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THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA

The Political of

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to the Faculty of the

School of

Of The Catholic University of America

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

By

Jonathan H. Krause

Washington, D.C.

2015

The Political Theology of David Hume

Jonathan H. Krause, Ph.D.

Director: John McCarthy, Ph.D.

Hume’s concern for is evidenced by his references to it throughout his works. Indeed, he claims in the Natural History that “every enquiry, which regards religion, is of the utmost importance.” Commentators have often treated Hume’s interest in religion as theoretical, as though he was primarily concerned to establish religion’s truth or falsity. Yet in the Essays and

History of he indicates that disputes over religious forms and beliefs are “frivolous” and

“utterly absurd.” This raises an obvious question: if disagreements concerning religion are

“frivolous” and “absurd,” then why are inquiries regarding religion of “the utmost importance”?

Hume’s answer is political in . “Religion,” he says in the History, “can never be deemed a point of small consequence in civil government.” He there calls our attention to religious disputes not on detached theoretical grounds, but “only so far as they have influence on the peace and order of civil society.” This dissertation argues that the way to approach Hume on religion is through his understanding of the relationship between religion and political life, that is to say, through his “political theology.” To bring out different aspects of the political problem of religion, each of this dissertation’s four chapters focuses on the textual analysis of a particular work: A Treatise of Human Nature, The Natural , Dialogues Concerning

Natural Religion, and The History of England. The findings of this dissertation show that

Hume’s critique of various concerns their effects on the and stability of society.

The dissertation also shows that Hume’s “remedy” for the oppressive and destabilizing effects of religion does not involve its elimination from society, but rather the curbing of its negative social effects. Hume holds that a secular civic education, “ government,” state-established religion, the advancement of the arts and , and material prosperity curb people’s reliance on religion in moral, cultural, and political matters. Skeptical religious education, in particular, is central to Hume’s remedy, for opinions and habits must be shaped in order for people to look at religious questions as secondary (or even inimical) to the peace of society.

This dissertation by Jonathan H. Krause fulfills the dissertation requirement for the doctoral degree in philosophy approved by John McCarthy, Ph.D., as Director, and by Michael Gorman, Ph.D., and Richard Hassing, Ph.D. as Readers.

______John McCarthy, Ph.D., Director

______Michael Gorman, Ph.D., Reader

______Richard Hassing, Ph.D., Reader

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The Political Theology of David Hume

Introduction………..…...…………....………………………………………………………..1

Chapter One: The Political Theology of A Treatise of Human Nature Introduction.…...... …………………………………………………………………………..19 Goal and Method of Chapter One..……..……………………………………………22 1. Hume’s Political Interest in Religion in the Treatise...... 24 1.1 The Religious Milieu during the Time of the Treatise…………………………..25 1.2 Political and Theological Indications in the Treatise.………………………....…28 1.3 The “ of Man” and “Natural Religion”…………………………………..35 2. How can Hume Critique Superstition?...... 39 2.1 Hume’s Theory of Perception……………………………………………………43 2.2 Hume’s Theory of Fiction and His Critique of Superstition.………..…………..47 3. Hume’s Critique of the Trivial Fictions: The Relation between Religious Superstition and the Poetic, Moral, and Political Fictions………………...…………51

3.1 Poetic Fiction: Poetic Enthusiasm and Religious Superstition…………………..52 3.2 Moral Fictions: , Religion, Natural and Divine ….……………………..55 3.3 The Political Fiction of .…………………………………………………..62 3.3.1The Economic Basis of Justice…….…………………………………...63 3.3.2 Hume’s Genetic Account of Political Life and Justice……………..….68 3.3.3 Religious Superstition and the Political Fiction of Justice…….………74 4. Civic and Religious Education in the Treatise………………………………………….78 4.1 The Method of Education: , Custom, …………..……………..80 4.2 Regarding the Rules of Justice: A Means toward Industry and Prosperity…..…84 4.3 The Role of Pride and Reputation in Civic Education..………………………...87 4.4 Why Religious Education is Ineffective..………………………………………..93 Conclusion…...……………………………………………………………………………….98 iii

Chapter Two: The Political Theology of The Natural History of Religion Introduction………………………………………………………………..………………101 Interpretations of the Natural History……….……………………………………...103 Aim and Method...…………………..……………………..…..…………………...112 1. The Origin of Religion in Human Nature……………………………………………..115 1.1 The Stated Aims of the Natural History…………………………...…………...115 1.2 The of …………………………………………………...119 1.3 The Principles of ……………………………………………..………...124 1.4 The Status of Christian Theism in the Natural History…………….……...... 130 2. Hume’s Critique of Religion: Moral and Intellectual…………………………..……138 2.1 and Religion…..………………………………………..……………..139 2.2 and Religion..…………………………………………………………..149 3. Circumstances that Contribute to a Remedy for Religion…………………………..152 3.1 Education.………………………………………..……………………………..154 3.2 Good Government, Knowledge, Morality, and Economic Prosperity…....……163 Conclusion…….…………………………………………….……………………………..169

Chapter Three: The Political Theology of the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion Introduction……………..…………………………………………………………………173 1. Pamphilus: Pedagogue and Pupil…...…………………………………………………184 1.1 The Setting of the Dialogues.………………………………..………………….185 1.2 Pamphilus’s Opening Remarks……………………..………………………..…187 2. The Methods of Instruction.…………………………………………………………....194 2.1 Demea’s Method: Vulgar Skepticism…………………………………………..195 2.2 Cleanthes’s Method: Reason and Argument....…………………………………202 2.3 Philo’s Method: Inculcating Indifference....…………………………………….215 3. Conclusion: Pamphilus’s Final Words…………………………………………...…...248 iv

Chapter Four: The Political Theology of The History of England Introduction…………………………………………………………..……………………255 1. Hume: Impartial Historian…………………………………………………………….264 1.1 Critical Commentary …………………...………………..………………...... 264 1.2 The Politics of Impartiality……………………………….…………………….273 1.2.1 Authority and Liberty…………………………….……………….….273 1.2.2 Hume: Ancient and Modern.……………………..…………………..277 1.3 A Humean, Historical Education……………………………………………….285 1.3.1 History: The Path to Progress.………….…………………………….286 1.3.2 History as Vulgar and Political Education……………………………288 2. The Politics of Catholic Superstition…………………………………………………..293 2.1 The Papal Plan of Slavery…………………………………………………...... 293 2.2 The Political Advantages of Catholic Superstition……………………………..307 3. The Politics of Puritan Enthusiasm……………...…………………………………….312 3.1 Rekindling the Spark of Freedom………………………………………………313 3.2 Puritan Anarchy and Tyranny…………………………………………………..318 4. Religious Establishment and Toleration……...……………………………………….326 4.1 Religious Establishment……………………………….………………………..328 4.2 Toleration……………...……..…………………………………………………334 4.2.1 The Origins of Toleration in an Age of Persecution……………….....335 4.2.2 When Toleration Is Justly Rejected……..…………...…………...... 341 4.3 Conclusion: The Pragmatic Basis for Toleration……...……….……………….347 Conclusion……………………...………………………………………………………….351 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………..360

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Abbreviations DNR: Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Edited with introduction by Norman Kemp Smith. 2nd ed. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1947. DP: A Dissertation on the Passions, in A Dissertation on the Passions; The Natural History of Religion. Edited with introduction and notes by Tom L. Beauchamp. The Clarendon Edition of the Works of David Hume. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. EHU: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Edited with introduction and notes by Tom L. Beauchamp. The Clarendon Edition of the Works of David Hume. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. EPM: An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. Edited with introduction and notes by Tom L. Beauchamp. The Clarendon Edition of the Works of David Hume. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. References to “A Dialogue” will be cited from this edition. HE: The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to The Revolution in 1688. 6 vols. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1983. NHR: The Natural History of Religion, in A Dissertation on the Passions; The Natural History of Religion. Edited with introduction and notes by Tom L. Beauchamp. The Clarendon Edition of the Works of David Hume. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. SE: “Superstition and Enthusiasm,” in Essays Moral, Political, and Literary. Edited by Eugene F. Miller. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1987. T: A Treatise of Human Nature. Edited with introduction and notes by David F. and Mary J. Norton. The Clarendon Edition of the Works of David Hume. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. All references to the Treatise, its Appendix, its Abstract, and A Letter to a Gentleman will be taken from volume 1 of the Clarendon edition of the Treatise.

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For my beloved wife, Anne, and son, David-Immanuel.

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Introduction

Background and Originality of the Project

For the past century, Hume has perhaps been the subject of more scholarly attention than any other philosopher in the English-speaking world. Hume scholarship has primarily focused on his and its implications for topics such as philosophical anthropology, , and . Up until the twentieth century, commentators often depicted him “as a playful sceptic who . . . gleefully destabilises our beliefs, but has no positive doctrine of his own to put in their place”1; however, with Kemp Smith’s influential publication in 1905, “The

Naturalism of Hume,” the focus of scholarship shifted from Hume’s skepticism to the positive contributions of his .2 Smith claimed that far from being a mere skeptic, Hume showed that being a skeptic was impossible. Hume argues that belief is grounded in sentiment, custom, and imagination. Some beliefs are simply undoubtable—what Smith calls “natural beliefs”— even in the face of the severest critique by reason.3 These so-called natural beliefs constitute what Hume calls “common life.” Twentieth century scholarship has been largely an attempt to account for these skeptical and naturalistic strains running through Hume’s thought,4 and this has

1 Samuel Clark, “No Abiding City: Hume, Naturalism, and Toleration,” Philosophy: The Journal of the British Institute of Philosophical Studies 84 (2009): 79.

2 See Norman Kemp Smith’s, “The Naturalism of Hume (I),” Mind 14, no. 54 (April 1905): 149-73 and “The Naturalism of Hume (II),” Mind 14, no. 55 (July 1905): 335-47. On the importance of Kemp Smith’s article, see Clark’s “No Abiding City,” 79.

3 Ibid., “Naturalism of Hume (I),” 156.

4 See, for instance, Tim Black, “Hume’s Epistemic Naturalism in the Treatise,” 37, no. 2 (November 2011): 211-42; R. J. Butler, “Natural Belief and the Enigma of Hume,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 42 (1960): 73-100; Francis W. Dauer, “Hume’s Scepticism with Regard to Reason: A Reconsideration,” Hume Studies 22, no. 2 (November 1996): 211-29; M. J. Ferreira, “Hume’s Naturalism – ‘Proof’ and Practice,” The Philosophical Quarterly 35, no. 138 (January 1985): 45-57; , David Hume: Philosopher of Moral Science (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1986); Robert J. Fogelin, “The Tendency of Hume’s Skepticsm,” in The Skeptical Tradition, ed. Myles Burnyeat, (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983), 397-412; Don Garrett, “ to Act and Believe.” Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic 1 2 led to a more substantial understanding of his ethical, epistemological, and metaphysical views.

Still, this renewed focus in Hume scholarship has been at the expense of other aspects of Hume’s thought, particularly his significance as a political philosopher.5

In 1966, F. A. Hayek lamented that the “neglect of Hume as a legal and political philosopher” was almost universal amongst scholars:

Even in England, where it is now at last recognized that he is not merely the founder of the modern theory of knowledge but also one of the founders of economic theory, his political and still more his legal philosophy is curiously neglected.6

Tradition 132, no. 1 (January 2007): 1-16; J.C.A. Gaskin, “God, Hume and Natural Belief,” Philosophy 49, no. 189 (July 1974): 281-94; J. Kemp, : Hobbes and Hume, (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1970); Louis E. Loeb, “The Naturalism of Hume and Reid,” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 81, no. 2 (November 2007): 65-92; Miriam McCormick, “Hume on Natural Belief and Original Principles,” Hume Studies 19, no. 1 (April 1993): 103-16; Hugh Miller, “The Naturalism of Hume,” The Philosophical Review 38, no. 5 (September 1929): 469-82; H. O. Mounce, Hume’s Naturalism (New York: Routledge, 1999); David Fate Norton, Common-Sense Moralist, Sceptical Metaphysican, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982);Terence Penelhum, “Natural Belief and Religious Belief in Hume’s Philosophy,” The Philosophical Quarterly 33, no. 131 (April 1983): 166-81; Richard H. Popkin,“David Hume: His and His Critique of Pyrrhonism,” The Philosophical Quarterly 1, no. 5 (October 1951): 385-407; Lou Reich, Hume’s Religious Naturalism (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1997); Wade L. Robison, “Hume’s Ontological Commitments,” The Philosophical Quarterly 26, no. 102 (January 1976): 39-47; Paul Russell, “On the Naturalism of Hume’s ‘Reconciling Project,’” Mind 92, no. 368 (October 1983): 593-600 and The Riddle of Hume’s Treatise: Skepticism, Naturalism, and (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); Richard J. Soghoian, The Ethics of G. E. Moore and David Hume: The Treatise as a Response to Moore’s Refutation of Ethical Naturalism (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1979); Barry Stroud, “The Constraints of Hume’s Naturalism,” Synthese 152, no. 3 (October 2006): 339-51. On this more balanced approach in Hume scholarship, see Clark, “No Abiding City,” 79.

5 When we look to some of the major works which purport to deal with Hume’s “central doctrines,” for instance, they focus almost exclusively on metaphysical and epistemological issues while giving only cursory mention of his political or religious views. See, Terence Penelhum, David Hume: An Introduction to His Philosophical System (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1992); Norman Kemp Smith, The Philosophy of David Hume: A Critical Study of Its Origins and Central Doctrines (: Macmillan, 1941. Reprint, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005); Barry Stroud, Hume, The Arguments of the Philosophers Series, ed.Ted Honderich (1977. Reprint, New York: Routlege, 1999).

6 F. A. Hayek, “The Legal and of David Hume,” in Hume, ed. V. C. Chappell (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966), 339.

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Although Locke was generally held to be the architect of modern liberalism, Hayek argued that of all Enlightenment thinkers, “Hume gives us probably the only comprehensive statement of the legal and political philosophy which later became known as liberalism.”7

Since the time of Hayek, there have been some attempts to recover Hume’s contributions to political philosophy.8 Yet, even among those who have shown interest in his political thought, the place of religion in his philosophical treatment of politics has been neglected, or regarded as of secondary importance.9 The treatment of religion as a theoretical or speculative question for

Hume is by far the dominant trend.10 This theoretical treatment is not only limited, but says little about Hume’s marked concern with religion’s relation to political life. Robert Sokolowski has noted the contemporary failure of those in the West to draw connections between religion, particularly the Christian religion, and politics:

7 Hayek, “Political Philosophy of Hume,” 340.

8 See, for instance, Christopher J. Berry, David Hume, Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers (New York: Continuum, 2009); Duncan Forbes, Hume’s Philosophical Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1975); Knud Haakonssen, The Science of a Legislator: The Natural of David Hume and Adam Smith (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Hume: Moral and Political Philosophy, ed. Rachel Cohon (Burlington: VT, 2001); Carol Kay, Political Constructions: Defoe, Richardson, and Sterne in Relation to Hobbes, Hume, and Burke (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988); Andrew Kolin, The Ethical Foundations of Hume’s Theory of Politics (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1992); Neil McArthur, David Hume’s Political Theory: Law, Commerce, and the Constitution of Government (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007); Kyle McGee, “Machining Fantasy: Spinoza, Hume and the in a Politics of Desire,” Philosophy and Social Criticism 36, no. 7 (2010): 837-56; David Miller, Philosophy and in Hume’s Political Thought (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981); Andrew Sabl, Hume’s Politics: Coordination and Crisis in the “History of England,” (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012; John B. Stewart, Opinion and Reform in Hume’s Political Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992); Frederick G. Whelan, Hume and Machiavelli: Political Realism and Liberal Thought (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2004) and Order and Artifice in Hume’s Political Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985).

9 A notable exception is John B. Stewart’s, The Moral and Political Philosophy of David Hume (1963; repr., Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977). Of the books written on Hume’s political philosophy, Stewart provides an entire chapter entitled, “Governments and Religion,” 256-87.

10 In the words of A. J. Ayer, “Hume was less interested in the utility of religious belief than in its pretension to truth” (Hume: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press: 2000), 113).

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In discussing how Christian experience differs from other kinds of human experience, it is especially important to show how Christian belief is related to the political life of human beings. The disaffiliation of religion from the modern state has inclined recent political philosophers to examine politics without paying much attention to religion, and it has inclined theologians to pay scant attention to political philosophy when they reflect on religious . . . . Such neglect is unfortunate and leaves the analysis of both religion and politics incomplete.11

Hume is not guilty of this error. Rather, he is highly sensitive to Sokolowski’s observation on the interconnectedness of religion and political life.

There is a move of late to explore in depth the integral connection between religion and politics in Hume’s thought.12 As of yet, this movement is still in its infancy. This dissertation, building upon the limited treatment of this issue by other scholars, will provide a more thorough consideration of how Hume’s interest in religion is not purely (or even primarily) theoretical, but political in scope.

11 Robert Sokolowski, The God of Faith and Reason: Foundations of Christian Theology (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995): 157.

12 To date, no full-length book has been dedicated to the subject. See Samuel Clark, “No Abiding City: Hume, Naturalism, and Toleration.” Philosophy: The Journal of the British Institute of Philosophical Studies 84 (2009): 75-94; John W. Danford, “‘The Surest Foundation of Morality’: The Political Teaching of Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion,” The Western Political Quarterly 35, no. 2 (June 1982): 137-60; James Farr, “Political Science and the Enlightenment of Enthusiasm,” The American Political Science Review 82, no. 1 (March 1988): 51-69; Stephen Foster, “Different Religions and the Difference They Make: Hume on the Political Effects of Religious Ideology,” Modern Schoolman 66 (May 1989): 253-74; Will R. Jordan, “Religion in the Public Square: A Reconsideration of David Hume and Religious Establishment,” The Review of Politics 64, no. 4 (Autumn 2002): 687-713; Donald T. Siebert, “Religion and the ‘Peace of Society,’” in The Moral Animus of David Hume (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1990): 62-135; John B. Stewart, “Governments and Religion,” in The Moral and Political Philosophy of David Hume (1963; repr., Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977): 256-87; Frederick G. Whelan, “Church Establishments, Liberty & Competition in Religion,” Polity 23 (1990): 168; Scott Yenor, “Revealed Religion and the Politics of Humanity in Hume’s Philosophy of Common Life,” Polity 38, no. 3 (July 2006): 395-415.

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Statement of the Problem and Purpose

In The Natural History of Religion, Hume claims that “every enquiry, which regards

Religion, is of the utmost importance.”13 Yet he also states in his History of England that

“[d]isputes concerning religious forms are, in themselves, the most frivolous of any.”14

Elsewhere he asserts that disagreements regarding articles of faith are “utterly absurd and unintelligible” because such articles are little more than “a few phrases and expressions, which one party accepts of, without understanding them; and the other refuses in the same manner.”15 If disagreements concerning religious forms and beliefs are in themselves “frivolous” and “absurd,” and thus by implication, not worth pursuing for their own sake, then why are inquiries regarding religion of “utmost importance”? Hume’s answer is utterly political in nature. “Religion,” he says, “can never be deemed a point of small consequence in civil government.”16 He calls our attention to religious disputes not on detached theoretical grounds, as though Hume was simply concerned to establish what was true or false, but “only so far as they have influence on the peace and order of civil society.”17

Because Hume’s primary interest in religion is political, his philosophy of religion might be said to contain a “political theology” of sorts. Hume’s political theology centers on the effects

13 A Dissertation on the Passions; The Natural History of Religion (hereafter NHR), ed. Tom L. Beauchamp, The Clarendon Edition of the Works of David Hume (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), Intro.1.

14 The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to The Revolution in 1688 (hereafter HE), 6 vols. (1778; repr., Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1983), 6:171.

15 “Of Parties in General,” in Essays Moral, Political, and Literary, ed. Eugene F. Miller (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1987), 57. All essays, including “My Own Life,” will be cited from the Liberty Fund edition.

16 HE 6:86.

17 HE 6:171.

6 of religion on public life. Because Hume finds the effects of religion to extend beyond mere

“religious” issues and into many aspects of social and intellectual life, his references to religion pervade even his writings that do not make religion a thematic concern. On the one hand, he thinks religion contributes less to public life than is claimed by religionists, and that religion can be inimical to the public good unless subject to some form of moderating check or limitation. On the other hand, he thinks religion is rooted in human nature and thus cannot be eliminated from public life. In his view, a more serviceable religion is thus needed.

This dissertation will examine Hume’s account of the origins of religion in human nature, the species of religion that arise from these origins, and the problems these various religious forms cause in civil life. This dissertation will also look at Hume’s view on the prospects for a reform of religion that would make religion less destructive.

Some Concepts in Hume’s Political Theology

Before discussing the methodology and framework of this dissertation, it is useful to outline basic concepts to which we will refer throughout our navigation of Hume’s religious and political philosophy. These concepts include Hume’s notions of “remedy,” “common life” and

“political life,” “authority” and “liberty,” and “religion.”

“Remedy”

Hume’s notion of a remedy should not be confused with a solution. To seek a solution presumes that a problem can be solved definitively by reason. Solutions can be found in sciences, like mathematics and , but not in the realm of political life where people are 7 constrained by the inherent limitations of nature, ranging from the scarcity of material resources to men’s lack of intelligence and foresight.18 Because Hume acknowledges these constraints, his notion of a remedy palliates a problem rather than cures it. A remedy for religion lessens its harmful effects, but does not rid society of religion itself. There can be no cure for religion, according to Hume, because the generality of mankind will always be influenced by vulgar, religious propensities. Despite our limitations, Hume indicates that with a greater understanding of human nature, a proper remedy can steer people’s religious propensities toward the social good.

“Common Life”

“Common life” refers to the universal human belief in the bodies, minds, and causal relations that make up the world. 19 This universal experience is possible because all people possess a human nature constituted by common principles, mainly principles of association working in conjunction with imagination, memory, and custom. The modern view held by thinkers such as Descartes, Hobbes, and Locke led them to reject “common life” as a philosophical starting point due to what they deemed its unreflective prejudices. Since religion and political life stem from the vulgar customs of common life, these philosophers held that it was possible to improve religion and politics by basing them on reason instead. Hume does not

18 See Thomas Sowell’s discussion of “solutions” vs. “trade-offs.” Hume’s notion of a “remedy” is akin to a “trade-off.” See The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulations as a Basis for Social Policy (New York: Basic Books, 1995), 135-42 and A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles, rev. ed. (New York: Basic Books, 2007), 17-20.

19 Donald Livingston emphasizes the role of “common life” in Hume’s philosophy. See Hume’s Philosophy of Common Life. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1984.

8 deny that “common life” is populated by all kinds of prejudice and superstition, but he rejects the modern premise that humans, including philosophers, can completely disassociate themselves from common life.20 Instead, he makes common life the first of his philosophy. As

Scott Yenor notes, Hume “grounds philosophy directly in common life to preserve appearances .

. . and attain the imperfect wisdom to which human beings can aspire.”21 Rather than clearing philosophy of all its prejudices, he points to certain political “fictions” and religious

“superstitions” that are useful in modern political life because they help secure stability and freedom.

“Political Life”

What is meant here by “political life”? It is not merely party affiliation, such as Whig or

Tory. Instead, “political life” is better characterized by the Greek notion of politeia – the specific way of life shared by a community. This wider sense of “politics” includes the social, cultural, religious, institutional, economic, and intellectual factors that shape a people’s specific way of life. According to Leo Strauss,

[w]e may try to articulate the simple and unified thought, that expresses itself in the term politeia, as follows: life is activity which is directed toward some goal; social life is an activity which is directed toward such a goal as can be pursued only by society; but in order to pursue a specific goal, which is its comprehensive goal, society must be organized, ordered, constructed, constituted in a manner which is in accordance with that goal. . . .22

20 Yenor, “Politics of Humanity,” 395-97.

21 Ibid., 396.

22 Leo Strauss, “What is Political Philosophy?,” The Journal of Politics 19, no. 3 (August 1957): 363.

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Hume’s account of “national character” is similar in some ways to the notion of politeia. Even though Hume holds that the basic principles of human nature are “necessary and uniform,” he tells us that “[t]here are also characters peculiar to different nations” whereby “some particular qualities are more frequently to be met with among one people than among their neighbours.”23

A “national character,” according to Hume, is the result of people becoming accustomed to the same “sentiments, actions, and manners,” that is to say, the same political life.24 The “moral” causes of “national character”—by which he means “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”— include the “nature of the government” and “revolutions of public affairs.”25 Since people

“cannot live without society, and cannot be associated without government,” the differences in government and “public affairs” substantially affect the national character of a people. We can garner from Hume’s definition of “moral causes” that religion too substantially affects the character of people and political life. Hume’s political theology, then, involves diagnosing religion’s effect on national character and how those effects are moderated or enhanced.

“Authority” and “Liberty”

The concepts of “authority” and “liberty” are also integral to understanding Hume’s political and religious thought. The right balance between “authority” and “liberty” is central to

23 “Of National Characters,” 197 and A Treatise of Human Nature (hereafter T), eds. David F. and Mary J. Norton, The Clarendon Edition of the Works of David Hume (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 2.3.1.10; SBN 403. All references to the Treatise will be taken from volume 1 of the Clarendon edition of the Treatise. Two notation methods will be employed: (1) reference to the book, part, section, and paragraph number and (2) the page numbers of the Selby-Brigge edition (with revisions by Nidditch) designated as SBN.

24 T 2.3.1.9; SBN 402.

25 “National Characters,” 198.

