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“From the Dublin University Magazine. LIFE AND WRITINGS OF DAVID HUME. The Life and Correspondence of David Hume, from the papers bequeathed by his Nephew, Baron Hume, to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and other original sources. By John Hill Burton, Esquire, Advocate. 2 vols. 8vo. Edinburgh, 1846,” The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, vol. 8, no. 1 (May 1846), pp. 80–94.
Anonymous
The contours of Hume’s reception in America changed as his literary canon grew and as more about his life and correspondence became publically available. While Hume’s “My Own Life” was first published in 1777, along with Adam Smith’s reflections on his friend’s life, it took time for Hume’s correspondence to be published and for fuller biographical accounts to be written. John Hill Burton’s (1809–81) Life and Writings of David Hume was an important step forward in that regard. By the mid-1840s, Hume’s American readers had access to considerable material related to Hume and his thought, as demonstrated by the following review of Burton’s book, reprinted from the Dublin University Magazine: A Literary and Political Journal, vol. 27 (March and May 1846), pp. 356–71; 576–91. For a modern assessment of Hume’s “Letter to a Physician (mocked by the reviewer as, “The Valetudinarian, or the Man who cannot live without a Physician”), see John P. Wright, “Dr. George Cheyne, Chevalier Ramsay, and Hume’s Letter to a Physician,” Hume Studies, vol. 29 (2003), pp. 125–41.
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From the Dublin University Magazine.
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF DAVID HUME.
The Life and Correspondence of David Hume, from the papers bequeathed by his Nephew, Baron Hume, to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and other original sources. By John Hill Burton, Esquire, Advocate. 2 vols. 8vo. Edinburgh, 1846.
OF the life of Hume, his own memoir, Adam Smith’s letter to Strahan, and Mr. Ritchie’s narrative, have hitherto been the principle accounts. In the course of last year was published Lord Brougham’s lively sketch, with several of the letters which are preserved in one of the public libraries of Edinburgh, and which have been long accessible to any person interested in the subject. All these works, and especially the first, are of considerable interest; still, something more was wanting. If correspondence is to be at all published, and is referred to as authority, there is then the general fitness of at least as much of it being given as in any way bears on the subject, to illustrate which it is produced. Allusions, more or less distinct, have been repeatedly made to these letters, and to those of the Scottish divines with whom Hume lived in habits of friendliness, to prove that the infidelity with which Hume was infected extended its taint to them. If such fact can be established, (and we do not believe it,) it must be by other evidence; for from the parts of the correspondence given by Mr. Burton, no inference of the kind can be derived.
That no such account of Hume as Scotland ought to have supplied to the general literature of the country should have before appeared, is easily to be accounted for. Till of late years, the strong feelings which any discussion of his views on religious subjects was sure to excite, would have rendered the publication, in all probability, a losing concern, and at all events be regarded by a great portion of the public as an offence. The Edinburgh publishers were not unlikely to remember the spirit in which, when in the General Assembly, a prosecution against Hume had failed, the parties who were his most active assailants immediately commenced proceedings against the publishers of an essay of Lord Kames’s, which essay — so subtle was the zeal of the prosecutors in detecting latent infidelity — was written for the purpose of confuting the principles, supposed to be involved in Hume’s doctrine, that we are unable to discover any real connection between cause and effect.* A prosecution for sorcery or witchcraft was no pleasant thing a century ago; and in later times, proceedings against a man for blasphemy or heresy were no joke. It would, we fear, be regarded even now as an insufficient defence to such an accusation to be able to show that Lord Brougham has affirmed the first crime to be impossible, or to suggest that it would not be easy to find a tribunal, consisting of more than one individual, likely to agree in what constituted the second. That a serious offence against society was committed by the publication of Hume’s writings, was certainly the public feeling of the period in which they appeared; and under what name society was to punish it, was a matter that seemed of comparative indifference. Though the proceedings against Hume were defeated in the General Assembly, yet that against the publishers of Kames failed only by the death of the prosecutor.
Of late years the total defeat and rout of speculative infidelity has rendered it possible to reprint all such works with no other danger than the unpleasant consequence of the sale being insufficient to pay the publisher’s expenditure. The result of inquiry has, in every instance, as far as we know, been directly opposed to that which the alarm of zealous but ignorant men suggested. Hume’s “Inquiry into the Doctrine of Cause and Effect” led to those investigations in Germany which have ended in the total demolition of all the Babels which in Paris and Edinburgh had affronted high heaven. The “Inquiry into Miracles” has issued not only in the signal triumph of the defenders of revelation on the particular subject of controversy, but in what is of almost as much moment — in fixing attention to the fact, that what has been rashly assumed, and even expressed,* to be a violation of the laws of nature, is never, in any true sense, such, but is in reality a new phenomenon not within the range of our ordinary experience — most often the expression of some more general law, the constant operation of which would be perceptible, but for hindrances thus for a moment removed. There can, we think, never be danger in the full discussion of any subject of scientific inquiry. Of this how remarkable a proof is given in the fact that Butler’s “Analogy” and Hume’s “Treatise on Human Nature” were published within two years of each other. Hume’s essay is forgotten, or holds a doubtful place in such books as record the shiftings of opinion on topics of metaphysical inquiry. It certainly is not read; while there probably is no man who at all seriously thinks of his own present duties or future existence, to whom Butler’s work is not a frequent study; and yet, when the “Analogy” was first published, not only does Butler in his preface represent the prevalent opinion “of persons of discernment,” to be against the truth of Christianity, but, what is more strange, his own book was looked upon with jealous and distrustful eyes. Even Gray, the poet, spoke of it with dislike and apprehension. “He dissuaded me,” says Nichols, “from reading ‘Butler’s Analogy,’ and said he had given the same advice to Mason.” The true inference is, we think, that when the decencies of society are not invaded, no interruption whatever should be given to the publication of any work. The dull will fall, “swayed by the impulse of their own dead weight.” Undoubtedly, prosecutions, whether in the civil or ecclesiastical courts, do nothing but mischief.
David Hume was born at Edinburgh, on the 26th of April (old style,) 1711. His father’s family was, he tells us, a branch of the Earl of Home’s. His mother was daughter of Sir David Falconer, a successful advocate, compiler of books on Scottish law, and finally President of the Court of Session. Falconer was of a respectable family, and one of his sons succeeded, in the year 1727, to the title of Lord Halkerton. The father of Hume died while David was still an infant, leaving to his eldest son, Joseph, the lands of Ninewells, which had been for many generations in that branch of the family of Hume, or Home. The future historian, and Catherine, the sister, with whom at an after period Hume lived, were slenderly provided for.
