CHAPTER VIII.. 1751-1752. æt. 40-41.

1751-1752. ÆT. 40-41.

Sir Gilbert Elliot--Hume's intimacy with him--Their Philosophical Correspondence--Dialogues on Natural Religion-- Residence in Edinburgh--Jack's Land--Publication of the "Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals"--The Utilitarian Theory--Attempt to obtain the Chair of Moral Philosophy in Glasgow--Competition with Burke--Publication of the "Political Discourses"--The foundation of Political Economy--French Translations.

Foremost in that body of accomplished gentlemen, whose friendship and companionship afforded to Hume so much pleasure and instruction, was Mr. afterwards Sir Gilbert Elliot of Minto. A small portion of the letters, of which their correspondence consists, has already been embodied in philosophical literature;[320:1] and I have now, through the favour of the noble descendant of the person to whom they were addressed, an opportunity of presenting the reader with all those portions of Hume's letters to Sir Gilbert Elliot, now existing, which have any claim on public attention, whether as containing valuable philosophical speculations, or throwing light on the social habits and intercourse of the two distinguished correspondents.[320:2]

Sir Gilbert Elliot was the third baronet of the family of Minto, who bore the same Christian name.[320:3] He joined the Scottish bar, though he does not seem to have sought professional practice.

He was, for a considerable period, a member of Parliament, and among other offices held that of treasurer of the navy.[321:1] In lighter literature he is known as the author of some pretty pieces of poetry, among which, the popular song of "My Sheep I neglected," is well esteemed by the admirers of pastoral lyrics. His acquirements as a scholar and philosopher are amply attested by his correspondence with Hume.

HUME to GILBERT ELLIOT of Minto.

"Ninewells, near Berwick, 10th February, 1751.

"DEAR SIR,--About six weeks ago, I gave our friend, Jack Stuart, the trouble of delivering you a letter, and some papers enclosed, which I was desirous to submit to your criticism and examination. I say not this by way of compliment and ceremonial, but seriously and in good earnest: it is pretty usual for people to be pleased with their own performance, especially in the heat of composition; but I have scarcely wrote any thing more whimsical, or whose merit I am more diffident of.

"But, in sending in these papers, I am afraid that I have not taken the best step towards conveying them to your hand. I should also have wrote you to ask for them, otherwise, perhaps, our friend may wear them out in his pocket, and forget the delivery of them: be so good, therefore, as to desire them from him, and having read them at your leisure, return them to him in a packet, and he will send them to me by the carrier. You would easily observe what I mentioned to you, that they had a reference to some other work, and were not complete in themselves: but, with this allowance, are they tolerable?"[322:1]

The paper to which the following letter refers, was published as an appendix to the "Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals," to be shortly noticed, and was simply termed, "A Dialogue." It is, perhaps, more imaginative than any other of Hume's works, "The Epicurean" not excepted. It draws startling contrasts, by taking from ancient and modern times, two communities of men strikingly opposed to each other in habits, and describing those of the one in the social language of the other. In this manner, it gives an account of the vices of the Greeks, in the manner in which they would be described by a modern fashionable Englishman, seeking pleasure and companionship in Greece, as it was in the days of Alcibiades. This method of exhibiting national manners through the magnifying glass of national prejudices, has, in later times, been frequently adopted,[322:2] and, perhaps, owes its popularity to the success with which it was exhibited in Montesquieu's "Lettres Persanes," and Goldsmith's "Citizen of the World."

GILBERT ELLIOT of Minto, to HUME.

February, 1751.