10 his notion of a free, civil society. Though “liberty is the perfection of civil society . . . authority must be acknowledged essential to its very existence.”26 Extremes in either direction are destructive to “true liberty.”27 “Governments, too steady and uniform,” he tells us, are “seldom free,” for they “abate the active powers of men; depress courage, invention, and genius; and produce an universal lethargy in the people.”28 At the same time, a notion of liberty that disregards the “sacred boundaries of the ” is nothing more than “license” or the “wild projects of zeal and ambition.”29 This dissertation focuses on Hume’s account of how religious

“superstition” and “enthusiasm” disrupt the proper balance of authority and liberty and how religion’s effects can be effectively moderated.

“Religion”

In Hume’s various criticisms of religion, it is common for him to make an exception for what he calls “true” or “genuine” religion; however, as B. M. Laing notes, it has been notoriously difficult for scholars to precisely define what Hume means by “religion,” much less

“true religion.”30 Scholars have characterized Hume as everything from an atheist to a theist. To

26 “On the Origin of Government,” 41.

27 HE 1:168. For Hume’s discussions on authority and liberty, see “Of the Liberty of the Press,” 10-12; “Of the Origin of Government,” 39-41; “Of the Parties of Great Britain,” 65, 71, and 613. Hume comments extensively on authority and liberty throughout the History of England. On the dangers of lacking a proper balance between them, see HE 1:168-69, 215-16, 254-55, 237, 323-24; HE 2:174; HE 3:137, 212, 227; HE 4:145-46, 367; HE 5:492, 538, 545-46, 550, 572; HE 6:4-5, 54, 74, 85, 93, 117, 136, 286, 530-31. On the benefits that come when a proper balance is found, see HE 1:125, 161, 254, 311; HE 2:21, 519-22, 525; HE 3:212; HE 4:124, 145-46, 355; HE 5:240, 544-45, 556-57; HE 6:38, 531, 533.

28 HE 6:530. See also HE 1:168-69.

29 HE 5:492. See also HE 5:520 and 6:530-31.

30 B. M. Laing, David Hume (1932; repr., New York: Russell & Russell, 1968), 175.

11 a certain degree, when examining Hume’s political theology, his personal religion or irreligion is beside the point. In looking at his political approach to religion we are primarily concerned with examining those circumstances Hume finds most effective in moderating religion’s negative effects in public life. Whether he in “genuine” religion or none at all matters little.

Yet, there is a sense in which Hume’s various references to “true” or “genuine” religion are integral to his political theology. He sometimes suggests that he measures a religion’s effects on political life by the standard of “genuine” religion. A “genuine” religion, however, need not necessarily be “true” as much as conducive to an ordered, free society. At other times, Hume implies that “genuine” religion is indeed a rational system of belief and that those who take the time to reflect on the arguments for “genuine” religion cannot but assent to its truth. In this way, then, it seems that Hume may very well subscribe to some sort of religious belief.

When we look at the history of Hume scholarship, we see that Hume’s contemporaries almost universally accused or suspected him of . Within the last several decades, partially due to the of rehabilitating Hume’s positive contributions to philosophy, Hume scholarship has taken a turn in the opposite direction. In 1976, P. G. Kuntz claimed that with regard to

Hume’s views on religion, “[t]he bulk of the interpretation of Hume has failed to do justice to the positive and has exaggerated the negative. We are now in a phase of work that stresses the positive.”31 By the mid-1980s we find Robert Fogelin stating as an obvious fact that, with regard to Hume, the “charge of atheism has fallen away”32 just as with the former charge of skepticism.

31 Paul Kuntz, “Hume’s : A New Theory of Order,” Religious Studies 12, no. 4 (December 1976): 402.

32 Robert J. Fogelin, “The Tendency of Hume’s Skepticsm,” in The Skeptical Tradition, ed. Myles Burnyeat (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983), 397.

12

The late twentieth-century literature confirms Fogelin’s observation. George J. Nathan claims that Hume’s “own position, is an attempt to preserve what is sound in traditional theism, its emphasis on the intelligent and supreme causality of the deity, a position which is rationally supported.”33 Shane Andre argues that though Hume was “unorthodox,” his “belief in some form of theism was never entirely abandoned.”34 Donald Livingston says that “true theism,” for Hume,

“is the belief in a perfect, supreme intelligence who created a universe governed by law.”35 This

“true theism” is “a belief won by a philosophical elite, and in the philosophical community is virtually irreversible.”36 Likewise, J. O’Higgins holds that “[o]nly the rare philosopher, moved, no doubt, by the passion of speculative curiosity, and . . . reflecting on the element of design in nature, reaches what Hume calls genuine theism – a belief in a single intelligent creator.”37

Donald Siebert states that only those who can appreciate the “Newtonian order” of the universe, the “physico-theologians,” are counted among “genuine theists” for Hume.38 Lorne Falkenstein characterizes these genuine theists as “a small minority of contemporary, well-educated, and

33 George J. Nathan, “The Existence and Nature of God in Hume’s Theism,” in Hume: A Re-evaluation, 148.

34 Shane Andre, “Was Hume an Atheist?” Hume Studies 19, no. 1 (April 1993): 157.

35 Donald Livingston, “Hume on the Origin and Evolution of Religious and Philosophical Consciousness,” Reason Papers 15 (1990): 5.

36 Ibid., 10.

37 J. O’Higgins, J, “Hume and the Deists: A Contrast in Religious Approaches,” Journal of Theological Studies 22 (1971): 499.

38 Donald T. Siebert, “Hume on Idolatry and Incarnation,” Journal of the History of Ideas 45, no. 3 (July- September 1984): 380.

13 comparatively well-off individuals.”39 And Richard Popkin claims that Hume’s religion is a

“reasonable monotheistic view that intelligent people would accept.”40

Though none of these scholars would say that Hume’s view of “genuine religion” is terribly robust—a “minimal theism” as Yandell calls it 41—they all concede that there is reason to consider him a “theist” (or “deist” in Gaskin’s case).42 Gaskin sums up the general tenor of this contemporary outlook: it is “not surprising to find, as we do find, that Hume in his own person shies away from the appellation ‘atheist’” – “not merely because of its opprobrious associations, but more importantly because in fact he was not an absolute atheist.”43 Hume,

39 Lorne Falkenstein, “Hume’s Project in The Natural History of Religion,” Religious Studies 39, no. 1 (March 2003): 1.

40 Richard Popkin, ed. and intro., Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, 2nd ed. (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company), xiv

41 Keith E. Yandell, “Hume on Religious Belief,” in Hume: A Re-evaluation, ed. Donald W. Livingston and James T. King (New York: Fordham University Press, 1976), 115.

42 For other instances of those who appear to favor the view that Hume was a theist or are at least not unsympathetic to viewing him as such, see Wilbur C. Abbott, “David Hume: Philosopher-Historian,” in Adventures in Reputation with an Essay on Some “New” History and Historians (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1935), 142; J. B. Black, The Art of History: A Study of Four Great Historians of the Eighteenth Century (New York: F. S. Crofts & Co., 1926), 103-04; Nicholas Capaldi, “Hume’s Philosophy of Religion: God without Ethics,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 1 (1970): 234; Timothy M. Costelloe, “‘In Every Civilized community’: Hume on Belief and the Demise of Religion,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 55 (2004): 171-85; M. J. Ferreira, “Religion’s ‘Foundation in Reason’: The Common Sense of Hume’s Natural History,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 24, no. 4 (December 1994): 566; John Immerwahr, “Hume’s Aesthetic Theism,” Hume Studies 22 (1996): 325-37. See also Immerwahr’s, “Hume on Tranquilizing the Passions,” Hume Studies 18, no. 2 (1992): 293-314; Will R. Jordan, “Religion in the Public Square: A Reconsideration of David Hume and Religious Establishment,” The Review of Politics 64, no. 4 (Autumn, 2002): 687-713; Ernest Mossner, “The Religion of David Hume,” Journal of the History of Ideas 39, no. 4 (October-December 1978): 653-63; Gerhard Streminger, “Religion a Threat to Morality: An Attempt to Throw Some New Light on Hume’s Philosophy of Religion,” Hume Studies 15, no. 2 (1989): 277-93 and “A Reply to Ellin.” Hume Studies 15, no. 2 (1989): 301-05.

43 J. C. A. Gaskin, “Hume’s Attenuated ,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 65 (1983): 164.

14 according to Gaskin, “assented to the being of something which it would not be manifest deception to call god.”44

What is it about Hume’s own presentation of his philosophy of religion that allows for such disparate interpretations? Does he, as many of today’s scholars claim, genuinely aim at preserving what is true in the religious tradition or, as his own contemporaries believed, is his goal primarily destructive? How might Hume’s ambiguity reveal his political intentions? This dissertation sheds light on these questions as it proceeds in exploring Hume’s political theology.

Rationale and Method of the Dissertation

Hume’s interest in religion permeates his writings. This dissertation will examine Hume’s approach to religion in various works and with various audiences and will bring out different aspects of the political problem of religion and the remedies available. Each chapter of this dissertation will focus on textual analysis of a particular work. The division of the chapters will be the following: (1) Book 3 of A Treatise of Human Nature; (2) The Natural History of

Religion; (3) Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion; and (4) The History of England. Other religious essays, such as “On ,” “Of a Particular Providence and of a Future State,” and

“Of Superstition and Enthusiasm” will be discussed in the context of the chapters of this dissertation. The political essays, to the extent they deal with religion, will also be considered.

44 Gaskin, “Hume’s Attenuated Deism,” 166. Gaskin states elsewhere that “Philo’s (Hume’s) acceptance, if such it can be called, of the design argument [in the Dialogues] is so limited and qualified that it is of almost no significance as a religious affirmation” and that “Hume is almost wholly critical of almost every aspect of religion” (“Hume’s Critique of Religion,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 14 (July 1976): 301).

15

Outline of the Dissertation

The first chapter of this dissertation will focus on Book 3 of the Treatise. Book 3 provides an account of the origin and end of political life and sets the stage for the dissertation’s discussion of religion. Book 3 indicates the disagreement Hume has with Hobbes and Locke on the role of reason in political life. According to Hobbes and Locke, society’s from the state of nature is due to people’s rational calculation of self-interest. Hume rejects this account as philosophical fiction because humans are more social and less calculating than Hobbes and

Locke suppose. Yet, Hume does not reject their account simply because it is a fiction. The

Treatise points out that some fictions are necessary for human existence, such as the fictions of common life. Others, like the poetical fictions, are simply pleasurable. Still others, such as religious superstition or certain philosophic fictions, are not only distractions but morally and intellectually corrupting. According to the Treatise, political society is based in the fictions of the

“rules of justice” and “custom.” Though human beings are not compelled by nature to believe in these political fictions as they are with the fictions of common life, belief in and regard for the

“rules of justice” are necessary for human well-being. For Hume, human life is always in some measure social. Curiously, Book 3 says almost nothing about religion. Yet, the secular, civic education Hume proposes in Book 3 is in stark contrast to the picture he presents of the inutility of religious education in Book 1. Hume’s approval of the fictions of political life indicates that his critique of religion will not be based on its being a fiction (“superstition”) or on whether it harmonizes with rational self-interest. Rather, he will ask whether religion conflicts with the

“custom” and “justice” of stable civic life. 16

Chapter two of this dissertation will investigate The Natural History of Religion. Lorne

Falkenstein and Donald Livingston have considered the Natural History’s treatment of the origins and “history” of religion, but they have not focused on whether its historical account should be read in light of Hume’s philosophical and political understanding of religion.45 Does the Natural History simply provide a disinterested “history” of religion? How might Hume’s

“history” also reflect his critique of religion? In what way might Hume’s decision to write a

“natural” history betray what he thinks about so-called revealed religion? The chapter will examine this “history” of religion and, in particular, Hume’s account of the origins of religion in human nature. The chapter will also analyze the religious forms of superstition, enthusiasm, polytheism, and charted by the Natural History. Finally, the chapter will consider what means Hume thinks we have at our disposal to moderate religious sentiment and what a

“moderate” religious sentiment might look like according to the Natural History.

The third chapter of this dissertation will examine the Dialogues Concerning Natural

Religion. Commentators generally read the Dialogues in light of Hume’s putative religious beliefs or its arguments concerning the nature of God.46 Drawing upon John Danford’s treatment of the Dialogues,47 this chapter will explore how the dialogic form of the text provides a public

45 See Falkenstein, “Hume’s Project,” 1-21; Livingston, “Origin and Evolution,” 3-23.

46 See Nicholas Capaldi, “Hume’s Philosophy of Religion: God without Ethics,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 1 (1970): 233-40; Norman Kemp Smith, introduction to Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, ed. Norman Kemp Smith, 2nd ed. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1947), 1-75. For John Gaskin see, “The Design Argument: Hume’s Critique of Poor Reason,” Religious Studies 12, no. 3 (September 1976): 331-45; “God, Hume and Natural Belief,” Philosophy 49, no. 189 (July 1974): 281-94; “Hume on Religion,” in The Cambridge Companion to Hume, 2nd ed., David Fate Norton and Jacqueline Taylor (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 480-513; “Hume’s Attenuated Deism,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 65 (1983): 160-73; “Hume’s Critique of Religion,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 14 (July 1976): 301-11; Hume’s Philosophy of Religion (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1978).

47 See John W. Danford, David Hume and the Problem of Reason: Recovering the Human Sciences (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990) and “The Political Teaching of Hume’s DNR,” 137-60. 17 and educational setting for Hume’s political discussion of religion. The Dialogue’s treatment of

“piety and religion” will be examined in light of the public good. The chapter will also look at the effect the Dialogue’s use of skepticism and ridicule is intended to have on religious conviction.

The fourth and final chapter of this dissertation will focus on the History of England.

Throughout the History, Hume shows an interest in the various ways religion has shaped political life in England. Books 1 and 2 of the History draw out the negative influence of

Catholic “superstition” in the pre-modern era and provide a clear warning of the loss of liberty that would ensue if it was ever allowed to return. Books 3 through 6 of the History draw on the effects of Protestant “enthusiasm.” Hume argues that the , despite its enthusiasm, paved the way for a liberal politics he deems worth endorsing – “the precious spark of liberty had been kindled, and was preserved, by the puritans alone; and it was to this sect . . . that the

English owe the whole freedom of their constitution.”48 In light of Hume’s support of constitutional English liberalism, the chapter will explore his cautious embrace of a more moderate public religion. The chapter will consider the claims of Will R. Jordan and Andrew

Sabl49 and will also look at Hume’s portrayal of the as a moderator between religious superstition and enthusiasm. In this way the chapter will demonstrate the extent to which Hume distances himself in the History from the more secular politics presented in the

Treatise.

48 HE 4:145-46.

49 See Will R. Jordan, “Religion in the Public Square,” 687-713; Andrew Sabl, “When Bad Things Happen from Good People (and Vice-Versa): Hume’s of Revolution.” Polity 35, no. 1 (Autumn 2002): 73- 92.

Chapter One The Political Theology of A Treatise of Human Nature

18

Chapter One: The Political Theology of A Treatise of Human Nature

Introduction

In January of 1739, Britain was introduced to the anonymous publication of David

Hume’s first two installments of A Treatise of Human Nature.1 Book 1, “Of the Understanding,” explores the nature and limits of human knowledge, while Book 2, “Of the Passions,” examines the central role of the sentiments in human motivation. Between the publication of Books 2 and

3, Hume anonymously published An Abstract to the Treatise which sought to further explain the chief arguments of Books 1 and 2. In October of 1740, Book 3 of the Treatise, “Of Morals,” finally made its public appearance. In it, Hume examines how the understanding and passions contribute to moral and political life.

The Treatise was not published again during Hume’s lifetime. The work, he says, “fell dead-born from the press, without reaching such distinction, as even to excite a murmur among the zealots.”2 He deemed, however, that the Treatise’s “want of success” was “more from the manner than the matter” of its principles.3 He therefore attempted to “recast” his ideas so they

1 David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (hereafter, T), ed. David F. and Mary J. Norton, The Clarendon Edition of the Works of David Hume, 2 vols. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). All references to the Treatise, its Appendix, its Abstract, and A Letter to a Gentleman will be taken from volume 1 of the Clarendon edition of the Treatise. Two notation methods will be employed: (1) reference to the book, part, section, and paragraph number and (2) the page numbers of the Selby-Brigge edition (with revisions by Nidditch) designated as SBN.

2 “My Own Life,” in Essays Moral, Political, and Literary, ed. Eugene F. Miller (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1987), xxxiv. Hume notes in his autobiography that there were not many avid readers, much less critics, who anxiously awaited the third part of the Treatise. This lack of attention, however, is not entirely true, for, the 1745 publication of A Letter to a Gentleman, Hume’s response to his critics of the Treatise, indicates that the work garnered enough attention that he deemed a defense necessary. Note: all references to Hume’s moral, political, and literary essays, as well as “My Own Life,” will be taken from this Miller edition.

3 Ibid., xxxv.

19

20 would be more accessible to readers.4 What followed were the publications of An Enquiry

Concerning Human Understanding in 1748 and An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals in 1751. Each work is an extensive re-working of Books 1 and 3 respectively. The Enquiries would go through various editions until 1772. In 1757, A Dissertation on the Passions was published as more-or-less a recap of Book 2 of the Treatise.5

Reading the Treatise in light of Hume’s concern for religion’s effect on political life sheds significant light on the work as a whole. Book 3, in particular, benefits from such a reading because in it Hume gives his first public account of political life by providing a prolonged and systematic explanation of its genesis and the that accompany it. Hume’s genetic account of politics in Book 3, however, does not acknowledge the historical influence of religion on either society or morality. Hume’s apparent silence on this matter has led many commentators to treat religion as a peripheral issue in the Treatise. J. C. A. Gaskin, for instance, claims that the

Treatise “is not directly concerned with religion,” unlike the first Enquiry, which he describes as

“anti-theological” and “anti-metaphysical.”6 All one finds, according to Gaskin, are a “few brief and apparently inoffensive references to the and to religion” by which a

“modern reader might find it a little puzzling to know what aspects of the Treatise could possibly cause offence.”7 Gaskin’s view is not uncommon. As Paul Russell notes, amongst today’s commentators “it is a point of near orthodoxy – that in the Treatise Hume has no substantial or

4 “My Own Life,” xxxv.

5 Though the two Enquiries and A Dissertation contain insights pertinent to Hume’s political theology, the present chapter of this dissertation will limits itself almost exclusively to the Treatise.

6 J. C. A. Gaskin, Hume’s Philosophy of Religion (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1978): 1-2.

7 Ibid., 1.

21 specific interest in problems of natural and revealed religion.”8 Russell himself argues, on the contrary, that Hume’s basic intentions in the Treatise are “irreligious or anti-Christian in nature – what his contemporaries labeled ‘atheism.’”9

Book 3’s apparent silence on religion’s role in the genesis of political life is significant and needs explanation, especially since Hume will make the political influence of religion thematic in his essays (first published within a year of the Treatise) and later in his History of

England. Why is such an account missing from Book 3 when religion still played a prominent role in eighteenth century European culture? Leo Strauss states that “silence about a fact or a teaching” with which an author “must have been familiar, and whose mention or discussion would have been essential to his argument, belongs to the interpretation proper. For the suppression of something is a deliberate action.”10 Hume’s failure to discuss religion’s role in the formation of morals and social norms in Book 3 of the Treatise, as well as his distancing himself from any influence that it ought to have, needs to be addressed in order to understand how he views the relationship between religion and political life.

8 Paul Russell, “The Material World and Natural Religion in Hume’s Treatise,” Archiv fur Geshichte der Philosophie 85 (2003): 271. In the same article, Russell cites various “influential studies of Hume’s philosophy” to support his claim that the popular view holds “that Hume’s intentions in the Treatise are not significantly concerned with problems of religion” (271n2): (1) Antony Flew, Hume’s Philosophy of Belief (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961): 7-12, (2) Robert J. Fogelin, Hume’s Skepticism in the Treatise of Human Nature (London, 1985), (3) Gaskin, Hume’s Philosophy of Religion, 1, (4) Barry Stroud, Hume (1977; repr., New York: Routlege, 1999), xi, (5) E. C. Mossner, The Life of David Hume, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 113, (6) Terence Penelhum, Hume (London, 1975), 170ff.

9 Ibid. See also Russell’s The Riddle of Hume’s “Treatise”: Skepticism, Naturalism, and Irreligion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).

10 Leo Strauss, “How to Study Spinoza’s Theologico-Political Treatise,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 17 (1947-1948): 89. Strauss is commenting on Spinoza and his Theological-Political Treatise, but his statement is just as applicable to the issue of religion in Hume’s Treatise.

22

Goal and Method of the Chapter

The Treatise is truly universal in scope. It sets out to establish “a foundation almost entirely new, and the only one upon which they [the sciences] can stand with any security.”11

The Treatise claims that the “science of man” must be the new foundation of knowledge, for “all the sciences have a relation, greater or less, to human nature; and that however wide any of them may seem to run from it, they still return back by one passage or another.”12 The principles of

“experience and observation,” already so effective in the method of natural philosophy, will be the basis of this study of human nature.13

The first chapter of this dissertation aims to establish in what way the Treatise contains a political theology. Since the Treatise has been treated by many commentators as a work having little or nothing to do with religion, the first section of this chapter sets out to answer this question by looking at the intellectual and religious environment during the time of the Treatise’s publication, analyzing how the structure of the work suggests the need for a political and theological reading, and examining the religious significance of the “Introduction” to the

Treatise.

The second section of this chapter examines Hume’s claim that “custom,” not reason, is the “guide of life.”14 If custom is the “guide of life,” then how is Hume able to critique religious superstition at all, since religion, too, is a type of custom in his view? What criteria does Hume have at his disposal to distinguish between customs he deems socially and politically tolerable

11 T Intro.6; SBN xvi.

12 T Intro.4; SBN xv.

13 T Intro.7-8; SBN xvi-xvii.

14 T Abstract.16; SBN 652.

23 and those that are not? Section two will argue that Hume’s theories of custom, imagination, and fiction allow him to determine which beliefs (even if fictitious or “superstitious”) can be reasonably tolerated, rejected, or promoted in political life.15 It will be shown that the criteria

Hume uses for determining which fictions ought to be encouraged is based primarily on whether or not they are useful in securing the public good.

The third section of this chapter looks at Hume’s discussion of various fictions—such as the poetic, moral, and political fictions as well as the fictions of common life— to see how they shed light on his understanding of religious fiction (superstition) and the political dangers it poses. In the course of Hume’s discussion of the different kinds of fictions it becomes apparent that some fictions, such as the fictions of common life, are absolutely necessary in order for man to even function in the world. Other fictions, though not absolutely necessary to man’s existence, such as the political fictions of “property” and “justice,” are necessary for his well-being, especially in large societies. Still other fictions, like the poetic, are entertaining and harmless if not taken too seriously. The moral fictions, such as belief in or God’s providence, need not be believed in at all for men to live virtuous lives. Finally, religious fictions are, generally speaking, neither necessary nor very useful for a healthy political life.

The fourth section of this chapter will argue that Book 3 of the Treatise depicts a society where the influence of religion is adequately curbed. For Book 3, as will be shown, is not intended to be a simply descriptive history of the genesis of modern political life. Rather, Book 3

15 The terms “custom,” “imagination,” and “fiction” will be discussed in more detail in the second section of the present chapter. For now, we will state some basic formula. “CUSTOM” is that which “proceeds from a past repetition, without any new reasoning or conclusion” (T 1.3.8.10; SBN 102). The imagination “transpose[s] and change[s] its ideas” into various fictions (T 1.1.3.4; SBN 10), that is to say, as Norton notes, into “construction[s] of the imagination” (David Fate and Mary J. Norton, eds., Glossary to A Treatise of Human Nature, Oxford Philosophical Texts (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 576.

24 specifies the specific political fictions that have proven beneficial to the good of society. Since

Hume clearly encourages the promotion of these fictions, Book 3 cannot be purely descriptive, but also prescriptive. The reason religion is peripheral to Book 3’s account of modern political life, therefore, is not because Hume fails to acknowledge religion’s effect on society, but because he does not think religion ought to be a major influence in modern civil life.16 For even though

Book 3 indicates that the natural virtues are not enough to sustain modern political life, Hume does not look to religion or the theological virtues to lead men to morality. What is needed, according to him, is the establishment and protection of the fiction of property. In the effort to protect property, a whole train of other fictions, what he calls the “artificial virtues,” becomes necessary, none of which look to religion for their justification. In Book 3 of the Treatise, Hume puts forward a secular, civic education which he portrays as much more amendable to human flourishing. A good civic education, for Hume, is one that promotes the political fictions while at the same time delimiting religion. The Treatise does not propose to rid society of religion, for religion is too deep-seated a propensity in human nature. Instead, the Treatise indicates that religion can and should be moderated.

1. Hume’s Political Interest in Religion in the Treatise

The present section will attempt to establish that Hume’s concern for religion’s effect on political life is integral to the Treatise. To evidence this claim, the section will proceed by looking at the historical context of the Treatise and then examine the structure and

“Introduction” of the work, including Hume’s use of epigrams.

