David Hume

The Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers series aims to show that
there is a rigorous, scholarly tradition of social and political thought
that may be broadly described as conservative, libertarian or some
combination of the two.
The series aims to show that conservatism is not simply a reaction
against contemporary events, nor a privileging of intuitive thought
over deductive reasoning; libertarianism is not simply an apology for
unfettered capitalism or an attempt to justify a misguided atomistic
concept of the individual. Rather, the thinkers in this series have developed coherent intellectual positions that are grounded in empirical
reality and also founded upon serious philosophical reflection on the
relationship between the individual and society, how the social institutions necessary for a free society are to be established and maintained,
and the implications of the limits to human knowledge and certainty.
Each volume in the series presents a thinkers ideas in an accessible
and cogent manner to provide an indispensable work for both students
with varying degrees of familiarity with the topic as well as more
advanced scholars.
The following 20 volumes that make up the entire Major Conservative
and Libertarian Thinkers series are written by international scholars and
experts.
The Salamanca School

Thomas Hobbes
John Locke
David Hume
Adam Smith
Edmund Burke
Alexis de Tocqueville
Herbert Spencer

Andre Azevedo Alves (LSE, UK) &

Professor Jos Manuel Moreira (Porto,
Portugal)
Dr R. E. R. Bunce (Cambridge, UK)
Professor Eric Mack (Tulane, US)
Professor Christopher J. Berry (Glasgow,
UK)
Professor James Otteson (Yeshiva, US)
Professor Dennis OKeeffe (Buckingham,
UK)
Dr Alan S Kahan (Paris, France)
Alberto Mingardi (Istituto Bruno Leoni,
Italy)

Ludwig von Mises

Joseph A. Schumpeter
F. A. Hayek
Michael Oakeshott
Karl Popper
Ayn Rand
Milton Friedman
James M. Buchanan
The Modern Papacy
Robert Nozick
Russell Kirk
Murray Rothbard

Richard Ebeling (Trinity College)

Professor John Medearis (Riverside,
California, US)
Dr Adam Tebble (UCL, UK)
Dr Edmund Neill (Oxford, UK)
Dr Phil Parvin (Cambridge, UK)
Professor Mimi Gladstein (Texas, US)
Dr William Ruger (Texas State, US)
Dr John Meadowcroft (Kings College
London, UK)
Dr Samuel Gregg (Acton Institute, US)
Ralf Bader (St Andrews, UK)
John Pafforsd
Gerard Casey

Of course, in any series of this nature, choices have to be made as to

which thinkers to include and which to leave out. Two of the thinkers in
the series F. A. Hayek and James M. Buchanan have written explicit
statements rejecting the label conservative. Similarly, other thinkers,
such as David Hume and Karl Popper, may be more accurately described
as classical liberals than either conservatives or libertarians. But these
thinkers have been included because a full appreciation of this particular tradition of thought would be impossible without their inclusion;
conservative and libertarian thought cannot be fully understood without some knowledge of the intellectual contributions of Hume, Hayek,
Popper and Buchanan, among others. While no list of conservative and
libertarian thinkers can be perfect, then, it is hoped that the volumes in
this series come as close as possible to providing a comprehensive
account of the key contributors to this particular tradition.

John Meadowcroft
Kings College London

This page intentionally left blank

David Hume
Christopher J. Berry

Major Conservative and

Libertarian Thinkers
Series Editor: John Meadowcroft
Volume 3

Continuum International Publishing Group

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Copyright Christopher J. Berry 2009

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TK TK TK
Berry, Christopher J.
David Hume / Christopher J. Berry.
p. cm. -- (Major conservative and libertarian thinkers ; v. 3)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8264-2980-3 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8264-2980-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Hume, David, 1711-1776. 2. Hume, David,
1711-1776Political and social views.
3. Ethics, Modern. 4. Political sciencePhilosophy.
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Contents
Series Editors Preface
Acknowledgments

1
2

Hume: A Life of Letters

Humes Thought
A The Science of Man
B Causation
C Justice
i The artificiality of justice
ii The rules of justice
iii The virtuousness of justice
D Government, Legitimacy, and Custom
i The need for and role of government
ii The critique of contract
iii Time and legitimacy
iv Custom
E Superstition
F Commerce and the Rule of Law
i The decline of the barons
ii The defense of commerce and luxury
iii The rule of law and expectation
G Liberty and Its Qualifications

ix
xiii

1
23
24
27
38
38
45
51
55
55
59
62
66
70
74
75
78
88
94

viii

Contents

3 Reception and Influence

A Britain
B North America
C Europe
i France
ii Italy
iii Germany

106
107
115
118
118
123
124

4 Hume and Conservatism

128

Bibliography
Index

157
173

Series Editors Preface

In this compelling account of the life and thought
of the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David
Hume, Professor Christopher J. Berry of the University of Glasgow writes that Hume was not a conservative and it would be misleading to label him a
libertarian. Such a view clearly begs the question:
why is Hume included in a book series devoted to
Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers? What
are the grounds for placing Hume in the conservative
or libertarian tradition of social and political
thought?
In reality, Humes thought may be most effectively
categorized as Humean. That is, in common with a
number of thinkers in this series, he was a strikingly
original thinker whose work defies classification
within standard ideological categories.
As Berry sets out, at the heart of Humes thought
was the belief in the uniformity of human nature.
Social institutions such as property and government,
language and money, have to be established, within
inescapable environmental constraints, through conventions. These social institutions are not deliberately
designed and constructed, but evolve gradually as an

Preface

unintended consequence of peoples self-interested

actions. Rules of just conduct, for example, are not
imposed from above by government, but are established gradually through custom and habit where they
facilitate mutually advantageous action. Hume combined this appreciation of society as (what would be
termed today) a spontaneous order with skepticism
towards the ability of human reason to improve upon
those institutions that have evolved spontaneously.
Hume also provided a compelling defense of commerce and luxury, which he believed to be civilizing
and improving forces in contrast to the unsustainable
and impoverishing virtues of civic republicanism.
It is these classic Humean themes of the evolution
of social institutions as an unintended consequence
of the pursuit of self-interest and the importance of
custom and habit in establishing rules of just conduct,
coupled with his defense of commerce and luxury,
that mark Humes unique contribution to the conservative and libertarian traditions. Hence, Humean
thought may be understood as a combination of
various strands of conservatism, libertarianism, and
liberalism.
This volume makes a crucial contribution to the
Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers series
by setting out the thought of one of the most important contributors to this tradition; certainly any
account of the conservative and libertarian traditions

Preface

xi

would be incomplete without a thorough treatment

of Humes contribution. In presenting Humes
thought in such an accessible and cogent form, the
author has produced an outstanding volume that will
prove indispensable to those relatively unfamiliar
with the work of this important thinker as well as
more advanced scholars.
John Meadowcroft
Kings College London

This page intentionally left blank

Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my former student and colleague,
Craig Smith, for generously putting the opportunity
to write this book my way and to John Meadowcroft
for his willingness to have me on board.
I am grateful to my colleagues in the HINT group
of the Glasgow Politics Department for their comments on a version of Chapter 4. I am also indebted
(again) to Roger Emerson for his comments on an
early draft of Chapter 1.
I have published on Hume elsewhere over a number
of years and I here appropriate, on occasion, some of
my earlier formulations. For the record I have drawn
here from my Social Theory of the Scottish Enlightenment.
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997.
Hume and the Customary Causes of Industry,
Knowledge and Humanity in History of Political
Economy, 38, 2006, 291317 (Duke University Press).
Humes Universalism: The Science of Man and the
Anthropological Point of View in British Journal for the
History of Philosophy. 15, 2007, 52944 (Taylor and
Francis/British Society for the History of Philosophy).

xiv

Acknowledgments

Hume and Superfluous Value (or the Problem with

Epictetus Slippers) in C. Wennerlind and M. Schabas
(eds) David Humes Political Economy, 2008, pp. 4964,
(London: Routledge).
Christopher J. Berry
University of Glasgow

Hume: A Life of Letters

Hume wrote an autobiography. It might be thought
this would be a fundamental thread along which
could be strung a narrative of his life and times. There
are, however, good grounds to be wary of placing too
much reliance on his account of my own life. This is
not only because any and every autobiography is to a
greater or lesser extent a disguised novel as Clive
James said of his aptly named Unreliable Memoirs (1980)
but also because Humes account was a deliberately
studied performance that was only to be published
posthumously; it thus has much of the character of an
epitaph as it encapsulates his life-story as the struggling author made good (Hanley, 2002: 680). Nor is
it confessional. Unlike his contemporary Rousseaus
path-breaking version, Hume is far from displaying
a portrait in every way true to nature where the picture is the unique self (Rousseau, 1954: 17). (As we will
see Hume and Rousseaus paths eventfully crossed.)
The nearest Hume comes to any self-revelation is the
identification of his love of literary fame as his
ruling passion (E-Life: xl).

David Hume

My aim in this chapter is to sketch out an outline

of Humes life, paying particular attention to the
occasion or circumstances of his significant works.
It will also be apt to incorporate some remarks on his
relation to his contemporary intellectual worldthe
Enlightenmentboth in his native Scotland and in
France where he resided on a couple of occasions.
David Home was born on April 26, 1711 in Edinburgh. Home was the dominant spelling of a name
that was common in the southeast of Scotland and
Davids elder brother, John, as did his cousin Henry,
the philosopher and lawyer (who took the legal title
of Lord Kames), retained that form. The name was,
however, pronounced Hume and David chose to
adapt the spelling of his name to echo the pronunciation. There is no definitive evidence when this
occurred but his biographers Mossner (1980: 90) and
Graham (2004: 44) date it to his residence in Bristol
in 1734 or perhaps earlier when he left home.
The family home was Ninewells in the parish of
Chirnside close to Berwick-on-Tweed, on the coast at
the England-Scotland border. This was a small estate
and Hume says in his autobiography that the family
was not rich (E-Life: xxxii). His father died in 1713.
This meant that his mother was the head of the
household, which contained not only the elder
brother but also a younger sister, Katharine, who later
became his housekeeper in his various Edinburgh

Hume: A Life of Letters

houses. Since John would have to stay to run the

estate, and given its limited income, then David would
have known from an early age that he would have to
have an occupation. He retrospectively attributes to
himself being seized very early with a passion for
literature (E-Life: xxxiiiii). In 1721 he attended
Edinburgh University where he stayed for four years.
Though only 10 this is not a mark of precocity, and
even if it was probably advanced because his brother
was already a student, it was a common practice to
attend as a youngster. Adam Smith, for example,
attended Glasgow when he was 14.
Hume is unforthcoming about his studies, saying only
that, instead of studying law, the only pursuit to which
he was not averse was philosophy and general learning. While Hume supplies no information, considerable endeavor has been spent trying to recreate what
he did in fact study and what impact such study might
have had on his subsequent thought, though the most
recent and thorough account concludes there are no
grounds to think that Hume caught the philosophical
bug at college (Stewart, 2005: 25). Edinburgh had only
just (1708) abolished the system of regents, whereby
one teacher taught a whole cohort the whole syllabus,
and replaced it with professors in distinct disciplines.
We know Hume studied Logic with Drummond, Greek
with Scott, Latin (Humanity) with Dundas, Natural Philosophy with Steuart, and (perhaps) Moral Philosophy

David Hume

with Law. Despite this differentiation the education was

suffused with an edifying mission to inculcate virtuous
living in a society regulated by religious observance
(Stewart, 2005: 12).
Hume left University in 1725 (without graduating).
He seemingly began and then abandoned training
for a career as a lawyer. While in his later correspondence Hume reveals knowledge of jurisprudence
(which is also apparent from the Treatise of Human
Nature published when he was 28), his earliest surviving letter of July 1727 refers to his time (at Ninewells)
spent reading classical philosophy (Cicero) and
poetry (Virgil) rather than legal texts (L: I, 10). It is a
reasonable inference that it was in this period that
Hume began to immerse himself in the world of
bookshis interests always remained literary rather
than musical or, more generally, aesthetic (Emerson,
2007). Perhaps as a consequence of this immersion,
and with a legal career foresworn together with the
need to make a living, Hume appears to have had
what is by all accounts a nervous breakdown. There is
a remarkable letter written to an unnamed physician
in 1734 that recounts his activity and state of mind in
the late 1720s. Typically his autobiography merely
alludes to his health being a little broken by my
ardent application (E-Life: xxxiii). This application refers to his studies opening up to him a new
Scene of Thought (L: I, 13). He mentions reading

Hume: A Life of Letters

many books of morality but coming to the view that

the arguments of the classical theorists, like that of
their natural philosophers, was entirely hypothetical paying no regard to human Nature, upon which
every moral Conclusion must depend (L: I, 16).
While in retrospect the germ of the enterprise that
will produce the Treatise can be discerned here, that
judgment owes at least something to hindsight. For
his own part, Hume self-diagnosed that he needed a
more active Life and with that intent, abetted by a
recommendation, he resolved on becoming a merchant and in 1734 set off to Bristol.
However, that was not a success and in that same
year he departs for France and embarks on work that
will result in the Treatise. In one of the more remarkable coincidences in the history of philosophy he
spent the bulk of his time at La Flche in Anjou,
where in its Jesuit College Descartes had studied and
the library of which Hume was to use.
Hume returned to Britain in 1737 and began the
process of getting the Treatise published, the first two
parts (books) appearing in 1739, the third in 1740.
He entertained high hopes that his work could, if
taken up, produce almost a total Alteration in Philosophy (NL: 3). Despite the fact that he deliberately
excised (castrating . . . its noble Parts) a section on
miracles as likely to give too much Offence, its apparent failure to make an impression left him deeply

David Hume

disappointed. This disappointment stayed with him

and in the Life he characterized its reception as falling dead-born from the press (E-Life: xxxiv), which,
though perhaps the autobiographys most famous
phrase, is very likely appropriated from a line of verse
by Alexander Pope (1956: 336). As we will see in
Chapter 3 that was not, even contemporaneously, the
books fate, nevertheless the sentiment does reflect
the fact that never again did Hume publish a book of
systematic philosophy. The two Enquiries (of Understanding in 1748, of Morals in 1751) were essays and
were recyclings, with amendments, of the Treatises
arguments and his other often-regarded philosophical masterpiece the Dialogues was only published
posthumously and, as the title indicates, was nondemonstrative in design. When his own anonymous review
(the Abstract) of his book failed to excite the reading
publics interest, he resolved to adopt the essay form
as the means to engage that interest. Starting with
the publication of Essays Moral and Political in 1741,
Hume began a career as a professional man of letters.
Apart from a stint as a Librarian (part time), and
(very briefly in 17456) a tutor/companion to the
Marquis of Annandale, his only other occupations
were as a secretary and Judge-Advocate to General
St Clair in 1746, and again in 1748, and then, more
substantially, two and half years (17636) working in

Hume: A Life of Letters

the Embassy in Paris followed by a year as a London

civil servant.
Before discussing his literary career and intellectual
context, it is worth mentioning, because of the light
they throw on both of those, the failed attempt to
secure chairs at the Universities of Edinburgh and
Glasgow. University positions in eighteenth-century
Scotland were the subject of patronage and the object
of politicking (Emerson, 2008b). Hume was a candidate for the Edinburgh chair in Ethics and Pneumatical Philosophy (moral philosophy) in 17445 at a
time when control over the Town Council, which
appointed professors, was the subject of factional
fighting. Humes unsuccessful candidacy can be
attributed, at least in part, to his being associated with
the losing side on this occasion (Emerson, 1994).
In addition to these extrinsic factors, Humes own
philosophy was an intrinsically negative factor (Sher,
1990: 106). Hume was alert to this and wrote an
anonymous pamphlet wherein he attempted to disarm his critics who were accusing him of skepticism
and atheism and of sapping the Foundations of
Morality (LG: 18). In one of his contemporary letters, repeating the language of the pamphlet, Hume
attributed his failure to a popular Clamour deliberately raised against him on account of Scepticism,
Heterodoxy (L: I, 59). In another letter he refers to

David Hume

his surprise that he was opposed by Francis Hutcheson

(L: I, 58).
Hutcheson was professor of moral philosophy at
Glasgow (and during the negotiation over the Edinburgh chair was himself offered the post). Hutcheson
was not only a significant philosopher but is regarded
as a major stimulus to the emergent Scottish Enlightenment (Scott, 1966; Campbell, 1982). He was one of
the authors mentioned by Hume in the Introduction
to the Treatise as putting the science of man on a new
footing and Hume sent him the yet to be published
Book 3. One of Humes most important letters is his
reply to Hutchesons comments (now lost) (L: I, 324).
Hume notes that Hutcheson has detected in his
writing a certain Lack of Warmth in the Cause of
Virtue. In articulating his own position Hume characterizes his own approach as that of an anatomist,
while Hutchesons is that of a painter (a comparison he was to repeat in the concluding paragraph
of the Treatise [T 3-3-6.6]). In the letter he goes on to
declare Hutchesons reliance of final causes as unphilosophical and, as far as his own argument is concerned, wide of my Purpose. He repeats the key theme
of Book 3 (which will occupy much of Chapter 2) that
he never called justice unnatural but only artificial
and, in a parting shot, says that in his discussion of
virtue it was Ciceros Offices not the Whole Duty of Man
(a devotional text) on which he had his Eye in all my
Reasonings.

Hume: A Life of Letters

Hume prior to his failed Edinburgh application had

published two volumes of essays subsequent to the
Treatise. These mark his first bid to gain a wider readership or as he himself put it to act as a Kind of
Resident or Ambassador from the Dominion of
Learning to those of Conversation (E-EW: 535). This
remark was made in an essay published in the 1742
volume but it was later withdrawn. In fact he withdrew
a further three from the dozen that comprised that
edition, as well as three from the 1741 volume. One
feature of the latter was a focus on political matters
and I shall return to that aspect.
By the time Humes name had been put forward for
the Professorship of Logic at Glasgow University
(17512) he had not only published the An Enquiry
concerning Human Understanding (1748) (the First
Enquiry), three other essays (including of the Original Contract), as well as a couple of pamphlets (True
Account of Archibald Stewart (1747) and the Bellmens
Petition [1751]) and, during the period of application, the Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals (the
Second Enquiry) appeared. The Glasgow chair was held
by Adam Smith but he was moving to that of Moral
Philosophy thus creating the vacancy. In Glasgow
appointments were made by the College Corporation
but the Presbytery exercised a right of enquiry into a
candidates morals and orthodoxy (Emerson, 1994:
15) and political patronage remained a crucial factor.
Hume himself thought, perhaps naively in the light

10

David Hume

of the earlier application, he might have succeeded

in spite of the violent and solemn remonstrances of
the clergy had the major patron the Duke of Argyle
been supportive (L: I, 1645). Adam Smith, one of
Humes supporters, wrote to a fellow supporter,
William Cullen, admitting that while he would prefer David Hume to any man for a colleague yet the
public would not be of my opinion and that opinion
needs to be heeded (Smith, 1987: 5). Hume himself
seems not to have been too discountenanced by the
second failure since he was appointed the Advocates
Librarian, almost immediately thereafter.
This episode reveals something of the character of
the Scottish Enlightenment. This character can,
albeit in an imprecise manner, be seen to have a
cultural and an intellectual dimension. Regarding
the former, the Union of the Parliaments meant not
so much that the Scots thereafter had little direct
political power because in practice they were allowed,
via patronage, considerable leeway for the governance of Scotland which was left in the hands of
managers. Crucially, the Union also left the legal
system and the Kirk (Church of Scotland) as distinct
Scottish institutions. When coupled with the remarkable fact that Scotland possessed five Universities
(compared to Englands two) and, fortified by the
presence of many clubs and societies, this established
a nexus of relations between leading political, legal,

Hume: A Life of Letters

11

ecclesiastical, and academic figures. This nexus was

united by its commitment to the Hanoverian succession, and thus resistance to the followers of the claims
of the Stewart lines (Jacobites), who led a series of
rebellions from Scotland before the final crushing
defeat of bonnie Prince Charlies forces at Culloden
in 1745. In addition to this shared political allegiance,
these Scottish writers (the literati) were united over
two other issues. In their guise as leaders of the
so-called Moderate party in the Church of Scotland,
they shared an antipathy to Catholicism (linked to
Jacobitism) and also to the Calvinist legacy of the
Kirk. Secondly, the literati were strong advocates of
measures designed to lead to the (primarily economic) improvement of Scotland.
Hume was a prominent member of these clubs,
indeed he had a well-founded reputation for affable
clubbability and he included among his friends
prominent members of the Moderates like Hugh
Blair and the historian William Robertson, who was
both Principal of Edinburgh University and one-time
moderator of the Church of Scotland. Although his
public profile was too contentious for the University
posts, Hume was no pariah as his Librarianship demonstrates. One of Humes particular roles was to act
as a source of advice on literary style. It was a matter
of some concern for the literati that they would appear
to be different (suspiciously so) from the polite

12

David Hume

norms of Hanoverian England. Alexander Carlyle,

one of the founders with Robertson of the Moderate
movement, remarked in his Autobiography (1910:
543):
[T]o every man bred in Scotland the English language
was in some respects a foreign tongue, the precise
value and force of whose words and phrases he did
not understand and therefore was continually endeavouring to word his expressions by additional epithets
or circumlocutions which made his writings appear
both stiff and redundant.

There is plenty of supporting evidence for this selfconsciousness. This is most evident in a concern to
eradicate Scotticisms. Hume himself published a
list of these (see Basker, 1991) and it was said of him
by the eccentric judge and scholar Lord Monboddo
that he died confessing not his sins but his Scotticisms
(Mossner, 1980: 606). His correspondence supplies
many examples both of him receiving advice as well
as giving it, for example, to Robertson (L: II, 194).
These clubs and societies were also a focus for the
concerns that permeated the intellectual dimension,
as well as being the typical audience for essays of the
sort Hume had begun to write (Finlay, 2007: 63).
There were, of courses, differences between the literati
but they subscribed in broad outline to a key Enlightenment theme that the achievements of Newton in

Hume: A Life of Letters

13

natural science should be emulated in the social

(or moral) sciences. As we will discuss at length in
Chapter 2 this was the key inspiration for Humes
science of man. What this Newtonian motif meant
in practice was the endeavor to search for universal
causes governing a range of social phenomena. This
endeavor was coupled with others. In the words of
another inspirational figure, Francis Bacon, a writer,
who in Humes estimation pointed out at a distance
the road to true philosophy (H: II, 112), knowledge
and human power are synonymous, since the ignorance of the cause frustrates the effect (Bacon, 1853:
383). Crucially this knowledge/power was not just
for its own sake since, for Bacon, the real and
legitimate goal of the sciences is the endowment of
human life with new inventions and riches (Bacon,
1853: 416). This practical/utilitarian bent chimed in
not only with the drive to improvement (the Hume
estate at Ninewells was improved) (Emerson: 2008a)
but also with Humes decision to write essays and his
History, in as much as they were designed to influence
contemporary thinking and policy.
As mentioned above, his first two volumes of Essays
had a political focus. Humes decision was not idiosyncratic: political essay-writing was very much in
vogue. This literature was fervently partisan not only
between the advocates of the two major political
parties, the Whigs and the Tories but also within the

14

David Hume

former there was a further sharp division between

Court and Country factions. Hume aspired to transcend partisanship; in Duncan Forbess influential
interpretation he attempted to give the Hanoverian
regime a proper intellectual foundation (Forbes,
1975: x, 136), to get both Whigs and Tories to recognize the character and challenges of the new economic world of commerce and move beyond
outmoded dynastic and religious dogmas (Forbes,
1977: 43). Despite this aspiration, Humes writings
were still attacked for partisanship. His frustration at
this situation comes out, albeit with rhetorical flourish, in a letter of 1764, some hate me because I am
not a Tory, some because I am not a Whig, some
because I am not a Christian and all because I am
Scotsman (L: I, 470).
In these early volumes he included a couple of essays
on parties and a couple more on Parliament. His
basic aim was to distil opposed arguments and establish a judicious assessment of their relative strengths
and weaknesses. These essays were contributions to
contemporary debate and indeed his work was incorporated within it, for example, his Whether the British
Government inclines more to Absolute Monarchy or
a Republic (1741) was reprinted in the Craftsman , an
opposition weekly in the year of its publication
(Forbes, 1975: 211). Unlike those essays that he labeled
frivolous and dropped from his later editions, he

Hume: A Life of Letters

15

retained these overtly political pieces. The one exception was A Character of Sir Robert Walpole published in the 1742 volume just before Walpole in fact
resigned. This timing caused Hume first (1748) to
turn it into a footnote to another essay (That Politics
may be reduced to a Science) and then to omit
entirely from 1770.
This deliberate intent to comment on contemporary
events has tended to get lost, as later commentators
detach them from this context and treat them rather
as theoretical disquisitions. These are, of course, not
mutually exclusive endeavors and I will in Chapter 2
cite these essays without particular regard to the circumstances of their production. Perhaps the most telling illustration of this detachment is the best known of
all Humes Essays, Of the Original Contract (1748).
Standardly, and rightly, read as a near fatal blow to the
pretensions of a version of contractarian political
thinking it was designed by Hume as a companion to
the essay Of Passive Obedience. As he explained in a
contemporary letter, they were written to replace those
discarded from the 17412 volumes and were destined
to be more instructive with the Contract essay aimed
against the System of the Whigs and the other against
the System of the Tories (L: I, 112). The fact that the
Contract essay was in this sense deliberately one-sided
has not been deemed relevant in almost all the voluminous commentary that it as generated.

