Life and Correspondence of David Hume, Volume 1

by John Hill Burton

The third volume of the "Treatise of Human Nature" being the part relating to morals, was published by Thomas Longman in 1740. It is not so original as the metaphysical part of the work, nor are its principles so clearly and decidedly laid down. Its author's metaphysical theories were rather modified than confirmed in his subsequent works. But his opinions on ethical subjects, only indistinctly shadowed forth in his early work, were afterwards reduced to a more compact system, and were more clearly and fully set forth.

The metaphysical department of the Treatise is a system with a great leading principle throughout, of which its author intended that all the details should be but the individual applications. If his reasoning in that department of his work be accurate, he sweeps away all other systems of the foundation of knowledge, and substitutes another in their stead. But the third book, "on Morals," like the second, on "the Passions," has no such pretension. The leading principles of the metaphysical department are certainly kept in view, but the details are not necessarily parts of it. They have a separate existence of their own: they are an analysis of phenomena which we witness in our daily life; and the reader assents or dissents as the several

opinions expressed correspond with or diverge from his own observation of what he sees passing in the world around him, without, in that mental operation, either receiving or rejecting any general theory. In short, it is to a considerable extent a series of observations of human conduct and character; and as such they are admitted or denied, are sympathized with or contemned, according to the previous feelings and opinions of the reader. Among the prominent features of the theoretical part of this book, is the admission of a moral sense,[121:1] but the negation of an abstract code of morality, separately existing, and independent of the position of the persons who are applying this sense. The work in some measure foreshadows the systems which have been respectively called the utilitarian and the selfish; the former applying as the scale of moral excellence the extent to which an action is beneficial or hurtful to the human race; the latter referring the actions of mankind, whether good or bad, interested or disinterested, to self, and to impulses which are always connected with the individual in whom they act, and his passions or desires.

In this respect it had its influence, when joined to other hints thrown out by philosophers, in supplying the texts on which Helvetius, Beccaria, and Bentham discoursed at greater length and with a clearer application to definite systems. The utilitarian principle Hume afterwards extended and rendered systematic, in pursuance of the views announced in his correspondence with Hutcheson. In connexion with what is

called the "selfish system" of morals, he went no farther than to point out that the source of every impulse must have its relation to the individual person on whom that impulse acts. If it be the sordid impulse of the miser, it must be because the man who feels it loves gold; if it be the profuse impulse of the spendthrift, it must be because the individual who spends has a corresponding desire within himself; if it be the charitable impulse of the person who feeds the poor, it must be because that person is under the influence of inducements which incline him rather to do so than not do so. If the principle be applied to a martyr suffering for conscience sake, or to a soldier who prefers death to submission, it is still because the person who acts fulfils impulses acting on himself. But this is a subject from which Hume appears to have shrunk in his subsequent works. He seems to have disliked the character of being connected with "the selfish school;" and he thus failed to revert to a subject on which his rigid and clear examination would have been a matter of greater interest, than his merely arguing against self-interest being the proper rule of action—an argument that with him amounts to nothing more than a protest against that vulgarization of the system, which charges it with such a doctrine for the purpose of rendering it odious. We shall afterwards find that he had a correspondence on this subject with Helvetius, who wished to bring him over to the admission of his own opinions.

In this department of the Treatise there are some inquiries into the first principles of law and government. Here, if any where, he shows the influence over his mind of his reading in the works of the civilians. His own utilitarian principle, when carried out on these subjects, shows that the best government

is that which is most conducive to the welfare of the community. But he occasionally mixes up this principle with elements totally heterogeneous to it—as in those instances where he considers the privilege of governing as held by the same tenure with the right of property, and views the question whether any particular government is good or bad, in its effect upon the persons governed, as secondary to the question whether it is or is not held by a good tenure when it is considered as if it were a matter of private property. But, notwithstanding these inconsistencies, which he afterwards amended when he had more fully investigated the principles of politics, the general aim of his observations on the sources of government is to show that they are to be found in reason, and to dispel the various irrational and superstitious notions of political authority, which are comprehended in the use of the term Divine Right. Indeed, the observations which he makes with a practical application to governments, are a partial anticipation of the clear good sense which distinguished his subsequent political essays. In connexion with the motives of that insurrection which occurred within eight years after the publication of the Treatise, and with the partiality for high monarchical principles with which Hume's name is so much associated, the following remarks are interesting and instructive.

Whoever considers the history of the several nations of the world, their revolutions, conquests, increase and diminution, the manner in which their particular governments are established, and the successive right transmitted from one person to another, will soon learn to treat very lightly all disputes concerning the rights of princes, and will be convinced that a strict adherence to any general rules, and the rigid loyalty to particular persons and families, on which

some people set so high a value, are virtues that hold less of reason than of bigotry and superstition. In this particular, the study of history confirms the reasonings of true philosophy, which, showing us the original qualities of human nature, teaches us to regard the controversies in politics as incapable of any decision in most cases, and as entirely subordinate to the interests of peace and liberty. Where the public good does not evidently demand a change, 'tis certain that the concurrence of all those titles, original contract, long possession, present possession, succession, and positive laws, forms the strongest title to sovereignty, and is justly regarded as sacred and inviolable. But when these titles are mingled and opposed in different degrees, they often occasion perplexity, and are less capable of solution from the arguments of lawyers and philosophers, than from the swords of the soldiery. Who shall tell me, for instance, whether Germanicus or Drusus ought to have succeeded Tiberius, had he died while they were both alive, without naming any of them for his successor? Ought the right of adoption to be received as equivalent to that of blood, in a nation where it had the same effect in private families, and had already, in two instances, taken place in the public? Ought Germanicus to be esteemed the eldest son, because he was born before Drusus; or the younger, because he was adopted after the birth of his brother? Ought the right of the elder to be regarded in a nation, where the eldest brother had no advantage in the succession to private families? Ought the Roman empire at that time to be esteemed hereditary, because of two examples; or ought it, even so early, to be regarded as belonging to the stronger, or the present possessor, as being founded on so recent an usurpation? Upon whatever principles we may pretend to answer these and such-like questions, I am afraid we shall never be able to satisfy an impartial inquirer, who adopts no party in political controversies, and will be satisfied with nothing but sound reason and philosophy.[124:1]

Some of Hume's notes, of matters which have occurred to him in the course of his reading as worthy of observation, or of remarkable thoughts passing through