16 Hume’s various references to Christian morality and religion in Book 3 and throughout the Treatise indicate that he recognizes that religious “fiction” is a phenomenon with which civil society must deal. 25

1.1 The Religious Milieu during the Time of the Treatise

To get a picture of how Hume’s contemporaries would have viewed the role of religion in the Treatise, we must recognize the climate of seventeenth and eighteenth century European intellectual life. It was commonly understood that the study of morality, politics, metaphysics, and human nature were inseparable from the idea of God and religion. Many of the leading seventeenth and eighteenth century British intellectuals, for instance, viewed their scientific endeavors as intimately tied to the Bible and . James E. Force tells us that the stated goals of the Royal Society in 1663 included “Improving Natural Knowledge” as well as to

“illustrate the providential glory of God manifested in the works of His creation.”17 For many an intellectual—Newton, Boyle, and , for instance—natural philosophy unmistakably pointed to theology. David Berman further notes that some eighteenth-century theologians were even “reluctant to believe that any serious thinker could be an atheist.”18 They held that there very well may be “unthinking atheists,” of whom one could perhaps account for a cause of their atheism, but surely no reasonable argument could be given for holding such an opinion.19 An author, it seems, would have departed significantly from the traditional approach if he did not make some sort of avowal of religious belief in his writing. Herman De Dijn notes:

Since this traditional view, with its affirmation of God as lawgiver and of man as a rational free-willing being was the very presupposition of ethics, religion, and politics, a

17 James E. Force, “Hume and the Relation of Science to Religion among Certain Members of the Royal Society,” Journal of the History of Ideas 45 (1984): 517.

18 David Berman, “Anthony Collins and the Question of Atheism in the Early Part of the Eighteenth Century,” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 75 (1975): 92. The theologians Berman discusses are Thomas Broughton, William Baxter, and Samuel Clarke.

19 Ibid.

26

rejection of this view required a completely new understanding of the problem of individual and social wellbeing in these domains.20

In terms of political life, eighteenth century Europe reflected this religious, “pre-modern” attitude which understood political order as “connected to, based on, guaranteed by some faith in, or adherence to God, or some notion of ultimate .21 In the case of European culture, it was the Christian religion which had served for centuries as the “basis of civilization” and acted as the “immediate and most undeniable factor of the collective , one upon which nobody dreamed of turning his back.”22 Although the political-religious dream of a European

“Christendom” was no longer seriously considered in Hume’s time, during the late-medieval period the dream was thought to be a real possibility, whereby “the earthly city foreshadowed the

City of God” and “the faithful became conscious of belonging to a unique collective reality, at once and human.”23

The influence of this dream, though realized to be no longer a possibility, still had significant effects on men’s views of society in the eighteenth century. In the case of morals, J.

C. A. Gaskin observes that

the principle that morality depends upon religion was so strong in the eighteenth century that in those conspicuous cases that appeared to be at variance with the principle . . . [it was presumed that] . . . the speculative atheist could not really be an atheist if he were a good and honorable man.24

20 Herman De Dijn, “Spinoza and Hume on Religion as a Natural Phenomenon,” Hume Studies 38, no. 1 (April 2012): 4.

21 Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007): 1.

22 Henri Daniel-Rops, The Church in the Dark Ages, trans. Audrey Butler (1950; repr., Garden City, New York: Image Books, 1962), 2:303.

23 Ibid., 2:363.

24 J. C. A. Gaskin, “Hume, Atheism, and the ‘Interested Obligation’ of Morality,” in McGill Hume Studies, ed. David Fate Norton, Nicholas Capaldi, and Wade L. Robison (San Diego: Austin Hill Press: 1979), 149. John 27

Will Durant further reports that people during this time “took it for granted, like almost all governments before 1789, that some supernatural source and sanction of morality, was indispensable to social order and the stability of the state.”25 Since political life gave men the opportunity to rationally articulate and argue for the best manner of life for a people, the prevailing view held that because religion is necessary for good morals, and good morals are necessary for civil life, it is part of the sovereign’s duty to promote religion—often, a particular religion. In the History of England, Hume notes that up through much of the seventeenth century it was also commonly held that “religious toleration” was “incompatible with all good government.”26 The absence of religion in the Treatise’s account of morality and political life could not have gone unnoticed by Hume’s contemporaries as a drastic departure from the prevailing views of the age.

Despite the traditional, religious influence on intellectual and political life, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were also a time of growing interest amongst intellectuals on how to secure peace and order in view of the religious upheavals that had divided Europe.

The proposed remedies were not always friendly to the interests of religion, however. In an environment where the influence of religion was still central, criticism of the prevailing religious attitudes made one a suspect of “atheism” or even treachery.27 The social pressure to conform

Locke, for instance, had held that the “proof of a Deity” was necessary for “genuine morality.” An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Peter H. Nidditch (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), 4.10, §7.

25 Will and Ariel Durant, The Age of Reason Begins: A History of European Civilization in the Period of Shakespeare, Bacon, Montaigne, Rembrandt, Galileo, and Descartes: 1558-1648 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1961), 17.

26 The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to The Revolution in 1688 (hereafter HE), 6 vols. (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1983), 5:240.

27 See J. C. A. Gaskin, “Hume’s Attenuated Deism,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 65 (1983): 162. 28 was still palpable in the time of Hume. Gaskin reports that no one in the British Isles up to or during the course of Hume’s life ever publicly admitted to being an atheist.28 If Hume were to have a critique of religion in the Treatise, it would seem necessary for him to couch it in a manner that would make it difficult for his critics to pin down.

Hume is, in some ways, a “prophet of our own secular era.”29 Today, we might not grasp how radical he would have appeared to his contemporaries because we are accustomed to examining in a secular light subjects that would have been deemed religious by our predecessors.

Hume’s radical displacement of religion from morals and politics in the Treatise does not raise the eyebrows of today’s readers as it would have in the eighteenth century. We might not immediately see the religious significance of the Treatise, but readers in Hume’s day rightly did.

1.2 Political and Theological Indications in the Treatise

The issue of religion was not far from Hume’s mind when writing the Treatise. In 1737,

Hume remarks in a letter to Henry Home that he had been working on “some “Reasonings concerning Miracles” which he had considered publishing with the Treatise, but decided to withhold them fearing they would “give too much Offence even as the World is dispos’d at present.”30 Later in the same letter he again refers to his willingness to censor his ideas on religion in the Treatise:

28 Gaskin, “Hume’s Attenuated Deism,” 162. Gaskin further reports that the first public confession of atheism was in 1782 in a little known publication by someone using a pseudonym.

29 Force, “Hume and the Relation of Science to Religion,” 535-36.

30 New Letters of David Hume, eds. Raymond Klibansky and Ernest C. Mossner (1954; repr., New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 2. These “reasonings concerning Miracles” are believed to be an early version of what would later be published as “” in the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (New Letters, 2n4). 29

I am at present castrating my Work, that is, cutting off its noble Parts, that is, endeavouring it shall give as little Offence as possible. . . . This is a Piece of Cowardice, for which I blame myself; tho I believe none of my Friends will blame me.31

The fact that Hume compares the removal of some of the more offensive passages on religion with the castration of the “noble parts” of the work shows that religion was not a peripheral issue to his writing of the Treatise. Hume’s felt need to downplay his ideas on religion, however, does not mean that religion is absent from the work. There are in fact no fewer than thirty-two passages or sections in the Treatise where Hume explicitly refers to religious issues.32 Some of these issues include the cogency of the design argument, peoples’ general disbelief in the , the immateriality and immortality of the , criticism of Christian morality, superstitious practices of Catholics, and Hume’s alleged aim to “improve” religion. These are major religious issues that appear in the text after having supposedly castrated the Treatise.

When we survey Hume’s treatment of religion and superstition in the Treatise, therefore, the issue is not whether the work is concerned with religion, but the significance Hume gives to religion in a work on human nature.

Even the title and subtitle of the work, A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to

Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects, suggests that there is a religious and political overtone to the work as a whole. “Moral philosophy,” for Hume’s

31 New Letters, 3.

32 See T Intro.4-5; SBN xv-xvi, T 1.2.4.29; SBN 51, T 1.2.5.3; SBN 54-55, T 1.3.3; SBN 78-82, T 1.3.5.2; SBN 84, T 1.3.7.2; SBN 94-95, T 1.3.8.6; SBN 101,T 1.3.9.9; SBN 110-11, T 1.3.9.13-15; SBN 113-15, T 1.3.10.6; SBN 121-22, T 1.3.13.5; SBN 145-46, T 1.3.14.8-14; SBN 159-62; T 1.3.14.12n30; SBN 633, T 1.3.14.23; SBN 166, T 1.3.14.32; SBN 171, T 1.4.5; SBN 232-51, T 1.4.6.13; SBN 258, T 1.4.7.2; SBN 264, T 1.4.7.13; SBN 271- 73, T 2.1.7.8; SBN 297-98, T 2.1.10.5; SBN 312, T 2.3.1.3; SBN 400, T 2.3.2; SBN 407-12, T 3.1.1.4; SBN 456-57, T 3.1.1.17-22; SBN 463-66, T 3.1.1.27; SBN 469-70, T 3.1.2.7; SBN 473-74, T 3.2.4; SBN 514-16, T 3.2.5.9-14; SBN 521-24, T 3.2.10.15; SBN 562, T 3.3.2.13; SBN 599-600, T Abstract.26; SBN 656.

30 contemporaries, dealt with anything from “theory of knowledge, metaphysics, and ethics” to

“psychology, political science, sociology, economics,” and even “the study of religion.”33 Book

1’s epistemology and Book 2’s theory of the passions ultimately point beyond themselves to

Book 3, which treats man as a social and acting being, that is, a “moral subject.”

A human being, according to Hume, is constituted of “two principal parts”: the understanding and affections. Action, in turn, is the effect of these two parts working in conjunction.34 It is this tripartite understanding of the human being that forms the structural logic of the Treatise. Books 1 and 2 analyze the anatomy of the understanding and affections and

Book 3 shows how the understanding and affections culminate in moral and political action.

Although the Advertisement to Book 3 states that one can legitimately study each of these three books separately, the title and the threefold structure of the text indicate that the understanding and affections are best understood in their relations to moral and political life. F. A. Hayek sees this connection when he states that Hume’s “concern was human nature in general, and his theory of knowledge was intended mainly as a step towards an understanding of the conduct of man as a moral being and a member of society.”35 In this light, we can see that even Hume’s theory of knowledge calls for a political reading.

33 David Fate Norton, introduction to A Treatise of Human Nature, ed, David Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), I13n11.

34 T 3.2.2.14; SBN 493.

35 F. A. Hayek, “The Legal and Political Philosophy of David Hume,” In Hume, ed. V. C. Chappell (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966), 342.

31

There are also political overtones in Hume’s choice of the epigram for the title pages of

Books 1 and 2: Rara temporum felicitas, ubi sentire, quae velis; & quae sentias, dicere licet.36

This epigram is taken from Tacitus’s Histories.37 Tacitus wrote these words when Rome was under the "enlightened rule” of the Emperors Nerva and Trajan after having undergone the tyranny of Nero and Domitian.38 On the one hand, Hume’s use of the epigram might suggest that he thinks his own time— emerging from the tyranny of ignorance and superstition—parallels that of Tacitus. On the other hand, Hume might be suggesting the opposite to be the case. Paul

Russell thinks, for instance, that the Tacitus epigram shows that Hume “did not believe that he lived in an age in which he could say in print exactly what he thought.”39 Hume, according to

Russell, “gives us fair warning that we should not read his work entirely at face .”40 The epigram therefore may very well be a form of “indirect communication”41 to those who feel the necessity to be circumspect in the expression of their religious and political views.

To claim that the Tacitus epigram might be a form of indirect communication is not mere speculation. Indirect communication was a popular tool of freethinkers during the eighteenth

36 “Rare of our Times, that you may think as you will, and speak as you think.” This English translation is taken from, A Letter from a Gentleman.4, 420.

37 Tacitus, The Histories in The Annals and The Histories, intro. Shelby Foote, trans. Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb, ed. Moses Hadas, notes James Danly (New York: The Modern Library, 2003), I.1-5.

38 Biographical note to Tacitus’s Histories, vi.

39 Paul Russell, “Hume’s Treatise and Hobbes’s the Elements of Law,” Journal of the History of Ideas 46, no. 1 (January-March 1985): 60. Russell has done much to bring out the significance of Hume’s epigrams. See also Russell’s “Epigram, Pantheists, and in Hume’s Treatise: A Study in Esoteric Communication,” Journal of the History of Ideas 54, no. 4 (October 1993): 659-73 and The Riddle of Hume’s “Treatise,” 70-80.

40 Ibid.

41 See David Simpson, “Hume’s Intimate Voices and the Method of Dialogue,” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 21, no. 1 (Spring 1979): 81. Simpson claims that Hume uses “indirect communication” when attempting to undermine a prevailing view “without having to stick his own neck out too far” (81). 32 century. Shaftesbury, John Toland, and Joseph Addison, for instance, all acknowledge that this kind of communication was being used.42 The point of such communication was to disguise the meaning of a passage just enough to avoid social or legal consequences while at the same time being able to indirectly get one’s point across.43 Some of Hume’s critics interpret his use of the Tacitus passage as such a guise. A reviewer from the Leipzig journal, Neuen Zeitungen von gelehrten Sachen, states the following: “A new free-thinker has published an exhaustive

Treatise of Human Nature. . . . The author’s intentions are sufficiently betrayed in the sub- title of the work, taken from Tacitus.”44 The reason the reviewer does not hesitate to align Hume with other freethinkers, based on the Tacitus epigram alone, is because the epigram is a favorite of theirs. Addison, for example, uses the Tacitus epigram in the first issue of The Free-holder in

1715,45 and Toland’s, Pantheisticon, references the same passage in order to make the point of the necessity for being circumspect in communicating unorthodox ideas.46 Most famously, however, is Spinoza’s infamous use of the epigram in his final chapter of his Theological-

42 See, for instance, Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Early of Shaftesbury, Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, ed. Lawrence E. Klein (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999): “If men are forbid to speak their minds seriously on certain subjects, they will do it ironically. If they are forbid to speak at all upon such subjects or if they find it really dangerous to do so, they will then redouble their disguise, involve themselves in mysteriousness and talk so as hardly to be understood, or at least not plainly interpreted, by those who are disposed to do them mischief.” I.4, p. 34. Cited by Paul Russell in “Epigram, Pantheists, and Freethought,” 659.

43 Berman, “Anthony Collins,” 94.

44 Neuen Zeitungen von gelehrten Sachen, May 28, 1739 in Ernest Mossner, The Life of David Hume, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 120.

45 Joseph Addison, The Free-Holder 1, no. 1 (Friday, December 23 1715). Gale Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Catholic University of America. http://find.galegroup.com (accessed March 30, 2012). Cited by David Fate and Mary J. Norton in their annotations to vol. 2 of the Clarendon edition of the Treatise, 688.

46 John Toland, Pantheisticon, Gale Eighteenth Century Collections Online, The Catholic University of America (London, 1751): 108, http://find.galegroup.com (accessed March 30, 2012). Source originally found in Russell’s “Epigram, Pantheists, and Freethought,” 672-73. 33

Political Treatise.47 It seems unlikely that Hume’s choice of the Tacitus passage was mere coincidence. Instead, it indicates that he wanted his work to be noticed by other freethinkers who were in the midst of challenging the prevailing institutions of the day.

The epigram Hume chose for Book 3 suggests moral, political, and religious themes:

Durae semper virtutis amator, Quaere quid est virtus, et posce exemplar honesti. “Constant lover of austere , ask what virtue is, and ask [the oracle] to show you an example of a good man.”48 This passage, taken from Lucan’s epic poem, Pharsalia, captures Labienus’s words to

Cato the Younger in the midst of their heroic struggle to liberate the Roman Republic from the encroaching despotism of Julius Caesar. Labienus asks Cato to request an example of virtue from the oracle of Jupiter. Rather than ask the oracle, Cato gives one of his own:

Filled with the God his silent mind cherished, Cato Poured out heartfelt response as good as an oracle’s. . . .49

What is striking about Cato’s reaction to Labienus’s plea—especially at such a critical juncture in the battle for liberty—is his conscious decision to refuse assistance from the . He looks, instead, to his own mind. As Cato continues, his depiction of Jupiter begins to look eerily like naturalism:

Did He bury His truth in this dust, choose barren sands, choose to foretell to only a few? Does God have a home, if not in earth and sea and air

47 , Theological-Political Treatise, trans. Samuel Shirley, 2nd ed. (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company: 2001): Ch. 20, 222. Paul Russell argues that recent evidence supports the notion that Hume was most likely familiar with Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-politicus. See Paul Russell, “Atheism and the Title- Page of Hume’s Treatise,” Hume Studies 14 (1988): 414-18. Also refer to Russell’s Riddle of Hume’s “Treatise,” 71-75.

48 Title page of Book 3 of the Treatise, 291. The passage is taken from Lucan’s Pharsalia, 9.563-64. The translation is from David Fate and Mary J. Norton’s annotations in vol. 2 of the Clarendon edition of the Treatise: 883.

49 Lucan, Pharsalia, trans. Jane Wilson Joyce (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993): 9.564-65. 34

and heaven and virtue? Why do we look for Gods beyond these? Jupiter is anything you see, any move you make.50

Far from being transcendent, the divine resides in nature itself. Cato and Hume seem to ask the question: why look for the teachings of the gods in mystical visions or in earthly religious authorities when one need only look to one’s own breast?

Like the Tacitus epigram, the Lucan passage is also associated with other freethinkers of

Hume’s time. Cato, the “Roman saint” of the Renaissance,51 came to symbolize “political liberty” and “stoic virtue” in sixteenth century England,52 and by the early eighteenth century several freethinkers incorporated Cato’s heroic symbolism into their works. Anthony Collins, for instance, quotes the above passage from Pharsalia at great length in his 1713 work, A Discourse of Freethinking. According to Collins, the Lucan passage refers not only to Cato’s “Wisdom and

Virtue, but to his Free-thinking.”53 Also in 1713, Joseph Addison’s tragedy Cato was first performed. The play obtained great popularity and, as Russell reports, solidified Cato as the symbol of liberty and virtue.54 From 1720 to 1723 John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon wrote a series of essays, which became known as Cato’s Letters, deploring tyranny and defending freedom of speech and conscience.

50 Pharsalia, 9.577-80.

51 A. A. Long, : Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics, 2nd ed. (London: Gerald Duckworth & Company Limited, 1986): 240. Russell’s “Epigram, Pantheists, and Freethought” article directed me to the Long source.

52 Russell, “Epigram, Pantheists, and Freethought,” 664.

53 Anthony Collins, A Discourse of Free-thinking Occasion’d by The Rise and Growth of a Sect call’d Free-thinkers, Gale Eighteenth Century Collections Online, The Catholic University of America (London, 1713): Part III, 112, http://find.galegroup.com (accessed March 31, 2012). Collins quotes lines 9.546-603 from the Pharsalia.

54 Russell, “Epigram, Pantheists, and Freethought,” 664. See also Russell’s Riddle of Hume’s “Treatise,” 75-79.

35

The connection of the Tacitus and Lucan passages to freethinking and liberty points to a political theology at work in the Treatise. The Tacitus epigram suggests that if society is to have a robust intellectual life, people must have the freedom to think for themselves and to question the prevailing authorities. The Lucan epigram suggests the need to reevaluate men’s blind acquiescence to religious authority. But whereas the epigrams might be taken to merely imply

Hume’s interest in religion and politics in the Treatise, the “Introduction” is explicit about his interest in these matters. Hume states here that “improvements in reason and philosophy can only be owing to a land of toleration and of liberty.”55 We also find Hume stating in the

“Introduction” that, in his attempt to reevaluate the sciences, “improvements are the more to be hop’d for in natural religion.”56 What effects will the “improvement” of religion have on political and moral life? What does Hume even conceive the improvement of religion to be? We look to these questions next.

1.3 The “Science of Man” and “Natural Religion”

In Book 3 Hume alludes to his “science of man” as a theoretical endeavor. As such, the science of man opens the way to a “discovery in morals” that “is to be regarded as a considerable advancement of the speculative sciences; tho’ . . . it has little or no influence on practice.”57

Hume’s intention in writing the Treatise, however, is not simply speculative. In the

“Introduction,” he says that once men are “thoroughly acquainted with the extent and force of

55 T Intro.7; SBN xvii.

56 T Intro.4; SBN xv.

57 T 3.1.1.26; SBN 469.

36 human understanding,”58 his new science will make improvements in all the sciences—implying the speculative and practical:

There is no question of importance, whose decision is not compriz’d in the science of man; and there is none, which can be decided with any certainty, before we become acquainted with that science. In pretending therefore to explain the principles of human nature, we in effect propose a compleat system of the sciences, built on a foundation almost entirely new, and the only one upon which they can stand with any security.59

Hume’s remarks are complemented by the image he provides of the anatomist and painter in the final paragraph of the work – indicating the intimate relationship between the speculative and practical sciences to which the whole of the Treatise points:

The same system may help us to form a just notion of the happiness, as well as of the dignity of virtue, and may interest every principle of our nature in the embracing and cherishing that noble quality. . . . But I forbear insisting on this subject. Such reflections require a work apart, very different from the genius of the present. The anatomist ought never to emulate the painter; nor in his accurate dissections and portraitures of the smaller parts of the human body, pretend to give his figures any graceful and engaging attitude or expression. An anatomist, however, is admirably fitted to give advice to a painter; and ’tis even impracticable to excel in the latter art, without the assistance of the former. We must have an exact knowledge of the parts, their situation and connexion, before we can design with any elegance or correctness. And thus the most abstract speculations concerning human nature, however cold and unentertaining, become subservient to practical morality; and may render this latter science more correct in its precepts, and more perswasive in its exhortations.60

This partnership between the painter and the anatomist indicates that the Treatise’s theoretical reflections serve the ends of practical moralists, politicians, educators – all those who apply their

58 T Intro.4; SBN xv.

59 T Intro.6; SBN xvi.

60 T 3.3.6.6; SBN 620-21.

37 knowledge of human nature in order to steer and move people to better conform with virtue, happiness, and the peace of society.61

It is significant that amongst the sciences, Hume holds out the most hope for the improvement of natural religion. In the “Introduction,” he alerts us to what in religion is in need of improvement:

And these improvements are the more to be hop’d for in natural religion, as it is not content with instructing us in the nature of superior powers, but carries its views farther, to their disposition towards us, and our duties towards them. . . .62

In the passage, Hume distinguishes between theoretical and practical elements of natural religion. The theoretical element is natural theology, which attempts to understand and discern the nature of “superior powers” and their providential role in human affairs (“their disposition towards us”). The practical element is piety or worship, i.e., “our duties towards them.” In , Hume’s new science will contribute to the improvement to our understanding of the nature of “superior powers,” their providence (or lack thereof), and the piety to which we owe

(or do not owe) them.

The “Introduction” only refers to the improvements hoped for in natural religion, but it is unlikely that Hume intended his science of man to leave supposed divinely-revealed religion unscathed. For Hume’s method, if adopted, would fundamentally change people’s understanding of religion. “Experience and observation” lays the groundwork for all the sciences.63 In laying down an empirical method as the foundation for all branches of knowledge, Hume is making a

61 See John Immerwahr, “The Anatomist and the Painter: The Continuity of Hume’s Treatise and Essays,” Hume Studies 17, no. 1 (April 1991): 1-14. Immerwahr argues that Hume writes as a “moralist” in the Essays which, he says, is a continuation of his “metaphysical” writings in the Treatise.

62 T Intro.4; SBN xv.

63 T Intro.7; SBN xvi. 38 fundamental shift away from the traditional ordering of the sciences, which up until his time placed theology and metaphysics at the top of the hierarchy. Can beliefs that claim to possess divine origin be judged by Hume’s methodology? Could revealed theology even be considered

“science” for Hume? Even if he allows for the possibility of a divinely revealed religion, could men discern it using only his method? These questions can only be answered in the negative given Hume’s method. It certainly appears that already in the “Introduction,” Hume is implying that the “improvements” in natural religion will necessarily impact the claims of revealed religion, particularly Christianity’s.

Hume’s reprioritization and improvement of the sciences is also reflected in the new meaning he gives “metaphysics.” Metaphysics as traditionally understood is, in the words of

Aristotle, the study of “being qua being.”64 It concerns itself with the “first principles” of all that is.65 Metaphysics culminates in natural theology – the study of that which “moves without being moved, being eternal, substance, and actuality.”66 When ’s notion of metaphysics was integrated with scholastic thought, particularly in the influential thinking of Aquinas, metaphysics retained its essential task of studying being while also becoming the “handmaiden” to the Christian faith. Aristotle’s metaphysics, in the Christian philosopher-theologian’s hands, becomes a preparation for the highest science—divinely-revealed theology.

64 Aristotle, Metaphysics, in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. and intro., Richard McKeon, 681-926 (New York: Random House, 1941), 1005a15.

65 Ibid., 982a26.

66 Ibid., 1072a24-25.

39

Hume, on the other hand, refers to “metaphysical reasonings” as “every kind of argument, which is any way abstruse, and requires some attention to be comprehended.”67

“Metaphysics,” on this rendering, amounts to reasoning on complex matters.68 He tells us that metaphysics of this sort is necessary if “truth be at all within the reach of human capacity,” for,

“’tis certain it must very deep and abstruse.”69 Hume implies in the “Introduction” that the

Treatise will engage in a “metaphysics” of human nature, a “metaphysics” which sets aside ultimate questions of being. He further indicates that Aristotelian metaphysics, in the hands of the scholastics, serves the factional interests of Christian superstition. What is needed, therefore, is a shift in our understanding of metaphysics, one which makes human nature its focal point, so that metaphysics might serve the interests of “common life.”70

2. How can Hume Critique Superstition?

At the end of Book 1, Hume contrasts false philosophy and superstition. Superstition, like false philosophy, “opens a world of its own, and presents us with scenes, and beings, and objects, which are altogether new.”71 However, whereas the opinions of false philosophy “are merely the

67 T Intro.3; SBN xiv. See also T 3.1.1.1; SBN 456 where Hume describes his own philosophy as “abstruse” and therefore, properly speaking, “metaphysical”: “. . . I never shou’d have ventur’d upon a third volume of such abstruse philosophy, in an age, wherein the greatest part of men seem agreed to convert reading into amusement, and to reject every thing that requires any considerable degree of attention to be comprehended.”