David had the feeling of family pride in more than its due strength. It is a feeling with which we do not fall out, for its tendency, in any rightly constituted mind, seems to be to lead the individual to regard rather his tribe than himself; and we think it — on the whole, if a prejudice — one that encourages the generous affections. In a letter to Alexander Home, of Whitfield, he tells him of Ninewells having been the scene of many a foray in the days of old. He has to trace the name of his paternal estate through the mazes of a spelling that would defy less diligent inquirers. In Hall’s Chronicle, he finds a statement that the Earl of Surrey, in an inroad upon the Merse, made during the reign of Henry the Eighth, after the battle of Flodden, destroyed, among others, the towers of “East Nisgate and Winwalls. The names,” adds Hume, “you see, are somewhat disfigured; but I cannot doubt but he means Nisbett and Ninewells — the situation of the places leads us to that conjecture.” Ninewells, however, is not often mentioned in the records of such invasions, for the very sufficient reason that it lay near Berwick, “and our ancestors,” says Hume, “paid contributions to the governors of that place, and abstained from hostilities, and were prevented [protected?] from ravages.” It would almost seem that the historian is scarcely pleased with his ancestors for thus securing themselves from plunder, and thereby losing such distinction as is implied by names occurring in the records of the barbarities of older times. The historian tells that the early spelling of the name was Hume, which is that which represents the pronunciation. About the time of the Restoration, HOME became the way of writing it. The name often occurs in Rymer’s “Foedera,” and is always spelt Hume. There is no doubt of the connection of the family with that of the Earl of Home; and on one occasion, if it were not that they were near relations, and that a feudal lord had a right to do what he pleased with his own, we should think that a brother of the Earl’s pressed the privileges of kindred too far. The incident is given in Law’s “Memorials.”
“December, 1683 — About the close of the month, the Earl himself being from home, the Lairds of Hilton and Nynhools [Nineholes or Ninewells] came to make a visit to the Earl of Home his house, and went to dice and cards with Mr. William Home, the Earl’s brother. Some sharp words fell amongst them at their game, which was not noticed, as it seemed to them; yet when the two gentlemen were gone to their bed chambers, the foresaid Mr. William comes up with his sword, and stabs [Johnston of] Hilton with nine deadly wounds on his bed, that he dies immediately; and wounds [Hume of] Ninehools mortally, so that it was thought he would not live, and immediately took horse and fled to England.”
Law does not tell the whole story. A feature which he omits is supplied by Lord Fountainhills: “William Home made his escape to England on Hilton’s horse.” From Kirkpatrick Sharpe we learn a little more of this romance. William Home, after many a long year, returned to Scotland, smitten with remorse, and anxious to ask pardon for what he had done, of the family of Johnstone. A near relative of Johnstone’s, a resident in Edinburgh, was, “in the dusk of the evening, called forth to the outside stairs of the house to speak with a stranger muffled in a cloak. As he proceeded along the passage, the door being open, he recognized the murderer; and, immediately drawing his sword, rushed towards him, on which the other leapt nimbly down from the stairs into the street, and was never again seen in Scotland.” Of such materials was the fabric of Hume’s family pride erected. “I am not of the opinion,” says David, speaking of his descent from the chieftains whom we have described, “that these matters are altogether to be slighted… I doubt that our morals have not much improved since we began to think riches the sole thing worth regarding.”
Our readers may, perhaps, fancy that the Nine-wells or Nine-holes took its name from the tragedy enacted on poor Johnstone and his fellow-suffers, one of whom was pierced with nine wounds — no such thing — “The estate of Ninewells is so called from a cluster of springs of that number. They burst forth from a gentle declivity in front of the mansion, which has on each side a semicircular rising bank, covered with fine timber, and fall, after a short time, into the bed of the river Whitewater, which forms a boundary in front. The place is worth going to look at if it were only that it was Hume’s residence in early boyhood, though never did a man look upon scenery with a less observing eye than Hume. Of imagination he cannot be regarded as wholly deficient who possesses in so high a degree as Hume did the power of animated and picturesque narrative; but the actions which he describes might as well have been “the battles of kites and crows” warring in the air, for any thing that we can ever learn from him of their locality. This is well stated by Mr. Burton.
“It was not part of his mental character to find any pleasing associations in spots remarkable only for the warlike or adventurous achievements they had witnessed. Intellect was the material on which his genius worked: with it were all his associations and sympathies; and what had not been adored by the seats of the mind had no charm in his eye. Had he been a stranger of another land, visiting at the present, or some later day, the scenes of the Lay and of Marmion, they would, without doubt, like the land of Virgil, have lit in his mind some sympathetic glow; but the scenes illustrated solely by deeds of barbarous warfare, and by a rude illiterate minstrelsy, had nothing in them to rouse a mind which was yet far from being destitute of its own peculiar enthusiasm. He had often, in his history, to mention great historical events that had taken place in the immediate vicinity of his paternal residence, and in places to which he could hardly have escaped, if he did not court occasional visits. About six miles from Ninewells, stands Norham Castle. Three or four miles farther off, are Twisel-bridge, where Surrey crossed the Till to engage the Scots, and the other localities connected with the battle of Flodden. In the same neighborhood is Holiwell Haugh, where Edward I. met the Scottish nobility, when he professed himself to be the arbiter of the disputes between Bruce and Baliol. In his notices of these spots, in connexion with the historical events which he describes, he betrays no symptom of having passed many of his youthful days in their vicinity, but is as cold and general as when he describes Agincourt or Marston Moor; and it may safely be said, that in none of his historical or philosophical writings does any expression used by him, unless in those cases where a Scoticism has escaped his vigilance, betray either the district or the country of his origin.” — Vol. I. pp. 8, 9.
The name of David Home (not Hume) appears in the matriculation book of the University of Edinburgh, as entering 27th of February, 1723. There is no record of his having taken a degree.
In his seventeenth year he commenced, and scarcely commenced before he abandoned, the study of the law. “I found,” he says, “an insuperable aversion to every thing but the pursuits of philosophy and general learning, and while my friends fancied I was poring over Voet and Vennius, Cicero and Virgil were the authors I was secretly devouring.”
Mr. Burton, himself a Scottish advocate, feels surprised that Hume should, in the days in which his lot was cast, have felt disgust for the study of the law. “The advocate of that day,” he tells us, “often commenced his pleadings with a quotation from the young philosopher’s favorite poet, Virgil, and then digressed into a speculative inquiry into the general of law and government; the philosophical genius of Themis long soaring sublime, until at last folding her wings she rested on some vulgar question about dry multures, or an irritancy of a tailzie to the settlement of which the wide principles so announced were applied!” “So much for blarney — now for business!” said Lord Byron, and we think it not impossible that it was the union of blarney and business that disgusted Hume. The passion for literary distinction, however, early awoke, and he appears to have wisely resolved on not giving a divided allegiance to the most repulsive of Black Graces. Among the letters of Hume, for the first time published, is one of exceeding length, which it would appear was written to an eminent physician consulting him on a state of health and spirits very minutely described. He describes himself as pursuing, after the age of fifteen, a very desultory course of study — books of reasoning and philosophy, poetry, and the polite authors. “Every one,” he says, “who is acquainted with the philosophers or critics knows that there is nothing yet established in either of those two sciences, and that they contain little more than endless disputes, even in the most fundamental articles.” He tells of the nausea with which he regarded law, and of a fit of laziness which prevented any study of any kind for some months. Some feelings of anxiety followed about his circumstances which looked very blue, but “he took a dose of logic to compose him,” and read the philosophers again.
