Part 9

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We had rather anticipated that we should find Hume among those “zealous and refined theists” who point to the “beautiful connection” and “single plan” of nature as to the ultimate evidence of an intelligence back of it. But now that we have gathered together his important denials, we begin to feel that Hume’s “zeal” for theism must be of the most restrained order, that the “refinement” of his proof must approach attenuation.

And so in the end, it proves. Not but that there are emphatic enough avowals of conviction: “The whole frame of nature bespeaks an intelligent author;” we find it written, “and no rational enquirer can, after serious reflection, suspend his belief a moment with regard to the primary principles of genuine Theism and Religion.” But this firmness of assertion is not an enduring mood. Elsewhere we find at least one “rational enquirer” suspending his belief, not for a moment, but indefinitely. The essay which opens with the passage just quoted concludes with these words: “The whole is a riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery. Doubt, uncertainty, suspense of judgment appear the only result of our most accurate scrutiny concerning this subject. But such is the frailty of human reason, and such the irresistible contagion of opinion, that even this deliberate doubt could scarcely be upheld did we not enlarge our view, and opposing one species of superstition to another, set them-a-quarrelling; while we ourselves, during their fury and contention, happily make our escape into the calm, though obscure regions of philosophy.”

To explain this flickering mood, one is abandoned to one’s own insight into the nature of the man and into the conditions of his problem. In the first connection, we make it out that Hume’s genial bearing before men cloaked, in a seemly well-bred fashion, a deep seriousness of character, just as the light tone of certain of Plato’s dialogues is chosen as a fit medium for the setting forth of lofty ideas in polite company. At sixteen, before he had acquired this pudeur of high sounding discourse, we find him writing to his friend Michael Ramsay with the shameless solemnity of a Roman sage: “The perfectly wise man that outbraves fortune is much greater than the husbandman who slips by her, and indeed that pastoral and saturnian happiness I have in a great measure come at just now--” and more of the like! We may safely take it that the sage of sixteen had not died in the man of sixty, for all that the latter preferred to talk with his worldly friends of “soupe à la reine and beef and cabbage (a charming dish).” Well, then, in common with most natures possessed of a like “high seriousness,” Hume would have preferred to see the world in a religious light, would instinctively have looked in it too for high purpose. And this high purpose, he seemed to see it out of the corner of his eye as one does the first star in the twilight. But when he sought it with full, clear vision--it was gone.

The reason for this phenomenon may, perhaps, lie in the nature of the problem as Hume habitually thought of it. It was, there could be no doubt of it, the order and uniformity of nature that was to reveal to us an intelligent cause. But in daily life, as in the highest philosophy, we recognize two kinds of order and uniformity in our experience. It is an established rule that a stone will fall to the earth, that all stones will fall in the same way, that a single law describes a behavior common to this stone’s falling and to the planets’ swinging in their orbits, a law we imagine to hold for every particle of matter in the universe in its reaction toward every other, and which we call the law of gravitation. The law of gravitation is about as high an expression of a uniformity holding throughout nature as we have as yet come upon. Such laws as those of physics and chemistry are among the best attested results of experience, and we may stare at them quite boldly without fear of putting them out of countenance; but then, too, we may examine them as intently as we will without finding in them the revelation of an intelligence that framed them. For merely as such laws they make no reference to a purpose to which the mechanism they govern is adapted.

But there is quite another type of uniformity which we are ever discovering and appealing to, if not in the whole of nature, at least in many of its parts. Hume calls it “unity of plan,” and he points to the general adaptation of the organs of the body to the end of preserving the life of that body. And where we find such adaptation of various means to a single end, we ascribe life and even intelligence to the organic whole. Nature, from this point of view, is full of life and intelligence. Or, rather, should we not say it is full of lives and intelligences? Here indeed, is the difficulty; can we treat the whole cosmos as one great organism? Can we find one supreme end that all the obvious minor ends subserve, as they in turn are served by diverse means? Or, as another similar possibility, can we establish an analogy between the cosmos and a machine of human invention, an implement of the arts,--a watch, say, to follow Paley’s argument? Here, too, we must find a purpose, for a machine is not merely a mechanism--it is a mechanism with a function.