68 Hume says that his description of “metaphysics” is what other people mean by the term, but he never disputes this meaning. See also EHU 1.7, where Hume refers to “profound reasonings, or what is commonly called metaphysics” and then “proceed[s] to consider what can reasonably be pleaded on their behalf” (1.7). Again, we see Hume describe “metaphysics” based on its “commonly” held meaning, thereby distancing himself from this meaning while allowing himself to use it. This is where his actions, perhaps, speak louder than his words.

69 T Intro.3; SBN xiv.

70 T 1.4.7.13; SBN 271.

71 Ibid. 40 objects of a cold and general speculation, and seldom go so far as to interrupt the course of our natural propensities,” “superstition arises naturally and easily from the popular opinions of mankind, it seizes more strongly on the mind, and is often able to disturb us in the conduct of our lives and actions.”72 “Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous [emphasis added].”73 And since his comments on religion in the

Treatise are almost always directed to Christianity—usually the Catholic faith—he is likely thinking of the dangers of Christian “superstition” in particular.

Yet, how can Hume provide a critique of religious superstition since he holds that religion is a product of custom, and that custom—not reason—is the “guide of life”?74 Hume’s difficulty seems compounded when he claims that “the imagination,” a primary source of religious superstition, is the “ultimate judge of all systems of philosophy.”75 The present section of this chapter argues that Hume’s theories of custom, imagination, and fiction help explain how he is able to determine which beliefs and practices can be “reasonably” tolerated.76

A fiction for Hume is a “construction of the imagination” resulting from the imagination’s ability to “transpose and change its ideas.”77 Some fictions are consciously invented (what Hume generally calls “trivial suggestions of the fancy”), and others stem from the spontaneous workings of the imagination (what he calls “general and more establish’d”

72 T 1.4.7.13; SBN 271-72.

73 T 1.4.7.13; SBN 272.

74 T Abstract.16; SBN 652.

75 T 1.4.4.1; SBN 225.

76 Perhaps it would be better to say “commonsensically” tolerated, inasmuch as “custom” is “past repetition, without any new reasoning” (T 1.3.8.10; SBN 102). Emphasis added.

77 See Norton, Glossary to Treatise, 576 and T 1.1.3.4; SBN 10.

41 fictions).78 The “fables we meet with in poems and romances,” for instance, are conscious inventions of the poet.79 Such fictions are entertaining—“winged horses, fiery dragons, and monstrous giants”80—precisely because people generally do not believe in them. Poetic fictions

“have but a small effect” on us, for they are only the “loose reveries of a castlebuilder” and give but a “faint and languid conception” to our minds.81 But fictions that are unconsciously constructed can have a great effect on the mind because people come to believe in them. Such fictions are the effect of custom and the “principles of association”—resemblance, contiguity, and causation—acting on the imagination.82 The fictions of common life,83 for instance—such as our beliefs in bodies, minds, and causal connections—are an effect of the imagination’s spontaneous invention of ideas.84

78 T 1.4.7.7; SBN 267.

79 T 1.1.3.4; SBN 10.

80 Ibid.

81 T 1.3.9.6; SBN 109 and T 1.3.7.8; SBN 97-98. See also T 1.3.9.6; SBN 109-110. Hume further states that “an idle fiction has no efficacy” to move our will (T 1.3.10.3; SBN 119).

82 See T 1.1.4; SBN 10-13. Though the imagination, as Hume states, has a “great authority over our ideas,” and that “there are no ideas that are different from each other, which it cannot separate, and join, and compose into all the varieties of fiction,” still, there is a “secret tie or union among particular ideas, which causes the mind to conjoin them more frequently together, and makes the one, upon its appearance, introduce the other” (T Abstract.35; SBN 662).

83 Common life, according to Hume, is the “common practice and experience” of people’s daily lives as they give themselves over to “those objects, which are every day expos’d to their senses” (T 1.4.7.14; SBN 272). It consists of that “narrow circle of objects, which are the subject of daily conversation and action” (T 1.4.7.13; SBN 271). Common life is the day-to-day participation in the “commerce and society of men” and may consist of little more than dining with acquaintances, playing a game of backgammon, or making merry with friends (T 1.4.7.10; SBN 270 and T 1.4.7.9; SBN 269). The fictions that constitute common life are primarily bodies, minds, necessary causal relations, and the various qualities and powers which purportedly reside in them.

84 Among the fictions of common life, the following can be identified: (1) the fiction that we sense or know by reason the power or agency existing in material or spiritual objects, T 1.3.14.8; SBN 159, T 1.3.14.19-20; SBN 164-65, T 1.3.14.22; SBN 165-66; (2) Necessity and causal relations between objects, T 1.3.2; SBN 73-78, T 1.3.6; SBN 86-94, T 1.3.14; SBN 155-72, T 1.4.5.29-32; SBN 246-50, T 2.3.1.4; SBN 400, T Abstract.10-13 and 25-26; SBN 650-57, T Abstract.32; SBN 660-61; (3) the belief in independent, distinct, and continually existing bodies or 42

It will be shown that, on the one hand, because the fictions of common life are so

“general and establish’d,” they determine how men must experience the world. Such fictions need not be approved or disapproved by Hume since nature itself compels us (and him) to believe in them. On the other hand, it will be shown that besides the poetic fictions, there are other “trivial” fictions—philosophical, moral, religious, and political—that, though not determining how men must experience the world, can either enhance or hinder the quality of their existence.85 For Hume, such fictions are to be rejected, tolerated, or encouraged depending on whether they promote or undermine human happiness and the peace of society.86 For Hume, certain fictions, though lacking any sense of being true, possess an “effectual truth”87 by their

substances, T 1.1.6.2; SBN 16, T 1.2.3.11; SBN 37, T 1.4.2.1; SBN 187, T 1.4.2.4-15; SBN 189-194, T 1.4.2.29; SBN 200-01, T 1.4.2.36; SBN 205, T 1.4.2.38; SBN 206-07, T 1.4.2.40-41; SBN 208, T 1.4.2.43-44; SBN 209-10, T 1.4.2.51; SBN 214, T 1.4.3.4-5; SBN 220-21, T 1.4.6.7; SBN 255; (4) the belief that figure, bulk, motion, and solidity are modes existing independently from the mind, T 1.1.6.2; SBN 16, T 1.4.2.12-13; SBN 192-93, (5) the belief that colors, tastes, smells, sounds, heat, and cold exist independently from the mind, T 1.4.2.12-13; SBN 192- 93; (6) the belief that the mind possesses identity and simplicity, T 1.4.2.39; SBN 207, T 1.4.6.6; SBN 254-55, T 1.4.6.15; SBN 259.

85 A “trivial” fiction, for Hume, does not mean that the content of the fiction is necessarily trivial at all. Of course, in some cases, the content may very well be trivial – as with some poetic fictions. But as in the case of “property,” a political (and “trivial”) fiction, Hume thinks that the idea is crucial for human well-being and happiness. For Hume, “trivial” designates those fictions that the imagination is not compelled to produce.

86 In terms of the moral and religious fictions, Hume shows in Book 3 of the Treatise that since virtue and vice are determined by particular pleasures and pains, morality has no need for a religious or moral grounding beyond human nature. Belief in God or natural law (the “eternal immutable fitnesses and unfitnesses of things”) are exposed as unnecessary moral and religious fictions (T 3.1.1; SBN 455-70). Hume also draws a parallel between the trivial nature of the philosophical fictions invented by the Peripatetics—such as “,” ‘antipathies,” “substance,” “accident,” and “substantial forms”—and the fictions of the poets who, he says, “follow implicitly the suggestions of their fancy” (T 1.4.3.11; SBN 224-25 and T 1.4.4.2; SBN 226). As for the political fictions, Hume repeatedly describes how the imagination’s propensity to associate ideas is the source of the rules determining property (T 3.2.3; SBN 501-13). He explicitly locates the source of these rules in the trivial fancy. The rule of present possession, for instance, he says “is principally fix’d by the imagination, or the more frivolous properties of our thought and conception” (T 3.2.3.4n71.1; SBN 504). Again, he says the difficulties raised against the idea of property based on accession are due primarily to the “agility and unsteadiness of the imagination” (T 3.2.3.10n75.5; SBN 510).

87 See Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. and intro. Henry C. Mansfield, 2nd ed. (Chicago: The University of Chicago press, 1998), Ch. 15, 61.

43 conduciveness to political life and the public good. Hume’s criticism of certain fictions (such as religious superstition)88 is not therefore solely due to their falsity, but to their inutility to promote the human good or to their moral noxiousness.

The next sub-section will examine the concepts of custom, imagination, and fiction within the context of Hume’s theory of perception. After that, we will move onto look at how he is able to critique religious fiction (superstition).

2.1 Hume’s Theory of Perception

Nothing is more curiously enquir’d after by the mind of man, than the causes of every phaenomenon; nor are we content with knowing the immediate causes, but push on our enquiries, till we arrive at the original and ultimate principle. We wou’d not willingly stop before we are acquainted with that energy in the cause, by which it operates on its effect; that tie, which connects them together; and that efficacious quality, on which the tie depends. This is our aim in all our studies and reflections.89

Though Hume suggests that the true philosopher and the false philosopher both seek ultimate principles, their understanding of what those principles are and how to find them differs.

Whereas the false philosopher looks for them by means of the study of being qua being, Hume attempts to account for principles—mainly, perceptions—which can be observed in human

88 Hume uses the term “superstition” in different senses throughout his writings. In “Of Superstition and Enthusiasm,” first published in 1741, he distinguishes between the “two species of false religion” that make up the essay’s title. “Superstition” results from our anxiety over imagined terrors and leads men to submit themselves to the authority of intermediaries. The is the modern embodiment of superstition for Hume. “Enthusiasm” arises from confidence, hope, and prosperity, which leads to the rejection of the “fallacious guides” of religion. Protestantism embodies this species of religion today; see SE, 73ff. Hume maintains this same distinction throughout the History of England. In the Natural History, “superstition” appears to designate “false religion” in general.

89 T 1.4.7.5; SBN 266. 44 nature.90 It seems fitting, therefore, that Hume’s “metaphysics”—the study of first things—is closely aligned with his study of human nature, the “first thing” of his science.

The false philosophy of which Hume is most critical is that which presumes that the mind grasps being itself by means of perception.91 Hume claims instead that the mind can grasp nothing but perceptions – ideas and impressions.92 Perceptions are what ground human experience and determine the limits of what we can understand:

Now since nothing is ever present to the mind but our perceptions, and since all ideas are deriv’d from something antecedently present to the mind; it follows, that ’tis impossible for us so much as to conceive or form an idea of any thing specifically different from ideas and impressions. Let us fix our attention out of ourselves as much as possible: Let us chace our imagination to the heavens, or to the utmost limits of the universe; we never really advance a step beyond ourselves, nor can conceive any kind of existence, but those perceptions, which have appear’d in that narrow compass. This is the universe of the imagination, nor have we any idea but what is there produc’d.93

Though Hume thinks that ideas are representative, they do not represent any existents beyond sense impressions or “impressions of reflection” (i.e., sentiments or passions).94 Sense

90 Ernest Mossner states that Hume’s “science of man” reflects the idea behind Protagoras’s dictum, “Man is the measure of all things” (“The Religion of David Hume,” Journal of the History of Ideas 39, no. 4 (October- December 1978): 655. George Bragues seems to agree with Mossner when he says that Hume’s “first philosophy is psychology” (“David Hume vs. Thomas Reid: Is Justice Socially Constructed or Natural?” History of Philosophy Quarterly 25, no. 2 (April 2008): 139). Mossner, however, is only partially right in his claim. It is not Hume’s dictum that man is the measure of all things, but that the study of man is, Hume’s study in particular.

91 On the mind’s ability to grasp being by means of perceptions, see Etienne Gilson, Methodical Realism, trans. Philip Trower, intro. Stanley L. Jaki (Front Royal, VA: Christendom Press, 1990): 132, 136.

92 See T 1.1.1.1; SBN 1, T 1.2.6.8; SBN 67, T 1.4.2.7; SBN 190, and T 1.4.2.47; SBN 212.

93 T 1.2.6.8; SBN 67-68. See also, T 1.2.6.7; SBN 67, T 1.4.2.56; SBN 218.

94 T 1.1.1.1; SBN 1, T 1.1.1.7; SBN 4, T 1.3.11.2; SBN 124, T 1.3.14.11; SBN 161, T 1.3.14.16; SBN 163, T 2.1.11.7; SBN 319.

45 impressions form the ground of our understanding; they are the most fundamental “real existences” of which we can be aware; their causes are utterly unknown to us.95

As to those impressions, which arise from the senses, their ultimate cause is, in my opinion, perfectly inexplicable by human reason, and ’twill always be impossible to decide with certainty, whether they arise immediately from the object, or are produc’d by the creative power of the mind, or are deriv’d from the author of our being.96

True philosophy limits itself to the humble endeavor of either searching for probable knowledge concerning matters of fact (agreement between ideas and impressions) or analyzing the necessary relations between ideas (demonstrative knowledge).97 Hume does not deny that there might be things that exist independent of our perceptions, but he does deny that we have any rational or sensual basis to justify belief in such things.98

Already in the “Introduction,” Hume rejects the possibility of discovering the “ultimate original qualities of human nature” because he says these lie beyond experience:

And tho’ we must endeavour to render all our principles as universal as possible, by tracing up our experiments to the utmost, and explaining all effects from the simplest

95 “’Tis impossible for us to carry on our inferences in infinitum; and the only thing, that can stop them, is an impression of the memory or senses, beyond which there is no room for doubt or enquiry” (T 1.3.4.1; SBN 83). See also T 1.1.2.1; SBN 7, T 1.4.2.47; SBN 212. See also the following passages where Hume states that impressions are the most fundamental existences that we can know: T 1.2.6.8; SBN 67-68; T 1.3.5.2; SBN 84, T 1.4.2.47; SBN 212.

96 T 1.3.5.2; SBN 84. We should note that Hume neither affirms nor denies the existence of an independently existing world inhabited by bodies, minds, and causal relations. He is clearly open to the idea that sense impressions may very well come about “immediately from the object” (the world), but he is just as open to the possibility that they may “arise” from our own minds or “the author of our being” (God). See also T 1.1.2.1; SBN 7, T 1.2.5.26; SBN 64, T 1.4.2.47; SBN 212, T 1.4.7.5; SBN 266-67.

97 T 1.1.4.6; SBN 13, T 1.3.1; SBN 69-73, T 1.3.2.1-3; SBN 73-74, T 1.3.5.2; SBN 84, T 1.4.7.13; SBN 271, T 2.3.3.2; SBN 413, T 2.3.10.2; SBN 448, T 3.1.1.9; SBN 458.

98 See T 1.3.5.2; SBN 84. Timothy M. Costelloe appears to come to the opposite conclusion as myself. Costelloe states that “Hume is not against metaphysics understood as inquiry into the ultimate nature of reality, but takes issue with doctrines that are purely speculative and without basis in experience or the understanding.” The present section of this chapter aims to show that what Hume means by “engaging in ungrounded speculation” is the “inquiry into the ultimate nature of reality.” See Timothy M. Costelloe, “Beauty, Morals, and Hume’s Conception of Character,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 21, no. 4 (October 2004): 398.

46

and fewest causes, ’tis certain we cannot go beyond experience; and any hypothesis, that pretends to discover the ultimate original qualities of human nature, ought at first to be rejected as presumptuous and chimerical.99

It is significant that Hume describes the attempt to discern ultimate and original principles as

“chimerical,” for it indicates how he views the superstitious-like endeavor of classical metaphysicians and theologians who attempt to conceive the nature of being – whether natural or divine.100 Hume here is adamant that the classical metaphysician’s belief in man’s ability to comprehend real existences more fundamental than our sense impressions—impressions that neither present nor represent any beings beyond themselves—is an example of a fiction.101

While the false philosopher thinks he discovers the ultimate causes of phenomena, in truth, he is unwittingly inventing them. Robert Sokolowski observes that it is precisely in this search for causes that Hume thinks the “fictions of superstition arise because the mind has an inexorable tendency to go beyond what it is warranted to assert.”102 As should be expected, Hume is particularly critical of the philosophical inventions of the Peripatetics—the Aristotelians—who

“have shown they were guided by every trivial propensity of the imagination.”103 Man’s

99 T Intro.8; SBN xvii. Emphasis added. Hume also refers to the “association of ideas” as “original qualities of human nature” because their causes are “mostly unknown” (T 1.1.4.6; SBN 13). At 3.3.1.27, he again refers to “original principles of human nature” whose causes “cannot be accounted for.”

100 Hume argues, for instance, that the belief in the immateriality of the soul—held by most religionists and theologians—lends itself to a ‘dangerous and irrevocable atheism.” See T 1.4.5; SBN 232-51.

101 As David Fate Norton says, traditional metaphysics attempts to “carry the explanation of . . . nature to unobserved principles or causes allegedly more ultimate than this nature itself as it is observed.” David Fate Norton, “The Foundations of Morality in Hume’s Treatise, in The Cambridge Companion to Hume, ed. David Fate Norton and Jacqueline Taylor, 2nd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009): 285.

102 Robert Sokolowski, “Fiction and Illusion in David Hume’s Philosophy,” The Modern Schoolman 45 (March 1968): 210.

103 T 1.4.4.11; SBN 224. In his discussion of , which focuses on Aristotelian metaphysics, we get quite a list of fictions: “substances,” “substantial forms,” accidents,” occult qualities,” “simplicity and identity of substances,” “original substance and matter,” “faculty,” “sympathies and antipathies,” and “horrors of a vacuum.” See T 1.4.3; SBN 219-226. 47 propensity to search for ultimate is futile: “how must we be disappointed, when we learn, that this connexion, tie, or energy, merely in ourselves, and is nothing but that determination of the mind, which is acquir’d by custom.”104 Just as the mind tends to “bestow on external objects the same emotions, which it observes in itself,”105 so, too, man creates the Deity in his own image. To what extent can religion, then, withstand the accusation of superstition?

2.2 Hume’s Theory of Fiction and His Critique of Superstition

Ira Singer rightly observes that Hume claims “rational criticism of superstition is impossible, but that we can nevertheless safeguard ourselves from superstition.”106 According to

Singer, however, Hume’s claim still “leaves unanswered (and unanswerable) the question why we should prefer not to be superstitious.”107 Yet, we can see that Hume indeed provides

“rational” criticism of certain beliefs as long as we understand that it is practical reason which is doing the critiquing. Speculative reason may expose many of our beliefs to be “fictions”; yet,

Hume’s goal is not to convince people to stop believing in all fictions. On the contrary, some of these fictions provide the necessary framework for human experience. The fictions of common

104 T 1.4.7.5; SBN 266. See also T 1.4.3.9; SBN 223, T 1.3.14.23; SBN 166, and T Abstract.26; SBN 656. Sokolowski notes that, for Hume, “contemplation, which in the classical view was contrasted to acting and making, becomes a species of production. Philosophy, instead of revealing the fundamental truth of being, is the narration of what man makes” (Sokolowski, “Fiction and Illusion,” 225).

105 T 1.4.4.11; SBN 224.

106 Ira Singer, “Hume’s Extreme Skepticism in Treatise I IV 7.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 25, no. 4 (December 1995): 615n29.

107 Ibid.

48 life in particular—generally known as “natural beliefs”108—are so integral to human experience that Hume claims “upon their removal human nature must immediately perish and go to ruin.”109

Belief in these fictions is universal and provides the foundation on which Hume critiques all other fictions. As for the more trivial fictions, it is perfectly reasonable, given Hume’s emphasis on practical reason, to encourage peoples’ belief in these fictions if by doing so such beliefs contribute to the welfare of society.

To understand how it is that Hume can critique religious superstition we will first look at his distinction between “fiction” and “belief.” This distinction will allow us to get a clearer idea of why he accepts, for instance, belief in the fictions constituting the “sphere of common life,”110 while criticizing belief in religious fiction. First, we note that Hume makes no distinction in terms of content between a belief and “a mere reverie of the imagination,” that is to say, a fiction.111 As Hume states:

[A]n opinion or belief is nothing but an idea, that is different from a fiction, not in the nature, or the order of its parts, but in the manner of its being conceiv’d. . . . An idea assented to feels different from a fictitious idea, that the fancy alone presents to us: And this different feeling I endeavour to explain by calling it a superior force, or vivacity, or solidity, or firmness, or steadiness.112

We can garner from this passage that despite Hume’s exposing some of our most commonly held beliefs to be mere fictions, such as the fictions of common life, when he leaves the solitude of his

108 See Norman Kemp Smith, “The Naturalism of Hume,” Mind 14, no. 54 (April 1905), 156.

109 T 1.4.4.1; SBN 225.

110 T 1.4.7.13; SBN 271.

111 T Abstract.21; SBN 654.

112 T App., 1.3.7.7; SBN 628-29. See also T 1.3.8.12; SBN 103. For a discussion of Hume’s notion of the nature of belief, see Michael Gorman, “Hume’s Theory of Belief, Hume Studies 19, no. 1(April 1993): 89-101.

49 philosophical musings, he himself returns to his belief in the very things that his philosophy has shown to be illusions. “As long as our attention is bent upon the subject, the philosophical and study’d principle may prevail; but the moment we relax our thoughts, nature will display herself, and draws us back to our former opinion.”113 The reason for this predicament is because nature has given these fictions a “superior force,” as he says in the above passage, so that upon his return to daily affairs he is compelled to believe in their reality:

Nature has not left this to his choice, and has doubtless esteem’d it an affair of too great importance to be trusted to our uncertain reasonings and speculations. We may well ask, What causes induce us to believe in the existence of body? but ’tis vain to ask, Whether there be body or not? That is a point, which we must take for granted in all our reasonings.114

As the passage indicates, the true philosopher does not reject his belief in the existence of body even though he is aware that neither his senses nor reason justify him in such a belief, for he is not capable of rejecting such belief. In common life, he shares in the same “careless way of thinking” and “vulgar sentiments”115 as the “unthinking and unphilosophical part of mankind,” who, Hume tells us, is “all of us, at one time or other.”116

The difference between the true philosopher and the vulgar, however, is that the philosopher returns to common life equipped to judge between those fictions that are “general

113 T 1.4.2.51; SBN 214. A. E Taylor puts it the following way: Hume indeed “professes to believe his own metaphysics, though, as he ingenuously says, he forgets about it and virtually denies it whenever he mixes in the social life of his fellows” (David Hume and the Miraculous: The Leslie Stephen Lecture, 1927 (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1927), 25).

114 T 1.4.2.1; SBN 187. See also: T 1.4.1.7; SBN 183, T 1.4.1.12; SBN 187, T 1.4.7.9; SBN 269.

115 T 1.4.3.9; SBN 223.

116 T 1.4.2.36; SBN 205. Sokolowski depicts Hume’s “true philosopher” as the “critic of illusions” (“Fiction and Illusion,” 221).

50 and establish’d” (and thus unavoidable) and those that are “trivial.”117 Amongst the “trivial” fictions, the philosopher understands that there are those that can be accepted by men of common sense, and those that should be abandoned. It is here where we see Hume’s criteria for judging undesirable fictions most explicitly. In the following passage Hume explains, for instance, why he is justified in criticizing the philosophical fictions of the ancients:

But here it may be objected, that the imagination, according to my own confession, being the ultimate judge of all systems of philosophy, I am unjust in blaming the antient philosophers for making use of that faculty, and allowing themselves to be entirely guided by it in their reasonings. In order to justify myself, I must distinguish in the imagination betwixt the principles which are permanent, irresistible, and universal; such as the customary transition from causes to effects, and from effects to causes: And the principles, which are changeable, weak, and irregular; such as those I have just now taken notice of [“sympathies, antipathies, and horrors of a vacuum.”] The former are the foundation of all our thoughts and actions, so that upon their removal human nature must immediately perish and go to ruin. The latter are neither unavoidable to mankind, nor necessary, or so much as useful in the conduct of life; but on the contrary are observ’d only to take place in weak minds. . . .118

As this passage indicates, Hume, far from rejecting the fictions of the imagination, takes those that are “permanent, irresistible, and universal”—designating causation, a fiction of common life, as his example—to be the basis of judging all beliefs. The horizon of true philosophy, in other words, is bound by the irresistible pull of the fictions of common life. Though one might read this passage as saying that all avoidable fictions are in some sense bad, we should note that

Hume’s critique here is aimed specifically at the “changeable, weak, and irregular” fictions invented by the ancient philosophers. Hume cannot be condemning all avoidable (or “trivial”) fictions because, as will be discussed in the next section of this chapter, he shows in Book 3 of the Treatise that there are indeed fictions—such as the political fictions of “property” and

117 T 1.4.7.7; SBN 267.

118 T 1.4.4.1; SBN 225.

51

“justice”—that though they are not absolutely necessary for human existence, are still useful and even necessary to improve the quality of human life.

We can garner from Hume’s acceptance of some fictions and his rejection of others that the basis of his critique of religious superstition and political fiction will have little or nothing to do with the falsity of these beliefs, but on whether such beliefs are beneficial for bringing about men’s moral and political good. As De Dijn puts it, the “reasonable—unreasonable distinction” in Hume’s discernment of which fictions ought to be promoted amounts to the “distinction between what is or is not convenient (for society).”119 To the extent that any custom or fiction lacks in utility or agreeableness, it is to be exposed and rejected.