16

David Hume

The other significant collection of Essays was that

titled Political Discourses (1752). In Humes own estimation this was the only one of his works that was
successful on first publication (as we will note in
Chapter 3 they had considerable success in France
and Italy) (E-Life: xxxvi). The bulk of these were on
economic topics like Of Taxes and Of Money
and were self-consciously intellectual in that Hume
prefaced the first essay in the collection (Of Commerce) with a defense of philosophers who attend
to the general course of things (E-Com: 254). The
arguments in this collection will feature prominently
in Chapter 2. But, as with the political essays, these
can be seen to possess a dual focus. Hence, for example, Humes articulation therein of a theory of money
has been seen to prefigure much later speculation
(Vickers, 1960; Wennerlind, 2005) and his defense of
luxury has been identified as a significant defense of
a commercial economy (Berry, 1994, 2008). However,
the date of their publication and thrust of their
argument has also been seen as a contribution to a
lively debate in Scotland on the policy toward the
Highlands after the failure of the 1745 Jacobite rebellion (Caffentzis, 2005; Emerson, 2008) and the role
to be played by free trade (Hont, 1983, 2008).
On his appointment as Advocates Librarian, Hume
began in earnest his last major work, The History of
Great Britain. Aside from the ever-present concern

Hume: A Life of Letters

17

with generating income and fame, the aim in writing

the History was to provide a less partial account than
those currently available (see L: I, 170, 179). Whatever his intent, his readers did not see it that way
I was assailed by one cry of reproach, disapprobation
and even detestation (E-Life: xxxvii). As he acknowledged in his correspondence it was perhaps a mistake
to publish the first volumes separately (L: I, 218). The
first (published 1754) dealt with the reigns of James
I and Charles I, which because he had presumed
to shed a generous tear for the fate of the latter
meant he was identified as Tory, the second (1756)
dealt with the period from Charles death to 1688,
which he himself thought would be judged more
favorably by Whigs. He summed up his own position
as his view of things more conformable to Whig principles while his representation of persons to Tory
prejudices (L: I, 237). Perhaps because of its controversy the volumes sold well and Hume decided to
extend its range (backward). The now titled History
of England (covering the Tudor period) appeared in
1759 and a volume covering the time from the
Saxons appeared in 1762. By the time of the later volumes Hume was able to earn 1,400 for the sale of the
authors rights to the publisher. He could gain what
was a very substantial sum because of the great popularity of history as a genreI believe this is the historical Age and this the historical Nation (L: II, 230).

18

David Hume

For example, from extant records of borrowings from

a library in Bristol between 1773 and 1784, Humes
History was the fourth most borrowed book and
Robertsons Charles V the seventh most popular
(Kaufman, 1969: 31).
Humes only serious break from the life as a professional writer (there were, for example, six editions of
his Essays after 1752) was a period in the mid-1760s
spent working in the British Embassy in Paris followed
by a year in London as a civil servant. In addition to
being presented to the Royal Court at Versailles (L: I,
414), while in Paris he met many significant members
of the French Enlightenment. His works were rapidly
translated and, in many respects, he was lionized
they consider me one of the greatest geniuses in the
world (L: I, 410). Hume for his part did consider
some of the company really great men (L: I, 411),
mentioning among those he liked best Diderot,
Dalembert, Buffon, and Helvetius (L: I, 419). They
saw in him a fellow ally against religious superstition
and clerical presumption, though perhaps because
that suited their prejudices (one equivocal anecdote
has Hume declaring he has never met any atheists
only to be told by his host, Baron dHolbach, that
all 18 of his fellow-diners were [Kors, 1976: 412]).
His correspondence reveals little evidence of significant intellectual debate/argument but that it occurred seems inferable from the impact of his work

Hume: A Life of Letters

19

(see Chapter 3). One exception is correspondence

with Turgot, wherein he expresses some skepticism
about Turgots hope of progress to perfection (L: II,
180 [Turgot, 1973: 4159]). In this reservation Hume
reflects a common theme that distinguishes the
French from the Scottish Enlightenment. The Scottish
variant had a far more circumspect of the view of the
scope of reason to effect change, with a correspondent acknowledgment of the power that habit and
custom play in human behavior plus a sensitivity to
the supposed fact that much progress was the unintended consequence of more immediate concerns
(Berry, 1997).
Humes engagement with French intellectuals is
overshadowed with his dealings with one individual
Jean Jacques Rousseau. These dealings started amicably but ended in bitter disagreement (Edmonds and
Eidenow, 2000). They first came into contact in 1762
courtesy of a request from Humes most frequent
French correspondent, the Comtesse de Bouffleurs,
to help Rousseau because he was being persecuted
for the unchristian components of his just published
Emile. Hume wrote to Rousseau offering him assistance to move to Britain. In this letter Hume declared
Rousseau to be the Person I most revere, both for
the Force of your Genius and the Greatness of
your Mind (L: I, 364). And while, when writing to
Bouffleurs in the following year he comments on

20

David Hume

Rousseaus literary extravagance, he still praises him

and observes that Rousseau with his usual dignity
had refused Humes offer (L: I, 3723). However, in
1765 by which time they had met, Rousseau had
accepted Humes offer. He came to England and,
after much searching, Hume arranged accommodation for him in Derbyshire and obtained a pension
from the king. Thereafter the relationship went rapidly downhill. Hume wrote lengthy justificatory letters
to friends and acquaintances. Rousseau now becomes
a human creature in whom never was the so much
Wickedness and Madness combined (L: II, 80), a
man given to monstrous Ingratitude who must pass
as a Lyar and Calumniator (L: II, 54). Indeed, his
letters of the period are full of contempt (although
the Life omits all reference to the episode). What occasioned this vituperation was, in Humes judgment,
Rousseaus spurning of his purported assistance and
accusing him of scheming to dishonor him (see L: II,
384). This disagreement had become public knowledge and to Humes ostensible discomfort (I have
never consented to anything with greater reluctance
in my life [L: II, 108]) his French friends published
the correspondence, which was translated into English as a pamphlet (A Concise and Genuine Account of the
Dispute between Mr Hume and Mr Rousseau [1765]).
Hume died on August 25, 1776 at his house in the
New Town of Edinburgh. His death was not sudden;

Hume: A Life of Letters

21

in his autobiography he notes that in spring of 1775

he was struck with a disorder in my bowels which
though at first thought innocuous he now observes
that it has become mortal and incurable (the Life is
dated April 18) (E-Life: xl). In several ways Humes
attitude to his demise sums up his character. When it
became obvious to himself, and others, that he was
dying it became an object of morbid curiosity how
this renownedly irreligious man would face up to his
own mortality. The most infamous of these occasions
is a visit to Hume by James Boswell who (in his own
report) asked Hume whether the thought of his
annihilation never gave him uneasiness. Humes
unperturbed denial in fact perturbed Boswell (Fieser,
2003: I, 287; Baier, 2006). Two other accounts by
Humes friends convey his sanguine temperament.
William Cullen, writing to John Hunter, reports that a
few days before his death that Hume, who had been
reading the Roman essayist Lucian, imagined what
plea he might make to stay on earth and stated he
had been very busily employed in making his countrymen wiser and particularly in delivering them from
the Christian superstition but that he had not yet
completed that great work (Fieser, 2003: I, 292).
Finally, Adam Smith, who had declined the offer to
be Humes executor and more particularly to publish
the Dialogues on Natural Religion, wrote to the publisher William Strahan of our most excellent and

22

David Hume

never-to-be-forgotten friend. Hume, he elaborated,

was a man of extreme gentleness who expressed
a genuine effusion of good nature and good humour,
tempered with delicacy and modesty and without
even the slightest tincture of malignity, and who
exhibited a gaiety of temper that accompanied by
the most extensive learning, the greatest depth of
thought and a capacity in every respect the most comprehensive. In sum, wrote Smith, upon the whole
I have always considered him . . . as approaching as
nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous
man, as perhaps the nature of human frailty will
admit (see L: II, 452).

Humes Thought

Hume is not a conservative. By that I do not mean

that he does not regard habit and custom, at both an
individual and social level, as necessary and valuable
nor that he is not critical of aspects of rationalistic
individualism. Both of these are indeed key ingredients in his philosophy and I will explore them. But
what I do mean, and here I am in sympathy with John
B. Stewarts argument (1992 and see also McArthur,
2007), is that his philosophy embraces his understanding of the findings and implications of modern
science and, moreover, his conviction that philosophy
consequently has to be put on a new footing results
in a critique of traditional understandings of morals,
economics, politics and, perhaps above all, religion.
In as much as a new conception of freedom is a central
ingredient in that critique then he is in a significant,
if qualified way, a liberal, but it would be misleading
to pin the label libertarian upon him.
This discussion is organized into seven sections as
follows: the first two sections deal with Humes philosophical framework, particularly with his notion of

24

David Hume

causation and its uniform applicability; Section C

deals with his most important political argument, the
artificiality of justice, leading in Section D to his discussion of government and key role played by custom
and habit; Section E deals with his forthright account
superstition and Section F with his defense of commercial society; the final section briefly assesses the
nature and extent of Humes liberalism and presages
the lengthier treatment of his place in conservative
thought in Chapter 4.

A The Science of Man

We can start at the beginning. In the Introduction to
the Treatise, his first work, Hume declares it evident
that all sciences relate more or less to human nature
and they are thus in some measure dependent on
the science of man. Using a striking military metaphor, he states that his aim is instead of taking now
and then a castle or village on the frontier to march
up directly to the capital or centre of these sciences,
to human nature itself. His conviction is that an
explanation of the principles of human nature, or
the formulation of the science of man, is the only
solid foundation for a compleat system of the sciences (T Introd.4, 6). Among the sciences mentioned by Hume is politics, which, along with logic,
morals, and criticism, has a close and intimate connection with human nature (T Introd.5) To give

Humes Thought

25

human nature such a central role was a commonplace

but, as his metaphor suggests, Hume did not conceive
his project as merely reproducing a received system
but rather the foundation of his complete system
was almost entirely new.
The linchpin of this new system is the science of
man and to a large extent this chapter is an elaboration of, and commentary upon, that key notion. There
remains more initial instruction to be gained from
the Introduction. The novel foundation, as identified
in the subtitle to the Treatise, and repeated in the
Introduction, is the experimental method. This
method, he believes, has borne striking and decisive
fruit in natural philosophy. Though no names are
given, Newton is undeniably the inspiration. The
likely explanation for this absence of an explicit reference is Humes concern to distance himself from the
directly Providentialist use made of Newton by many
of his contemporaries, as, for example, by George
Turnbull in his exactly contemporaneous Principles of
Moral Philosophy. A pen-portrait in the History nonetheless gives an accurate deception of Humes
appreciation, where Newton is described as the greatest and rarest genius that ever arose for the ornament
and instruction of the species (H: III, 780). The
Newtonian inspiration takes his cue from Newton
himself, who in his Optics, remarked that if through
pursuit of his method natural philosophy becomes
perfected so, in like fashion, the bounds of Moral

26

David Hume

Philosophy will be also enlarged (1953: 179, Qn. 31).

Hume conceives of himself, following in the footsteps
of Shaftesbury, Mandeville, Hutcheson, Butler, and
unspecified others in applying this method to moral
subjects. Since moral here derives etymologically
from mores or social customs then we can reasonably
paraphrase that Hume is set on what we would call
social science.
There are three crucial aspects of this science. First,
it is observationalcarefully and exactly attending to
experience. Second, in an obvious echo of Newton,
this should not be mere cataloguing but should
attempt to trace these observational experiments to
universal principles, that is, explaining all effects
from the simplest and fewest causes. Moreover, and
still in Newtonian vein, these attempts should not go
beyond experience and this, importantly, imposes
the self-denying ordinance that it is presumptuous
and chimerical to attempt to discover the ultimate
original qualities of human nature (T Introd.8).
Third, Hume, in recognition that moral subjects are
less amenable to experiment than natural ones,
acknowledges that the cautious observations of
human life need to be judiciously collected and
compard but if that is done then certitude in its
conclusions can be achieved and, with that, the science can be the most useful. (T Introd.10).
The Treatise is divided into three booksOf the
Understanding, Of the Passions (published together

Humes Thought

27

in 1739) and Of Morals (published in 1740). While

the last of these is our primary concern the work is
conceived as a unity and, true to that conception, the
first two books bear significantly on his social philosophy. Nowhere is this significance more telling than in
the analysis of causation that is a central theme of
Book 1. Because of its crucial importance I start my
account of Humes thought with it.

B Causation
My guiding principle in what has necessarily has to be
the briefest outline of his argument is how Humes
analysis fits into, or informs, his social philosophy.
Hume accepts Lockes argument that the principle of
innate ideas is false (T 1-3-14.10), and its consequence
that knowledge must come from experience. Experience comes in the form of perceptions and Hume
divides these into impressions (sensations, passions)
and ideas (thoughts) (T 1-1-1.1). The latter, as their
faint image, succeed the former (T 1-1-1.8); a principle that Hume identifies as the first he has established
in the science of human nature (7). Simple ideas
can be made complex by the imagination, so that the
idea of a unicorn can be formed although, of course,
one has never been perceived. However, the imagination is not fickle in its operations; Hume believes that
it is guided by some universal principles which render it, in some measure, uniform with itself in all

28

David Hume

times and places. There is a gentle force, an associating quality, whereby simple ideas regularly fall
into complex ones (T 1-1-4.1). Unlike Locke (1854: I,
53141), Hume treats the association of ideas positively, indeed he regards this as one of his major discoveries (TA 35). There are three principles of
associationresemblance, contiguity of time and
place, and cause and effect (T 1-1-4.1).
While strictly a priori (i.e. outside experience) anything may be the cause of anything (T 1-4-5.32), the
world appears in experience as orderly and not
capricious; it exhibits regularity as one set of causes is
consistently and persistently followed by one set of
effects. Accordingly it is to experience that this order
and regularity must be traced. In summary,
all those objects, of which we call the one cause and
the other effect considerd in themselves are as distinct and separate from each other as any two things
in nature, nor can we ever, by the most accurate
survey of them, infer the existence of one from that of
the other. Tis only from experience and observation
of their constant union that we are able to form this
inference; and even after all, the inference is nothing
but the effects of custom on the imagination. (T 2-31.16 cf. T1-3-8.12)
Humes most famous example is the impact of a moving billiard ball upon a stationary one (TA 9). Upon

Humes Thought

29

impact the latter ball moves and this seems an obvious case of causation. But since only a sequence of
movements of balls is perceived why is it obvious
that this is indeed a causal sequence? Hume analyzes
the process and identifies three elementscontiguity
(the first ball is observed to hit the second), priority
(the second was static until seen to be hit by the first
and then it was observed to move) and constant
union or conjunction. There is nothing else. There
is no other source of knowledge about causation available to us; in particular (recall the first of the three
aspects of the science of man) we can know nothing
of any supposed causal power or force (TA 26 cf. U
7.21). Of the three elements Hume identifies the
third is crucial, recall now the third aspect of the
sciencethe need to collect and compare. It is only
because every time we have perceived a collision of
balls the same sequence occurred that we can properly say the movement of the second ball has been
caused by the impact of the first. The first two elements
alone are insufficientI might put a cross on my
ballot paper in a voting booth and the booth catches
fire. As a discrete, one-off sequence this is akin to the
billiard balls; it is, however, not causal because each
time I vote the booth does not blaze, there is no constancy in the conjunction.
What this means for Hume is that we attribute causal
relations because we habitually associate phenomena.

30

David Hume

We are determined by custom (TA 15) to expect or

believe that the second balls movement was caused
by the impact upon it of the first ball. We expect, that
is to say, that like objects placed in like circumstances
will always produce like effects (T 1-3-8.14). In virtue
of this constancy we can predict that the second static
ball will move when hit by the first ball in motion.
There is an evident programmatic aspect implicit
here; recall once more that the science of man is of
superior utility (T Introd.10). If we know/can predict that a set of effects will follow from a certain set
of causes then we can act accordinglyI want hot
water therefore I have to heat it. (Recollect from
Chapter 1 Bacons dictum that knowledge of causes
is power.) The prediction is the product of our belief
that nature will continue uniformly the same (TA
13). Here ultimately lies the order we experience; an
order that is nothing but the effects of custom on
imagination. So it is that Hume can claim that
custom is the guide of human life and the cement
of the universe (TA 16, 35). (The extent to which
these claims underwrite a conservative reading of
Humes philosophy will be taken up later.)
These principles of causation apply universally. They
are not restricted to natural phenomena like ballistics; they also apply to the workings of the mind and to
the interactions of social life. This extension is indeed
Humes basic purpose in the Treatise. Perhaps the most
important consequence of Humes commitment to a

Humes Thought

31

science of man is the conviction that causal analysis

must apply to moral subjects. The essence of Humes
position can be best captured in one of his examples
(one he uses on two separate occasions, which strongly
suggests that he himself thought it telling). The example is a case where natural and moral evidence
cement together such that they are of the same
nature and derivd from the same principles (T 2-31.17, U 8.19). He presents the predicament of a prisoner in jail. The individual has neither money nor
interest and thus escape is impossible due as equally
to the obstinacy of the gaoler as it is to the walls
and bars with which he is surrounded. Experience
has taught that human physical strength cannot
destroy stone walls (natural evidence, which is why
prisons are constructed of stone not paper) and that
deprived of the means to bribe jailers the latters
interests are bound to their custodial role (moral
evidence). In both cases a series of constant conjunctions prevails.
It is the presence of this constancy that enables
Hume to believe that moral subjects are amenable
to causal explanation and it is this explanation that
the science of man is primed to provide. Hume
notes how this belief runs through the whole of social
life in the conduct of war, commerce, economy, and
so on not excluding politics, where, for example, he
cites a prince who imposes a tax upon his subjects
expects their compliance (T 2-3-1.15). I will pick up

32

David Hume

the reference to expectation later but first want to

explore a significant consequence of this position,
namely, a commitment to determinism.
This comes out clearly in his treatment of liberty
and necessity in both the Treatise and First Enquiry.
The key is a commitment to the uniformity of human
nature. The latter text supplies perhaps the clearest
expression. He asserts that it is universally acknowledged that there is a great uniformity among the
actions of men, in all nations and ages, and that
human nature remains still the same in its principles
and operations so that it now follows that
history informs us of nothing new or strange in this
particular. Its chief use is only to discover the constant
and universal principles of human nature by showing
men in all varieties of circumstances and situations
and furnishing us with materials from which we may
form our observations and become acquainted with
the regular springs of human action and behaviour.
(U 8.7)

Hume is quite explicit that these materials provided

by the historical record are collections of experiments that enable the moral philosopher to fix the
principles of his science just like the natural philosopher becomes acquainted with the nature of plants
[etc.] . . . by the experiments which he forms concerning them. These principles are the regular springs

Humes Thought

33

of human behavior and these themselves are generically the passions. In this passage he specifically
identifies ambition, avarice, self-love, vanity, friendship, generosity, and public spirit.
These operate regardless of particular social context (Hume adopts what I elsewhere have labeled a
non-contextualist theory [Berry, 1982, 1986]). Of
course there are differences and variations but the
comprehension of these is still founded on knowledge of constant uniformity. In a metaphor employed
in A Dialogue, included within the Second Enquiry,
he says that the difference in the courses of the Rhine
and Rhone rivers is caused by the different inclinations of the ground but both rivers have their source
in the same mountains and their current is actuated
by the same principle of gravity (MD 26). By the same
token, all human behavior, even if it has a local
character, is explicable because it is governed by regular springs that have uniform effects. This is why there
can be a science of human nature (Man); human
behavior necessarily exhibits certain noncontextual
uniformities. Humans do not act or behave in such a
way that they can only be understood parochially.
It would be contrary to the first Newtonian rule of
philosophizing if their local behavior could not be
subsumed under, and explained by, a few simple
causes but had, rather, to be accounted for in its own
strictly noncomparable terms, where (as he puts it)

34

David Hume

every experiment was irregular and anonymous

(U 8.9).
It is important to note that this argument is not just
a methodological rule of thumb or necessary presupposition to make any historical knowledge possible
(Walsh, 1975; Pompa, 1990); it is also a normative or
judgmental yardstick. An example of that dimension
is when he says of a travelers report that he had
visited a country where the inhabitants knew nothing
of avarice, ambition or revenge and knew no pleasure but friendship, generosity and public spirit that
we should immediately judge the report false as
we would if it talked of seeing centaurs and dragons
(M 8.8).
Causation thus applies universally and, strictly speaking, there are no chance events, for these are only
the effect of secret and conceald causes (T 1-312.1). But Hume nonetheless distinguishes between
two sorts of causationphysical and moral. This is
most openly done in his essay Of National Characters (1748). This essay is essentially a polemic. Its
argumentative thrust is that moral causes are the effective explanation for national character, while physical
causes fail in that task. The latter he defines as
those qualities of the air and climate, which are supposed to work insensibly on the temper, by altering the
tone of the body and giving a particular complexion,

Humes Thought

35

which, though reflection and reason may sometimes

overcome it, will yet prevail among the generality of
mankind, and have an influence on their manners.
(E-NC: 198)

He defines moral causes as all circumstances which

are fitted to work on the mind as motives or reasons,
and which render a peculiar set of manners habitual
to us (E-NC: 198). As with the term moral subjects,
moral here thus means pertaining to customs.
If we compare the definitions, we can identify where
the crucial difference lies. Physical causes work insensibly on the temper by way of the body; hence in
a later essay (1752) (E-PAN: 3789) he can also call
physiological aging and disease physical causes. Moral
causes work on the mind as a motive by making a
set of manners habitual. Though the difference is
crucial it is one of degree, not kind, a difference
between hard and soft determinism (Berry, 1997:
chapter 4). The former is most famously associated
with Montesquieus analysis in De lEsprit des Lois
(1748). Physical causation operates directly on the
body, as a mere automatic reflex, as when in Montesquieus experiment, the fibers on a sheeps tongue
contract in response to being frozen (1961: I, 241).
Humes support for moral causes is an expression of
soft determinism, because it operates through the
mind and allows for flexible response. But it is still

36

David Hume

deterministic, because the way the various circumstances that constitute moral causes operate is to
establish a set of motives or reasons that render a
peculiar set of manners habitual or, as he says explicitly in the next paragraph, the manners of individuals are frequently determined by these [moral] causes
(E-NC: 198, my emphasis).
This last point should not be misunderstood. For all
the weight Hume attaches to the forces of socialization (see below), he never claims that any particular
individual cannot escape or be exceptional (he gives
the poet Homer as an example [E-AS: 114]). But such
exceptions are allowed for by Hume when he inserts
the adverb frequently before determined in the
quotation above. Nonetheless there is a persistent
strand of anti-individualism in his thought. This comes
out in, for example, his explanation for social change
like the rise of the commons, the establishment of liberty or growth of commerce (see Section F).
If we return to these moral causes we find Hume
identifies the following: nature of government, the
revolutions of public affairs, the plenty or penury in
which the people live, the situation of the nation with
regard to its neighbours (E-NC: 198). Of these, he
invokes government most frequently. Generally, differences of manners track differences in government
such as, pertinently, the absence of liberal arts in an
oppressive government (E-AS: 115). The second most

Humes Thought

37

common factor is close communication, with Jews

given as an example (E-NC: 205). In practice these
two commonest factors are closely allied. One of the
reasons why government is so causally effective is that
when people are politically united, they interact frequently over matters such as government itself,
defense, and commerce. This frequency or repetitiveness, abetted by the same language, means a people
must acquire a resemblance in their manners (E-NC:
203, my emphasis).
These manners, or the habits and way of living of
the people (E-Int: 298 cf E-Mon: 290, 294), will differ
but, as we have seen, not in so profound a way that
would preclude scientific explanation, for if you want
to know the sentiments, inclinations and course of
life of the Greek and Romans then you can study
with confidence (you cannot be much mistaken)
the French and English (M 8.7). The explanation for
the difference is put down to socialization because it is
the great force of custom and education which
mould[s] the human mind from its infancy and
form[s] it into a fixed and established character
(U 8.11). The reference to infancy recurs in Of
National Characters where he claims (glossing moral
causation) whatever it be that forms the manners of
one generation, the next must imbibe a deeper tincture of the same dye; men being more susceptible of
all impressions during infancy, and retaining these

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David Hume

impressions as long as they remain in the world

(E-NC: 203). Underpinning this is a philosophical
physiology, according to which the minds of children
are tender, so that customs and habits are able to
fashion them by degrees for social life (T 3-2-2.4)
(Berry, 2006: 304).
It is a central tenet of Humes social philosophy that
humans do indeed have to be fashioned for society.
I now turn to that philosophy.

