David Hume

Christopher J. Berry

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781441131232
• eBook ISBN: 9781623569457
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Conservatism & Liberalism
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In this compelling and accessible account of the life and thought of the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume (1711-1776), Professor Christopher J. Berry of the University of Glasgow argues that the belief in the uniformity of human nature was at the heart of Hume's thought. In this volume, Berry introduces classic 'Humean' themes including the evolution of social institutions as an unintended consequence of the pursuit of self-interest, the importance of custom and habit in establishing rules of just conduct, and the defence of commerce and luxury. The book reveals Hume as an original thinker, whose thought may be understood as a combination of various strands of conservatism, libertarianism and liberalism.

1

Hume: A Life of Letters

Hume wrote an autobiography. It might be thought this would be a fundamental thread along which could be strung a narrative of his life and times. There are, however, good grounds to be wary of placing too much reliance on his account of “my own life.” This is not only because any and every autobiography is to a greater or lesser extent a “disguised novel” as Clive James said of his aptly named Unreliable Memoirs (1980) but also because Hume's account was a deliberately studied performance that was only to be published posthumously; it thus has much of the character of an epitaph as it encapsulates his life-story as “the struggling author made good” (Hanley, 2002: 680). Nor is it “confessional.” Unlike his contemporary Rousseau's path-breaking version, Hume is far from displaying a “portrait in every way true to nature” where the picture is the unique self (Rousseau, 1954:17). (As we will see Hume and Rousseau's paths eventfully crossed.) The nearest Hume comes to any self-revelation is the identification of “his love of literary fame” as “his ruling passion” (E-Life: xl).

My aim in this chapter is to sketch out an outline of Hume's life, paying particular attention to the occasion or circumstances of his significant works. It will also be apt to incorporate some remarks on his relation to his contemporary intellectual world—the Enlightenment—both in his native Scotland and in France where he resided on a couple of occasions.

David Home was born on April 26, 1711 in Edinburgh. “Home” was the dominant spelling of a name that was common in the southeast of Scotland and David's elder brother, John, as did his cousin Henry, the philosopher and lawyer (who took the legal title of Lord Kames), retained that form. The name was, however, pronounced “Hume” and David chose to adapt the spelling of his name to echo the pronunciation. There is no definitive evidence when this occurred but his biographers Mossner (1980: 90) and Graham (2004: 44) date it to his residence in Bristol in 1734 or perhaps earlier when he left home.

The family home was Ninewells in the parish of Chirnside close to Berwick-on-Tweed, on the coast at the England-Scotland border. This was a small estate and Hume says in his autobiography that the family was not rich (E-Life: xxxii). His father died in 1713. This meant that his mother was the “head of the household,” which contained not only the elder brother but also a younger sister, Katharine, who later became his housekeeper in his various Edinburgh houses. Since John would have to stay to run the estate, and given its limited income, then David would have known from an early age that he would have to have an occupation. He retrospectively attributes to himself “being seized very early with a passion for literature” (E-Life: xxxii-iii). In 1721 he attended Edinburgh University where he stayed for four years. Though only 10 this is not a mark of precocity, and even if it was probably advanced because his brother was already a student, it was a common practice to attend as a youngster. Adam Smith, for example, attended Glasgow when he was 14.

Hume is unforthcoming about his studies, saying only that, instead of studying law, the only pursuit to which he was not averse was “philosophy and general learning.” While Hume supplies no information, considerable endeavor has been spent trying to recreate what he did in fact study and what impact such study might have had on his subsequent thought, though the most recent and thorough account concludes there are “no grounds to think that Hume caught the philosophical bug at college” (Stewart, 2005: 25). Edinburgh had only just (1708) abolished the system of “regents,” whereby one teacher taught a whole cohort the whole syllabus, and replaced it with professors in distinct disciplines. We know Hume studied Logic with Drummond, Greek with Scott, Latin (Humanity) with Dundas, Natural Philosophy with Steuart, and (perhaps) Moral Philosophy with Law. Despite this differentiation the education was suffused with an edifying mission to inculcate “virtuous living in a society regulated by religious observance” (Stewart, 2005: 12).

