No More Learning

IV. V. and Vi.
reviewed. In this tractate, Gibbon's supposed lack of veracity is
traced back to the lack of probity stated to be shown by him
already in the earlier portions of his work; and his absorption
of other writers' materials is held up to blame together with the
frequent inelegance of his style. The general method of Whitaker's
attack can only be described by the word 'nagging'; at the
close, he gathers up the innumerable charges into a grand
denunciation of the historian as another Miltonic Belial, imposing
but hollow, pleasing to the outward sense but incapable of high
thoughts.
This summary account of the attacks upon The Decline and
Fall published in the lifetime of its author at least illustrates
the narrowness of the limits within which the sea of criticism
was, after all, almost entirely confined. Gibbon's treatment of
them, on the other hand, shows how little importance he attached
to such censure except when it impugned his general qualifications
as a historian. How little he cared for immediate applause is
1 Memoirs, p. 204.
2 See Lord Sheffield's note in Misc. Works, vol. I, p. 243, where it is stated that
Whitaker had written very amiable letters to Gibbon after perusing chapters xv
and xvi.


## p. 311 (#337) ############################################

refere
>
AGB
ܨܝܕܐ
JTES
promenad
Antiquities of the House of Brunswick 311
shown by the fact that, though the popular welcome extended
to his second and third volumes (1781) was, at first, fainter, it was
only now that he finally resolved to carry on the work from
the fall of the western to that of the eastern empire-an interval
of about a thousand years. Not long afterwards, he at last made
up his mind to exchange conditions of existence which, as he
asserts, had become wearisome to him and which he, certainly,
could no longer afford to meet, for the freedom of a purely literary
life; and, in the autumn of 1783, he broke up his London establish-
ment and carried out the long-cherished plan of settling with his
tried friend George Deyverdun? at Lausanne. Here, in a retire-
ment which was anything but 'cloistered,' he, by the end of 1787,
brought to a close the main work of his life, of which the three
concluding volumes (IV-VI) were carried by him to England and
published in April 1788. The passage in the Memoirs relating
the historian's actual accomplishment of his task is one of the
commonplaces of English literature, and records one of the golden
moments which redeem the endless tale of disappointments and
failures in the annals of authorship.
After, in 1788, Gibbon had again returned to Lausanne, where,
in the following year, he lost the faithful Deyverdun, he made up
his mind-once more setting an example which but few men of
letters have found themselves able to follow-to undertake no
other great work, but to confine himself henceforth to essays
or 'Historical excursions ? ' It was as one of these that he
designed his Antiquities of the House of Brunswick. What he
wrote of this work amounts to more than a fragments; for, of the
three divisions contemplated by him, the first (The Italian Descent)
and part of the second (The German Reign), were actually carried
out, though the third (The British Succession of the House of
Brunswick), for which Gibbon could have but very imperfectly
commanded the material preserved in Hanover and at home, was
not even approached by him. Whatever temporary value Gibbon's
treatment of the material amassed by Leibniz and Muratori might
have possessed vanished with the tardy publication, in 1842, of
Leibniz's own Annales imperii occidentis Brunsvicenses. But
17
2
TE
i It was with Deyverdun that, in 1768, Gibbon had brought out in London the
French literary annual called Mémoires Littéraires de la Grande Bretagne pour les
Années 1767 et 1768, to which he contributed, with other articles, a review of Lyttel-
ton's History of Henry II, 'that voluminous work, in which sense and learning are not
illuminated by a ray of genius. ' (Memoirs, pp. 173–4. )
? See the letter to Langer in Letters, p. 229.
3 See Miscellaneous Works, vol. III.


