Life and Correspondence of David Hume, Volume 1

by John Hill Burton

bring forward the rest of my Philosophy, which is of a more durable, though of a harder and more stubborn nature. You see I can talk to you in your own style." In consequence of this favourable reception, a second edition appeared in 1742.

The communication of which the above is a part, contains the following short essay on the Orations of Cicero:—

I agree with you, that Cicero's reasonings in his "Orations" are very often loose, and what we should think to be wandering from the point; insomuch, that now-a-days a lawyer, who should give himself such liberties, would be in danger of meeting with a reprimand from the judge, or at least of being admonished of the point in question. His Orations against Verres, however, are an exception; though that plunderer was so impudent and open in his robberies, that there is the less merit in his conviction and condemnation. However, these orations have all a very great merit. The Oration for Milo is commonly esteemed Cicero's masterpiece, and indeed is, in many respects, very beautiful; but there are some points in the reasoning of it that surprise me. The true story of the death of Clodius, as we learn from the Roman historians, was this:—It was only a casual rencontre betwixt Milo and him; and the squabble was begun by their servants, as they passed each other on the road. Many of Clodius's servants were killed, the rest dispersed, and himself wounded, and obliged to hide himself in some neighbouring shops; from whence he was dragged out by Milo's orders, and killed in the street. These circumstances must have been largely insisted on by the prosecutors, and must have been proved too, since they have been received as truth by all antiquity. But not a word of them in Cicero, whose oration only labours to prove two points, that Milo did not waylay Clodius, and that Clodius was a bad citizen, and it was meritorious to kill him. If you read his oration, you'll agree with me. I believe that he has scarce spoke any thing to the question, as it would now be conceived, by a court of judicature.

The Orations for Marcellus and Ligarius, as also that for

Archias, are very fine, and chiefly because the subjects do not require or admit of close reasoning.

'Tis worth your while to read the conclusion of the Oration for Plancius, where I think the passions are very well touched. There are many noble passages in the Oration for Muræna, though 'tis certain that the prosecutors (who, however, were Servius Sulpicius, and Cato,) must either have said nothing to the purpose, or Cicero has said nothing. There is some of that oration lost.

'Twould be a pleasure to read and compare the two first philippics, that you may judge of the manners of those times, compared to modern manners. When Cicero spoke the first philippic, Antony and he had not broke all measures with each other, but there were still some remains of a very great intimacy and friendship betwixt them; and besides, Cicero lived in close correspondence with all the rest of Cæsar's captains; Dolabella had been his son-in-law; Hirtius and Pansa were his pupils; Trebasius was entirely his creature. For this reason, prudence laid him under great restraints at that time in his declamations against Antony; there is great elegance and delicacy in them; and many of the thoughts are very fine, particularly where he mentions his meeting Brutus, who had been obliged to leave Rome. "I was ashamed," says he, "that I durst return to Rome after Brutus had left it, and that I could be in safety where he could not." In short, the whole oration is of such a strain, that the Duke of Argyle might have spoke it in the House of Peers against my Lord Orford; and decency would not allow the greatest enemies to go farther. But this oration is not much admired by the ancients. The Divine Philippic, as Juvenal calls it, is the second, where he gives a full loose to his scurrility; and without having any point to gain by it, except vilifying his antagonist, and without supporting any fact by witnesses (for there was no trial or accusation) he rakes into all the filth of Antony's character; reproaches him with drunkenness and vomiting, and cowardice, and every sort of debauchery and villany. There is great genius and wit in many passages of this oration; but I think the whole turn of it would not now be generally admired.[145:1]

In 1742, Hutcheson published his celebrated outline of a system of ethics, "Philosophiæ Moralis Institutio Compendiaria." The following letter contains Hume's remarks on the work; and to render them more intelligible, the passages he had particularly in view are printed in notes. It is not, however, as pieces of detached criticism, so much as in the character of an elucidation of those features of his own system in which it differs from that of Hutcheson, that the letter is valuable. It is an argument for the utilitarian system of morality—an argument that there is no summum bonum which should be the object of moral conduct, apart from the good of the human species.

Hume to Francis Hutcheson.

"Dear Sir,—I received your very agreeable present, for which I esteem myself much obliged to you. I think it needless to express to you my esteem of the performance, because both the solidity of your judgment, and the general approbation your writings meet with, instruct you sufficiently what opinion you ought to form of them. Though your good nature might prompt you to encourage me by some praises, the same reason has not place with me, however justice might require them of me. Will not this prove that justice and good nature are not the same? I am surprised you should have been so diffident about your Latin. I have not wrote any in that language these many years, and cannot pretend to judge of particular words and phrases. But the turn of the whole seems to me very pure, and even easy and elegant.