3. Hume’s Critique of the Trivial Fictions: The Relation between Religious Superstition and the Poetic, Moral, and Political Fictions

The present section of this chapter will show that, for Hume, any fiction becomes superstitious once people believe in its real existence. Religious superstition is only an example of such a fiction. Though Hume does not make the concept of religious fiction as thematic as certain other fictions treated in the Treatise, his discussion of the poetic, moral, and political fictions have strong parallels and even overlap with his idea of religious superstition.

119 Herman De Dijn, “Hume’s Nonreductionist Philosophical Anthropology,” The Review of Metaphysics 5, no. 3 (March 2003): 593.

52

3.1 Poetic Fiction: Poetic Enthusiasm and Religious Superstition

Of all the fictions, the poetic are those that are most naturally aligned with religious superstition. The present sub-section of this chapter argues that Hume’s contrast between “poetic enthusiasm” and “madness” is directly linked to his understanding of the nature of religious superstition.120

Hume has little patience for the naiveté of those philosophers—the peripatetic—who have come to believe in their trivial philosophical fictions:

We must pardon children because of their age; poets, because they profess to follow implicitly the suggestions of their fancy: But what excuse shall we find to justify our philosophers in so signal a weakness?121

In contrast to his criticism of the philosopher, Hume is quite lenient toward the poet’s belief in his own imaginary inventions. Yet, Hume is clear that the fictions of poetry were originally intended to only entertain and give pleasure to the imagination, not to be believed in. When poets do come to believe in their own created fictions, they ultimately are going against the proper end of poetry. What happens, then, to the art of poetry when the poets themselves begin to believe in the fictions they have invented?

To get at this question, we shall look at Hume’s discussion of the tragic poet. If the poet is good at his art, he will arouse the reader’s passions through the use of trivial fictions. Hume is

120 For Hume’s discussion on the difference between “madness” and “poetic enthusiasm,” see T 1.3.10.5- 12; SBN 120-23 and 630-32. Since the Treatise does not make an explicit distinction between religious “superstition” and “enthusiasm,” the present sub-section of this chapter refers to religious “superstition” only. However, we should note that Hume’s portrayal of “madness” in the Treatise is similar to his portrayal of religious “enthusiasm” in the History of England. In the History of England, Hume does distinguish between “superstition” and “enthusiasm” and goes to great lengths to associate “madness” with puritan “enthusiasm.” Indications that Hume was thinking about religious “enthusiasm” in the Treatise, therefore, can be seen in this present discussion of “madness” and the poetic fictions.

121 T 1.4.3.11; SBN 224-25.

53 adamant, however, that the aim of the poet is not to impart belief. 122 To move the passions,

Hume tells us that “belief is almost absolutely requisite [emphasis added].”123 In order to produce emotional effects similar to those caused by belief, the poets have devised what Hume calls a “poetical system of things”124 which, though “believ’d neither by themselves nor readers,” allows the poets “to give an air of truth to their fictions.”125 Giving these fictions an “air of truth,” according to Hume, “has no other effect than to procure an easy reception for the ideas, and to make the mind acquiesce in them with satisfaction, or at least without reluctance.”126

Poets will therefore often “borrow their fable . . . from some known passage in history,” but do so “not in order to deceive the spectators,” but “in order to procure a more easy reception into the imagination.”127 This “mixture of truth and falsehood” gives an “entertainment to the imagination” and “procure[s] a more easy reception for the whole, and causes it to make a deeper impression on the fancy and affections” – without the need, however, for “absolute belief or assurance.”128

The proper end to which the poetic system aims is to arouse the passions without strengthening the reader’s ideas to the level of belief. Any poet worthy of the name does not intend to deceive the reader nor does the poet himself believe in the truth of his fictions. Even

122 T 1.3.10.6; SBN 121.

123 T 1.3.10.4; SBN 120.

124 T 1.3.10.6; SBN 121.

125 T 1.3.10.5-6; SBN 121.

126 T 1.3.10.6; SBN 121.

127 T 1.3.10.6; SBN 121-22.

128 T 1.3.10.6-7; SBN 121-22.

54 when the ideas and passions are aroused to an extreme degree—what Hume calls “poetical enthusiasm”—the vivacity of the ideas are still “the mere phantom of belief or perswasion.”129

Regardless of how emotional and passionate a viewer of a tragic play might become, he will still easily distinguish between fiction and “belief and reality.”130 It is precisely in the viewer’s unbelief that “[a] passion, which is disagreeable in real life, may afford the highest entertainment in a tragedy, or epic poem.”131 By mixing truth with fiction the poet is able to produce in the viewer a pleasure even in tragedy, which, if believed, would be a source of great turmoil.

What happens when the poetical imagination departs from its proper end, as Hume says it is wont to do? The poets, after all, are “liars by profession.”132 And the following is what Hume has to say about habitual liars:

[I]n the case of liars; who by the frequent repetition of their lies, come at last to believe and remember them, as realities; custom and habit having in this case . . . the same influence on the mind as nature, and infixing the idea with equal force and vigour.133

The poet’s practice of lying, especially when paired with a keen imagination, leads him to believe in his own inventions. For Hume, the poet’s propensity to belief causes little surprise since a “lively imagination very often degenerates into madness or folly,” whereby the fictions of the mind “influence the judgment . . . and produce belief.”134

129 T App. 1.3.10.10; SBN 630-31.

130 T App. 1.3.10.10; SBN 631.

131 Ibid.

132 T 1.3.10.5; SBN 121.

133 T 1.3.5.6; SBN 86.

134 T 1.3.10.9; SBN 123. 55

When the imagination, from any extraordinary ferment of the blood and spirits acquires such a vivacity as disorders all its powers and faculties, there is no means of distinguishing betwixt truth and falsehood.135

It is important for our present purpose to note that Hume’s description of madness is not a description of poetical enthusiasm. He has already said that a person can still easily distinguish between fact and fiction even when in the throes of poetic enthusiasm.136 Poetic enthusiasm is not, therefore, madness or folly. Instead, when the breakdown of the poetic system occurs, poetry proper ceases and morphs into superstition. To illustrate this point, we can look to “MARS,

JUPITER, [and] VENUS,” characters often portrayed in poetic art.137 Within the poetical system these characters are not believed in because they are known to be purely fictional, but as the poetical system gives way to belief, these very characters take on a greater significance. They become objects of religious worship and not simply objects of poetic pleasure. Religious superstition, in other words, appears to be the result of a madness which grows out of the poetic imagination whereby the imagination fails to distinguish between fiction and reality.

3.2 Moral Fictions: God, Religion, Natural and Divine Law

“Morality is a subject that interests us above all others: We fancy the peace of society to be at stake in every decision concerning it. . . . .”138 By drawing the reader’s attention to the peace of society in the beginning of his discussion of morals in Book 3, Hume suggests that he

135 T 1.3.10.9; SBN 123.

136 See T App., 1.3.10.10; SBN 630-31.

137 T 1.3.10.6; SBN 121.

138 T 3.1.1.1; SBN 455.

56 intends his discussion to be more than purely speculative, but that his thoughts on morality will provide fodder for the moralist and politician as well. The present sub-section of this chapter will argue that unlike the fictions of common life in which nature compels us to believe, there are certain moral fictions—such as Providence or Divine and natural law—that once exposed, no longer need to be believed in by anyone.139 Hume’s ethics maintains that virtue is necessary for living the good life, but his ethics also holds that belief in a Deity is in no way necessary to ground virtue.

As he begins Book 3, he expresses confidence in his ability to delineate the source of virtue and vice:

What affects us, we conclude can never be a chimera; and as our passion is engag’d on the one side or the other, we naturally think that the question lies within human comprehension; which, in other cases of this nature, we are apt to entertain some doubt of. Without this advantage I never shou’d have ventur’d upon a third volume of such abstruse philosophy. . . .140

Since Hume holds that human comprehension is limited to perceptions, and since he expresses confidence in his ability to locate the source of virtue and vice, it follows that he must think that morality has its source in our perceptions. In other words, there is no need to look to a more fundamental existence which lies beyond our perceptions to ground morality.

Virtue and vice, according to Hume, are not fictions but “moral sentiments” and “matters of fact.”141 “To have the sense of virtue,” Hume says, “is nothing but to feel a satisfaction of a particular kind from the contemplation of a character. The very feeling constitutes our praise or

139 As will be discussed later in the present chapter, justice is also an example of a moral fiction. Though Hume exposes justice to be a fiction, he encourages the promotion of the vulgar belief in it because such belief is advantageous to the stability of society.

140 T 3.1.1.1; SBN 455-56.

141 See T 3.1.1.9; SBN 458; T 3.1.1.3; SBN 456; T 3.1.1.26; SBN 468-69.

57 admiration.”142 The nature of these sentiments are particular pleasures and pains that, when reflected upon, lead us to judge people’s actions or characters as either good or evil. The particular pleasure of virtue arises from “pleasurable” or “useful” qualities belonging to the person himself or to others.143 The qualities that most engender people’s regard are those most related to people’s temporal interests:

Men are always more concern’d about the present life than the future; and are apt to think the smallest evil, which regards the former, more important than the greatest evil, which regards the latter.144

When men attempt to reflect upon their future interests—especially the afterlife—these future interests pale in comparison to the here and now.

Reflection upon particular pleasures or pains triggers a sense of approbation or disapprobation and a felt sense of duty to perform or refrain from certain actions.145 This sense of duty is not a fiction, but what Hume calls a sentiment of reflection. These sentiments, Hume says, are just as fundamental to our living a human existence as the fictions of common life. The

“sentiments of morality” are “so rooted in our constitution and temper, that without entirely confounding the human mind by disease or madness, ’tis impossible to extirpate and destroy

142 T 3.1.2.3; SBN 471. On the relation of virtue and vice, or, , to pleasure and see the following references: T 1.3.10.2; SBN 118, T 2.1.7.4; SBN 295-96, T 3.1.1.26; SBN 469, T 3.1.2.1-3; SBN 470-71, T 3.2.2.24; SBN 499, T 3.2.5.4; SBN 517, T 3.2.2.8; SBN 546-47, T 3.3.1.2-3; SBN 574-75, T 3.3.1.15; SBN 581, T 3.3.1.23; SBN 586, T 3.3.1.27-31; SBN 589-91, T 3.3.2.9; SBN 597, T 3.3.4.3; SBN 608, T 3.3.5.1; SBN 614.

143 T 3.3.5.1; SBN 614. See also T 3.3.2.16; SBN 601. See EPM 9.1.2, nn53-56 where Hume delineates the principles as “Qualities useful to others,” “Qualities useful to the person himself,” “Qualities immediately agreeable to others,” and “Qualities immediately agreeable to the person himself.” Hume’s use of “agreeable” better captures the approval of pleasantness and so I shall use that term when designating this characteristic.

144 T 3.2.5.14; SBN 525.

145 T 3.2.1.1-8; SBN 477-79.

58 them.”146 It is unnecessary to propose transcendental or religious fictions to theoretically ground virtue or to exhort men to good behavior. We already directly experience virtue and vice through particular pleasures and pains.

Religion provided the framework for the prevailing ethical systems of Hume’s time. The specifics of each system might differ by emphasis, but most, if not all, ground right and wrong in a transcendent source. Hume’s view of morality departs significantly from this tradition. Charles

Taylor observes the following about the relation of Hume’s ethics to his predecessors:

[I]t is clear that this position departs crucially from traditional ethics. It not only debunks the claim that our standards are determined by something higher, be it the will of God, or the nature of the cosmos, or the Idea of the Human, or whatever, but it also dissipates the aura of irrecusable authority which depends on this higher source. Our moral impulses are natural, just like all our other impulses; they are part of how human beings function de facto. . . .147

By looking to the divine-rational order of things as the ground of morals, Hume’s contemporaries saw the need for the human passions and reason to be obedient to a divine order.

For Hume, however, only the passions are necessary to motivate people to action while reason is a “mediate” cause which “prompts” and “directs” the passions.148 There is no need to ground these motives in a purported divine order.

There are two particular false ethical systems to which Hume refers in Book 3. The first holds that morality is the rational discovery of “eternal” and “immutable measures of right and

146 T 3.1.2.8; SBN 474.

147 Taylor, Secular Age, 581.

148 T 3.1.1.16; SBN 462. For further reading on the relation between reason, the sentiments, and motive, see Rachel Cohon, “Hume’s Moral Sentiments as Motives,” Hume Studies 36, no. 2 (November 2010): 193-213; Elizabeth S. Radcliffe, “Hume on the Generation of Motives: Why Beliefs Alone Never Motivate,” Hume Studies 25, no. 1-2 (April-November 1999): 101-122 and “Hume on Motivating Sentiments, the General Point of View, and the Inculcation of ‘Morality,’” Hume Studies 20, no. 1 (April 1994): 37-58; Tito Magri, “Natural Obligation and Normative Motivation in Hume’s Treatise,” Hume Studies 22, no. 2 (November 1996): 231-54.

59 wrong.”149 The “very essence of morality,” according to this view, “consist[s] in an agreement or disagreement to reason.”150 Such a system implies that since morality is eternal and rational, it has its source in an eternal and divine Reason.151 The second system claims that virtue and vice are “real existences” located in actions or bodies.152 Good and evil, in other words, are not merely the subjective experience of pleasure and pain, but exist independently of perception.

These moral existences also call for an objective source of their existence and a Divine Mind seems to answer the call.

In a letter to Francis Hutcheson in 1740, Hume shows he is fully aware that his approach to ethics makes God irrelevant to a genuine understanding of morality,153 and he acknowledges that the consequences of his position “are very momentous”:

I wish from my Heart, I coud avoid concluding, that since Morality, according to your Opinion as well as mine, is determin’d merely by Sentiment, it regards only human Nature & human Life [emphasis added]. . . . What Experience have we with regard to superior Beings? How can we ascribe to them any Sentiments at all? They have implanted those Sentiments in us for the Conduct of Life like our bodily Sensations, which they possess not themselves [emphasis added].154

149 T 3.1.1.4; SBN 456.

150 T 3.1.1.13; SBN 460.

151 See J. B. Schneewind, “Hume and the Religious Significance of Moral ,” Hume Studies 26, no. 2 (November 2000): 220.

152 See T 3.1.1.24-26; SBN 466-69.

153 William Paley, an Anglican priest and archdeacon of Carlisle, notes that Hume “complain[s] of the modern scheme of uniting Ethics with the Christian Theology,” and states that it is clear that Hume is doing his best to “make of morality without this union.” See William Paley, The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (London: printed for R. Faulder, 1785) in Early Responses,1:150.

154 Letters, 1:40.

60

Hume here seemingly assents to the existence of “superior Beings,” but he does so only to make the further claim that they do not possess “sentiments.” This claim amounts to a denial that they possess moral sentiments.

Whereas Hume’s predecessors considered God as the source and measure of a morality which carried with it a keen sense of duty to God and religion,155 for Hume, one need not go further than man’s sentiments. Hume’s ethics suggest that religion has, as Kenneth Merrill and

Donald Webster state, no legitimate role in the “practical-moral affairs” of men.156 Hume’s moral science instead points to what James Force calls a “modern secular world in which humanity is disconnected from God.”157

The of the eighteenth century, however, may have contributed more to Hume’s position than our discussion has so far indicated. Whereas the thirteenth century Christian philosopher was quite at home with mystery and ecclesiastical hierarchy, many of the eighteenth century theologians and philosophers, including those of the early Royal Academy, “made a continuous effort to cut down the mysterious element in Christianity and to deny the necessity of accepting scriptural or ecclesiastical authority.”158 They insisted on stripping Christianity of its so-called irrational elements. Their depiction of religious superstition increasingly resembled the tradition of the Christian faith itself. Christianity was to be purged if it was to co-exist with a

155 See Aquinas, ST II-II Q. 81, a. 4-6. See also Isaac Newton, Principia in Philosophical Writings, ed. Andrew Janiak (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004): 90-92

156 Kenneth R. Merrill and Donald G. Webster, “Hume on the Relation of Religion to Morality,” The Journal of Religion 60, no. 3 (July 1980): 273.

157 Force, “Hume and Royal Academy,” 535-36.

158 Lewis White Beck, Six Secular Philosophers: Religious Themes in the Thought of Spinoza, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, and Santayana, rev. ed. (, England: Thoemmes Press, 1997), 44.

61 more modern and enlightened age. Hume, then, might be said to be following through with the logic of this more modern outlook on religion.

For Hume, separating morality from religion does not simply lead to a more accurate understanding of the nature of morals, but also, in effect, severs the political alliance between reason and divine sanction. Sharon Krause explains:

Protestantism had been allied with strains of modern natural law theory that derived rules of right from a rationalist analysis of nature. The notion of natural was the potent progeny of this alliance, its strength deriving in part from the divine sanction its proponents claimed it. This idea, Hume thought, was the cause of great mischief in politics, as it was the rallying point around which much of the enthusiastic, partisan politics of principle revolved.159

W. D. Falk states that it was not uncommon for moralists of Hume’s age to deemphasize and even deny any association between the supernatural and the moral in order to curb what they perceived to be the fanaticism of those who were convinced that their moral principles had divine approval: “The moralists of that time were faced with forces which tended to disrupt moral life altogether, and they thought these could only be matched if the foundations of morality were natural and independent of creed or faith.”160 According to James Farr, the impetus behind Hume’s political and moral theory was his attempt to curb religious extremism in politics.161

Krause notes that Hume did not think that rationalism alone could moderate political extremism. Morality needed to be “demystified” so that the source of its sanction was wholly

159 Sharon R. Krause, “Hume and the (False) Luster of Justice,” Political Theory 32, no. 5 (October 2004): 631.

160 W. D. Falk, “Morals without Faith,” Philosophy 19, no. 72 (April 1944): 4.

161 James Farr, “Political Science and the Enlightenment of Enthusiasm,” The American Political Science Review 82, no. 1 (March 1988): 51-69.

62 natural and sentimental.162 There is thus nothing “sacred” or “intrinsically elevated about moral standards” for Hume; rather, virtue is simply pursuing the pleasures and interests of everyday life.163 It is human nature which constitutes men’s sense of duty – not reason, and certainly not

God.164 Hume directs people to look after what he thinks are their real interests—survival, security in their possessions, peace and order, liberty—and in doing so he claims to open a new, more effective way for people to secure happiness.

This so-called demystification of morality seems to have given a

“religious” experience, of sorts, upon his reading of Book 3 of the Treatise:

For my own part, I well remember, no sooner had I read that part of the work . . . I felt as if scales had fallen from my eyes. I then, for the first time, learned to call the cause of the People the cause of Virtue.165

The enlightenment Bentham received carries with it a political tone, for he sees an ethics that bases morality on man’s interests, not on the interests of priests and ecclesiastics. The political fictions of Book 3 provide a roadmap for how men can best obtain those interests through modern social life.

3.3 The Political Fiction of Justice

The present sub-section of this chapter will first look at Hume’s understanding of

“justice” as a fiction invented for the purpose of establishing and protecting material property.

Second, we will examine his genetic account of justice to see how it came to be an “artificial”

162 Krause, “False Luster,” 631.

163 Ibid., 632.

164 Taylor, Secular Age, 581.

165 Jeremy Bentham, “A Fragment on Government” (London: Macmillan, 1875) in Early Responses, vol. 1, 127. 63 virtue (and thus a consciously contrived political fiction). Third, we will look at the parallels

Hume draws between “justice” and Catholic “superstition” to show that though both are fictions according to Hume, he clearly indicates that the idea of “justice” ought to be promoted because of its utility in securing the public good while “superstition” ought to be controlled because it promotes the narrow interests of a priestly faction. What emerges from our analysis is that

Hume’s notion of civil life and justice in Book 3 is an attempt to show how society can be structured on certain political fictions, such as justice, so that men can still pursue their fundamental interests—such as material well-being, prosperity, happiness, and liberty— without presuming that religion (or reason) must play a central role.166

3.3.1 The Economic Basis of Justice

To get at what Hume means by “justice” it will be helpful to contrast his approach to political life from the rationalistic approach taken by Locke and Hobbes. In Book 3 of the

Treatise, Hume shows that the formation of civil society is not primarily the result of men’s rational calculation. It is “impossible, in their wild uncultivated state, that by study and reflection alone, they shou’d ever be able to attain this knowledge.”167 He proceeds to reject Hobbes’s and

Locke’s notion that political life is the result of man’s calculative foresight to secure his desired ends by means of a . In Hume’s view, men are neither as rational nor as narrowly self-interested as Hobbes and Locke depict them. Hume’s rejection of the social contract,

166 Hume names “peace,” “concord,” “order,” “security,” “protection,” “well-being,” “happiness,” “liberty,” and “stability” as those interests that men hope to achieve by living in society. See T 3.1.1.1; SBN 455; T 3.2.3.4n71.2; SBN 504; T 3.2.8.2; SBN 541; T 3.2.8.6; SBN 544-45; T 3.2.9.2-3; SBN 550-52; T 3.2.10.15; SBN 562; T 3.2.11.5; SBN 569.

167 T 3.2.2.4; SBN 486.

64 however, is not because it is a fiction, but because it is an unnecessary fiction in explaining the genesis of political life.168 Hume also acknowledges that the fictions of the state of nature and golden age are somewhat useful in explaining the formation of society, but he thinks a more accurate account needs only look to “common experience and observation.”169

When Hume turns to experience and observation, he finds what he deems more useful fictions: the artificial virtues of justice, allegiance, the laws of nations, modesty, chastity, and good manners.170 These fictions, he thinks, have been the actual means by which modern political life has emerged. The artificial virtues are moral fictions insofar as they are useful in bringing about men’s good, and they are also political fictions insofar as they are “human contrivances for the interest of society.”171 Of these political fictions (or artificial virtues), the idea of “justice” stands out as the fundamental virtue on which all other artificial virtues rest.

Hume’s notion of justice differs from what he calls the “vulgar definition of justice”:

Justice is commonly defin’d to be a constant and perpetual will of giving every one his due. In this definition ’tis suppos’d, that there are such things as right and property, independent of justice, and antecedent to it; and that they wou’d have subsisted, tho’ men had never dreamt of practicing such a virtue.172

168 T 3.2.8.3-9; SBN 541-49.

169 T 3.2.2.17; SBN 495. For Hume’s account of the golden age and state of nature, see T 3.2.2.14-17, 28; SBN 493-95 and 501.

170 For Hume’s discussion of the artificial virtues, see T 3.2; SBN 477-573. On the fictional nature of the artificial virtues see the following: On the rules of justice and property, T 2.1.10.1; SBN 310, T 3.2.2.11; SBN 490- 91, T 3.2.3.4, n71; SBN 504; T 3.2.3.6-10, n75; SBN 505-12, T 3.2.3.11; SBN 510-13, T 3.2.4.2; SBN 515-16, T 3.2.5.13-14; SBN 523-25, T 3.2.6.1; SBN 526, T 3.2.6.3; SBN 526-27, T 3.2.6.7; SBN 529. On the right of succession and rule, T 3.2.10.3-4; SBN 554-556, T 3.2.10.6; SBN 557, T 3.2.10.8-10; SBN 558-59, T 3.2.10.15; SBN 562, T 3.2.10.19; SBN 566. On the legitimacy of laws, T 3.2.10.4; SBN 556, T 3.2.10.18; SBN 565-66. On modesty and chastity, T 3.2.12.7; SBN 572. See also EPM 3.36-37.

171 T 3.3.1.9; SBN 577.

172 T 3.2.6.2; SBN 526.

65

Hume rejects the “vulgar” definition because it presumes an independent and prior existence of

“right” and “property.” Instead, he reverses the formula – the ideas of “right” and “property” do not precede the invention of justice, but derive from it.173 Since the idea of “property” rests on the invention of “justice,” it follows that “property” too is a political fiction.174

The “property” that the rules of justice is meant to establish and protect refers specifically to material property. For as the next passage shows, Hume claims that the primary motive for men establishing and protecting “property” was not due to their anxiety over protecting their minds and bodies, but rather their interest in protecting external, material possessions:

There are three different species of , which we are possess’d of; the internal satisfaction of our mind, the external advantages of our body, and the enjoyment of such possessions as we have acquir’d by our industry and good fortune. We are perfectly secure in the enjoyment of the first. The second may be ravish’d from us, but can be of no advantage to him who deprives us of them. The last only are both expos’d to the violence of others, and may be transferr’d without suffering any loss or alteration; while at the same time, there is not a sufficient quantity of them to supply every one’s desires and necessities. As the improvement, therefore, of these goods is the chief advantage of society, so the instability of their possession, along with their scarcity, is the chief impediment.175

Based on the two previous quoted passages, we can see that Hume denies the notion that a man possesses a natural right to anything – much less his mind and body. For all rights derive from the fiction of justice. Furthermore, what Hume suggests in the preceding passage is that the invention of “justice” derives specifically from the attempt to remedy the instability and scarcity of material possessions. Hume thus suggests that the “right” people have to exclusive possession

173 T 3.2.2.11; SBN 490.

174 On the fictional nature of the “rules of justice” and “property,” see T 2.1.10.1; SBN 310, T 3.2.2.11; SBN 490-91, T 3.2.3.4, n71; SBN 504; T 3.2.3.6-10, n75; SBN 505-12, T 3.2.3.11; SBN 510-13, T 3.2.4.2; SBN 515-16, T 3.2.5.13-14; SBN 523-25, T 3.2.6.1; SBN 526, T 3.2.6.3; SBN 526-27, T 3.2.6.7; SBN 529.

