David Hume

HUME, DAVID British philosopher, historian and political economist, was born at Edinburgh, on April 26 (0.S.), 1711. His father was owner of a small estate named Nine wells in Berwickshire. David was educated at home until 1723 when he entered Edinburgh university. An attack of hypochon dria and a few unhappy months in a business house in Bristol led him in 1734 to visit France, where during the first three years of his stay at La Fleche, his speculations were worked into systematic form in the Treatise of Human Nature, the first two volumes of which appeared in Jan. 1739. The third volume, containing book iii., Of Morals, was published in the following year. Hume's own words best describe its reception. "It fell dead-born from the press, without reaching such distinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots." In the which contains the most complete exposition of his philosophy, Hume refused to take for granted the rationality of the exist ence of the external world and critically examined the concepts of substance and cause. Naturally he was disappointed that the world did not see as clearly as he did the connection between the concrete problems agitating contemporary thought and the ab stract principles on which their solution depended.

After the publication of the Treatise Hume retired to Nine wells and occupied himself with politics and political economy. In 1741 he published vol. I of his Essays which had immediate success. A second edition and a second volume followed in 1742. After failing to secure the chair of moral philosophy at Edin burgh in 1744, Hume became tutor, or keeper, to the marquis of Annandale, a harmless literary lunatic. This position, financially advantageous, was absurdly false, and finally Hume had to sue for arrears of salary.

In 1746 he became secretary to Gen. St. Clair, and was a spectator of the ill-fated expedition to France in that year. He again retired to Ninewells to prepare his Philosophical Essays (afterwards entitled An Inquiry concerning Human Understand ing). In 1748 he accompanied Gen. St. Clair as secretary in the embassy to Vienna and Turin, and in the same year were pub lished the Philosophical Essays, the most famous of his works, though less great than his original Treatise. The Essays contain, in more detail, application of philosophical principles to concrete problems, such as miracles, providence, immortality; but the briefer treatment of the discussions of book i. of the Treatise is a defect which renders the Treatise the more important work.

In 1749 Hume returned to Ninewells, enriched with "near a thousand pounds," but two years later moved to Edinburgh where he spent the greater part of the next 12 years. These years are the richest so far as literary production is concerned. In 1751 he published his Political Discourses, which had a great and well deserved success both in England and abroad, and the recast of book iii. of the Treatise, called Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, of which he says that "of all his writings, philosophi cal, literary or historical, it is incomparably the best." At this time also we hear of the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (posthumously printed 1779) which he had been induced to hold back on account of their sceptical spirit.

In 1751 Hume again failed to secure a professor's chair, but in the following year he received, in spite of accusations of heresy, the librarianship of the Advocates' Library in Edinburgh, small in emoluments (14o a year) but rich in opportunity for literary work. Two years later he was preparing his History of England which he began with James I., considering that the political differences of his time took their origin from that period. On the whole his attitude in respect to disputed political prin ciples seems not to have been at first consciously unfair. The History appeared in five volumes between and 1762. Hume was bitterly disappointed at the reception of the first volume. But within a few years the sale brought in a larger revenue than had ever before been known in his country to flow from litera ture, and placed him in comparative affluence. At the same time Hume's dissatisfaction had an important effect, for from the publication of the first two volumes dates his virulent hatred of everything English, of society in London, Whig principles, Whig ministers and the public generally (see Burton's Life, ii. 268, 434). He was convinced that there was a conspiracy to destroy everything Scottish. The remainder of the History be came little better than a party pamphlet.

Volume ii., published in 1756, carrying on the narrative to the Revolution, was better received than the first ; but Hume then resolved to work backwards, and to show from a survey of the Tudor period that his Tory notions were grounded upon the his tory of the constitution. In 1759 this portion of the work ap peared, and in 1761 the work was completed by the history of the pre-Tudor periods. The numerous editions of the various por tions gave him opportunity of revision, which he employed to re move the "villainous seditious Whig strokes," and "plaguy preju dices of Whiggism." But, whatever its faults, the History was the first attempt at a comprehensive treatment of historic facts, the first to introduce the social and literary aspects of a nation's life as only second in importance to its political fortunes.

