Chapter V (3)

This vast step in our knowledge is due, mainly, though not entirely, to Malthus, whose work on Population, besides marking an epoch in the history of speculative thought, has already produced considerable practical results, and will probably give rise to others more considerable still. It was published in 1798; so that Adam Smith, who died in 1790, missed what to him would have been the intense pleasure of seeing how, in it, his own views were expanded rather than corrected. Indeed, it is certain, that without Smith there would have been no Malthus; that is, unless Smith had laid the foundation, Malthus could not have raised the superstructure. It was Adam Smith, who, far more than any other man, introduced the conception of uniform and necessary sequence into the apparently capricious phenomena of wealth, and who studied those phenomena by the aid of principles, of which selfishness alone supplied the data. According to his view, the employers of labour have, as employers, no benevolence, no sympathy, no virtue of any kind. Their sole aim is, their own selfish interest. They are constantly engaged in a tacit, if not in an open, combination, to prevent the lower ranks from being benefited by a rise of wages; and they sometimes combine for the purpose even of depressing those wages below their actual rate.[683] Having no bowels, they think only of themselves. The idea of their wishing to mitigate the inequalities of fortune, is to be exploded as one of the chimeras of that protective spirit, which imagined that society could not go on, unless the richer classes relieved the poorer ones, and sympathized with their troubles. This antiquated notion is further rebutted by the fact, that wages are always higher in summer than in winter, although the expenses which a labourer incurs in winter, being heavier than in summer, he ought, on principles of common humanity, to receive more money during the more expensive season.[684] In the same way, in years of scarcity, the dearness of food causes many persons to go to service, in order to support their families. The masters, instead of charitably paying such servants more on account of the unfortunate position in which they are placed, avail themselves of that position to pay them less. They make better terms for themselves; they lower wages just at the moment when sympathy for misfortune would have raised them; and, as they find that their servants, besides being worse remunerated, are, by poverty, made more submissive, they consider that scarcity is a blessing, and that dear years are to be commended as more favourable to industry than cheap ones.[685]

[683] 'We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters,
though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon
this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the
world as of the subject. Masters are always and every where in a
sort of tacit, but constant and uniform, combination, not to raise
the wages of labour above their actual rate. To violate this
combination is every where a most unpopular action, and a sort of
reproach to a master among his neighbours and equals. We seldom,
indeed, hear of this combination, because it is the usual, and,
one may say, the natural state of things which nobody ever hears
of. Masters, too, sometimes enter into particular combinations to
sink the wages of labour even below this rate.' _Wealth of
Nations_, book i. chap. viii. p. 28.

[684] 'First, in almost every part of Great Britain, there is a
distinction, even in the lowest species of labour, between summer
and winter wages. Summer wages are always highest. But, on account
of the extraordinary expense of fuel, the maintenance of a family
is most expensive in winter. Wages, therefore, being highest when
this expense is lowest, it seems evident that they are not
regulated by what is necessary for this expense, but by the
quantity and supposed value of the work.' _Wealth of Nations_,
book i. chap. viii. p. 31.

[685] 'In years of scarcity, the difficulty and uncertainty of
subsistence make all such people eager to return to service. But
the high price of provisions, by diminishing the funds destined
for the maintenance of servants, disposes masters rather to
diminish than to increase the number of those they have.' ...
'Masters of all sorts, therefore, frequently make better bargains
with their servants in dear than in cheap years, and find them
more humble and dependent in the former than in the latter. They
naturally, therefore, commend the former as more favourable to
industry.' _Wealth of Nations_, book i. chap. viii. p. 35.

Adam Smith, therefore, though he failed in grasping the remote cause of the rate of wages, clearly saw that the approximate cause was, not the generosity of human nature, but its selfishness, and that the question was one of supply and demand; each side striving to extract as much as possible from the other.[686] By the aid of the same principle, he explained another curious fact, namely, the extravagant rewards bestowed on some of the most despicable classes of society, such, for instance, as opera-dancers, who always receive enormous pay for insignificant services. He observes, that one of the reasons why we pay them so highly, is, because we despise them. If to be a public dancer were a creditable occupation, more persons would be brought up to it, and the supply of public dancers becoming greater, competition would lower their wages. As it is, we look on them disdainfully. By way of compensating the disdain, we have to bribe them largely to induce them to follow their pursuit.[687] Here we see, that the reward which one class bestows on another, instead of being increased by sympathy, is increased by scorn; so that the more we contemn the tastes and the way of life of our fellow-creatures, the more liberal we are in recompensing them.

[686] 'The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little,
as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise,
the latter in order to lower, the wages of labour.' _Wealth of
Nations_, b. i. c. viii. p. 27.

[687] 'It seems absurd at first sight, that we should despise their
persons, and yet reward their talents with the most profuse
liberality. While we do the one, however, we must of necessity do
the other. Should the public opinion, or prejudice, ever alter
with regard to such occupation, their pecuniary recompense would
quickly diminish. More people would apply to them, and the
competition would quickly reduce the price of their labour. Such
talents, though far from being common, are by no means so rare as
imagined. Many people possess them in great perfection, who
disdain to make this use of them; and many more are capable of
acquiring them, if any thing could be made honourably by them.'
_Wealth of Nations_, book i. ch. x. p. 44.