Many excellent minds have expended themselves on this problem, whose difficulty is supreme, and I think we shall not be far wrong in asserting that it is at moments when the issue presents itself in this way to Hume’s mind that “doubt,” as he says, “uncertainty, suspense of judgment appear the only result of our most accurate scrutiny.” There seems something beyond Hume’s usual imperturbability in the words with which one of his dialogues concludes: “Believe me, Cleanthes, the most natural sentiment which a well-disposed mind will feel on this occasion, is a longing desire and expectation that Heaven would be pleased to dissipate, at least alleviate, this profound ignorance, by affording some more particular revelation to mankind, and making discoveries of the nature, attributes and operations of the divine object of our faith.” But perhaps this is only a phrase, for nowhere else do the lips of Hume shape the words “revelation” and “faith” but that the lines of mockery are seen to form around them.

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In this state of mind respecting theology, it is inevitable that Hume should struggle in quite a pagan spirit with the problem of human wisdom. Our experience of life being what it is, how may man most successfully attain to happiness, and what relation has the line of conduct which prudence would recommend to that which has been traditionally regarded as virtuous?

But first, has there been any one principle of conduct that defines it as virtuous; or are there as many notions of virtue as there are communities with more or less independent traditions? It is a problem of ethics upon which every inquirer from Socrates down has spent his best thought.

There is a little dialogue of Hume’s that suggests the nature of the problem and hints at a solution in a way altogether charming. “My friend, Palamedes,” the narrator begins, “who is as great a rambler in his thoughts as in his person, ... surprised me lately with an account of a nation with whom he told me he had passed a considerable part of his life, and whom he found, in the main, a people extremely civilized and intelligent.

“‘There is a country,’ said he, ‘in the world called Fourli, no matter for its longitude and latitude, whose inhabitants have ways of thinking in many things, particularly in morals, diametrically opposite to ours....

“‘As it was my fortune to come among this people on a very advantageous footing, I was immediately introduced to the best company; and being desired by Alcheic to live with him, I readily accepted his invitation, as I found him universally esteemed for his personal merit, and indeed regarded by every one in Fourli as a perfect character.’”

And we are thereupon regaled with a display of Alcheic’s virtues. We accompany him first in a serenade that he offers, not indeed to his lady-love, but to a certain youth, and we learn in this connection, that Alcheic, himself, who had been very handsome in his youth, had been courted by many lovers, but had bestowed his favors chiefly on the sage Elcouf, to whom he was supposed to owe, in great measure, the astonishing progress he had made in philosophy and wisdom. “It gave me great surprise,” the traveller adds, “that Alcheic’s wife (who by-the-by, happened also to be his sister) was no wise scandalized at this species of infidelity.”

Later it appears that Alcheic was a murderer and a parricide; and when asked what was his motive for this action, he replies coolly that he “was not then so much at ease in his circumstances as he is at present, and that he had acted in that particular at the advice of all his friends.”

But that, of all his actions, which was most highly applauded by the Fourlians, was the assassination of Usbek. “This Usbek had been to the last moment Alcheic’s intimate friend, had laid many high obligations upon him, had even saved his life on a certain occasion, and had, by his will, which was found after the murder, made him heir to a considerable part of his fortune. Alcheic, it seems, conspired with about twenty or thirty more, most of them also Usbek’s friends; and falling all together on that unhappy man when he was not aware, they had torn him with a hundred wounds, and given him that reward for all his past favors and obligations.” Usbek “had many great and good qualities; ... but this action of Alcheic’s sets him far above Usbek in the eyes of all judges of merit; and is one of the noblest that ever perhaps the sun shone upon.”

Other splendid achievements of this gentleman are recounted, and the list might have been longer had not the narrator interrupted his friend. “Pray,” said he, “Palamedes, when you were at Fourli, did you also learn the art of turning your friends into ridicule by telling them strange stories, and then laughing at them if they believed you?” “I assure you,” replied the traveller, “had I been disposed to learn such a lesson there was no place in the world more proper. My friend did nothing from morning to night but sneer and banter and rally; and you could scarcely ever distinguish whether he were in jest or earnest. But you think, then, that my story is improbable, and that I have used, or rather abused, the privilege of a traveller?”

“To be sure,” said I, “you were but in jest. Such barbarous and savage manners are not only incompatible with a civilized intelligent people, such as you said those were; but are scarcely compatible with human nature. They exceed all we ever read among the Mingrelians and Topinamboues.”

