part iv

., are real defects which must always render the _Treatise_ the more important work.

In 1749 Hume returned to Ninewells, enriched with "near a thousand pounds." In 1751 he removed to Edinburgh, where for the most part he resided during the next twelve years of his life. 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. It was translated into French by Mauvillon (1753) and by the Abbe le Blanc (1754). In the same year appeared the recast of the third book of the _Treatise_, called _Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals_, of which he says that "of all his writings, philosophical, literary or historical, it is incomparably the best." At this time also we hear of the _Dialogues concerning Natural Religion_, a work which Hume was prevailed on not to publish, but which he revised with great care, and evidently regarded with the greatest favour. The work itself, left by Hume with instructions that it should be published, did not appear till 1779.

In 1751 Hume was again unsuccessful in the attempt to gain a professor's chair. In the following year he received, in spite of the usual accusations of heresy, the librarianship of the Advocates' Library in Edinburgh, small in emoluments (L40 a year) but rich in opportunity for literary work. In a playful letter to Dr Clephane, he describes his satisfaction at his appointment, and attributes it in some measure to the support of "the ladies."

In 1753 Hume was fairly settled in Edinburgh, preparing for his _History of England_. He had decided to begin the _History_, not with Henry VII., as Adam Smith recommended, but 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 principles seems not to have been at first consciously unfair. As for the qualities necessary to secure success as a _writer_ on history, he felt that he possessed them in a high degree; and, though neither his ideal of an historian nor his equipment for the task of historical research would now appear adequate, in both he was much in advance of his time. "But," he writes in the well-known passage of his _Life_, "miserable was my disappointment. I was assailed by one cry of reproach, disapprobation, and even detestation; ... what was still more mortifying, the book seemed to sink into oblivion. Mr Millar told me that in a twelvemonth he sold only forty-five copies of it." This account must be accepted with reservations. It expresses Hume's feelings rather than the real facts. In Edinburgh, as we learn from one of his letters, the book succeeded well, no fewer than 450 copies being disposed of in five weeks. Nor is there anything in Hume's correspondence to show that the failure of the book was so complete as he declared. Within a very few years the sale of the _History_ was sufficient to gain for the author a larger revenue than had ever before been known in his country to flow from literature, and to place him in comparative affluence. He seems to have received L400 for the first edition of the first volume, L700 for the first edition of the second and L840 for the copyright of the two together. At the same time the bitterness of Hume's feelings and their effect are of importance in his life. It is from the publication of the _History_ that we date his virulent hatred of everything English, towards society in London, Whig principles, Whig ministers and the public generally (see Burton's _Life_, ii. 268, 417, 434). He was convinced that there was a conspiracy to suppress and destroy everything Scottish.[1] The remainder of the _History_ became little better than a party pamphlet. The second volume, 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 history of the constitution. In 1759 this portion of the work appeared, and in 1761 the work was completed by the history of the pre-Tudor periods. The numerous editions of the various portions--for, despite Hume's wrath and grumblings, the book was a great literary success--gave him an opportunity of careful revision, which he employed to remove from it all the "villainous seditious Whig strokes," and "plaguy prejudices of Whiggism" that he could detect. In other words, he bent all his efforts toward making his _History_ more of a party work than it had been, and in his effort he was entirely successful. The early portion of his _History_ may be regarded as now of little or no value. The sources at Hume's command were few, and he did not use them all. None the less, the _History_ has a distinct place in the literature of England. It 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, and the first historical writing in an animated yet refined and polished style.[2]