Hume left University in 1725 (without graduating). He seemingly began and then abandoned training for a career as a lawyer. While in his later correspondence Hume reveals knowledge of jurisprudence (which is also apparent from the Treatise of Human Nature published when he was 28), his earliest surviving letter of July 1727 refers to his time (at Ninewells) spent reading classical philosophy (Cicero) and poetry (Virgil) rather than legal texts (L: I, 10). It is a reasonable inference that it was in this period that Hume began to immerse himself in the world of books—his “interests” always remained literary rather than musical or, more generally, aesthetic (Emerson, 2007). Perhaps as a consequence of this immersion, and with a legal career foresworn together with the need to make a living, Hume appears to have had what is by all accounts a nervous breakdown. There is a remarkable letter written to an unnamed physician in 1734 that recounts his activity and state of mind in the late 1720s. Typically his autobiography merely alludes to his “health being a little broken by my ardent application” (E-Life: xxxiii). This “application” refers to his studies opening up to him “a new Scene of Thought” (L: I, 13). He mentions reading many books of morality but coming to the view that the arguments of the classical theorists, like that of their natural philosophers, was “entirely hypothetical” paying no regard to “human Nature, upon which every moral Conclusion must depend” (L: I, 16). While in retrospect the germ of the enterprise that will produce the Treatise can be discerned here, that judgment owes at least something to hindsight. For his own part, Hume self-diagnosed that he needed a “more active Life” and with that intent, abetted by a recommendation, he resolved on becoming a merchant and in 1734 set off to Bristol.

However, that was not a success and in that same year he departs for France and embarks on work that will result in the Treatise. In one of the more remarkable coincidences in the history of philosophy he spent the bulk of his time at La Flèche in Anjou, where in its Jesuit College Descartes had studied and the library of which Hume was to use.

Hume returned to Britain in 1737 and began the process of getting the Treatise published, the first two parts ("books") appearing in 1739, the third in 1740. He entertained high hopes that his work could, if taken up, “produce almost a total Alteration in Philosophy” (NL: 3). Despite the fact that he deliberately excised ("castrating ... its noble Parts") a section on miracles as likely to give “too much Offence,” its apparent failure to make an impression left him deeply disappointed. This disappointment stayed with him and in the Life he characterized its reception as falling “dead-born from the press” (E-Life: xxxiv), which, though perhaps the autobiography's most famous phrase, is very likely appropriated from a line of verse by Alexander Pope (1956: 336). As we will see in Chapter 3 that was not, even contemporaneously, the book's fate, nevertheless the sentiment does reflect the fact that never again did Hume publish a book of systematic philosophy. The two Enquiries (of Understanding in 1748, of Morals in 1751) were “essays” and were recyclings, with amendments, of the Treatise's arguments and his other often-regarded philosophical masterpiece the Dialogues was only published posthumously and, as the title indicates, was nondemonstrative in design. When his own anonymous review (the Abstract) of his book failed to excite the reading public's interest, he resolved to adopt the essay form as the means to engage that interest. Starting with the publication of Essays Moral and Political in 1741, Hume began a career as a professional man of letters. Apart from a stint as a Librarian (part time), and (very briefly in 1745-6) a tutor/companion to the Marquis of Annandale, his only other occupations were as a “secretary” and Judge-Advocate to General St Clair in 1746, and again in 1748, and then, more substantially, two and half years (1763-6) working in the Embassy in Paris followed by a year as a London civil servant.