C Justice
i The artificiality of justice

The crux of Humes argument is that justice is an

artificial virtue. From Plato through to the great systems of Natural Law justice had been thought to be
not a matter of artifice or convention but natural
it was part of human nature to act justly. Hume, however, is careful to spell out what it is that he is affirming
and what it is that he is here denying. He does not
dispute that no principle of the human mind is more
natural than a sense of virtue and, given Hume
regards justice as a virtue, then it partakes of that
naturalness. He also observes that since humans are
an inventive species then where an invention is
obvious and absolutely necessary then it can be
treated as natural as any thing that proceeds immediately from original principles. This indeed is

Humes Thought

39

exactly what Hume does want to claim. He goes

further. Though justice is artificial it is not arbitrary
and, on that basis, he even declares that it is not
improper to call the rules of justice laws of nature, if
by natural we understand what is common to any
species, or even if we confine it to mean what is inseparable from the species (T 3-2-1.19).
A significant clue to the meaning of artifice is supplied by the way Hume sets up his discussion. He
opens by comparing the situation of humans to that
of other animals:
Of all the animals . . . there is none towards whom
nature seems at first sight to have exercisd more cruelty than towards man, in the numberless wants and
necessities with which she has loaded him and in the
slender means which she affords to the relieving of
these necessities. In other creatures these two particulars generally compensate each other. (T 3-2-2.2)

He then proceeds to elaborate upon this compensation with references to lions, sheep, and oxen and, in
contrast, he reaffirms that an individual human experiences in its greatest perfection an unnatural conjunction of infirmity and necessity (T 3-2-2.2). To deal
with this conjunction humans need society. The root
of this need (the first and original principle of human
society) is the natural appetite between the sexes
(T 3-2-2.4). Clearly there is nothing uniquely human

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David Hume

in the possession of this appetite but, for Hume, in

implicit contrast to the natural facts about sheep and
other animals, the circumstances of human nature,
in particular the selfishness in our natural temper,
make its operation insufficient. This is compounded
by the incommodiousness of outward circumstances
with the consequence that human social/group life is
naturally unstable.
This instability thus arises necessarily out of the
concurrence of two facts: it is a uniform fact of
human nature that humans have only a limited or
confind generosity and that, in fact, external
objects are scarce relative to the desire for them
(T 3-2-2.16). (These constitute what the twentieth
century political philosopher, John Rawls [1972], in
an explicit acknowledgement of Hume, calls the
circumstances of justice.) The only remedy to this
instability is an artificially or conventionally induced
stability. This is what justice provides. Hume is
emphatic: without justice society must immediately
dissolve (T 3-2-2.22 cf. M 3.38). Not being provided
by nature with ready-made solutions, and suffering
from that unnatural conjunction of infirmity and
necessity, humans themselves have had to come up
with their own answers in order to make social life
possible (T 3-2-6.1). They have had to invent a solution. Justice is the outcome but since it arises out of
the ineluctable juxtaposition of scarcity and limited

Humes Thought

41

generosity then it is inseparable from the human

species.
Humes account of how this inventive construction
of an artificial remedy takes place is sketchy. Once
humans develop beyond familial groupings (bonded
by sexual appetite and more particularly by parental
affection) they realize (become sensible of) the
necessity to cooperate to remedy their natural disadvantages (T 3-2-2.9) or what Hume calls (employing a
phrase of Lockes [1963]) inconveniencies (T 3-22.3). He itemizes three: insufficient individual capacity or power to meet needs, inability to specialize and
thus be forced to make do when meeting the needs
and basic vulnerability to any small change of fortune.
Society is the remedy because it provides respectively additional force, ability and security.
For society to accomplish this we know that
humans have to invent justice. Hume must account
for this in a way consonant with the science of man;
most pointedly it must be in line with the naturalism with which his account has proceeded thus far.
Hence there is no room for supernatural (divine)
interventionfor Hume that would be arbitrary.
What he comes up with is that humans contrive the
remedy by restraining their passions (their original
inclinations) by artfully creating conventions that are
themselves the invention of their passions (T 3-2-2.9,
T 3-2-6.1). In this way, as we shall see, the artifice of

42

David Hume

property establishes stability of possession by restraining the heedless and impetuous movement of the
passion to acquire goods for ourselves (family and
friends) but is itself the alteration of the direction
of that passion (T 3-2-2.13; T 3-2-5.9). Humans from
their early education in society have observd the
disadvantages that come from instability of possessions (T 3-2-2.9) and on the least reflection it is
evident that the passion is much better satisfyd by
its restraint than by its liberty (T 3-2-2.13). Clearly
this is not in any strict sense an observation. What
Hume has done is make inferences from his scientific analysis of human nature (human motives or
passions). At best this is susceptible to a social Darwinian explanation. Those groups that developed the
appropriate remedial conventions were more successful and survived to pass them on, through socialization, to their young.
In what then, for Hume, does justice consist? It
comprises rules. Hume identifies three stability of
possession, its transfer by consent and promise-keeping (T 3-2-6.1). Before turning, in the next subsection, to the content of these rules, we need to heed
Humes careful account of how these rules/agreements/conventions emerged. (He needs to do this in
part because, as we shall see, he is savagely critical of
Contract theory.) The conventions of justice are the
effect of mutual agreement which when known to the

Humes Thought

43

participants produce[s] a suitable resolution and

behaviour. Hume provides the example of two men
who pull the oars of a boat do it by agreement or
convention though they have never given promises
to each other. He then generalizes this principle to
affirm that it is through the operation of this same
principle that gradually and by slow progression
languages are formed and gold becomes the measure
of exchange (T 3-2-2.10).
These rules have two important characteristics and it
is here where the link between Humes analysis of justice and commercial society is forged (see Section F).
These rules are both general and inflexible. We can
see here a clear connection between Humes epistemology and his political and moral philosophy. The
very coherence of the world (the cement of the
universe) depended upon extending through habit
the experience of one case to another. General rules
are formed on the basis of expecting past occurrences
to continue (T 2-2-5.13). They are indispensable;
indeed Hume regards it as a truth about human
nature that we are mightily addicted to general rules
(T 3-2-9.3).
As we have seen, in the case of justice these rules
are artificial. Humans impose them upon themselves
to establish order but to attain that end necessitates
strict observance of the three laws (T 3-2-6.1);
they need to be unchangeable by spite and favour,

44

David Hume

and by particular views of private or public interest

(T 3-2-6.9). Justice has to be strict; rules have to be
unchangeable or inflexible so that there can be predictability and thence social coherence. When that is
established then individuals can act in expectation
that others are to perform the like (T 3-2-2.22). Such
expectations, built up through repeated experience, are self-supporting. This was how languages
and money came to be established because
this experience assures us still more that the sense of
interest has become common to all our fellows and
gives us a confidence of the future regularity of their conduct. And tis only on the expectation of this, that our
moderation and abstinence are founded. (T 3-2-2.10,
my emphases)

More particularly, the rules of justice have to be

inflexible because they provide the background stability to enable this confidence to grow and these
expectations to be entertained. And this inflexibility is necessary because the temptation to relax the
rules is strong. He cites the case of miser who justly
receives a great fortune. He admits that a single act
of justice like this may in itself be prejudicial to society (the money could have done more good elsewhere) but, nonetheless, the whole plan or scheme
is absolutely requisite (T 3-2-2.22). If an exception
is made in one case, if the rules are made flexible or
made to forfeit their generality, then justice in the

Humes Thought

45

form of expectations that everyone will perform the

like will break down. Hume counsels against evaluating single transactions as unjust if they seem clearly
contrary to the public interest (as when a miser justly
inherits a fortune). On the contrary what needs to be
considered is the general point of view, from which
perspective that whole plan or scheme can be appreciated (T 3-2-2.22). In an unremarkable way this gives
a conservative cast to Humes thought. If social
interactions depend on reliable expectations and
associated beliefs then presumptively they should be
conserved given that the effect of flexibility is to
undermine those foundations. Moreover, these are
genuinely foundations such that it is dangerous to
the superstructure to meddle with themto intervene in an attempt ameliorate is too risky (better to
let the miser inherit).

ii The rules of justice

I now turn to look at the rules of justice themselves.

Since two of the three rules relate to propertyits
stability and transferI will focus first on that relation, and take up the third rule about promises in the
context of Humes move to the key institution of
government.
One of the commonest complaints of Humes
account of justice is that he confines it too narrowly
to questions of property (Harrison, 1981). To explain,

46

David Hume

and account for, his position we need to return to his

naturalism, his identification of the human predicament. Hume distinguishes three species of human
goodsinternal satisfaction of our mind, the external advantages of our body and the enjoyment of such
possessions as we have acquird by our industry and
good fortune (T 3-2-2.7). He then asserts that we are
perfectly secure in the enjoyment of the first of
these. Hume is no fan of the Stoics but this is consistent with their conviction that humans are independent, capable of apathy or being unperturbed by
external events. It also accords with what is now
thought of as a key assumption in the basic liberal
tenet of toleration, namely, inward belief cannot be
coerced no matter what external pressure is exercised
to ensure outward compliance. With the respect to
the second type of goods, Hume declares that while
these advantages may well be ravishd from us, they
are of no advantage to the perpetrator. It is not obvious that being enslaved and forced to work manually
does not benefit a conqueror who keeps us alive in
order to toil on his behalf. Of course, another cannot
perform tasks that only the agent can execute (I might
use your external advantage to hold physically the
handkerchief but you cant sneeze for me). This only
leaves the third category. It is possessions that are both
exposd to the violence of others and may be transferrd
without suffering any loss or alteration (T 3-2-2.7).

Humes Thought

47

From this fact, when coupled with insufficiency of

supply, it follows for Hume, that stabilizing possession
of these goods is the chief advantage of society, which
is to say that the artifice of justice remedies the inconvenience of unstable possession.
What the rules of justice do is transmute possession
into property. This point is made the first time Hume
refers to property in the Treatise, where in Book II
he adumbrates the later argument by defining it as
such a relation betwixt a person and an object as
permits him, but forbids any other, the free use and
possession of it, without violating the laws of justice
and moral equity (T 2-1-10.1). In Book III, property
is straightforwardly identified as nothing but those
goods whose constant possession is establishd by the
laws of society; that is the laws of justice (T 3-2-2.11).
In the same paragraph, he also picks up the idea of
property as a relationmans property is some object
related to him (a relation which on occasion he typifies as a species of causation [T 3-2-2.7, T 3-2-3.7, DP:
14]). He then glosses this by adding this relation is
not natural but moral and founded on justice. The
gloss is revealing. Moral here still bears the generic
sense of customary but it also picks out the conventional dimension to the habitual. Much as habits can
constitute a second nature they are still different
from first nature or original principles. This means
that this contrast between natural as original and

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David Hume

moral as conventional is a restatement of the artificiality of the relation (as conveyed, for example, in the
concept of a moral person as a legal artifact). All of
this is captured by Humes firm declaration (still
within this same paragraph) that the idea of property
(and similarly right and obligation) is unintelligible
without understanding the idea of justice. In the literal sense of the word it is preposterous to imagine
we can have any idea of property without fully comprehending the nature of justice since the origin of
justice explains that of property.
By making property (and right) artificial Hume is
deliberately distancing himself from the Natural
Law/Lockean idea of a natural right to property. The
important implication of this is that Hume is not a
rights-based liberal nor a fortiori a similarly grounded
libertarian like Nozick (1974). Rights do not inhere
as some natural property of persons that, as such,
have normative superiority, or establish an evaluative
yardstick against which, social institutions can/should
be measured. The explanation as to why he distances
himself from that position is his scientific intent. He
has traced the necessity of justice to the imperative to
contrive stability in human intercourse because of
the unnatural conjunction of partiality and scarcity
(T 3-2-2.2). Humans do not possessnature has not
provided them withany peculiar original principles to sustain society. To subscribe to what he calls

Humes Thought

49

the the vulgar definition of justice namely, giving

every one his due (T 3-2-6.1) is to endorse this view of
natural provision. But the experiments in the science
of man produce a different outcome. Humans are
naturally moved by their passions to the preclusion of
their satisfaction but by artifice they restrain these
passions by establishing the rules of justice so that
they may be satisfied. To subscribe to natural provision is to undermine that restraint. The vulgar account
effectively makes justice flexible and thereby destroys
its public utility (T 3-2-6.8), its ability to ensure
stability.
In an elaboration of this, Hume returns to the connection between property and justice. He repeats his
argument that property is an artificial/moral and not
a natural relation. If, however, property is conceived
of as a natural right, as antecedent, and independent of justice, as another ingredient of a natural
morality, then, for Hume, it would produce an
infinite confusion in human society (T 3-2-6.9). To
illustrate this we can return to the example of the
miser. For Hume the only relevant consideration is
strict justice but for Francis Hutcheson, for example, the moral sense would approve the generosity
of a worthy man over the parsimony of a miser, that
is, our natural morality would approve the formers
action (Hutcheson, 1994: 72). This imports a possible
contingency for, though we may believe property

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David Hume

should in general be respected, nevertheless we are

always naturally liable to make an exception in
this or that case. This indeterminate exceptionalism
means that it is flexibility that is natural, a finding
that Hume takes as a proof that the very inflexibility
of justice reveals its source in artifice.
To adopt the expansive vulgar definition of justice
(which in fact was the definition in not only Greek
but also Christian and Natural Law ethics) is to
make it, in effect, the code of conduct suffusing all
human relationships. But this is exactly the expansive
looseness that the science of man is policing. This
definition goes beyond experience because it relies
on the chimerical presumption that it embodies
the ultimate original principles of human nature
(T Introd.8). To claim it is obvious that the miser
should not inherit is to assert there is some natural
beauty in property relations (T 3-2-6.4). For Hume
this claim creates confusion in the further sense that
it imports into a warranted and self-sufficient account
of how humans have constructed a viable social life
an unwarranted recourse to metaphysical first principles or theology. (Again Hutcheson can be cited
as relevant witness, since he had remarked that the
highest branch of justice was piety toward God
[Hutcheson, 2007: 100]). As we will observe, for
Hume religion, too, has its origin in human-all-toohuman passions and has no preemptive normative

Humes Thought

51

force. Once, therefore, we stray beyond the narrow

understanding of justice with its restricted focus on
property and give it a broader meaning then we get
lost in the intractable, and effectively pointless,
debates over first or original principles (Krause,
2004).

iii The virtuousness of justice

There remains an outstanding question. We have

seen why Hume thinks justice necessary but he has to
explain why it is also virtuous. That explanation is
needed not only because that is what observation of
common life reveals but also because, as he admits, it
was established out of self-interest and that source
would seem far-removed from virtue (T 3-2-2.24).
(The same applies to promise-keeping since that
practice too originated in self-interested commerce
[T 3-2-5.8].)
As a preliminary we need to say something briefly
about his moral philosophy. For Hume morality is
more properly felt than judgd of (T 3-2-1.1), a
proposition that stems definitionally from his basic
axioms. Given that all perceptions are either impressions or ideas then if moral perceptions are not ideas
(the province of reason) they must be a feature of
sentiment. He then claims that every mans experience must convince us that the impression arising

52

David Hume

from virtue is agreeable or pleasurable while that

from vice is uneasy or painful (T 3-2-1.2 cf. T 2-39.8, T 2-1-2.4). While the agreeable impression that
arises from virtue is a given of human nature (an
ultimate fact in the science of man that cannot be
explained [T Introd.8]) there is nothing similarly
given about what gives rise to virtue. Simply to state
that all virtues originate in nature is too imprecise
(T 3-1-2.7). More than that it is actually false if
natural is taken to mean the operations of physiological/physical causes (like temperature on a sheeps
tongue). Crucially for Hume much of human life is
necessarily governed not by knee-jerk reactions but
by conventions, rules or artifices and these are inventions or learned responses and, of course, the most
important of these is justice.
To repeat, justice is a necessary invention generated by the facts that humans possess only a confind
generosity and are confronted with scarce resources.
Hume is here openly accepting that universal benevolence which, for Francis Hutcheson, was the summit of moral goodness (1994: 889,100) is contrary
to these facts. Yet Hume does not accept Hobbes
argument (1991: chapter 6) that humans are only
self-interested and in many passages he stresses
human sociality and its importance (T 2-2-4.4, T 2-25.15). The support for this is common experience

Humes Thought

53

since if that is consulted then the finding is that kind

affections outweigh the selfish (T 3-2-2.5). Such kind
affections as meekness, beneficence, charity, generosity, clemency, and the like are both natural and
social virtues (T 3-3-1.11 cf. M 5.3; E-OC: 479). The
undeniable evidence of their existence means that
Hume is forthright in dismissing the Hobbes (and
Mandevilles [1988]) view that all moral distinctions
are the product of the artifice of politicians (M 5.3,
T 3-3-1.1, T 3-2-2.25). Yet all this granted these social
virtues alone cannot sustain society. For that task justice and other artifices are needed.
The closeness of social relationships, characteristic
of the early stages of social development, made it possible to identify directly with others. The consequence
of this proximity was that I could see that my restraint
(my observation of the rules of justice) was reciprocated to all our benefit. This circumstance pleases
and we thus label this restraint/justice virtuous. But
once society has become more complex this direct
identification with others is lost. It follows from this
that (say) the burglary of a strangers house is of no
material interest to me. Nevertheless the facts are that
this burglary still displeases and we still therefore say
it is an injustice. But as matters now stand it is hard to
see why. Displeasure is a feeling but that stranger as a
stranger is someone to whom I am indifferent. There

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David Hume

has to be a means whereby the strangers fate engages

my sentiments. Hume supplies that means through
the principle of sympathy.
Hume first introduces sympathy in Book II of the
Treatise where it has a precise, technical meaning as
the process whereby an idea is converted into an
impression (the difference between these being one
of degree not kind [T 1-1-1.1]). It is, as Hume affirms,
an object of the plainest experience that the idea
in our minds of anothers passions is converted into
the very impressions that those passions represent
(T 2-1-11.8). We now feel as they do. In line with this,
the idea we form of the strangers unease at being
burgled is by sympathy converted into our partaking of that unease. And since every thing which gives
uneasiness in human actions upon the general survey
is calld Vice then we label the burglary an injustice
(T 3-2-2.24). Correspondingly all actions which
uphold the rules of justice give satisfaction and are
labeled virtuous.
As Hume puts it, sympathy takes us out of ourselves so that the pleasure or uneasiness of others is
also felt (T 3-3-1.11). In this way sympathy produces
our sentiment of morals in all the artificial virtues
(T 3-3-1.10 my emphasis). There is no need to have
recourse to a direct moral sense (as Hutcheson had
done) to identify the virtue of justice. For sympathy to
achieve this considerable feat it also means that it has

Humes Thought

55

to be a very powerful principle of human nature

(T 3-3-6.1, T 3-3-1.10). As a principle of human nature
it will be constant and uniform in operation (see
above). This is why we are justified (as in any other
matter of fact [T 2-1-11.8]) in causally inferring from
the observation of anothers behavior that they are
experiencing certain passions (the burgled strangers
anger and grief, for example). Though Hume allows
that sympathy is responsible for the uniformity in
the humours and turn of thinking of those of the
same nation and this resemblance is more significant
in forming national character than soil and climate
(T 2-1-11.2; E-NC) it is not restricted since the principles of the science of man apply universally; it is a
matter of degrees of facility not possibility.

D Government, Legitimacy, and Custom

The same processes that produce the necessity for
justice also account for the need for government. As
we will see there is a strong polemical element embedded within his account.
i The need for and role of government

As we will discuss below in subsection iii, for all the

weight that Humes social theory attaches to custom
and habit as socializing individuals into a way of

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David Hume

living, it is evident that there still remains a formal

need for the enforcement of just conduct. Government meets that need. In his discussion of the origin
of government in the Treatise Hume declares it to be
a quality of human nature to prefer the contiguous
to the remote (T 3-2-7.2). This is a dangerous quality because it makes humans prefer trivial present
advantage to the more distant maintenance of justice. However, in the now familiar way, this dangerous
infirmity of human nature becomes a remedy to
itself (T 3-2-7.5) as humans create the artificial institution of magistracy. By the means of this artifice
the observance of justice is made the immediate
interest of a few who inforce the dictates of equity
thro the whole society. These few are claimed to
be satisfyd with their present condition (T 3-2-7.6)
and being indifferent to the greatest part of society
can act equitably (T 3-2-7.7). While in one of his late
essays he seemingly acknowledges the inherent complacency of that view by remarking that governors
may often be led astray by private passions; yet,
nonetheless, they are still said to have a visible interest in the impartial administration of justice (E-OG:
39). By this administration (enforcement), security is
enhanced and constructive interactions can ensue.
This process Hume will greatly enlarge upon in his
later work as he charts the growth of commerce and
civilization (see Section G). Hume also recognizes

Humes Thought

57

that government is particularly placed so that

it can have an immediate interest in the interest of
any considerable part of their subjects and thus
under its care bridges are built; harbours opend;
ramparts raisd; canals formd; fleets equippd; and
armies disciplind (T 3-2-7.8). In effect, Hume is recognizing the role played by government in ensuring
the provision of public goods.
The need for government, its utility, or promotion
of the common good, is thus obvious but, importantly,
it does not follow that it was deliberately set up with
great forethought. In the Treatise he observes that the
laws of justice themselves, though in the public interest, were not intended for that purpose by the inventors, for their interest was for themselves (their
self-love as Hume calls it) (T 3-2-6.6). This is a foreshadowing of Smiths invisible hand (Smith, 1981:
456) and this same insight recurs when the Treatises
abstract formal treatment is subject to more concrete
investigation in his later Essays. There Hume remarks
what while the emergence of government looks certain and inevitable it actually commences more
casually and imperfectly. Now appealing more openly
to evidence that warfare is endemic in savage tribes
he conjectures that its long continuance at that time
gave to the strongest and most prudent a leadership
role (E-OG: 40). The people being enured to their
submission come to accept the leaders decisions as

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David Hume

an arbiter during peace-time disputes. It was in this

way, as an unintended consequence, that government
commences; it cannot be expected that men should
beforehand be able to discover them [principles of
government] or foresee their operation (E-OG: 39).
This is in outline exactly the case that Hume that
drawn upon to account for the emergence of conventions to govern property, money, and language. Once
initiated these conventions become self-supporting as
(to requote) the sense of interest has become common to all our fellows and gives us a confidence of the
future regularity of their conduct. I obey because
you obey (and vice versa) and the beneficial effect of
obedience gives us an interest in obeying.
There is a polemical dimension to this discussion.
This awareness of unintended consequences is
central to Humes downgrading of reason, in the
sense of treating appeals to rationality as a motivational explanation for social institutions. This downgrading is frequently identified as a hallmark of
conservative thinking in so far as it juxtaposes in
Edmund Burkes phrase the individuals private
stock of reason to the bank and capital of nation
and ages and warns of the calamities that follow from
neglecting the latter and acting on the former (1987:
76). The most celebrated expression of this in Humes
political writing occurs in this context as he undercuts the theory of the original contract, especially

Humes Thought

59

in its Lockean form (see Buckle and Castiglione

[1991]).
Locke had claimed that in order to understand the
true, extent and end of civil power it was necessary
to identify its origins (1963: II, 1). This typical claim
in fact goes a long way to explaining why the dominant reference is to an original contract.

ii The critique of contract

Hume explicitly develops a two-pronged attackhistorical and philosophical. The heart of the philosophy of contract was a promise by the ruler that he
would govern equitably in exchange for obedience
and reciprocally a promise by the subjects that they
would obey in exchange for fair stable rule. Humes
philosophical rejection turns on a distinction in
moral duties (E-OC: 47980). One category of duties
emanates directly from a natural instinct or immediate propensity and operates independently of any
ideas of obligation or utility. His examples are love of
children, gratitude to benefactors and pity to the
unfortunate. When humans reflect on the social
advantages of these propensities they pay them the
just tribute of moral approbation and esteem. The
duties in the other category do not emanate immediately from instinct; they operate only after reflection upon their necessity for social intercourse.