## p. 312 (#338) ############################################

312
Historians
Gibbon's narrative has a few purple patches, nor would posterity
willingly forego the tribute which, near its opening, he pays to
'the genius and unparalleled intellect' of Leibniz, as well as to the
industry and critical ability of the indefatigable Italian scholar
with whom the great German was associated in his researches.
In 1791, Gibbon bade farewell to Lausanne, and the rest of his
life was spent in England, where he almost continuously enjoyed
the paternal hospitality of his most intimate English friend, the
earl of Sheffield (John Baker Holroyd), at Sheffield place, Sussex,
and in London. Lord Sheffield's name is as enduringly associated
with that of the great historian as Boswell's is with Johnson's, but
in a more equal way—as is shown by Lord Sheffield's unique
treatment of Gibbon's Memoirs and by his admirable posthumous
editions of the Miscellaneous Works. The last addition which
Gibbon lived to make to these, the Address recommending the
publication of Scriptores Rerum Anglicanarum, under the editor-
ship of the Scottish antiquarian and historian John Pinkerton-
a noble design which was to remain long unaccomplished-was
interrupted by death? . Thus, his last literary effort appropriately
directed itself to the promotion of historical research. He died
on 16 January 1794, and was buried in the Sheffield mausoleum in
Fletching church, by the side of his dear friend, we may almost
say, of his brother by adoption? ' In the Memoirs, which he left
behind him as the best monument of his long literary life, he
confesses himself 'disgusted with the affectation of men of letters,
who complain that they have renounced a substance for a shadow;
and that their fame (which sometimes is no insupportable weight)
affords a poor compensation for envy, censure, and persecutions. '
Whatever crowning grace Gibbon's life may have missed, it brought
him a long intellectual triumph and a fame which the course of
time has left undimmed.
Gibbon declared, as has been seen, that he never presumed to
accept a place in the British triumvirate of historians'; but
succeeding generations have concurred in assigning to The Decline
and Fall the primacy, which it still holds, among historical works
in our literature, and in esteeming its author the most brilliant
example known of the union of the historian and the man of
6
1 It is printed, with an explanatory appendix by Pinkerton, in vol. in of Miscel-
laneous Works.
2 Harrison, Frederic, u. 8.
3 Memoirs, p. 241.


## p. 313 (#339) ############################################

The Subject of The Decline and
and Fall
Fall 313
533
bu
t
letters! ' From the ancients, he had taken over the rhetorical side
of the historian's task; from the French, he had derived the
treatment of historical materials by a scientific method of criticism
and selection ; from the French, too, with the assistance of Hume
and Robertson, he had learnt how to combine scientific method
with artistic effect. His literary art may suffer from mannerisms,
which were those of his age, as well as from foibles, which were his
own, and, as a scientific history, his work has, in many respects,
become superannuated; but its main and distinctive qualities
1
continue unimpaired. Is it possible to indicate, in a few words,
of which, among these qualities, the importance seems paramount?
In the first place, his choice of subject—as it gradually
developed itself in the progress of the work—was supremely
felicitous; for it is the greatest theme furnished by profane
history. Even before Gibbon could feel assured that the complete
treatment of the whole subject would be compassed by himself, he
already contemplated it in its unity? What the Roman empire
was, after it had attained to its full strength and maturity, and how
its western division verged gradually to its decline and downfall, is
only half the story; the other and much longer half shows how its
fall was followed by long centuries of life in the eastern, and a
revival, in new conditions, of its existence in the western, world.
And more than this: Janus-like, the historian is constrained to
turn, with one face, to the Roman commonwealth out of which
the empire grew and of which it never lost the impress ; while,
with his other face, he looks forward to modern times. He bids
us consider, not only what it was that declined and fell, but, also,
what grew into life. The new elements of movement, the rise
of new national, and that of new religious, powers must all be
reviewed in their twofold relation to what they superseded and to
what they prepared. The migration and settlements of the
Teutonic tribes, and the spread and establishment of the Christian,
and, after it, of the Mohammadan, religion, must be treated not
only as helping to break up the Roman empire, but, also, as
cooperating in the new order of things. The principle of the
continuity of history, Freeman's favourite theme, is, as the latest
editor of Gibbon reminds us,
not the least important aspect of The Decline and Fall. . . . On the continuity
of the Roman Empire depended the unity of Gibbon's work . . . whatever
names of contempt he might apply to the institution in the days of the decline S.
· Bury, J. B. , preface to the 1909 edn. , p. viii.
? See the outline of the scheme in the preface to vol. 1 dated 1 February 1776.
3 Bury, 1. 8.
et
dor
in
x of
be
cho
uti
los
nd
lietot


