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“HUME, VOLTAIRE, AND ROUSSEAU,” The New-Englander, vol. 1, no. 2 (April 1843), pp. 169–83; selection from pp. 169–76.
[James Murdoch]
James Murdoch (1776–1856) was a Congregational clergyman and miscellaneous author. He graduated from Yale in 1797. Murdoch taught at the University of Vermont and in the Theological Seminary at Andover. In 1829 he settled in New Haven, and was active in the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences and, from 1844, the Philological Society of Connecticut. On Murdoch see Roland H. Bainton, “James Murdock,” DAB, vol. 7, part 1, p. 342. On The New-Englander see API, p. 156; Frank Luther Mott, A History of American Magazines, 1850–1865 (Cambridge, 1938), pp. 312–15.
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HUME, VOLTAIRE, AND ROUSSEAU.
THESE very talented men were the most active and successful advocates of infidelity during the last century; and a concise, impartial, and authentic account of their lives, and their assaults upon Christianity, is deemed worthy of a place in this journal.
HUME.
DAVID HUME, Esq., was born at Edinburgh, April 26th, 1711, and was of a good family, but not opulent. His father died while he was an infant, and his education devolved on his mother. After the usual preparation, his friends wished him to pursue the study of law; but he was displeased with that pursuit, preferring poets and orators before the dry and thorny jurists. He next tried merchandise, but found that also irksome. In 1734 he removed to France, in order to pursue his favorite studies with less expense. At Rheims and at La Fleche in Anjou, he spent three years very agreeably. Returning to London, in 1737, he the next year published his Treatise of Human Nature; which, he says, “fell dead-born from the press,” or attracted no notice. In 1742 he published the first part of his Essays, which was favorably received. In 1745 he spent a year in the family of the Marquis of Annandale; afterwards, during two years, he was private secretary to General St. Clair, on the coast of France, and at the courts of Vienna and Turin. While at Turin he rewrote the Treatise of Human Nature, and had it published at London in 1749, with the new title, an Inquiry concerning Human Understanding. But it was not much better received than before. The same year, he retired to the family estate in Scotland, and there composed the second part of his Essays, which he entitled Political Discourses. His works now began to receive attention, and to afford him a good income. In 1751 he removed to Edinburgh, and the next year he published his Political Discourses. He also published the same year, at London, his Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, which he esteemed “incomparably the best of all his works,” but which was little noticed by the public. In 1752, he became librarian to the Advocates’ Library at Edinburgh, and commenced writing his History of England, which was published 1754–1761. It was but indifferently received, in consequence of its partiality to the Stuart dynasty, and some other defects. He also published during this period, his Natural History of Religion, and some smaller pieces. In 1763, he went to France as secretary of embassy to the Earl of Hertford; was much caressed at Paris, was Chargé d’Affaires at that court in 1765; and returned to Edinburgh in 1766. The next year he was made under-secretary under General Conway; but in 1769 he returned again to Edinburgh, with a fortune of £1000 a year. In 1775, he was attacked with a bowel-complaint; and, after languishing a year and a half, he expired on the 25th of August, 1776. According to his autobiography and the eulogy of Dr. Adam Smith, he was aware of his approaching dissolution, and met the event with stoic indifference. Amusing himself a few days before his death with reading Lucian’s Dialogues, and, with jests, about passing the Styx, he described the dialogue he might hold with Charon, the infernal ferryman. After his death were published his Dialogue on Natural Religion, and his Essay on Suicide; the former in 1778, and the latter in 1783.
Mr. Hume was a decided infidel, or a disbeliever in revealed religion; and he held that the evidence for natural religion has no scientific basis, but is derived merely from our instinctive apprehensions. In moral and mental philosophy, he held to what he calls mitigated skepticism; that is, he believed it impossible to prove, by metaphysical or speculative reasoning, the existence of a material world around us, of a God, a providence, a future state of rewards and punishments, &c. He did not deny the truth of these important facts; but he held that the truth of them rests upon probable grounds only, or upon moral evidence, and not upon evidence which is scientific and demonstrative. In his Inquiry concerning Human Understanding, (sec. xii, p. 173, 174,) he says: “It seems to me, that the only objects of the abstract sciences or of demonstration, are quantity and number; and that all attempts to extend this more perfect species of knowledge beyond these bounds, are mere sophistry and illusion.” — “All other inquiries of man regard only matter of fact and existence; and these are evidently incapable of demonstration.” — “The existence therefore of any being, can only be proved by arguments from its cause or its effect; and these arguments are founded entirely on experience.” — “It is only experience which teaches us the nature and bounds of cause and effect, and enables us to infer the existence of one object from another. Such is the foundation of moral reasoning, which forms the greater part of human knowledge, and is the source of all human action and behavior.” In another place, (sec. i, p. 10,) he says: “Here lies the justest and most plausible objection against a considerable part of metaphysics, that they are not properly a science.”