“In this condition I remained for nine months, very uneasy to myself, as you may well imagine, but without growing any worse, which was a miracle. There was another particular which contributed, more than any thing, to waste my spirits and bring on me this distemper, which was, that having read many books of morality, such as Cicero, Seneca, and Plutarch, and being smit with their beautiful representation of virtue and philosophy, I undertook the improvement of my temper and will, along with my 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. These no doubt are exceedingly useful, when joined to 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 with no resistance, but wasting itself in the air, like our arm when it misses its aim. This, however, I did not learn but by experience, and till I had already ruined my health, though I was not sensible of it. Some scurvy spots broke out on my fingers the first winter I fell ill, about which I consulted a very knowing physician, who gave me some medicine that removed these symptoms, and at the same time gave me a warning against the vapors which, though I was labouring under at that time, I fancied myself so far removed from, and indeed from any other disease, except a slight scurvy, that I despised his warning. At last, about April 1730, when I was nineteen years of age, a symptom, which I had noticed a little from the beginning, increased considerably; so that, though it was no uneasiness, the novelty of it made me ask advice; it was what they call a ptyalism or wateryness in the mouth. Upon my mentioning it to my physician, he laughed at me, and told me I was now a brother, for that I had fairly got the disease of the learned. Of this he found great difficulty to persuade me, finding in myself nothing of that lowness of spirit which those who labor under that distemper so much complain of. However, upon his advice I went under a course of betters, and anti-hysteric pills, drank an English pint of claret wine every day, and rode eight or ten Scotch miles. This I continued for about seven months after.” — pp. 32, 33.
The letter continues with an account of symptoms which seem exceedingly like those of perfect health. He gets fat, walks sixteen miles a day, has put together the materials of many volumes, but is not satisfied with any words which present themselves. The letter is in Hume’s handwriting, and does not appear to have been ever sent. It is scarcely of the value that Mr. Burton ascribes to it; and is most remarkable for the exhibition of a turn of mind perceptible, we think in all of Hume’s writings, of at the same moment seeking to pursue two inconsistent trains of thought — calling on his physician to treat him as a man in perfect health and in the deepest disease — making this, in short, like every other subject, rather a sort of play of the intellect than the serious inquiry of a person really alarmed for his health. This view of the matter is not rendered less probable by the fact that there is no evidence of the statement having been sent to any physician; and, indeed, we cannot but think the evidence on which Mr. Burton thinks it probable that it was meant to be sent to Dr. Cheyne, is very slight. It occurred to Mr. Burton when he first read the letter, that it was for “Arbuthnot, whose fine genius was just then flickering in the socket,” the case was intended. Further consideration made Mr. Burton think that Cheyne was the favored correspondent. This notion arises from the circumstance that Cheyne was a Scotsman — that in one of his books is an account of the case of a Scottish gentleman resident in Hume’s neighborhood, which accident might direct Hume’s attention to the book, and make him wish for Cheyne’s advice. Internal evidence fixes Hume’s letter to about the year 1734; and Mr. Burton looked over a book of Cheyne’s — “Natural Method of curing Diseases of the Body and the Mind,” published in 1742 — in some hopes of finding Hume’s case mentioned in it. Nothing is said of it there. We think it almost certain that Hume’s letter was never sent, and we are far from sure that the history of the symptoms of a dyspeptic patient is not a romance drawn up with little more regard to actual fact than his essay describing “The Stoic, or the Man of Action and Virtue” — “The Epicurean, or the Man of Elegance and Pleasure” — and so on. This, perhaps, had he published it, would have been called “The Valetudinarian, or the Man who cannot live without a Physician.”
If Hume’s was more than a passing fear of ill-health, or a student’s whimsical essay on an imaginary state of facts, he fortunately was too poor to indulge himself in the luxury of medical advice. He could not afford to be sick.
His means were, however, too slender to have him live without making an effort for their improvement; and he made a feeble trial of mercantile life. In 1734, he went to Bristol, with some introductions to eminent merchants; but after a few moths he retired to France, determining “to make frugality supply the deficiency of fortune, to maintain unimpaired his independency, and to regard every object as contemptible, except the improvement of his talents in literature.” He returned from France in 1737, and in 1738 published his first work — “The Treatise on Human Nature.” Hume describes the work as having fallen dead-born from the press. This was not exactly the case. The screams of the infant were heard by some of the reviewers of that day, and it was dealt with severely in a publication still to be found in the dust and lumber of old libraries, called “The Works of the Learned.” Nothing is so likely to try the temper of a philosopher as reading a review; and we advise any men who have Celtic blood in their veins never to read what we may say of their works — not that we think our honored publisher in as much danger from the excited feelings of any red-haired brother whom we may think it necessary to sacrifice according to the most approved rites of our infernal magic,* as poor Jacob Robinson was, when one of his tribe dealt with David, on his return home after his sojourn in partibus infidelium, with his little pack of prohibited and plague tainted goods, consisting, for the most part, of old clothes from the shop of Benedict Spinoza — (“I be the Jew that uses the Christians well”) — looking as good as new, and with trimmings and tinsel of the most approved patterns from the manufactory of Bayle and Co. The philosopher rushed in anger to the bookseller’s. The bookseller thought he had an irresistible case. “No one, sir, but the old gentleman who wrote it, will every read that article. I am sure I won’t. I’d advise you, sir, not to say a word about it.” All would not do. “He kept poor Jacob Robinson, in the paroxysm of his anger, at his sword’s point, trembling behind the counter lest a period should be put to the life of a sober critic by a raving philosopher.†
Hume was not often thus discomposed. He sought an introduction to Butler; but a letter which Kames gave him he had no opportunity of presenting till after Butler had become a bishop, and then he shrunk from giving it. We regret that they did not meet.‡ He wished to have Butler’s opinion of his book. “My own I dare not trust to; it is so variable, I know not how to fix it. Sometimes it elevates me above the clouds — at other times it depresses me with doubts and fears; so that whatever be my success, I cannot be entirely disappointed.”
