No More Learning

DAVID HUME
In the sketch of his Own Life, which he wrote a few months
before his death, Hume says that he was 'seized very early with a
passion for literature, which has been the ruling passion of my life,
and the great source of my enjoyments. ' Another document of
much earlier date (1734), which Hume himself revealed to no one,
but which has been discovered and printed by his biographer, gives
us a clear insight into the nature of this literary ambition and of
the obstacles to its satisfaction.
As our college education in Scotland, extending little further than the
languages, ends commonly when we are about fourteen or fifteen years of
age, I was after that left to my own choice in my reading, and found it
incline me almost equally to books of reasoning and philosophy, and to
poetry and the polite authors. Every one who is acquainted either with the
philosophers or critics, knows that there is nothing yet established in either
of these two sciences, and that they contain little more than endless disputes,
even in the most fundamental articles. Upon examination of these, I found
a certain boldness of temper growing in me, which was not inclined to submit
to any authority in these subjects, but led me to seek out some new medium
by which truth might be established. After much study and reflection on
this, at last, when I was about eighteen years of age, there seemed to be
opened up to me a new scene of thought, which transported me beyond
measure, and made me, with an ardour natural to young men, throw up
every other pleasure or business to apply entirely to it. . . . Having now time
and leisure to cool my inflamed imagination, I began to consider seriously
i Burton, J. H. , Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. 1, p. 117.
; Ibid. vol. I, pp. 30–39.
E. L. X. CH, XIV.
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Philosophers
how I should proceed in my philosophical inquiries. I found that . . . every
one consulted his fancy in erecting schemes of virtue and of happiness, without
regarding human nature, upon which every moral conclusion must depend.
This, therefore, I resolved to make my principal study, and the source from
which I would derive every truth in criticism as well as morality.
These passages show, not only that Hume's ambition was entirely
literary, but, also, that his literary ambition was centred in philo-
sophy and that he was convinced he held in his grasp a key
to its problems. Literary ambition never ceased to be Hume's
ruling passion, and it brought him fame and even affluence. But
his early enthusiasm for the discovery of truth seems to have been
damped by the reception of his first and greatest work, or by the
intellectual contradiction to which his arguments led, or by both
causes combined. In philosophy, he never made any real advance
upon his first work, A Treatise of Human Nature; his later efforts
were devoted to presenting its arguments in a more perfect and
more popular literary form, or to toning down their destructive
results, and to the application of his ideas to questions of economics,
politics and religion, as well as to winning a new reputation for
himself in historical composition.
His career contained few incidents that need to be recorded
beyond the publication of his books. He was born at Edinburgh
on 26 April 1711, the younger son of a country gentleman of good
family, but small property. His passion for literature' led to his
early desertion of the study of law; when he was twenty-three, he
tried commerce as a cure for the state of morbid depression in
which severe study had landed him, and also, no doubt, as a means
of livelihood. But, after a few months in a merchant's office at
Bristol, he resolved to make frugality supply his deficiency of
fortune, and settled in France, chiefly at La Flèche, where, more
than a century before, Descartes had been educated at the Jesuit
college. But he never mentions this connection with Descartes ;
he was occupied with other thoughts; and, after three years, in
1737, he came home to arrange for the publication of A Treatise
of Human Nature, the first two volumes of which appeared in
January 1739. If the book did not literally, as Hume put it, fall
. dead-born from the press,' it excited little attention; the only
literary notice it received entirely failed to appreciate its signifi-
cance. He was bitterly disappointed, but continued the preparation
for the press of his third volume, 'Of Morals. ' This appeared in
1740; and, in 1741, he published a volume of Essays Moral and
Political, which reached a second edition and was supplemented
by a second volume in 1742. The success of these essays gratified
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Hume's Literary Career
323
6
6
Hume's literary ambition and, perhaps, had a good deal to do with
the direction of his activity towards the application and populari-
sation of his reflections rather than to further criticism of their
basis. About this time, Hume resided, for the most part, at the pa-
ternal estate (now belonging to his brother) of Ninewells in Berwick-
shire; but he was making efforts to secure an independent income:
he failed twice to obtain a university professorship; he spent a
troublesome year as tutor to a lunatic nobleman; he accompanied
general St Clair as his secretary on his expedition to France in
1746, and on a mission to Vienna and Turin in 1748. In the latter
year was published a third volume of Essays Moral and Political,
and, also, Philosophical Essays concerning Human Understanding,
afterwards (1758) entitled An Enquiry concerning Human Under-
standing, in which the reasonings of book i of A Treatise of
Human Nature were presented in a revised but incomplete form.
A second edition of this work appeared in 1751, and, in the same
year, An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals (founded
upon book III of the Treatise) which, in the opinion of the author,
was of all his writings, historical, philosophical, or literary, incom-
parably the best. ' A few months later (February 1752), he published
a volume of Political Discourses which, he said, was the only work
of mine that was successful on the first publication. ' According to
Burton, it'introduced Hume to the literature of the continent. ' It
was translated into French in 1753 and, again, in 1754. In 1752,
he was appointed keeper of the advocates' library-a post which
made a small addition to his modest income and enabled him to
carry out his historical work. In 1753—4 appeared Essays and
Treatises on several subjects ; these included his various writings
other than the Treatise and the History, and, after many changes,
attained their final form in the edition of 1777. The new material
added to them in later editions consisted chiefly of Four Disserta-
tions published in 1757. The subjects of these dissertations were
the natural history of religion, the passions (founded on book II
of the Treatise), tragedy and taste. Essays on suicide and on
immortality had been originally designed for this volume, but were
hurriedly withdrawn on the eve of publication.