Mr. Hume has been taxed with denying, altogether, the connection between cause and effect, and consequently, the validity of all our reasoning from such connection. But this is a false charge. He only denied the solidity of all metaphysical proofs of such connection, not the reality of the connection. In the work above cited, (sec. iv, p. 38,) he declares expressly: “None but a fool or madman will ever pretend to dispute the authority of experience, or to reject that great guide of human life.” And in closing his argument on the subject, he says, (sec. v, p. 50,) “What then is the conclusion of the whole matter? A simple one; though it must be confessed, pretty remote from the common theories of philosophy. All belief of matter of fact or real existence, is derived merely from some object present to the memory or senses, and a customary conjunction between that and some other object.” — “This belief is the necessary result of placing the mind in such circumstances. It is an operation of the soul, when we are so situated, as unavoidable, as to feel the passion of love when we receive benefits, or hatred when we meet with injuries. All these operations are a species of natural instincts, which no reasoning or process of thought and understanding is able either to PRODUCE, or to PREVENT.” Mr. Hume’s skepticism, therefore, did not call in question the conclusions we derive from experience and common sense, but merely the validity of all metaphysical or philosophical reasoning in regard to matters of fact and real existence in the natural and the spiritual worlds. In the work already named, (sec. xi, p. 144, &c.) where he introduces a disputant defending Epicurus’s idea, (viz. that we have no evidence of a particular providence, or of a future state of rewards and punishments,) he makes the person say, that by reasoning from effects to their cause, we may indeed prove the existence of an intelligent Creator of the world; but we can not ascribe to him any attributes or perfections beyond what he has visibly displayed, for we can only infer a first cause adequate to produce the world before us. And on this ground, we can not infer that God has any other and ulterior designs in regard to men, than what we now see. To this reasoning of his friend, Mr. Hume makes the objection, that when we see an unfinished building surrounded with materials, we infer that the building is to be completed, and is to become a very different thing from what it now is; and why may we not argue in a similar manner with regard to the world, as being God’s unfinished building? The friend replies: We can not do so, for this reason, that men are a class of beings with whom we are acquainted, so that we can judge from their incipient acts, what they are about to do; but that God is a solitary being in the universe, whom we know only from his works, and therefore we can never argue from his known character or attributes, what he is about to do, because we do not know him to possess any other attributes than he has already displayed. To this, Mr. Hume rejoins, that he doubts whether God is so unlike to all other rational beings, men, for example, as to forbid our reasoning from analogy, that, as a rational being, he must have such and such designs. He moreover says, that his friend’s principles are injurious to society, because the belief of a future state of retribution has a salutary influence on human conduct; so that, allowing Epicureans to be good reasoners, they can not be regarded as good citizens and politicians.
In regard to natural theology, Mr. Hume’s mitigated skepticism consisted in denying the validity and certainty of all philosophical reasoning in this department of knowledge, and generally throughout the range of metaphysical discussions, because we have no certain and scientific knowledge of causation, or of the necessary connection between cause and effect.
But in regard to revealed religion, or the religion of the Bible, Mr. Hume was not a mere skeptic; he was a decided infidel or disbeliever in supernatural revelation. In his Inquiry, so often quoted, (sec. x, of Miracles, p. 118,) he tells us, that he flattered himself he had discovered an argument, which would forever silence all reasoning from miracles in support of any religion. The argument is this. Experience is our only guide in judging of all matters of fact. We give credit to testimony, because we have found it generally to accord with facts; and we estimate the credibility of alleged facts, by their accordance or disagreement with the experience of mankind. The incredibility of a fact, may be such as to invalidate any testimony. And in all cases of doubt or uncertainty, we weigh the probabilities on both sides, strike a balance, and then yield assent strong or weak, according to the preponderating evidence. After these preliminary remarks, he proceeds thus, (p. 122, 123,) “Let us suppose, that the fact which the witnesses affirm, instead of being only marvellous, is really miraculous; and suppose also, that the testimony, considered apart and in itself, amounts to an entire proof; in that case there is proof against proof, of which the strongest must prevail, but with a diminution of its force, in proportion to that of its antagonist. A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined.” — “The plain consequence is, (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention,) that no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact which it endeavors to establish: and even in that case, there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force which remains after deducting the inferior.”