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David Hume

His examples here are justice, fidelity and, crucially

for the present argument, allegiance. Although Hume
no longer calls these artificial virtues the basic argument is the same as that spelt out in the Treatise. From
the basis of this distinction in duties, he now proceeds
to argue that the Contractarian claim to base the duty
of allegiance on the duty of fidelity (promise-keeping
whichrecallis the third rule of justice) is a conceptual redundancy. We keep our promises and also
obey our rulers because both are necessary for social
life. That necessity is sufficient explanationin either
case we gain nothing by resolving one into the other
(E-OC: 481).
Turning to the historical prong, Hume argues
that the claim that government originated in a contract is not justified by history or experience in any
age or country of the world (E-OC: 471). The actual
origins do not correspond to a Lockean-type story
of free, equal individuals contracting with each
other. Hume does allow that the effective equality
of individuals does mean that an element of consent
was involved in the establishment of government.
However he denies that in practice this amounted to
any more than falling in behind an originally temporary war-leader; it is clear, he maintains, that there was
no compact or agreement . . . expressly formed for
general submission. Moreover even if some element
of consent is present it was never the sole principle
(E-OC: 474).

Humes Thought

61

If the Contractarian account of origins is empirically invalid, it is even less tenable when it claims the
legitimacy of current government rests on consent
(E-OC: 469), since if these reasoners were to
examine actual practice and belief they would meet
with nothing that in the least corresponds to
their ideas (E-OC: 470). Neither rulers nor subjects
believe their relationship is the effect of some prior
pact. This is a damaging line of argument. The very
core of Contractarian doctrine is that it is on some
current awareness, in the form of giving consent,
making a contract or giving a promise, that the legitimacy of rule depends. Accordingly the absence of
that awareness (an act Hume declares to be unknown
to all of them) is fatal to the theorys cogency.
Hume reinforces the argument by also pointing out
the implausibility of any notion of tacit consent.
Locke, because of the role his arguments played in
early-eighteenth-century British political debate
(Kenyon, 1977), was Humes acknowledged target
(E-OC: 487). According to Locke, those who enjoy
the protection of the laws (even by only traveling on
the highway) were tacitly giving their consent (1961:
II, 119) and it is a signal of withdrawal of consent if
they leave the jurisdiction (121). Hume pours scorn
on this notion. He asks rhetorically how serious is any
account that claims a poor peasant or artisan who
knows no foreign language and has no capital has a
free choice to leave his country (E-OC: 475). This is

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David Hume

analogous, he claims, to remaining aboard ship and

freely consenting to the captains rule even though
one was carried aboard asleep and the only alternative is leaping overboard and drowning.

iii Time and legitimacy

There is a wider point of considerable importance

contained in this critique. Hume is severing the link
between origins and legitimacy. His argument thus
far has been essentially negative but he does develop
his own significant positive counterpart. For Hume
all the evidence points to the fact that all existing
governments were originally founded on usurpation
or conquest (E-OC: 471); that is, in plain terms, force
by dissolving the ancient government is the origin
of all the new ones which ever were established in
the world (E-OC: 474). It was in order to sidestep
these considerations that the Contractarians had
sought the touchstone of legitimacy in an original
contract. But, as we have seen, Hume recognized
that this touchstone was not true to the facts. This
recognition sets the agenda for his own positive
argument. This does not mean he is condoning
violence (there is nothing more dangerous to liberty
than an authority acquired from usurpation [E-RC:
374]) but he is committed to demonstrating how
illegitimate origins (force) can produce legitimate

Humes Thought

63

allegiance; how might can change into right. (Against

the backdrop of the abdication of James II and the
invitation to William and Mary to accept the throne
in 1688 and then the Hanoverian succession of 1714
the practical purchase of this entire line of enquiry is
not going to be far away.)
How might becomes right pivots on the effect of
timeit is time alone that gives solidity to the
right of rulers to govern (T 3-2-10.4). A few pages
later he repeated the observation with a significant
refinement, time and custom give authority to all
forms of government and all successions of princes;
and that power which at first was founded only on
injury and violence becomes in time legal and obligatory (T 3-2-10.19: my emphasis). This link between
time and custom, which we will explore more thoroughly in the next subsection, has a direct bearing on
legitimacy. For Hume it is a wonder how easy it is
for a few to rule over the many, especially since
strength (of numbers) must always lie with the latter.
All the governors (the few) can rely on is opinion
(E-FPG: 32). Hume proceeds to distinguish between
opinion of interest, based on the sense of advantage reaped from government, and opinion of
right, which is subdivided into right to power and
right to property (E-FPG: 33). He takes the latter of
these two subdivisions to be well-established, and his
chief example of the former is attachment to ancient

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government since, and this the point of current

moment, antiquity always begets the opinion of
right (E-FPG: 33). Opinion here is another manifestation of the importance of belief and expectation; the fact that allegiance reposes on a disposition
in the minds of those who obey.
This disposition is the effect of habit for men once
accustomed to obedience never think of departing
from that path in which they and their ancestors
have constantly trod (E-OG: 39). Obedience or
allegiance is a habitually induced (artificial) virtue
the source of which is the general and obvious
interests in maintaining the authority of magistrates
as they function to restrain our primary instincts to
indulge ourselves in unlimited freedom (E-OC: 480).
As we have already noted, while the support which
allegiance brings to justice be founded on obvious
principles of human nature, this support is not the
product of clear-sighted and cool-headed deliberation, men cannot be expected . . . beforehand to
discover or foresee this (E-OG: 39). Humans thus
form socially necessary habits but this does not mean
some extraordinary Legislator, like that revived by
Rousseau (1968: II, 7) is necessary to engineer them
into existence; instead it is the (unnatural) conjunction of human nature and circumstances that, as we
have seen, ineluctably generates conventions which
acquire force by a slow progression and by repeated
experience (T 3-2-2.10).

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65

Hume is here extending the established principle

of prescription. In the Treatise in his discussion of
property Hume had defined prescription or long
possession as conveying title to any object (T 3-2-3.
9). This principle is a standard component in the
jurisprudential account of property but in its received reading it did not have a transformative effect.
Hume was aware (H: III, 394n) that his usage was
contrary to the standard understanding. Standardly,
it was accepted that prescriptive title to property
presupposed that it was obtained in good faith.
The conservative dimension to this, where what
matters is longevity and continuity and not some
normative commitment to the special significance of
origins was duly picked up by Burke and William
Paley (see Chapter 3) who closely follow Hume to the
extent of appropriating his language. But even so
some care is required since the transformative effect
is procedural not substantive, that is, it need not serve
conservative ends. Hence Hume, when paraphrasing the arguments of the lovers of liberty (the Parliamentary cause) in their debate with Charles II,
can appropriately remark that prescription, and the
practice of so many ages, must long ere this time have
given a sanction to these assemblies (H: III, 70).
Hume applies the notion of prescriptive title to the
entitlement to rule. Hence in the essay on the original contract, he observes that subjects from originally
obeying a ruler out of fear and necessity come to

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consent willingly because they think that from long

possession he has acquired a title (E-OC: 475). Hume
here has reversed the order of normative cause
and effect. People consent because they think their
rulers are entitled to their obedience; they do not
think that entitlement is the effect of an act of consent on their part (E-OC: 478).

iv Custom

Time is clearly essential to prescription and its role

there is indicative of the wide and pervasive role it
plays in Humes thought. For Hume since time
produces nothing real then to talk of property,
or title, as the effect of time can only mean it is the
offspring of the sentiments on which time alone is
found to have any influence (T 3-2-3.9). Time influences sentiments not directly but indirectly because it
is the medium through which custom or habit operates and nothing causes any sentiment to have
greater influence upon us than custom (T 3-2-10.4).
Custom, says Hume in the Treatise, induces a facility
in doing an action (practice makes perfect as the
proverb has it) and thence an inclination or tendency
to doing it (T 2-3-5.1 cf. U 5.5). Hume remarks that it
is an effect of custom that it gives us an affection
for something we have long enjoyed. (This could be
referred to as a conservative dispositionsee

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67

Chapter 4.) This affection informs our preferences.

We prefer to retain possession of a familiar object to
one that it is more valuable but unknown (T 2-2-4.8)
and, conversely, we can easily live without possessions that we are not accustomd to (T 3-2-3.4).
Implicit here is that humans routinize their behavior. It is not that they are incapable of novelty or will
not rise to challenges; they can break from custom
and disturb the psychological coziness that comes
from doing what is habitually done. But even this
breakif persisted withcan in turn lead to a new
comforting pattern of behavior; it is part of the power
of custom that it can turn pain into pleasure (T 23.5.1). While this can apply on an individual level
(as I grow to like malt whisky), the real impact derives
from the fact that habits and customs are mutually
reinforcing; the human mind is wonderfully
fortified by an unanimity of sentiments (E-PG: 60).
This echoes the argument about the effect of communication on national character since if a group of
humans converse often enough, they will acquire a
similarity of manners (E-NC: 202). Hume refers to
the imitation of Roman manners by the conquered
Gauls as weaning them (over about a century) from
their ancient prejudices (E-PG: 61-2n).
A custom is necessarily a creature of time; usurpers
do not suddenly become endowed with legitimacy.
In order that a routine or a set of stable beliefs

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can be established there has to be some fixity or

constancy in the experience. Habits are repeated
responses to a stable set of circumstances. This repetitiveness leaves its mark and is especially significant
regarding political authority. In a strong passage that
reflects Humes downplaying of human autonomy in
its rationalistic individualist guise, he remarks that
human societies are comprised of continually changing populations so that to achieve any stability it is
necessary that the new brood should conform themselves to the established constitution and nearly follow the path which their fathers, treading in the
footsteps of theirs, had marked out to them (E-OC:
4767). The brood conforms not as a consequence
of any deliberate (or as we might say with the metaphor, adult) decision but because there is a preexistent path. This path they follow because they
neither know no other route nor even consider the
possibility of there being one. As Hume puts it in
another related essay, and expressing again his positive account of legitimacy, habit soon consolidates
what other principles of human nature had imperfectly founded and men once accustomed to obedience never think of departing from that path in
which they and their ancestors have constantly trod
(E-OG: 39).
As this quotation indicates, habits or customary ways
of behaving not only stabilize they also constrain by

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69

circumscribing the range of effective or discernible

options. This delimiting of options applies to institutions as well as to individuals. Governments, for
example, do not operate on a blank canvas; they are
constrained by the inertial weight of received opinion, and customary way of doing things. There is an
appropriate moral hereand one drawn frequently
in conservative thought. It is dangerous for a legislator to embark on violent innovations (E-OC: 477).
Hume, as ever, is nondogmatic. This is a rule that has
exceptions (as with Henry VIIIs break with Catholicism). Less dramatically Hume admits (as does Burke
[1987: 19]) that innovations do have a place, though
when the magistrate attempts some public improvements he will wisely adjust his innovations, as much
as possible to the ancient fabric and preserve entire
the chief pillars and supports of the constitution
(E-IPC: 513). The wise magistrate will be aware that
habits more than reason are in everything . . . the
governing principle of mankind (H: III, 116).
Since customs are creatures of time then time, that
is, gradual alterations in the sentiments of people, is
what changes them. I want to examine two crucial
instances of this pervasive Humean theme. These are
chosen to exemplify two seemingly contrasting aspects
of his thought. The first is his critical account of the
role of religion, the second (in Section F) is his positive account of the growth of civilization.

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E Superstition
While Hume clearly appreciates the conservative
power of custom he also recognizes that customs can
be bad as well as good, though in either case they are
capable of enduring for a considerable period. It is
here where we can best discern Humes polemical
streak since the major example of a bad custom is a
superstition. In an early essay he identifies weakness, fear, melancholy together with ignorance as
true sources of superstition (E-SE: 74). Though his
focus here is on a contrast between superstition and
enthusiasm as species of false religion, he sustains
his critique of superstition throughout his work and
what is increasingly salient is the link with ignorance.
Hence when characterizing savage life, the feature
that Hume uniformly identifies is that they are
ignorant (N: 35, 43, 44, U 10.20 etc.) and from the
grossness of its superstitions we may infer the ignorance of the age (H: III, 113, H: I, 148). For example,
it is because they are ignorant of the true connections
between causes and effects that savages call upon the
immediate and discrete action of gods to explain phenomena (especially those that frighten them). This
ignorance is attributable to their circumstances.
A savage is a necessitous creature, pressed by numerous wants and passions (N: 35). These pressing needs
mean a lack of leisure and that shortcoming means

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71

no time to contemplate. The natural propensity to

anthropomorphize will produce polytheism if it is
not corrected by experience and reflection (N: 41).
What is crucial is the relative breadth of experience
and the opportunity to reflect (Berry, 2000). Religious belief in this way is thoroughly naturalized,
another feature of common life that the science of
man will explain (T Introd.5).
A crucial consequence of this assessment of savages
as ignorant and superstitious is that Hume does not
regard their way of life as self-authenticating; rather
it is open to external evaluation (Berry, 2007). Just
because polygamy, for example, is explicable as a naturally human contrived institution does not mean,
Hume believes, that it cannot be appraised as to its
comparative utility and, indeed, pronounced as barbaric and odious (E:PD: 183, 185). The universalism of human nature allows a scientist of man to judge
between true (better) and false (worse) institutional
expressions. Hence by Humes lights, the science of
man can, for example, properly judge the Koran to
be a wild and absurd performance (E-ST: 229) or,
again, condemn modern convents as bad institutions
. . . as nurseries of superstition, burthensome to the
public and oppressive to the poor prisoners, male as
well as female and, as a final illustration, he upbraids
classical authors for not speaking of infanticide with
the horror it deserves (E-PAN: 3989).

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Underpinning and informing these judgments is

the fact that what the scrutiny of scientists/philosophers uncovers more generally is that humans have
universally felt the same about the same kinds of
things. In the Conclusion to the Second Enquiry Hume
spells this out. The notion of morals itself implies a
sentiment so universal and comprehensive as to
extend to all mankind (M 9.5). Indeed, the humanity of one man is the humanity of every one; and the
same object touches this passion in all human creatures (M 9.6). Hence, illustratively, it is the universal
structure of human nature that unavoidably makes
everyone condemn, that is express the sentiment
of disapprobation toward, treachery and barbarity
(M App. 1.6). This is what humans do; they so judge
because it is (the scientifically warranted) nature of
human nature that, when analyzed, what they approve
of is every quality which is useful or agreeable to
ourselves or others (M 9.3).
That universal ground of approbation may however be overlaid with the delusive glosses of superstition and false religion (M 9.3). As Humes very
language here indicates superstitions cannot be taken
to represent equally valid ways of living. They are local
deviations from the evidentially supported universalism that is the (human) natural source of all moral
distinctions and value-laden forms of life. There can
be no other credible locus. Morality is not miraculous

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73

and nor are social practices/institutions normatively

sui generis. Superstitions fall clearly under this rubric.
In that early essay mentioned earlier Hume judges
it fits men for slavery and is thus an enemy to civil
liberty (in that respect enthusiasm fares better).
This evaluative capacity goes to the heart of Humes
enterprise (Garrett, 1997: 240). This is indicatively
encapsulated at the beginning of the First Enquiry
when he declares that philosophers should not leave
superstition in possession of her retreat but, echoing the militaristic image in the Introduction to
the Treatise, rather draw an opposite conclusion and
perceive the necessity of carrying the war into the
most secret recesses of the enemy (U 1.12). Recall
again that the science of man as the only solid foundation is much superior in utility to any other form
of human comprehension (T Introd.7, 10). This utility should not be underplayed. Humes science of
man is programmatic and since that rests on, and supports, the universality of human nature then it can
serve as a benchmark. One key central manifestation
of this utility is its ability to discount all supernatural
accounts of morality and to replace them with a naturalistic account.
This replacement is not a neutral activity. While
philosophical errors are ridiculous those of religion
are dangerous (T 1-4-7.13). Moreover, as he spells out
in the following paragraph, it is the science of man

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David Hume

that can disarm the latter by correcting the former, by

establishing, that is, a set of opinions . . . satisfactory
to the human mind (T 1-4-7.14), for we ought to
prefer that which is safest and most agreeable (T 1-47.13). Without any scruple philosophy is preferable
to superstition of every kind or denomination (T 14-7.13). In other words, central to the utility of the
science of man is its capacity to evaluate different ways
of living. And since these ways comprise fundamentally customs and habits then it means he is seeking to
replace one set of customs by another better set
(Laursen, 1992: 166 but compare MacIntyre [1985:
231] who judges that Humes position is highly ideological, reflecting the prejudices of the Hanoverian
ruling elite). Hence for all the conservatism that
comes from recognizing their intractability, and from
acknowledging that external revolutions are dangerous and inapt, Hume does not think this provides
a normative trump to conserve indifferently a set of
current customs.

F Commerce and the Rule of Law

If superstitions are bad customs that are, among other
defects, inimical to liberty, then those customs that
underwrite civilization and liberty are good ones and
it is to those, and their emergence, that I now turn.
I start by outlining the narrative of the growth of

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75

liberty that Hume employs in his History and then

I shall examine its corollarythe defense of the modern commercial world and the liberty with which that
is associated. This features above all in his Political
Discourses of 1752.
i The decline of the barons

Hume identifies a great revolution in manners

occurring in the sixteenth and seventeenth century
(H: III, 58). More precisely the context for this judgment is the growth of the crowns authority, which
began in the reign of Henry VII but stretched into
the reign of Elizabeth. Hume, after referring to a
number of peculiar causes of this growth, then
claims that the manners of the age were a general
cause. The outline story is that the habits of luxury
dissipated the fortunes of the great barons, cities
increased, the middle rank of men began to grow
rich and eventually the farther progress of the same
causes begat a new plan of liberty, though in the
interim the sovereign took advantage to assume an
authority almost absolute (H: II, 602).
We can discern in this treatment that the decisive
change in this secret revolution of government (as
he characterizes it) is the subversion of the power of
the barons and it is of this that Hume declares that the
change of manners was the chief cause (H: II, 603).

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David Hume

Pivotal in this process was the alteration in the behavior (habitual way of life) of the medieval barons. They
changed from spending their surplus on ancient
hospitality and maintaining thereby many retainers
to acquiring, by degrees, a taste for elegant luxury
in housing and apparel. Hume here neither accounts
for the source of this luxury (though cites foreign
trade elsewhere [E-Com: 263]) nor identifies the hidden motivating passion(s) among the constant and
universal springs of human nature, which, from the
list of regular springs supplied in the First Enquiry
(quoted earlier), are likely to be avarice, self-love, and
vanity (U 8.7). What mattered in practice was that the
limited availability of these luxury items restricted
their acquisition to those few who could supposedly
afford them. However, their desirability was decisively
abetted by peer-group emulation (E-RA: 276) so that
their appeal spread to the generality of the nobility
(and later via imitation diffused down to the lesser
gentry [H: III, 99]). This taste, once acquired, became
habitual and to feed this habit the nobles retrenched
on their hospitality and reduced the number of their
retainers. Having fewer dependent retainers the
barons were less able to resist the execution of the
sovereigns laws thus inadvertently, in due course,
advancing the rule of law and its entailed consequence the security of private property. Moreover, by
spending money on goods they promoted arts and

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industry (H: II, 601) and gave subsistence to mechanics and merchants who lived in an independent
manner on the fruits of their own industry (H: II,
602).
If we are to explain this growth in sovereign authority, this revolution in government, then it is inadequate to look to legislation passed, the revolution is
secret or hidden from view not overtly apparent.
What matters is not passing laws but what makes them
effective. Hume judges Elizabeths attempts to restrain
luxury by proclamation to be ineffective because it was
out of step with the temper of the times (H: II, 602).
While particular pieces of legislation are by definition
individual or peculiar, law/government is a social
institution which means appropriate and commensurate social causes are needed to account for changes
(revolution) in it. And, as we have already pointed
out, Hume explicitly identifies the change of manners as the chief cause of this revolution and, as we
have also observed, it takes a long course of time . . .
to produce those great revolutions . . . The practical
corollary is that sovereigns, because they have to take
mankind as they find them, cannot pretend to
introduce any violent change (E-Com: 260).
The nature of government, and revolutions in
public affairs, we recall, were the major type of moral
causation and this story from the History echoes
Humes analysis in the Political Discourses, especially

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David Hume

Of Commerce and Refinement of Arts. It is to

these that we can now turn and in so doing can
expand on some aspects of the historical narrative.
ii The defense of commerce and luxury

These two essays can best be read as Hume refuting

a long-standing prejudice against commerce and luxury. This refutation is one of the strongest planks in
Humes espousal of what we can now identify as
liberalism. This has two aspects. Most profoundly
he rejects the underlying basic philosophical premises of those who oppose commerce and, secondly
and consequently, he rejects the main ingredients
of a powerful strand of political thinking, civic
republicanism.
Hume opens Refinement of Arts (originally titled
Of Luxury) by stating that luxury is a word of
uncertain signification (E-RA: 268). This reflects
that this topic was heavily debated at the time. On
one side were critics who drew on classical denunciations (Hume refers to these as severe moralists,
Sallust is named as an example) on the other were
defenders (notoriously Mandeville). Against this
backcloth Hume gives his own definition: luxury
is great refinement in the gratification of senses
(E-RA: 268). Any thought that this is intended to be
read censoriously as an endorsement of the moralists

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79

is displaced by his generalizing remark that ages of

refinement are both the happiest and most virtuous (E-RA: 269). By coupling luxury/refinement
with happiness/virtue and not opposing them Hume
is here clearly breaking from the moralist tradition.
If people are now happier in what does this happiness consist? Hume identifies three components
repose, pleasure, and action (E-RA: 26970). Of these
the last is crucial. The first is merely derivative, only
valued as a break from action. The second is integrally
connected with action because being occupied is
itself enjoyable. It is the twist that Hume gives to
action that is crucial. The focus is not the civic
republican preoccupation with political or public
affairs (rei publicae), but the private endeavor of
industry. Where industry abounds then individuals
will be not only opulent but also happy as its members reap the benefit of . . . commodities so far as
they gratify the senses and appetite (E-Com: 263). If
we ask what motivates them, Hume answers avarice
and industry, art and luxury (E-Com: 263). The fact
that avarice was uniformly condemned by the severe
moralists signals the switch in evaluations that has
occurred. We can pursue what was involved in that
switch by picking up on Humes further remark that
humans are roused to activity or industry by a desire
of a more splendid way of life than what their ancestors enjoyed (E-Com: 264).