## p. 314 (#340) ############################################

314
Historians
Thus, the historian essays to narrate how the ancient world became
the modern, just as the mausoleum of Hadrian became the papal
fastness of St Angelo—or, in his own characteristic words", to
'describe the triumph of barbarism and religion. '
The capabilities of the subject, then, are of surpassing greatness;
yet the mind is able to grasp it as a whole. Here, we have no
mere series of annals, such as were presented even by the excellent
Tillemont, to whom Gibbon was indebted for much of his material”,
but a complete work. Its opening chapters may fall short of the
results of modern numismatical and epigraphical research ; its
later portions, which cover a relatively far larger ground, may
show an inadequate command of the political life of the Byzantine
empire and all but ignore much of the Slavonic side of its history,
may inadequately appreciate the historic significance, or the
individual grandeur, of the figure of Charles the great and may
fail in the narration of the second and third crusades 8-in a word,
it may need to be supplemented, repaired or changed here and
there, and again and again. But it is complete even though it
is imperfect. Eminent historians-Guizot, Milman, Bury-have,
therefore, been willing to become Gibbon's editors and commen-
tators; but they have not dealt with him as he dealt with Tille-
mont. It is as a whole that his work has maintained the position
which it conquered for itself at once in historical literature.
Inspired, as it were, by the muse of history herself in the
magnificence of his choice of subject and in the grandeur of his
determination to treat it with a completeness in harmony with its
nature, Gibbon displayed a breadth of grasp and a lucidity of
exposition such as very few historians have brought to the per-
formance of a cognate task. Whether in tracing the origin and
growth of a new religion, such as Mohammadanism, or in developing
in comprehensive outline the idea of Roman jurisprudence*, the
masterly clearness of his treatment is equal to the demands of his
philosophic insight; nor does the imaginative power of the
historian fall short of the consummate skill of the literary artist.
But there is another requirement which the historian, whatever
may be his theme, is called upon to satisfy, and which, in plain
? Bury, p. vii.
* Tillemont, Le Nain de, Histoire des Empereurs etc. , treats each successive reign in
a series of short chapters or headed articles, with notes appended on a wide variety of
points, in the way that Gibbon loved. It reaches to the death of the emperor
Anastasius, A. D. 518. His Mémoires Ecclésiastiques cover the first six centuries of the
Christian era. As to Gibbon's debt to him, see Bury, u. 8. p. ix.
3 Cf. ibid. pp. xix-xxi ; Morison, Gibbon, pp. 162–5.
• Cf. Bury, pp. xiii and xiv.


## p. 315 (#341) ############################################

hen
ini:
DIE
ir
Die
了​一
​Gibbon's Accuracy of Statement 315
truth, is antecedent to all others. Any work claiming to be a
contribution to historical knowledge should, within the limits of
human fallibility and the boundaries at different times confining
human knowledge, be exactly truthful. It was on this head only
that Gibbon avowed himself sensitive, and on this alone that he
condescended to reply to antagonists of any sort.
It is worse
than needless to attempt to distinguish between the infinitely
numerous shades of inveracity; and Gibbon would have scorned
any such endeavour. His defence, of which, in the opinion of
those capable of rising above the method adopted by more than
one of his censors, the validity is indisputable, is a real vindication.
He allows that a critical eye may discover in his work some loose
and general references. But he fairly asks whether, inasmuch as
their proportion to the whole body of his statements is quite
inconsiderable, they can be held to warrant the accusation brought
against him. Nor is he unsuccessful in explaining the circum-
stances which, in the instances impugned, rendered greater precision
of statement impossible. The charge of plagiarism—the last
infirmity of sagacious critics-he rebuts with conspicuous success,
and courageously upholds his unhesitating plea of not guilty :
If my readers are satisfied with the form, the colours, the new arrange-
ment which I have given to the labours of my predecessors, they may perhaps
consider me not as a contemptible thief, but as an honest and industrious
manufacturer, who has fairly procured the raw materials, and worked them
up with a laudable degree of skill and success 1.
The verdict of modern historical criticism has approved
his plea. “If,' writes Bury, 'we take into account the vast range
of his work, his accuracy is amazing, and, with all his disadvan-
tages, his slips are singularly few? ' It is an objection of very
secondary importance, though one to which even experienced
writers are wont to expose themselves, that Gibbon is apt to
indulge in what might almost be called a parade of authorities.
Complete, lucid and accurate, Gibbon, finally, is one of the
great masters of English prose. His power of narrative is at
least equalled by his gift of argumentative statement, and, in all
parts of his work, his style is one which holds the reader spell-
bound by its stately dignity, relieved by a curious subtlety of
nuance, and which, at the same time, is the writer's own as much
as is that of Clarendon, Macaulay or Carlyle. Gibbon's long
sentences, which, at times, extend over a whole paragraph or page,
but are never involved, resemble neither those of Johnson nor
those of Robertson ; if his style is to be compared to that of any
1 Vindication (Miscellaneous Works, vol. IV, p. 588).
u. 8. p. ix.
th
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el
LTN
o per
2
9