For more than two years, 1763 to 1765, Hume acted as secretary
to the English embassy at Paris, where he was received with extra-
ordinary enthusiasm by the court and by literary society. 'Here,'
he wrote, 'I feed on ambrosia, drink nothing but nectar, breathe
incense only, and walk on flowers. ' He returned to London in
January 1766, accompanied by Rousseau, whom he had befriended
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Philosophers
a
and who, a few months later, repaid his kindness by provoking one
of the most famous of quarrels between men of letters. Before
the close of the year, he was again in Scotland, but, in the following
year, was recalled to London as under-secretary of state, and it
was not till 1769 that he finally settled in Edinburgh. There, he
rejoined a society less brilliant and original than that he had left in
Paris, but possessed of a distinction of its own.
Prominent among
his friends were Robertson, Hugh Blair and others of the clergy-
men of high character and literary reputation, and representative
of a religious attitude, known in Scotland as 'moderatism', which
did not disturb the serenity of Hume. He died on 25 August
1776.
After his death, his Own Life was published by Adam Smith
(1777), and his Dialogues concerning Natural Religion by his
nephew David (1779). We hear of these Dialogues more than
twenty years earlier; but he was dissuaded from publishing them
at the time, though he was concerned that they should not be lost
and subjected the manuscript to repeated and careful revision. His
philosophical activity may be said to have come to an end in 1757
with the publication of Four Dissertations, when he was forty-six
years old. In spite of many criticisms, he refused to be drawn
into controversy; but, in an 'advertisement' to the final edition of
Essays and Treatises, he protested, with some irritation, against
criticisms of A Treatise of Human Nature—the juvenile work
which the Author never acknowledged. '
This disclaimer of his earliest and greatest work is interesting
as a revelation of Hume's character, but cannot affect philosophical
values. If he had written nothing else, and this book alone had
been read, the influence of his ideas on general literature would
have been less marked; but his claim to rank as the greatest of
English philosophers would not be seriously affected: it would be
recognised that he had carried out a line of thought to its final
issue, and the effect upon subsequent speculation would have been,
in essentials, what it has been.
Hume is quite clear as to the method of his enquiry. He
recognised that Locke and others had anticipated him in the
'attempt to introduce the experimental method of reasoning into
moral subjects. ' Locke had, also, opened the way for deriving a
system of philosophy from the science of the human mind; but
Hume far excelled him in the thoroughness and consistency with
i For a definition of moderatism' by an observer of its decline, see Lord Cock-
burn's Journal, vol. 11, pp. 289—291.


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Hume's New Medium
325
a
>
which he followed this way. Locke's express purpose was to
examine the understanding, that he might discover the utmost
extent of its tether. ' He does not doubt that knowledge can
signify a reality outside the mind; but he wishes to determine the
range of this cognitive power. From the outset, Hume conceives
the problem in a wider manner. All knowledge is a fact or process
of human nature; if we are able, therefore, 'to explain the prin-
ciples of human nature,' we shall 'in effect propose a complete
system of the sciences. ' Without doubt, this utterance points back
to his early discovery of a 'new medium by which truth might be
a
established'-a discovery which, at the age of eighteen, bad trans-
ported him beyond measure. In saying that 'a complete system
of the sciences' would result from the principles of human nature,'
Hume did not mean that the law of gravitation or the circulation
of the blood could be discovered from an examination of the
understanding and the emotions. His meaning was that, when
the sciences are brought into system, certain general features are
found to characterise them; and the explanation of these general
features is to be sought in human nature-in other words, in our
way of knowing and feeling. His statement, accordingly, comes
simply to this, that mental science, or what we now call psychology,
takes the place of philosophy—is itself philosophy.
Hume is commonly, and correctly, regarded as having worked
out to the end the line of thought started by Locke. But, in the
width of his purpose, the thoroughness of its elaboration and his
clear consciousness of his task, he may be compared with Hobbes-
a writer who had little direct effect upon his thought. For Hume
is Hobbes inverted. The latter interprets the inner world—the
world of life and thought-by means of the external or material
world, whose impact gives rise to the motions which we call
perception and volition. Hume, on the other hand, will assume
nothing about external reality, but interprets it by means of the
impressions or ideas of which we are all immediately conscious.
And, as Hobbes saw all things under the rule of mechanical law, so
Hume, also, has a universal principle of connection.
'Here,' he says, that is to say, among ideas,‘is a kind of Attraction, which
in the mental world will be found to have as extraordinary effects as in the
natural, and to shew itself in as many and as various forms.
The law of gravitation finds its parallel in the law of the associa-
tion of ideas; as the movements of masses are explained by the
former, so the latter is used to account for the grouping of mental
contents.
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Philosophers
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6
6
In enumerating these contents, he modifies the doctrine of
Locke. According to Locke, the material of knowledge comes
from two different sources—sensation and reflection. The view
hardly admitted of statement without postulating both a mental
and a material world existing over against one another. Hume
tries to avoid any such postulate. His primary data are all of one
kind; he calls them “impressions,' and says that they arise 'from
unknown causes. ' Ideas are distinguished from impressions by
their lesser degree of 'force and liveliness. Hume makes the
generalisation that “every simple idea has a simple impression
which resembles it'; an idea is thus the 'faint image' of an
impression; and there are degrees of this faintness: the more
lively and strong' are ideas of memory, the weaker are ideas
of imagination. Further, certain ideas, in some unexplained way,
reappear with the force and liveliness of impressions, or, as Hume
puts it, ' produce the new impressions ' which he calls 'impressions
of reflection' and which he enumerates as passions, desires and
emotions. Reflection is, thus, derived from sensation, although
its impressions in their turn give rise to new ideas. All mental
contents (in Hume's language, all 'perceptions') are derived from
sense impressions, and these arise from unknown causes. Simple
ideas are distinguished from simple impressions merely by their
comparative lack of force and liveliness; but these fainter data
tend to group themselves in an order quite different from that of
their corresponding impressions. By this association of ideas' are
formed the complex ideas of relations, modes and substances.
