Footprints of Famous Men: Designed as Incitements to Intellectual Industry

by John G. Edgar

The consideration of a distinguished lineage certainly imparted to Hume’s heart a calm satisfaction and colored, though in the slightest degree, his writings; but as he was deficient in sympathy with the past, it could not infringe on his philosophic mind, perplex his clear intelligence, or influence his serene judgment. The political sentiments in which he was nurtured were destined to exercise a much greater effect on his life and works. His father’s residence was situated in a district where the lords of the soil were, with rare exceptions, deeply tinged with Jacobite principles. Their interest and inclination alike prompted an adherence to the cause of the ancient line of kings; and at the very time when the future historian first saw the light, the accession to power of a Tory ministry had conveyed hope and animation to their breasts. Thus when he began to creep about and lisp forth inarticulate sounds, complaints of real injuries and imaginary insults sustained by his relatives since the Revolution would greet his childish ears, and perhaps enter into his young soul. In his fourth year, these restless worthies proposed to hold a public meeting with a view of obtaining a redress of their grievances; but as the authorities deemed that it might prove a cause of embarrassment to the newly-established government, it was sternly interdicted, and precautions were taken to repress any attempt to disobey the official mandate. David’s fierce clansmen bit their gloves, shook their heads, and vowed revenge. Several of them risked and lost all in the insurrection of 1715; his chief and a near kinsman were committed to the Castle of Edinburgh for their devotion to the house of Stuart; and amidst scenes of tumult, disorder, and confiscation, the first few years of Hume’s life passed over. Perhaps, indeed, to his brother and himself having been minors at the time may be ascribed their not having assumed the white cockade, and that the acres held for centuries by their ancestors were not appropriated by some intriguing agent for forfeited estates, or seized by a factor with few scruples of conscience and sufficient dexterity in arithmetical mystification.

At an early age—indeed almost in infancy—Hume lost his father; and his widowed mother, though young and handsome enough to have aspired with success to a second husband, devoted her whole time and attention to the rearing and education of her children. David soon began to manifest an ardent love for his books. As a boy he was particularly docile, well behaved, and attentive to his studies, without being remarkable for the display of precocious talents. The family property had, of course, gone to his elder brother; and as the portion of a second son was not such as to encourage for a moment the idea of passing his life without labor, he felt under the necessity of bringing his abilities into active operation. With this view he was sent to fit himself for exertion by completing his education at the university of his native city, where he went through the usual academic course with comparative credit and success.

His extraordinary ability at this period is beyond all question, for a letter written to a youthful intimate at the age of sixteen proves that his marvelous talent was then exhibiting itself. Having been fired with that enthusiasm for literature which continued to be his ruling passion and chief delight, he impressed his guardians with a high opinion of his studious disposition; and they, taking into account his steadiness of conduct and sobriety of demeanor, arrived at the conclusion, that the Scottish bar would be a proper sphere for the exercise of that intellectual industry of which he daily gave signal proofs. His tastes, however, were rather unsuited to pursuing the profession successfully; and he states that he was generally engaged in devouring Cicero and Virgil while he was supposed to be occupied with the more practical studies of Voet and Vinnius. At eighteen the law appeared utterly nauseous to him, and his aversion to it as the business of life became extreme. He pondered and reflected; he could think of no other method to push his way in the world than as a scholar and philosopher, and this prospect pleased him infinitely for a season; but his health giving way under the pressure of severe mental application, a reaction came, and his ardor quite expired. He abandoned all thoughts of the law as a profession, and removed to the residence of his brother. The change of air and scene had a beneficial influence, and the young philosopher applied to the family doctor to restore his health and spirits. The latter laughed at his patient’s imaginary ailments; but, at the same time, accompanied his unwelcome raillery by the extremely palatable advice to drink a pint of claret a day, and take plenty of equestrian exercise. Hume attended to the prescription, daily swallowed a proper quantity of the grateful beverage, and rode some ten or twelve miles on horseback. Though caring little for rural pleasures, pursuits, or recreations, he seems to have really enjoyed himself at this period: he soon gathered strength from his exercise in the open air; and, from being a tall, lean, and raw-boned lad, he passed to the other extreme—his complexion became ruddy and his countenance cheerful. His pursuits seem to have been diversified. He studied Latin, English, French, and Italian. He read books of morality, and was captivated with their beautiful representations of virtue and philosophy; and he listened, not without gratification, to stories about the fortunes of their race from some knightly clansman or old freeholder. The traditionary lore and local associations were apparently, it must be confessed, quite lost upon him: he was without local ambition; and the scenes of his boyhood, when he has occasion to mention them, are alluded to with the same cold dignity with which he writes of places which he had never seen. His intellect was so severely original, that it disdained to draw one particle of inspiration from buildings and battle-plains which have since been invested with so pleasing a charm, and made the subject of glowing verse. There is no sign of his having viewed Norham Castle, Flodden Field, and Halidon Hill, or ridden through “the rich Merse,” and perambulated the ancient capital of the eastern marshes, or gazed on the “desolate grandeur” of Home, with romantic enthusiasm, poetic perception, or provincial pride. While accumulating information in regard to distant countries with industry and rapidity, he altogether neglected or scorned the precious metals which lay in his way; and while contemplating the perfections of Roman poets, he had not a thought to spare to the Border ballad-makers, whose verses Scott toiled to preserve and restore. He had therefore small temptation to linger amidst the fields, meadows, and woods through which he had roamed in his thoughtful childhood. He felt, indeed, that such an expenditure of time was by no means in harmony with his circumstances; and, believing that business and diversion would give him peace of mind and relief from anxiety, he resolved to betake himself to a more active life, and entered on a course, of all others, at variance with his natural bent toward studious retirement and philosophic reflection—that of commerce. In doing so, he confessed that he could never wholly give up his pretensions in learning but with his latest breath. He merely laid them aside for the time, with a view of resuming them to greater advantage. In reality, he was actuated by an ardent and consuming passion to achieve literary fame and found a philosophical reputation when he formed his determination—a most inauspicious frame of mind, assuredly, with which to enter upon the harsh duties of mercantile existence!