## p. 316 (#342) ############################################

316
Historians
other master of English prose, it is to Burke’s. Built with
admirable skill and precision, his sentences are coloured by a
delicate choice of words and permeated by a delightful suggestion
of rhythm in each case—too pleasing to seem the effect of design.
Gibbon's irony differs greatly from that of Swift, who deliberately
fools his reader and, thereby, increases the enjoyment that arises
from the perception of his real meaning, and still more from
that of Carlyle, the savage purpose of whose sarcasm never leaves
the reader in doubt. The irony of Gibbon is almost always
refined, but not at any time obscure. It reveals itself in the
choice of an epithet, in the substitution of a noun of more ordinary
usage for another of a more select class ; it also appears in the
inversion of the order in which, commonly, reasons are assigned
or motives suggested, and often makes use of that most dangerous
of all rhetorical devices-insinuation. This, however, already
carries us beyond mere questions of style. Where this insinua-
tion is directed against assumed ethical principles, it has been
admirably characterised as sub-cynical. '
Gibbon's diction, it may be added, was not formed on native
models only; yet it would be in the highest degree unjust to
describe it as Gallicising. His fine taste preserved him from the
affectation of special turns or tricks of style not due to the
individuality of a writer, but largely consisting in idioms borrowed
from a tongue whose genius is not that of ours. Much as Gibbon,
who, from an early date, wrote French with perfect ease and clear-
ness, owed to that language and literature in the formation of his
style as well as in his general manner as a historian, he merely
assimilated these elements to others which he could claim as
native. Notwithstanding the powerful presentment of the case by
Taine, the influence of French works upon the style of English
historians has probably been overrated. In the first place, the
‘triumvirate’ Hume, Robertson and Gibbon should not be
'lumped' together from the point of view of style any more than
from other more or less adjacent points of view. The style of
Hume, in some measure, was influenced by his reading of
French philosophers, and that of Gibbon by his reading of the
works of this and of other French literary schools—the sequence
of great pulpit orators among them ; in the style of Robertson,
it is difficult to see much influence of French prose of any sort.
1 By Frederic Harrison, u. s. Horace Walpole paid to Gibbon's style the compli.
ment: 'he never tires me. ' Coleridge thought it. detestable. ' (Memoirs, appendix 27. )
2 Histoire de la Littérature Anglaise, vol. iv, p. 230 (edn. 1866).


## p. 317 (#343) ############################################

2lv/
The Qualities of Gibbon's Style 317
And, if we are to trace the genesis of Gibbon's prose style, we
should take care, while allowing for French, not altogether to
disregard native influences. Gibbon, as is well known, was a great
admirer of Fielding, to whom (as it would seem, erroneously) he
ascribed kinship with the house of Habsburg; and, though there
can be no question of comparing the style of the great novelist to
that of the great historian, it may be pointed out how Fielding,
like Gibbon, excels in passages holding the mean between narrative
and oratorical prose, and how, among great writers of the period,
he alone (except, perhaps, in a somewhat different fashion,
Goldsmith) shares with Gibbon that art of subdued irony which it
was sought alone to characterise. Gibbon, then, has much of the
magnificence of Burke, of the incisiveness of Hume and of the
serene humour of Fielding, in addition to the ease and lucidity
of the French writers who had been the companions of his youthful
studies. The faults of his style have been summarised, once for
all, in the celebrated passage in Porson's exposure of Travis which
has already been cited; they consist, in the first instance, of
a want of terseness, and, at the same time, a want of proportion,
to which our age is more sensitive than was Gibbon's; he some-
times, says Porson, in Shakespearean phrase, 'draws out the thread
of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument’; while, on
other occasions, he recalls Foote's auctioneer, 'whose manner was
so inimitably fine that he had as much to say upon a ribbon as
a Raphael. ' The other fault reprehended by Porson we may
imitate Gibbon himself in veiling under the transparent cover of
a foreign tongue—it is, in the scathing words of Sainte-Beuve', une
obscénité érudite et froide.
Concerning yet another, and more comprehensive charge against
Gibbon, on which, as has been seen, critic after critic, returning
again and again to the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters, thought
it necessary to insist, we need, in conclusion, say little or
nothing. The day has passed for censuring him because, in this
part of his work, he chose to dwell upon what he described
as the secondary causes of the progress of the Christian religion,
and the community which professed it, from the days of Nero
to those of Constantine. Such a selection of causes he had a right
to make ; nor did he ask his readers to shut their eyes to the
cardinal fact, as stated by Milman, that, ‘in the Christian
a
3
1 It is reprinted in Watson, J. 8. , Life of Porson (1861), p. 85.
· Cited by Birkbeck Hill in preface to Memoirs, p. xi.
3 Preface to edition of 1872, with notes by Milman and Guizot, p. xiii.


