in _My Own Life_.
"Never literary attempt was more unfortunate than my _Treatise of
Human Nature_. It fell _deadborn from the press_ without reaching
such a distinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots."
As a matter of fact, it was fully, and, on the whole, respectfully and
appreciatively, reviewed in the _History of the Works of the Learned_
for November, 1739.[7] Whoever the reviewer may have been, he was a man
of discernment, for he says that the work bears "incontestable marks of
a great capacity, of a soaring genius, but young, and not yet thoroughly
practised;" and he adds, that we shall probably have reason to consider
"this, compared with the later productions, in the same light as we view
the juvenile works of a Milton, or the first manner of a Raphael or
other celebrated painter." In a letter to Hutcheson, Hume merely speaks
of this article as "somewhat abusive;" so that his vanity, being young
and callow, seems to have been correspondingly wide-mouthed and hard to
satiate.
It must be confessed that, on this occasion, no less than on that of his
other publications, Hume exhibits no small share of the craving after
mere notoriety and vulgar success, as distinct from the pardonable, if
not honourable, ambition for solid and enduring fame, which would have
harmonised better with his philosophy. Indeed, it appears to be by no
means improbable that this peculiarity of Hume's moral constitution was
the cause of his gradually forsaking philosophical studies, after the
publication of the third part (_On Morals_) of the _Treatise_, in 1740,
and turning to those political and historical topics which were likely
to yield, and did in fact yield, a much better return of that sort of
success which his soul loved. The _Philosophical Essays Concerning the
Human Understanding_, which afterwards became the _Inquiry_, is not much
more than an abridgment and recast, for popular use, of parts of the
_Treatise_, with the addition of the essays on Miracles and on
Necessity. In style, it exhibits a great improvement on the _Treatise_;
but the substance, if not deteriorated, is certainly not improved. Hume
does not really bring his mature powers to bear upon his early
speculations, in the later work. The crude fruits have not been ripened,
but they have been ruthlessly pruned away, along with the branches which
bore them. The result is a pretty shrub enough; but not the tree of
knowledge, with its roots firmly fixed in fact, its branches perennially
budding forth into new truths, which Hume might have reared. Perhaps,
after all, worthy Mrs. Hume was, in the highest sense, right. Davie was
"wake-minded," not to see that the world of philosophy was his to
overrun and subdue, if he would but persevere in the work he had begun.
But no--he must needs turn aside for "success": and verily he had his
reward; but not the crown he might have won.
In 1740, Hume seems to have made an acquaintance which rapidly ripened
into a life long friendship. Adam Smith was, at that time, a boy student
of seventeen at the University of Glasgow; and Hume sends a copy of the
_Treatise_ to "Mr. Smith," apparently on the recommendation of the
well-known Hutcheson, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the university.
It is a remarkable evidence of Adam Smith's early intellectual
development, that a youth of his age should be thought worthy of such a
present.
In 1741 Hume published anonymously, at Edinburgh, the first volume of
_Essays Moral and Political_, which was followed in 1742 by the second
volume.
These pieces are written in an admirable style and, though arranged
without apparent method, a system of political philosophy may be
gathered from their contents. Thus the third essay, _That Politics may
be reduced to a Science_, defends that thesis, and dwells on the
importance of forms of government.
"So great is the force of laws and of particular forms of
government, and so little dependence have they on the humours and
tempers of men, that consequences almost as general and certain may
sometimes be deduced from them as any which the mathematical
sciences afford us."--(III. 15.) (_See_ p. 45.)
Hume proceeds to exemplify the evils which inevitably flow from
universal suffrage, from aristocratic privilege, and from elective
monarchy, by historical examples, and concludes:--
"That an hereditary prince, a nobility without vassals, and a
people voting by their representatives, form the best monarchy,
aristocracy, and democracy."--(III. 18.)
If we reflect that the following passage of the same essay was written
nearly a century and a half ago, it would seem that whatever other
changes may have taken place, political warfare remains _in statu
quo_:--
"Those who either attack or defend a minister in such a government
as ours, where the utmost liberty is allowed, always carry matters
to an extreme, and exaggerate his merit or demerit with regard to
the public. His enemies are sure to charge him with the greatest
enormities, both in domestic and foreign management; and there is
no meanness or crime, of which, in their judgment, he is not
capable. Unnecessary wars, scandalous treaties, profusion of public
treasure, oppressive taxes, every kind of maladministration is
ascribed to him. To aggravate the charge, his pernicious conduct,
it is said, will extend its baneful influence even to posterity, by
undermining the best constitution in the world, and disordering
that wise system of laws, institutions, and customs, by which our
ancestors, during so many centuries, have been so happily governed.
He is not only a wicked minister in himself, but has removed every
security provided against wicked ministers for the future.
"On the other hand, the partisans of the minister make his
panegyric rise as high as the accusation against him, and celebrate
his wise, steady, and moderate conduct in every part of his
administration. The honour and interest of the nation supported
abroad, public credit maintained at home, persecution restrained,
faction subdued: the merit of all these blessings is ascribed
solely to the minister. At the same time, he crowns all his other
merits by a religious care of the best government in the world,
which he has preserved in all its parts, and has transmitted
entire, to be the happiness and security of the latest
posterity."--(III. 26.)
Hume sagely remarks that the panegyric and the accusation cannot both be
true; and, that what truth there may be in either, rather tends to show
that our much-vaunted constitution does not fulfil its chief object,
which is to provide a remedy against maladministration. And if it does
not--
"we are rather beholden to any minister who undermines it and
affords us the opportunity of erecting a better in its
place."--III. 28.
The fifth Essay discusses the _Origin of Government_:--
"Man, born in a family, is compelled to maintain society from
necessity, from natural inclination, and from habit. The same
creature, in his farther progress, is engaged to establish
political society, in order to administer justice, without which
there can be no peace among them, nor safety, nor mutual
intercourse. We are therefore to look upon all the vast apparatus
of our government, as having ultimately no other object or purpose
but the distribution of justice, or, in other words, the support of
the twelve judges. Kings and parliaments, fleets and armies,
officers of the court and revenue, ambassadors, ministers and privy
councillors, are all subordinate in the end to this part of
administration. Even the clergy, as their duty leads them to
inculcate morality, may justly be thought, so far as regards this
world, to have no other useful object of their institution."--(III.
37.)
The police theory of government has never been stated more tersely:
and, if there were only one state in the world; and if we could be
certain by intuition, or by the aid of revelation, that it is wrong for
society, as a corporate body, to do anything for the improvement of its
members and, thereby, indirectly support the twelve judges, no objection
could be raised to it.