Such are the elements of Hume's account of human nature;
out of these elements, he has to explain knowledge and morality;
and this explanation is, at the same time, to be 'a complete
system of the sciences. He is fully alive to the problem. In
knowledge, ideas are connected together by other relations than
the 'association’ which rules imagination; and he proceeds at
once to an enquiry into 'all those qualities which make objects
admit of comparison. ' These, he calls 'philosophical relations,'
and he arranges them under seven general heads : resemblance,
identity, space and time, quantity, degree of quality, contrariety,
cause and effect.
All scientific propositions are regarded as expressing one or
other of these relations. Hume regards the classification as
exhaustive; and, at least, it is sufficient to form a comprehensive
test of his theory. Since we have nothing to go upon but ideas
and the impressions from which ideas originate, how are we to


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Philosophical Relations
327
explain knowledge of these relations? Hume's enquiry did not
answer this question even to his own satisfaction; but it set a
problem which has had to be faced by every subsequent thinker,
and it has led many to adopt the sceptical conclusion to which the
author himself was inclined.
The philosophical relations,' under his analysis, fall into two
classes. On the one hand, some of them depend entirely on the
ideas compared : these are resemblance, contrariety, degrees in
quality and proportions in quantity or number. On the other
hand, the relations of identity, space and time, and causation may
be changed without any change in the ideas related ; our know-
ledge of them thus presents an obvious difficulty, for it cannot be
derived from the ideas themselves. Hume does not take much
trouble with the former class of relations, in which this difficulty
does not arise. He is content to follow on Locke's lines and to
think that general propositions of demonstrative certainty are,
obviously, possible here, seeing that we are merely stating a
relationship clearly apparent in the ideas themselves. He does
not ask whether the relation is or is not a new idea, and, if it is,
how it can be explained—from what impression it took its rise.
And he gives no explanation of the fixed and permanent character
attributed to an idea when it is made the subject of a universal
proposition. It is important to note, however, that he does not
follow Locke in holding that mathematics is a science which is at
once demonstrative and instructive. The propositions of geometry
concern spatial relations, and our idea of space is received 'from
the disposition of visible and tangible objects'; we have ‘no idea
of space or extension but when we regard it as an object either of
our sight or feeling' (i. e. touch); and, in these perceptions, we can
never attain exactness: 'our appeal is still to the weak and fallible
judgment which we make from the appearance of the objects, and
correct by a compass or common measure. ' Geometry, therefore,
is an empirical science; it is founded on observations of approxi-
mate accuracy only, though the variations from the normal in our
observations may be neutralised in the general propositions which
we form. Hume does not apply the same doctrine to arithmetic,
on the ground (which his principles do not justify) that the unit is
something unique. He is thus able to count quantity and number
in his first class of relations and to except algebra and arithmetic
from the effect of his subtle analysis of the foundations of
geometry. In his Enquiry concerning Human Understanding,
however, he deserts, without a word of justification, the earlier


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Philosophers
6
view which he had worked out with much care and ingenuity,
and treats mathematics generally as the great example of demon-
strative reasoning. In this later work, in which completeness is
sacrificed to the presentation of salient features, he speaks, not of
two kinds of relations, but of 'relations of ideas' and 'matters of
fact'; and, in each, he seeks to save something from the general
ruin of the sciences to which his premises lead. The last paragraph
of the book sets forth his conclusion:
When we run over our libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc
must we make ? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school
metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning
concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental
reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to
the flames; for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.
This passage, startling and ruthless as it sounds, is chiefly
remarkable for its reservations. It was easy to condemn 'divinity
or school metaphysics' as illusory; they had for long been common
game. But to challenge the validity of mathematics or of natural
science was quite another matter. Hume did not temper the wind
to the shorn lamb; but he took care that it should not visit too
roughly the sturdy wethers of the flock. Yet we have seen that,
according to his principles, mathematics rest upon observations
which fall short of accuracy, while natural science, with its
'experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact,' depends upon
the relation of cause and effect.
The examination of this relation occupies a central position in
both his works; and its influence upon subsequent thought has
been so great as, sometimes, to obscure the importance of other
factors in his philosophy. He faced a problem into which Locke had
hardly penetrated, and of which even Berkeley had had only a partial
view. What do we mean when we say that one thing is cause
and another thing its effect, and what right have we to that
meaning? In sense perception, we have impressions of flame and
of heat, for instance; but why do we say that the flame causes the
heat, what ground is there for asserting anyónecessary connection'
between them? The connection cannot be derived from any com-
parison of the ideas of flame and of heat; it must come from
impression, therefore, but there is no separate impression of
'cause' or 'causation' which could serve as the link between two
objects. What, then, is the origin of the connection ? To use the
terminology of the Enquiry, since cause is not a 'relation of ideas,'
it must be a ‘matter of fact'-an impression. But it is not itself
a separate or simple impression; it must, therefore, be due to the
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The Problem of Causation
329
mode or manner in which impressions occur. In our experience,
we are accustomed to find flame and heat combined; we pass
constantly from one to the other; and the custom becomes so
strong that, whenever the impression of flame occurs, the idea of
heat follows. Then, we mistake this mental or subjective connec-
tion for an objective connection. Necessary connection is not in
the objects, but only in the mind; yet custom is too strong for us,
and we attribute it to the objects.
This is a simple statement of the central argument of Hume's
most famous discussion. The 'powers' which Locke attributed to
bodies must be denied—as Berkeley denied them. The conscious-
ness of spiritual activity on which Berkeley relied is equally illusory
on Hume's principles.
'If we reason a priori,' says Hume, 'anything may appear able to produce
anything. The falling of a peeble may, for aught we know, extinguish the
sun, or the wish of a man control the planets in their orbits. '
This striking utterance is, strictly, little better than a truism. No
philosopher ever supposed that such knowledge about definite
objects could be got in any other way than by experience. But
Hume's negative criticism goes much deeper than this. We have
no right to say that the extinction of the sun needs any cause at
all, or that causation is a principle that holds of objects; all events
are loose and separate. The only connection which we have a
right to assert is that of an idea with an impression or with other
ideas—the subjective routine which is called 'association of ideas. '
Hume's constructive theory of causation is an explanation of how
we come to suppose that there is causal connection in the world,
although there is really nothing more than customary association
in our minds.