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David Hume

The use of desire here is significant but it will

require a short excursion in the history of ideas to
establish that point. Humes usage in that phrase
entails a fundamental rejection of the assumptions
of the severe moralists. That rejection is integral to
Humes acceptance of modern philosophy, upon
which the entire project of a science of man builds.
As a sweeping generalization, the pivot of modern
thought is a rejection of Aristotlean teleological philosophy. According, to this philosophy the end or
telos of (say) food is to assuage hunger and desire is
limited to the attainment of that natural end and to
desire food when not hungry is to manifest imperfection (Aristotle, 1976: 1097b). Moreover, to care
about the quality of the food is also beside the point.
The modern view rejects the idea that desires can be
limited to some fixed end and the principle of a
desire-less state. As Hobbes pointed out, the only way
to be free of desire is to be dead (1991: 70). Humans
ever move toward what they imagine pleases and
away from what they imagine will occasion pain.
In this premodern context, severity and poverty are
virtues and luxury a vice or corruption. These virtues
are an expression of the simple or natural life.
Those who live simply will not be poor because, on
this understanding, poverty is only experienced by
those who desire more than the limits set by Nature
(who care for edible delicacies, characteristic of that

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more splendid way of life identified by Hume). And

once the natural limit is passed then there is no resting place and, viewed from that perspective, life will
always appear too short. Those who see matters in this
light will (to quote Seneca [1969: 138]) become soft
through a life of luxury and accordingly afraid of
death. Such fear is unmanly hence in the classical critique the firm association between luxury and softness
and effeminacy.
On this understanding men who live a life of luxury
become effeminate. That is to say they become soft,
unable to endure hardship and to act courageously in
the definitively (even etymologically) masculine fashion. To live luxuriously is to devote oneself to the
pleasures of self-indulgence and avarice. Such a life
has social consequences. A society where luxury is
established will devote itself to private ends since men
will be unwilling to act (fight) for the public good.
This society, it follows, will be militarily weaka
nation of cowards will easily succumb.
It was further assumed that preeminent among
those who served their private interest were traders or
merchants. Compared to a citizen, that is, one who
dedicated his life to the active pursuit of the public
good, a merchant lived a less fulfilling, less humanly
worthwhile life. This disparagement, present in
Aristotle for example (1944: 1257a1258a), was sharpened once commerce began to spread. Over and

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beyond that commerce was suspect because of the

uncertainty or risk that lies at its corethere is no
guarantee that you will be able to sell your goods. And
since the system rests on nothing more tangible than
belief, opinion, and expectation then it seemed
clearly too insubstantial to support a social order.
These classical jeremiads were rejuvenated by the
experience of the spectacular financial collapses of
the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century
such as the South Sea Bubble. What gave weight to
these concerns was that there existed a contrasting
model in the person of the independent landowner
or country gentleman. This individual enjoys the
masculine virtues of stability and certainty, in sharp
and deliberate contrast to the feminine traits of fluidity and the unreliability of a money economy.
The only way a luxurious, soft nation could meet its
military commitments or needs was by hiring others
to play that role. To make that feasible the nation had
to have the wherewithal. Hence arose the important
association between luxury, wealth (commerce), and
mercenary armies. For classical republicans this
was a negative association so that commerce too
became tarred with the anti-luxury brush. This meant
that to defend commerce required a deflection or
subversion of the traditional case against luxury.
We can now return directly to Humes defense
of luxury and his rebuttal of the moralized case

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83

(Berry, 2008). One strategy in this rebuttal was to

accept the connection between commerce and softness but to construe this positively. Hume does this by
developing a contrast between the civilized or refined
on the one hand and the barbarous or rude on the
other. He declares that it is peculiar to polished or
. . . luxurious ages that industry, knowledge and
humanity are linked together by an indissoluble
chain (E-RA: 271). It is a mark of the growth in
humanity that it has, in part, expressed itself in the
tempers of men being softened and one manifestation of this softening of manners is that wars are less
cruel and the aftermath more humane (E-RA: 274).
Here is a basic rescheduling of virtues.
There is a shift from an emphasis on martial virtues,
like courage and glory, to a stress upon the gentle
virtues of humanity, industry, and justice (H: II, 81;
M 7.15). Despite this Hume denies that this softening
has enervated the martial spirit. The supposed
causal link between luxury and military weakness is
undermined by the cases of France and England, that
is, of the two most powerful and most polished and
commercial societies (E-RA: 275). Since a states
power hinges on its military capacity it means that
Hume is contending that a commercial society is
potent not impotent, is virile not effeminate. His
contention has both a positive and a negative aspect.
Negatively he holds that the population of a

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nontrading society will be indolent and its soldiers

will lack knowledge, skill, and industry. These deficiencies make them fit only for sudden confrontations, because regular attack or defense is beyond
them (E-RA: 260). Positively, a civilized nation, precisely because it is industrious and knowledgeable,
will be an effective military power. The root cause is
that a nations power increases in proportion as it
increases labor employed beyond mere necessaries.
The effect of this cause is that the nation possesses a
storehouse of labor (E-RA: 272; E-Com: 262). This
store can be drawn on to meet military need. In a civilized nation an army is raised by imposing a tax, this
reduces consumption of unnecessary luxury goods
thus releasing manufacturers of such goods for military service (E-Com: 261).
There is a deeper dimension to Humes analysis.
This is revealed in his comment that the sort of society
presupposed by the critics of luxury is contrary to the
natural bent of the mind (E-Com: 263). Here Hume
refers explicitly to Sparta (Berry, 1994: 14252).
Spartan policy goes against the grain of human nature
because its devotion to the public good is too difficult to sustain. Hume supposes that if a city today
became a fortified camp, such that its inhabitants
had both a martial genius and passion for the public good, then, indeed, all arts and luxury could be
banished (E-Com: 2623). But this supposition is

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unrealistic. The touchstone of realism is the knowledge of human nature gleaned from cautious observation. The requisite devotion to the public good is
too disinterested to have an effective purchase on
human behavior. While Hume had argued that, on
the basis of common experience, the kind affections overbalance the selfish yet it is true, as his analysis of justice presumed, that in the original frame of
our mind, our strongest attention is confind to
ourselves (T 3-2-2.8). Two noteworthy consequences
follow. First, civic virtue is too fragile a base on which
to erect a system of government and second, relatedly, this means that in the normal run of things governments must govern men by those passions that
most effectively animate them.
It is accordingly sensible, and in practice greatly
preferable, to conduct public affairs from the solid
foundation of natural human inclinations rather
than anything that might have transpired in Sparta.
To govern men along Spartan lines would require
a miraculous transformation of mankind (E-RA:
280). Government, however, is not in the business of
miracles; it must deal with the world as it is and men
as they are (E-Com: 260). All it can do is channel the
passions so that their effects minimize social disharmony. What underpins this is Humes modern
epistemology. In contrast to the classical framework,
where the proper response to unruly passions was the

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cultivation and application of reason, Hume, in

line with the modern view, regards reason as inert
(T 3-1-1.10). All it can do, as he notoriously says, is
serve and obey the passions for it is they that move
us (T 2-3-3.4). Accordingly, the magistrate can very
often only cure one vice by encouraging another,
where the latters effects are less damaging. It makes
no sense to criticize the magistrate for not imposing
in line with classical principles some objective, rational doctrine of the good life. Instead the appropriate judgment is: does this policy promote the material
well-being of those individuals subject to it? Understood in this way then luxury can be justly cultivated
because it is superior to sloth. Moreover, by defending luxury in this way Hume is still able to criticize
Mandeville and allow that it can be vicious as well as
innocent. Yet even then it might still be better to
accept it than attempt vainly to eradicate it (E-RA:
27980).
A central feature of this defense of the world of
commerceof industry, knowledge, and humanity
is a defense of liberty. Hume declares that progress
in the arts is favorable to liberty and the establishment of the rule of law (E-RA: 277). This itself is a
modern view of liberty. Its modernity can be appreciated if we return briefly to his account of the gradual emergence of the rule of law. To gloss this account
we can say that the institution of the rule of law arose

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causally from a two-stage change in manners. First,

the cause of the emergence of general and regular
execution of laws (H: II, 603) was the loss by the barons of their localized power-bases (the erosion of the
habit of obedience to their rule by those dependent
upon them) thus removing the key obstacle to central
authority. Second this regular execution became
entrenched as the discretion of the central authority
in its turn became curtailed. The cause of this subsequent restriction was the rise of the commons, composed of the middle rank whose numbers had been
increased by those retainers released by the barons
and whose power increased pari passu with the growth
of commerce. It is this curtailment of the power of the
crown that Hume depicts as the monarchy acceding
to the new (or modern) plan of liberty.
The role played here by the middling rank of men
(tradesmen and merchants) Hume had explained in
his Essays. In Refinement of Arts he says this rank
is the best and firmest basis of public liberty because
they covet equal laws (E-RA: 2778). In this essay
adumbrating the later detailed discussion in the
History, he contrasts this condition to that of the
rude unpolished nations, by which he here means
that characterized by the rule of barons as petty
tyrants. This is not an isolated reference. Another
illustration of the same phenomenon is the twin
absence among the Anglo-Saxons of true liberty

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and a middle rank of men (H: I, 115, 116). These

individuals are neither too poor to submit themselves
to abject dependence nor too rich to be able to tyrannize others. But, importantly, this liberty is enjoyed by
all. This inclusiveness demarcates it sharply from
ancient liberty. Ancient liberty was exclusive. It was
enjoyed by those who had leisure and that was made
possible, as Hume (E-Com: 257; E-PAN: 383) pointed
out, with a dig at republicans (or zealous partisans of civil liberty [E-PAN: 385]) by the presence of a
class of slaves. The abolition of slavery was part of the
civilizing process brought on by the emergence of the
commercial way of lifeits customs and habits.

iii The rule of law and expectation

The maintenance of the rule of law and not the

republican pursuit of virtue is the major task of
government. From this it follows, again relegating
the preoccupations of republicans, that the degree of
civilization now becomes the most informative criterion for distinguishing between types of government.
Here lies the significance of Humes comment that
it may now be affirmed of civilized monarchies what
was formerly said in praise of republics alone, that
they are a government of laws and men (E-CL: 94 cf.
H: II, 15). By what criterion is that affirmation
sustainable? Hume answers by declaring that in these

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monarchies property is there secure, industry

encouraged, the arts flourish. The monarch himself
lives secure among his subjects (E-CL: 94), even
though, as he admits in another essay, he alone is
unrestrained in the exercise of his authority (E-AS:
125). Yet because the regime here too is identified
as a civilized monarchy then all the other ministers
or magistrates must submit to the general laws
which govern the whole society. The people depend
on the sovereign alone for the security of their
property but since he is so far removed from them
and is so much exempt from private jealousies then
this dependence is scarcely felt (E-AS: 125). While
such a monarchy, he continues, is given in high
political rant the name tyranny when, in fact, by its
just and prudent administration and provision of
security to the people it meets most of the ends of
political society. This line of argument became central
to his attempt at an impartial history of England but
also for the contemporary reception of it as Tory (see
Chapter 1).
Hume can put forward two further arguments once
the explanatory weight falls on the qualifier civilized
rather than the substantive monarchy. First, he can
accept as an historical argument that the arts and
sciences can only be generated by free states or
republics. This argument relies on a series of causal
connections: stability from a framework of law

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causes security, security is a causal precondition for

the exercise of curiosity and that exercise is required
if knowledge (whence arts and sciences) is to be
obtained (E-AS: 118). But although republics are
necessary at the beginning (are the nursery [E-AS:
119]) once the civilizing process has begun it can
be taken over and continued by monarchies. Second,
luxury, as an ally of commerce not only undercuts
the case for republics it also inhibits absolutism
since, when it is diffused among the population, it
diminishes the force and ambition of the sovereign
(E-Com: 257). Absolute government, he claims, by
its very nature is hurtful to commerce (E-CL: 92).
This claim rests not on the threat of absolutism
to the security of property but, rather, on the social
fact that commerce is not thought honorable in a
society where birth, titles and place must be honoured above industry and riches (E-CL: 93 cf. E-AS:
126). A consequence of this social disparagement of
industry is that the poverty of the common people
is a natural if not infallible effect of absolute monarchy (E-Com: 265).
There is more than a contingent link here between
commerce and liberty under law. There is also a
conceptual affinity and it is here where the role of
expectation in Humes philosophy makes its mark.
To appreciate this we can return to his emphasis on the
inflexibility of justice. This was a necessary characteris-

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tic to enable confidence and expectations to be established. But it is precisely in a commercial society where
this establishment is a sine qua non.
Commerce or trade implies markets and they imply
exchange but exchange presupposes specialization.
I will only specialize in making screws in the expectation that others are specializing in screwdrivers, hammers, nails, saws, and so on, so that when I take my
wares to market I can via the medium of money
exchange them for theirs. This means acting now in
expectation of future return. Hume expresses this
logic when he writes,
[the poorest artificer] expects that when he carries his
goods to market and offers them at a reasonable price,
he shall find purchasers and shall be able, by the
money he acquires, to engage others to supply him
with those commodities which are requisite for his
subsistence.
In proportion as men extend their dealings and
render their intercourse with others more complicated, they always comprehend in their schemes of
life a greater variety of voluntary actions which they
expect, from the proper motives, to co-operate with
their own (U 8.17).

What is required to underwrite this entire series is

predictability or confidence (this passage derives
from the chapter on Liberty and Necessity). Where

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the actions of others are not predictable, where the

rule of law does not obtain, then it is better (more
rational) to be independent and self-sufficient and
not rely on anyoneI make all my own tools. But, of
course, that option means forgoing the advantages of
specialization (the tools are not very good, even
screws). Hence it is that precommercial societies are
impoverished. This is not the noble poverty enjoined
by the severe moralist in his advocacy of the natural
life nor that promoted by Christian asceticism; on
the contrary, it is, in very basic material way, a depiction of destitution.
As we noted above this reliance on predictability
was thought by commerces critics to be its Achilles
heel; a commercial society is fundamentally unsound
since it seemingly rests on nothing more substantial
than a tissue of beliefs. This can be seen (in the etymologically appropriate) operation of credit in a
commercial society. It is here where Hume himself
seems to entertain some doubts. These hinge on the
modern expedient of public debt. The ploy was to
mortgage public revenues while trusting that posterity will pay off the debt. But, of course, the immediate
posterity will merely pass the buck on to their
successors and they to theirs with the upshot that the
expedient will lead to the accumulation of debt
and eventual ruin (E-PC: 350). In contrast to this
ruinous expenditure, ancient practice was to hoard

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treasure in peace-time in order to conquer or defend

in time of war.
This is Humes opening point in his essay Of Public
Credit and it shapes the ensuing argument. (The
essay was written while Britain was engaged in the
Seven Years War.) In particular it colors his declaration that either the nation must destroy public credit
or public credit will destroy the nation (E-PC: 3601).
National destruction follows from the abuses of mortgaging. These abuses almost infallibly produce poverty, impotence and subjection to foreign powers
(E-PC: 351). The nation will become overburdened
with taxes and eventually not enough will be raised to
meet requirements. If the government is now confronted with an emergency then, acting like an absolute ruler (cf. E-CL: 96), it will seize the monies
earmarked for interest repayment. Though it will
swear to replace them, this abrogation of public faith
will bring the tottering fabric to the ground. This
scenario Hume calls the natural death of public
credit (E-PC: 363). But an even worse scenario is possible. This recourse to voluntary bankruptcy runs
too much against the grain of popular government
(cf. E-CL: 96) with the result that no resources are left
and the nation is easy meat for an external conqueror.
This is the violent death of our public credit (E-PC:
365). This conclusion brings his essay full circle since,
as we noted, it opened by contrasting favorably the

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ancient practice of hoarding in order to be ready for

war with the modern practice of borrowing (Hont,
1993).
For Hume commerce can never flourish but in a
free government (E-CL: 92) but, as we have now
just seen, this combination of factors facilitates the
accumulation of public debt which eventually threatens the very survival of the state. This is a chain of
events that produces an outcome scarcely envisaged by
those who initiated the proceedings. Understood in
this way the operation of a system of public credit
exemplifies the phenomenon of unintended consequences that we discussed earlier in the context of
the actual development of government.

G Liberty and Its Qualifications

This pessimism or, less starkly, this temperate approach
is also expressed in some aspects of his own contemporary commentary. While in no way undermining
his defense of inclusive modern liberty he is also
chary of some claims made by liberal partisans. Hume
is not (in his own estimation) given over to partyrage or prejudices (E-CL: 87)hence the reference
quoted above to liberal rant, that is, the perspective
that was blinkered into being in all circumstances
anti-absolutism. His major criticism of liberal partisans is that they lack an appreciation of the balance

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between liberty and authority. In Humes understanding, such a balance characterizes true or regular liberty but this requires such improvement in
knowledge and morals as can only be the result of
reflection and experience and must grow to perfection during several ages of settled and established
government (H: I, 175). This exemplifies the general maxim that all advances towards reason and
good sense are slow and gradual (H: I, 249). While
Hume is far less committed to progress than his
(particularly French) contemporaries, these statements clearly acknowledge that progress has been
made. Although there is no guarantee that it will continue, or indeed that regression will not occur, we
know from the earlier discussion that this progress
will take the form of a change in customs and habits,
preeminently those associated with the growth of
commerce (H: I, 702).
While in his History he adopts enough of the conventional Tacitean view that the Germans loved
liberty, this, as we would now expect, is qualified.
Liberty, along with valor, are the only virtues that they
could exhibit because as an uncivilized people they
lacked justice and humanity (H: I, 10). He reinforces this qualification later when, again, he contrasts true liberty, where the execution of the laws is
the most severe, and where subjects are reduced to
the strictest subordination and dependence on the

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civil magistrate to the seeming liberty or rather

licentiousness of the Anglo-Saxons (H: I, 115).
This contrast between liberty and licentiousness is a
commonplace that even the most anarchistically
inclined libertarian could accept. Hume, though, is
far from giving liberty an indefeasibly privileged
status. As his insistence on liberty-under-law indicates
it has to be balanced against order, regularity, and
authority. The English he affirms have happily
established the most perfect and accurate system of
liberty that was ever found compatible with government (an establishment owing more to mixture of
accident than wisdom and foresight) (H: I, 704).
This is only one of several such encomia of the
British Constitutionthe best system of government,
at least the most entire system of liberty that was ever
known amongst mankind (H: III, 773 cf H: III, 202n,
H: III, 656, E-PrS: 508). But Hume, given his view that
all human institutions are liable to abuse (H: III,
605), was not complacent and, in contemporary
Britain, he did not consider this system to be so
fixed as to be immune to implosion.
In a range of essays he discussed the relation
between monarchical or republican rule (typically
identified as free government), or between despotism or absolutism and liberty. In context, Hume
thinks that since the Glorious Revolution of 1688 the
case for absolutism is untenable but for that reason

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claims made for more liberty are not required. To tip

the scales too much to liberty risks destabilizing the
balance. Indeed, in terms of the title of one his early
(1741) essaysWhether the British Government
inclines more to Absolute Monarchy or to a Republiche says he would prefer the (inevitable) demise
of the state to be in the form of an absolute monarchy rather than a republic (E-BG: 52). The actual
argument is rather precious but what is indicative is
that he thinks a republic would lead to tyrannous
factions and they to civil war and that would lead to
absolute rule (anyway)he has England and Cromwell in mind.
What underwrites the peerless superiority of the
British system, and what makes, thereby, for true liberty, is that it is a mixed government (E-LP: 10). In
one of his last essays Hume says that in all governments there is perpetual intestine struggle, open or
secret, between authority and liberty. Liberty (he
goes on) is the perfection of civil society but only
when authority is acknowledged essential to is very
existence. But that authority (in the person of the
monarch) must abide by the rule of law, to act by
general and equitable laws that are previously known
to all the members and to all their subjects (E-OG:
401). Though this appeared in a posthumously published essay, the History had previously declared
liberty to be so necessary to the perfection of human

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David Hume

society (H: III, 71) and that authority and liberty

to be both requisite to government (H: III, 257).
If we step back from Humes preoccupation with
liberty in its relatively narrow (English) constitutional
sense and assess his thought against what are now
standardly regarded as liberal principles we get a
mixed picture. We have already observed that he is no
supporter of a Lockean or natural rights-based conception of liberalism or libertarianism. But there is
plenty of evidence to enlist him in the liberal camp.
He is firm in his support for economic liberty in
that he is opposed to restrictions (absurd limitations)
on industry such as the erection of corporations
(H: II, 567); to unreasonable and iniquitous laws
that damaged trade by prohibiting profits of exchange
(usury) (H: II, 55); to fixing wages by statute (H: II,
231); to prohibiting (an absurd law) cloth manufacture until a seven-year apprenticeship had been
served (H: II, 323); to the pernicious consequences
of granting of patent monopolies (H: II, 573 cf. II,
595, III, 834n); to the passing of ridiculous sumptuary legislation (H: I, 535 cf. H: II, 231, H: II, 602).
In the same vein he advocated consistent, nonarbitrary taxation (E-Tax: 345) and free trade, arguing
forcefully against the narrow and malignant policies
of prohibition (E-JT: 328, E-BT).
Hume also supported positive action to remove
hindrances to the exercise of economic liberty. While

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this is despite his caution about the effectiveness of

purposive intervention it reflects his conviction that
some customs are bad. Ireland is a recurrent example
(but the contemporary Scottish Highland economy
would also qualify, even if Hume is less explicit).
Regarding the Irish Hume clearly commends, for
example, James Is civilizing policy. In practice this
meant reconciling the Irish to laws and industry,
thus making their subjection durable and useful to
the crown of England, and to achieve that end it
was necessary to abolish Irish customs which supplied the place of laws and which were calculated to
keep that people for ever in a state of barbarism and
disorder. In particular, those customs that hindered
the enjoyment of fixed property in land (without
which there is no incentive to enclose, to cultivate, to
improve) were replaced (H: III, 334).
With respect to toleration another key liberal
principle, Humes view is clearly inferable from his
scathing comments on religious persecution for
heresy and remark that toleration is the most effective way (the true secret) of managing religious
factions (H: II, 580 cf. H: II, 302, H: II, 336, H: III,
625). On occasion he expresses a more explicitly
principled view as when he calls toleration so reasonable a doctrine (H: III, 320) or, again, when he refers
to Elizabeth Is persecution of papist and puritans
as extremely contrary to the genius of freedom

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David Hume

(H: II, 589) and declares laudable a 1681 bill repealing her persecuting statute (H: III, 677), as he similarly describes James IIs attempt to become a great a
patron of toleration (H: III, 378). Finally, we can
note in his endorsement of the Protestant Succession,
his expressed hope that the progress of reason will,
by degrees, abate the acrimony of opposite religions
all over Europe (E-PrS: 510).
Set against these endorsements of liberty, but
without ever overbalancing them, Hume also expresses
qualifications. For example, the unbounded liberty
of press enjoyed in England is an evil that attends its
mixed constitution but, even here, to attempt to foreclose that liberty is a bare-faced violation (E-LP: 13,
605 [this passage was omitted from the final editions
of the Essays]). The reason for this negative judgment
is that this liberty carries matters to the extremes, to
the exaggeration of both faults and merits (E-PSc:
27). Hume is so far from an advocate of the separation of church and state that he firmly supports the
union of civil and ecclesiastic power. His reasoning,
however, is typically Humean. He thinks the clergy
should be paid from the public purse, like those
employed in armies or magistracy, because if left to
make their own living they would be diligent in
gaining customers by practising on the passions
and credulity of the populace. To pay them a state
salary is, in effect, to bribe their indolence so they

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101

have no incentive to stir disorder (H: II, 95). Less

cynically, perhaps, Hume elsewhere declares that the
union of church and state in every civilized government supports peace and order by preventing
mutual encroachments that have been historically
shown to have the most dangerous consequences
(H: I, 215).
As a final illustration of Humes qualification of liberty I want to pick up again his comments on opinion. In the History Hume reiterates (more than once)
his position that government is always founded on
opinion not force but, in the context of the execution of Charles I, he adds a particular gloss. Precisely
because government relies on opinion, and because
it serves to restrain the fury and injustice of the people, then it is dangerous to weaken . . . the reverence which the multitude owe to authority. He
explicitly locates the source of that danger in the
speculative reasoning about the doctrine of resistance. From this he draws the conclusion, albeit
phrased conditionally, that if ever, on any occasion,
it were laudable to conceal truth from the populace it
must be confessed that the doctrine of resistance
affords such an example (H: III, 395). A little later,
and in the same approximate context, he says that if
choice has to be made then utility should be preferred to truth in public institutions (H: III, 605).
Should that concealment be impractical, which given

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the licence of human disquisition is likely, then the

doctrine of obedience ought alone to be inculcated
and any rare exceptions ought seldom or never to be
mentioned in popular reasonings (H: III, 395).
But even in these remarks, which seem to go beyond
qualifying liberty to exhibiting antiliberal sentiments, the particular context needs to be recalled.
It is the dethroning of a prince that it is worrisome not resisting him. True Hume does in this passage come out with a remark very reminiscent of
Burke (1987: 67) when he says the illusion, if it be an
illusion that makes us pay a sacred regard to the
persons of princes is salutary. That said, however,
Hume dismisses the argument of tracing up
government to the Deity so that it is sacred and inviolate with its consequence that no matter how tyrannical a government was, it would be sacrilege to
touch or invade it in the smallest article (E-OC:
466). Similarly the doctrine of passive obedience
cannot stand without exception. Despite the maxims
of resistance being destructively pernicious, nevertheless, this is so only in general and resistance can
be lawful and commendable. Hume is, indeed, careful also to say that this is so only in extraordinary
emergencies and that his own view is with those
who would draw the bond of allegiance very close
(E-PO: 4756).