While the History was in process of publication, Hume produced in 1757 Four Dissertations: The Natural History of Religion, Of the Passions, Of Tragedy, Of the Standard of Taste. Of these the second is a subtle piece of psychology, containing the essence of book ii. of the Treatise, and the first is a powerful contribu tion to the deistic controversy, carrying the war into the prov ince of the theory of the general development of religious ideas, and contending that polytheism was the earliest as well as the most natural form of religious belief, and that theism or deism is the product of reflection upon experience.

In 1763 Hume accompanied Lord Hertford to Paris, doing the duties of secretary to the embassy, with the prospect of the appointment to that post. He was received with honour, and made many friends, among others D'Alembert and Turgot, the latter of whom profited much by Hume's economic essays. In 1766 he returned to Edinburgh. In 1767 he became under-secre tary to Gen. Conway at the Foreign Office and spent two years in London. He settled finally in Edinburgh in 1769, having now through his pension and otherwise an income of f i,000 a year. The solitary incident of note in this period of his life is the quarrel with Rousseau. Hume did his utmost to secure for Rous seau a comfortable retreat in England, but his usually sound judgment seems at first to have been quite at fault with regard to his protege. The quarrel which all the acquaintances of the two philosophers had predicted soon came, and no language had expressions strong enough for Rousseau's anger, which was, in fact, unreasonable. In one of his letters Hume describes his life in Edinburgh. The new house which was built under his own directions at the corner of what is now called St. David Street after him, became a centre of cultivated society. Hume's cheer ful temper, his equanimity, his kindness to literary aspirants and to those whose views differed from his own won him uni versal respect and affection. He welcomed the work of his friends (e.g., Robertson and Adam Smith), and warmly recog nized the worth of his opponents (e.g., George Campbell and Reid). He assisted Blackwell and Smollett in their difficulties and became the acknowledged patriarch of literature. In the spring of 1775 Hume was struck with a tedious and harassing though not painful illness, of which he died on Aug. 25, 1776.

Theory of Knowledge.

In the Treatise Hume attempted to apply the fundamental principles of Locke's empirical psychology to the construction of a theory of knowledge and the experimen tal method to the whole science of human nature. For him, as for Locke, the problem of psychology was the exact description of the contents of the individual mind, and the determination of the conditions of the origin and development of its conscious experience. Viewing the contents of mind as matter of experience, Hume could discover only the distinction expressed by the terms impressions and ideas. Ideas are secondary in nature, copies of data supplied we know not whence. All that appears in conscious experience as primary, as arising from some unknown cause, and therefore relatively as original, Hume designates by the term impression, and claims to imply by such terms no theory what soever as to the origin of this portion of experience. There is simply the fact of conscious experience, ultimate and inexplicable. The faculties of combining, discriminating, abstracting and judg ing, are merely expressions for particular modes of having mental experience, i.e., are modifications of conceiving. By this theory, Hume is freed from all the problems of abstraction and judg ment. A comparative judgment is simplified into an isolated per ception of a peculiar form, and a series of similar facts are grouped under a single symbol, representing a particular percep tion, and only by the accident of custom treated as universal.

Conscious experience then contains merely the succession of isolated impressions and their fainter copies, ideas bound together by merely natural or external links of connection, the principles of association among ideas. The foundations of cognition must be discovered by observation or analysis of experience so con ceived. Firstly, there are certain principles of cognition which appear to rest upon and to express relations of the universal elements in conscious experience, viz., space and time. The propo sitions of mathematics seem to be independent of special facts of experience, and to remain unchanged even when the concrete matter of experience varies. They are formal. In the second place, cognition, in any real sense of that term, implies connection between the present fact of experience and other facts, whether past or future. It appears to involve, therefore, some real rela tion among the portions of experience, on the basis of which relation judgments and inferences as to matters of fact can be shown to rest. The theoretical question is consequently that of the nature of the supposed relation, and of the certainty of judg ments and inferences resting on it. Hume's well-known distinc tion between relations of ideas and matters of fact corresponds fairly to this separation of the formal and real problems in the theory of cognition, although that distinction is in itself inade quate and not fully representative of Hume's own conclusions.