Before discussing his literary career and intellectual context, it is worth mentioning, because of the light they throw on both of those, the failed attempt to secure chairs at the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. University positions in eighteenth-century Scotland were the subject of patronage and the object of politicking (Emerson, 2008b). Hume was a candidate for the Edinburgh chair in Ethics and Pneumatical Philosophy (moral philosophy) in 1744–5 at a time when control over the Town Council, which appointed professors, was the subject of factional fighting. Hume's unsuccessful candidacy can be attributed, at least in part, to his being associated with the “losing side” on this occasion (Emerson, 1994). In addition to these extrinsic factors, Hume's own philosophy was an intrinsically negative factor (Sher, 1990: 106). Hume was alert to this and wrote an anonymous pamphlet wherein he attempted to disarm his critics who were accusing him of skepticism and atheism and of “sapping the Foundations of Morality” (LG: 18). In one of his contemporary letters, repeating the language of the pamphlet, Hume attributed his failure to a “popular Clamour” deliberately raised against him “on account of Scepticism, Heterodoxy” (L: I, 59). In another letter he refers to his surprise that he was opposed by Francis Hutcheson (L: I, 58).

Hutcheson was professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow (and during the negotiation over the Edinburgh chair was himself offered the post). Hutcheson was not only a significant philosopher but is regarded as a major stimulus to the emergent Scottish Enlightenment (Scott, 1966; Campbell, 1982). He was one of the authors mentioned by Hume in the Introduction to the Treatise as “putting the science of man on a new footing” and Hume sent him the yet to be published Book 3. One of Hume's most important letters is his reply to Hutcheson's comments (now lost) (L: I, 32-4). Hume notes that Hutcheson has detected in his writing “a certain Lack of Warmth in the Cause of Virtue.” In articulating his own position Hume characterizes his own approach as that of an “anatomist,” while Hutcheson's is that of a “painter” (a comparison he was to repeat in the concluding paragraph of the Treatise [T 3-3-6.6]). In the letter he goes on to declare Hutcheson's reliance of “final causes” as “unphilosophical” and, as far as his own argument is concerned, “wide of my Purpose.” He repeats the key theme of Book 3 (which will occupy much of Chapter 2) that he never called justice “unnatural but only artificial” and, in a parting shot, says that in his discussion of virtue it was Cicero's Offices not the Whole Duty of Man (a devotional text) on which he had his "Eye in all my Reasonings."

Hume prior to his failed Edinburgh application had published two volumes of essays subsequent to the Treatise. These mark his first bid to gain a wider readership or as he himself put it to act “as a Kind of Resident or Ambassador from the Dominion of Learning to those of Conversation” (E-EW: 535). This remark was made in an essay published in the 1742 volume but it was later withdrawn. In fact he withdrew a further three from the dozen that comprised that edition, as well as three from the 1741 volume. One feature of the latter was a focus on political matters and I shall return to that aspect.

By the time Hume's name had been put forward for the Professorship of Logic at Glasgow University (1751-2) he had not only published the An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748) (the First Enquiry), three other essays (including "of the Original Contract"), as well as a couple of pamphlets (True Account of Archibald Stewart (1747) and the Bellmen's Petition [1751]) and, during the period of application, the Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals (the Second Enquiry) appeared. The Glasgow chair was held by Adam Smith but he was moving to that of Moral Philosophy thus creating the vacancy. In Glasgow appointments were made by the College Corporation but the Presbytery exercised a right of “enquiry into a candidate's morals and orthodoxy” (Emerson, 1994: 15) and political patronage remained a crucial factor. Hume himself thought, perhaps naively in the light of the earlier application, he might have succeeded “in spite of the violent and solemn remonstrances of the clergy” had the major patron the Duke of Argyle been supportive (L: I, 164–5). Adam Smith, one of Hume's supporters, wrote to a fellow supporter, William Cullen, admitting that while he “would prefer David Hume to any man for a colleague” yet “the public would not be of my opinion” and that opinion needs to be heeded (Smith, 1987: 5). Hume himself seems not to have been too discountenanced by the second failure since he was appointed the Advocates Librarian, almost immediately thereafter.