“Have a care,” cried Palamedes, “have a care! You are not aware that you are speaking blasphemy, and are abusing your favorites, the Greeks, especially the Athenians, whom I have couched all along under these bizarre names I employed. If you consider aright, there is not one stroke of the foregoing character which might not be found in the man of highest merit at Athens.... The amours of the Greeks, their marriages (the laws of Athens allowed a man to marry his sister by the father), and the exposing of their children cannot but strike you immediately. The death of Usbek is an exact counterpart to that of Caesar,”--and so the parallel runs on until Palamedes concludes triumphantly, “I think I have fairly made it appear that an Athenian man of merit might be ... incestuous, a parricide, an assassin, an ungrateful perjured traitor, and something else too abominable to be named and having lived in this manner, his death might be entirely suitable; he might conclude the scene by a desperate act of self-murder, and die with the most absurd blasphemies in his mouth. And notwithstanding this he shall have statues, if not altars, erected to his memory.”

I need hardly say that Hume has in the “Dialogue” from which I quote made use of a pleasant artifice to force on the reader’s attention the nature and difficulty of his problem: to find, namely, a common meaning for the words “virtue” and “vice,” by whomsoever used; in spite of the fact that nearly kindred civilizations will be the one confident it has found virtue, where the other is certain it has found vice. “How shall we pretend to fix a standard for judgments of this nature?” he finally puts the question. “By tracing matters,” he answers himself, “a little higher.... The Rhine flows north, the Rhone south; yet both spring from the same mountain, and are also actuated in their opposite directions by the same principle of gravity. The different inclinations of the ground on which they run cause all the differences of their courses.” And one by one with admirable skill, he takes up the virtues of our friend Alcheic, which to us are such conspicuous vices, to show that under the conditions of Greek life most had a quality in common with those perhaps directly opposite acts, which, under the conditions of our life we should commend, and that quality, which is the keynote of all Hume’s ethics, is “utility.”

“It appears,” he puts it, “that there never was any quality recommended by anyone as a virtue or moral excellence, but on account of its being useful or agreeable, to a man himself or to others. For what other reason can ever be assigned for praise or approbation? Or where would be the sense of extolling a good character or action, which at the same time is allowed to be good for nothing? All the differences, therefore, in morals may be reduced to this one general foundation, and may be accounted for by the different views which people take of these circumstances.”

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Given Hume’s world-view, it is evident that the only ones whom we have a right to count in estimating the agreeable or disagreeable effects of our actions are such other sentient beings as experience reveals to us: to wit, our fellow humans and perhaps the higher animals. Moreover, the only period which we have a right to consider as containing a life’s measure of happiness and unhappiness is that which experience confirms to us: to wit, that bounded by birth and death.

Thus defined, the calculus of utility involved in judging the merit of an act may be difficult, but is possible of an empirical solution. There remains only one question of human destiny to be settled, but it is an important one. What, namely, is the relation between the happiness experience gives me a right to expect, and the virtue of my conduct? For Hume’s ethics are not egoistic. The utility that measures the excellence of my act is not merely, nor even primarily, its agreeableness to me; but also, and perhaps in larger measure, its agreeableness to others. How for this large element of altruism in all good actions am I, the actor, to be paid, if paid I am to be? To this question Hume gives an elaborate reply in a section of his “Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals” entitled “Why Utility Pleases.” The answer is simple enough. There is in the human heart a sentiment we call sympathy, or, to use Hume’s favorite word, “humanity.” To possess this sentiment is to rejoice in another’s joy, grieve with another’s grief. To possess such a sentiment is to possess the reward of all altruism; for happiness bestowed upon another is bread cast upon the waters that returns to us after days as few or as many as may be required to produce in our own soul the sympathetic image of the happiness we have wrought in another’s.

Such is the theory of human duty and of human destiny which Hume has worked out by the method of Empiricism, which pretends not to a knowledge of God, nor of a system of things broader than the world of our experience. We may allow his own words to contrast the resulting attitude toward life and duty with the theological: “I deny a providence, you say, and supreme governor of the world, who guides the course of events and punishes the vicious with infamy and disappointment, and rewards the virtuous with honor and success in all their undertakings. But surely I deny not the course itself of events, which lies open to every one’s enquiry and examination. I acknowledge that in the present order of things virtue is attended with more peace of mind than vice and meets with a more favorable reception from the world. I am sensible that according to the past experience of mankind, friendship is the chief joy of human life, and moderation the only source of tranquillity and happiness. I never balance between the virtuous and the vicious course of life but am sensible that to a well-disposed mind every advantage is on the side of the former. And what can you say more, allowing all your suppositions and reasonings?”

IMMANUEL KANT

1724-1804

The religion of Immanuel Kant can be put in one phrase, “We cannot know that there is a God; but we ought to live as though there were one”--the difficulty lies in interpreting the phrase.