Passing to another, and somewhat different, class, Adam Smith threw new light on the cause of that hospitality for which the clergy were famous during the Middle Ages, and for the magnificence of which they have received great praise. He shows that, although they undoubtedly relieved a large amount of distress, this is not to be ascribed to them as a merit, since it resulted from the peculiarity of their position, and since, moreover, they did it for their own advantage. In the Middle Ages, the clergy possessed enormous wealth, and their revenues were mostly paid, not in money, but in kind, such as corn, wine, and cattle. Trade and manufactures being hardly known, the clergy could find no use for these commodities except to feed other people. By employing them in that way, they benefited themselves in the most effectual manner. They gained a reputation for extensive charity; they increased their influence; they multiplied the number of their adherents; and they not only advanced themselves to temporal power, but they secured to their spiritual threats a respect, which, without this contrivance, it would have been impossible for them to obtain.[688]

[688] 'Over and above the rents of those estates, the clergy possessed
in the tithes a very large portion of the rents of all the other
estates in every kingdom of Europe. The revenues arising from both
those species of rents were, the greater part of them, paid in
kind, in corn, wine, cattle, poultry, &c. The quantity exceeded
greatly what the clergy could themselves consume; and there were
neither arts nor manufactures, for the produce of which they could
exchange the surplus. The clergy could derive advantage from this
immense surplus in no other way than by employing it, as the great
barons employed the like surplus of their revenues, in the most
profuse hospitality, and in the most extensive charity. Both the
hospitality and the charity of the ancient clergy, accordingly,
are said to have been very great.' ... 'The hospitality and
charity of the clergy, too, not only gave them the command of a
great temporal force, but increased very much the weight of their
spiritual weapons. Those virtues procured them the highest respect
and veneration among all the inferior ranks of people, of whom
many were constantly, and almost all occasionally, fed by them.'
_Wealth of Nations_, book v. chap. i. p. 336.

The reader will now be able to understand the nature of that method of investigation which is adopted in the _Wealth of Nations_, and of which I have given more instances than I should otherwise have done, partly because the question of philosophic method lies at the very root of our knowledge, and partly because no attempt has hitherto been made to analyze the intellect of Adam Smith, by considering his two great works as the opposite, but yet the compensatory, parts of a single scheme. And, as he is by far the greatest thinker Scotland has produced, I need hardly apologize, in a history of the Scotch mind, for devoting so much attention to his system, and endeavouring to examine it at its base. But, having done so, it would be a needless prolixity to treat with equal fulness the productions of those other eminent Scotchmen who lived at the same time, and nearly all of whom pursued a method essentially, though not entirely, the same; that is to say, they preferred the deductive process of reasoning from principles, to the inductive process of reasoning to them. In that peculiar form of deduction which consists in a deliberate suppression of part of the principles, Adam Smith stands alone. For, though others attempted to follow that plan, they did so irregularly, and at intervals, and did not, like him, see the importance of keeping close to their method, and of invariably abstaining from letting into the premisses of their arguments, considerations which would complicate the problem that they wished to solve.

Among the contemporaries of Adam Smith, one of the first, in eminence, as well as in reputation, is David Hume. His views respecting political economy were published in 1752,[689] that is, the very year in which Adam Smith taught the principles subsequently unfolded in the _Wealth of Nations_. But Hume, though a most accomplished reasoner, as well as a profound and fearless thinker, had not the comprehensiveness of Adam Smith, nor had he that invaluable quality of imagination without which no one can so transport himself into past ages as to realize the long and progressive movements of society, always fluctuating, yet, on the whole, steadily advancing. How unimaginative he was, appears, not only from the sentiments he expressed, but likewise from many traits in his private life.[690] It appears, also, in the very colour and mechanism of his language; that beautiful and chiselled style in which he habitually wrote, polished as marble, but cold as marble too, and wanting that fiery enthusiasm and those bursts of tempestuous eloquence, which, ever and anon, great objects naturally inspire, and which rouse men to their inmost depths. This it was, which, in his _History of England_,--that exquisite production of art, which, in spite of its errors, will be admired as long as taste remains among us,--prevented him from sympathizing with those bold and generous natures, who, in the seventeenth century, risked their all to preserve the liberty of their country. His imagination was not strong enough to picture the whole of that great century, with its vast discoveries, its longings after the unknown, its splendid literature, and what was better than all these, its stern determination to vindicate freedom, and to put down tyranny. His clear and powerful understanding saw these things separately, and in their various parts, but could not fuse them into a single form, because he lacked that peculiar faculty which assimilates the past to the present, and enables the mind to discern both with almost equal ease. That Great Rebellion, which he ascribed to the spirit of faction, and the leaders of which he turned into ridicule, was but the continuation of a movement which can be clearly traced to the twelfth century, and of which such events as the invention of printing, and the establishment of the Reformation, were merely successive symptoms. For all this, Hume cared nothing. In regard to philosophy, and in regard to the purely speculative parts of religious doctrines, his penetrating genius enabled him to perceive that nothing could be done, except by a spirit of fearless and unrestrained liberty. But this was the liberty of his own class; the liberty of thinkers, and not of actors. His absence of imagination prevented him from extending the range of his sympathy beyond the intellectual classes, that is, beyond the classes of whose feelings he was directly cognizant. It would, therefore, appear, that his political errors were due, not, as is commonly said, to his want of research, but rather to the coldness of his temperament.[691] It was this which made him stop where he did, and which gave to his works the singular appearance of a profound and original thinker, in the middle of the eighteenth century, advocating practical doctrines, so illiberal, that, if enforced, they would lead to despotism, and yet, at the same time, advocating speculative doctrines, so fearless and enlightened, that they were not only far in advance of his own age, but have, in some degree, outstripped even the age in which we live.