Some allowance is to be made for the formal courtesy of the period in fixing the value of the language used in Hume’s correspondence. Robertson and others have been unfairly judged by those who have not taken this into consideration. This phraseology never misled the persons to whom it was used; and to us it does not appear, that, in any fair interpretation of a gentleman’s conduct in the daily intercourse of life, this gives the slightest ground for the charge of infidelity, which has been daringly ascribed to the moderate party among the Edinburgh clergy of the period. Nothing whatever can be gained to the cause of truth by shutting out discussion, and that it should be carried on with the utmost courtesy secures not alone due attention to the statements of an antagonist, but the more important advantage of our own views being put forward without the disturbing influences of passion, or the temptation of appealing to any other test than that of pure intellect employed on its appropriate subjects. The temper in which Hume received from Dr. Blair Campbell’s “Dissertation on Miracles,” is highly creditable to him. We quote it in connection with his “Treatise on Human Nature,” because it incidentally tells us something of the origin of that work. He write to Campbell –
“It may perhaps amuse you to learn the first hint which suggested to me that argument which you have so strenuously attacked. I was walking in the cloisters of the Jesuit’s College of La Flêche, a town in which I passed two years of my youth, and engaged in a conversation with a Jesuit of some parts and learning, who was relating to me, and urging some nonsensical miracle performed lately in their convent, when I was tempted to dispute against him; and as my head was full of the topics of my Treatise of Human Nature, which I was at that time composing, this argument immediately occurred to me, and I thought it very much gravelled my companion; but at last he observed to me, that it was impossible for that argument to have any solidity, because it operated equally against the Gospel as the Catholic miracles; — which observation I though proper to admit as a sufficient answer. I believe you will allow, that the freedom at least of this reasoning makes it somewhat extraordinary to have been the produce of a convent of Jesuits, though perhaps you may think the sophistry of it savors plainly of the place of its birth.
“This same Jesuit’s College of La Flêche,” adds Mr. Burton, “is familiar to the philosophical reader as the seminary in which Des Cartes was educated. The place which Hume had just left, has been seen to be associated with the birth and residence of a distinguished opponent of the Cartesian theory. We now find him perfecting his work in that academic solitude, where Des Cartes himself was educated, and where he formed his theory of commencing with the doubt of previous dogmatic opinions, and framing for himself a new fabric of belief. The coincidence is surely worthy of reflective association, and it is perhaps not the least striking instance of Hume’s unimaginative nature, that in none of his works, printed or manuscript, do we find an allusion to the circumstance, that while framing his own theories, he trod the same pavement that had upwards of a century earlier borne the weight of one whose fame and influence on human thought was so much of the same character as he himself panted to attain.”
The booksellers were better able to pay for metaphysics in the days of David Hume than they have been since. If it be regarded as literally true that the Treatise on Human Nature fell dead-born, we do not well see how John Noone, Hume’s ill-starred publisher, was to get the fifty pounds which he paid David for the first edition, not to exceed a thousand copies. The author was, in addition, to receive twelve bound copies of the book, a number more than sufficient to supply the whole demand. The book consisted of two volumes, and included Book the first, “of the Understanding;” Book the second, “of the Passions;” to which was afterwards added a third volume, containing Book the third, “of Virtue and Vice in general.” This publication, re-cast several times during Hume’s life, contains the germ of all his writings on subjects of metaphysics and morals.
The system of Hume is in its principles identical with that of Locke and Berkeley, and it is in its application to subjects with which it is in reality unconnected — and from such application Hume did not abstain — that the charge of sophistry can be fairly made against it. The understanding, to use the language of this school, can have no ideas — certainly can communicate none — which are not ultimately referable to sensation. This has, we think, been demonstrated by Locke; but this surely is nothing more than to examine the structure of what may be called the material mind: and to affirm from such analysis any thing whatever of its faculties in exercise — of its power, or of its want of power — would be as idle as to examine the dust of the earth for the purpose of denying that of it man’s body could have been framed, or to use the anatomist’s knife to find the residence of the vital principle. Did even the intellect constitute man’s whole inward being, and were the understanding the seat of the affections and the moral nature — which Hume did not assert, and which we believe to be untrue — we think absolutely nothing in the slightest degree favorable to infidelity could be deduced from such concession: and some mischief has arisen from what we regard as the very common mistake, that in his philosophical principles is to be found the root of Hume’s unbelief. We have little doubt that the true history of his state of mind on such subjects arose chiefly from the universal profligacy of the society in which he lived when in France, and in London too, where, we must remark, “religion was at the time set up as a principal object of mirth and ridicule, as it were by way of reprisal, for its having so long interrupted the pleasures of the world.”* To determine the boundaries of the human faculties was with Hume, as with more successful investigators, the object of inquiry; and we think he differs from other inquirers rather in the form in which his propositions — varied in every successive edition of his essays — are stated, than essentially. Even in that boldest of all this views — the statement that we but learn the relation of cause and effect by experience, and that experience never shows us more than the facts of antecedence and sequence — when he says that from antecedence and sequence, however constant and even invariable our observation may represent the succession, causation cannot be with certainty inferred, we really see nothing that is not implied in almost every investigation in which a scientific man can be engaged, for Hume cannot be supposed consistently to deny the relation of cause and effect as an idea, when that every idea is what he is examining. In the very strongest possible statement of Hume’s theory of this relation being one, not in things themselves, but in our mode of viewing them, and in its utmost consequence, it comes but to this, that without man’s perceptions there is no external world to man. Nothing can be more painful than the dull pleasantries of Hume on what he calls superstition; which, however, has no peculiar concern with his argument, for his skepticism would affect it only in common with every thing else — i.e. would not affect it at all; and the wish to get his book into good company, as he would call it, seems to have been among the motives for these passages so interwoven with the context of his work, though not with the argument, that they are quite inseparable from it, and indeed render ambiguous, without considerable attention, much of what he says.
It is not at present easy, without a command of the several editions of Hume’s writings, to determine in what degree they have been altered, or even which of the essays, as they now are arranged, were contained in a volume which he published in the year 1742, entitled “Essays, Moral and Political,” which had a very considerable sale, and which Hume tells us Butler every where recommended.