If we admit Hume's fundamental assumption about impressions
and ideas, it is impossible to deny the general validity of this
reasoning. Any assertion of a causal connection—the whole struc-
ture of natural science, therefore—is simply a misinterpretation of
certain mental processes. At the outset, Hume himself had spoken
of impressions as arising from unknown causes'; and some expres-
sions of the sort were necessary to give his theory a start and to
carry the reader along with him; but they are really empty words.
Experience is confined to impressions and ideas; causation is an
attitude towards them produced by custom-by the mode of
sequence of ideas; its applicability is only within the range of
impressions or ideas; to talk of an impression as caused by
something that is neither impression nor idea may have a very
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330
Philosophers
real meaning to any philosopher except Hume; but to Hume it
cannot have any meaning at all.
The discussion of causation brings out another and still more
general doctrine held by Hume-his theory of belief. When I say
that flame causes heat, I do not refer to a connection of ideas in
my own mind; I am expressing belief in an objective connection
independent of my mental processes. But Hume's theory of
causation reduces the connection to a subjective routine. Now,
some other impression than 'flame' might precede the idea of
heat-the impression cold,' for instance. How is it, then, that I
—“
do not assert 'cold causes heat'? The sequence 'cold-heat' may
be equally real in my mind with the sequence ‘flame-heat. ' How
is it that the former does not give rise to belief in the way that
the latter does ? Hume would say that the only difference is that
the association in the former case is less direct and constant than
in the latter, and thus leads to an idea of less force and liveliness.
Belief, accordingly, is simply a lively idea associated with a present
impression. It belongs to the sensitive, not to the rational, part
of our nature. And yet it marks the fundamental distinction
between judgment and imagination.
In the Treatise, at any rate, there is no faltering of purpose or
weakening of power when the author proceeds to apply his prin-
ciples to the fabric of knowledge. It is impossible, in this place,
to follow his subtle and comprehensive argument; but its issue is
plain. With objections not unlike Berkeley's, he dismisses the
independent existence of bodies, and then he turns a similar
train of reasoning against the reality of the self:
When I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble
on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or
hatred, pain or pleasure. I can never catch myself at any time without a
perception, and never can observe anything but the perception. When my
perceptions are removed for any time, as by sound sleep, so long am I
insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist.
According to Hume's own illustration, the mind is but the stage on
which perceptions pass and mingle and glide away. Or, rather,
there is no stage at all, but only a phantasmagory of impressions
and ideas.
Hume's purpose was constructive; but the issue, as he faces it,
is sceptical. And he is a genuine sceptic; for, even as to his
scepticism, he is not dogmatic. Why should he assent to his own
reasoning ? he asks; and he answers, 'I can give no reason why
I should assent to it, and feel nothing but a strong propensity to
consider objects strongly in that view. The propensity, however,


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Hume's Scepticism
331
is strong only when the 'bent of mind' is in a certain direction; a
dinner, a game of backgammon, makes such speculations appear
ridiculous; and 'nature' suffices to 'obliterate all these chimeras. '
A year later, Hume referred again to this sceptical impasse, in an
appendix to the third volume of his Treatise; and there, with
remarkable insight, he diagnosed the causes of his own failure.
The passage deserves quotation, seeing that it has been often
overlooked, and is, nevertheless, one of the most significant utter-
ances in the history of philosophy.
In short there are two principles, which I cannot render consistent; nor is it
in my power to renounce either of them, viz. that all our distinct perceptions
are distinct existences, and that the mind never perceives any real connexion
among distinct existences. Did our perceptions either inhere in something
simple and individual, or did the mind perceive some real connexion among
them, there would be no difficulty in the case. For my part, I must plead
the privilege of a sceptic, and confess that this difficulty is too hard for my
understanding.
I pretend not, however, to pronounce it absolutely insu-
perable. Others, perhaps, or myself, upon more mature reflexions, may
discover some hypothesis that will reconcile those contradictions.
Hume seems himself to have made no further attempt to solve the
problem. His followers have been content to build their systems
on his foundation, with minor improvements of their own, but
without overcoming or facing the fundamental difficulty which he
saw and expressed.
The logical result of his analysis is far from leading to that
'complete system of the sciences' which he had anticipated from
his 'new medium'; it leads, not to reconstruction, but to a sceptical
disintegration of knowledge; and he was clearsighted enough to
see this result. Thenceforward, scepticism became the characteristic
attitude of his mind and of his writings. But his later works ex-
hibit a less thorough scepticism than that to which his thinking
led. Even his Enquiry concerning Human Understanding shows
a weakening of the sceptical attitude, in the direction of a ‘miti-
gated scepticism' which resembles modern positivism and admits
knowledge of phenomena and of mathematical relations.