[689] _Burton's Life of Hume_, vol. i. p. 354.

[690] See Mr. Burton's valuable _Life of Hume_, Edinburgh, 1846, vol. i.
pp. 58, 267, vol. ii. pp. 14, 134.

[691] What confirms me in this view, is the fact, that the older Hume
grew, and the more he read on history, the more he became imbued
with these errors; which would not have been the case if the
errors had, as many of his critics say, been the result of an
insufficient acquaintance with the evidence. Mr. Burton, by
comparing the different editions of his _History of England_, has
shown that he gradually became less favourable to popular liberty;
softening, or erasing, in later editions, those expressions which
seemed favourable to freedom. _Burton's Life of Hume_, vol. ii.
pp. 74-77. See also pp. 144, 434. In his _Own Life_, p. xi (in
vol. i. of _Hume's Works_ Edinb. 1826), he says: 'In a hundred
alterations, which farther study, reading, or reflection engaged
me to make in the reigns of the two first Stuarts, I have made all
of them invariably the Tory side.' In one of his essays, he
observes (_Philosophical Works_, vol. iv. p. 172) that 'there is
no enthusiasm among philosophers;' a remark perfectly true, so far
as he was concerned, but very unjust towards the class of men to
whom it refers.

Among his speculative views, the most important are his theory of causation as discarding the idea of power, and his theory of the laws of association. Neither of these theories are, in their primary conception, quite original, but his treatment made them as valuable as if they had been entirely his own. His theory of miracles, in connexion, on the one hand, with the principles of evidence, and, on the other hand, with the laws of causation, is worked out with consummate skill, and, after having received the modifications subsequently imposed by Brown, has now become the foundation on which the best inquirers into these matters take their stand.[692] His work on the principles of morals, by generalizing the laws of expediency, prepared the way for Bentham, who afterwards incorporated with them an estimate of the more remote consequences of human actions; Hume, having chiefly confined himself to their more immediate consequences. The doctrine of utility was common to each; but while Hume applied it mainly to the individual, Bentham applied it to the surrounding society. Though Bentham was more comprehensive, yet Hume, having come first, was more original. The praise of originality must also be accorded to his economical theories, in which he advocated those principles of free trade, which politicians began to adopt many years after his death.[693] In opposition to the notions then prevailing, he distinctly asserted, that all commodities, though apparently bought by money, are in reality bought by labour.[694] Money, therefore, is not the subject of commerce, and is of no use except to facilitate it.[695] Hence, it is absurd for a nation to trouble itself about the balance of trade, or to make regulations to discourage the exportation of the precious metals.[696] Neither does the average rate of interest depend on their scarcity or abundance, but upon the operation of more general causes.[697] As a necessary consequence of these positions, Hume inferred that the established policy was wrong, which made trading states look upon each other as rivals, while, in point of fact, the question, if considered from a certain height, was one, not of rivalry, but of coöperation; every country being benefited by the increasing wealth of its neighbours.[698] Those who know the character of commercial legislation, and the opinions of even the most enlightened statesmen a century ago, will consider these views as extremely remarkable to have been propounded in the year 1752. But what is more remarkable still, is, that their author subsequently detected the fundamental error which Adam Smith committed, and which vitiates many of his conclusions. The error consists in his having resolved price into three components, namely, wages, profit, and rent; whereas it is now known that price is a compound of wages and profit, and that rent is not an element of it, but a result of it. This discovery is the corner-stone of political economy; but it is established by an argument so long and so refined, that most minds are unable to pursue it without stumbling, and the majority of those who acquiesce in it are influenced by the great writers to whom they pay deference, and whose judgment they follow. It is, therefore, a striking proof of the sagacity of Hume, that in an age when the science was but dawning, and when he could receive little help from his predecessors, he should have discovered a mistake of this sort, which lies so far beneath the surface. Directly the _Wealth of Nations_ appeared, he wrote to Adam Smith, disputing his position that rent is a part of price;[699] and this letter, written in the year 1776, is the first indication of that celebrated theory of rent, which, a little later, Anderson, Malthus, and West, saw, and imperfectly developed, but which it was reserved for the genius of Ricardo to build up on a broad and solid foundation.

[692] Brown, in his great work,--one of the greatest which this century
has produced,--candidly confesses that his own book is 'chiefly
reflective of the lights, which he' (Hume) 'has given.' _Brown's
Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and Effect_, London, 1835, p.
253. See also p. vii.