DEAR SIR,--I have read over your Dialogue, with all the application I am master of. Though I have never looked into any thing of your writing, which did not either entertain or instruct me; yet, I must freely own to you, that I have received from this last piece an additional satisfaction, and what indeed I have a thousand times wished for in some of your other performances. In the first part of this work, you have given full scope to the native bent of your genius. The ancients and moderns, how opposite soever in other respects, equally combine in favour of the most unbounded scepticism. Principles, customs, and manners, the most contradictory, all seemingly lead to the same end; and agreeably to your laudable practice, the poor reader is left in the most disconsolate state of doubt and uncertainty. When I had got thus far, what do you think were my sentiments? I will not be so candid as to tell you; but how agreeable was my surprise, when I found you had led me into this maze, with no other view, than to point out to me more clearly the direct road. Why can't you always write in this manner? Indulge yourself as much as you will in starting difficulties, and perplexing received opinions: but let us be convinced at length, that you have not less ability to establish true principles, than subtlety to detect false ones. This unphilosophical, or, if you will, this lazy disposition of mine, you are at liberty to treat as you think proper; yet am I no enemy to free inquiry, and I would gladly flatter myself, no slave to prejudice or authority. I admit also that there is no writing or talking of any subject that is of importance enough to become the object of reasoning, without having recourse to some degree of subtlety or refinement. The only question is, where to stop,--how far we can go, and why no farther. To this question I should be extremely happy to receive a satisfactory answer. I can't tell if I shall rightly express what I have just now in my mind: but I often imagine to myself, that I perceive within me a certain instinctive feeling, which shoves away at once all subtle refinements, and tells me with authority, that these air-built notions are inconsistent with life and experience, and, by consequence cannot be true or solid. From this I am led to think, that the speculative principles of our nature ought to go hand in hand with the practical ones; and, for my own part, when the former are so far pushed, as to leave the latter quite out of sight, I am always apt to suspect that we have transgressed our limits. If it should be asked--how far will these practical principles go? I can only answer, that the former difficulty will recur, unless it be found that there is something in the intellectual part of our nature, resembling the moral sentiment in the moral part of our nature, which determines this, as it were, instinctively. Very possibly I have wrote nonsense. However, this notion first occurred to me at London, in conversation with a man of some depth of thinking; and talking of it since to your friend H. Home, he seems to entertain some notions nearly of the same kind, and to have pushed them much farther.

This is but an idle digression, so I return to the Dialogue.

With regard to the composition in general, I have nothing to observe, as it appears to me to be conducted with the greatest propriety, and the artifice in the beginning occasions, I think, a very agreeable surprise. I don't know, if, in the account of the modern manners, you an eye to Bruyere's introduction to his translation of Theophrastes.[324:1] If you had not, as he has a thought handled pretty much in that manner, perhaps looking into it might furnish some farther hints to embellish that part of your work.[324:2]

HUME to GILBERT ELLIOT of Minto.

"Ninewells, 19th February, 1751.

"DEAR SIR,--Your notion of correcting subtlety of sentiment, is certainly very just with regard to morals, which depend upon sentiment; and in politics and natural philosophy, whatever conclusion is contrary to certain matters of fact, must certainly be wrong, and there must some error lie somewhere in the argument, whether we be able to show it or not. But in metaphysics or theology, I cannot see how either of these plain and obvious standards of truth can have place. Nothing there can correct bad reasoning but good reasoning, and sophistry must be opposed by syllogisms. About seventy or eighty years ago, I observe, a principle like that which you advance prevailed very much in France among some philosophers and beaux esprits. The occasion of it was this: The famous Mons. Nicole of the Port Royal, in his Perpétuité de la Foi,[325:1] pushed the Protestants very hard upon the impossibility of the people's reaching a conviction of their religion by the way of private judgment; which required so many disquisitions, reasonings, researches, eruditions, impartiality, and penetration, as not one in a hundred even among men of education, is capable of. Mons. Claude and the Protestants answered him, not by solving his difficulties, (which seems impossible,) but by retorting them, (which is very easy.) They showed that to reach the way of authority which the Catholics insist on, as long a train of acute reasoning, and as great erudition, was requisite, as would be sufficient for a Protestant. We must first prove all the truths of natural religion, the foundation of morals, the divine authority of the Scripture, the deference which it commands to the church, the tradition of the church, &c. The comparison of these controversial writings begot an idea in some, that it was neither by reasoning nor authority we learn our religion, but by sentiment: and certainly this were a very convenient way, and what a philosopher would be very well pleased to comply with, if he could distinguish sentiment from education. But to all appearance the sentiment of Stockholm, Geneva, Rome ancient and modern, Athens and Memphis, have the same characters; and no sensible man can implicitly assent to any of them, but from the general principle, that as the truth in these subjects is beyond human capacity, and that as for one's own ease he must adopt some tenets, there is most satisfaction and convenience in holding to the Catholicism we have been first taught. Now this I have nothing to say against. I have only to observe, that such a conduct is founded on the most universal and determined scepticism, joined to a little indolence; for more curiosity and research gives a direct opposite turn from the same principles.