When he came to deal with concrete problems, his principles
were often applied in an emasculated form. But the 'new medium'
is not altogether discarded : appeal is constantly made to the
mental factor-impression and idea. This is characteristic of
Hume's doctrine of morality. 'Here is a matter of fact; but
'tis the object of feeling not of reason. It lies in yourself not
in the object. ' And from this results his famous definition of
virtue: 'every quality of the mind is denominated virtuous which
gives pleasure by the mere survey; as every quality which produces
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332
Philosophers
pain is called vicious. ' The 'sentiments of approbation or blame'
which thus arise depend, in all cases, on sympathy; sympathy
with the pleasures and pains of others is, thus, postulated by Hume
as an ultimate fact; the reasonings of Butler and Hutcheson pre-
vented him from seeking to account for it as a refined form of
selfishness, as Hobbes had done ; and yet, upon his own premises,
it remains inexplicable. In his Enquiry concerning the Principles
of Morals, bis differences from Hobbes, and even from Locke, are
still more clearly shown than in the Treatise; he defends the reality
of disinterested benevolence; and the sentiment of moral appro-
bation is described as “humanity,' or 'a feeling for the happiness
of mankind,' which, it is said, 'nature has made universal in the
species. ' This sentiment, again, is always directed towards qualities
which tend to the pleasure, immediate or remote, of the person
observed or of others. Thus, Hume occupies a place in the
utilitarian succession ; but he did not formulate a quantitative
utilitarianism, as Hutcheson had already done. He drew an
important distinction, however, between natural virtues, such as
benevolence, which are immediately approved and which have a
direct tendency to produce pleasure, and artificial virtues, of
which justice is the type, where both the approval and the
tendency to pleasure are mediated by the social system which
the virtue in question supports.
Hume exerted a profound influence upon theology, not only
by the general trend of his speculation but, also, through certain
specific writings. Of these writings, the most important are the
essay 'Of Miracles' contained in An Enquiry concerning Human
Understanding, the dissertation entitled “The Natural History
of Religion,' and Dialogues concerning Natural Religion. The
first-named is the most famous; it produced a crowd of answers,
and it had a good deal to do with public attention being attracted
to the author's works. It consists of an expansion of a simple
and ingenious argument, which had occurred to him when writing
his Treatise of Human Nature, but which, strangely enough, is
inconsistent with the principles of that work. It regards 'laws
of nature'as established by a uniform experience, 'miracles' as
violations of these laws and the evidence for these miracles as
necessarily inferior to the ‘testimony of the senses' which establishes
the laws of nature. Whatever validity these positions may have
on another philosophical theory, the meaning both of laws of
nature and of miracles as conflicting with these laws evaporates
under the analysis by which, as in Hume's Treatise, all events are
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6
Dialogues concerning Natural Religion 333
seen as 'loose and separate. ' "The Natural History of Religion'
contains reflections of greater significance. Here, Hume distin-
guishes between the theoretical argument which leads to theism
and the actual mental processes from which religion has arisen.
Its 'foundation in reason' is not the same thing as its origin in
human nature’; and he made an important step in advance by
isolating this latter question and treating it apart. He held that
religion arose from a concern with regard to the events of life, and
from the incessant hopes and fears which actuate the human mind,'
and, in particular, from the 'melancholy' rather than from the
'agreeable' passions; and he maintained the thesis that polytheism
preceded theism in the historical development of belief.
*The whole is a riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery. '
Such is the concluding reflection of this work. But a further
and serious attempt to solve the riddle is made in Dialogues
concerning Natural Religion. This small book contains the
author's mature views on ultimate questions. It is written in his
most perfect style, and shows his mastery of the dialogue form.
There is none of the usual scenery of the dramatic dialogue; but
the persons are distinct, the reasoning is lucid, and the interest is
sustained to the end. The traditional arguments are examined
with an insight and directness which were only equalled afterwards
by Kant; but, unlike Kant, and with insight more direct if not
more profound, Hume finds the most serious difficulties of the
question in the realm of morals. The form of the work makes it
not altogether easy to interpret; and some commentators have
held that Hume's own views should not be identified with those of
the more extreme critic of theism. Hume himself says as much
at the close of the work; but his habitual irony in referring to
religious topics is part of the difficulty of interpretation. All the
speakers in the Dialogues are represented as accepting some kind
of theistic belief; and it is not necessary to attribute expressions
of this kind simply to irony. The trend of the argument is towards
a shadowy form of theism—that the cause or causes of order
in the universe probably bear some remote analogy to human
intelligence'; and, in a remarkable footnote, the author seems to
be justifying his own right to take up such a position:
No philosophical Dogmatist depies, that there are difficulties both with
regard to the senses and to all science; and that these difficulties are in a
regular, logical method, absolutely insolvable. No Sceptic denies, that we lie
under an absolute necessity, notwithstanding these difficulties, of thinking,
and believing, and reasoning with regard to all kind of subjects, and even
of frequently assenting with confidence and security.


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334
Philosophers
>
6
In other words, his logic leads to complete scepticism; but, just
because the difficulties are insoluble, he claims a right to dis-
regard them, and to act and think like other men, when action
and thought are called for.
For this reason, his theory of knowledge has little effect upon
bis political and economical essays, although they are closely
connected with his ethical and psychological views. The separate
essays were published, in various volumes, between 1741 and 1777 ;
and, in the interval, political philosophy was profoundly influenced
by the works of Montesquieu and Rousseau. The essays do not
make a system, and economics is in them not definitely distinguished
from politics; but both system and the distinction are suggested in
the remarks on the value of general principles and general reason-
ings which he prefixed to the essays on commerce, money and other
economical subjects. “When we reason upon general subjects, '
he says, 'our speculations can scarcely ever be too fine, provided
they be just. '
In both groups of essays, Hume was not merely a keen critic of
prevailing theories and conceptions; his knowledge of human nature
and of history guided his analysis of a situation. A growing clearness
of doctrine, also, may be detected by comparing his earlier with
his later utterances. In later editions, he modified his acceptance
of the traditional doctrines of the natural equality of men, and of
consent as the origin of society. The essay 'Of the Origin of
Government,' first published in 1777, makes no mention either
of divine right or of original contract. Society is traced to its
origin in the family; and political society is said to have been
established ‘in order to administer justice'-though its actual
beginnings are sought in the concert and order forced upon men
by war. Again, whereas, in an earlier essay, he had said that 'a
constitution is only so far good as it provides a remedy against
maladministration,' he came, later, to look upon its tendency to
liberty as marking the perfection of civil society-although there
must always be a struggle between liberty and the authority
without which government could not be conducted. His political
thinking, accordingly, tends to limit the range of legitimate govern-
mental activity ; similarly, in economics, he criticises the doctrine
of the mercantilists, and on various points anticipates the views
of the analytical economists of a later generation. Perhaps, how-
ever, nothing in these essays shows better his insight into the
principles of economics than the letter which, shortly before his
death, he wrote to Adam Smith upon receipt of a copy of The


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Adam Smith
335
Wealth of Nations. In this letter, after a warm expression on
praise for, and satisfaction with, his friend's achievement, he
makes a single criticism-'I cannot think that the rent of farms
makes any part of the price of the produce, but that the price is
determined altogether by the quantity and the demand'—which
suggests that he himself had arrived at the theory of rent commonly
associated with the name of Ricardo.