While the _History_ was in process of publication, Hume did not entirely neglect his other lines of activity. In 1757 appeared _Four Dissertations: The Natural History of Religion, Of the Passions, Of Tragedy, Of the Standard of Taste_. Of these the dissertation on the passions is a very subtle piece of psychology, containing the essence of the second book of the _Treatise_. It is remarkable that Hume does not appear to have been acquainted with Spinoza's analysis of the affections. The last two essays are contributions of no great importance to aesthetics, a department of philosophy in which Hume was not strong. The _Natural History of Religion_ is a powerful contribution to the deistic controversy; but, as in the case of Hume's earlier work, its significance was at the time overlooked. It is an attempt to carry the war into a province hitherto allowed to remain at peace, the theory of the general development of religious ideas. Deists, though raising doubts regarding the historic narratives of the Christian faith, had never disputed the general fact that belief in one God was natural and primitive. Hume endeavours to show 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, thus reducing the validity of the historical argument to that of the theoretical proofs.

In 1763 he accompanied Lord Hertford to Paris, doing the duties of secretary to the embassy, with the prospect of the appointment to that post. He was everywhere received "with the most extraordinary honours." The society of Paris was peculiarly ready to receive a great philosopher and historian, especially if he were known to be an avowed antagonist of religion, and Hume made valuable friendships, especially with D'Alembert and Turgot, the latter of whom profited much by Hume's economical essays. In 1766 he left Paris and returned to Edinburgh. In 1767 he accepted the post of under-secretary to General Conway and spent two years in London.

He settled finally in Edinburgh in 1769, having now through his pension and otherwise an income of L1000 a year. The solitary incident of note in this period of his life is the ridiculous quarrel with Rousseau, which throws much light upon the character of the great sentimentalist. Hume certainly did his utmost to secure for Rousseau 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. Hume came well out of the business, and had the sagacity to conclude that his admired friend was little better than a madman. In one of his most charming letters he describes his life in Edinburgh. The new house to which he alludes was built under his own directions at the corner of what is now called St David Street after him; it became the centre of the most cultivated society of Edinburgh. Hume's cheerful temper, his equanimity, his kindness to literary aspirants and to those whose views differed from his own won him universal respect and affection. He welcomed the work of his friends (e.g. Robertson and Adam Smith), and warmly recognized 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. A visit to Bath seemed at first to have produced good effects, but on the return journey more alarming symptoms developed themselves, his strength rapidly sank, and, little more than a month later, he died in Edinburgh on the 25th of August 1776.

No notice of Hume would be complete without the sketch of his character drawn by his own hand:--"To conclude historically with my own character, I am, or rather was (for that is the style I must now use in speaking of myself, which emboldens me the more to speak my sentiments),--I was, I say, a man of mild dispositions, of command of temper, of an open, social and cheerful humour, capable of attachment, but little susceptible of enmity, and of great moderation in all my passions. Even my love of literary fame, my ruling passion, never soured my temper, notwithstanding my frequent disappointments. My company was not unacceptable to the young and careless, as well as to the studious and literary; and as I took a particular pleasure in the company of modest women, I had no reason to be displeased with the reception I met with from them. In a word, though most men anywise eminent have found reason to complain of calumny, I never was touched, or even attacked, by her baleful tooth; and, though I wantonly exposed myself to the rage of both civil and religious factions, they seem to be disarmed on my behalf of their wonted fury. My friends never had occasion to vindicate any one circumstance of my character and conduct; not but that the zealots, we may well suppose, would have been glad to invent and propagate any story to my disadvantage, but they could never find any which they thought would wear the face of probability. I cannot say there is no vanity in making this funeral oration of myself, but I hope it is not a misplaced one; and this is a matter of fact which is easily cleansed and ascertained." The more his life has become known, the more confidence we place in this admirable estimate.

The results of Hume's speculations may be discussed under two heads:--(1) philosophical, (2) economical.

Philosophy.