Hume was a vain man, and never was man possessed so wholly by the demon that suggests literary distinction as the governing motive of a student’s life. There is something almost sublime in the sense of desolation and dreariness in which the solitary student who had — fortunately but for a season — by abstruse research, stolen from his own nature all the natural man,* expresses his feelings at the close of the first book of the Treatise on Human Nature: –
“Before I launch out into those immense depths of philosophy which lie before me, I find myself inclined to stop a moment in my present station, and to ponder that voyage which I have undertaken, and which undoubtedly requires the utmost art and industry to be brought to a happy conclusion. Methinks I am like a man, who having struck on many shoals, and having narrowly escaped shipwreck in passing a small frith, has yet the temerity to put out to sea in the same leaky, weather-beaten vessel, and even carries his ambition so far as to think of compassing the globe under these disadvantageous circumstances. My memory of past errors makes me diffident for the future. The wretched condition, weakness, and disorder of the faculties I must employ in my inquiries, increase my apprehensions. And the impossibility of amending or correcting these faculties, reduces me almost to despair, and makes me resolve to perish on the barren rock on which I am at present, rather than venture myself upon that boundless ocean which runs out into immensity. This sudden view of my danger strikes me with melancholy; and as ’tis usual for that passion, above all others, to indulge itself, I cannot forbear feeding my despair with all those desponding reflections, which the present subject furnishes me with in such abundance. I am first affrighted and confounded with that forlorn solitude in which I am placed in my philosophy, and fancy myself some strange uncouth monster, who, not being able to mingle and unite in society, has been expelled all human commerce, and left utterly abandoned and disconsolate. Fain would I run into the crowd for shelter and warmth; but cannot prevail with myself to mix with such deformity. I call upon others to join me, in order to make a company apart; but no one will hearken to me. Every one keeps at a distance, and dreads that storm which beats upon me from every side. I have exposed myself to the enmity of all metaphysicians, logicians, mathematicians, and even theologians; and can I wonder at the insults I must suffer? I have declared my disapprobation of their systems; and can I be surprised if they should express a hatred of mine, and of my person? When I look abroad, I foresee on every side, dispute, contradiction, anger, calumny, and detraction. When I turn my eye inward, I find nothing but doubt and ignorance. All the world conspires to oppose and contradict me; though such is my weakness, that I feel all my opinions loosen and fall of themselves, when unsupported by the approbation of others. Every step I take is with hesitation; and every new reflection makes me dread an error and absurdity in my reasoning. For, with what confidence can I venture upon such bold enterprises, when, beside those numberless infirmities peculiar to myself, I find so many which are common to human nature? Can I be sure that in leaving all established opinions, I am following truth; and by what criterion shall I distinguish her, even if fortune should at last guide me on her footsteps? After the most accurate and exact of my reasonings, I can give no reason way [sic] I should assent to it; and feel nothing but a strong propensity to consider objects strongly in that view, under which they appear to me.”*
A passage that follows is still more melancholy. Let it never be forgotten, however, that Hume is speaking but of the aspect which things assume as the result of the decomposition of our poor intellect in a philosopher’s crucible; and that he tells us that “since heaven is incapable of dispelling these clouds, it fortunately happens kind Nature herself suffices for the purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melancholy and delirium either by relaxing this bent of mind, or by some avocation or lively impression of my senses, which obliterate all these chimeras. I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse and am merry with my friends; and when, after three or four hours’ amusement I would return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strained, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any further.”
“Experience is a principle which makes us reason from causes and effects; and ’tis the same principle which convinces us of the continued existence of external objects, when absent from the senses. But though these two operations be equally natural and necessary in the human mind, yet in some circumstances they are directly contrary; nor is it possible for us to reason justly and regularly from causes and effects, and at the same time believe the continued existence of matter. How then shall we adjust those principles together? Which of them shall we prefer? Or in case we prefer neither of them, but successively assent to both, as is usual among philosophers, with what confidence can we afterwards usurp that glorious title, when we thus knowingly embrace a manifest contradiction? This contradiction would be more excusable were it compensated by any degree of solidity and satisfaction in the other parts of our reasoning. But the case is quite contrary. When we trace up the human understanding to its first principles, we find it to lead us into such sentiments as seem to turn into ridicule all our past pains and industry, and to discourage us from future inquiries. Nothing is more curiously inquired after by the mind of man, than the causes of every phenomenon; nor are we content with knowing the immediate causes, but push on our inquiries till we arrive at the original and ultimate principle. We would not willingly stop before we are acquainted with that energy in the causes by which it operates on its effect; and how must we be disappointed, when we learn that this connection, tie, or energy lies merely in ourselves, and is nothing but that determination of the mind which is acquired by custom, and causes us to make a transition from an object to its usual attendant, and from the impression of one to the lively idea of the other? Such a discovery not only cuts off all hope of ever attaining satisfaction, but even prevents our very wishes; since it appears, that when we say we desire to know the ultimate and operating principle, as something which resides in the external object, we either contradict ourselves, or talk without a meaning — The intense view of these manifold contradictions and imperfections in human reason has so wrought upon and heated my brain, that I am ready to reject all belief and reasoning, and can look upon no opinion even as more probable or likely than another. Where am I, or what? From what causes do I derive my existence, and to what condition shall I return? Whose favor shall I court, and whose anger must I dread? What beings surround me? and on whom have I any influence, or who have any influence on me? I am confounded with all these questions, and begin to fancy myself in the most deplorable condition imaginable, environed with the deepest darkness, and utterly deprived of the use of every member and faculty.”*
We have transcribed these passages, as we think it important to show that Hume regarded his own studies as exhibiting, not human nature as it actually exists, but rather the skeleton of man’s nature. In a letter to Hutcheson he expresses himself in much the same way. Hutcheson had complained of Hume’s book not having any warmth in the cause of virtue, — “a warmth which he thought all good men would relish, and which would not displease amid abstract inquiries.” Hume says—
“I must own this has not happened by change, but is the effect of a reasoning either good or bad. There are different ways of examining the mind, as well as the body. One may consider it either as an anatomist or as a painter; either to discover its most secret springs and principles, or to describe the grace and beauty of its actions. I imagine it impossible to conjoin these two views. Where you pull off the skin, and display all the minute parts, there appears something trivial, even in the noblest attitudes and most vigorous actions; nor can you ever render the object graceful or engaging, but by clothing the parts again with skin and flesh, and presenting only their bare outside. An anatomist, however, can give very good advice to a painter or statuary. And, in like manner, I am persuaded that a metaphysician may be very helpful to a moralist, though I cannot easily conceive these two characters united in the same work.” — Vol. i. p. 112.
Hume had expressed, in a letter to Lord Kames, an unwillingness to return to his own country, without what he called some “settlement in life;” and it was probably not without reluctance that after the publication of the Treatise on Human Nature, he went to live with his mother and brother for a few years in Berwickshire. He says that he there recovered the knowledge of Greek. Mr. Burton tells us of some unsuccessful attempts he made to be appointed a tutor, or “governor,” as it was then called, to some young man of fortune, and he accepted a more delicate office, which attached him to the household of an insane nobleman. The Marquis of Annandale had been found a lunatic from the 12th of December, 1744 — a few months after which date Hume engaged with him on the doubtful footing of a companion, receiving for his services three hundred a year. The engagement lasted but for a year, and there was a vexatious disposition to withhold part of the stipulated salary. At a later period of his life the marquis became calmer than when Hume lived with him; for it is still remembered that he used to walk about the neighborhood of Highgate with a keeper before him, and a footman behind. The latter would now and then tap him on the should, and hand him his snuff box. During Hume’s reign his imbecility was more active. Hume copied some of his epigrams, which he said were not inferior to Rousseau’s, though the versification was but middling. The marquis also wrote a novel, of which, to gratify him, thirty copies were printed; he being led to believe that thousands were circulated. Hume thought he had got him off the publication scheme, by leading him to believe that Lord Marchmont and Lord Bolingbroke had seen the manuscript, and were against its being printed. He, poor fellow, got suspicious, and replied in a tone that startled David into compliance with an insane wish, which, were it evidence of lunacy, would affect many now at large. “Pardie je crois que ces messieurs veulent ètre les seules Seigneurs d’ Angleterre qui eussent de l’ esprit, mais jè leur montrerai ce que le petit A——peut faire aussi.”