175 T 3.2.2.7; SBN 487-88.

66 over their own persons derives ultimately from the establishment and protection of material property.176

So what precisely is “justice,” according to Hume? The fundamental purpose of “justice,” as we can garner from the above passages, is to protect the “enjoyment” of those “possessions as we have acquir’d by our industry and good fortune.”177 To serve this purpose, Hume outlines three rules of justice.178 The first rule establishes the idea of “property.”179 The next two rules are designed to protect property by specifying the legal means by which it can be transferred and the obligations we have in fulfilling contracts or “promises.”180

Hume points out that the rules of justice, though not strictly necessary for men to exist, are absolutely requisite for men if they are to find “peace and security” in society:

176 T 3.2.2.11; SBN 491. D. D. Raphael, for instance, argues that Hume makes the same point in Appendix iii of the second Enquiry where he claims that the notion of individual rights derives from the rules of justice. See Raphael’s “Hume and Adam Smith on Justice and Utility,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 73 (1972- 1973):101-02. Also see EPM App.3; SBN 303-11. See also John Locke, The Second Treatise of Government: An Essay Concerning the True Original, Extent, and End of Civil Government in Two Treatises of Government, ed. Peter Laslett (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 5.27. On Hume’s rejection of Locke’s notion of property rights, see Páll S. Árdal, Passion and Value in Hume’s “Treatise,” (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1989), 176.

177 T 3.2.2.7; SBN 487.

178 Hume refers to the “rules of justice” by various other names: “laws of society” (T 3.2.2.11; SBN 491; T 3.2.5.8; SBN 519), “conventions of men” (T 3.2.3.7; SBN 506), and “laws of nature” (T 3.2.3.10, n75.2; SBN 509; T 3.2.5.8; SBN 520; T 3.2.6.1; SBN 526).

179 According to Hume, the way men go about establishing the idea of “property” is through custom, imagination, and the principles of association – not reason. Hume outlines specific ways the imagination will spontaneously associate a particular object as belonging to someone: “occupation” (first possession), “prescription” (long possession), “accession” (when lesser objects are considered a person’s possession if they possess a greater object that contains in some way the lesser objects), and “succession” (whereby a person’s possessions are passed on to those who are most closely associated with him); see T 3.2.3; SBN 501-13.

180 On the “transference of property by ,” see T 3.2.4; SBN 514-16; on the “obligation of promises,” see T 3.2.5; SBN 516-25.

67

’Tis on the strict observance of these three laws, that the peace and security of human society entirely depend. . . . Society is absolutely necessary for the well-being of men and these are as necessary to the support of society.181

For Hume, “justice,” understood as the establishment and protection of material property, is a useful and even necessary political fiction in man’s attempt to pursue the good life.

Hume’s emphasis on the economic basis of the rules of justice has garnered much criticism by commentators on the grounds that it is an extremely narrow understanding of the concept of justice. Antony Flew, for instance, finds Hume’s almost exclusive focus on material property as a “negative” aspect in his theory of justice.182 Richard Hiskes argues that Hume’s notion of justice is so thin that he provides “no theory of social justice whatsoever.”183 A. D.

Woozley thinks Hume’s focus on material property “discloses how limited and how defective” his grasp of justice is.184 Lawrence Scaff claims that it “seems all too obvious” that “Hume’s analysis is woefully shortsighted and unconvincing.”185 And according to D. D. Raphael, Hume utterly “fails” to “make a signal contribution to elucidating the concept” of justice even though it plays such a “vital role” in his ethics.186

181 T 3.2.6.1; SBN 526. See also T 3.2.2.9; SBN 489; T 3.2.2.12; SBN 491 and EPM 3.22; SBN 192.

182 Antony Flew, “Three Questions About Justice in Hume’s Treatise,” The Philosophical Quarterly 26, no. 102 (January 1976): 10.

183 Richard P. Hiskes, “Has Hume a Theory of Social Justice?” Hume Studies 3, no. 2 (November 1977): 91.

184 A. D. Woozley, “Hume on Justice,” Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition 33, no. 1 (January 1978): 97.

185 Lawrence A. Scaff, “Hume on Justice and the Original Contract,” Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition 33, no. 1 (January 1978): 102.

186 D. D. Raphael, Concepts of Justice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 87. For other similar critiques, see Annette C. Baier, The Cautious Jealous Virtue: Hume on Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 16-17, 83; John Day, “Hume on Justice and Allegiance.” Philosophy 40, no. 151 (January 1965): 35-56; Jonathan Harrison, Hume’s Theory of Justice (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 28ff; Simon Hope, “The Circumstances of Justice.” Hume Studies 36, no. 2 (November 2010): 125, 141-43. 68

What these commentators miss, however, is that Hume’s aim in Book 3 is not to give a full explication of justice, but to outline the principles by which men have come to believe in and value justice.187 His account, therefore, is primarily concerned with the psychological origins of justice and how men become accustomed to hold justice in high esteem. We will therefore look next at Hume’s genetic account of how “justice” slowly begins to emerge in men’s minds and how it comes to be articulated in the rules of justice.

3.3.2 Hume’s Genetic Account of Political Life and Justice

Hume’s account of the origin and end of political life in Book 3 of the Treatise shows that men’s inability to plan a civil society a priori does not mean that social development is utterly chaotic. There is a kind of logic to men’s passions and customs. Hume’s analysis in Book

3 aims to account for a political order that has emerged primarily from men’s narrow and unreflective passions, where order is created through the conflicting decisions of individuals or groups looking out for their own welfare with little thought to the overall public good. This process is akin to what economists call “systematic causation”; the “characteristics of such an order can be analyzed, even if they cannot be created.”188 Book 3 of the Treatise can be read as an a posteriori account of the origin and end of political life whereby reason reflects upon the customs and fictions that have shown themselves to contribute to a free and civil society. Since

187 Hume’s general approach to the virtues in Book 3 seems to be psychological. For instance, he does not concern himself with whether natural abilities are in fact virtues, but only that we in fact esteem them as such (T 3.3.4; SBN 606-14). He also does not concern himself with determining whether Christianity has “rightly understood” the nature of humility and pride; rather, he is “content” to know “that the world naturally esteems a well-regulated pride” (T 3.3.2.13; SBN 600).

188 Thomas Sowell, The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulations as a Basis for Social Policy (New York: Basic Books, 1995): 125. For further discussion of systematic causation see also Sowell’s, Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy, 4th ed. (New York: Basic Books, 2011), 68-72.

69

Hume’s account of political life emphasizes those customs and beliefs that pave the way to civil society, the stark absence of religion in such an account is telling. We will proceed by looking at

Hume’s account of how the idea of “justice” subtly emerged as societies grew and became more complex.

To account for the genesis of modern political life and the fiction of justice, Hume takes us back to the beginnings of familial society. The “original principle of human society,” according to Hume, is the “natural appetite betwixt the sexes.”189 This appetite “unites them together, and preserves their union, till a new tye takes place in their concern for their common offspring.”190 By becoming accustomed to familial life, the parents and children become

“sensible of the advantages, which they reap from society” – mainly “additional force, ability, and security.”191

“Custom” not only makes the members aware of the advantages society brings, but

“fashions them by degrees for it, by rubbing off those rough corners and untoward affections, which prevent their coalition.”192 The bubbling up of an inchoate regime or way of life begins to take form within this fledgling society – “where the parents govern by the advantage of their superior strength and wisdom” and are “restrain’d in the exercise of their authority by their natural affection, which they bear their children.”193 Men spontaneously approve of this affection for their young and feel a duty to care for their children as a result. This felt duty is a “natural”

189 T 3.2.2.4; SBN 486.

190 Ibid.

191 T 3.2.2.3-4; SBN 485-86.

192 T 3.2.2.4; SBN 486.

193 Ibid.

70 virtue, for it has “no dependence on the artifice and contrivance of men.”194 The natural obligation a person feels, however, is partial and limited. Nature instills in people a propensity only for a limited benevolence that extends to close relations, such as family and friends.

Familial society is tenuous at this early stage due to its members’ conflicting short-term self-interests and violent passions. People’s unthinking preference for their immediate interests poses the biggest impediment to social stability:

There is no quality in human nature, which causes more fatal errors in our conduct, than that which leads us to prefer whatever is present to the distant and remote, and makes us desire objects more according to their situation than their intrinsic value.195

The “first rudiments of justice” therefore emerge with parents striving to remedy the violent passions triggered in their children (and themselves) by their immediate interests.196 The parent’s ability to value the overall good of the family shows the inchoate workings of the calm affections. Unlike a violent passion, which Hume describes as a “sensible emotion of mind,” the calm passions cause no “sensible emotion” or “disorder in the temper.”197 They allow parents to judge their immediate circumstances in light of more fundamental and long-term interests.198 As familial society gives way to tribal life—consisting of extended family and acquaintances—the affections expand even more to encompass a wider sphere of people.

194 T 3.3.1.1; SBN 574.

195 T 3.2.7.8; SBN 538. See also T 3.2.7.5; SBN 536; T 3.2.8.1; SBN 539. Throughout the Treatise Hume examines how this phenomenon has numerous psychological, moral, and political consequences: See T 1.3.9.13-14; SBN 113-15; T 2.2.2.20-26; SBN 342-46; T 2.2.8.3-6; SBN 372-74; T 2.3.4.1; SBN 418-19; T 2.3.7-8; SBN 427- 38; T 3.2.1.11-12, 14, and 18; SBN 480-82 and 483-84; T 3.2.2.4, 6, 8, and 11-12; SBN 486-88 and 490-92; T 3.2.3.2, 4, and 9; SBN 502-03 and 507-08; T 3.2.5.14; SBN 525; T 3.2.6.9; SBN 532; T 3.2.7; SBN 534-39; T 3.2.8.1; SBN 539; T 3.3.1.13 and 18; SBN 580 and 583-84; T 3.3.3.2; SBN 602-03.

196 T 3.2.2.14; SBN 493.

197 T 2.3.8.13; SBN 437.

198 T 3.2.7.5; SBN 536. 71

This expansion of the affections occurs by the mechanism of sympathy. Sympathy, according to Hume, allows the sentiments to “readily pass from one person to another, and beget correspondent movements in every human creature.”199 By becoming accustomed to “society and conversation,” men take part in an “intercourse of sentiments” and relay to each other the

“transcript of [each other’s] mind.”200 With repeated exposure to those people and objects that were at first unfamiliar and strange, a “relation and acquaintance” with them forms, and there develops a more “durable influence” – one that can be “peculiarly agreeable” and can eventually produce an “affectionate regard” toward them.201

As society develops beyond the tribe into a society consisting of more and more of those who lie beyond one’s narrow circle of affection, social instability becomes a more pressing reality. No natural sense of duty is felt toward those with whom we are unfamiliar. Instead, self- interest and limited generosity combine with the “insatiable” and “universal” passion of avidity which pursues “goods and possessions for ourselves and our nearest friends.”202 This avidity— especially when there is an easy exchange of possessions—is “directly destructive of society.”203

Up until now, the rules of justice have only been in an inchoate stage of development; there has not been any prolonged reflection on them. It is at this point of near crisis, then, that men feel the impetus to take note of these rules of justice, which have been percolating in the

199 T 3.3.1.7; SBN 576. For Hume’s discussion of sympathy, see T 2.1.11.2-9; SBN 316-21, T 2.2.5.14-21; SBN 362-65, T 2.2.9.11; SBN 384-85, T 2.3.6.8; SBN 427, T 3.2.1.12; SBN 481, T 3.2.2.24; SBN 499-500, T 3.2.8.7; SBN 545-46, T 3.2.12.7; SBN 572-73, T 3.3.1.7-30; SBN 575-91, T 3.3.2.2-3; SBN 592-93, T 3.3.3.2-5; SBN 602-05, T 3.3.4.13; SBN 613, T 3.3.5.5-6; SBN 616-17, T 3.3.6.1; SBN 618.

200 T 3.3.3.2; SBN 603 and T 3.3.4.9; SBN 611.

201 T 2.2.4.5; SBN 353.

202 T 3.2.2.12; SBN 491-92.

203 Ibid. See also T 3.2.2.16; SBN 494.

72 imagination, and promulgate them in the attempt to secure possessions, regulate their transference, and induce men to carry out their promises. Hume makes clear, however, that these rules are not the effect of an enlightened few who possess a love for humanity or have a felt duty to the public good. The inventors of the rules of justice, rather, have “chiefly in view their own interests.”204 Others see the advantages of following such rules for themselves (as long as everyone else does) and feel a natural obligation to these rules—again, not out of a love for humanity—but out of self-interest. The sentiments still need to expand, as Hume will show next.

Though men at first approve of the rules of justice out of self-interest, people quickly experience the inconveniences accompanying the application of these rules. Unlike the natural virtues, agreeable to a person in every instance, the rules of justice are not beneficial or agreeable to the individual every time, for their aim is to serve the overall good of the public.205 Unless a person’s natural affections are expanded to better appreciate the public interest, he will not long approve of justice.

Sympathy already has been naturally expanding the sentiments of men living in society; yet, it can only expand them so far. Good education must further extend the sentiments to allow people to eventually esteem something as abstract as the public good. Yet, even with the aid of education, sympathy has only a “sufficient force to influence our taste” – it is still “too weak to controul our passions.”206 The moral obligation207 people feel toward justice is not enough to make them act in accord with it. The violent pull of avidity proves too strong:

204 T 3.3.1.9; SBN 577. The “sense of justice is not founded on reason” nor does it originate from a “regard to public interest, or a strong extensive benevolence” (T 3.2.2.20; SBN 496 and T 3.2.2.19; SBN 495.)

205 T 3.2.2.24; SBN 499.

206 T 3.2.2.24; SBN 500.

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[N]o affection of the human mind has both a sufficient force, and a proper direction to counter-balance the love of gain, and render men fit members of society, by making them abstain from the possessions of others.208

Men will continue to violate the rules of justice in search of their immediate interests. Yet, Hume suggests that we need not spend our time condemning, overcoming, or purging our anti-social propensities. Avidity, in fact, contains a remedy within itself: “There is no passion . . . capable of controlling the interested affection, but the very affection itself, by an alteration of its direction.”209 When we “give a new direction to those natural passions” we can learn to “better satisfy our appetites in an oblique and artificial manner, than by their headlong and impetuous motion.”210

This re-direction results from the institution of government. Government produces a circumstance where a person’s immediate interest is to follow justice (otherwise they run the risk of punishment). Though men are compelled by government to abide by justice, they have come to appreciate government’s necessity in securing their interests. They will naturally come to feel an allegiance to the sovereign as long as their basic interests are protected. The fiction of justice, on Hume’s account, has emerged as an idea that men have slowly come to appreciate it. Justice refines and cultivates our unruly nature by redirecting it – not by futile attempts to change it.

207 On the distinction between “natural” and “moral” obligation, see T 3.2.1.11; SBN 480-81; T 3.2.2.24; SBN 500; T 3.2.6.11; SBN 533-34; T 3.3.1.9-10; SBN 577-78; T 3.3.1.15; SBN 581; T 3.3.1.27; SBN 589-90; T 3.3.6.1; SBN 618.

208 T 3.2.2.13; SBN 492.

209 Ibid.

210 T 3.2.5.9; SBN 521.

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3.3.3 Religious Superstition and the Political Fiction of Justice

Religion is absent from Hume’s genetic account of political life. This absence, however, should be of little surprise given that his account focuses on those fictions (the artificial virtues) that contribute to civil society. Hume, however, does draw parallels between the fictional nature of justice and religious superstition. The present sub-section of this chapter will show that Hume emphasizes their fictional in order to bring out their moral differences. His praise for the fictions of justice and his criticism of religious superstition centers on whether these fictions help or hinder the interests of society.

He points out that the rules of justice appear to be as arbitrary as any other trivial fiction.

The very idea of property, for instance, “when taken for something real . . . is a quality perfectly insensible, and even inconceivable.”211 He claims that the notion of property is

like many of the imaginary qualities of the peripatetic philosophy, and vanishes upon a more accurate inspection into the subject, when consider’d apart from our moral sentiments.212

In the second Enquiry, he states further that when examined from a purely theoretical standpoint,

“nothing can appear more whimsical, unnatural, and even superstitious, than all or most of the laws of justice and of property.”213 From his speculative perch, he concludes that “it must be confessed, that all regards to right and property, seem entirely without foundation, as much as the grossest and most vulgar superstition.”214

211 T 3.2.4.2; SBN 515.

212 T 3.2.6.3; SBN 527.

213 EPM 3.35; SBN 198. Emphasis added.

214 EPM 3.38; SBN 199.

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But the parallels Hume draws between the idea of “property” and “superstition” only serve to dramatize their moral difference. For when the idea of property is examined with

“reference to morality, or the sentiments of the mind,”215 whereby “the interest and happiness of human society” is considered,216 the idea is not arbitrary at all, but emerges as a necessary means of securing human well-being. “A man’s property,” Hume states, “is some object related to him.

This relation is not natural, but moral, and founded on justice.”217 Though property is a fiction, its utility, that is, its moral value in securing the genuine interests of human nature, justifies encouraging people’s belief in it.

Hume’s comparison of the rules of justice and Catholic “superstition” in Book 3 of the

Treatise further emphasizes the moral function of justice as well as the moral failures of religious superstition. Since nature does not compel us to believe in the political fictions, the rules of justice must be strengthened by artificial methods. The use of symbols is one of the ways of prompting belief in them. Hume assesses the use of symbols in civic life and compares it to the symbols used in religious practice.

When it comes to strengthening people’s belief in the transference of property, the use of symbols is especially crucial because there is no impression of transference. Without an impression, the act of transferring property is such a “remarkable ” that people have learned to take up “symbolical delivery”—whereby the transference of property is accompanied by a sensible impression such as presenting the keys to a granary—to convince the mind that a

215 T 3.2.4.2; SBN 515.

216 EPM 3.35; SBN 198.

217 T 3.2.2.11; SBN 491. Emphasis added.

76 transition of property has indeed taken place.218 For, the mind will naturally associate this sensible impression with the act of transference. The symbol’s effect provides a “false light” able to “deceive the mind, and make it fancy, that it conceives the mysterious transition of the property.”219 This symbolic use of deception, according to Hume, “is a kind of superstitious practice in civil laws . . . resembling the Roman Catholic superstition in religion.”220 Hume’s emphasizes that, theoretically, political fiction is similar to that of religious superstition.

He explains their moral difference, however, in his account of the symbols used in promise- keeping:

. . . since every new promise imposes a new obligation of morality on the person who promises, and since this new obligation arises from his will; ’tis one of the most mysterious and incomprehensible operations that can possibly be imagin’d, and may even be compar’d to transubstantiation, or holy orders, where a certain form of words, along with a certain intention, changes entirely the nature of an external object, and even a human creature.221

Though Hume again draws a parallel between the fictional nature of a rule of justice and religious superstition, he does so only to bring to the fore their moral difference. For, he goes on to distinguish the two kinds of fiction when he says that promises are an “invention for the interest of society,” but the “monstrous doctrines” of the Church are nothing more than “priestly inventions, and have no public interest in view.”222 Hume does not condemn the Church’s

218 T 3.2.4.2; SBN 515. Hume uses the example of the handing over the keys to a granary as symbolizing the giving of the grain contained within it. Also, he refers to the giving of a stone and dirt as representing the passing on of a manor.

219 Ibid.

220 Ibid.

221 T 3.2.5.14; SBN 524.

222 Ibid.

77 teachings for being false, but for reflecting the partial interests of a priestly faction.223 Hume’s critique of religious superstition, then, is concerned not only with the political inutility of religion, but also the harm it poses to the public good.

In Book 1 of the Treatise, Hume provides another instance of how religious superstition poses a threat to the public good:

The Roman Catholics are certainly the most zealous of any sect in the Christian world; and yet you’ll find few among the more sensible people of that communion, who do not blame the Gunpowder-treason, and the massacre of St. Bartholomew, as cruel and barbarous, tho’ projected or executed against those very people, whom without any scruple they condemn to eternal and infinite punishments. All we can say in excuse for this inconsistency is, that they really do not believe what they affirm concerning a future state; nor is there any better proof of it than the very inconsistency.224

Catholic zealotry has led many Catholics to rationalize treason and even barbarous massacres.

Religious devotion is not necessarily a friend of society at all. What is striking about this passage is Hume’s claim—contrary to the common wisdom of his contemporaries—that disbelief in the afterlife leads to sounder moral judgment than belief.225 “Sensible” Catholics, after all, condemn the Gunpowder plot and the St. Bartholomew massacre, and in doing so, they betray their own disbelief in an afterlife since, on Hume’s account, the Catholic belief in an afterlife justifies the destruction of Protestant .

223 Hume’s Enquiry Concerning Morals brings out another moral difference between the rules of justice and superstition: “But there is this material difference between superstition and justice, that the former is frivolous, useless, and burdensome; the latter is absolutely requisite to the well-being of mankind and existence of society” (EPM 3.38; SBN 199).

224 T 1.3.9.14; SBN 115.

225 On Hume’s views on the disproportion of divine punishment in regard to human crimes, see Paul Russell, “Hume on Responsibility and Punishment,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 20, no. 4 (December 1990): 539-63.

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Furthermore, as demonstrated by the fact that “sensible” Catholics do not believe wholly in the teachings of revealed religion, nature does not compel people to believe in particular religious doctrines. Like political fictions, religious beliefs can be shaped or delimited by the customs and practices of society. Given Hume’s principles so far, then, it is indeed possible to moderate men’s beliefs in religious superstition and political fictions. This leads us to the next topic, namely, the role of civic and religious education in shaping men’s beliefs.

4. Civic and Religious Education in the Treatise

In Book 2’s, “Of Liberty and Necessity,” Hume provides a theoretical framework for education. He claims that “our actions have a constant union with our motives, tempers, and circumstances,” a union no less strong than what we consider to be necessary connection.226 This constant union between motive, circumstance, and action indicates that human behavior can be altered, not by changing human nature, but by changing men’s circumstances. Different circumstances will produce different motives and actions. Hume intimates that this framework will equip those who “wou’d govern a man, and push him to any action”—presumably legislators and politicians—to make “better policy.”227

One such circumstance to which Hume alludes in Book 2 is the need to structure civil life in such a way so the citizenry will become habituated to have a regard for justice: “if justice . . . shou’d be esteem’d an artificial and not a natural virtue”—which is precisely what Hume thinks—“then honour, and custom, and civil laws supply the place of natural conscience, and

226 T 2.3.1.4; SBN 400-01. See also T 2.3.1-2; SBN 399-412. On the same, see also EHU 8.1-2; SBN 80- 103.

227 T 2.3.4.1; SBN 419.

79 produce, in some degree, the same effects.”228 Book 3 of the Treatise follows up on Hume’s proposal by outlining the means by which a regard for justice can be inculcated through civic education.

The fourth section of this present chapter will examine the civic education Hume outlines in Book 3. This examination will first look at the main elements of his method of education – sympathy and custom. Second, this section looks at how the rules of justice provide a social incentive for people to become industrious and why Hume thinks industry and commerce are crucial not only for the advancement of the arts and sciences, but also for morality. Third, we look at why Hume thinks the effectiveness of education is contingent on its ability to appeal to

(rather than diminish) the passions of avidity, ambition, pride and the desire for wealth. It will be shown that a secular, civic education contributes to the peace and order of society by working with men’s natural disposition by steering them toward their proper good rather than attempting to change men’s natures or their propensities. Fourth, the present section concludes by looking at

Hume’s portrayal of religious education in the Treatise. Hume shows that religious education—

Christian education, in particular—is ineffective because it attempts to teach men supposed virtues that are unnatural to human nature. Rather than Christian education appealing to men’s natural motives, Christianity attempts to graft dispositions onto human nature that contradict our human propensities. The effect is an interior opposition between people’s motives and actions which ultimately manifests itself as external opposition or even violence.

228 T 2.1.10.1; SBN 310. Though Hume is speaking hypothetically about whether justice is artificial or not in Book 2, in Book 3 he makes clear that it indeed is.

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4.1 The Method of Education: Belief, Custom, Sympathy

“It is therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as the most free and most popular.”229

The opinions on which all governments are founded, Hume says, are those concerning the public interest, the right to power, and the right to property.230 Politicians, therefore, in order to maintain their “right to power,” have an incentive to not only protect the “public interest” and the citizens’ “right to property,” but also to influence the opinions of the citizenry about what its real interests are in the first place. Civic education becomes a primary political tool in achieving this goal.

Hume identifies opinion with belief.231 “[B]elief,” he says, “is an act of the mind arising from custom,” while custom, as stated earlier, “proceeds from a past repetition, without any new reasoning or conclusion.”232 Hume often refers to custom as the repeated experiences that people spontaneously encounter in common life – daily watching the sun rise, for example. Humans, however, can consciously invent customs—such as the use of symbols in civil and religious practice—that either reinforce certain behaviors and beliefs or work against them. Habit (or custom) influences men’s beliefs because it is “one of the principles of nature and derives all its force from that origin.”233 The inculcation of these artificial habits or customs is what Hume

229 “Of the First Principles of Government,” 32.

230 Ibid., 33-34. Hume names self-interest, fear, and affection as less fundamental principles.

231 “Thus my general position, that an opinion or belief is nothing but a strong and lively idea deriv’d from a present impression related to it. . .” (T 1.3.8.15; SBN 105).

