Life and Correspondence of David Hume, Volume 1

by John Hill Burton

This was an important epoch in Hume's literary history; in 1751, he produced the work which he himself considered the most meritorious of all his efforts; in 1752, he published that which obtained the largest amount of contemporary popularity, the "Political Discourses."[354:1] After a series of literary disappointments, borne with the spirit of one who felt within him the real powers of an original thinker and an agreeable writer, and the assurance that the world would some day acknowledge the sterling greatness of his qualifications, he now at last presented them in a form, in which they received the ready homage of the public. These Discourses are in truth the cradle of political economy; and, much as that science has been investigated and expounded in later times, these earliest, shortest, and simplest developments of its principles are still read with delight even by those who are masters of all the literature of this great subject.[354:2] But they

possess a quality which more elaborate economists have striven after in vain, in being a pleasing object of study not only to the initiated but to the ordinary popular reader, and of being admitted as just and true by many who cannot or who will not understand the views of later writers on political economy.[355:1] They have thus the rarely conjoined merit, that, as they were the first to direct the way to the true sources of this department of knowledge, those who have gone farther, instead of superseding them, have in the general case confirmed their accuracy.

Political economy is a science of which the advanced extremities are the subject of debate and doubt, while the older doctrines are admitted by all as firm and established truths. It may be slippery ground, but it is not a tread-mill, and no step taken has ever to be entirely retraced. It is owing to this characteristic of the science that those who oppose the doctrines of modern economists do not think of denying those of David Hume; and thus, while in these essays the economist finds some of the most important doctrines of his peculiar subject set forth with a clearness and elegance with which he dare not attempt to compete, the ordinary reader, who has a distaste of new doctrines and innovating theories, awards them the respect due to old established opinion.

That they should have been, with all their innovation on received opinions, and their startling novelty,

so popular in their own age, is also a matter which has its peculiar explanation. The dread of innovation, simply as change, and without reference to the interests it may affect, sprung up in later times, a child of the French revolution. Before that event some men were republican or constitutional in their views, and declared war against all changes which tended to throw power into the hands of the monarch. Others were monarchical, and opposed to the extension of popular rights. But if an alteration were suggested which did not affect these fundamental principles and opinions, it was welcomed with liberal courtesy, examined, and adopted or rejected on its own merits. Hence both Hume and Smith, writing in bold denunciation of all the old cherished prejudices in matters of commerce, instead of being met with a storm of reproach, as any one who should publish so many original views in the present day would be, at once received a fair hearing and a just appreciation.[356:1]

Thus there was a period during which innovations, however bold or extensive, received a favourable hearing, and in which the literature both of England and of France was daily giving publicity to new theories embodying sweeping alterations of social systems. In this work the two countries presented their national characteristics. The English writers kept always in view the question how far there would be a vital principle remaining in society after the diseased part was removed; how far there was reason to suppose that the small quantity of good done to the public by any irrational system, which at the same time did much evil, might be accomplished after its abolition. The French were indiscriminate in their war against old received opinions, and offered nothing to fill their place when they were gone; and hence in some measure followed results which have made change and innovation words of dread throughout a great part of society.

Of the inquiries through which Hume brought together the materials for these essays, the reader will have found a specimen in the notes, or adversaria quoted above.[357:1] A comparison of these fragments of the raw material, with the finished result, develops this marked feature in Hume's method of working, that in the way to a short proposition, he has often read and thought at great length. The simplicity and unity of his writings were of more importance to him than the appearance of elaboration; and where others would be scattering multitudinous statements and authorities, he is content with the simple embodiment of results, conscious that inquiry will confirm in the reader's mind the justness of what he lays down. In some respects we can watch the progress of

Hume's mind in connexion with these subjects; for in his allusions to commercial matters in his earlier works, he uses the common phraseology, such as "balance of trade," in a manner indicating an adherence to those ordinary fallacies of the day, which, when he came to examine them in his essays on "commerce," "money," "interest," "the balance of trade," "taxes," and "public credit," he extensively repudiated. His examination of the nature and value of money as a medium of exchange, is probably the best and simplest that, even down to this day, can be found. His theory, so far as it goes, has hardly ever been questioned; and indeed at present it may be said, that beyond it we know little with certainty, and that its author had at once discovered the limits at which full and satisfactory knowledge was, for nearly a century, to rest.[358:1] He shows that

money is not in itself property or value; that it is a mere representative, which, if cheap or dear in

its material, is just, in the same ratio, a cheap or a dear method of accomplishing a purpose. That if a community could conduct its transactions with a small quantity of money as well as with a large, it would, so far from being poorer, be the richer by so much as the superabundant money had cost. He examines those simple laws which, when there is no disturbing influence, have a tendency to equalize the distribution of the precious metals, through the cheapness of labour and commodities where they are scarce, the nominal enhancement where they are abundant. He notices with great clearness and precision the respective effects upon the community of a state of increase, and of a state of diminution of the available currency of a country. But he enters on few of those intricate monetary questions which are now so frequently the subject of discussion. Of inquiries into the causes which affect the quantity of money in a country, the moving influences from which arise