1. The philosophical writings, which mark a distinct epoch in the development of modern thought, can here be considered in two only of the many aspects in which they present themselves as of the highest interest to the historian of philosophy. In the _Treatise of Human Nature_, which is in every respect the most complete exposition of Hume's philosophical conception, we have the first thorough-going attempt to apply the fundamental principles of Locke's empirical psychology to the construction of a theory of knowledge, and, as a natural consequence, the first systematic criticism of the chief metaphysical notions from this point of view. Hume, in that work, holds the same relation to Locke and Berkeley as the late J. S. Mill held with his _System of Logic_ to Hartley and James Mill. In certain of the later writings, pre-eminently in the _Dialogues on Natural Religion_, Hume brings the result of his speculative criticism to bear upon the problems of current theological discussion, and gives in their regard, as previously with respect to general philosophy, the final word of the empirical theory in its earlier form. The interesting parallel between Hume and J. S. Mill in this second feature will not be overlooked.

In the first instance, then, Hume's philosophical work is to be regarded as the attempt to supply for empiricism in psychology a consistent, that is, a logically developed theory of knowledge. In Locke, indeed, such theory is not wanting, but, of all the many inconsistencies in the _Essay on the Human Understanding_, none is more apparent or more significant than the complete want of harmony between the view of knowledge developed in the fourth book and the psychological principles laid down in the earlier part of the work. Though Locke, doubtless, drew no distinction between the problems of psychology and of theory of knowledge, yet the discussion of the various forms of cognition given in the fourth book of the _Essay_ seems to be based on grounds quite distinct from and in many respects inconsistent with the fundamental psychological principle of his work. The perception of relations, which, according to him, is the essence of cognition, the demonstrative character which he thinks attaches to our inference of God's existence, the intuitive knowledge of self, are doctrines incapable of being brought into harmony with the view of mind and its development which is the keynote of his general theory. To some extent Berkeley removed this radical inconsistency, but in his philosophical work it may be said with safety there are two distinct aspects, and while it holds of Locke on the one hand, it stretches forward to Kantianism on the other. Nor in Berkeley are these divergent features ever united into one harmonious whole. It was left for Hume to approach the theory of knowledge with full consciousness from the psychological point of view, and to work out the final consequences of that view so far as cognition is concerned. The terms which he employs in describing the aim and scope of his work are not those which we should now employ, but the declaration, in the introduction to the _Treatise_, that the science of human nature must be treated according to the experimental method, is in fact equivalent to the statement of the principle implied in Locke's _Essay_, that the problems of psychology and of theory of knowledge are identical. This view is the characteristic of what we may call the English school of philosophy.

Theory of knowledge.

In order to make perfectly clear the full significance of the principle which Hume applied to the solution of the chief philosophical questions, it is necessary to render somewhat more precise and complete the statement of the psychological view which lies at the foundation of the empirical theory, and to distinguish from it the problem of the theory of knowledge upon which it was brought to bear. Without entering into details, which it is the less necessary to do because the subject has been recently discussed with great fulness in works readily accessible, it may be said that for Locke as for Hume 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 conscious experience in the individual mind. And the answer to the problem which was furnished by Locke is in effect that with which Hume started. The conscious experience of the individual is the result of interaction between the individual mind and the universe of things. This solution presupposes a peculiar conception of the general relation between the mind and things which in itself requires justification, and which, so far at least as the empirical theory was developed by Locke and his successors, could not be obtained from psychological analysis. Either we have a right to the assumption contained in the conception of the individual mind as standing in relation to things, in which case the grounds of the assumption must be sought elsewhere than in the results of this reciprocal relation, or we have no right to the assumption, in which case reference to the reciprocal relation can hardly be accepted as yielding any solution of the psychological problem. But in any case,--and, as we shall see, Hume endeavours so to state his psychological premises as to conceal the assumption made openly by Locke,--it is apparent that this psychological solution does not contain the answer to the wider and radically distinct problem of the theory of knowledge. For here we have to consider how the individual intelligence comes to know any fact whatsoever, and what is meant by the cognition of a fact. With Locke, Hume professes to regard this problem as virtually covered or answered by the fundamental psychological theorem; but the superior clearness of his reply enables us to mark with perfect precision the nature of the difficulty inherent in the attempt to regard the two as identical. For purposes of psychological analysis the conscious experience of the individual mind is taken as given fact, to be known, i.e. observed, discriminated, classified and explained in the same way in which any one special portion of experience is treated. Now if this mode of treatment be accepted as the only possible method, and its results assumed to be conclusive as regards the problem of knowledge, the fundamental peculiarity of cognition is overlooked. In all cognition, strictly so-called, there is involved a certain synthesis or relation of parts of a characteristic nature, and if we attempt to discuss this synthesis as though it were in itself but one of the facts forming the _matter_ of knowledge, we are driven to regard this relation as being of the quite external kind discovered by observation among matters of knowledge. The difficulty of reconciling the two views is that which gives rise to much of the obscurity in Locke's treatment of the theory of knowledge; in Hume the effort to identify them, and to explain the synthesis which is essential to cognition as merely the accidental result of external relations among the elements of conscious experience, appears with the utmost clearness, and gives the keynote of all his philosophical work. The final perplexity, concealed by various forms of expression, comes forward at the close of the _Treatise_ as absolutely unsolved, and leads Hume, as will be pointed out, to a truly remarkable confession of the weakness of his own system.