This episode reveals something of the character of the Scottish Enlightenment. This “character” can, albeit in an imprecise manner, be seen to have a cultural and an intellectual dimension. Regarding the former, the Union of the Parliaments meant not so much that the Scots thereafter had little direct political power because in practice they were allowed, via patronage, considerable leeway for the governance of Scotland which was left in the hands of “managers.” Crucially, the Union also left the legal system and the Kirk (Church of Scotland) as distinct Scottish institutions. When coupled with the remarkable fact that Scotland possessed five Universities (compared to England's two) and, fortified by the presence of many clubs and societies, this established a nexus of relations between leading political, legal, ecclesiastical, and academic figures. This nexus was united by its commitment to the Hanoverian succession, and thus resistance to the followers of the claims of the Stewart lines (Jacobites), who led a series of rebellions from Scotland before the final crushing defeat of “bonnie Prince Charlie's” forces at Culloden in 1745. In addition to this shared political allegiance, these Scottish writers (the "literati") were united over two other issues. In their guise as leaders of the so-called Moderate party in the Church of Scotland, they shared an antipathy to Catholicism (linked to Jacobitism) and also to the Calvinist legacy of the Kirk. Secondly, the literati were strong advocates of measures designed to lead to the (primarily economic) “improvement” of Scotland.

Hume was a prominent member of these clubs, indeed he had a well-founded reputation for affable clubbability and he included among his friends prominent members of the Moderates like Hugh Blair and the historian William Robertson, who was both Principal of Edinburgh University and one-time moderator of the Church of Scotland. Although his public profile was too contentious for the University posts, Hume was no pariah as his Librarianship demonstrates. One of Hume's particular roles was to act as a source of advice on literary style. It was a matter of some concern for the literati that they would appear to be different (suspiciously so) from the “polite” norms of Hanoverian England. Alexander Carlyle, one of the founders with Robertson of the Moderate movement, remarked in his Autobiography (1910: 543):

[T]o every man bred in Scotland the English language was in some respects a foreign tongue, the precise value and force of whose words and phrases he did not understand and therefore was continually endeavouring to word his expressions by additional epithets or circumlocutions which made his writings appear both stiff and redundant.

There is plenty of supporting evidence for this self-consciousness. This is most evident in a concern to eradicate “Scotticisms.” Hume himself published a list of these (see Basker, 1991) and it was said of him by the eccentric judge and scholar Lord Monboddo that he died confessing not his sins but his Scotticisms (Mossner, 1980: 606). His correspondence supplies many examples both of him receiving advice as well as giving it, for example, to Robertson (L: II, 194).

These clubs and societies were also a focus for the concerns that permeated the intellectual dimension, as well as being the typical audience for essays of the sort Hume had begun to write (Finlay, 2007: 63). There were, of courses, differences between the literati but they subscribed in broad outline to a key Enlightenment theme that the achievements of Newton in natural science should be emulated in the social (or moral) sciences. As we will discuss at length in Chapter 2 this was the key inspiration for Hume's “science of man.” What this Newtonian motif meant in practice was the endeavor to search for universal causes governing a range of social phenomena. This endeavor was coupled with others. In the words of another inspirational figure, Francis Bacon, a writer, who in Hume's estimation “pointed out at a distance the road to true philosophy” (H: II, 112), “knowledge and human power are synonymous, since the ignorance of the cause frustrates the effect” (Bacon, 1853: 383). Crucially this knowledge/power was not just for its own sake since, for Bacon, the “real and legitimate goal of the sciences is the endowment of human life with new inventions and riches” (Bacon, 1853: 416). This practical/utilitarian bent chimed in not only with the drive to “improvement” (the Hume estate at Ninewells was "improved") (Emerson: 2008a) but also with Hume's decis...

Table of contents

• Cover-Page
• Half Title
• Series Introduction
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Series Editor’s Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Hume: A Life of Letters
• 2 Hume’s Thought
• 3 Reception and Influence
• 4 Hume and Conservatism
• Bibliography
• Index