[693] While the politicians of his own time despised his views, the
politicians of our time seem inclined to overrate them. Lord
Brougham, for instance, in his Life of Hume, says, of his
political economy, 'Mr. Hume is, beyond all doubt, the author of
the modern doctrines which now rule the world of science.'
_Brougham's Works_, Glasgow, 1856, vol. ii. p. 176. But so far
from this being the case, the science of political economy has,
since the time of Hume, received such additions, that if that
illustrious philosopher were to rise from the dead, he would
hardly be able to recognize it. To him, many of its largest and
most fundamental principles were entirely unknown. Hume knew
nothing of the causes which govern the accumulation of wealth, and
compel that accumulation to proceed with different speed in
different states of society; a fruitful and important study almost
entirely neglected until entered upon by Rae. Neither did Hume
know anything of the law of the ratio between population and
wages; nor of the ratio between wages and profits. He even
supposes (_Philosophical Works_, vol. iii. p. 299, Edinburgh,
1826) that it is possible for the labouring classes by combination
'to heighten their wages;' and again (p. 319) that the richer a
nation is, and the more trade it has, the easier it will be for a
poor country to undersell its manufactures, because the poor
nation enjoys the advantage of a 'low price of labour.' Elsewhere,
he asserts that coin can be depreciated without raising prices,
and that a country, by taxing a foreign commodity, could increase
its own population. 'Were all our money, for instance, recoined,
and a penny's worth of silver taken from every shilling, the new
shilling would probably purchase every thing that could have been
bought by the old; the prices of every thing would thereby be
insensibly diminished; foreign trade enlivened; and domestic
industry, by the circulation of a great number of pounds and
shillings, would receive some increase and encouragement.'
_Philosophical Works_, vol. iii. p. 324. 'A tax on German linen
encourages home manufactures, and thereby multiplies our people
and industry.' p. 365. These are cardinal errors, which go to the
very root of political economy; and when we fairly estimate what
has been done by Malthus and Ricardo, it will be evident that
Hume's doctrines do not 'rule the world of science.' This is no
disparagement of Hume, who, on the contrary, effected wonderful
things, considering the then state of knowledge. The mistake is,
in imagining that such a rapidly advancing science as political
economy can be governed by doctrines propounded more than a
century ago.

[694] 'Every thing in the world is purchased by labour, and our passions
are the only causes of labour.' _Essay I. on Commerce, in Hume's
Philosophical Works_, vol. iii. p. 294. Hence, he saw the fallacy
of the assertion of the French economists, 'that all taxes fall
ultimately upon land.' p. 388.

[695] 'Money is not, properly speaking, one of the subjects of commerce,
but only the instrument which men have agreed upon to facilitate
the exchange of one commodity for another.' _Essay on Money in
Philosophical Works_, vol. iii. p. 317. 'It is, indeed, evident
that money is nothing but the representation of labour and
commodities, and serves only as a method of rating or estimating
them.' p. 321.

[696] See _Essay V. on the Balance of Trade_, in _Hume's Philosophical
Works_, vol. iii. pp. 348-367.

[697] _Hume's Philosophical Works_, vol. iii. pp. 333-335. Even now, a
knowledge of this truth is so little diffused, that, lately, when
Australia and California began to yield immense quantities of
gold, a notion was widely circulated that the interest of money
would consequently fall; although nothing can be more certain than
that if gold were to become as plentiful as iron, the interest of
money would be unaffected. The whole effect would fall upon price.
The remarks on this subject in _Ritchie's Life of Hume_, London,
1807, pp. 332, 333, are interesting, as illustrating the slow
progress of opinion, and the difficulty which minds, not specially
trained, experience when they attempt to investigate these
subjects.

[698] 'Nothing is more usual, among states which have made some advance
in commerce, than to look on the progress of their neighbours with
a suspicious eye, to consider all trading states as their rivals,
and to suppose that it is impossible for any of them to flourish,
but at their expense. In opposition to this narrow and malignant
opinion, I will venture to assert, that the increase of riches and
commerce in any one nation, instead of hurting, commonly promotes
the riches and commerce of all its neighbours.' ... 'I go farther,
and observe, that where an open communication is preserved among
nations, it is impossible but the domestic industry of every one
must receive an increase from the improvements of the others.'
_Essay on the Jealousy of Trade_, in _Hume's Philosophical Works_,
vol. iii. pp. 368, 369.

[699] This letter, which I have referred to in my first volume, p. 229,
was published, for, I believe, the first time, in 1846, in
_Burton's Life and Correspondence of Hume_, vol. ii. p. 486. It
is, however, very difficult to determine what Adam Smith's opinion
really was upon this subject, and how far he was aware that rent
did not enter into price. In one passage in the _Wealth of
Nations_ (book i. chap. vi. p. 21) he says of wages, profit, and
rent, 'in every society, the price of every commodity finally
resolves itself into some one or other, or all of those three
parts; and _in every improved society, all the three enter, more
or less, as component parts, into the price of the far greater
part of commodities_.' But in book i. chap. xi. p. 61, he says,
'High or low wages and profit are the causes of high or low price;
high or low rent is the effect of it.' This latter opinion we now
know to be the true one; it is, however, incompatible with that
expressed in the first passage. For, if rent is the effect of
price, it cannot be a component of it.