## p. 318 (#344) ############################################

318
Historians
dispensation as in the material world, it is as the First Great Cause
that the Deity is most undeniably present. Even the manner
in which, in his first volume, at all events, he chose to speak of
men and institutions surrounded by traditional romance cannot
be made the basis of any charge against him as a historical writer.
But it is quite obvious to any candid student of The Decline
and Fall that its author had no sympathy with human nature
in its exceptional moral developments—in a word, that his work
was written, not only without enthusiasm, but with a conscious
distrust, which his age shared to the full, of enthusiasts. Unlike
Hume, who was at one with Gibbon in this distrust, the latter
remained, in this respect, master of himself, and did not allow
antipathies against those who stood on one side to excite his
sympathies with those on the other. He would have treated the
puritan movement in the spirit in which Hume treated it, and
have had as little wish to penetrate into its depths, as, in con-
temporary politics, he tried to understand the early aspirations of
the French revolution. But he would not, it may be supposed,
.
have drawn a sympathetic picture of king Charles I—for it would
be unjust to him to ascribe to any such mental process the con-
ception of Julian the apostate, whereby he scandalised the orthodox.
Nothing in the historian's own idiosyncrasy responds to the passions
which transform the lives of men and nations; and, to him, history,
in his own words, is 'little more than the crimes, follies and
misfortunes of mankind. ' This limitation deprives the greatest of
English historical works of a charm which is more than a charm,
and the absence of which, however legitimate it seemed to the
historian himself, cannot be ignored by his readers.
>
Though Gibbon overtops all contemporary English historical
writers who concerned themselves with ancient history-in the
sense in which it long remained customary to employ the term-it
may be well to note in this place a few of the more important
productions in this field by lesser writers. The general public
was not supplied with many nutritious droppings from academical
tables, still largely supplied with the same 'classical' fare; and, in
the field of ancient history in particular, its illpaid labourers bad,
like Oliver Goldsmith, to turn out as best they might a 'popular'
history of Greece or of Rome. Meanwhile, the demands of a more
fastidious section of readers for more elaborate works on ancient
1 Cited by Bury, u. 8. p. xxi.


