Life and Correspondence of David Hume, Volume 1

by John Hill Burton

Glanvill was the author of various tracts on biblical subjects, but it was not generally known that he wrote a book on sceptical philosophy, called "Scepsis Scientifica, or, Confest Ignorance the Way to Science," until it was unearthed by the persevering inquiries of Mr. Hallam. In that book there is the passage, "all knowledge of causes is deductive, for we know none by simple intuition, but through the medium of their effects; so that we cannot conclude any thing to be the cause of another but from its continual accompanying it, for the causality itself is insensible."[84:1] This is an addition

to the many instances where writers have almost, as it were by chance, laid down principles, of which

they show, by neglecting to follow them to their legitimate conclusions, that they have not understood their full meaning; if it do not rather illustrate the view already noticed, that in metaphysics our assent is secured, not to general propositions as such, but to their particular applications; and that it is not in the laying down of first principles that important truths are exhibited to the world, but in those subsidiary expositions by which the discoverer endeavours to show their application.

The subsequent history of Hume's theory of Cause and Effect, is a marked illustration of the danger of bringing forward as an argument against theories purely metaphysical, the statement that they are dangerous to religion. It is difficult to see where there is a difference between adducing that argument in the sphere of natural philosophy, from which it has been long scouted by common consent, and bringing it forward as an answer to the theories of the metaphysician. In either case it is a threat, which, in the days of Galileo, bore the terror of corporal punishment, and in the present day carries the threat of unpopularity, to the person against whom it is used.[86:1] If any one should

suppose that he finds lurking in the speculations of some metaphysical writer, opinions from which it may be inferred that he is not possessed of the hopes and consolations of the Christian, humanity to the unhappy author should suggest that he ought rather to be pitied than condemned, and respect for the religious feelings of others should teach that there is no occasion to endeavour, by a laborious pleading, to demonstrate that a man who has said nothing against religion is in reality an enemy to Christianity. They are surely no enlightened friends to religion, who maintain that the suppression of inquiry as to the material or the immaterial world, is favourable to the cause of revealed truth. The blasphemer who raises his voice offensively and contentiously against what his fellow citizens hold sacred, invokes the public wrath, and is no just object of sympathy. The extent of his punishment is regretted only when, by its vindictive excess, it is liable to excite retaliatory attacks from the same quarter. But the speculative philosopher, who does not directly interfere with the religion of his neighbours, should be left to the peaceful pursuit of his inquiries; and those who, instead of meeting him by fair argument, cry out irreligion, and call in the mob to their aid, should reflect first, whether it is absolutely certain that they are right in their conclusion, that his inquiries, if carried out, would be inimical to religion—whether some mind more acute and philosophical than their own, may not either finally confute the sceptical philosopher's argument, or prove

that it is not inimical to religion; and secondly, whether they are not likely to be themselves the greatest foes to religion, by holding that it requires such defence, and the practical blasphemers, by proclaiming that religion is in danger?

Kant, the most illustrious opponent of Hume, in allusion to those who have appealed against him to our religious feelings, asks, what the man is doing that we should meddle with him; says he is but trying the strength of human reason, and bids us leave him to combat with those who are giving him specimens of the fabric on which to try his skill—tells us to wait and see who will produce one too strong to be broken to pieces—and not cry treason, and appeal to the angry multitude, who are strangers to these refined reasonings, to rush in. Shall we ask reason to give us lights, and prescribe beforehand what they are to show us?[88:1] "The observation of human blindness and weakness," says Hume himself, "is the result of all philosophy, and meets us at every turn, in spite of our endeavours to elude or avoid it." A solemn saying, and characteristic of one who has done more than any other man to show the feebleness of poor human reason, and to teach man that he is not all sufficient to himself.

Those revelations in astronomy and geology, the first glimmerings of which made the timid if not doubting friends of their cause tremble, have enlarged year by year in rapid progression; but revealed religion is not less firm on her throne; and many of those who held that Hume's theory of Cause and Effect was inimical to revelation, lived to see how startlingly that argument could be turned against themselves. It has been well observed by Dugald

Stewart, that this theory is the most effectual confutation of the gloomy materialism of Spinoza, "as it lays the axe to the very root from which Spinozism springs." "The cardinal principle," he says, "on which the whole of that system turns is, that all events, physical and moral, are necessarily linked together as causes and effects; from which principle all the most alarming conclusions adopted by Spinoza follow as unavoidable and manifest corollaries. But if it be true, as Mr. Hume contends, and as most philosophers now admit, that physical causes and effects are known to us merely as antecedents and consequents; still more if it be true that the word necessity, as employed in this discussion, is altogether unmeaning and insignificant, the whole system of Spinoza is nothing better than a rope of sand, and the very proposition which it professes to demonstrate is incomprehensible by our faculties."[89:1]

It will be remembered how signally, in the question in the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, as to Sir John Leslie's professorship, the argument of irreligion was retaliated; and it was shown that, in the theory of an existing machinery in nature enabling the universe to proceed in its regular course, the cause having within it the adequate power for producing its effect, the omnipresence of a Deity was dispensed with, and there was substituted for the all-pervading influence of a superior wisdom, a mere material machine, having within itself the elements of its own regular motion. Thus, in instances where writers have claimed credit for having aided the cause of religion by carrying out the principles of natural theology, this merit has in many cases, and among certain classes of devout religious thinkers,