Life and Correspondence of David Hume, Volume 1

by John Hill Burton

David Hume was not among the number of the writers of the Review, though we should have thought he would have been the first person whose co-operation they would have

sought. But I think I have heard that they were afraid both of his extreme good nature, and his extreme artlessness; that, from the one, their criticisms would have been weakened or suppressed; and, from the other, their secret discovered. The merits of the work strongly attracted his attention, and he expressed his surprise, to some of the gentlemen concerned in it, with whom he was daily in the habit of meeting, at the excellence of a performance written, as he presumed, from his ignorance on the subject, by some persons out of their own literary circle. It was agreed to communicate the secret to him at a dinner, which was shortly after given by one of their number. At that dinner he repeated his wonder on the subject of The Edinburgh Review. One of the company said he knew the authors, and would tell them to Mr. Hume upon his giving an oath of secrecy. "How is the oath to be taken," said David, with his usual pleasantry, "of a man accused of so much scepticism as I am? You would not trust my Bible oath; but I will swear by the το καλον and the το πρεπον never to reveal your secret." He was then told the names of the authors and the plan of the work; but it was not continued long enough to allow of his contributing any articles.[423:1]

It was a strong judgment to pass on a man who filled the office of secretary of legation, and under-secretary of state, that a secret was not safe in his keeping. Perhaps Hume had acquired absent habits about trifles. But he could transact important business with ability, and keep important secrets with strictness. There is a general propensity to find, in the nature and habits of abstruse thinkers, an innocent simplicity about the passing affairs of the world, which is often dispelled by a nearer view of their characters. Hume was careless about small matters; but in the serious transactions of life, he was sagacious, prompt, and energetic. Though he did not

contribute to it, he owed some substantial services to this periodical, in the conflict in the ecclesiastical courts, which, in the course of events, comes now to be considered.[424:1]

Hume was not one of those who, when they find that the opinions they have formed are at variance with those of the rest of mankind, blaze the unpopular portions forth in the light of day, or fling them in the face of their adversaries. Among his intimate friends, he could pass sly jests about his opinions; using, in regard to them, those strong expressions which he knew his adversaries would apply to them. But he disliked ostentation of any kind. He particularly

disliked the ostentation of singularity; and so little was he aware that he was outraging any of the world's opinions, in promulgating the fruits of his metaphysical speculations, that he appears to have been much astonished that any one should find in them any ground for serious objection, and to have marvelled greatly that clergymen and others should deem him an unfit person to be a professor of moral philosophy, or a teacher of youth. "Rara temporum felicitas, ubi sentire quæ velis, et quæ sentias dicere, licet," was the motto of his first work; and he seems to have thought that he lived in an age when speculation might soar with unclipped wings, and when his opinions would be questioned only before the tribunal of reason.

In all this, however, he now found that he was mistaken, and that there were persons who, professing to have charge of these matters, and to know the final judgment concerning them, thought right to execute it on earth, by punishing the man whose opinions were different from their own. The soul of this crusade was a certain Reverend George Anderson, a restless, fiery, persevering being, probably of great polemical note in his day, the observed of all observers as he passed through the city, a Boanerges in church courts; but now only known through the eminence of those against whom the fury of his zeal was directed. Hume was not the only object of pursuit. Other game was started at the same time in the person of his friend, Lord Kames. It is somewhat remarkable, that it was against the latter that the pursuit was most persevering and bitter. He was certainly not a man likely to have provoked such attacks. It is true that he meddled with dangerous subjects, but he did so with great caution and skill. Bred to the practice of the bar, at a time when the

advocate often felt a temptation to insinuate doctrines which could not be proclaimed without risk, he became like a chemist who is expert in the safe manipulation of detonating materials. Yet he made a narrow escape; for as he had been raised to the bench in 1752, any proceeding by a church court, professing to subject him to punishment, temporal or eternal, however lightly it might have fallen on a philosopher, might have tended materially to injure the usefulness of a judge.

Kames' work, which was published in 1751, and entitled "Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion," bears evident marks of having been written in opposition to the opinions laid down by Hume, although the author probably did not wish to expose the works of his kind friend to odium, by making a particular reference to them. It is clear that he considered his own opinions likely to be so very popular among the orthodox, that it would be doing an evil turn to his friend, to mention him as the promulgator of views on the other side. In his advertisement, he said, the object of his book was "to prepare the way for a proof of the existence of the Deity," and the Essays end with a prayer. Their leading principle is, that according to the doctrine of predestination, there can be no liberty to human beings, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, while the Deity has nevertheless, for wise purposes, which we cannot fathom, implanted in our race the feeling that we are free. Some have held that, while the scheme of predestination was exhibited by Hume as a mere metaphysical theory, Kames united it to vital religion. He had the misfortune, however, to write in a philosophical tone; and those who constituted themselves judges of the matter, seem to have taken example

from the stern father, who, when there is a quarrel in the nursery, punishes both sides, because quarrelling is a thing not allowed in the house. In a letter to Michael Ramsay, Hume says, in continuation of a passage printed above,[427:1] "Have you seen our friend Harry's Essays? They are well wrote, and are an unusual instance of an obliging method of answering a book. Philosophers must judge of the question; but the clergy have already decided it, and say he is as bad as me! Nay, some affirm him to be worse,—as much as a treacherous friend is worse than an open enemy." Dr. Blair is believed to have been the champion of Kames; and the following notice of his connexion with the controversy, given by Mackenzie, is valuable and instructive.