The fallacy of this argument appears to consist in confounding two things which have not the least connection. The argument supposes the uniform experience of mankind respecting the mere course of nature, to be a uniform experience against the occurrence of miracles. Whereas the objects of experience, in the two cases, are altogether different. In the one case, the experience relates to the mere course of nature, or to those events which occur under and in obedience to the laws of nature; but in the other case, it relates to supernatural events, to occurrences altogether out of the course of nature, events produced immediately by the almighty power of God; for it is in this sense, and in this sense only, that “a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature.” Now it is admitted on all sides, that the experience of the world, so far as it has gone, has ever found nature to be uniform in her operations, or to work according to permanent and unchangeable laws. But what has this to do with miracles? The regular operations of nature, and the supernatural works of God are totally distinct things; and, of course, human experience in regard to the former, has no bearing whatever on the credibility or incredibility of the latter. The vaunted argument, in reality, amounts only to this:
A miracle in the course of nature, is contrary to all human experience. And therefore, a miracle out of the course of nature, is contrary to all human experience.
Such reasoning is what logicians call sophisma a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter; or, assuming that what is true, in some special cases, must he true in all possible cases, or be simply and universally true.
That this is a fair statement of Mr. Hume’s sophistical argument, will perhaps appear more evident, if we repeat it in his own words, with the necessary explanations of ambiguous terms, thus: “A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature, (or an event entirely out of the course of nature, and not produced by her laws,) and as a fixed and unalterable experience has established (the uniformity of) these laws, (throughout the course of nature,) the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, (that a miracle is out of the course of nature,) is as entire, as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined.”
But, although this appears to be the true import of Mr. Hume’s argument, provided we give any consistent meaning to his language, yet when read cursorily and superficially, the argument seems to be simply this: “The uniform experience of the world, is directly opposed to all occurrence of miracles; and therefore, their occurrence is utterly incredible.” To this form of the argument the obvious reply is, that the voice of history contradicts this broad assertion respecting the experience of the world. For history, both sacred and profane, testifies that vast numbers of persons, in different ages and countries, have witnessed, or at least, have believed that they witnessed the occurrence of miracles; and it must first be proved, that all these persons were deceived, that not a single one of them ever witnessed what they all say they witnessed. Until this is proved satisfactorily, the broad assertion, that the experience of the world is opposed to all occurrence of miracles, is an unwarrantable assumption; it is a manifest petitio principii, a direct begging of the question.
Mr. Hume himself could not but feel the necessity of rebutting the abundant testimony of history as to the occurrence of miracles. He therefore goes on to say, (p. 124,) “In the foregoing reasoning we have supposed, that the testimony upon which a miracle is founded may possibly amount to an entire proof, and that the falsehood of that testimony would be a real prodigy. But it is easy to show, that we have been a great deal too liberal in our concessions, and that there never was a miraculous event established on so full an evidence. For, I. There is not to be found in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good sense, education, and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselves; of such undoubted integrity, as to place them beyond all suspicion of any design to deceive others; of such credit and reputation in the eyes of mankind, as to have a great deal to lose in case of being detected in any falsehood; and at the same time, attesting facts, performed in a public manner, and in so celebrated a part of the world, as to render the detection unavoidable: all which circumstances are requisite to give a full assurance in the testimony of men.” II. Most people too readily give credit to miracles. III. Miracles are found to be most abundant among ignorant and barbarous nations. IV. There is conflicting testimony on this subject; for all the popular religions claim to have the support of miracles, and it is impossible that God should have set his seal to religions so diverse. — These are only the common arguments of infidel writers against miracles; and they are all critically examined and answered by those writers who have undertaken to substantiate the miracles of the Bible; e.g. Sherlock, West, Lyttleton, Campbell, Leland, Paley, &c. The 1st of Mr. Hume’s objections, is denied altogether. The 2d only shows, that we should guard against deception, and should examine well the witnesses. The 3d is of no force against the miracles of the Bible, unless it can be shown that the Egyptian sages, the whole Jewish nation, all the early Christians, and great numbers of learned Greeks and Romans, were too ignorant and barbarous to give us credible testimony respecting things which they saw with their own eyes. The 4th is no argument against the miracles of the Holy Scriptures, unless the existence of counterfeits proves that there can be no genuine coin.
