Once raised remains aghast, and will not fall."
It may safely be pronounced, that had he widened the circle of his utilitarian theory, and embraced
within it, as he might have done, Hutcheson's theory of universal benevolence, he never would have palliated self-slaughter. He looked at it only in relation to the person who perpetrates the act. The utilitarian principle, however, should have suggested to him the misery caused to surviving relatives by one such deed, the horrible uncertainty that must pervade any society where it is common; and he would have felt that no single life can be so dreadful a burden to the owner as to justify him in causing such an amount of evil to the rest of the world, as he would produce by casting it away. The result of modern reading and inquiry into vital statistics, is to show that the desire of longevity, which the author of our being has implanted in all bosoms, is an adaptation to universal utility; because it is from premature deaths, produced by violence or disease, that communities are burdened with those unproductive members of society, which in a healthy and long-lived community, receive domestic support from the productive members.[15:1]
The reasonings of an enthusiast have generally more plausibility than those of a philosopher who has gone astray from his own theory; for the straying
philosopher speaks like one who has misgivings; while the enthusiast never doubts that he is in the right, and urges his opinions with a corresponding confidence and sincerity. Thus the justification of suicide which Rousseau puts into a letter from St. Preux to Lord Edward Bomston, is a far more attractive vindication than that which Hume had intended to publish.
This was not the only suppression connected with the publication of the Dissertations. As at first printed, they were preceded by an affectionate and laudatory dedication to John Home. Before the edition was published, this dedication was suppressed; because Hume thought it might injure his friend, in the estimation of his brethren of the church. Before the edition was sold, however, Hume desired the dedication to be restored. This step was probably owing to Home having intimated to him his design of resigning his charge as minister of Athelstaneford, which he did in June, 1757. This not only removed the objection to the dedication, but as it severed the dramatic martyr from his professional brethren, it made him more dependant on the sympathy and suffrages of other friends, and rendered Hume's testimony to his merits more valuable.
He thus writes on this subject to Smith.
Hume to Adam Smith.
[16:1]"Dear Smith,—The dedication to John Home, you have probably seen; for I find it has been inserted in some of the weekly papers, both here and in London. Some of my friends thought it was indiscreet in me to make myself responsible to the public, for the productions
of another. But the author had lain under such singular and unaccountable obstructions in his road to fame, that I thought it incumbent on his wellwishers to go as much out of the common road to assist him. I believe the composition of the dedication will be esteemed very prudent, and not inelegant.