[688] ‘Over and above the rents of those estates, the clergy possessed in the tithes a very large portion of the rents of all the other estates in every kingdom of Europe. The revenues arising from both those species of rents were, the greater part of them, paid in kind, in corn, wine, cattle, poultry, &c. The quantity exceeded greatly what the clergy could themselves consume; and there were neither arts nor manufactures, for the produce of which they could exchange the surplus. The clergy could derive advantage from this immense surplus in no other way than by employing it, as the great barons employed the like surplus of their revenues, in the most profuse hospitality, and in the most extensive charity. Both the hospitality and the charity of the ancient clergy, accordingly, are said to have been very great.’ … ‘The hospitality and charity of the clergy, too, not only gave them the command of a great temporal force, but increased very much the weight of their spiritual weapons. Those virtues procured them the highest respect and veneration among all the inferior ranks of people, of whom many were constantly, and almost all occasionally, fed by them.’ Wealth of Nations, book v. chap. i. p. 336.
[689] Burton's Life of Hume, vol. i. p. 354.
[690] See Mr. Burton's valuable Life of Hume, Edinburgh, 1846, vol. i. pp. 58, 267, vol. ii. pp. 14, 134.
[691] What confirms me in this view, is the fact, that the older Hume grew, and the more he read on history, the more he became imbued with these errors; which would not have been the case if the errors had, as many of his critics say, been the result of an insufficient acquaintance with the evidence. Mr. Burton, by comparing the different editions of his History of England, has shown that he gradually became less favourable to popular liberty; softening, or erasing, in later editions, those expressions which seemed favourable to freedom. Burton's Life of Hume, vol. ii. pp. 74–77. See also pp. 144, 434. In his Own Life, p. xi (in vol. i. of Hume's Works Edinb. 1826), he says: ‘In a hundred alterations, which farther study, reading, or reflection engaged me to make in the reigns of the two first Stuarts, I have made all of them invariably the Tory side.’ In one of his essays, he observes (Philosophical Works, vol. iv. p. 172) that ‘there is no enthusiasm among philosophers;’ a remark perfectly true, so far as he was concerned, but very unjust towards the class of men to whom it refers.
[692] Brown, in his great work,—one of the greatest which this century has produced,—candidly confesses that his own book is ‘chiefly reflective of the lights, which he’ (Hume) ‘has given.’ Brown's Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and Effect, London, 1835, p. 253. See also p. vii.
[693] While the politicians of his own time despised his views, the politicians of our time seem inclined to overrate them. Lord Brougham, for instance, in his Life of Hume, says, of his political economy, ‘Mr. Hume is, beyond all doubt, the author of the modern doctrines which now rule the world of science.’ Brougham's Works, Glasgow, 1856, vol. ii. p. 176. But so far from this being the case, the science of political economy has, since the time of Hume, received such additions, that if that illustrious philosopher were to rise from the dead, he would hardly be able to recognize it. To him, many of its largest and most fundamental principles were entirely unknown. Hume knew nothing of the causes which govern the accumulation of wealth, and compel that accumulation to proceed with different speed in different states of society; a fruitful and important study almost entirely neglected until entered upon by Rae. Neither did Hume know anything of the law of the ratio between population and wages; nor of the ratio between wages and profits. He even supposes (Philosophical Works, vol. iii. p. 299, Edinburgh, 1826) that it is possible for the labouring classes by combination ‘to heighten their wages;’ and again (p. 319) that the richer a nation is, and the more trade it has, the easier it will be for a poor country to undersell its manufactures, because the poor nation enjoys the advantage of a ‘low price of labour.’ Elsewhere, he asserts that coin can be depreciated without raising prices, and that a country, by taxing a foreign commodity, could increase its own population. ‘Were all our money, for instance, recoined, and a penny's worth of silver taken from every shilling, the new shilling would probably purchase every thing that could have been bought by the old; the prices of every thing would thereby be insensibly diminished; foreign trade enlivened; and domestic industry, by the circulation of a great number of pounds and shillings, would receive some increase and encouragement.’ Philosophical Works, vol. iii. p. 324. ‘A tax on German linen encourages home manufactures, and thereby multiplies our people and industry.’ p. 365. These are cardinal errors, which go to the very root of political economy; and when we fairly estimate what has been done by Malthus and Ricardo, it will be evident that Hume's doctrines do not ‘rule the world of science.’ This is no disparagement of Hume, who, on the contrary, effected wonderful things, considering the then state of knowledge. The mistake is, in imagining that such a rapidly advancing science as political economy can be governed by doctrines propounded more than a century ago.
[694] ‘Every thing in the world is purchased by labour, and our passions are the only causes of labour.’ Essay I. on Commerce, in Hume's Philosophical Works, vol. iii. p. 294. Hence, he saw the fallacy of the assertion of the French economists, ‘that all taxes fall ultimately upon land.’ p. 388.
[695] ‘Money is not, properly speaking, one of the subjects of commerce, but only the instrument which men have agreed upon to facilitate the exchange of one commodity for another.’ Essay on Money in Philosophical Works, vol. iii. p. 317. ‘It is, indeed, evident that money is nothing but the representation of labour and commodities, and serves only as a method of rating or estimating them.’ p. 321.
[696] See Essay V. on the Balance of Trade, in Hume's Philosophical Works, vol. iii. pp. 348–367.
[697] Hume's Philosophical Works, vol. iii. pp. 333–335. Even now, a knowledge of this truth is so little diffused, that, lately, when Australia and California began to yield immense quantities of gold, a notion was widely circulated that the interest of money would consequently fall; although nothing can be more certain than that if gold were to become as plentiful as iron, the interest of money would be unaffected. The whole effect would fall upon price. The remarks on this subject in Ritchie's Life of Hume, London, 1807, pp. 332, 333, are interesting, as illustrating the slow progress of opinion, and the difficulty which minds, not specially trained, experience when they attempt to investigate these subjects.