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What does emerge when Humes views on liberty

are examined as a whole is that he never deviates from
the view that order is necessary and government is
of its essence a restraint on human passions. Such
judgments are part of the usual arsenal of conservative thinkers and Giarrizzo (1962: 121), for example,
thinks this lays bare the conservative tendency of
Humes thought. I will explore this issue more fully
and generally in Chapter 4 but here make some
summary comments on Humes own argument.
Hume does not subscribe to the Augustinian or
Hobbesian vision of human nature. He agrees that
humans are not angels or perfectible beings so, as
with Augustine and Hobbes, there is always need
for authority. But Humean humans are not sinners,
who, without grace, are ever ensnared in the fundamentally disordered City of Men, nor are they utterly
self-centered individuals, ceaselessly pursuing power
after power. The former, especially in its recent
Calvinist guise, manifests indelibly the traits of superstition and fanaticism. Hobbes reduction, in Humes
reading, of all human motivation to selfishness is
evidentially false (T 3-2-2.25; in the History Hobbes
politics are described as fitted only to promote
tyranny; and his ethics to encourage licentiousness
[H: III, 505]). What Hume does contend is that every
man ought to be supposed a knave (E-IP: 423). This

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maxim he concedes is false in fact though true in

politics, by which here he means the operation of
factions. If this maxim is treated less contextually
then it better fits a liberal rather than conservative message, that is, governments in truth are likely
to be knavish in pursuit of their interests, hence we
require the rule of law, rather than governments who
majestically over-awe their subjects.
While there are similarities between Hume and
Burke it would be a mistake to read back these into
Hume so he too becomes conservative. Humes
religious skepticism makes him chary of giving to history or tradition a Providentialist cast or of regarding
man a religious animal (Burke, 1987: 80) who
consecrates the state. Indeed the principle underlying his account of artifice is that for all the limitations
on individual reason it is humans themselves who,
without any need of divine aid or guidance, have
constructed extra-familial social life. Of course this
construction needs robust attention and if individuals arrogantly forget their limitations then they can
damage the fabric. On these grounds Hume believes
it to be a prudent (and moral) maxim to submit
quietly to the government we find establishd in the
country where we live (T 2-2-10.7).
While on a pragmatic or prudential front acting
habitually can be the most appropriate course of
action this is not the case at all the times or in all

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occasions. Civilized habits are superior to superstitions. It is an intellectual challenge to explain how
civilization emerges but we can now with the science
of man rise to that challenge. So even if humans most
of the time act in a conservative manner, and do so
necessarily and beneficially, that is a naturalistic
scientific conclusion not some extra or supernatural
revelation. Finally, even on the characterization that
Hume is a skeptical exponent of the politics of
imper fection (see Chapter 4), his liberal recognition of the need to tackle bad habits, and the superiority of a civilized way of life, make him genuinely
a thinker of the Enlightenment and not a harbinger
of the reaction to it. Yet such are the ironies of
intellectual history, Humes thought was indeed so
interpreted. Chapter 3 examines the reception of his
work.

Reception and Inf luence

This chapter surveys, in an inevitably gross-grained

way, how Humes work was received and gives some
indication of its impact. Reception and impact or
influence are clearly related without being conterminous, since initial indifference can be replaced over
time with an engagement. In order to impart some
structure I adopt the following organizing principles.
The reception will be examined spatially, that is, I will
chart how Humes works were read in Britain, but
principally in Scotland, North America, and continental Europe, principally in France. Within each of
these the relevant Hume texts will be highlighted.
But these spatially organized examinations will incorporate a temporal dimension as the influence of these
volumes is identified. However, my discussion of this
latter dimension is limited. Since Chapter 4 will discuss the contemporary status of Humes work then
this chapter will concentrate on the reception and
impact of Humes work in the eighteenth century and
only indicate some later influences. One final qualification needs to be entered. In line with the theme of

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107

this book the principal focus of this chapter is on the

reception and influence of Humes writing on moral
subjects.

A Britain
Despite his claim in My Own Life, the Treatise, as
Hume well knew, did not fall dead-born. It stimulated a serious philosophical response from Thomas
Reidregent at Kings College, Aberdeen, later
Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow. This
response generated a distinct school (Common
Sense) with a strong base in Scotland but which resonated widely in Europe and North America. Reids
argument was epistemological. Reid contested Hume
because he made explicit the skepticism that was
implicit in the approach to philosophy embarked
upon by Descartes and continued through Malebranche, Locke, and Berkeley. Contrary to the view
that treats the senses as merely means to furnish the
mind, Reid argued that every operation of sense
implies judgment. These judgments are original and
natural parts of the furniture of human understanding, they direct humans in the common affairs
of life, and make up what is called the common
sense of mankind (Reid, 1846a: 209).
Hume recognized Reid as a considerable philosopher but did not engage him (in a letter he declared

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that he had never replied to his academic critics

[L: II, 81]). Hume, however, was sorely tempted by
one of Reids followers, James Beattie. Beattie, professor at Marischal College (Aberdeens other University) wrote a full-blown assault on Humean
skepticism (Beattie, 1974) that garnered him lots of
praise including a pension from the king. Humes
contempt for Beattie was expressed in a letter to his
publisher where he says of an advertisement to the
1765 edition of his essays and treatises that it is a
compleat answer to Dr. Reid and to that bigotted silly
Fellow Beattie (L: II, 301). Beattie did, however, draw
some blood. In 17534 edition of his essay On
National Character, Hume remarked that he was
apt to suspect the negroes . . . to be naturally inferior
to the whites. There never was a civilized nation of
any other complexion but white (E-Variants: 629).
Beattie accused Hume of merely asserting his position and pointed out that it was falsified by the examples of the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians (Beattie,
1974: 311). In the final edition of the essay Hume
amended this note to say scarcely ever rather than
never and, arguably sidestepping the Incas, he omitted all reference to nonwhites other than negroes
(E-NC: 208n). This interchange has not only generated academic debate (e.g., Popkin [1977], Immerwahr [1992]) but it also had some wider historical
impact in as much as Humes reputation as an infidel

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meant that to defend the African was also to defend

religion (Davis, 1966: 458).
Though Reid did in his later writings turn his attention to Humes political writings, that aspect of his
thought did not occasion much attention from the
Common Sense school. One aspect Reid (1846b)
does discuss is Humes account of the artificiality of
justice and his criticism was widely echoed. Reids
own argument had similarities with that earlier
developed by Kames. Kames denied that there is a
distinction between gratitude to benefactors (which
Hume regards as a natural virtue [E-OC: 479]) and
acting justly in as much as justice belongs to man as
such (Kames, 2005: 40, 48, cf. 54). He seemingly
agrees with Hume that justice is the virtue that
guards property and gives authority to covenants
(2005: 65) but believes that property and the obligation to keep our word are both natural principles
(2005: 79).
Kames does agree with Hume that justice is indispensable (2005: 65 cf. 42) and Adam Smith follows
suit (Smith, 1982: 86). Smith does however part company over one key issue. He objects to Humes utilitarian account of justice. For Smith a concern for
specific individuals rather than, as with Hume, a concern with a societys well-being is the effective source
of justice. Smith does not deny utility a role, only that
it is the first or principal source (1982: 188).

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Humes general relation to, and role in, in the history of utilitarianism is complex. Jeremy Bentham,
who is typically judged the first systematic exponent of
utilitarianism, acknowledged that he took the principle of utility from Hume (Bentham, 1977: 508). That
acknowledgment appeared as an addition to the second edition of his Fragment on Government (1823) but
even in the much earlier (1776) first edition Bentham
declared that the scales fell from his eyes on reading
Hume on virtue (1977: 440). The focus of that revelation is significant because Bentham used utility as a
principle or criterion to judge between moral right
and wrong and, in particular, to judge the operation
of government by this standard (1977: 509). This invocation of a prior principle is distinct from Humes
effectively post facto account of obligation and obedience (see Chapter 2). The Benthamite utilitarian tradition is effectively the dominant one, albeit arguably
a less successful one than Humes (Plamenatz, 1966:
67). In J. S. Mills (1910) canonical restatement of
utilitarianism in the mid-nineteenth century Hume
does not figure, nonetheless it would be a misleading
distortion to efface Hume from any account of a history of utilitarian doctrine, most especially because of
his demolition of a number of alternatives such as
natural law and the privileging of origins.
This last aspect of Humes thought was picked up by
Bentham and has proven to be particularly influential.

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111

Bentham judged that Hume had effectually demolished the notion of an original contract (1977: 439).
Humes historical/empirical refutation of contractarianism fitted well with the Scottish Enlightenments emphasis on human sociality and was widely
followed (Berry, 1997: chapter 2). Indeed so decisive
was Humes attack that any subsequent contract
theory, as most famously by Kant (1996), had to be
reformulated as a conceptual device. It is in that guise
that it appeared in John Rawls A Theory of Justice
(1972), the most important work of political philosophy in the second half of the twentieth century, even
though Rawls himself openly adopted as a framing
device a Humean conception of the circumstances
of justice.
Hume is now regarded as a considerable figure in
the history of economics (Wennerlind [2006], Rotwein
[1970]), a status that gained significant momentum
in the latter part of the twentieth century with
monetarists like Milton Friedman claiming Hume
as a predecessor. In the eighteenth-century Britain,
economic theory is, of course, dominated by Adam
Smith and increasingly so to the eclipse of other
theorists including Hume. Hume is, however, a significant presence in the Wealth of Nations. In book 3
Smith makes a rare acknowledgement of a predecessor
when he notes the connection between the growth of
commerce and freedom, claiming Hume has been

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the only writer to take notice of it (Smith, 1981: 412).

That connection prominent in Hume, as we saw in
Chapter 2, is a central theme of Smiths work. Hume
also had significant influence on James Steuarts Principles of Political Oeconomy (Skinner, 2006). Although,
contrary to Hume and Smith, Steuart retained a role
for the intervention by a statesman (Steuart, 1966:
I, 122) nonetheless he is indebted to Hume methodologically and subscribes to one of Humes basic
tenets that political oeconomy should adapt to the
spirit, manners, habits and customs of the people
(1966: I, 16).
Leaving aside the controversies stimulated by his
skepticism and writings on religion (one of the motivating forces behind the Common Sense reaction but
which did inspire one of the more thoughtful
as Hume himself acknowledgedcritiques of his view
of miracles [Campbell, 1762]), it is his History that
caused the biggest stir. Not that these were unconnected. For example, Daniel MacQueens book length
critique of the History was principally concerned with
defending Protestantism against Humes identification of it with enthusiasm and fanaticism and countering Humes attempt to resolve all piety into
superstition or enthusiasm with loose and irreligious sneers (MacQueen, 1756: 306, 327). When he
does consider Humes political narrative he detects

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therein an apology for the principles of arbitrary

power (1756: 254), albeit recognizing that other
passages are animated with the full spirit of liberty
(1756: 228) (Forbes, 1970: 37). This detection, as
brought out in Chapter 1, is the gravamen of the
charge that Humes History was Tory. For example,
Catharine Macaulays very lengthy alternative History
was written, as she said in her Introduction, with
an eye to public Liberty and to do justice to the
memory of our illustrious ancestors who set up
the banners of Liberty against the pretensions of
the Stewarts (Macaulay, 1769: viiiix). In the book
itself, when she cites Hume, he is frequently dubbed
judicious or ingenious as when he is called to
bear testament for those who could see something to
support in Charles I (1769: III, 84). She sent a copy
to Hume who replied that they differed less on the
facts than on their interpretation, as, for example,
over the legality of Elizabeth Is actions (NL: 81).
Perhaps the most intellectually grounded response
was that offered by his fellow Scot, the Glasgow law
professor John Millar (2006). Millars thought as a
whole, however, is heavily, and openly, indebted to
Hume and the differences are academic rather
ideological (as we might say). Nonetheless such was
the popularity of the History (especially when it was
extended by Smollett) that it remained a standard

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text until well into nineteenth century and only

went out of print in the last decade of that century
(Phillipson, 1989: 139).
One final aspect of Humes impact on British
thought is his influence on Edmund Burke. Rather in
the same way that Smith throws a shadow over developments in liberal political economy so does Burkes
retrospective salience colors the history of conservative thinking. The sources of Burkes own thought are
manifold but Hume is definitely a direct contributor.
Some intimations of that contribution were supplied
in Chapter 2, and Chapter 4 will consider thematically Humes place in conservative thinking and, in so
doing, will identify his impact on Burke. Accordingly
I will not pursue here this line of enquiry. However, it
will be apt to say a brief word about William Paley.
Paley was not especially original thinker but his
Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (1785) was an
immensely popular work. This popularity was principally attributable to his vindication or endorsement
of received wisdom. Since Paley freely appropriated
Humes views on, for example, the importance of
expectation and confidence (Paley, 1845: 26), of custom (1845: 31), of opinion and prescription (1845:
100), of the undesigned development of the British
constitution (1845: 115) then in this way Hume fed
into a conservative stream of thought that flowed
also indirectly into Burke.

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B North America
Humes writings (with the usual exception of the
Treatise) were well-known in America. However, since,
in Gordon Woods phrase, the Americans borrowed
promiscuously (1969: 14), it is difficult to disentangle Humes contribution from that of others. The dissemination of his works, and their impact, mirrored
the British patternthe Essays, the Enquiries, and
then increasingly the History being the focus of attention, while his philosophical skepticism, and associated attack on religion, drew a predictable negative
response (the Americans, by and large, aligning
themselves with the Common Sense school of Reid).
What, of course, gives an extra dimension to this
attention is the political turmoil in the colonies and
eventual war and independence. (Hume himself
remarked that he was an American in my principles
[L: II, 303; see Pocock, 1985; Livingston, 1990].)
Against this background Humes political essays
found an eager readership. His essay on Of the
Liberty of the Press, for example, was reprinted in
colonial newspapers (Spencer, 2002: I, 4). The footnote on blacks in Of National Character also,
not surprisingly, was taken up, even being labeled
Mr Humes doctrine (Spencer, 2002: I, 5n). Foreshadowing the basic issue of the relation between
state and church, the essay Of the Parties of Great

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David Hume

Britain with its identification of priestly power as a

threat to liberty was picked up by John Adams in his
Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765) (Bailyn,
1967: 97; cf. Hume E-PGB: 65).
We know that Hume was eagerly and intelligently
read by the leaders of the Revolution as they debated
the proper characterization of a republic. These
Americans could draw on a long tradition of republican theorizing, with its roots in Aristotle and Roman
historians like Livy, then reborn with Machiavelli and
other Italians and continued by seventeenth-century
English scholars like James Harrington before continuations in the eighteenth century by Montesquieu
and Rousseau. This is not a simple story and its various iterations produced amendments, a process to
which Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, and others contributed (Pocock, 1975). Humes place in this narrative is also not simple but many commentators identify
his influence on the American expression (Elkins and
McKitrick [1993]; Stourzh [1970]). His work is utilized pragmatically, sofor exampleHamilton can
exploit Humes writings on trade and depart from
him over the role of public credit (McNamara, 1998:
98). Nonetheless, a persistent strain is the appropriation from his Essays of Humes strong defense of commerce, with its attendant rejection of republican
virtue based on a now outmoded agrarian economy.
This defense is perhaps most apparent in the great

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Federalist debates over the nature and structure of

the new republic.
Humes essay on Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth
has been claimed as the inspiration behind Madisons
famous 10th Federalist on factions and the superiority
of a large over a small republic (Adair, 1957) and contended by others (Morgan, 1986). Regardless of that
particular debate, there is a pervasive Humean flavor to many of the Federalist essays as they caution
against a Jeffersonian republicanism (Manzer, 2001).
Attributions of influence are notoriously difficult to
pin down but when, for example, in the forty-ninth
paper, it is argued that governments rest on opinion,
especially those fortified by their antiquity, so that frequent recourse to the people is dangerous, then
Humes uncited authority does seem to be present
(Earle, 1941: 329). Indeed the anti-Jeffersonian tenor
of the Federalist papers has caused them to be identified as embodying moderate conservatism (Viereck,
1965: 92). While allowing for Burkes later influence,
and for his own indebtedness to Hume, it is defensible
(to put it no higher) that Hume had an impact on
American conservative thought.
In terms of actual citations it was Humes History
that led the way. Symptomatically, it was the most frequently borrowed book from Harvards Library in the
1770s (Spencer, 2002: II, 4). It was seen to embody
the history of liberty in the colonial motherland

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and thereby illustrated the illiberality of George IIIs

policies. But the History had an ambivalent reception,
in as much as it was seen to be a bad influence on a
new republic. Echoing the use made of Hume by
Madison and others, it is perhaps no surprise to discover that Jefferson was particularly critical. This criticism was all the more vehement because of the
elegance of Humes style which enabled its errors &
heresies to be instilled insensibly into the minds of
unwary readers. Jefferson himself acknowledged that
he had enthusiastically devoured the book when he
was young. Humes threat stemmed from the fact that
his History insidiously spread universal toryism over
the landa judgment Jefferson reiterated in 1824
when he described Hume as the great apostle of
Toryism (Jefferson, 1999: 274, 283, 383).

C Europe
i France

We saw in Chapter 1 that Hume lived in France, once

as a young man and later as a diplomat. In the latter
role he met many of the leading French intellectuals.
We also know from his correspondence that he took
a close interest in the translation of his works. Mirroring the reception of his work in Britain and America
it was his Essays and History that made the biggest
impact and it is upon those that I will focus.

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119

The economic essays, published as the Political

Discourses in 1752, made a significant impression, even
if chiefly, as Franco Venturi says of their impact in
Venice, they were a set of arguments on which others
could project their preoccupations (Venturi, 1983:
354). The Discourses were translated three times in
1753, 1754 and again in 1767. The second of these by
Jean-Bernard LeBlanc was the key one (Charles, 2008:
181). Le Blanc sent Hume a copy and they began a
correspondence, though Hume laments delays in
receiving it but which, when it did arrive, he judged
excellent (L: I, 191, 197, 207, 225, 228). It was a
bestseller and, abetted by the translators commentary, became a central text to internal debates about
French commercial policy. Humes defense of commerce and luxury chimed with the policy advocated
by a group associated with Vincent de Gournay, one
of four Intendants of Trade. Humes argument was
developed by, among others, Franois Forbonnais,
who in his lments du Commerce (1754), labeled Hume
a major authority (Charles, 2008: 194). Humes
arguments were used in a sharp debate between the
protagonists of commerce, like Forbonnais, and the
Physiocrats (Hont, 2008: 267). The latter, in a testament to Humes standing, had to contest Humes argument, especially his defense of luxury (Shovlin, 2008:
205). LeBlanc alerted Hume that Victor Mirabeau,
a leading Physiocrat, in his LAmi des Hommes (1756)

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David Hume

had included a criticism of Humes view (L: I, 159n).