sinni
: : :
al
II. ADAM SMITH
Adam Smith was born at Kirkcaldy on 5 June 1723. He was
educated at the university of Glasgow, where he had Hutcheson as
one of his teachers, and, in 1740, he proceeded to Oxford, where he
resided continuously through term and vacation for more than
six years. Like Hobbes in the previous century, and Gibbon and
Bentham shortly after his own day, he has nothing that is good to
say of the studies of the university. His own college of Balliol
gave small promise of its future fame: it was, then, chiefly distin-
guished as a centre of Jacobitism, and its authorities confiscated
his copy of Hume's Treatise of Human Nature; but its excellent
library enabled him to devote himself to assiduous study, mainly in
Greek and Latin literature. After some years spent at home, he
returned to Glasgow as professor of logic (1751) and, afterwards,
(1752) of moral philosophy. In 1759, he published his Theory of
Moral Sentiments, which brought him immediate fame. Early in
1764, he resigned his professorship in order to accompany the young
duke of Buccleuch on a visit to France which lasted over two years.
This marks the beginning of the second and more famous period of
his literary career. He found Toulouse (where they first settled)
much less gay than Glasgow, and, therefore, started writing a book
'in order to pass away the time. This is probably the first refer-
ence to the great work of his riper years. But it does not mark
the beginning of his interest in economics. By tradition and by
his own preference, a comprehensive treatment of social philo-
sophy was included in the work of the moral philosophy chair at
Glasgow; and there is evidence to show that some of his most
characteristic views had been written down even before he settled
there? . When, in 1765—6, Smith resided for many months in Paris
with his pupil, he was received into the remarkable society of
i Cf. Rae, J. , Life of Adam Smith, p. 179.
2 Cf. Stewart, Dugald, Life and Writings of Adam Smith in Works, vol. 1,
pp. 67, 68.


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336
Philosophers
'economists' (commonly known as the 'physiocrats? '). Quesnay,
the leader of the school, had published his Maximes générales
de gouvernement économique and his Tableau économique in 1758;
and Turgot, who was soon to make an effort to introduce their
common principles into the national finance, was, at this time, writing
his Réflexions sur la formation et la distribution des richesses,
although it was not published till some years later. Smith held
the work of the physiocrats, and of Quesnay in particular, in high
esteem; only death robbed Quesnay of the honour of having The
Wealth of Nations dedicated to him. The exact extent of Smith's
indebtedness to the school is matter of controversy. But, two things
seem clear, though they have been sometimes overlooked. He
shared their objection to mercantilism and their approval of com-
mercial freedom on grounds at which he had arrived before their
works were published; and he did not accept their special theory
that agriculture is the sole source of wealth, or the practical con-
sequence which they drew from the principle that the revenue of
the state should be derived from a single tax' on land. After his
return from France, Smith settled down quietly with his mother
and cousin at Kirkcaldy and devoted himself to the composition
of The Wealth of Nations, which was published in 1776. In 1778,
he removed to Edinburgh as commissioner of customs; he died on
17 July 1790.
Apart from some minor writings, Adam Smith was the author
of two works of unequal importance. These two works belong to
different periods of his life—the professorial, in which he is looked
upon as leading the ordinary secluded life of a scholar, and the
later period, in which he had gathered wider knowledge of men
and affairs. And the two works differ in the general impression
which they are apt to produce. According to the earlier, sympathy,
or social feeling, is the foundation of morality; the ideal of the
later work is that of a social system in which each person is left
free to pursue his own interest in his own way, and the author
throws gentle ridicule upon the 'affectation' of 'trading for the
public benefit. ' Undue stress has, however, been laid upon the
difference; it is superficial rather than fundamental, and results
from the diversity of subject and method in the two works rather
than from an opposition between their underlying ideas. Indeed,
it may be argued that the social factor in the individual, which
is brought out in the ethical treatise, is a necessary condition of
i This term was invented by Dupont de Nemours (1739—1817), a younger member
of the school.


## p. 337 (#363) ############################################

a
The Theory of Moral Sentiments 337
that view of a harmony between public and private interests
which underlies the doctrine of 'natural liberty' taught in The
Wealth of Nations.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments covers much ground already
traversed by preceding British moralists. It is an elaborate analysis
of the various forms and objects of the moral consciousness. It is
written in a flowing and eloquent, if rather diffuse, style; it is full
of apt illustration, and the whole treatise is dominated by a leading
idea. Smith's central problem, like that of his predecessors, is to
explain the fact of moral approval and disapproval. He discards
the doctrine of a special “moral sense,' impervious to analysis, which
had been put forward by Shaftesbury and Hutcheson. Like Hume,
he regards sympathy as the fundamental fact of the moral con-
sciousness; and he seeks to show, more exactly than Hume had
done, how sympathy can become a test of morality. He sees that
it is not, of itself, a sufficient test. A spectator may imaginatively
enter into the emotional attitude of another man, and this is
sympathy; but it is not a justification of the man's attitude. The
spectator may have misunderstood the circumstances, or his own
interests may have been involved. Accordingly, the only sympathy
that has ethical value is that of an 'impartial and well-informed
spectator. ' But this impartial and well-informed spectator, whose
sympathy with our passions and affections would be their adequate
justification, is not an actual but an ideal person ; and, indeed,
Smith recognises as much when he says that we have to appeal
from the opinions of mankind' to 'the tribunal of (our) own
conscience'-to the man within the breast. The great merit
'
of the theory, as worked out by Smith, is its recognition of the
importance of the social factor in morality, and of sympathy as the
means by which this social factor operates. The individual man, in
his view, is a being of social structure and tendencies. But the
social side of his nature is not exaggerated: if man 'can subsist
only in society, it is equally true that 'every man is by nature
first and principally recommended to his own care. ' These points
modify the contrast between the teaching of his first work and the
individualism' of his economic theory.