It is very observable, that Hume and Adam Smith, who made such immense additions to our knowledge of the principles of trade, had no practical acquaintance with it.[700] Hume had, at an early period of his life, been in a mercantile house; but he threw up that employment in disgust, and buried himself in a provincial town, to think, rather than to observe.[701] Indeed, one of the capital defects of his mind, was a disregard of facts. This did not proceed, as is too often the case, from that worst form of moral obliquity, an indifference to truth; since he, on the contrary, was an ardent lover of it, and was, moreover, a man of the purest and most exemplary character, utterly incapable of falsehood, or of prevarication of any kind.[702] In him, a contempt for facts was merely the exaggerated result of a devotion to ideas. He not only believed, with perfect justice, that ideas are more important than facts, but he supposed that they should hold the first place in the order of study, and that they should be developed before the facts are investigated. The Baconian philosophy, which, though it allows a preliminary and tentative hypothesis, strongly insists upon the necessity of first collecting the facts, and then proceeding to the ideas, excited his aversion; and this, I have no doubt, is the reason why he, who was usually so lenient in his judgments, and was so keen an admirer of intellectual greatness is, nevertheless, grossly unfair towards Bacon, with whose method it was impossible for him to sympathize, though he could not deny its utility, in physical science.[703] If Hume had followed the Baconian scheme, of always rising from particulars to generals, and from each generalization to that immediately above it, he would hardly have written one of his works. Certainly, his economical views would never have appeared, since political economy is as essentially a deductive science as geometry itself.[704] Reversing the inductive process, he was in favour of beginning with what he termed general arguments, by which he hoped to demonstrate the inaccuracy of opinions which facts were supposed to have proved.[705] He did not stop to investigate the facts from which the inference had been drawn, but he inverted the order by which the inference was to be obtained. The same dislike to make the facts of trade the basis of the science of trade, was displayed by Adam Smith, who expresses his want of confidence in statistics, or, as it was then termed, political arithmetic.[706] It is, however, evident, that statistical facts are as good as any other facts, and, owing to their mathematical form, are very precise.[707] But when they concern human actions, they are the result of all the motives which govern those actions; in other words, they are the result, not merely of selfishness, but also of sympathy. And as Adam Smith, in the _Wealth of Nations_, dealt with only one of these passions, namely, selfishness, he would have found it impossible to conduct his generalization from statistics, which are necessarily collected from the products of both passions. Such statistical facts were, in their origin, too complex to be generalized; especially as they could not be experimented upon, but could only be observed and arranged. Adam Smith, perceiving them to be unmanageable, very properly rejected them as the basis of his science, and merely used them by way of illustration, when he could select what he liked. The same remark applies to other facts which he drew from the history of trade, and, indeed, from the general history of society. All of these are essentially subsequent to the argument. They make the argument more clear, but not more certain. For, it is no exaggeration to say, that, if all the commercial and historical facts in the _Wealth of Nations_ were false, the book would still remain, and its conclusions would hold equally good, though they would be less attractive. In it, every thing depends upon general principles, and they, as we have seen, were arrived at in 1752, that is, twenty-four years before the work was published in which those principles were applied. They must, therefore, have been acquired independently of the facts which Adam Smith, subsequently incorporated with them, and which he learnt during that long period of twenty-four years. And the ten years which he employed in composing his great work, were not spent in one of those busy haunts of men, where he might have observed all the phenomena of industry, and studied the way in which the operations of trade affect human character, and are affected by it. He did not resort to one of those vast marts and emporiums of commerce, where the events were happening which he was seeking to explain. That was not his method. On the contrary, the ten years, during which he was occupied in raising to a science the most active department of life, were passed in complete seclusion in Kirkaldy, his quiet little birthplace.[708] He had always been remarkable for absence of mind, and was so little given to observation, as to be frequently oblivious of what was passing around him.[709] In that obliviousness, he, amid the tranquil scenes of his childhood, could now indulge without danger. There, cheered, indeed, by the society of his mother, but with no opportunity of observing human nature upon a large scale, and far removed from the hum of great cities, did this mighty thinker, by the force of his own mind, unravel the numerous and complicated phenomena of wealth, detect the motives which regulate the conduct of the most energetic and industrious portion of mankind, and lay bare the schemes and the secrets of that active life from which he was shut out, while he, immured in comparative solitude, was unable to witness the very facts which he succeeded in explaining.

[700] Hence, when the _Wealth of Nations_ appeared, one of our wise men
gravely said that 'Dr. Smith, who had never been in trade, could
not be expected to write well on that subject, any more than a
lawyer upon physic.' See _Boswell's Life of Johnson_, edit.
Croker, 1848, p. 478, where this remark is ascribed to Sir John
Pringle.

[701] 'He was sent to a mercantile house at Bristol in 1734; but he
found the drudgery of this employment intolerable, and he retired
to Rheims.' _Brougham's Life of Hume_, Glasgow, 1856, p. 169. See
also _Ritchie's Life of Hume_, p. 6. In _Roberts' Memoirs of
Hannah More_, 2d ed. 1834, vol. i. p. 16, it is said that 'two
years of his life were spent in a merchant's counting-house in
Bristol, whence he was dismissed on account of the promptitude of
his pen in the correction of the letters intrusted to him to
copy.' The latter part of this story is improbable; the former
part is certainly incorrect; since Hume himself says, 'In 1734, I
went to Bristol, with some recommendations to eminent merchants,
but _in a few months_ found that scene totally unsuitable to me. I
went over to France, with a view of prosecuting my studies in a
country retreat.' _Own Life_, p. v.