While, then, the general idea of a theory of knowledge as based upon psychological analysis is the groundwork of the _Treatise_, it is a

## particular consequence of this idea that furnishes to Hume the

characteristic criterion applied by him to all philosophical questions. If the relations involved in the fact of cognition are only those discoverable by observation of any particular portion of known experience, then such relations are quite external and contingent. The only necessary relation which can be discovered in a given fact of experience is that of non-contradiction (i.e. purely formal); the thing must be what it is, and cannot be conceived as having qualities contradictory of its nature. The universal test, therefore, of any supposed philosophical principle is the possibility or impossibility of imagining its contradictory. All our knowledge is but the sum of our conscious experience, and is consequently material for imagination. "Let us fix our attention out of ourselves as much as possible; let us chase our imagination to the heavens or to the utmost limits of the universe; we never really advance a step beyond ourselves, nor can conceive any kind of existence, but those perceptions which have appeared in that narrow compass. This is the universe of the imagination, nor have we any idea but what is there produced." (_Works_, ed. of 1854, i. 93, cf. i. 107.)

The course of Hume's work follows immediately from his fundamental principle, and the several divisions of the treatise, so far as the theoretical portions are concerned, are but its logical consequences. The first part of the first book contains a brief statement of the contents of mind, a description of all that observation can discover in conscious experience. The second part deals with those judgments which rest upon the formal elements of experience, space and time. The third part discusses the principle of real connexion among the elements of experience, the relation of cause and effect. The fourth

## part is virtually a consideration of the ultimate significance of this

conscious experience, of the place it is supposed to occupy in the universe of existence, in other words, of the relations between the conscious experience of an individual mind as disclosed to observation and the supposed realities of self and external things.

Ideas and impressions.

In the first part Hume gives his own statement of the psychological foundations of his theory. Viewing the contents of mind as matter of experience, he can discover among them only one distinction, a 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 term no theory whatsoever as to the origin of this portion of experience. There is simply the fact of conscious experience, ultimate and inexplicable. Moreover, if we remain faithful to the fundamental conception that the contents of the mind are merely matters of experience, it is evident in the first place that as impressions are strictly individual, ideas also must be strictly particular, and in the second place that the faculties of combining, discriminating, abstracting and judging, which Locke had admitted, are merely expressions for particular modes of having mental experience, i.e. are modifications of _conceiving_ (cf. i. 128 n., 137, 192). By this theory, Hume is freed from all the problems of abstraction and judgment. A comparative judgment is simplified into an isolated perception of a peculiar form, and a series of similar facts are grouped under a single symbol, representing a particular perception, and only by the accident of custom treated as universal (see i. 37, 38, 100).