## p. 319 (#345) ############################################

Middleton. Hooke. Ferguson
319
history were by no means clamorous. The great success of Conyers
Middleton's History of the Life of Marcus Tullius Cicero (1741)
had proved, as an exception, how barren this branch of classical
work had hitherto remained, and, albeit he was a voluminous
writer, his other publications of this class had been, in the main,
ancillary to his historical magnum opus. Though he describes
it in his preface as a 'life and times' rather than a 'life' of his
hero, it is constructed on biographical lines, and contributed in
its way to nourish the single-minded devotion to Cicero, as a
politician hardly less than as a writer, which, at a later date, was
to suffer ruthless shocks. Nor should another production be passed
by, which was directly due to its author's unwillingness to remain
content with the French Jesuit history of Rome that had hitherto
commanded the field, supplemented by the more discursive writings
of Aubert de Vertot and Basil Kennett. Nathaniel Hooke, the
friend of Pope from his youth to the hour of his death, dedicated
to the poet the first volume of his Roman History from the
Building of Rome to the Ruin of the Commonwealth, which
appeared in 1738, though the fourth and concluding volume was
not published till 1771, eight years after the author's death.
Hooke also wrote Observations on the Roman Senate (1758); but
he is best known as the literary editor of the famous Account of
the Conduct of the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough (1742). His
Roman History, though, of course, obsolete, especially in its
earliest sections (as to the chronology of which he falls in with the
chronological conclusions of Newton), is written clearly and simply;
moreover, his sympathies are broad, and, though his narrative
may, at times, lack proportion, it shows that he had a heart for the
plebs and could judge generously of Julius Cæsar.
It was in far broader fashion, as became a Scottish professor of
moral philosophy, that Adam Ferguson proved his interest in the
more extended view of historical study which was engaging the
attention of British, as well as French, writers. Something was
said in our previous chapter of his Essay on the History of
Civil Society (1767).
Thus, when, in 1783, Ferguson published
his chief work, The History of the Progress and Termina-
tion of the Roman Republic, it was with no narrow concep-
tion of his task that he undertook what, as its title indicates,
was designed as a sort of introductory supplement to Gibbon's
masterpiece. The preliminary survey of the course of Roman
* A full bibliography of Middleton will be found in vol. 1 of his Miscellaneous
Works (2nd edn. 1755). Cf. , as to his place among scholars, ante, vol. 1x, chap. XIII.
a


## p. 320 (#346) ############################################

320
Historians
history from the origins, though done with care and with due
attention to historical geography, is, necessarily, inadequate, and
some portions of what follows, avowedly, serve only to inform
us as to what the Romans themselves believed to be a true
narrative. His sketches of character are the reverse of para-
doxical, though after recounting the enormities of Tiberius, be
grieves “to acknowledge that he was a man of considerable ability? '
In the year (1784) following that of the publication of
Ferguson's Roman History appeared the first volume of William
Mitford's History of Greece, a venture upon what was then, in
English historical literature, almost untrodden ground. Gibbon
had suggested the enterprise to Mitford, who was his brother-
officer in the south-Hampshire militia and had published a treatise
on the military force of England, and the militia in particular.
Mitford's History, which was not completed till 1810, long held the
field, and only succumbed to works of enduring value. It is only
necessary to glance at Macaulay's early article on the work? , in
order to recognise that, in the midst of his partisan cavils 3-in
spite, too, of shortcomings of historical criticism particularly
obvious in the account of the heroic age—Mitford displays an
apprehension of the grandeur of the theme on which he is engaged.
He is prejudiced, but not unconscientious; and, from his frequently
perverse conclusions, many an English student has been able to
disentangle his first conception of Greek free citizenship.
Finally, John Whitaker, who plays a rather sorry part at the fag-
end of the list of Gibbon's assailants, is more worthily remembered
as author of The History of Manchester. Of this he produced
only the first two books (1771–5)-dealing respectively with
the Roman and Roman-British, and with the English period to the
foundation of the heptarchy, and, therefore, belonging in part to
the domain of ancient history. Though it has been subjected to
criticism at least as severe as that poured by Whitaker and others
upon Gibbon's great work, the History survives as a notable
product of learning, albeit containing too large an imaginative
element. Whitaker carried on the same line of research and con-
jecture in his Genuine History of the Britons (1772), intended as
a refutation of Macpherson's treatise on the subject. In 1794 he
published The Course of Hannibal over the Alps ascertained, which
has not proved the last word on the subject.
bné,
1 Vol. III, p. 551.
2 Edinburgh Review, July 1808.
• Mitford, who has the courage of his opinions, states (vol. 1, p. 278) that 'the
House of Commons properly represents the Aristocratical part of the constitution,'


## p. 321 (#347) ############################################

CHAPTER XIV
PHILOSOPHERS
HUME AND ADAM SMITH
6
Of the two friends whose names give a title to this chapter, it
has been truthfully said that there was no third person writing
the English language during the same period, who has had so much
influence upon the opinions of mankind as either of these two men'
There were many other writers on the same or cognate subjects,
who made important contributions to the literature of thought;
but Hume and Adam Smith tower above them all both in intel-
lectual greatness and in the permanent influence of their work.
I. 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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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
6
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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Philosophers
real meaning to any philosopher except Hume; but to Hume it
cannot have any meaning at all.