After this attempt to fortify his main argument, Mr. Hume arrives at the following conclusion, (p. 135, 136,) “Upon the whole, then, it appears, that no testimony for any kind of miracle has ever amounted to a probability, much less to a proof; and that, even supposing it amounted to a proof, it would be opposed by another proof, derived from the very nature of the fact which it endeavored to establish,” and of sufficient force to annihilate it. “And therefore we may establish it as a maxim, that no human testimony can have such force as to prove a miracle, and make it a just foundation for any system of religion. I beg the limitations here made may be remarked, when I say, that a miracle can never be proved, so as to be the foundation of a system of religion. For I own, that otherwise, there may possibly be miracles, or violations of the usual course of nature, of such a kind as to admit of proof from human testimony; though, perhaps, it will be impossible to find any such in all the records of history.” So then, after all, human testimony may be good evidence of the actual occurrence of miracles, provided those miracles are not appealed to, in support of any system of religion! What inconsistency! According to Mr. Hume, a miracle, from the very nature of the fact it involves, can not be proved by human testimony; and yet he allows, that if can be thus proved, provided it does not go to confirm the truth of any religion! But what is there in the nature of religious miracles, to make them exceptions to the general rule of all miracles? Why, nothing at all: the ground for making them exceptions, is of quite another sort, and is wholly foreign from their nature, as being miraculous facts. It arises from the stupidity and credulity of men! For Mr. Hume says, (p. 137,) “Men, in all ages, have been so much imposed on by ridiculous stories of this kind, that this very circumstance would be a full proof of a cheat, and sufficient, with all men of sense, not only to make them reject the fact, but even reject it without farther examination.” Mr. Hume was aware of the fact, that on this point most men judge very differently from him. They think it far more probable, that God should work miracles in confirmation of a religion which he approves, than for any other object whatever. And to obviate this formidable objection to his views, Mr. Hume finds it necessary to assert, that a miracle in support of religion, can not be rendered a whit more probable, by any arguments drawn from the character and designs of the Almighty, “since it is impossible for us to know the attributes or actions of such a Being, otherwise than from the experience which we have of his productions in the usual course of nature.” According to this mode of reasoning, (which Mr. Hume himself declared to be unsatisfactory, when it was used by his Epicurean friend to disprove a future state,) we must never believe, that God can or will work a miracle for any purpose, until we have experience of their occurrence among “his productions in the usual course of nature;” that is, until miracles cease to be miracles, and become a part of the usual course of nature.
Complacently reviewing his mode of reasoning against miracles, Mr. Hume observes, (p. 138, 139,) “I am the better pleased with the method of reasoning here delivered, as I think it may serve to confound those dangerous friends or disguised enemies of the Christian religion, who have undertaken to defend it by the principles of human reason. Our most holy religion is founded on faith, not on reason; and it is a sure method of exposing it to put it to such a trial as it is, by no means, fitted to endure.” He then sketches a frightful picture both of the miracles and the historic narrations in the Pentateuch; and closes the essay thus, (p. 139, 140,) “What we have said of miracles may be applied, without any variation, to prophecies; and indeed, all prophecies are real miracles, and as such only, can be admitted as proofs of any revelation. If it did not exceed the capacity of human nature to foretell future events, it would be absurd to employ any prophecy as an argument for a divine mission or authority from heaven. So that, upon the whole, we may conclude, that the Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day can not he believed by any reasonable person without one. Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity; and whoever is moved by faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.” Such is the vain attempt at wit, which crowns the arrant sophistry of Mr. Hume’s famous Essay on Miracles.