232 T 1.3.9.13; SBN 114 and T 1.3.8.10; SBN 102.

233 T 1.3.16.9; SBN 179.

81 means by education. He describes education as “[a]ll those opinions and notions of things, to which we have been accustom’d from our infancy.”234 Through “constant repetition” education

“infixes” opinions into the minds of men.235 Because education is primarily habitual, its aim is not to engage men by means of “solid proof and reasoning”; rather, the aim of education is to instill “inveterate prejudices.”236 Most of people’s beliefs, after all, do not have their basis in reason, according to Hume. The “prejudices of education” will almost always “over-ballance those, which are owing either to abstract reasoning or experience.”237

Hume notes that not all opinions or beliefs are equal, however. Some ideas have such vivacity that they cannot be doubted for any prolonged period. Other ideas never get deeply rooted into the mind and therefore must be constantly reinvigorated. A good education can inculcate an opinion that even “prevails over that which arises from the constant and inseparable union of causes and effects.”238 The reason why good education can affix opinions as sturdy as those of common life is that good education builds on the propensities of human nature. The aim of a good civic education, being primarily practical and not intellectual, is not to lead men to truth but rather to regulate their ideas, affections, and actions by tapping into natural human tendencies and then either expanding them (if the propensities are social), or re-directing them (if anti-social), so they can be of service to the public interest. Civic education thus does not counter men’s propensities but works with them:

234 T 1.3.9.17; SBN 116.

235 T 1.3.10.6; SBN 121. See also T 1.3.12.23; SBN 140.

236 T 1.3.14.24; SBN 166.

237 T 2.1.7.3; SBN 295 and T 1.3.9.19; SBN 117; see also T 1.3.10.1; SBN 118.

238 T 1.3.9.17; SBN 116.

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Any artifice of politicians may assist nature in the producing of those sentiments, which she suggests to us, . . . but ’tis impossible it shou’d be the sole cause of the distinction we make betwixt vice and virtue. . . . The utmost politicians can perform, is, to extend the natural sentiments beyond their original bounds; but still nature must furnish the materials, and give us some notion of moral distinctions.239

The principle of sympathy, besides instilling habit and opinion, plays a crucial role in Hume’s view of education: “the minds of men are mirrors to one another, not only because they reflect each other’s emotions, but also because those rays of passions, sentiments and opinion may be often reverberated.”240 Much of the “character of a nation” is formed by the mechanism of sympathy. “To this principle,” Hume states, “we ought to ascribe the great uniformity we may observe in the humours and turn of thinking of those of the same nation.”241 Sympathy, along with the workings of imagination and custom, naturally expand men’s sentiments beyond the

“narrow circle” of self-interest.242 Education taps into this sympathy by inducing men to appreciate the public good as their own good. As Annette Baier notes, by means of the “social practices of training and education, and social artifices,” one learns to “turn the useful for people in general into what is useful for oneself.”243

Since sympathy has already been working to expand the affections, such as benevolence or generosity, civic education simply helps by giving these affections a push in the right direction:

239 T 3.2.2.25; SBN 500.

240 T 2.2.5.21; SBN 365.

241 T 2.1.11.2; SBN 316-17.

242 T 3.3.3.2; SBN 602.

243 Annette C. Baier, “Secular Faith,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 10, no. 1 (March 1980): 141. On Hume’s contribution to the movement of Scottish education in eighteenth century toward a greater “universalism” see Charles Camic, “Experience and Ideas: Education for Universalism in Eighteenth-Century Scotland,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 25, no. 1 (January 1983): 50-82.

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Tho’ this progress of the sentiments be natural, and even necessary, ’tis certain, that it is here forwarded by the artifice of politicians, who, in order to govern men more easily, and preserve peace in human society, have endeavour’d to produce an esteem for justice, and an abhorrence of injustice.244

Good education must be civic if it is to affect the society at large – thus the need to look to those who hold political authority to help inculcate it. Another reason education must be civic is because of the nature of sympathy. Sympathy is most effective in a public setting. Alain

Marciano notes that

sympathetic communication does not provide brute data. It provides information about the way others (however subjectively) perceive the environment. . . . Sympathetic communication rests on the participation in the same experiences as others.245

Hume’s theory of education—with its emphasis on opinion, habit, and sympathy—contains a

“collective dimension of individual learning through a process of communication based on sympathy.”246

Because men’s opinions about the rules of justice—rules intended to establish and protect property—are at the core of civil society, Hume’s civic education aims to make people’s regard for these rules the most fundamental part of the learning process. The present chapter of this dissertation will next look at the reasons Hume thinks that political life can more effectively advance men in the virtuous life when their attention is turned foremost toward material prosperity rather than spiritual.

244 T 3.2.2.25; SBN 500.

245 Alain Marciano, “David Hume’s Model of Man: Classical Political Economy as ‘Inspired’ Political Economy,” Review of Social Economy 64, no. 3 (September 2006): 381-82.

246 Ibid., 369.

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4.2 Regarding the Rules of Justice: A Means toward Industry and Prosperity

This present sub-section of the chapter looks at how the economic basis of justice in

Book 3 of the Treatise indicates that education, for it to be effective in instilling a regard for justice, must appeal to men’s earthly interests, especially their material ambitions.247

Hume’s method of education does not attempt to change human nature. Any attempt to fundamentally change men’s dispositions is utterly futile:

’tis impossible to change or correct any thing material in our nature, the utmost we can do is to change our circumstances and situation. . . . Men are not able radically to cure, either in themselves or others, that narrowness of soul, which makes them prefer the present to the remote. They cannot change their natures.248

One such propensity of human nature is “a certain degree of selfishness” which, Hume says, “is inseparable from human nature, and inherent in our frame and constitution.”249 This selfishness spawns a variety of other passions, such as ambition, avarice, and the desire for riches. Ambition is a general desire for power and authority.250 The reason we desire power, according to Hume, is because we believe that power “makes us capable of satisfying all our desires.”251 Avarice—“the desire for gain”—is a species of ambition which is also a “universal passion, which operates at

247 In contrast, Christian education, as will be discussed shortly, appeals to things that Hume thinks are too distant and abstract (such as appeals to divine reward or punishment) or to things that are unnatural (Christian morality) for them to take root in men’s natures.

248 T 3.2.7.6; SBN 537. See also T 3.3.3.2; SBN 602; T 3.2.2.12-13; SBN 492.

249 T 3.3.1.17; SBN 583. See also T 3.2.5.8; SBN 519.

250 T 2.1.8.4; SBN 300. See also 497n4, in the Oxford University Press edition of the Treatise, Oxford Philosophical Texts: The Complete editions for Students, ed. Daved Fate and Mary J. Norton.

251 T 2.1.10.11; SBN 315.

85 all times, in all places, and upon all persons.”252 Hume explains men’s desire for wealth on the grounds that the “very essence of riches consists in the power of procuring the pleasures and conveniences of life.”253 Man cannot rid himself of these propensities; however, these propensities can be put to good use if properly steered toward industry and commerce. Avarice, after all, is also “the spur of industry.”254

Inculcating a regard for the rules of justice—which establish the right to property, its transference, and the fulfillment of contracts—helps set up conditions whereby men can follow their less-refined propensities while still providing mutual advantage to one another by steering their actions toward industry and commerce. Under such conditions commerce flourishes.255

Christopher Wennerlind sees the aim of these rules of justice as “the maximum promotion of industry.”256 The rules of justice provide the incentive for men to be industrious knowing that they have opportunities for trade and commerce. With this economic security, Hume seems to think people will begin to look to improve other aspects of society such as government. In the words of Gerald Postema:

For Hume, the social fundament was material, that is to say economic, a matter structured by property relations. Property was not all there was to justice, but it was the core, and

252 “Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences,” 93. See also HE 3:73: “. . . avarice is commonly nothing but a species of ambition, and is chiefly incited by the prospect of that regard, distinction, and consideration, which attend on riches.”

253 T 2.1.10.10; SBN 315.

254 “Of Civil Liberty,” 93. Hume further states in “Of Commerce,” that the “passion for the public good” is “too disinterested” to induce men to serve the good of the whole; instead, “it is requisite to govern men by other passions, and animate them with a spirit of avarice and industry, art and luxury” (262-63).

255 See T 3.2.5.8; SBN 520 for Hume’s discussion of how the rules of justice promote industry and commerce.

256 Carl Wennerlind, “The Role of Political Economy in Hume’s Moral Philosophy,” Hume Studies 37, no. 1 (April 2011): 46.

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once this social fundament was secured, he thought, the political superstructure could be erected. Indeed, he argued, it was the very success of this foundation-securing project that gave rise to the need for government and law.257

Wennerlind further notes that this social-economic basis of justice not only lends itself to the development of the arts and sciences, but also makes way for improvements in the morals and manners of a people:

Hume insisted that property serve as the foundation of society because it best promotes the greatest amount of industry and therefore contributes to public utility. . . . Hume’s theory of justice does not resolve into a mere theory of property . . . but rather, emerges as a rich account of how justice both generates the greatest material affluence and promotes the formation of the most virtuous society.258

And indeed, throughout his writings, Hume links industriousness to the notion of virtue. In the

Treatise, he emphasizes the fact that industry and enterprize are often the “panegyrics” we tout about “great men.”259 Hume adds industry, perseverance, and activity to the list of virtues as well.260 Indolence—the “incapacity for business”—on the other hand, is always considered a

“fault.”261 Hume also finds “an esteem . . . to [immediately] arise in me” for a man who possesses “dexterity in business.”262 Furthermore, a large part of the “merit of pride or self- esteem,” according to Hume, is that it “capacitates us for business.”263

257 Gerald J. Postema, “Whence Avidity? Hume’s Psychology and the Origins of Justice,” Synthese 152, no. 3 (October 2006): 374.

258 Wennerlind, “Political Economy,” 43.

259 T 3.3.1.24; SBN 587.

260 T 3.3.4.7; SBN 610-11.

261 T 3.3.1.24; SBN 587.

262 T 3.3.1.25; SBN 588.

263 T 3.3.2.14; SBN 600.

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When we look to his essays, we find Hume’s regard for industry and luxury consistent with that of the Treatise. In “Of the Refinement of the Arts,” he states that “industry, knowledge, and humanity, are linked together by an indissoluble chain, and are found, from experience as well as reason, to be peculiar to . . . the more luxurious ages.”264 Hume also claims that “progress in the arts is rather favourable to liberty, and has a natural tendency to preserve, if not produce a free government.”265

The rules of justice lay the groundwork for an education that best brings about men’s happiness by appealing to his desire for material prosperity. An effective education must make use of these propensities by promoting industry, commerce, and a regard for justice. The next sub-section of this chapter examines why pride and reputation, in particular, are central to motivating men to abide by justice.

4.3 The Role of Pride and Reputation in Civic Education

Hume claims in Books 2 and 3 of the Treatise that pride and reputation are integral to motivating people to industry and to a respect for the rules of justice. This sub-section of the present chapter will show that Hume’s emphasis on pride and reputation as social passions integral to promoting virtue and social order directly counters the predominant Christian view at his time, for which humility is a primary virtue.

According to Hume, people take pride in objects or persons related to them that they feel are esteemed in the eyes of others. Pride thus possesses a social dimension that education can tap

264 “Of Refinement in the Arts,” 271.

265 Ibid., 276-77.

88 into in an effort to influence people’s behavior through public opinion. A particular object of pride for people, according to Hume, is material wealth. Thus, educators can appeal to pride in order to steer people’s ambitions towards the industry needed to accumulate wealth. People also have a great concern for their reputation. This concern motivates people not only to be industrious, but to be industrious with an honorable regard for the rules of justice. Humility is also one of the more fundamental passions of human beings, but since this passion is painful, the educator’s appeal to humility is not an effective technique, according to Hume.

Hume holds that the “identity, which we ascribe to the mind of man, is only a fictitious one.”266 Nevertheless, as William Davie points out, when it comes to common life “we do and must believe in the existence of self.”267 Pride and humility are passions that are integral to constituting this practical self, for both sentiments “have the qualities of our mind and body, that is self, for their natural and more immediate causes.”268 The idea of self comes about through a person’s awareness of his relation to other objects:

[W]e find by experience, that there are many other objects, which produce these affections. . . . This happens when external objects acquire any particular relation to ourselves, and are associated or connected with us. . . . Its idea must hang, in a manner, upon that of ourselves; and the transition from the one to the other must be easy and natural.269

A person, in turn, will naturally pay attention to those objects he most associates with the self:

266 T 1.4.6.15; SBN 259. See also T 2.2.2.17; SBN 340.

267 William Davie, “Hume on Morality, Action, and Character,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 2, no. 3 (July 1985): 342.

268 T 2.1.9.1; SBN 303.

269 T 2.1.9.1; SBN 303-04. See also T 2.1.2.1-2; SBN 277; T 2.1.2.5; SBN 279; T 2.1.5.5; SBN 286; T 2.2.2.17; SBN 340; Dissertation on the Passions, 2.11, 21.

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Ourself, independent of the perception of every other object, is in reality nothing: For which reason we must turn our view to external objects; and ’tis natural for us to consider with most attention such as lie contiguous to us, or resemble us.270

It is at this point where we see the first stirring of pride and humility. For, when a particular object is held in high esteem, one experiences a feeling of pleasure and when the same object has a relation to oneself, it produces the “separate pleasure” of pride.271 Likewise, a disagreeable object related to oneself produces the “separate uneasiness” of humility.272

Of these two passions, a person will naturally be more attracted to pride in the formation of the self and averse toward humility. This, of course, should be of no surprise, since men are naturally attracted to pleasure and averse to pain:

[W]e must suppose, that nature has given to the organs of the human mind, a certain disposition fitted to produce a peculiar impression or emotion, which we call pride: To this emotion she has assign’d a certain idea, viz. that of self, which it never fails to produce . . . and ’tis as evident, that the passion always turns our view to ourselves, and makes us think of our own qualities and circumstances.273

Though humility involves looking at the self, Hume, curiously, does not align the idea of self with humility. It is pride that nature has assigned the idea of self. Because of our propensity to pleasure—and thus pride—the “good opinion we have of ourselves” is a natural effect of that

“great partiality in our own nature.”274 An implication of all this is that education, in Hume’s view, ought to appeal to pride as the most natural means of attracting people to virtue, and that humility is a strong motive to avoid vice. We will see shortly how Hume contrasts his approach

270 T 2.2.2.17; SBN 340.

271 T 2.1.5.1; SBN 285.

272 Ibid. See also T 2.2.10.6; SBN 391.

273 T 2.1.5.6; SBN 287.

274 T 2.1.11.9; SBN 321.

90 from Christian education, which he shows wrongly attempts to motivate men to virtue by appealing to humility and discourages vice by its excessive condemnation of pride.

Gerald Postema notes that pride, for Hume, also possesses a social dimension, for pride is constituted by a “social referencing principle” which causes a person to seek approval from others.275 Sympathy is thus crucial to arousing the passion of pride:

Whatever other passions we may be actuated by; pride, ambition, avarice, curiosity, revenge or lust; the soul or animating principle of them all is sympathy; nor wou’d they have any force, were we to abstract entirely from the thoughts and sentiments of others. Let all the powers and elements of nature conspire to serve and obey one man. . . . He will still be miserable, till you give him some one person at least, with whom he may share his happiness, and whose esteem and friendship he may enjoy.276

This sympathetic quality of pride explains why men have concern for their reputation. A good reputation indicates that one is viewed with favor in the court of public opinion. In the Treatise’s section, “Of the Love of Fame,” he states:

Our reputation, our character, our name are considerations of vast weight and importance; and even the other causes of pride; virtue, beauty and riches; have little influence, when not seconded by the opinions and sentiments of others.277

In the Dissertations on the Passions, Hume is even more adamant about the dependence of pride and reputation on the opinions of others:

[O]f all our opinions, those, which we form in our own favour; however lofty or presuming; are, at bottom, the frailest, and the most easily shaken by the contradiction and opposition of others. . . . Hence the strong love of fame, with which all mankind are possessed. It is in order to fix and confirm their favourable opinion of themselves, not from any original passion, that they seek the applauses of others.278

275 Postema, “Whence Avidity?” 380.

276 T 2.2.5.15; SBN 363.

277 T 2.1.11.1; SBN 316. See also T 2.1.11.9; SBN 320-21; T 2.2.5.15; SBN 363.

278 DP, 2.33.

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The pride people stake on their reputation helps move them to be of service to the public—not out of love for the public—but from a desire to be praised. In Book 3’s discussion of how to motivate people to abide by the rules of justice, Hume appeals to reputation as a solid starting point: “There is nothing, which touches us more nearly than our reputation.”279 By appealing to reputation through “public praise and blame” and “private education and instruction,” politicians and parents inculcate into the young a sense of “probity and honor” for living in accord with the rules of civil society.280 The results are striking:

By this means the sentiments of honour may take root in their tender minds, and acquire such firmness and solidity, that they may fall little short of those principles, which are the most essential to our natures, and the most deeply radicated in our internal constitution.281

Far from criticizing people’s propensity to pride, Hume claims that a “genuine and hearty pride, or self-esteem, if well conceal’d and well founded, is essential to the character of a man of honour.”282 He claims that “self-satisfaction and vanity may not only be allowable, but requisite in a character.”283 One of the goals of an effective moral and civic education, therefore, is not to diminish pride, but to make it “steady and well-establish’d.”284

How can education most appeal to arouse men’s pride and reputation? Hume’s answer: property. “But the relation, which is esteem’d the closest, and which of all others produces most

279 T 3.2.2.27; SBN 501.

280 T 3.2.2.26; SBN 500-01 and T 3.2.6.11; SBN 533-34.

281 T 3.2.2.26; SBN 501.

282 T 3.2.2.11; SBN 598.

283 T 3.3.2.10; SBN 597.

284 T 3.2.2.13; SBN 599.

92 commonly the passion of pride, is that of property.”285 Wealth, according to Hume, “implies” to men’s minds the power to procure pleasure.286 Even more importantly, however, “riches represent the goods of life, only by means of the will; which employs them; and therefore imply in their very nature an idea of the person [emphasis added].”287 It is through sympathy that we gain such esteem for another’s riches, for by it we are able to imagine the pleasurable “sentiment of the proprietor.”288 The esteem people hold toward power—and the wealth which represents power—naturally produces esteem for the one who possesses this wealth.

People’s incentive to accumulate wealth is thus not only out of a desire to experience wealth’s pleasures. Vanity, he says, is the “chief reason” we seek riches:

There is certainly an original satisfaction in riches deriv’d from that power, which they bestow, of enjoying all the pleasures of life. . . . But the possessor has also a secondary satisfaction in riches arising from the love and esteem he acquires by them. . . . This secondary satisfaction or vanity, becomes one of the principal recommendations of riches, and is the chief reason, why we either desire them for ourselves, or esteem them in others [emphasis added].289

Hume describes vanity as that satisfaction we enjoy from the love and esteem we receive from others. Education can therefore appeal to people’s vanity in order to motivate them to be industrious.

285 T 2.1.10.1; SBN 309-10. See T 2.2.5.1; SBN 357: “Nothing,” Hume says, “has a greater tendency to give us an esteem for any person, than his power and riches. . . .” Hume also states that “[t]here is nothing . . . on which our reputation more depends than our conduct, with relation to the property of others” (T 3.2.2.27; SBN 501). See also Dissertation on the Passions, 2.29.

286 DP, 2.32. See also T 2.1.9.10; SBN 307.

287 T 2.2.5.6; SBN 359.

288 T 2.2.5.7; SBN 360.

289 T 2.2.5.21; SBN 365. 93

Overall, Hume’s account of an effective civic education points to the necessity of understanding the principles of human nature that move men to action. Good education works with and not against men’s propensities. In the case of the social passions—generosity, for instance—education seeks to expand them via sympathy. Even in the case of the anti-social passions—avidity, for example—education attempts to re-direct them by structuring society in such a way that the pursuit of such passions can benefit the public good. To achieve this, education appeals to men’s pride, reputation, and even vanity in order to motivate them to become industrious in their pursuit of wealth and fame. Not only will people prosper under such a regime, but morals will improve as men come to have a regard for the rules of justice and have the opportunity to live in accord with their nature. An education that fails to recognize the requisite utility of these various passions in bringing about the overall peace and order of society will cause more harm than good. We turn now to Hume’s account of Christian education as one such example.

4.4 Why Religious Education is Ineffective

This sub-section of the chapter will argue that, according to Hume, there is an inherent instability in the religious conviction of Christians. No amount of education can apparently correct this weakness. This instability of belief is not due to the method of religious education which, according to Hume, rightly makes use of custom, but is due to the failure of Christians to have a proper grasp of human nature. This failure manifests itself especially in the epistemological and moral aims of Christian education. We shall first take a look at what Hume considers the epistemological problem plaguing Christians. 94

In Book 1 Hume claims that though Catholics profess to believe in a future life, most of them do not hold this belief “with a true and establish’d judgment.”290 This failure to believe in the divine teachings of the Church is, on Hume’s account, an epistemological problem for the votary, not a moral one:

A future state is so far remov’d from our comprehension, and we have so obscure an idea of the manner, in which we shall exist after the dissolution of the body, that all the reasons we can invent, however strong in themselves, and however much assisted by education, are never able with slow imaginations to surmount this difficulty, or bestow a sufficient authority and force on the idea.291

Since “belief,” according to Hume, “is an act of the mind arising from custom,” belief in the afterlife is by nature weak since men cannot experience it at present.292 We can form only a

“faint idea . . . of our future condition, dervi’d from its want of resemblance to the present life.”293 Due to the frailty of such belief, the “bulk of mankind” displays a “universal carelessness and stupidity . . . with regard to a future state” and an “obstinate incredulity” with respect to the afterlife.294 With “no formal principles of infidelity,” they show themselves to be

“really infidels in their hearts, and have nothing like what we can call a belief of the eternal duration of their .”295 Hume suggests that men’s infidelity to such a belief, or, for that matter, any religious dogma, is not an act of will, but reflects the human incapacity to believe.

Christian education calls upon its votaries to believe in objects too “remote” from common life

290 T 1.3.9.14; SBN 115.

291 T 1.3.9.13; SBN 114.

292 Ibid.

293 Ibid.

294 T 1.3.9.13; SBN 113.

295 T 1.3.9.13; SBN 113-14.

95 and thus too “faint” for the understanding.296 Heresy arises not so much from men’s refusal to believe, but from their inability.

To show men’s lack of religious belief Hume draws a parallel between the similar effects religious and dramatic discourses have on people:

In the common affairs of life, where we feel and are penetrated with the solidity of the subject, nothing can be more disagreeable than fear and terror; and ’tis only in dramatic performances and in religious discourses, that they ever give pleasure. In these latter cases the imagination reposes itself indolently on the idea; and the passion, being soften’d by the want of belief in the subject, has no more than the agreeable effect of enlivening the mind, and fixing the attention [emphasis mine].297

Hume suggests that in both poetic and religious performances people do not really believe in what they are seeing or hearing. A crucial difference, however, is that the poet and his audience know they do not believe whereas the religionist professes to believe—and likely even thinks he believes—but actually does not. Importantly, since religious conviction is generally weak, a proper education need not talk people out of belief. Rather, a re-focusing of their attention from religious things to common life will likely be the most effective tool.

Yet, Hume does not deny that men can achieve some level of religious conviction.

However, to do so one must be dedicated to habitual meditation on religious matters:

And indeed the want of resemblance in this case so entirely destroys belief, that except those few, who upon cool reflection on the importance of the subject, have taken care by repeated meditation to imprint in their minds the arguments for a future state, there scarce are any, who believe in the immortality of the soul with a true and establish’d judgment. . . .298

296 T 1.3.9.13; SBN 114.

297 T 1.3.9.15; SBN 115.

298 T 1.3.9.14; SBN 114-15.

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Devout religionists, in their attempt to achieve faith, must constantly invigorate their ideas and passions by means of “repeated meditation,” itself a religious practice of sorts. Their displayed vigor and energy, assumed by others to be a mark of conviction, is really a desperate attempt to give force to a fiction in constant danger of decaying.

The zealous religionist appears to be in a similar circumstance as Hume at the end of

Book 1. To maintain belief in their respective systems, Hume and the zealot must maintain focus on them. The two depart ways, however, in their reactions to such a predicament. Whereas the pious man desperately clings to his religious system by continually invigorating its trivial fictions, Hume releases himself from his philosophical musings and returns to common life, thereby giving common life authority over all systems. The pious man is pulled in opposite directions within himself. If he slackens his religious practice, nature compels him to rejoin the world of common life where he will be tempted to either reject the religious fictions or at least not take them too seriously.

Despite the drawbacks to religious education, its method is to be modeled. The civic education Hume proposes uses religion’s method of repetition and symbols. The Roman Catholic religion, with its “mummeries,” “external motions,” “postures,” “actions,” the “relicts of saints and holy men,” and pilgrimages incorporates some kind of sensible object or repetitive action in order to enliven the votary’s ideas and stir up his sentiments.299 Far from criticizing the Catholic religion’s method of education, Hume suggests that such a method provides a template for education in general. After all, if Catholic superstition arouses even fleeting beliefs and

299 See T 1.3.8.4, 7; SBN 99-101 and T 1.3.9.9; SBN 110-11.

97 sentiments for objects utterly foreign to daily experience, it suggests that much more can be expected from a civic education which appeals to common life.

The method of religious education, however, is where its virtue ends. For the moral failings of religious education stem from the same problem as its epistemological flaws.

Epistemologically, religious superstition attempts to instill opinions utterly alien to the understanding. Morally, religion tries to oppose people’s natural propensities; and thus, rather than expanding or re-directing the sentiments religious education contradicts them.

The clearest example of this in the Treatise is the case of Christian humility. Hume’s appeal to pride and reputation in civic education suggests that he thinks there is a need to re- evaluate the priority humility has been given by the Christian religion. Since people spontaneously pursue pleasure and avoid pain, pride, according to Hume, is the most natural choice when appealing to men to live a life of virtue. Humility, on the other hand, being a disagreeable impression, is an unnatural choice for a virtue. A religion which calls its votaries to humility is creating a situation where the votary must be duplicitous – appearing one way while feeling another:

I believe no one, who has any practice of the world, and can penetrate into the inward sentiments of men, will assert, that the humility, which good-breeding and decency require of us, goes beyond the outside, or that a thorough sincerity in this particular is esteem’d a real part of our duty.300

The attempt to counter the excesses of pride by humility is bound to fail because humility, unlike pride, is never more than an appearance.