"I have amused myself lately with an essay or dissertation on the populousness of antiquity, which led me into many disquisitions concerning both the public and domestic life of the ancients. Having read over almost all the classics both Greek and Latin, since I formed that plan, I have extracted what served most to my purpose. But I have not a Strabo, and know not where to get one in this neighbourhood. He is an author I never read. I know your library--I mean the Advocates'--is scrupulous of lending classics; but perhaps that difficulty may be got over. I should be much obliged to you, if you could procure me the loan of a copy, either in the original language or even in a good translation.

"The Greeks had military dances, particularly the Pyrrhicha; but these were not practised in their festivals nor amidst their jollity. Their way of dancing was very good for an indolent fellow; for commonly they rose not from their seats, but moved their arms and head in cadence. 'Tis difficult to imagine there could be much grace in that kind of dancing.

"I send you enclosed a little endeavour at drollery, against some people who care not much to be joked upon.[327:1] I have frequently had it in my intentions to write a supplement to Gulliver, containing the ridicule of priests. 'Twas certainly a pity that Swift was a parson; had he been a lawyer or physician, we had nevertheless been entertained at the expense of these professions: but priests are so jealous, that they cannot bear to be touched on that head, and for a plain reason, because they are conscious they are really ridiculous. That part of the Doctor's subject is so fertile, that a much inferior genius I am confident might succeed in it.

"Tell Jack Stuart, as soon as you see him, that I have sent you the copy, if he can make any thing of it. I intended to have had it printed, but I know not how--I find it will not do. If you like the thing, I wish you would contrive together some way of getting over the difficulties that have arisen, the most strangely in the world. I am, &c."[327:2]

Among the papers submitted to the inspection of Mr. Elliot, were the "Dialogues concerning Natural Religion," which were not published until after their author's death, but which the following letter shows to have been written before the year 1751. The manuscript of this work[328:1] is full of emendations and corrections; and while the sentiments appear to be substantially the same as when they were first set down, the alterations in the method of announcing them are a register of the improvements in their author's style, for a period apparently of twenty-seven years. Here at least he could not plead the excuse of youth and indiscretion. The work, penned in the full vigour of his faculties, comes to us with the sanction of his mature years, and his approval when he was within sight of the grave. Whatever sentiments, therefore, in this work, may be justly found to excite censure, carry with them a reproach from which their author's name cannot escape.

The Dialogues are written with a solemn simplicity of tone worthy of the character of the subject. The structure is in a great measure that of Cicero, though there appears not, as there generally does in the conversations professed to be recorded by the Roman moralist, any one mind completely predominating over the others. Of the interlocutors, Philo presents himself, at first as a materialist of the Spinoza school, who finds that the material world has within itself the principles of its own motion and development--the operating causes that produce its phenomena; while he denies that these phenomena exhibit an all perfect structure. He is not, however, a man of settled opinions, but rather a sceptical demolisher of other people's views; and we find him saying, "I must confess that I am less cautious on the subject of natural religion than on any other; both because I know that I can never, on that head, corrupt the principles of any man of common sense; and because no one, I am confident, in whose eyes I appear a man of common sense, will ever mistake my intentions. You in particular, Cleanthes, with whom I live in unreserved intimacy, you are sensible, that notwithstanding the freedom of my conversation, and my love of singular arguments, no one has a deeper sense of religion impressed on his mind, or pays more profound adoration to the Divine Being, as he discovers himself to reason, in the inexplicable contrivance and artifice of nature."