About the beginning of March, 1734, Hume started for Bristol. He visited London in his way, and then traveled onward. He had obtained introductions to several leading merchants in the place; and on reaching his destination established himself in the counting-house of one of them, in the hope of forgetting the past, preparing for the future, and enriching himself by commerce. But the petty cares, the perpetual bustle, and the perennial annoyances of such a career, were found, as might have been anticipated, utterly intolerable to a person to whom legal studies had appeared irksome and unattractive; and, after a few months’ trial, he relinquished his new situation, with all its coarse, uncongenial duties, and those prospects of remuneration which are so seldom realized.

Hume had already, according to his own statement, collected materials for many volumes. He, therefore, passed over to France, with the view of prosecuting his studies in some rural retreat. No doubt he could have done so at the time-honored mansion of his fathers, but circumstances had occurred since he left which rendered it impossible to return there with any feeling of comfort; so he made a short stay in Paris, and then repaired to Rheims, in the north of France, where he spent some months in literary retirement. “I there,” he writes, “laid that plan of life which I have steadily and successfully pursued. I resolved to make a very rigid frugality supply my deficiency of fortune, to maintain unimpaired my independency, and to regard every object as contemptible except the improvement of my talents in literature.”

Having formed this wise and prudent determination, he removed to La Flèche, in Anjou, where he prepared his “Treatise on Human Nature;” and then he returned to London, to superintend the publication, and endure the suspense. Being issued in 1738, the work, to use his own expression, fell still-born from the press; though when subsequently published in separate essays, it was a little more successful.

Having thus, at the age of twenty-seven, embarked and made an inauspicious voyage on the uncertain sea of literature, Hume, without even waiting to know the fate of his work—for which a publisher had given the sum of fifty pounds—turned his face northward; and, perhaps, with some slight regret that he had relinquished the profession of the law, and deserted the merchant’s desk, sought the agreeable seclusion of his family’s fair domain, which he found his brother laudably occupied in improving and enhancing in value. Among its old trees, pleasantly shading the gentle acclivity whence burst the nine fountains which gave a name to the place, and with which the argent lion on his ancestral shield was charged, Hume experienced so much satisfactory enjoyment in “retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,” that, though the ideas and tastes of his relatives could not have harmonized very readily or easily with his own, he would, in all probability, had other matters been equal, have chosen to pass his life there. But the ambition for literary fame continued strongly to animate and influence him; and his time was chiefly spent in grave reading, deep meditation, in restoring his knowledge of the Greek language, and in corresponding, among others, with his friend Henry Home, afterward celebrated as Lord Kames.

Such was his position, when the last Marquis of Annandale, a Scottish nobleman, whose eccentricity took the form of lunacy, having read some of the hapless essays, was so charmed with something he saw in them, that he conceived a passionate wish to obtain the services of the learned author as his tutor. Hume was induced, by the temptation of an ample salary, to accept the office of companion to this weak-minded man, and had his temper severely tested in consequence. After holding the luckless and invidious post for a year, during which the marquis seems to have written a novel, relating to some events and love affairs in his own life, Hume’s patience and placidity gave way, and, throwing up the situation, he became candidate for the Professorship of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh, which, although powerfully supported, he was unable to obtain, on account of his well-known sentiments on religious subjects.

Matters, however, ere long, began to assume a pleasanter aspect. An honorable appointment, as private secretary to General St. Clair, uncle of Lord-chancellor Loughborough, was almost immediately bestowed on him, as if by way of solace for his depressing defeat. The General had originally been destined for an important expedition to Canada, which somehow ended—or, rather was metamorphosed—into an incursion on the coast of France. On returning, Hume retreated to country quarters, and wrote a defense of the expedition, which has since been printed; and shortly afterward he accompanied General St. Clair on an embassy to the courts of Turin and Vienna, in the double capacity of secretary and aid-de-camp, wearing the uniform of an officer. His time, while in this position, was passed agreeably, in good company, and with considerable profit in a pecuniary point of view.

Meantime his “Inquiry concerning the Human Understanding,” being the substance of his former work in a new shape, was published in London, but with scarcely greater success than the original; any interest it excited being merely of a temporary character. However, his natural cheerfulness bore him up against his repeated literary disappointments; and he returned to Scotland to delight his kinsfolk and acquaintances with narrations of his adventures in lands beyond the sea, and to digest the frustration of his hopes as well as he could. Still resolute of purpose, he wrote, during a two-years’ retirement, his “Political Discourses,” which were given to the world in 1752, and excited interest and attention both at home and abroad. Indeed, though in some measure overshadowed by the celebrated work which his friend Adam Smith produced fourteen years later, they unfold and enforce those views of economical science which are now recognized and adopted, for better or for worse, by all English statesmen. Moreover, they have, in the highest degree, the merit of originality; and their style is so admirable, that they can be perused by general readers at once with profit and pleasure. At the same time he composed his “Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals,” which, notwithstanding his own high estimate of its comparative merits, was little noticed or regarded. The former emanations of his great intellect were now beginning to attract observation, and he was gratified by finding that answers antagonistic to the views they maintained were gradually appearing; but he discreetly formed the resolution of not being drawn into controversy by such effusions, and inflexibly kept his purpose in this respect.