Mr. Burton feels that his reader is not unlikely to resent Hume’s accepting what seems to be so humble an appointment; and he presses on our consideration the peculiar circumstances of Scotland — now the most industrious and far the best educated part of the empire, and with the greatest means of advancing its abundant population — but in which they were at that period, to use Hume’s own words, but “two ranks of men — gentlemen with some fortune and education, and the meanest starving poor.” We own that we do not quite agree with our author in regarding the office, under the circumstances in which it was accepted, altogether so humbling as he seems to think. The invitation which he accepted proceeded from Lord Annandale himself, and was suggested by his admiration of Hume’s essays. Hume’s early letters show that there was the strongest and apparently the best-founded expectations of his recovery. The office was one which the conduct of Lord Annandale’s agent, whom Hume thought dishonest, and who feared the effect of such a mind as Hume’s on Lord Annandale’s, rendered intolerable; but this was scarcely to be anticipated. In fact it was the most respectable channel of subsistence open to a man whose habits were not active. “The only form in which a man poor and well-born could retain the rank of a gentleman, if he did not obtain one of the learned professions, was by obtaining a commission in the army, or a government civil appointment.” David lived to have both, but probably would have had neither had he not added to his little fortune by such means as at this period offered.
Mr. Burton gives some amusing accounts of the difficulty which a gentleman then found to make out the means of life at all in Scotland. In Erskine’s Institute of the Law of Scotland, a government situation is regarded as the sole way of advancing a young man of respectable connections. It is said there that it is “his guardian’s duty to advance a yearly sum far beyond the interest of his patrimony, that he may appear suitably to his quality, while he is unprovided of any office under government by which he can live decently.”
“Goldsmith,” says Mr. Burton, “found a Scotch peer keeping a glove shop; and in the case of Lord Mordington, who had been arrested for debt, the bailiff made affidavit, that when he ‘arrested said lord he was so mean in his apparel, as having a worn-out suit of clothes and a dirty shirt on, and but sixpence in his pocket, he could not suppose him to be a peer of Great Britain, and of inadvertency arrested him.’ (Fortescue’s Reports, 165.) This family was peculiarly celebrated — Lady Mordington having raised the question, whether a Scottish peeress who kept a tavern, was protected, by privilege of peerage, from being amenable to the laws against keeping disorderly houses.” Mr. Burton does not state what we learn from the notes to the “Excursion,” that the trade of a travelling merchant — by Southerns often called a pedlar — was a favorite occupation in such circumstances. “A young man going from any part of Scotland to England, of purpose to carry the pack, was considered as going to lead the life and acquire the fortune of a gentleman.* When, after twenty years’ absence in that honorable employment, he returned with his acquisitions to his native country, he was regarded as a gentleman to all intents and purposes.”* This, to say the truth, is the mode of life we should have ourselves liked best of all that seemed to be then open to a young man in Hume’s circumstances; but for this, David was already getting too fat, and we think he chose wisely in preferring what we hope was to be called the place of private secretary; for if so, it would suggest a much pleasanter account of some execrable verses found in David’s handwriting, than that which Mr. Burton gives, who supposes them to be the philosopher’s own handiwork. Seventy-five points of Hume’s salary remained unpaid. On this subject some unmeaning sentimentality had been uttered, as if Hume, in determining to enforce it at law, was acting shabbily. This is worse than nonsense. Hume’s chief, if not only object, in this sacrifice of his time and comforts, is the salary promised; and is he to make a present of it, or any part of it, to the estate of an insane nobleman?
In the course of the next year he became, at the invitation of General St. Clair, “secretary to his expedition, which was at first meant against Canada, but ended in an incursion on the coast of France.” “The office,” says David, “is very genteel — ten shillings a day, perquisites, and no expenses.” Hume was not only secretary to the general, but acted as judge-advocate. In the course of the same year he returned to Ninewells, to remain but for a short time, as he was again invited by the general to attend him as secretary in his military embassy to Vienna and Turin. David now wore the uniform of an officer, and was introduced at court as aid-de-camp to the general. At Turin the late Lord Charlemont became acquainted with him, and from Hardy’s Memoir of Charlemont’s Life, we transcribe a sentence: –
“Nature, I believe, never formed any man more unlike his real character than David Hume. The powers of physiognomy were baffled by his countenance; neither could the most skillful in that science pretend to discover the smallest trace of the faculties of his mind in the unmeaning features of his visage. His face was broad and fat, his mouth wide, and without any other expression than that of imbecility. His eyes, vacant and spiritless, and the corpulence of his whole person was far better fitted to communicate the idea of a turtle-eating alderman, than of a refined philosopher. His speech, in English, was rendered ridiculous by the broadest Scotch accent, and his French was, if possible, still more laughable; so that wisdom, most certainly, never disguised herself before in so uncouth a garb. Though now near fifty years old [Hume was but thirty-seven,] he was healthy and strong; but his health and strength, far from being advantageous to his figure, instead of manly comeliness, had only the appearance of rusticity. His wearing a uniform added greatly to his natural awkwardness, for he wore it like a grocer of the trained bands. St. Clair was a lieutenant-general, and was sent to the courts of Vienna and Turin, as a military envoy, to see that their quota of troops was furnished by the Austrians and Piedmontese. It was, therefore, thought necessary that his secretary should appear to be an officer, and Hume was accordingly disguised in scarlet.” — Hardy’s Charlemont, vol. i. p. 15.
The result of Hume’s campaign with Sir John Sinclair was, that after two years he found himself possessed of a fortune, “which,” says he, “I called independent, though most of my friends were inclined to smile when I said so; in short, I was now master of near a thousand pounds.”