Hume in later correspondence to another French
scholar (Morellet) made clear in vehement language
his own opposition to the arguments of Physiocrats)
(L: II, 205). Yet there is no easy fit. Humes view on
the dangers of credit ran contrary to Forbonnaiss
support of the credit system. Hence Mirabeau was able
to mirror these concerns of Hume forcing Forbonnais
to sideline them by identifying this strand of Hume as
sample of English Tory antipathy to the credit system
(Sonenscher, 1997: 95).
Humes own involvement in print in these debates
is minimal. He likely met some of the protagonists,
such as Morellet, in the Paris salon of Julie de Lespinasse and, as we noted in Chapter 1, he corresponded
with Turgot (who he probably met in Mme de Geoffrins salon [Dakin, 1939: 16]) on economic and
other matters (Turgot wrote an loge of Gournay).
A less concrete line of Humean influence can be
drawn through Turgot to Condorcet. While Condorcet
was also a visitor to Lespinasses salon when Hume was
in Paris it does not seem they met (Williams, 2004:
13). Among Condorcets many intellectual achievements and enterprises was an attempt to develop a
conception of social science, a conception which the
leading authority on Condorcets thought judges to
rest at critical points on a Humean account of probability and belief (Baker, 1975: 138, 160). This intimates

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a later, if in the end not fruitful, career in Auguste

Comtes positivism. Comte judged that Humes work
made a great step, albeit with serious defects
(Comte, 1853: II, 428). Nonetheless despite the undoubted bizarre elements in Comte (Hume had a designated day in his Positive Calendar [Comte, 1966:
270]), Hume has been judged to be the real father of
positivist philosophy (Kolakowski, 1972: 43).
As we might now expect, Humes History also played
a role in French debates. Leblanc who translated the
Political Discourses also began to translate the History
(and corresponded with Hume on the endeavor). As
it turned out LeBlanc never completed the task and it
was continued by the Abb Prvost and appeared, as
History of Stuarts, to great acclaim in 1760 (Bongie,
2000: 11). To some extent this acclamation built on
the impact of his economic essays and the heterodoxy of his religious views. The latter had been abetted by the translation (likely by Holbach [Mossner,
1980: 330]) of two essays (Of Suicide and Of the
Immortality of the soul) in 1770, although Hume
himself had withdrawn them prior to a planned publication in 1755. The History itself fitted into a preexisting anglophilia in the thought of the intellectuals
of the Enlightenment (the philosophes). This love of
the English was not neutral but used by Montesquieu
and Voltaire, especially, as a means of criticizing
French institutions. Voltaire wrote a lengthy review of

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the History that he praised as perhaps the best written in any language (quoted in Bongie, 2000: 13).
Voltaire deemed to judge Humes work as impartial
but, like the Discourses, it soon became embroiled in
debate. This intensified over the subsequent years
until, by the time of the Revolution, Humes reading
of the Stuarts (including, of course, the contentiously
legal execution of a monarch) was cited widely on all
sides.
Laurence Bongie (2000: 90), from an examination
of the counter-revolutionary literature, estimates that
until the turn of the century, Humes impact was
greater than Burkes. This use of Humes account
prompted attacks upon him as a conservative.
Catherine Macaulays liberal counterhistory was
translated and Honor Mirabeau in a Preliminary
Discourse singled out Humes narrative as effectively counseling acquiescence to bad government
(Bongie, 2000: 135). This intensity inevitably abated,
and though Burkes version began to achieve its current status as the antirevolutionary tract, yet Humes
work continued to be cited. Joseph de Maistre, the
intellectually most accomplished, as well as most partisan, critic of the Revolution provided in his Conside.
rations sur la France a chapter that comprised solely of
a lengthy digest of citations from the History of le sage
Hume (1797: 94n, 21750). But de Maistre also saw
in Hume that in spite of (or because of) his great

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talent he was the most dangerous critic of established

order (de Maistre, 1965: 240, 263). This latter aspect,
in particular Humes anticlericalism, found an echo in
the work of Benjamin Constant, the most notable liberal thinker of the era, who not only was indebted to
Humes natural history account of polytheism but
who also drew on the importance of opinion (Fontana, 1991: 96, 109).

ii Italy

Humes penetration into Italy is effectively an offshoot

of the career of his work in France. A long review of
LeBlancs translation was published in the Novelle Letterarie in Florence in 1755 (Tarabuzzi, 1980: 392).
Robert Adam, who was in Rome at the time, reported
on the great repute of the Essays and History (Mossner,
1980: 228) and, we know, that his work was also
known in Venice (Hume received a book from Count
Algarotti, a famous Virtuoso of the republic [L: I,
239]). It is a mark of Humes presence in Italy that his
work was put on the Index of banned books in 1761.
An Italian translation of the economic essays (Saggi
Politici) was published in Venice in 1767, although the
translator (Matteo Dandolo) had sent Hume a copy
as early as 1762 (Tarbuzzi, 1980: 398). Dandolo was
motivated by the realization that Venetian power was
now limited and needed the implementation of

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Humean prescriptions to invigorate it. This same

context was evident in the work of the Neapolitan
economist, Antonio Genovesi who followed Humes
defense of luxury, drawing on the History as well as
the Essays (Genovesi, 1977: 13364).
A somewhat similar story can be told about Hume in
Milan, the other chief site of the Enlightenment in
Italy. Cesare Beccarias views on luxury bear the hallmarks of his knowledge of the Historyin a letter of
1766 he stated that it was the work of political thinker,
a philosopher and a historian of the first order
(quoted in Camcastle, 2008: 3). Though there is no
direct evidence of Beccaria having read the economic
essays, it is those, especially those expounding the role
of luxury and commerce that called forth comment
(though not always acknowledged) by Pietro Verri
(Verri, 1998: 54). Humes philosophy was discussed in
a correspondence between Pietro and his brother Alessandro (Mazza, 2005). Alessandro traveled to London
in 1766 where he hoped to meet Hume but by then
Hume was back in Edinburgh. The HumeRousseau
dispute made its impression with the brothers taking
different sides, Alessandro Humes while Pietro sympathized more with Rousseau (Mazza, 2005: 228).
iii Germany

The incursion of Humes thought into Germany is

typically judged one of the most momentous in the

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125

history of philosophy. It was the reading of a translation of the First Enquiry that caused Kant to awake
from what he called his dogmatic slumber (Kant,
1949: 45). The consequence of this reveille was his
self-identified Copernican Revolution (Kant, 1929:
22). This Revolution reversed the relation between
subject and object. For Kant, knowledge was not
attained from exposure to a conceptually prior objective experiential world but was only possible because
of the conceptually prior Categories (such as causation) that the subject necessarily had to employ to
make experience knowable.
Though epochal, Kants reaction to Hume far from
exhausted his impact in Germany and, in a tactic not
dissimilar to the use made of his work by anti-Enlightenment scholars in France, Humes thought was used
by a group of anti-Enlightenment critics led by
Hamann and Jacobi. Isaiah Berlin aptly remarks that
Humes thought underwent a metamorphosis in
their hands (Berlin, 1977: 112). They took Humes
skepticism, and the pivotal role played by belief in
his philosophy, to affirm the centrality and ineradicability of faith. It was not that Hamann was ignorant
of Humes position but he used the ambivalence
between belief and faith (Glaube) for his own
critique of rationalism (Tokiwa, 1999). This continued after Kants philosophical response. Hamann
wrote to Herder that compared to Kant Hume was
always my man (in Smith, 1960: 244).

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David Hume

Hamann could read English and began a translation of the Dialogues of Natural Religion. Herder paraphrased the Natural History (Herder, 1891: vol. 23,
pp. 1957) but Herder is especially notable for a
fundamental critique of the Enlightenment view of
history and human nature (Berry, 1982: chapter 2)
and Hume (along with Voltaire, Robertson and
others) is a subject of criticism (Herder, 1891: vol. 5,
pp. 508ff.). Humes own History was translated in 1762
and other versions appeared throughout the century.
It was admired but the burgeoning of German historical thinking after Herders critique, supplemented by
the response to the French Revolution, meant it was
Burkes supposed organicism that dominated the
field (Meinecke, 1970: 1001). Even the classical (as
they are now regarded) German historians Niebuhr
and Ranke while respectful of Humes qualities as
a historian were critical of his approach (Meinecke,
1972: 1845). Compared to elsewhere Humes
economic writings made less stir in Germany where
a tradition of cameralism prevailed, which, like
Steuarts approach (influential in Germany), was less
favorable to the basic free trade message Hume was
seen to advocate.
It has frequently been remarked that Humes posthumous reception and influence has been transformed. As the brief survey here has indicated his
most immediate impact was made by his Essays and,

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127

perhaps above all, by the History, hence the often

cited fact that Humes presence in the Catalogue of
the British Library, identifies him as David Hume,
historian. The latter half of the twentieth century
has seen the emergence of Hume as one of a relatively select band of philosophers of world-historical
significance. While much of this acclaim has derived
from his discussion in Book 1 of the Treatise, this recognition has led to a fresh look at his political thought,
in the wide sense of encompassing his economics and
moral philosophy. In the concluding Chapter, I examine one manifestation of this interest in Humes political thoughthis position in the history of conservative
thought.

Hume and Conservatism

I opened Chapter 2 by declaring that Hume was not a

conservative and I closed that chapter with some
remarks suggesting that Humes thought was distinct
from post-Enlightenment (post-French Revolution)
conservatism. The suffix ism indicates that it is only
from that period that a conservative ideology could
be thought to existjust as in the same way, and at
the same time, liberalism emerged (as indeed did
the word ideology itself) and thus to apply it to
Hume is anachronistic (Whelan, 1985: 325; Miller,
1981: 187). Nonetheless, Hume has been enlisted as
an exponent of conservative ideology orfor those
who dislike that terma conservative outlook
(Whelan), attitude (Hailsham [1959]), or disposition
(Oakeshott [1991], Brennan and Hamlin [2004])
and/or as a member of what can be called the conservative tradition.
Historically religion whether as an institution, a
practice, or a theology has played a prominent role in
the articulation of conservatism. Given Humes antipathy to religion, even as selectively sketched out in

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129

Chapter 2 (which excluded his effective dismissal of

tenable belief in miracles and his most famous
critique of the Design argument in his posthumous
Dialogues), he can be assigned no role in the formulation of a religion-based conservatism. However, it is
reasonable to say that this dimension is now less salient,
while not altogether absent. This relative de-emphasis
has opened some space for the identification of a
Humean contribution to contemporary conservative thinking. Sheldon Wolin marked this by characterizing Humes conservatism analytical rather than
metaphysical (1954: 1015) and Muller by declaring
Humes thought was a watershed in the development of a secular conservative doctrine (1997: 24).
Wolins distinction is indicative of the perceived need
to impart greater precision into what with deliberate
vagueness I termed conservative thinking. Accordingly, it is to be expected that in a search for precision
its analysts and commentators have endeavored to
identify a core or, more loosely, what Muller characterizes as a constellation of recurrent assumptions,
themes and images (1997: 23). Hence, Kirk (1960:
chapter 1) identifies six canons of conservative
thought; Allen (1981) articulates a configuration of
modern conservative ideas that has seven elements;
Hearnshaw (1933) outlines 12 principles of conservatism; OSullivan (1976) and Quinton (1978) both
characterize it as a politics of imperfection and, as

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David Hume

final illustrations, Huntingdon (1957) and Mannheim

(1953) both treat conservatism as an ideology. What
is implied in these various endeavors is some idea of
coherence, some criteria by which to include certain
ideas/thinkers in the conservative camp and simultaneously also to exclude some ideas/thinkers from
membership. If such criteria can be established then,
it might be argued, Humes relation thereto can be
plotted and his contribution to current conservative
thinking assessed. While I will, in what follows, adopt
in part a version of this strategy, I do not seek to match
his thought against some preestablished criteria. Aside
from that procedure potentially imposing too rigid a
structure, it runs the risk of conflating two different
perspectives. Without straying too far into methodological minefields, it can defensibly be the case that
Humes own conception of his thought and the
use made of that thought are two different things
(as Hamann and Maistre exemplifysee Chapter 3).
Similarly, enlisting Hume as a significant contributor
to conservatism need not claim that this is a historically attuned exegesis of his thought.
In what follows I summarily identify aspects of contemporary secular conservatism that seem most open
to being read or informed by Humean insights and
arguments. To simplify this task I adopt, in a similar
summary fashion, Michael Oakeshott and Friedrich
Hayek as exemplars. I should acknowledge Hayek

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131

does have an ambiguous relation to conservatism. He

explicitly denies that he is a conservative (1960: 397
411). The root of that denial is his rejection of its
negativity; conservatisms inability in his eyes to
offer an alternative direction to socialism. That alternative is liberalism, though because of that terms
ambiguity Hayek has a preference for old Whig.
Hayek identifies Hume as a crucial exponent of that
alternative, indeed he declares that Humes was
probably the only comprehensive statement of the
legal and political philosophy which later became
known as liberalism (1968: 340). Hayek does allow
that this Humean liberalism shares with conservatism
a distrust of reason and a recognition of the role
of nonrational institutions and practices or habits
(1960: 406). Gissurarson (1987) coined the term
conservative liberalism to characterize Hayeks
position and should a label be thought helpful then,
given Hayeks own explicit Humeanism, it could by
extension be held to characterize Humes own position, as OSullivan does with his almost identical term
liberal-conservative (1976: 138).
We can set the scene, as it were, by picking up
Hayeks reference to reason. It is a persistent theme
in conservative thinking that it distrusts reason and
excoriates rationalism. One of the key leitmotifs in
Hayeks writings is a critique of a particular species of
rationalism that he labels constructivism and he

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David Hume

consistently and persistently identifies Hume, and

other members of the Scottish Enlightenment, as
precursors and as exponents of an alternative notion
of rationalism that he labels, following Karl Popper,
evolutionary or critical rationalism. He characterizes constructivism as a conception which assumes
that all social institutions are, and ought to be, the
product of deliberate design with the consequence
that it also claims that the fact that an institution
exists is evidence of its having been created for
a purpose and always that we should so re-design
society and institutions that all our actions will be
wholly guided by known purposes (1982: I, 5, 89).
Against this, the evolutionist view is that the social
practices and institutions that constitute the orderliness of society, and into which individuals are born,
have prevailed because they made the group successful but these practices were not initially adopted
because it was known they would bring about desired
effects (1982: I, 17). The rules of conduct that constitute the practices have, for Hayek, two features
they manifest themselves in regularity of action which
can be described without the actor being able to state
explicitly what they are and, second, the rules are
observed because they, in fact, give the group superior
strength but, again, this is not because that is an effect
known to those who are guided by them (1982: I, 19).

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133

Oakeshott in a series of essays, written in the 1950s,

developed a critique of rationalism in politics
(1991). The rationalist, as thus depicted, has a disposition of enmity to authority, to prejudice and to
the merely traditional, customary or habitual, so that
to form a habit is thought be a failure (1991: 6, 7).
This can be contrasted to the conservative disposition
which is
to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the
tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the
possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to
the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the
convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian
bliss. (1991: 408)

These two dispositions produce two different conceptions of knowledge. The rationalist subscribes to
technical knowledge, which is characterized by formulation into rules, asto give one of his favorite
examplesthe technique of cookery is contained in
the cookery book. The other conception he labels
practical knowledge. This exists only in use and cannot be formulated into ruleswhat makes a good
cook cannot be encapsulated in a text, which is nothing other than an abstract of someones practical
knowledge (1991: 520). Technical knowledge can be
learnt but practical knowledge is rather imparted and

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David Hume

acquired, as by being an apprentice chef in the

kitchen (1991: 15). Because the latter involves the
mastery of a skill, is something acquired in use over
time, then Oakeshott says it can be also be called
traditional knowledge (1991: 12). This links it to
the conservative disposition because a skill, as in the
use of a tool, being nothing other than the embodiment of familiarized practice, is acquired through
time/tradition (1991: 419). For Oakeshott these two
forms or conceptions are inseparable but the rationalist, in his construction, does not recognize practical knowledge as knowledge because it defies formulation or a reduction to certain and self-complete
instructions (1991: 16).
From this cursory summary, there is a clear affinity
between Hayeks constructivist and Oakeshotts rationalist. This is not to say Hayek and Oakeshott are in
full and entire agreement, though they were aware of
similarities in their views and corresponded (Smith,
2006: 186). They differ, for example, in their reading
of Hobbes and Burke. Also Oakeshott characterizes
Hayeks most famous book, The Road to Serfdom (1991),
as ideological and thus infected like all contemporary politics with rationalism (Oakeshott, 1991: 21).
Notwithstanding these points their affinity is evident
when it is appreciated that both identify the same
exemplars of these rationalist/constructivist traits.
For both, Descartes stands at the fount of this view of

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135

reason as manifest, for example, in the work of

Bentham and advocates progress in the manner of
Helvetius or Godwin as well as, and above all, in socialist ideology. Similarly Hayeks evolutionary knowledge
is aligned to Oakeshotts traditional knowledge. Hayek
is clear that Hume is an evolutionist, while Oakeshott, who is generally less forthcoming with named
exponents, does acknowledge Hume as one of those
writers from whom one can learn about the conservative
disposition (1991: 435).
Judged against this pedigree, Hume is not a Cartesian rationalist. For him, reason is the discovery of
truth and falsehood (T 3-1-1.9) and for that alone is
it equipped. This limitation means that it does not
apply to actions, which are the work of the passions
(as indicated in Chapter 2; Hume considers reason
inert). This makes him critical of rationalist philosophers who extend reasons role, who believe it is
possible to arrive at demonstrative conclusions in the
operation of common life. His target is a type of moral
philosopher who affirms that virtue is nothing but a
conformity to reason; that there are eternal fitnesses
and unfitnesses of things which are the same to every
rational being that considers them; that the immutable measures of right and wrong impose an obligation . . . (T 3-1-1.4). While this critique would apply
to certain types of Natural Lawyer (such as Grotius
who argues for the demonstrative certitude of true

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David Hume

justice) Hume does not, in his texts, make this an

explicit engagement.
This critique of rationalism is definitionally precise
and, as such, might be thought to contribute little distinctiveness to a conservative case. However, a more
substantive contribution might be identified from the
fact that against the demonstrativeness of reason
Hume upholds a skeptical stance. Almost invariably
when analysts of conservatism invoke Hume (as they
invariably do) they cite his skepticism as a justification of the invocation, with Whelans account the
most nuanced and sophisticated (1985: chapter 5).
Skepticism, it is frequently claimed, corrodes the certainty that possesses those who wish not to conserve
the status quo but replace it by (in their eyes) something better. This skepticism then leads to something
approaching an Oakeshottian disposition to prefer
the familiar, the tried and the actual and Oakeshott
himself, in a posthumously published work, referred
to the sceptical style of politics (of which he identifies Hume as an exponent) as one that is concerned
to draw attention to the values of civil order and tranquillitas (1993: 81).
We did indeed in Chapter 2 quote passages from
Hume that reflect that disposition, as when he express
alarm at radical change and exhibits a distaste for
political zeal. Hume does call himself an exponent of
mitigated scepticism and thinks this approach can

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137

instill a modesty and reserve into those (the greater

part of mankind) who exhibit a dogmatic one-sidedness in their views (U 12.24). It can also wean our
minds from all those prejudices which we may have
imbibed from education or rash opinion (U 12.4).
But, as we also saw in Chapter 2, Hume considers it a
central role of the science of man to challenge and
overturn superstition. Such a programme sits oddly
with a claim that his skepticism induces acquiescence
tout court. Indeed Hume distinguishes his skepticism
from its extreme form (which he calls Pyrrhonian)
because that would undermine the intelligibility of
a science of man (which includes politics) and thus
his attempt to put a compleat system of the sciences
on an almost entirely new foundation (T Introd.:
6). That this reposes on probability [T 1-4-1.4 et passim], not demonstration, does not, in wider or nontechnical sense, amount to a derogation of reason
(Norton, 1982). Indeed Hume is not anti-intellectual;
he recurrently defends the philosopher or abstruse
reasoner against vulgar and shallow thinkers, for
example, in E-Com: 254; U 8.13; T 1-3-13.12.
Philosophically Humes disposition is anything
but conservative. Donald Livingston, however, does
hold that Humes thought expresses the philosophical core of the conservative intellectual tradition
(Livingston, 1995: 156). Livingstons broad argument
is that Humes conservatism reposes on a radical

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David Hume

critique of (false) philosophy and a rejection of what

Livingston calls the autonomy principle (Livingston,
1984: 23), of which (once again) the Cartesian
method is the prime example. But he does observe
that this critique is only an intimation of a later (postFrench Revolution) structure of thought (Livingston,
1995: 152). What Livingston does regard as central to
this intimation is an interpretation of common life as
custom. Although Livingston never cites them, this
allies his argument with Hayek and Oakeshotts alternative to constructivism and technique.
The role played by custom and habit in Humes
thought does bring us to that aspect of his writing
that does seem to comport best with conservatism.
Nevertheless some care is needed. We noted in
Chapter 2 his declaration that habit was the cement
of the universe. That declaration reflected his analysis of causality and the centrality he apportions to it.
This, however, is so fundamental or universal that it
applies as equally to the operations of the sun and
climate as it does to human actions (T 2-3-1.19).
Accordingly, to focus more particularly on the latter,
in order to identify any specific political application
of this underlying generality requires a consideration
of what Oakeshott for his part calls a practice, which
he formally identifies as a set of considerations, manners, uses, observances, customs, standards, canons,
maxims, principles, rules and offices specifying useful

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139

procedures or denoting obligations or duties which

relate to human actions and utterances (Oakeshott,
1975: 55).
Oakeshott further characterizes practices as footprints left behind by agents responding to their emergent situations (1975: 100) and, leaving aside Humes
almost identical metaphor in Of the Original Contract [quoted above in p. 64], Humes account of
conventions or artifices can be read as exemplification of this characterization. If we revisit his account
of justice we can see how this reading has some plausibility. According to Hume, humans are confronted
with an unnatural conjunction of infirmity and of
necessity (T 3-2-2.2), that is, of the concurrence of
their limited generosity and the scarcity, relative to
their wants, of external objects (T 3-2-2.16). To this
predicament they have contrived a solution through
the artifice of the three rules of justice. There are
two points of current moment here. First this is
indeed a contrivance; in contrast to the situation of
other animals, there is no natural solution to the
predicament. Second, this contrivance is not the
product of reason or discovery of relations of ideas
that are eternal, immutable and universally obligatory (T 3-2-2.20). Instead Hume invokes (proleptically) the emergence of an Oakeshottian practice
or Hayekian non-deliberative rules or forms of
conduct (1960: 27).

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David Hume

The most celebrated example of this invocation is

his account of the emergence of the convention of
stable possession (T 3-2-2.10). Its roots are propositions derived experimentally from cautious observation of human life (T Introd.: 10) and, as such, are
consonant with the causes of the predicament to
which they offer a solution. Hence two individuals
each observe that it is in their individual interest
to leave the other in possession of their goods and
when this common sense of interest is known it may
properly enough be calld a convention or agreement (T 3-3-2.10). This is manifest in action and
not in an act of mind like a promise (a later convention) as each party acts on the supposition that the
other will act similarly. In this way, Hume maintains,
stability of possession arises gradually and acquires
force by slow progression and by our repeated experience of the inconveniences of transgressing it.
Though Hume does not in this passage refer to
habit, it is clearly no distortion to refer to this process as one of habituation. The appropriateness of
that terminology is reinforced by Humes elaboration. He proceeds to observe that this acquired experience assures us still more that the interest has
become common among our fellows and this (in a
phrase that we quoted in Chapter 2) gives us a confidence of the future regularity of their conduct. And
he concludes the paragraph by supplying two other

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141

telling examplesthis same process is how languages

are gradually established and how gold and silver
become the common measures of exchange. To
these examples we can add his account of the origin
of government, where (we recall also from Chapter
2) it commences casually and imperfectly to meet the
exigencies of warfare (Oakeshotts emergent situations) and the habit of obedience gradually (as
Oakeshottian footprints) establishes the chieftains
authority.
For the purposes of this discussion, what makes
Humes account of the establishment of government,
property rules, language and money so telling is that
it exemplifies several recurrent features of conservative thinkingthe stress on continuity, on gradualism
and the maintenance of order, on functionality, on
concreteness and on the limitations of reason. These
features are interlinked but it will be useful to say
something about each in turn and schematically link
their presence in Hume to expressions in Burke, as
the defining voice in the conservative political tradition, and to their manifestation in the contemporary
work of Hayek and Oakeshott.
Continuity speaks to the fact that humans are born
into ongoing communitiesfamilies, Vlker, states
(Berry, 1983). As institutions these communities
embody values and norms of conduct. No individual
is ever in position to stand outside their time and

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David Hume

place. As Chapter 2 sought to bring out, the process

of socialization plays a key role in Hume. As he says
appositely in his critique of contract theory, that argument supposes humans are like silk-worms and butterflies whereby one generation goes off the stage
at once, and another succeed (E-OC: 476). This presages Burkes similar entomological metaphor whereby
the rationalism of sophisters, economists and calculators assumes humans are little better than flies
of a summer (Burke, 1987: 66, 83). This passage
from Burke precedes the most famous statement
of continuity in conservative thoughtsociety as a
partnership not only between those are living, those
who are dead and those who are to be born (Burke,
1987: 85). In the modern idiom of Oakeshott and
Hayek continuity is captured in their references to
tradition. In Oakeshott it can be seen in the apprentice who acquires the skill to cook from assimilating a
preexistent practice and who is able, subsequently, to
impart it to the next generation of apprentices. For
Hayek it is a basic proposition that our habits and
skills, our emotional attitudes, our tools and our institutions are adaptations to past experience that as
forms of conduct comprise what we call traditions (Hayek, 1960: 267).
Gradualism and its associated idea of order is an
obvious corollary of this understanding of tradition.
Conservatives do not reject change but they are

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143

resolutely opposed to radical, revolutionary, or

violent change. This opposition rests on the contention that revolution dangerously upsets an order
established gradually over timethe balance arrived
at between liberty and authority as Hume puts it. For
the conservative, real change is evolutionary, and it
is in this espousal of gradualism that the conservative
stress on habit and custom is evident. As we have
already indicated, this is a central plank in Humes
social theory. His narrative of the growth of liberty in
England that we rehearsed in Chapter 2 is a clear case
in point and his Essays recur frequently to the power
of habit as when it consolidates the chieftains power
(see E-OG: 39). To equal and consequential effect
Hume thinks that to attempt to shortcut or accelerate
this gradual process is to court disaster; there is not
a more terrible event than a total dissolution of
government and violent innovations are dangerous as more ill than good is to expected from them
(E-OC: 472, 477). The danger is that because of their
lack of gradualism these violent innovators imperil
the stability of the social order. The reason why Burke
is the founding father of conservatism is because of
his asseveration that to make a revolution is to subvert the ancient state of our country; and no common
reasons are called for to justify so violent a proceeding (Burke, 1987: 147). One of his central criticisms
of radical thinkers is that they ignore the crucial