With regard, then, to the first problem, the formal element in knowledge, Hume's chief discussions concern the nature of the space and time relations in our experience and the mode in which the primary data, or facts of mathematical cognition, are obtained. The nature of space and time as elements in conscious experi ence is considered by Hume in relation to the special problem of their supposed infinite divisibility. The ultimate elements of experience must be real units, capable of being represented or imagined in isolation. Whence then do these units arise? In what classes of impressions do we find the elements of space and time? By this conception of conscious experience, Hume has to give some explanation of the nature of space and time which shall identify these with impressions, and at the same time to recognize the fact that they are not identical with any single impression or set of impressions. Certain impressions, the sensa tions of sight and touch, he says, have in themselves the element of space, for these impressions have a certain mode of arrange ment. This mode is common to coloured points and tangible points, and, considered separately, is the impression from which our idea of space is taken. All impressions and all ideas are re ceived, or form parts of a mental experience only when received in a certain order, the order of succession. This manner of pre senting themselves is the impression from which the idea of time arises. Hume here deliberately gives up his fundamental principle that ideas are but the fainter copies of impressions, for it can never be maintained that order of disposition is an impression, and, secondly, he fails to offer any explanation of the mode in which coexistence and succession are possible elements of cog nition in a conscious experience made up of isolated presenta tions and representations. For the consistency of his theory, however, it was indispensable that he should insist upon the real, i.e., presentative, character of the ultimate units of space and time.

How are the primary data of mathematical cognition to be derived from any experience containing space and time relations in the manner just stated? It is important to notice that Hume distinctly separates geometry from algebra and arithmetic, i.e., he views extensive quantity as being cognized differently from number. He holds that geometry is an empirical doctrine, a science founded on observation of concrete facts. The rough ap pearances of physical facts, their outlines, surfaces and so on, are the data of observation, and only by a method of approxima tion do we come near to the propositions of pure geometry. He definitely repudiates a view often ascribed to him, and certainly advanced by many later empiricists, that the data of geometry are hypothetical. The foundation of all the science of number is the fact that each element of conscious experience is presented as a unit, and we are capable of considering any fact or collection of facts as a unit. This manner of conceiving is absolutely general and distinct and accordingly affords the possibility of an all comprehensive and perfect science, the science of discrete quan tity. Hume nowhere explains the origin of the notions of unity and number, but merely asserts that through their means we can have absolutely exact and arithmetical propositions. Upon the nature of the reasoning by which in mathematical science we pass from data to conclusions, Hurne gives no explicit statement.

His theory of mathematics is a practical condemnation of his empirical theory of perception. He has not offered even a plaus ible explanation of the mode by which a consciousness made up of isolated momentary impressions and ideas can be aware of coexistence and number, or succession. The relations of ideas are accepted as facts of immediate observation, as being them selves perceptions or individual elements of conscious experience, and to all appearance they are regarded by Hume as being in a sense analytical, because the formal criterion of identity is ap plicable to them. It is applicable, however, not because the predicate is contained in the subject, but on the principle of con tradiction. If these judgments are admitted to be facts of immedi ate perception, the supposition of their non-existence is impossible.

Real Cognition and Causation.

Real cognition, Hume points out, implies transition from the present impression to something connected with it. This thing can only be an impres sion, not itself present, but represented by its copy or idea. Now the supreme all-comprehensive link of connection is that of causa tion. The idea in question is, therefore, the idea of something connected with the present impression as its cause or effect. But this is explicitly the idea of the said thing as having had or as about to have existence—in other words, belief in the existence of some matter of fact. What, for a conscious experience so con stituted is the precise significance of such a belief in real ex istence? Clearly the real existence of a fact is not demonstrable, for "whatever is may be conceived not to be. Existence of any fact, not present as a perception, can only be proved by argu ments from cause or effect. But as each perception is in consci ousness only as a contingent fact, which might not be or might be other than it is, the mind can conceive no necessary relations or connections among the several portions of its experience.