Adam Smith is frequently spoken of as the founder of political
economy. By this is meant that he was the first to isolate economic
facts, to treat them as a whole, and to treat them scientifically.
But, nine years before the publication of The Wealth of Nations,
another work appeared which may be regarded as having antici-
pated it in this respect-Sir James Steuart's Inquiry into the
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## p. 338 (#364) ############################################

338
Philosophers
Principles of Political Economy, Steuart was a Jacobite laird,
who, in 1763, returned from a long exile abroad. He had travelled
extensively, and his work contains the result of observation of
different states of society as well as of systematic reflection ; but
it is without merit in respect of literary form. It is presented to
the public as 'an attempt towards reducing to principles, and
forming into a regular science, the complicated interests of
domestic policy. ' It deals with 'population, agriculture, trade,
industry, money, coin, interest, circulation, banks, exchange,
public credit, and taxes'; and the author has a definite view of
scientific method. He speaks, indeed, of 'the art of political
economy,' using the term “political economy' in much the same
sense as that in which Smith used it in dealing with 'systems of
political economy' in the fourth book of his great work. But this
art is the statesman's business; and behind the statesman stands
'the speculative person, who, removed from the practice, extracts the
principles of this science from observation and reflection. Steuart
does not pretend to a system, but only to 'a clear deduction of
principles. ' These principles, however, are themselves gathered
from experience. His first chapter opens with the assertion, 'Man
we find acting uniformly in all ages, in all countries, and in all
climates, from the principles of self-interest, expediency, duty and
passion. ' And, of these, “the ruling principle' which he follows is
'the principle of self-interest. ' From this point, the author's
method may be described as deductive, and as resembling that
of Smith's successors more than it does Smith's own. Further, he
recognises that the conclusions, like the principles from which they
proceed, are abstract and may not fit all kinds of social conditions,
so that the political economy in each [country] must necessarily
be different. How far Smith took account of Steuart's reasonings
we cannot say; he does not mention his name: though he is
reported to have said that he understood Steuart's system better
from his talk than from his book.
Adam Smith does not begin with a discourse on method; he
was an artist in exposition; and he feared, perhaps unduly, any
appearance of pedantry. He plunges at once into his subject :
"The annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally
supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniences of life which
it annually consumes. ' These first words suggest the prevailing
theme. Wealth consists not in the precious metals, but in the
goods which men use or consume; and its source or cause is
labour. On this foundation, he builds the structure of his science;
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The Wealth of Nations
339
and—although he says nothing about it—we can trace the method
which he regarded as appropriate to his enquiry. It may be
described shortly as abstract reasoning checked and reinforced
by historical investigation. The main theorems of the analytical
economics of a later period are to be found expressed or suggested
in his work; but almost every deduction is supported by concrete
instances. Rival schools have, thus, regarded him as their founder,
and are witnesses to his grasp of principles and insight into facts.
He could isolate a cause and follow out its effects; and, if he was
apt sometimes to exaggerate its prominence in the complex of
human motives and social conditions, it was because the facts at
his disposal did not suggest the necessary qualifications of his
doctrine, although more recent experience has shown that the
qualifications are needed.
Adam Smith isolates the fact of wealth and makes it the
subject of a science. But he sees this fact in its connections
with life as a whole. His reasonings are grounded in a view of
human nature and its environment, both of which meet in labour,
the source of wealth and also, as he thinks, the ultimate standard
of the value of commodities. In the division of labour, he sees the
first step taken by man in industrial progress. His treatment of
this subject has become classical, and is too well known for quota-
tion; it is more to the purpose to point out that it was an
unerring instinct for essentials which led him, in his first chapter,
to fix attention on a point so obvious that it might easily have
been overlooked and yet of far-reaching importance in social
development generally. The division of labour, according to
Smith, is the result of the propensity to truck, barter, and
exchange one thing for another. ' But his analysis of motives
goes deeper than this; and, so far as they are concerned with
wealth, human motives seem to be reduced by him to two: 'the
passion for present enjoyment' which 'prompts to expense,' and
'the desire of bettering our condition’ which 'prompts to save. '
Both are selfish; and it is on this motive of self-interest, or a view
of one's own advantage, that Smith constantly relies. He con-
structs an economic commonwealth which consists of a multitude
of persons, each seeking his own interest and, in so doing, un-
wittingly furthering the public good—thus promoting an end
which was no part of his intention. '
• The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition,' he says,
•when suffered to exert itself with freedom and security, is so powerful a
principle, that it is alone, and without any assistance, not only capable of
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## p. 340 (#366) ############################################

340
Philosophers
carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a
hundred impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too
often encumbers its operations. '
6
Smith, like many other philosophers of the time, assumed that
there was a natural identity of public and private interest. It is
a comfortable belief that society would be served best if everybody
looked after his own interests; and, in an economist, this belief was,
perhaps, an inevitable reaction from a condition in which state regu-
lation of industry had largely consisted in distributing monopolies
and other privileges. In Smith's mind, the belief was also bound
up with the view that this identity of interests resulted from the
guidance of the invisible hand' that directs the fate of mankind.