On his return from Italy, he re-published parts of his old “Treatise of Human Nature” in some new shape. It never succeeded in any; and he was provoked at finding the theologians, who, he expected, would kick and cuff it into notice, otherwise, and probably much better employed. He went down to live in the country with his brother, and then composed one or two more essays, which had more success. “I found,” he says, “by Warburton’s railing, that the books were beginning to be esteemed in good company. However, I had a fixed resolution, which I inflexibly maintained, never to reply to any body.” Quite right, David; if an opponent says any thing unanswerable, always let him have his own way. That same Dr. Warburton, the attorney bishop, is likely to have a good deal the best of it, as there is no one quality of mind in which he is not very much your superior. An unlucky squeeze of his hard hand might crush that poor Human Nature of yours out of existence.
In 1751, Hume went to live in Edinburgh. In 1752, he published at Edinburgh his Political Discourses; and in the same year at London, his “Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals,” “which,” he says, “in my opinion, (who ought not to judge on that subject,) is, of all my writings, historical, philosophical, or literary, incomparably the best. It came unmarked and undiscovered into the world.”
In that year he became “Keeper of the Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh” — an office of which the emolument was but forty pounds a year, but which gave him a great command of books. Some disputes with the curators of the library, as to the purchase of books, made him think of resigning the office. However, the convenience of the command of books was of great moment to Hume, who had now commenced his history of the House of Stuart, and his pride was satisfied by declining any longer to receive the salary, and transferring it to Blacklock, the blind poet, whose works are, we do not well know why, still included in every reprint of those collections which are called, by a strange misnomer, the British Poets. When Hume had the means of proving that he did not retain the office for the sake of the salary, the curators and he agreed better. At the end of 1754, appeared the first part of his great work, a quarto volume of four hundred and seventy three pages — “The History of Great Britain, Volume I., containing the reigns of James I., and Charles I.”
His own account of this event, and its effect on him, cannot be omitted: –
“I was, I own, sangu ine in my expectations of the success of this work. I thought that I was the only historian that had at once neglected present power, interest, and authority, and the cry of popular prejudices; and, as the subject was suited to every capacity, I expected proportional applause. But miserable was my disappointment: I was assailed by one cry of reproach, disapprobation, and even detestation: English, Scotch, and Irish, Whig and Tory, churchman and sectary, freethinker and religionist, patriot and courtier, united in their rage against the man who had presumed to shed a generous tear for the fate of Charles I. and the Earl of Strafford; and after the first ebullitions of their fury were over, what was still more mortifying, the book seemed to sink into oblivion. Mr. Millar told me, that in a twelvemonth he sold only forty-five copies of it. I scarcely, indeed, heard of one man in the three kingdoms, considerable for rank or letters, that could endure the book. I must only except the primate of England, Dr. Herring, and the primate of Ireland, Dr. Stone, which seem two odd exceptions. These dignified prelates separately sent me messages not to be discouraged.
I was, however, I confess, discouraged: and had not the war at that time been breaking out between France and England, I had certainly retired to some provincial town of the former kingdom, have changed my name, and never more have returned to my native country; but as this scheme was not now practicable, and the subsequent volume was considerably advanced, I resolved to pick up courage and to persevere.” — Own Life.
That Hume’s history of the House of Stuart should have provoked all, was but natural. There is no one motive of action which unites men into parties, which Hume acknowledges with approbation; and with respect to religion — the strongest influencing power that animates either individuals or bodies of men — Hume was, unhappily, utterly skeptical, if we are not to use a stronger word. Through his work there was another great and insuperable fault. His acquaintance with English literature was imperfect in a degree that, in our days, must be altogether incredible. In his day, nothing seems to have been called literature, except the showy publications that were addressed rather to the idle and disengaged portion of the public, than to the business mind of England. There is no country in the world in which the mind of the nation is less shown in that class of publications, which, except in accidental cases, are of little real value; nor is there any people whose men of business have been more the creators of its true literature than this same England. In the parliamentary history, in the state trials, in the law reports, in the pamphlets of the day, at almost all periods of our history of which we have any valuable records, are found masses of thought to which, in their real interest and importance, and often even in reference to the artistic skill with which arguments of great power are elaborated and exhibited, the works of our later literature bear no comparison whatever; and of all these, Hume was, except when by bare accident he looked father than the popular works by which he was directed to his authorities, altogether ignorant. Hume thought himself a Whig and perhaps the temper in which the French writers, whose tone he assumed, then spoke of proposed improvements in their political constitution, might have deceived him into the belief. In every government — the most tyrannical and absolute, as well as the most free — the peace of society must be the first object; and, though Hume would not admit it in words, he seems to think that whenever this is attained all is accomplished. Had Hume written the history of the Church, as he once thought of doing, woe to the poor reformers, unless indeed Rome had, in the days of her first usurpations, put forward, instead of her claim of antiquity, that of development — the dream, it would, no doubt, have seemed to him, of wandering dotage, and a symptom of approaching change.* If Hume can be said to have had any sympathies, they were altogether with things as established; and to this, rather than to any thing else, are we to ascribe what we must regard as the entirely false spirit in which his narrative of the civil wars in the reign of the second king of the House of Stuart is conceived. The language of every early document whatever of our history, that can be brought to hear on the subject, proves that the claims of the popular party were not, as Hume would represent them, encroachments on the prerogative, but that the king of England was a limited power. The extent of his power was defined by the fact, that he could as king only act through responsible officers, no one of whom could, without a violation of law, exceed his proper duties. That the power of an English king had its legal limits, was expressed in the maxim so often strangely perverted into a meaning directly opposite to what was meant to be conveyed by it — The king can do no wrong. From our early history we do not think that with all the confusion of occasional civil wars, and the loose language of documents drawn up without particular reference to a point not in dispute, any case can be plausibly made but the advocates of the doctrine that arbitrary power in the monarch was consistent with the constitution of government in England. The doubt with respect to the rightful limits of the prerogative arose, we think, chiefly from the arrogant claims of the House of Tudor, and were suggested by the anomalous position in which the crown, and a great and influential portion of its subjects, were placed by the king’s being declared Head of the Church, before the meaning of that new title, or the claims depending on it, were practically reduced to an assertion, that the clergy owed undivided allegiance to the state, and were subject to the same jurisdiction as the laity.† To the accession of the family of Stuart, and to the false notions which James, brought up under the laws of another country, from the first took of his position, we ascribe the contest between the crown and people being placed by any one on the grounds which Hume endeavored to take. All the notions which James brought with him from Scotland were essentially and in first principles opposed to the theory and the practice of the English constitution. All his notions were referable to the civil law; and the effort to engraft on the English law and forms of government those of a system essentially and in every thing different, and to simplify despotism, was a thing not very easily borne. It was ease enough for Hume to make a plausible case for the Stuart kings, on the supposition that the names of king and parliament had the same meaning in England as in countries where the laws and mode of government were essentially different; and while we are willing to believe that the usurpations of the Stuarts arose from their never having fairly considered the true points of difference, it seems to us demonstrable that a practical change wholly unjustified was sought to be made by them, which it was an absolute duty in the people of England to resist. James’s talents had enable him to systematize into a sort of theory his notions of kingly government, and when the vanity of an author was added to that of a monarch, it is no wonder that he deceived himself. It is a sad delusion when the feeling of loyalty degenerates into a baseless superstition, and the claim of a divine right is stated, as it was then stated by James, for the purpose of extending the power of the crown beyond anything known by the name of kingly power in the government which he was called on by Providence to administer. To assert in argument, from the facts of a man being king, and of God, who rules in the affairs of men, having called him to that high trust, the further consequence that such man has a right to enlarge the powers committed to him whenever opportunity offers, is, we think, not only a doctrine wholly untenable, but offensive in the highest degree to those whose feeling of religion and loyalty are least questionable.