If, therefore, a present perception leads us to assert the ex istence of some other, this can only mean that in some natural, i.e., psychological, manner the idea of this other perception is excited, and that the idea is viewed by the mind in some peculiar fashion. The natural link of connection Hume finds in the simi larities presented by experience. One fact or perception is dis covered by experience to be uniformly or generally accompanied by another, and its occurrence therefore naturally excites the idea of that other. The ease and rapidity of the mental transition is the sole ground for the supposed necessity of the causal connec tion between portions of experience. The idea of necessity is not intuitively obvious; the ideas of cause and effect are correlative in our minds, but only as a result of experience.

The Self in Cognition.

The final problem of Hume's theory of knowledge is the discussion of the real significance of the two factors of cognition, self and external things. If there is nothing in conscious experience save what observation can disclose, while each act of observation is itself an isolated feeling (an impression or idea), it is manifest that a permanent identical thing can never be an object of experience. Whatever permanence or identity is ascribed to an impression or idea is the result of association with one of those "propensities to feign" which are due to natural connections among ideas. We regard as successive presentations of one thing the resembling feelings which are experienced in suc cession. Identity, then, whether of self or object, there is none, and the supposition of objects, distinct from impressions, is but a further consequence of our "propensity to feign." In the Appendix to the Treatise, Hume confesses that, in con fining all cognition to single perceptions and supplying no purely intellectual faculty for modifying and classifying their results, he has destroyed real knowledge altogether. He sees distinctly that if conscious experience be taken as containing only isolated states, no progress in explanation of cognition is possible, and that the only hope of further development is to be looked for in a radical change in our mode of conceiving experience.

Theology and Ethics.

The important Dialogues on Natural Religion introduce three interlocutors, Demea, Cleanthes and Philo. The first represents a certain a priori view, then regarded as the safest bulwark against infidelity, of which the main tenets were that the being of God was capable of a priori proof, and that, owing to the finitude of our facilities, the attributes and modes of operation of deity were incomprehensible. The second is the typical deist of Locke's school, holding that the only possible proof of God's existence was a posteriori from design, and that such proof was, on the whole, sufficient. The third represents the type of completed empiricism or scepticism, holding that no argument, either from reason or experience, can transcend experi ence, and consequently that no proof of God's existence is possi ble. Cleanthes, who maintains that the doctrine of the incom prehensibility of God is hardly distinguishable from atheism, is compelled by Philo to reduce to a minimum the conclusion capa ble of being inferred from experience as regards the existence of God. Philo stresses the weakness of the analogical argument, points out that the demand for an ultimate cause is no more satis fied by thought than by nature itself, shows that the argument from design cannot warrant the inference of a perfect or infinite or even of a single deity, and finally maintains that, as we have no experience of the origin of the world, no argument from ex perience can carry us to its origin, and that the apparent marks of design in the structure of animals are only results from the conditions of their actual existence. So far as the a priori argu ment is concerned, reason can never demonstrate a matter of fact, and, unless we know that the world had a beginning in time, we cannot insist that it must have had a cause. Demea then brings forward the ordinary theological topic, man's consciousness of his own imperfection, misery and dependent condition. Nature is throughout corrupt and polluted, but "the present evil phenom ena are rectified in other regions and in some future period of existence." Cleanthes, pointing out that from a nature thor oughly evil we can never prove the existence of an infinitely powerful and benevolent Creator, hazards the conjecture that the deity, though all-benevolent, is not all-powerful. Philo, however, pushing his principles to their full consequences, shows that unless we assumed (or knew) beforehand that the system of nature was the work of a benevolent but limited deity, we certainly could not, from the facts of nature, infer the benevolence of its Creator.

For Hume, ethics is not a purely rational science, since all our motives are desire for pleasure. Actions are virtuous when they contribute to the happiness of ourselves and others. Among vir tues useful or agreeable to their possessor he includes discretion, industry, frugality, sobriety and considerateness. Among those useful or agreeable to others are justice, fidelity to compacts, and veracity, the first two being "artificial" virtues due to civilization and worthy of approbation because of their useful consequences. Because motives are involved in all action, Hume desires the free dom of the will.