Such, in substance, is Hume's restatement of Locke's empirical view. Conscious experience consists of isolated states, each of which is to be regarded as a fact and is related to others in a quite external fashion. It remains to be seen how knowledge can be explained on such a basis; but, before proceeding to sketch Hume's answer to this question, it is necessary to draw attention, first, to the peculiar device invariably resorted to by him when any exception to his general principle that ideas are secondary copies of impressions presents itself, and, secondly, to the nature of the substitute offered by him for that perception of relations or synthesis which even in Locke's confused statements had appeared as the essence of cognition. Whenever Hume finds it impossible to recognize in an idea the mere copy of a

## particular impression, he introduces the phrase "manner of

conceiving." Thus general or abstract ideas arc merely copies of a

## particular impression conceived in a particular manner. The ideas of

space and time, as will presently be pointed out, are copies of impressions conceived in a particular manner. The idea of necessary connexion is merely the reproduction of an impression which the mind _feels_ itself compelled to conceive in a particular manner. Such a fashion of disguising difficulties points, not only to an inconsistency in Hume's theory as stated by himself, but to the initial error upon which it proceeds; for these perplexities are but the consequences of the doctrine that cognition is to be explained on the basis of particular perceptions. These external relations are, in fact, what Hume describes as the natural bonds of connexion among ideas, and, regarded subjectively as principles of association among the facts of mental experience, they form the substitute he offers for the synthesis implied in knowledge. These principles of association determine the imagination to combine ideas in various modes, and by this mechanical combination Hume, for a time, endeavoured to explain what are otherwise called judgments of relation. It was impossible, however, for him to carry out this view consistently. The only combination which, even in appearance, could be explained satisfactorily by its means was the formation of a complex idea out of simpler parts, but the idea of a relation among facts is not accurately described as a complex idea; and, as such relations have no basis in impressions, Hume is finally driven to a confession of the absolute impossibility of explaining them. Such confession, however, is only reached after a vigorous effort had been made to render some account of knowledge by the experimental method.

Association.

The psychological conception, then, on the basis of which Hume proceeds to discuss the theory of knowledge, is that of conscious experience as containing merely the succession of isolated impressions and their fainter copies, ideas, and as bound together by merely natural or external links of connexion, the principles of association among ideas. The foundations of cognition must be discovered by observation or analysis of experience so conceived. Hume wavers somewhat in his division of the various kinds of cognition, laying stress now upon one now upon another of the points in which mainly they differ from one another. Nor is it of the first importance, save with the view of criticizing his own consistency, that we should adopt any of the divisions implied in his exposition. For practical purposes we may regard the most important discussions in the _Treatise_ as falling under two heads. In the first place 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 propositions of mathematics seem to be independent of this or that special fact 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 connexion for the individual mind between the present fact of experience and other facts, whether past or future. It appears to involve, therefore, some real relation 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 judgments and inferences resting on it.

Hume's well-known distinction 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 inadequate and not fully representative of Hume's own conclusions.

With regard, then, to the first problem, the formal element in knowledge, Hume has to consider several questions, distinct in nature and hardly discriminated by him with sufficient precision. For a complete treatment of this portion of the theory of knowledge, there require to be taken into consideration at least the following points: (a) the exact nature and significance of the space and time relations in our experience, (b) the mode in which the primary data, facts or principles, of mathematical cognition are obtained, (c) the nature, extent and certainty of such data, in themselves and with reference to the concrete material of experience, (d) the principle of inference from the data, however obtained. Not all of these points are discussed by Hume with the same fulness, and with regard to some of them it is difficult to state his conclusions. It will be of service, however, to attempt a summary of his treatment under these several heads,--the more so as almost all expositions of his philosophy are entirely defective in the account given of this essential portion. The brief statement in the _Inquiry_, S iv., is of no value, and indeed is almost unintelligible unless taken in reference to the full discussion contained in