Cleanthes, another speaker, has created a natural religion of his own--a system of Theism, in which, by induction from the beautiful order and mechanism of the world, he has reasoned himself into the belief of an all-wise and all-powerful Supreme Being. He holds, that "the most agreeable reflection which it is possible for human imagination to suggest, is that of genuine Theism, which represents us as the workmanship of a being perfectly good, wise, and powerful, who created us for happiness; and who, having implanted in us immeasurable desires of good, will prolong our existence to all eternity, and will transfer us into an infinite variety of scenes, in order to satisfy those desires, and render our felicity complete and durable." And, strangely enough, it is with this one that the author shows most sympathy, very nearly professing that the doctrine announced by Cleanthes is his own; while it will be found in his correspondence, that he admits his having designedly endeavoured to make the argument of that speaker the most attractive. This is another illustration of the inapplicability of perfectly abstract metaphysical disquisitions to religious faith; for, if there is any system of religion that is incompatible with Hume's metaphysical opinions on ideas and impressions, it is a system that is, like this of Cleanthes, the workmanship of human reason. The third speaker, Demea, is a devoutly religious man, who, not venturing to create a system of belief for himself, sees in the order of the world such a merciful and wise dispensation of Divine Providence, as induces him to receive the whole revealed scheme of religion without questioning those parts of it which are beyond his comprehension, any more than he questions those of which the wisdom and goodness are immediately apparent.

The general scope and purport of the Dialogues are not unlike those of Voltaire's Jenni. In both, the argument on natural theology, illustrating the existence of a ruling mind from the general order and harmony of created things, is adduced, and is measured with its counterpart, the argument from the imperfection of earthly things, and the calamities and unhappiness of the beings standing at the head of the whole social order, mankind. But in the mere similarity of the argument the resemblance stops; no two performances can be more unlike each other in tone and spirit than the English sceptic's honest search after truth, and the French infidel's ribald sport with all that men love and revere. The contrast may be found not only in these individual men, but in the two classes of thinkers at the head of which they respectively stood. Hume represented the cautious conscientious inquiry, which has established many truths and gradually ameliorated social evils; the Frenchman directed that scornful, careless, and cruel sport with whatever is dear and important to humanity, which one day bowed to absolute despotism, and the next destroyed the whole fabric of social order.[331:1]

HUME to GILBERT ELLIOT of Minto.

"Ninewells, near Berwick, March 10, 1751.

"DEAR SIR,--You would perceive by the sample I have given you, that I make Cleanthes the hero of the dialogue: whatever you can think of, to strengthen that side of the argument, will be most acceptable to me. Any propensity you imagine I have to the other side, crept in upon me against my will; and 'tis not long ago that I burned an old manuscript book, wrote before I was twenty, which contained, page after page, the gradual progress of my thoughts on that head. It began with an anxious search after arguments, to confirm the common opinion; doubts stole in, dissipated, returned; were again dissipated, returned again; and it was a perpetual struggle of a restless imagination against inclination, perhaps against reason.

"I have often thought, that the best way of composing a dialogue, would be for two persons that are of different opinions about any question of importance, to write alternately the different parts of the discourse, and reply to each other: by this means, that vulgar error would be avoided, of putting nothing but nonsense into the mouth of the adversary; and at the same time, a variety of character and genius being upheld, would make the whole look more natural and unaffected. Had it been my good fortune to live near you, I should have taken on me the character of Philo, in the dialogue, which you'll own I could have supported naturally enough; and you would not have been averse to that of Cleanthes. I believe, too, we could both of us have kept our tempers very well; only, you have not reached an absolute philosophical indifference on these points. What danger can ever come from ingenious reasoning and inquiry? The worst speculative sceptic ever I knew, was a much better man than the best superstitious devotee and bigot. I must inform you, too, that this was the way of thinking of the ancients on this subject. If a man made a profession of philosophy, whatever his sect was, they always expected to find more regularity in his life and manners, than in those of the ignorant and illiterate. There is a remarkable passage of Appian to this purpose. That historian observes, that notwithstanding the established prepossession in favour of learning, yet some philosophers, who have been trusted with absolute power, have very much abused it; and he instances Critias, the most violent of the thirty, and Ariston, who governed Athens in the time of Sylla: but I find, upon inquiry, that Critias was a professed Atheist, and Ariston an Epicurean, which is little or nothing different. And yet Appian wonders at their corruption, as much as if they had been Stoics or Platonists. A modern zealot would have thought that corruption unavoidable.