[702] What Sir James Mackintosh says of him is only a faint echo of the
general voice of his contemporaries. 'His temper was calm, not to
say cold; but though none of his feelings were ardent, all were
engaged on the side of virtue. He was free from the slightest
tincture of malignity or meanness; his conduct was uniformly
excellent.' _Mackintosh's Memoirs_, vol. ii. p. 162. A greater
than Mackintosh, and a man who knew Hume intimately, expresses
himself in much warmer terms. 'Upon the whole,' writes Adam
Smith,--'Upon the whole, I have always considered him, both in his
lifetime and since his death, as approaching as nearly to the idea
of a perfectly wise and virtuous man as perhaps the nature of
human frailty will permit.' _Hume's Philosophical Works_, vol. i.
p. xxv. Some notices of Hume will be found in an interesting work
just published. _Autobiography of Alexander Carlyle_, Edinburgh,
1860, pp. 272-278. But Carlyle, though a man of considerable
practical skill, was incapable of large views, and was, therefore,
unable, I will not say to measure, but even to conceive, the size
of such an understanding as that possessed by David Hume. Of his
want of speculative power, a decisive instance appears in his
remarks on Adam Smith. He gravely says (_Autobiography_, p. 281),
'Smith's fine writing is chiefly displayed in his book on _Moral
Sentiments_, which is the pleasantest and most eloquent book on
the subject. His _Wealth of Nations_, from which he was judged to
be an inventive genius of the first order, is tedious and full of
repetition. His separate essays in the second volume have the air
of being occasional pamphlets, without much force or
determination. On political subjects, his opinions were not very
sound.' It is rather too much when a village-preacher writes in
this strain of the greatest man his country has ever produced.

[703] He speaks of him in the following extraordinary terms. 'If we
consider the variety of talents displayed by this man; as a public
speaker, a man of business, a wit, a courtier, a companion, an
author, a philosopher; he is justly the object of great
admiration. If we consider him merely as an author and
philosopher, the light in which we view him at present, though
very estimable, _he was yet inferior to his contemporary Galileo,
perhaps even to Kepler_.' ... 'The national spirit which prevails
among the English, and which forms their great happiness, is the
cause why they bestow on all their eminent writers, and on Bacon
among the rest, such praises and acclamations as may often appear
partial and excessive.' _Hume's History of England_, vol. vi. pp.
194, 195, London, 1789.

[704] See the note in vol. i. p. 250, of _Buckle's History of
Civilization_.

[705] Thus, for instance, in his remarkable _Essay on the Balance of
Trade_, he says (_Philosophical Works_, vol. iii. p. 349), 'Every
man who has ever reasoned on this subject, has always _proved his
theory, whatever it was, by facts and calculations_, and by an
enumeration of all the commodities sent to all foreign kingdoms;'
therefore (p. 350), 'It may here be proper to form a general
argument to prove the impossibility of this event, so long as we
preserve our people and our industry.'

[706] 'I have no great faith in political arithmetic.' _Wealth of
Nations_, book iv. chap. v. p. 218.

[707] Indeed, the only possible objection to them is that the language
of their collectors is sometimes ambiguous; so that, by the same
return, one statistician may mean one thing, and another
statistician may mean something quite different. This is well
exemplified in medical statistics; whence several writers,
unacquainted with the philosophy of scientific proof, have
supposed that medicine is incapable of mathematical treatment. In
point of fact, however, the only real impediment is the shameful
state of clinical and pathological terminology, which is in such
confusion as to throw doubt upon all extensive numerical
statements respecting disease.

[708] 'Upon his return to England in the autumn of 1766, he went to
reside with his mother at his native town of Kirkaldy, and
remained there for ten years. All the attempts of his friends in
Edinburgh to draw him thither were vain; and from a kind and
lively letter of Mr. Hume upon the subject, complaining that,
though within sight of him on the opposite side of the Frith of
Forth, he could not have speech of him, it appears that no one was
aware of the occupations in which those years were passed.'
_Brougham's Life of Adam Smith_, p. 189. Occasionally, however, he
saw his literary friends. See _Dugald Stewart's Biographical
Memoirs_, p. 73, Edinb. 1811, 4to.

[709] 'He was certainly not fitted for the general commerce of the
world, or for the business of active life. The comprehensive
speculations with which he had been occupied from his youth, and
the variety of materials which his own invention constantly
supplied to his thoughts, rendered him habitually inattentive to
familiar objects and to common occurrences; and he frequently
exhibited instances of absence, which have scarcely been surpassed
by the fancy of La Bruyère.' _Stewart's Biographical Memoirs_, p.
113. See also _Ramsay's Reminiscences_, 5th edit. Edinb. 1859, p.
236. Carlyle, who knew him well, says, 'he was the most absent man
in company that I ever saw, moving his lips, and talking to
himself, and smiling, in the midst of large companies.'
_Autobiography of the Rev. Alexander Carlyle_, 2nd edit. Edinb.
1860, p. 279.

The same determination to make the study of principles precede that of facts, is exhibited by Hume in one of his most original works, the _Natural History of Religion_. In reference to the title of this treatise, we must observe that, according to the Scotch philosophers, the natural course of any movement is by no means the same as its actual course. This discrepancy between the ideal and the real, was the unavoidable result of their method.[710] For, as they argued deductively from fixed premisses, they could not take into account the perturbations to which their conclusions were liable, from the play and friction of the surrounding society. To do that, required a separate inquiry. It would have been needful to investigate the circumstances which caused the friction, and thus prevented the conclusions from being, in the world of fact, the same as they were in the world of speculation. What we call accidents, are constantly happening, and they prevent the real march of affairs from being identical with the natural march. And, as long as we are unable to predict those accidents, there will always be a want of complete harmony between the inferences of a deductive science and the realities of life; in other words, our inferences will tend towards truth, but never completely attain it.[711]