Notwithstanding the disingenuousness and the bitterness of his hostility to Christianity, Mr. Hume, it is said, sustained a fair moral character. His principles, however, tended to the subversion of the foundations of morality. For he held that necessity governs all human conduct; and he maintains that all men admit the fact, though all are not aware that they do so. Necessity, he tells us, is nothing but “constant conjunction of similar objects.” And as men of the same character, if placed in the same circumstances, always act in the same manner, there is here the same necessity which we observe in the material world, namely, constant conjunction of similar things. “Thus it appears, not only that the conjunction between motives and voluntary actions is as regular and uniform as that between the cause and effect in any part of nature, but also, that this regular conjunction has been universally acknowledged among mankind, and has never been the subject of dispute, either in philosophy or common life.” (See his Inquiry, &c. sec. viii, p. 94.) This necessity, he maintains, is not inconsistent with human liberty, (ibid. p. 100.) “For, what is meant by liberty, when applied to voluntary actions? We can not surely mean, that actions have so little connection with motives, inclinations, and circumstances, that one does not follow with a certain degree of uniformity from the other, and that one affords no inference by which we can conclude the existence of the other. For these are plain and acknowledged matters of fact. By liberty, then, we can only mean a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the will.” . . . . “Now this hypothetical liberty is universally allowed to belong to every one who is not a prisoner and in chains. Here then is no subject of dispute.” The doctrine of necessity, he thinks, does not destroy morality, but rather establishes it. Because it shows, that vicious conduct is the natural and necessary fruit of a bad temper and disposition in the perpetrator. To the objection that his doctrine makes the author of nature the real author of all the evil committed; whence it must follow that he delights in vicious conduct, and also, that he alone is responsible for it, Mr. Hume replies, in answer to the first consequence, that God ordained evil as being the necessary means of the greatest good; and in answer to the second, that he can find no satisfactory reply, and can therefore only say, that the doctrine of God’s prescience brings along with it the same insolvable difficulty.
In his Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, which Mr. Hume esteemed to be his best work, he makes virtue to be whatever is either useful or agreeable, to the person himself, or to others. He admits that there is a distinction in nature between what is virtuous and what is vicious; and he makes it the province of reason in part, and in part the province of feeling or the moral sense, to perceive the distinction. His moral system includes nothing that is of a religious nature; that is, it leaves entirely out of view all our relations, duties, and obligations to the Divine Being. At the same time, it classes many natural endowments, both intellectual and corporeal, among our moral qualities. In his treatise, entitled the Natural History of Religion, he says: “The whole frame of nature bespeaks an intelligent Author; and no rational inquirer can, after serious reflection, suspend his belief a moment, with regard to the primary principles of genuine theism and religion.” Although he regards the origin of religion among mankind as involved in obscurity, yet he ventures to assert, that “polytheism was the primary religion of man.” This hypothesis he endeavors to prove from history; nearly all the world were polytheists until about seventeen hundred years ago, and from reason; men would naturally, as they began to look abroad, first conceive of a different God for every thing they saw, then, reasoning further, they would make all things depend on one God. Afterwards, to lighten the cares of the Deity, and to add to his grandeur, they would suppose him to have many ministers or demi-gods; and thus they would come back to a species of polytheism.
Not long before his death, and in full view of that event, Mr. Hume composed a concise history of his own life, which he calls a funeral oration of himself. This autobiography, together with a letter of Dr. Adam Smith, eulogistic of his character, and describing the closing scenes of his life, may be found prefixed to Mr. Hume’s History of England. The philosophical skepticism of Mr. Hume was vigorously assailed by Dr. Thomas Reid, (in his Enquiry into the Human Mind, Edinburgh, 1764, 8vo; in his Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, Edinburgh, 1785, 4to; and in his Essays on the Active Powers, Edinburgh, 1788, 4to;) by Dr. James Beattie, (in his Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth, Edinburgh, 1770, 8vo;) and by the Rev. James Oswald, (in his Appeal to Common Sense in behalf of Religion, Edinburgh, 1766–72, 2 vols. 8vo.) His assaults on Christianity, especially in regard to miracles, were repelled by Dr. William Adams, (in an Essay in answer to Mr. Hume’s Essay on Miracles, London, 1752;) by Dr. John Leland, (in his View of Deistical Writers, Vol. I, Letters 16–21;) and especially, by Dr. George Campbell, (in his Dissertation on Miracles, 3d edition, Edinburgh, 1797, 2 vols. 8vo.)