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David Hume

cumulative effect of time by decrying prescription

when, in a passage which replicates a key argument in
Hume (see p. 66 above), it is prescription which
through long usage mellows into legality governments
that were violent in their commencement (1987:
145). For Hayek it is axiomatic that social change is
evolutionary and he praises Humes History fulsomely
as an interpretation of English history as the gradual
emergence of the Rule of Law (Hayek, 1978: 124).
Even Oakeshotts conservative for whom change has
to be suffered nevertheless believes that the more
closely an innovation resembles growth (i.e., the more
clearly it is intimated in and not merely imposed
upon the situation) the less likely it is to result in a
preponderance of loss and favours a slow rather
than a rapid pace (Oakeshott, 1991: 172). This preference reflects the recognition that habit is the
unselfconscious following of a tradition of moral
behaviour (1991: 35).
The persistence of order implicit in gradual continuity warrants the presumption that current institutions and norms are extant because they work, have
utility, or are functional. They are tested and thus,
the conservative claims, are to be valued. In Hume
this is central to the necessity of justice in the maintenance of systemic social stability. The miser should
inherit because the function of property rules is to
sustain, through their inflexibility, expectations and

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145

confidence in future regularity. We know from

experience this redounds to public utility; if the
distinction and separation of possessions [were]
entirely useless then that convention would never
have arisen (M 3.47). In Burke, this functionalism is
captured in his phrase old establishments are tried
by their effects (Burke, 1987: 151). The happiness
and wealth of a people are testament to the fact
that these establishments (institutions) work. For
Hayek this functionalism is basic to his evolutionary
account of rationality. The cultural heritage into
which man is born comprising those rules of conduct are adaptations that have prevailed because
they were successful (Hayek, 1982: I, 17). We have
already noted that Oakeshotts conservative prefers
the tried to the untried (Oakeshott, 1991: 408). In
similar fashion, routines are all the more useful the
more familiar they are, as they serve to establish
and satisfy expectations (1991: 421). Characteristically, perhaps, in Oakeshott the force of this is negativethe familiar, whatever it is, has value because it
is too disruptive to amend (Knowles, 2000; Brennan
and Hamlin, 2004).
By concreteness I mean the conservative sensitivity
to actual situations, and response of specific groups of
humans to them, as well as a distrust of hypothetical
abstraction. This appreciation of the concrete leads
to a tendency toward particularism in conservative

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David Hume

thought (and thus in some guise to an affinity with

nationalism). On this specific point Hume is an
uncertain fellow-traveler. He has no time for any
valorization of local superstitions when set against the
findings of the science of man. But more generally
Hume does recognize that humans act in concrete
circumstances. We can again illustrate this recognition by his account of the accretion of power by a
chieftain. The Contractarian account that there was
an original compact that was expressly formed for
general submission (something beyond the comprehension of savages) is unsustainable in the face
of the experiential observation that each exertion of
authority in the chieftain must have been particular;
and called forth by the present exigencies of the
case (E-OC: 4689). Moreover he chides Contractarians for being reasoners who have not looked
abroad in the world but who have, instead, articulated a refined and philosophical a system to which
nothing in the least corresponds (E-OC: 470).
Burke, for his part, employs Humes terminology to
identify government (civil society) as an offspring of
convention and a contrivance to provide for human
wants that serves to restrain their passions. These
restrictions, he goes on, vary with times and circumstances and admit of infinite modifications, they
cannot be settled upon any abstract rule; and nothing

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147

is so foolish as to discuss them upon that principle

(Burke, 1987: 523). For Hayek, as we have seen, it
is a major failing of constructivism that it assumes
institutions have been deliberately designed when
what humans actually do is try to improve bit by bit
on a process of mutually adjusting individual activities, there is always a definite problem to solve
(Hayek, 1978: 11). The solutions that work are those
that persist and form the stuff of evolved traditions.
We have already quoted Oakeshotts reference to
emergent situations and his conservative will have
nothing to do with innovations designed to meet
merely hypothetical situations (Oakeshott, 1991:
431). This emphasis on the concrete is central to
his critique of the rationalist recourse to political
ideology understood as an abstraction (or abridgement [1991: 4]) that has been independently premeditated to supply in advance of the activity of
attending to the arrangements of society a formulated
end to be pursued (1991: 116). Whereas actually
political activity is the amendment of existing
arrangements by exploring and pursuing what is intimated in them (1991: 125, 133; 1993: 35). And contrary to the rationalist ideologue, who deals only in
the politics of perfection and uniformity, what he calls
the politics of faith (as the abstract counterpart to
the politics of scepticism [Oakeshott, 1993: 23]),

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David Hume

these arrangements are as circumstantial and as

varied as the traditional manner of behaviour they
embody (Oakeshott, 1991: 56, 123).
We have already when setting the scene referred to
the conservative critique of reason (constructivism and
technique) but there are two special additional
emphases worth noting. First, this critique emphasizes the law of unintended consequences. This
law is a combination of an experientially warranted
observation that change leads to unanticipated outcomes, with the inference that it is thus an error to
assume that what has happened was intended to happen, and an admonition that designing outcomes
is dangerous as well as hubristic. Hayek makes this
central to his whole social philosophy. He is very
fond of quoting the remark of Adam Ferguson,
Humes contemporary and compatriot, that institutions are the product of human action not design
(Ferguson, 1966: 122) and links this to the idea of
spontaneous order (Hayek, 1982: I, chapter 2). As
an example Hayek cites Humes account of the emergence of language and money as an illustration of an
endogenously grown order that was not deliberately
invented (Hayek, 1968: 347). In Chapter 2 we quoted
from the Treatise Humes comment that the rules that
determine property, right and obligation though
advantageous to the public were not intended for
that purpose by the inventor (T 3-2-6.6). While

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149

Burke recognizes this he places it in a Providential

frameworkthere is a higher intention at work
than is apparent to mere humans. But in Oakeshotts
secular conservatismand without it possessing
Hayekian saliencethis dimension to the critique of
rationalism is also articulated. Indeed he is categorical that total change is always more extensive than
the change designed and draws a series of conservative morals from the point. These include, as we have
already noted, that the pace of change should be
slow rather than rapid and alsothis time picking
up the conservative dispositional preference for the
concretethat innovation which is a response to
some specific defect is more desirable than one
designed generally to improve the human condition
(Oakeshott, 1991: 41112).
The second emphasis in conservative antirationalism is the recognition of the limits of reason and thus
of the unattainability of perfection. These limits are
identified variously but each of the earlier characterizationstradition, gradualism, functionality, concretenesscontribute. There is no blank sheet on
which humans can write and which script can, if
irrational obstacles are removed, be put into effect;
rather, we operate and think (reason) in an inherited, complex, concrete context. Leaving aside
Humes technical use of reason, we came across his
recognition of these limits in, for example, his view

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David Hume

that edicts to restrict consumption behavior were

ineffective, that a Spartan regime was contrary to
the grain of human nature as well as the crucial role
he sees habit playing in social life. Human nature,
he says, has incurable weakness (E-OG: 38). This
sensitivity to imperfection is why commentators such
as OSullivan and Quinton enlist Hume in the conservative camp and, more dramatically, it is Humes
paura della perfezione that for Giarrizzo gives the
particular hue to his conservatism (Giarrizzo, 1962:
48). And arguably it is of a piece with this identification of weakness that leads Hume to emphasize
authority and to his conservative distrust of (rational) thinkers who would publicly articulate the right
to dissent. This last point is one of Burkes chief accusations against Richard Price and all other advocates
of natural rights, whose abstract perfection is their
practical defect (Burke, 1987: 52)a defect made
bloodily evident in the Revolution. We have already
drawn attention to Hayeks critique of constructivism,
with the corollary, as repeatedly argues, that the complexity of a spontaneously evolved order far exceeds
the rational capacity of individuals, and to how Oakeshott associates rationalism with the politics of
perfection and faith.
One claim that Oakeshott makes is that to be a conservative in politics is not inconsistent with being
radical in respect of almost every other activity

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151

(1991: 423, 435). The final issue I wish to address in

this selective survey of the Humean contribution is
to focus on the political. There is in fact little here
in Hume that is intellectually distinctive. The basic
conservative stance is that politics is limited but this is
animated by a rejection of more expansive conceptions of politics (role of the state in the economy, in
welfare, and so on) that long post-date Hume. The
contemporary conservative conceives of limits in
two ways. First political activity itself is confined to
ruling construed to refer to the exercise of public
authority; it is not, it follows, properly understood as
ubiquitous. Second, ruling itself is limited to the
promulgation, and administration, of general rules.
Both Oakeshott and Hayek espouse these positions.
The former distinguishes a civil association, which is
a formal relationship around the recognition of rules,
from an enterprise association, which comprises
individuals in a substantive relationship to satisfy chosen wants (Oakeshott, 1975: 121). For the latter there
is a fundamental difference between end-independent rules of just conduct and the end-dependent
rules of an organization (Hayek, 1982: II, 31 et passim). For both thinkers it is no proper task of politics/
government to implement distributive or social justice. This conservative reining-in of politics is indistinguishable from a classical liberal (Hayeks old
Whig) position. Accordingly when Hayek quotes

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David Hume

Hume approvingly for his recognition that we must

proceed by general rules (Hayek, 1982: II, 1; Hume
T 3-2-10.3), this does not speak to his influence on
conservatism.
It should be acknowledged that this view of conservative politics does not sit easily with another conservative strand. Whereas Hayek and Oakeshott
represent a neutral view (Oakeshott indeed uses
the term umpire [Oakeshott, 1991: 427]), this other
strand adopts a perfectionist perspective. This viewpoint thinks a government should conserve what is
valuable; should deliberately and selectively foster
and protect what it deems is under threat from current social forces. For T. S. Eliot a governing elite
should protect the means that are most favourable to
the growth and survival of a superior culture (Eliot,
1962: 108). For Roger Scruton the conservative recognizes that the value-free world is not a human
world (Scruton, 1980: 141) and in his construction
of that world he attributes to the conservative the view
that the individual sees himself as part of an order
that transcends anything he could himself enact
(1980: 66). From this the conservative deems it proper
to underwrite institutionsfamily, inheritance, religionthat embody that transcendence. Apart from
his passing comments on Church/State relations
Hume has little to say on this. He does express, as
might be expected from an eighteenth-century

Hume and Conservatism

153

author, elitist views on aesthetic judgment; to appreciate good art is an act of connoisseurship. The
generality of men, because they lack the resources
to devote time to acquiring the appropriate aesthetic
skills, are unqualified to give judgment on any work
of art whereas connoisseurs (not Humes term) do
have the wherewithal to sustain prolonged exposure
to art so that they acquire their informed expertise
(E-ST: 241).
One additional aspect of Humes thought is
pertinent. His argument that government rests on
opinion is resonant of a frequently articulated
conservative perspective, albeit not one unique to
that outlook. Hayek on at least a couple of occasions
cites this argument both times to endorse what he
takes to be its thrust. He links opinion with an
evolved grown order (in contrast to will which he
associates with a constructivist made order) (Hayek,
1978: 83) and later affirms that the basic source of
social order is the existence among the people of
certain opinions of what is right and wrong (Hayek,
1982: III, 33) and this applies to dictators as much as
any other form of authority (1982: I, 92). This echoes
Humes dictum that opinion not force (or coercion)
underpins the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular (E-FPG: 32). While Oakeshott does not cite
Hume (he is never expansive on that front but see

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David Hume

Letwin [1975] for an Oakeshottian reading of

Hume), this Humean insight is clearly discernible.
He declares that propos the disposition to be conservative in respect of government (to implement
rules of conduct) then it rests upon the acceptance
of the current activities and beliefs of its subjects
(Oakeshott, 1991: 429). In his later more formal
account Oakeshott, while eschewing the psychological language of opinion and belief, still affirms
that the authority of what he terms respublica (the
public concerns of a civil association) is not to be
understood in terms of power (Oakeshott, 1975:
14852).
I conclude by returning to an earlier point. This
reconstruction of a Humean contribution is distinct
from an interpretation of his thought as conservative.
I hope I have demonstrated through this reconstruction why Humes thought has indeed been frequently
read as a contributor or progenitor of conservatism.
It is equally the case that writing before and after the
1789 French Revolution makes a significant difference to how conservative thought developed, a point
borne out by the universal recognition of Burke as
the key formative thinker. As we have seen in this
chapter Burke does draw on Hume but, as noted at
the end of Chapter 2, and the tenor of that chapter
as a whole, there are deep differences between them.

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155

It is my contention that the profundity of those differences, together with the circumstances and motivations of Humes philosophy, mean that in the round
his own thought is misconstrued as conservative. But
even if that is true, as this chapter has aimed to indicate, it does not follow, to repeat, that, he cannot be
seen to have contributed to the developed articulation of conservatism.

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Bibliography
Humes Works
DP A Dissertation on the Passions (2007 [1757]). Ed. by
T. Beauchamp. Oxford: Clarendon Press, cited by
page.
E Essays: Moral, Political and Literary (1985). Ed. by
E. Miller. Indianapolis: Liberty Press. Essays in this
edition are individually identified and cited by page as
follows:
E-AS Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences
[1742]
E-BG Whether the British Government Inclines More to
Absolute Monarchy or to a Republic [1741]
E-BT Of the Balance of Trade [1752]
E-CL Of Civil Liberty [1741]
E-Com Of Commerce [1752]
E-EW Of Essay Writing [1741]
E-FPG Of the First Principles of Government [1741]
E-Int Of Interest [1752]
E-IP Of the Independency of Parliament [1741]
E-IPC Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth [1752]
E-JT Of the Jealousy of Trade [1758]
E-Life My Own Life [1777]
E-LP Of the Liberty of the Press [1741]
E-Mon Of Money [1752]
E-NC Of National Characters [1748]

158

Bibliography

E-OC Of the Original Contract [1748]

E-OG Of the Origin of Government [1777]
E-PAN Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations [1752]
E-PC Of Public Credit [1752]
E-PD Of Polygamy and Divorces [1742]
E-PG Of Parties in General [1741]
E-PGB Of the Parties of Great Britain [1741]
E-PO Of Passive Obedience [1748]
E-PrS Of the Protestant Succession [1752]
E-PSc That Politics May Be Reduced to a Science [1741]
E-RA Of Refinement of Arts [1752]
E-RC Of Some Remarkable Customs [1752]
E-SE Of Superstition and Enthusiasm [1741]
E-ST Of the Standard of Taste [1757]
E-Tax Of Taxes [1752]
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Index
Aberdeen, University of 107, 108
Adams, J. 116
allegiance see obligation
Allen, D. 129
America 106, 107, 11518
Anglo-Saxons 87, 96
animals 3940, 139
Aristotle 80, 81, 116
artifice see convention
atheism 18
Augustine, Saint 103
authority 62, 68, 75, 87, 89, 95, 96,
98, 103, 133, 144, 151
avarice 33, 34, 76, 79, 81
Bacon, F. 13, 30
barons see nobility
Beattie, J. 108
Beccaria, C. 124
belief 64, 67, 82, 92, 125
Bentham, J. 110, 135
Berlin, I. 125
Bongie, L. 122
Boswell, J. 21
Bristol 2, 5, 18
Britain 106, 107
Burke, E. 58, 65, 69, 102, 104,
114, 117, 122, 126, 134, 141,
142, 143, 145, 146, 149, 150,
154
Calvinism 11, 103
Carlyle, A. 12

causation 13, 24, 26, 2738, 47, 55,

70, 75, 89
moral and physical 348, 52
children see socialization
Christianity 14, 50, 92
Church (of Scotland) 10, 11
Cicero 4, 8
civilization 56, 69, 74, 79, 83, 84,
88, 90, 99, 101, 105
climate 34, 55
commerce 14, 16, 24, 31, 36, 37,
43, 51, 56, 74, 7894, 111,
119
Comte, A. 121
Condorcet, N. 120
consent 42, 601, 66
conservatism 23, 24, 30, 45, 58, 65,
66, 69, 70, 74, 103, 104, 105,
114, 117, 127, 12855
Constant, B. 123
constitution 69, 100
British 96, 98
contract 42
original 5862, 65, 111, 142,
146
convention 38, 40, 41, 42, 48, 49,
50, 52, 58, 64, 139, 140
credit 924, 116, 120
Cullen, W. 10, 21
custom 19, 23, 24, 30, 356, 378,
43, 47, 5570, 74, 76, 87, 88,
95, 99, 105, 112, 133, 138,
140, 141, 142, 144

174

Index

debt 924
Descartes, R. 5, 107, 134, 138
desires 7980
determinism 32, 356
dHolbach, Baron 18, 121
Edinburgh 2, 20, 124
University of 3, 4, 7, 9, 11
education see socialization
Eliot, T. S. 152
England 20, 83, 143
Enlightenment, the 105, 121, 126,
128
French 18, 19
Scottish 8, 1013, 19, 111, 132
enthusiasm 70, 73, 112
expectation 30, 32, 435, 64, 82,
88, 902, 114, 144
experience 27, 28, 31, 51, 64, 67,
71, 95, 125
family 41, 42, 104, 141
Ferguson, A. 148
fidelity see promises
Forbes, D. 14
Forbonnais, F. 11920
France 5, 16, 83, 106, 118
freedom see liberty
French Revolution 122, 126, 128,
150, 154
functionalism 141, 1445, 149
Genovesi, A. 124
Giarrizzo, G. 103, 150
Glasgow, University of 3, 7, 8, 9,
107, 113
gods 50, 70, 102
Godwin, W. 135
Gournay, V. 119
government 24, 36, 37, 45, 5562,
63, 64, 69, 75, 77, 85, 86, 88,
89, 90, 93, 95, 96, 98, 100, 101,
104, 117, 141, 143, 146, 154
gradualism 95, 141, 1423, 149

habit see custom

Hamann, G. 125, 126, 130
Hamilton, A. 116
Hanover, house of 11, 12, 63, 74
happiness 79
Hayek, F. 13055 passim
Hearnshaw, F. 129
Helvetius, C. 18, 135
Herder, J. 126
history 33, 34
Hobbes, T. 53, 80, 103, 134
human nature 5, 24, 26, 38, 42, 43,
56, 64, 84, 85, 103, 126, 150
uniformity and universality
of 31, 40, 55, 712, 73, 76
humanity 72, 83, 86, 95
Hume, D.
education of 3, 4
employments 6, 10, 16, 18, 118
family of 2, 3
writings of
Dialogues of Natural Religion 6,
129
Essays 6, 9, 1415, 16, 18, 56,
78, 87, 93, 96, 100, 115, 117,
118, 121, 123, 124, 126, 139,
143
First Enquiry (Understanding)
6, 9, 31, 73, 76, 115, 125
History of England 13, 1617,
25, 77, 87, 95, 96, 101, 112,
113, 117, 118, 121, 123, 124,
127, 144
A Letter from a Gentleman 7
Letters 4, 7, 8, 17, 18
My Own Life 1, 2, 4, 6, 20, 107
Political Discourses 16, 75, 77,
119, 121
Second Enquiry (Morals) 6, 9,
33, 72, 115
Treatise 4, 5, 8, 25, 26, 30, 31,
56, 57, 66, 73, 115, 148
Huntingdon, S. 130
Hutcheson, F. 7, 26, 49, 50, 52, 54

Index
ideas 27, 28, 51, 54
imagination 27, 30
individualism 23, 68
industry 77, 79, 83, 84, 86, 90, 99
Italy 1, 2, 3
Jacobites 11, 16
Jefferson, T. 116, 117, 118
Justice 8, 24, 3855, 56, 57, 60, 64,
83, 85, 90, 95, 109, 111, 139,
151
Kames, Lord 2, 109
Kant, I. 111, 125
Kirk, R. 129
language 43, 58, 141, 148
law 61, 98, 99
Natural 389, 48, 50, 110, 135
rule of 74, 86, 90, 96, 104, 144
LeBlanc, J-B. 119, 121, 123
legislation see law
legitimacy 5562, 67, 68
liberalism 23, 24, 78, 128, 131
libertarianism 23, 96, 98
liberty 23, 36, 62, 64, 65, 73, 745,
868, 94106, 113, 144
Livingston, D. 1378
Locke, J. 27, 28, 41, 48, 59, 60, 61,
107
luxury 16, 75, 76, 77, 7886, 90,
119, 124
Macaulay, C. 113, 122
MacQueen, D. 112
Madison, J. 116, 117, 118
magistrate see government
Maistre, J de. 1223, 130
Mandeville, B. 26, 53, 78, 86
manners 35, 36, 67, 75, 77, 83, 87,
112
Mannheim, K. 130
military 814
Mill, J.S. 110

175

Millar, J. 113
Mirabeau, H. 122
Mirabeau, V. 11920
miracles 72, 85, 112, 129
monarchy 87, 96
absolute 90, 93, 97
civilized 889
Monboddo, Lord 12
money 43, 58, 91, 141, 148
Montesquieu, C. 35, 115, 121
morality 23, 49, 51, 72, 73, 78, 79, 80
Muller, J. 129
naturalism 41, 45, 73, 105
Newton, I. 1213, 25, 26, 33
nobility the 756, 87
Nozick, R. 48
Oakeshott, M. 13055 passim
obedience 589, 64, 656, 87, 102,
110, 141
obligation 48, 59, 64, 110
opinion 634, 82, 101, 114, 117,
123, 153
order 96, 103, 141, 1424
OSullivan, N. 119, 131, 150
Paley, W. 65, 114
Paris 7, 18
passions 27, 33, 412 ,49, 50, 54,
70, 76, 85, 86, 103, 146
perfection 19, 149, 150, 152
Plato 38
politics 23, 24, 31, 37, 79, 147, 1512
Popper, K. 132
poverty 80, 88, 90, 92
prescription 656, 114, 144
progress 19, 95
promises 42, 45, 51, 601, 140
property 42, 4551, 58, 63, 65, 76,
89, 99, 109, 141, 144
public good/interest 43, 45, 57,
81, 845
spirit 33, 34

176

Index

Quinton, A. 129, 150

ranks, middle 75, 87, 88
rationalism see reason
Rawls, J. 40, 111
reason 19, 51, 58, 68, 86, 104,
1315, 141, 147, 148
Reid, T. 1078, 109, 115
religion 14, 23, 50, 69, 71, 73, 99,
104, 112, 128, 152
republicans 78, 79, 82, 88, 116
republics 89, 90, 96, 97, 118
revolution 74, 75, 77, 116, 143
rights 48, 49, 150
Robertson, W. 11, 12, 18, 126
Rousseau, J-J. 1, 1920, 64, 115,
124
rules see justice
St Clair, J. 6
Sallust 78
savages 57, 70, 71
scarcity 40, 48, 52, 139
science 23, 37, 105
of man 13, 247, 30, 31, 33, 41,
49, 50, 52, 71, 73, 74, 80,
105, 137
Scotland 16, 99, 106
Scruton, R. 152
selfishness
interest,-love 33, 40, 512, 76, 85,
103
Seneca 81
sentiments 51, 54, 66, 67, 69, 72
sex 39, 41
skepticism 7, 107, 112, 115, 136,
137, 147
slavery 73, 88

Smith, A. 3, 9, 10, 223, 57, 109,

111, 112
socialization 37, 42, 55, 59, 68, 142
society 39, 401, 49, 50, 53, 59, 68
Sparta 84, 85, 150
Steuart, J. 112, 126
Stewart, J. 23
Stoics 46
superstition 18, 22, 24, 704, 103,
112, 137, 146
sympathy 545
taxes 84, 98
time 626, 67, 69, 77, 134, 142,
144, 147, 149
toleration 46, 99100
Tories 1315, 17, 120
tradition see time
Turgot, A. 18, 120
Turnbull, G. 25
unintended consequences 19, 58,
94, 148
utilitarianism 10910
utility 49, 57, 59, 71, 73, 101, 145
Venice 119, 123
Venturi, F. 119
Verri, P. 124
vice 52, 54, 86
virtue 8, 38, 514, 64, 80, 82, 83,
85, 88, 109, 110, 116
Voltaire, M. 1212, 126
war 31, 57, 93, 94, 96
Whelan, F. 128, 136
Whigs 1315, 17
Wolin, S. 129