[710] A Scotch philosopher of great repute, but, as it appears to me, of
ability not quite equal to his repute, has stated very clearly and
accurately this favourite method of his countrymen. 'In examining
the history of mankind, as well as in examining the phenomena of
the material world, when we cannot trace the process by which an
event _has been_ produced, it is often of importance to be able to
show how it _may have been_ produced by natural causes.' ... 'To
this species of philosophical investigation, which has no
appropriated name in our language, I shall take the liberty of
giving the title of _Theoretical_ or _Conjectural History_; an
expression which coincides pretty nearly in its meaning with that
of _Natural History_ as employed by Mr. Hume, and with what some
French writers have called Histoire Raisonnée.' _Dugald Stewart's
Biographical Memoirs_, pp. 48, 49. Hence (p. 53), 'in most cases,
it is of more importance to ascertain the progress that is most
simple, than the progress that is most agreeable to fact; for,
paradoxical as the proposition may appear, it is certainly true,
that _the real progress is not always the most natural_. It may
have been determined by particular accidents, which are not likely
again to occur, and which cannot be considered as forming any part
of that general provision which nature has made for the
improvement of the race.'

[711] Part of this view is well expressed in _Hume's Treatise of Human
Nature_, book iii. part ii. 'This, however, hinders not but that
philosophers may, if they please, extend their reasoning to the
supposed _state of nature_; provided they allow it to be a mere
philosophical fiction, which never had, and never could have, any
reality.' ... 'The same liberty may be permitted to moral, which
is allowed to natural philosophers; and 'tis very usual with the
latter to consider any motion as compounded and consisting of two
parts separate from each other, though, at the same time, they
acknowledge it to be in itself uncompounded and inseparable.'
_Philosophical Works_, vol. ii. p. 263.

With peculiar propriety, therefore, did Hume term his work a _Natural History of Religion_. It is an admirable specimen of the deductive method. Its only fault is that he speaks too confidently of the accuracy of the results to which, on such a subject, that method could attain. He believed, that, by observing the principles of human nature, as he found them in his own mind, it was possible to explain the whole course of affairs, both moral and physical.[712] These principles were to be arrived at by experiments made on himself; and having thus arrived at them, he was to reason from them deductively, and so construct the entire scheme. This he contrasts with the inductive plan, which he calls a tedious and lingering process; and while others might follow that slow and patient method of gradually working their way towards first principles, his project was, to seize them at once, or, as he expresses himself, not to stop at the frontier, but to march directly on the capital, being possessed of which, he could gain an easy victory over other difficulties, and could extend his conquests over the sciences.[713] According to Hume, we are to reason, not in order to obtain ideas, but we are to have clear ideas before we reason.[714] By this means, we arrive at philosophy; and her conclusions are not to be impugned, even if they do happen to clash with science. On the contrary, her authority is supreme, and her decisions, being essentially true, must always be preferred to any generalization of the facts which the external world presents.[715]

[712] And, conversely, that whatever was 'demonstratively false,' could
'never be distinctly conceived by the mind.' _Philosophical
Works_, vol. iv. p. 33. Here, and sometimes in other passages,
Hume, though by no means a Cartesian, reminds us of Descartes.

[713] 'Here, then, is the only expedient from which we can hope for
success in our philosophical researches, _to leave the tedious,
lingering method_, which we have hitherto followed, and instead of
taking now and then a castle or a village on the frontier, to
march up directly to the capital, or centre of these sciences, to
human nature itself; which, being once masters of, we may every
where else hope for an easy victory. From this station we may
extend our conquests over all those sciences which more
immediately concern human life, and may afterwards proceed, at
leisure, to discover more fully those which are the objects of
pure curiosity.' _Hume's Philosophical Works_, vol. i. p. 8. See
also, in vol. ii. pp. 73, 74, his remarks on the way 'to consider
the matter _à priori_.'

[714] 'No kind of reasoning can give rise to a new idea, such as this of
power is; but wherever we reason, we must antecedently be
possessed of clear ideas, which may be the objects of our
reasoning.' _Hume's Philosophical Works_, vol. i. p. 217. Compare
vol. ii. p. 276, on our arriving at a knowledge of causes 'by a
kind of taste or fancy.' Hence, the larger view preceding the
smaller, and being essentially independent of it, will constantly
contradict it; and he complains, for instance, that 'difficulties,
which seem unsurmountable in theory, are easily got over in
practice.' vol. ii. p. 357; and again, in vol. iii. p. 326, on the
effort needed to 'reconcile reason to experience.' But, after all,
it is rather by a careful study of his works, than by quoting
particular passages, that his method can be understood. In the two
sentences, however, just cited, the reader will see that theory
and reason represent the larger view; while practice and
experience represent the smaller.

[715] ''Tis certainly a kind of indignity to philosophy, whose sovereign
authority ought every where to be acknowledged, to oblige her on
every occasion to make apologies for her conclusions, and justify
herself to every particular art and science, which may be offended
at her. This puts one in mind of a king arraigned for high treason
against his subjects.' _Hume's Philosophical Works_, vol. i.
pp. 318, 319.