"I could wish Cleanthes' argument could be so analyzed, as to be rendered quite formal and regular. The propensity of the mind towards it,--unless that propensity were as strong and universal as that to believe in our senses and experience,--will still, I am afraid, be esteemed a suspicious foundation. 'Tis here I wish for your assistance; we must endeavour to prove that this propensity is somewhat different from our inclination to find our own figures in the clouds, our faces in the moon, our passions and sentiments even in inanimate matter. Such an inclination may, and ought to be controlled, and can never be a legitimate ground of assent.

"The instances I have chosen for Cleanthes are, I hope, tolerably happy, and the confusion in which I represent the sceptic seems natural, but--si quid novisti rectius, &c.

"You ask me, 'If the idea of cause and effect is nothing but vicinity,' (you should have said constant vicinity, or, regular conjunction,) I should be glad to know whence is that farther idea of causation against which you argue? This question is pertinent, but I hope I have answered it; we feel, after the constant conjunction, an easy transition from one idea to the other, or a connexion in the imagination; and as it is usual for us to transfer our own feelings to the objects on which they are dependent, we attach the internal sentiment to the external objects. If no single instances of cause and effect appear to have any connexion, but only repeated similar ones, you will find yourself obliged to have recourse to this theory.

"I am sorry our correspondence should lead us into these abstract speculations. I have thought, and read, and composed very little on such questions of late. Morals, Politics, and Literature have employed all my time; but still the other topics I must think more curious, important, entertaining, and useful, than any geometry that is deeper than Euclid. If in order to answer the doubts started, new principles of philosophy must be laid, are not these doubts themselves very useful? Are they not preferable to blind, and ignorant assent? I hope I can answer my own doubts; but if I could not, is it to be wondered at? To give myself airs, and speak magnificently, might I not observe, that Columbus did not conquer empires and plant colonies?

"If I have not unravelled the knot so well, in those last papers I sent you, as perhaps I did in the former, it has not, I assure you, proceeded from want of good will; but some subjects are easier than others: at some times one is happier in his researches and inquiries than at others. Still I have recourse to the si quid novisti rectius; not in order to pay you a compliment, but from a real philosophical doubt and curiosity.[334:1]

"I do not pay compliments, because I do not desire them. For this reason, I am very well pleased you speak so coldly of my petition. I had, however, given orders to have it printed, which perhaps may be executed, though I believe I had better have let it alone; not because it will give you offence, but because it will give no entertainment; not because it may be called profane, but because it may perhaps be deservedly called dull. To tell the truth, I was always so indifferent about fortune, and especially now, that I am more advanced in life, and am a little more at my ease, suited to my extreme frugality, that I neither fear nor hope any thing from man; and am very indifferent either about offence or favour. Not only, I would not sacrifice truth and reason to political views, but scarce even a jest. You may tell me, I ought to have reversed the order of these points, and put the jest first: as it is usual for people to be the fondest of their performances on subjects on which they are least made to excel, and that, consequently, I would give more to be thought a good droll, than to have the praises of erudition, and subtilty, and invention.--This malicious insinuation, I will give no answer to, but proceed with my subject.

"I find, however, I have no more to say on it, but to thank you for Strabo. If the carrier who will deliver this to you do not find you at home, you will please send the book to his quarters; his name is Thomas Henderson, the Berwick carrier; he leaves town on the Thursdays, about the middle of the day; he puts up at James Henderson, stabler, betwixt the foot of Cant's Close and Blackfriar's Wynd. After you have done with these papers, please return them by the same carrier; but there is no hurry; on the contrary the longer you keep them, I shall still believe you are thinking the more seriously to execute what I desire of you. I am, dear Sir,

"Yours most sincerely."

"P.S.--If you'll be persuaded to assist me with Cleanthes, I fancy you need not take matters any higher than part 3d. He allows, indeed, in