But the belief itself was incapable of verification, and subsequent
industrial history refutes it. Indeed, in various places in his work,
Smith himself declines to be bound by it. He thinks that the
interests of the landowners and of the working class are in
close agreement with the interest of society, but that those of
'merchants and master manufacturers' have not the same connec-
tion with the public interest. 'The interest of the dealers,' he
says, “is always in some respects different from, and even opposite
to, that of the public. The harmony of interests, therefore, is
incomplete. Nor would it be fair to say that Smith had
relinquished, in The Wealth of Nations, his earlier view of the
social factor in human motive. What he did hold was, rather,
that, in the pursuit of wealth, that is to say, in industry and
commerce, the motive of self-interest predominates; in famous
passages, he speaks as if no other motive need be taken into
account; but he recognises its varying strength; and it is only
in the class of 'merchants and master manufacturers' that he
regards it as having free course: they are acute in the perception
of their own interest and unresting in its pursuit; in the country
gentleman, on the other hand, selfish interest is tempered by
generosity and weakened by indolence.
From the nature of man and the environment in which he is
placed, Smith derives his doctrine of the natural progress of
opulence. ' Subsistence is ‘prior to conveniency and luxury’;
agriculture provides the former, commerce the latter; the culti-
vation of the country, therefore, precedes the increase of the
town; the town, indeed, has to subsist on the surplus produce of
the country; foreign commerce comes later still. This is the
natural order, and it is promoted by man's natural inclinations.
But human institutions have thwarted these natural inclinations,


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6
The System of Natural Liberty 341
and, ‘in many respects, entirely inverted' the natural order. Up
to Adam Smith's time, the regulation of industry had been almost
universally admitted to be part of the government's functions;
criticism of the principles and methods of this regulation had not
been wanting; the theory of the balance of trade,' for instance,
important in the doctrine of the mercantilists, had been ex-
amined and rejected by Hume and by others before him. But
Smith made a comprehensive survey of the means by which, in
agriculture, in the home trade and in foreign commerce, the state
had attempted to regulate industry; these attempts, he thought,
were all diversions of the course of trade from its 'natural channels';
and he maintained that they were uniformly pernicious. Whether
it acts by preference or by restraint, every such system ‘retards,
instead of accelerating, the progress of the society towards real
wealth and greatness; and diminishes, instead of increasing, the
real value of the annual produce of its land and labour. ' When
all such systems are swept away, the obvious and simple system of
natural liberty establishes itself of its own accord. '
The ideas and arguments of Adam Smith were influential, at a
later date, in establishing the system of free trade in Great Britain;
and, perhaps, it would be not far wrong to say that a generation
of economists held his views on this question to be his most solid
title to fame. He regarded liberty as natural in contrast with the
artificiality of government control; and the term “natural' plays
an ambiguous part in his general reasonings, changing its shade of
meaning, but always implying a note of approval. In this, he only
used the language of his time—though Hume had pointed out that
the word was treacherous. But it has to be borne in mind that,
while he extolled this 'natural liberty' as the best thing for trade,
he did not say that it was in all cases the best thing for a country.
He saw that there were other things than wealth which were worth
having, and that of some of these the state was the guardian.
Security must take precedence of opulence, and, on this ground,
he would restrict natural liberty, not only to defend the national
safety, but, also, for the protection of individual traders.
III. OTHER PHILOSOPHICAL WRITERS
As we look back upon the development of philosophical
problems, it might seem that, for a philosophical writer after
Hume, there was but one thing worth doing—to answer him, if
possible; and, if that were not possible, to keep silent. But the


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342
Philosophers
issue was not quite so clear to his contemporaries. Indeed, his
own example did not press it home. It showed, on the contrary,
that work of importance might be done in certain departments
even when the contradiction was ignored to which Hume had
reduced the theory of knowledge. Soon after the publication of
A Treatise of Human Nature, valuable writings appeared on
psychology, and on moral and political theory; there were also
critics of Hume in considerable number, and one of that number
had both the insight to trace Hume's scepticism to its logical origin
and the intellectual capacity to set forth a theory of knowledge in
which the same difficulty should not arise.
Among the psychologists, the most important place belongs to
David Hartley, a physician, and sometime fellow of Jesus college,
Cambridge, whose Observations on Man: his frame, his duty, and
his expectations appeared in 1749. The rapid march of philosophical
thought in the previous forty years was ignored by, and probably
unknown to, the author. The whole second part of his book in
which he works out a theological theory may be regarded as
antiquated. He does not mention Berkeley; he seems never to
have heard of David Hume. But the first or psychological part
of the book has two striking features: it is a systematic attempt
at a physiological psychology, and it developed the theory of
the association of ideas in a way which influenced, far more than
Hume did, the views of the later associational school of James Mill
and his successors. The physiological doctrine was suggested by
certain passages in Newton's Optics. Hartley supposes that the
contact of an external object with the sensory nerves excites
vibrations in the æther residing in the pores of these nerves ';
these vibrations enter the brain, are 'propagated freely every
way over the whole medullary substance,' and sensations are the
result; further, they leave vestiges or traces behind them, and this
is the origin of ideas which depend on minute vibrations or 'vibra-
tiuncles. ' Motor activity is explained in a similar way. This
physiological view is the basis of his whole doctrine of mind, and,
more particularly, of the doctrine of association. In respect of the
latter doctrine, Hartley wrote under the influence of Locke; but he
has left it on record that the suggestion to make use of association
as a general principle of psychological explanation came from John
Gay, who had written A Dissertation prefixed to Law's English
translation of archbishop King's Origin of Evil (1731), in which
the doctrine was used to explain the connection of morality with
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Abraham Tucker
343
private happiness. Hartley offered a physiological explanation of
association itself, gave a generalised statement of its laws and
applied it to the details of mental life. He did not see, as Hume
had seen, the special difficulty of applying it so as to explain
judgment, assent, or belief.