Hume's theory of knowledge expresses what may be called psy chological individualism or atomism; his ethics and doctrine of religion are but the logical consequences of this theory. So far as metaphysic is concerned he has given the final word of the empirical school, and all additions, whether from the specifically psychological side or from the general history of human culture, are subordinate in character. It is no exaggeration to say that the later English school of philosophy represented by J. S. Mill made in theory no advance beyond Hume ; the groundwork of the System of Logic is a mere reproduction of Hume's doctrine of knowledge, and the treatment in the posthumous essays on theism is in substance identical with that of the Dialogues on Natural Religion.

Economics.—Hume's services to economics may be summed up in two heads : (I) he established the relation between economic facts and the fundamental phenomena of social life, and (2) he introduced into the study of these facts the new historical method. Thus, without naming it, he describes the subject-matter and indi cates the true method of economic science. Of his economic es says, published in Political Discourses (1752) and Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects (1753), the most important are those on Commerce, on Money, on Interest, and on the Balance of Trade. In dealing with money, Hume refutes the mercantile school, which had tended to confound it with wealth. From the internal, as distinct from the international aspect, the absolute quantity of money, supposed as of fixed amount, in a country, is of no consequence, while a quantity larger than is required for the interchange of commodities is injurious, as tending to raise prices and to drive foreigners from the home markets. It is only during the period of acquisition of money, and before the rise in prices, that the accumulation of precious metals is advantageous. This principle is perhaps Hume's most important economic dis covery. Dealing with the phenomena of interest, he exposes the old fallacy that the rate depends upon the amount of money in a country. The reduction in the rate in general must result from "the increase of industry and frugality, of arts and commerce." In the matter of free-trade and protection he compromises. On the one hand, he condemns "the numerous bars, obstructions and imposts which all nations of Europe, and none more than Eng land, have put upon trade." On the other hand, he approves of a protective tax on German linen in favour of home manufactures, and of a tax on brandy as encouraging the sale of rum and so supporting our southern colonies. With regard to taxation he says that the best taxes are those levied on consumption, especially on luxuries, for these are least heavily felt. He denies that all taxes fall finally on the land. Superior frugality and industry on the part of the artisan will enable him to pay taxes without mechani cally raising the price of labour. For the modern expedient of raising money for national emergencies by way of loan he has a profound distrust. A national debt, he maintains, enriches the capital at the expense of the provinces; further, it creates a leisured class of stockholders, and possesses all the disadvantages of paper credit. Hume enunciated the principle that "everything in the world is purchased by labour, and our passions are the only cause of labour." Further, in analysing the complex phenomena of commerce, he is superior sometimes to Adam Smith, in that he never forgets that the ultimate causes of economic change are the "customs and manners" of the people, and that the true solu tion of problems is to be sought in the elementary factors of industry.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.-J.

H. Burton's Life and Correspondence of Hume Bibliography.-J. H. Burton's Life and Correspondence of Hume (2 vols., 1846) ; G. Birkbeck Hill, Letters of Hume to William Strahan; C. J. W. Francke, David Hume (Haarlem, 19o7) . Until 1874 the standard edition was that of 1826 (reprinted 1854), in 4 vols. The best modern edition is that in 4 vols. by T. H. Green and T. H. Grose (containing a valuable introduction and excellent bibliographical mat ter) ; the Enquiry and the Treatise were edited by L. A. Selby-Bigge (1894 and 1896) . The Treatise appeared in Everyman's Library 2 vols.

(191I).

See also G. Compayre, La Philosophie de D. Hume (1873) ; E. Pfleiderer, Empirismus and Skepsis in D. Humes Philosophie (1874) ; L. Stephen, English Thought in the 58th Century (1876) ; G. von Giiycki, Die Ethik D. Humes (1878) ; T. Huxley, Hume (1879) ; G. Lechartier, D. Hume, moraliste et sociologue (1900) ; M. Teisseire, Les essais economiques de Hume (5902) ; A. Schalz, L'oeuvre economique de Hume (5902) ; J. Seth, English Philosophers (1912) ; A. Thomsen, Hume, sein Leben and seine Philosophie (1912) ; W. R. Sorley, History of English Philosophy (1920) ; C. W. Hendel, Studies in the Philosophy of Hume (Princeton, 1925) ; A. E. Taylor, Hume and the Miraculous (1927). There is a full bibliography in Uberweg, Grundriss der Gesch. der Philosophic, vol. iii. (19i4).