Hume, therefore, believed that all the secrets of the external world are wrapped up in the human mind. The mind was not only the key by which the treasure could be unlocked; it was also the treasure itself. Learning and science might illustrate and beautify our mental acquisitions, but they could not communicate real knowledge; they could neither give the prime original materials, nor could they teach the design according to which those materials must be worked.

In conformity with these views, the _Natural History of Religion_ was composed. The object of Hume in writing it, was, to ascertain the origin and progress of religious ideas; and he arrives at the conclusion, that the worship of many Gods must, every where, have preceded the worship of one God. This, he regards as a law of the human mind, a thing not only that always has happened, but that always must happen. His proof is entirely speculative. He argues that the earliest state of man is necessarily a savage state; that savages can feel no interest in the ordinary operations of nature, and no desire to study the principles which govern those operations; that such men must be devoid of curiosity on all subjects which do not personally trouble them; and that, therefore, while they neglect the usual events of nature, they will turn their minds to the unusual ones.[716] A violent tempest, a monstrous birth, excessive cold, excessive rain, sudden and fatal diseases, are the sort of things to which the attention of the savage is confined, and of which alone he desires to know the causes. Directly he finds that such causes are beyond his control, he reckons them superior to himself, and, being incapable of abstracting them, he personifies them; he turns them into deities; polytheism is established; and the earliest creed of mankind assumes a form which can never be altered, as long as men remain in this condition of pristine ignorance.[717]

[716] 'A barbarous, necessitous animal (such as a man is on the first
origin of society), pressed by such numerous wants and passions,
has no leisure to admire the regular face of nature, or make
inquiries concerning the cause of those objects to which, from his
infancy, he has been gradually accustomed. On the contrary, the
more regular and uniform, that is the more perfect, nature
appears, the more is he familiarized to it, and the less inclined
to scrutinize and examine it. A monstrous birth excites his
curiosity, and is deemed a prodigy. It alarms him from its
novelty, and immediately sets him a trembling, and sacrificing,
and praying. But an animal complete in all its limbs and organs is
to him an ordinary spectacle, and produces no religious opinion or
affection. Ask him whence that animal arose? He will tell you,
from the copulation of its parents. And these, whence? From the
copulation of theirs. A few removes satisfy his curiosity, and set
the objects at such a distance that he entirely loses sight of
them. Imagine not that he will so much as start the question,
whence the first animal, much less whence the whole system, or
united fabric of the universe arose. Or, if you start such a
question to him, expect not that he will employ his mind with any
anxiety about a subject so remote, so uninteresting, and which so
much exceeds the bounds of his capacity.' _Natural History of
Religion_, in _Hume's Philosophical Works_, vol. iv. p. 439. See
also pp. 463-465.

[717] 'By degrees, the active imagination of men, uneasy in this
abstract conception of objects, about which it is incessantly
employed, begins to render them more particular, and to clothe
them in shapes more suitable to its natural comprehension. It
represents them to be sensible, intelligent beings like mankind;
actuated by love and hatred, and flexible by gifts and entreaties,
by prayers and sacrifices. Hence the origin of religion. And hence
the origin of idolatry, or polytheism.' _Hume's Philosophical
Works_, vol. iv. p. 472. 'The primary religion of mankind arises
chiefly from an anxious fear of future events,' p. 498.

These propositions, which are not only plausible, but which are probably true, ought, according to the inductive philosophy, to have been generalized from a survey of facts; that is, from a collection of evidence respecting the state of religion and of the speculative faculties among savage tribes. But this, Hume abstains from doing. He refers to none of the numerous travellers who have visited such people; he does not, in the whole course of his work, mention even a single book where facts respecting savage life are preserved. It was enough for him, that the progress from a belief in many Gods to a belief in one God, was the natural progress; which is saying, in other words, that it appeared to his mind to be the natural progress.[718] With that, he was satisfied. In other parts of his essay, where he treats of the religious opinions of the ancient Greeks and Romans, he displays a tolerable, though by no means remarkable, learning; but the passages which he cites, do not refer to that entirely barbarous society in which, as he supposes, polytheism first arose. The premisses, therefore, of the argument are evolved out of his own mind. He reasons deductively from the ideas which his powerful intellect supplied, instead of reasoning inductively from the facts which were peculiar to the subject he was investigating.

[718] '_It seems certain, that, according to the natural progress of
human thought_, the ignorant multitude must first entertain some
grovelling and familiar notion of superior powers, before they
stretch their conception to that perfect Being who bestowed order
on the whole frame of nature. _We may as reasonably imagine, that
men inhabited palaces before huts and cottages_, or studied
geometry before agriculture, as assert that the Deity appeared to
them a pure spirit, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent,
before he was apprehended to be a powerful though limited being,
with human passions and appetites, limbs and organs. The mind
rises gradually from inferior to superior. By abstracting from
what is imperfect, it forms an idea of perfection; and slowly
distinguishing the nobler parts of its own frame from the grosser,
it learns to transform only the former, much elevated and refined,
to its divinity. Nothing could disturb this _natural progress of
thought_, but some obvious and invincible argument, which might
immediately lead the mind into the pure principles of theism, and
make it overleap, at one bound, the vast interval which is
interposed between the human and the Divine nature. But though I
allow, that the order and frame of the universe, when accurately
examined, affords such an argument, yet _I can never think_ that
this consideration could have an influence on mankind, when they
formed their first rude notions of religion.' _Natural History of
Religion_, in _Philosophical Works_, vol. iv. p. 438.