Hume has been accused of a dishonest perversion of facts on evidence that, wherever it has been examined, has wholly failed. Of this we shall hereafter give proofs, to our own mind entirely decisive. — Hume’s history has faults enough without the aggravation of intentional misstatement; but it has beauties of narrative more than sufficient, where the reader is sufficiently guarded against the errors which we have indicated, to redeem many of its imputed faults, and the book is calculated to give more instruction, as well as more pleasure, than any other single account of the same period. It cannot supply, and no book can, the place of the original authorities; but it certainly is, in every respect whatever, in which they can be fairly compared, superior “to the orderly and solid works” of Turner, Mackintosh, Lingard, and all those whom Mr. Landor describes in his amusing jingle of words — which is not without some meaning too — as “the Coxes and Foxes of our age.”
*The title of Kames’s book, which was prosecuted, was “Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion.” Kames’s theory is, that there is no real liberty to human beings, but that in our nature is implanted the feeling that we are free. It seems to be a statement, in the philosophical jargon of his day, of a doctrine that ought not to have been offensive to persons who would have, perhaps, been satisfied had the thought been expressed in the language of the theological schools. There can be no doubt that Kames thought he was answering Hume, though there is no distinct allusion to any particular passage in his essay, nor is he mentioned by name; and that Hume so understood his courteous adversary there is no doubt. In a letter to Ramsay, written in the year in which Kames’s book was published, we find the following passage:—”Have you seen our friend Harry’s essays? They are well wrote, [written,] and are an unusual instance of an obliging method of answering a book. Philosophers must judge of the question, but the clergy have already decided it, and say he is as bad as me! Nay, some affirm him to be worse—as much as a treacherous friend is worse than an open enemy. “Mr. Burton tells us, in a tone of grave humor, that “those who constituted themselves judges of the matter seem to have taken example from the stern father, who, when there is a quarrel in the nursery, punishes both sides, because quarreling is a thing not allowed in the house.”
*“A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature.”—Hume, Essays and Treatises. Edinburgh, 1793.
*See “The Sacrifice of the Red-haired Christian,” in the first edition of Thalaba.
†Dr. Kenrick. London Review, vol. v. p. 200. Anno. 1777.
‡That Hume was not without some distrust of that part of his speculations which relates to miracles, is exceedingly probable. Just before the publication of his book on Human Nature, he writes to Lord Kames:—”I enclose some reasonings concerning miracles which I once thought of publishing with the rest, but which I am afraid will give too much offence, even as the world is disposed at present… . I beg of you to show it to nobody, except Mr. Hamilton, if he pleases, and let me know at your leisure that you have received it, read it, and burnt it. Your thoughts and mine agree with respect to Dr. Butler, and I would be glad to be introduced to him. I am at present mutilating my work—that is, cutting of its nobler parts—that is, endeavoring it shall give as little offence as possible, before which I could not pretend to put it into the doctor’s hands. This is a piece of cowardice for which I blame myself, though I believe none of my friends will blame me. I was resolved not to be an enthusiast in philosophy while I was blaming other philosophers’ enthusiasms.” Surely this looks like a feeling that on the subject of miracles his doctrine was unsound. He modifies the other parts of his work so as to fit them for Butler’s eye; but he omits altogether the Essay on Miracles. That essay, as afterwards published, contained nothing in the argumentative part so stated, as that it might not be shown to Butler. Hume’s argument is by anticipation answered in the Analogy, or, at least, the elements of an answer are given. It is a poor pretence to say the suppression arose from courtesy to Dr. Butler. The only thing likely to offend him or any right judging person is the paltry subterfuge with which the essay closes, in which he affects to patronize Christianity. The mean sneers and the tricks of ambiguous language—suggesting in sarcastic allusion what the writer will not say in direct words—a style borrowed from the French, and in Hume’s case wholly unrelieved by any thing like wit—are, indeed, plague spots. The single excuse for this style was the state of the laws in most countries in Europe, and certainly in Scotland, which made such publications liable to prosecution. There can be no reasonable doubt, we think, that all subjects should be open to the freest discussion. And this we believe, on a fair interpretation of decided cases, to be the law of England: but all doubt on a subject of such moment should be removed. In our notion of the law, (in which, however, we differ from a writer who, under the name of JOHN SEARCH, brought the subject some years ago before the public, with arguments of great force,) any real danger of a successful prosecution in England would arise from a jury regarding those passages of mock reverence as an intended insult. This would bring the case within another principle.
*Butler’s Preface to Analogy.
*“And haply by abstruse research to steal
From my own nature all the natural man,”
COLERIDGE
*Treatise of Human Nature, book i. part 4; and Woodhouselee’s Life of Kames, vol. i.
*Human Nature, book i. part 4, sec. 7.
*The notion of a gentle trade went even farther than this. In King James’s amusing song of the Gaberlunzie Man, the young girl who left her home with the gaberlunzie man says:—
“O kenned my minnie I were with you,
Ill-faredly would she crook her mou’,
Sic a poor man she’d never trow,
After the gaberlunzie-man.
My dear, quoth he, ye’re yet o’er young,
And ha’e no learned the beggar’s tongue,
So follow me frae town to town,
To carry the gaberlunzie on.
“Wi’ cauk and keep I’ll win your bread,
And spindles and whorles for them wha need,
Which is a gentle trade indeeed,
To carry the gaberlunzie on.
I’ll bow my leg, and crook my knee,
And draw a black clout o’er my e’e;
A cripple or blind they will call me,
While we shall be merry and sing.”
The gaberlunzie—a word of uncertain derivation—is the bag in which the travelling tinker carried the implements of his trade, and “whatever he could lift.” We transcribe these stanzas from Cunningham’s Burns. The copy of the song in Percy’s Reliques, is in a dialect slightly different. See a passage from Scott, quoted in the DUBLIN UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE, Vol. XVIII., November, 1841—Article on Burns.
*Heron’s Journey in Scotland, quoted by Wordsworth.
*See Newman’s Essay on “Development” of Christian Doctrine—1845.
†See Strype’s Life of Parker.