The pious Christian, in essence, must attempt to convince himself that his felt pain of humility is a virtue. His life cannot but become a contradiction. His external actions of devotion

300 T 3.3.2.11; SBN 598.

98 must always do battle with his interior life which is always on the cusp of falling back into the ways of common life. This violence to the self, in turn, increases the violence of the very passions he is attempting to tame. “The notion of duty, when opposite to the passions”—as is the case with humility—“is seldom able to overcome them; and when it fails to that effect, is apt rather to encrease them, by producing an opposition in our motives and principles.”301 This

“opposition of passions” causes a “new emotion in the spirits, and produces more disorder . . . beyond the pitch it wou’d have arriv’d at had it met with no opposition.”302 As a result, the anti- social propensities are actually increased. Humility, and perhaps Christianity, is better left to appearances.

Conclusion

We leave the Treatise with the image of the “honest gentlemen” who make their appearance at the end of Book 1.303 These men are deprived of the “strength of mind” to philosophize, but also lack that “weakness” which lends itself to superstition.304 Being “free of both ailments,”305 they “have carry’d their thoughts very little beyond those objects, which are every day expos’d to their senses” and are “always employ’d in their domestic affairs, or amusing themselves in common recreations.”306 These men embody common sense because, as

301 T 2.3.4.5; SBN 421.

302 T 2.3.4.6; SBN 421.

303 T 1.4.7.14; SBN 272.

304 Ibid.

305 James Dye, “Hume on Curing Superstition,” Hume Studies 12 (1986): 126.

306 T 1.4.7.14; SBN 272. 99

Hume puts it, they are the “gross earthly mixture” which “temper those fiery particles” which comprise the “warm imaginations” of philosophic and religious minds.307 Ira Singer thinks Hume is being satirical in referencing these gentlemen as examples to emulate.308 But such men are those who most contribute to social stability not only by their industry and success, but also because they are not carried away by religious zealotry and political extremism. By directing the reader’s attention to this type of character, Hume seems to suggest that people need not busy their imaginations with religion when their lives can be filled with the material and moral prosperity flowing from the rules of justice, good government, and an industrious people. These

English gentlemen represent a society where the central social role of popular religion has been displaced by men’s turning to those commercial interests that, Hume believes, best serve the public good. Hume carries no hope that the generality of mankind will ever become enlightened; however, the “rough ground” of a secularized common life,309 informed by the rules of justice, is fertile enough for society to be firmly rooted. To therefore properly understand the Treatise, it is crucial to see that one of its fundamental aims is to delimit the social and political influence of religion.

307 T 1.4.7.14; SBN 272.

308 Singer, “Hume’s Extreme Skepticism,” 614.

309 Danford, Problem of Reason, 87.

Chapter Two The Political Theology of The Natural History of Religion

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The Political Theology of The Natural History of Religion

Introduction

Hume’s interest in the political significance of religion becomes explicit almost

immediately after the publication of Book 3 of the Treatise. In 1741, his Essays Moral and

Political includes the essay, “Of Superstition and Enthusiasm,” which concerns a distinction that

will be of immense importance in his History of England. Hume will also treat the subject of

religion more explicitly in his first (1748) and second (1751) Enquiries. Of particular note are

Sections 10 and 11 of the second Enquiry, “Of Miracles” and “Of a Particular Providence and of

a Future State,” which would provoke much critical debate amongst Hume’s contemporaries.1

Hume’s interest in religion comes fully to the fore in 1757, with his publication of The Natural

History of Religion, the first of two works that makes religion its exclusive focus. It is for this reason that the present dissertation now turns to this work.

Hume first alludes to the completion of the Natural History in a 1755 letter to his bookseller, . In the letter, he refers to the work as part of “four short

Dissertations” which included a dissertation “of the Passions; a third of Tragedy; [and] a fourth,

1 In Beauchamp’s introduction to the Clarendon edition of the Natural History, he reports that the Natural History, together with Sections 10 and 11 of the second Enquiry “elicited more philosophical commentary from his [Hume’s] contemporaries than any other of his works published in his lifetime.” See A Dissertation on the Passions; The Natural History of Religion (hereafter NHR), ed. Tom L. Beauchamp, The Clarendon Edition of the Works of David Hume (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007, xi. Notations from the NHR will designate section and page number.

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some Considerations previous to Geometry & natural philosophy.”2 The Natural History was

initially published, however, as the first piece of a work entitled, Four Dissertations, which

included the essays “Of the Standard of Taste,” “Of the Passions,” and “Of Tragedy.” Hume had

previously planned the Natural History to be part of a work entitled, Five Dissertations, which

would have included “Of Suicide” and “The Immortality of the Soul.” Due to the controversial

and anti-religious nature of these two essays, Hume withdrew them from publication.3 They

were never published during his lifetime. Indeed, as Ernest Mossner reports, even the Natural

History was in need of some “judicious toning-down” before it was published.4 However,

Hume’s judicious revisions do not mean that the substance of the Natural History is

uncontroversial, much less that it is religiously orthodox.

The analysis of the Natural History in the present chapter of this dissertation will follow

Hume’s structure in the Natural History. The fourteen sections of the Natural History are bookended by the “Introduction” and the “General Corollary” (Section 15). The middle sections are divided into two major topics: the origin of religion (sections 1-8) and the effects of theism and polytheism on moral and intellectual life (sections 9-14). Of the first eight sections dealing

2 Letters of David Hume, edited J. Y. T. Greig, 2 vols. (1932. Reprint, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 1:223. Hume’s dissertation on “Geometry & Natural philosophy” was never published.

3 Several copies of the Five Dissertations were circulated before being distributed for sale and it was at this time when Hume decided to retract “Of Suicide” and “Of the Immortality of the Soul” from publication. See Beauchamp’s introduction to the NHR, xxiii-xxiv and Letters 1:232, 1:444-45, and 2:253. See also John Immerwahr’s introduction to Four Dissertations and Essays “On Suicide” and “The Immortality of the Soul,” Key Texts: Classical Studies in the History of Ideas (1992; repr., South Bend: Indiana: St. Augustine’s Press, 1995), xiv- xviii.

4 Ernest Campbell Mossner, “Hume’s ‘Four Dissertations’: An Essay in Biography and Bibliography,” Modern Philology 48, no. 1 (August 1950): 42.

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with the origin of religion, sections 1 through 5 examine the origin of polytheism, while sections

6 through 8 examine the origin of theism. Sections 13 and 14 explore the negative consequences of “popular” religion in general.

Interpretations of the Natural History

The overall aim of the present chapter of this dissertation is to examine how the Natural

History intimates a political theology. Because this approach to the work is not common amongst

Hume commentators, the present sub-section of this chapter contrasts this political approach with three other popular interpretations of the Natural History.

The first interpretation views Hume’s aim in the Natural History as anti-religious in tone.

Since the Natural History’s publication, this interpretation has perhaps been the most popular.

Christopher J. Wheatley, for instance, argues that the work “is much closer to being a polemic,

and intentionally so, than it is to being a balanced and dispassionate appraisal of the causes of

our belief in natural religion.”5 John B. Stewart thinks the Natural History “has a strong

polemical quality” intended to “chide, to cajole, to startle his readers, perhaps even to reform

them a little.”6 P. J. E. Kail purports that Hume’s aim is the “rational destabilization” of religious belief, and that the work is “a philosophically important and powerful component in Hume’s

5 Christopher J. Wheatley, “Polemical Aspects of Hume’s Natural History of Religion,” Eighteenth- Century Studies 19, no. 4 (Summer 1986): 503.

6 John B. Stewart, The Moral and Political Philosophy of David Hume (1963; repr., Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977), 269 and 273.

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campaign against the rationality of religious belief.”7 Mark Webb further suggests that the

Natural History is “first and foremost a moral critique intended to sever allegiance to ‘traditional

religion’ – traditional theism in general, and Christianity in particular.”8 Craig Beam, too, sees in

the Natural History “a radical moral critique of religion, and of the Christian religion.”9

According to these commentators, Hume’s intentions in the Natural History are often covert. One must look for subtle (and not-so-subtle) signs of his attempts to undermine religion.

According to James Fieser, “if we ignore Hume’s concealed points we will miss his overall message.”10 Keith Yandell states that Hume “has expressed himself with studied ambiguity on a topic which is laden with emotional overtones,” and yet “he has tipped his hand in just those places and just that manner” that “in spite of appearances, Hume has spoken with clarity to those who have ears to hear.”11

Fieser reports that most of Hume’s contemporaries believed he “purposefully concealed

his skeptical religious views in his writings.”12 Effort was therefore put forward to “identify and

7 P. J. E. Kail, “Understanding Hume’s Natural History of Religion,” The Philosophical Quarterly 57, no. 27 (April 2007): 191.

8 Mark Webb, “The Argument of the Natural History,” Hume Studies 17 (1991): 141.

9 Craig Beam, “Hume and Nietzsche: Naturalists, Ethicists, Anti-Christians,” Hume Studies 22, no. 2 (November 1996): 303. See also 307-08.

10 James Fieser, “Hume’s Concealed Attack on Religion and His Early Critics,” Journal of Philosophical Research 20 (1995): 439.

11 Keith Yandell, “Hume on Religious Belief,” in Hume: A Re-evaluation, eds. Donald W. Livingston and James T. King (New York: Fordham University Press, 1976): 110.

12 Fieser, “Hume’s Concealed Attack,” 443.

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decode” his views.13 The very notion of Hume writing a natural history of religion struck his

contemporaries as suspicious. Though natural histories were so much in vogue in Hume’s time

that they surpassed the novel in popularity,14 the notion of a natural history of religion would

have been almost unthinkable if not sacrilegious in the eighteenth-century.15 H. E. Root reports

that many of Hume’s readers found the Natural History to be “nothing but subversive and

dangerous” and “at best too skeptical and at worst an outrage.”16 A reviewer of the Natural

History expresses this prevailing attitude:

It was, however to be wished, that his talents had been employed on all occasions to serve the cause of religion . . . because if he were so much in the secret as to know us all to be under a delusion, . . . to undeceive us certainly would introduce anarchy and confusion.17

One of the reasons a natural history of religion would have made Hume’s contemporaries skittish is because “providential history” was almost universally accepted during the eighteenth- century. Richard Popkin tells us that

13 Fieser, “Hume’s Concealed Attack,” 431.

14 Robert James Merrett, “Natural History and the Eighteenth-Century English Novel,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 25, no. 2 (Winter 1991-1992): 145. On the popularity of natural history within the sciences, see John R. R. Christie, “Ideology and Representation in Eighteenth-Century Natural History,” Oxford Art Journal 13, no. 1 (1990): 3.

15 See, for instance, William Warburton and Richard Hurd, Remarks on Mr. David Hume’s Essay on the natural history of religion: addressed to the Rev. Dr. Warburton (London: printed for M. Cooper, 1757), in Early Responses to Hume: Writings on Religion, ed. James Fieser, vol. 5 (Bristol, England: Thoemmes Press, 2001), 301- 48.

16 H. E. Root, introduction to The Natural History of Religion (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1957), 8.

17 Anonymous, “Review of Four Dissertations,” in The Literary Magazine: or Universal Review, (December 1757), in Early Responses to Religion, 5:289.

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[i]n the over-all interpretative framework then accepted by the European intellectual world, the human drama, as set forth in the historical record, is part of a . It is a Providential history, the unfolding of man’s relations with God.18

This perspective held true in particular for biblical history where God’s mysterious purposes and

miraculous interventions were revealed. Popkin continues:

In these terms, human history starts with the events in Genesis and develops from there to its present diverse stages. Its most crucial events are major experiences in the march from Creation to the Redemption and the Last Judgment.19

Any history that included an account of Christianity, which Hume’s Natural History does,

presumed the supernatural character of Christianity. Natural history and the history of

Christianity were mutually exclusive.

Herman De Dijn further points out that Spinoza, with the Theological-Political Treatise

(1670), and Hume, with the Natural History, “were among the first modern thinkers to study religion as a natural phenomenon.”20 Spinoza rejected the mystical elements of biblical history

and proposed that “all religion can and should be interpreted as an aberrant feature of human natural history.”21 Hume’s Natural History, in some ways, carries out Spinoza’s proposal by

removing from religious history what James Force calls “a specially provident deity” and its

18 Richard Popkin, “Skepticism and the Study of History,” in David Hume: Philosophical Historian (New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1965), xvi.

19 Ibid.

20 Herman De Dijn, “Spinoza and Hume on Religion as a Natural Phenomenon,” Hume Studies 38, no. 1 (April 2012): 3. In Popkin’s, “Skepticism and the Study of History,” he names Uriel de Costa (1591?-1647) and Isaac la Peyère (1594-1676) as two thinkers who were among some of the first to reject the notion that history must be religious history (xix-xx).

21 Popkin, “Skepticism and the Study of History,” xx.

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“future course.”22 Religious history in Hume’s hands becomes the attempt to locate the origin of

religion in the past and in nature, but such a history has no ultimate end that would give history a

purpose.

A second interpretation of the aim of the Natural History holds that Hume genuinely

aims to preserve what is best in religion by distinguishing between so-called “true religion” and

“superstition.” This interpretation was already emerging during Hume’s lifetime. Caleb Fleming,

a Unitarian minister, believed that Hume’s references to “genuine theism” in the Natural History

pointed to an authentic Christianity purged of its pagan and Catholic superstitions:

Mr. Hume has finely exposed superstition and popery: professeth himself an advocate of pure theism. and so far as he is a theist, he cannot be an enemy to genuine christianity.23

Fleming’s praise is by far an exception to the responses of Hume’s contemporaries and can be

considered more of a precursor to interpretations that would emerge in the twentieth century.

These interpretations will be looked at next.

Will R. Jordan may be correct to claim that, generally speaking, “modern scholars still

affirm Hume’s atheism.”24 Amongst Hume scholars, however, there are a growing number who

think Hume genuinely believes in religious theism. Those who hold this theory tend to interpret

22 James E. Force, “Hume and the Relation of Science to Religion among Certain Members of the Royal Society,” Journal of the History of Ideas 45 (1984): 535.

23 Caleb Fleming, Three questions resolved, viz. what is religion? what is the Christian religion? what is the Christian catholic church? Wherein popery is proved to have no claim, either as a religion, as the Christian religion, or as the Christian catholic-church. in three letters to Esq. with a postscript on Mr. Hume’s natural history of religion (London: A. Henderson, 1757), in Early Responses to Religion, 5:300.

24 Will R. Jordan, “Religion in the Public Square: A Reconsideration of David Hume and Religious Establishment,” The Review of Politics 64, no. 4 (Autumn, 2002): 688.

108

Hume’s references to “genuine” or “true theism” in the Natural History as referring to his own personal religion. Hume, according to this view, is not critical of religion per se, but only “false religion.”25 As Timothy Costelloe states, “the claim that Hume was hostile to religion requires qualification, while the view that he was in favor of its actual demise is largely unwarranted.”26

John Immerwahr, too, holds that “[s]cattered through Hume’s writings are a number of references to a minimalistic religion that is immune from the usual Humean critiques”—what

Hume calls “genuine,” “true,” or “pure” religion.27

Two oft-quoted passages from the Natural History are used to defend the idea of Hume’s theism:

The whole frame of nature bespeaks an intelligent author; and no rational enquirer can, after serious reflection, suspend his belief a moment with regard to the primary principles of genuine Theism and Religion.28

A purpose, an intention, a design is evident in every thing; and when our comprehension is so far enlarged as to contemplate the first rise of this visible system, we must adopt, with the strongest conviction, the idea of some intelligent cause or author.29

25 Jordan, “Religion in the Public Square,” 691. See, for instance, Gerhard Streminger, “Religion a Threat to Morality: An Attempt to Throw Some New Light on Hume’s Philosophy of Religion,” Hume Studies 15, no. 2 (1989): 290. The commentators named in nn33-42 in the “Introduction” of this dissertation can be included among those holding the view that Hume defends what he believes to be “true religion.”

26 Timothy M. Costelloe, “‘In Every Civilized community’: Hume on Belief and the Demise of Religion,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 55 (2004): 171.

27 John Immerwahr, “Hume’s Aesthetic Theism,” Hume Studies 22 (1996): 326. See also Immerwahr’s, “Hume on Tranquilizing the Passions,” Hume Studies 18, no. 2 (1992): 300.

28 NHR Intro.1.

29 NHR 15.1. Even those who deny that Hume is a genuine theist often find these passages “puzzling” or insincere. See Terence Penelhum, “Natural Belief and Religious Belief in Hume’s Philosophy,” The Philosophical Quarterly 33, no. 131 (April 1983): 172; Falkenstein, “Hume’s Project,” 12 and 14; Kail, “Understanding Hume,” 192 and 197; Wheatley, “Polemical Aspects,” 504.

109

In referring to the first passage, M. J. Ferreira remarks that “[w]hatever we think about Hume’s

other writings, his answer here seems straightforwardly affirmative”—“religious believing is

‘rational.’”30 Gaskin also references the first passage to support his contention that Hume

“avow[s] belief in a god: and not in a god outlandishly defined, but one associated with order and

intelligence in a way familiar to a deist or theist.”31 Wilbur C. Abbot, also commenting on the

first passage, says that “to religion he [Hume] committed himself, apparently, beyond dispute.”32

J. B. Black, when interpreting the second passage, concludes that for Hume “pure theistic belief .

. . is the province of the intellect alone to manifest and maintain.”33

The interpretations of these passages cannot go unchallenged. Despite passages in the

Natural History that, when taken in isolation, appear to support the notion that Hume was a devotee of theism, these same passages, when read in the context of conflicting statements of

Hume’s, do not support such an interpretation. The evidence for this claim will be taken up

throughout this chapter of the dissertation.

A third general approach to the Natural History is also found predominantly amongst

current scholars. This approach holds that the Natural History is primarily an attempt at a

30 M. J. Ferreira, “Religion’s ‘Foundation in Reason’: The Common Sense of Hume’s Natural History,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 24, no. 4 (December 1994): 566. See also Nicholas Capaldi, “Hume’s Philosophy of Religion: God without Ethics,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 1 (1970): 234: “Hume accepts God’s existence and he accepts as legitimate the argument from design.”

31 J. C. A. Gaskin, “Hume’s Attenuated Deism,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 65 (1983):164-65.

32 Wilbur C. Abbott, “David Hume: Philosopher-Historian,” in Adventures in Reputation with an Essay on Some “New” History and Historians (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1935), 142.

33 J. B. Black, The Art of History: A Study of Four Great Historians of the Eighteenth Century (New York: F. S. Crofts & Co., 1926), 103-04.

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philosophical or scientific natural history. Hume’s goal is the disinterested description and explanation of religious phenomena. Anton Thomsen, for instance, finds in the Natural History the “origin of the modern science of religion” whereby a “psychological historical” account is given for the “origin and development of religious conceptions.”34 George Sabine, too, finds in

the work “the first important attempt to give the origin of religion a scientific treatment apart

from a bias in favor of supposed Biblical revelation.”35 Likewise, according to Lorne

Falkenstein, “Hume’s purpose in ‘The natural history’, was just what he said it was: to

investigate the psychological causes of the first religious beliefs. ‘The natural history’ has no

important hidden message.”36 And in J. O’Higgins’s view, the Natural History is “what its title

suggests, not anti-religious propaganda . . . but a natural history, in the eighteenth-century ,

intended to explain the irreducible phenomenon of religion.”37 H. E. Root further claims that

Hume in the Natural History acts as a “detached outsider” who “gives us what he takes to be all

the relevant facts, or at least a representative selection of all the facts.”38 “After all,” Root tells us, “this is what a natural history ought to do.”39 It is this “detachment, this natural historian’s

34 Anton Thomsen, “David Hume’s Natural History of Religion,” The Monist 19, no. 2 (April 1909): 269- 70.

35 George H. Sabine, “Hume’s Contribution to the Historical Method,” The Philosophical Review 15, no. 1 (January 1906): 30.

36 Falkenstein, “Hume’s Project,” 17.

37 O’Higgins, “Hume and the Deists,” 494.

38 Root, introduction to NHR, 15.

39 Ibid., 15-16.

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attitude toward religion,” according to Root, “which most enraged Hume’s orthodox

contemporaries.”40

Falkenstein, O’Higgins, and Root refer to eighteenth-century natural histories as though

they were strict scientific manuals. But they were not. One of the reasons, in fact, that natural

histories surpassed novels in popularity is because, as Robeert Merrett reports, natural history was “considered both as a literary genre and as a scientific pursuit.”41 In Hume’s day, natural

history still straddled the worlds of the literary imagination and scientific .42

John Christie also reports that eighteenth-century natural history, especially among the

Scottish, “bore an ideological charge” to improve whatever the subject was under study:

Improvement was the name for the directive ideology of modernization which characterized much of eighteenth-century lowland Scottish existence. Its main connotation was economistic. . . . Behind it all lay a sense of the need to remake Scotland in the image of a modern commercial nation such as Holland or England. . . .43

40 Root, introduction to NHR,16.

41 Merrett, “Natural History,” 145.

42 In examining the philosophical and scientific merits of the Natural History, Michel Malherbe considers the Natural History more philosophic than scientific. He does not see the Natural History engaging in the inductive task of collecting and describing religious phenomena as a modern scientist does, but rather he sees an attempt at a “causal or a philosophical history.” See Malherbe, “Hume’s Natural History of Religion,” Hume Studies 21, no. 2 (November 1995): 257. Craig Walton also finds Hume’s Natural History flawed in regard to its scientific status. He says that if we attempt to look at the work as having “anything like a strict Baconian sense,” we must conclude that “it is not a natural history at all.” The work, according to Walton, is “more a diatribe . . . with a serious moral purpose, than a sifting of historical evidence.” See Walton, “Hume’s England as a Natural History of Morals,” in Liberty in Hume’s “History of England,” eds. Nicholas Capaldi and Donald W. Livingston (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990), 3-4.

43 Christie, “Ideology and Representation,” 4.

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Given the Treatise’s hope of “improving” religion, Christie’s observations are even more pertinent when reading the Natural History. Hume’s decision to write within such a popular form as natural history indicates that he intended his work to be read by the general public and not just the philosophical elite. It appears that the Natural History was meant for conversations in parlor rooms and over games of billiards, not hidden away on a shelf for the benefit of the rare learned soul.

Aim and Method

Generally absent from the above three interpretations of the Natural History is a recognition of Hume’s fundamental concern for tempering religion to make it suitable for modern political life. In the words of Donald T. Siebert: “Hume seems to reach no conclusion about religion and society” in the Natural History or the Dialogues: “What is religion’s place, if any? Is there a way to make religion useful or at least render it harmless? In both works Hume washes his hands of the problem. . . .”44 Contrary to Siebert, the present chapter of this dissertation argues that the Natural History both points to a variety of ways religion is made socially amendable and expresses opinions on what ought to be repudiated in religion and what in religion ought to be encouraged. This is not to say that Hume’s Natural History has a ready-

44 Donald T. Siebert, The Moral Animus of David Hume (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1990), 63. In another article, Siebert expresses a view which sounds closer to what the present chapter argues. Though he says that “Hume has no programme, as such, or ready answer” to the social problems of religion, Siebert also recognizes that implicit in the Natural History is an “appreciation” for circumstances that can “control” or “even neutralize the dangerous caprices of pious zeal.” See Siebert, “Hume on Idolatry and Incarnation,” Journal of the History of Ideas 45, no. 3 (July-September 1984): 381.

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made social program for religion just waiting to be implemented. What we do find, however, are

allusions to various “accidents and causes”45 that have historically shown themselves to either

increase or decrease the harmful social effects of religion. Hume indicates that these

circumstances do not need to be invented by men so much as to be recognized and cultivated.

Keith Yandell claims that the Natural History’s treatment of religion is “individualistic,”

whereby “[e]ach person is treated by Hume as an autonomous set of belief-producing

propensities.”46 The present chapter of this dissertation will argue that, contrary to Yandell,

Hume’s concern for the religious principles of individual agents is almost entirely absent from

the Natural History. The Natural History certainly draws upon examples of individual persons in

illustrating certain points, but Hume always uses such instances to draw attention to the general

effects of religion on human nature and society. He concerns himself with public religion, public

worship, and the gods of the city or nation.

The present chapter of this dissertation will divide its discussion of the Natural History’s

political theology into three parts. Part One looks at Hume’s account of the principles of human

nature which give rise to “belief in invisible, intelligent power.”47 The principles of theism and

polytheism are shown by Hume not to differ in kind, since both stem from human nature, but

only in degree. Part Two looks at Hume’s moral critique of those religious qualities he thinks

affect social stability and political liberty. Since Hume claims that the principles giving rise to

45 NHR Intro.1.

46 Keith E. Yandell, “Hume’s Explanation of Religious Belief,” Hume Studies 5, no. 2 (November 1979): 98.

47 NHR Intro.1.

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religious belief are “secondary” (and therefore malleable), he suggests the possibility for various

“accidents and causes” to “pervert” (or even “prevent”) the “operation” of religious principles.48

Part Three therefore focuses on several of the causes that for Hume moderate religious belief.

Hume indicates how educational, political, scientific, and economic circumstances shape the

religiosity of a people. In the Natural History, when Hume judges religion’s moral and intellectual effects on society, it is polytheism (also referred to by Hume as paganism or idolatry) that emerges as his religion of political choice. The present chapter of this dissertation concludes by assessing what a modern form of paganism might look like for Hume.

Hume’s “Dedication” to the Four Dissertations sets the stage for approaching the Natural

History’s political theology.49 The “Dedication” is an open letter of support to Mr. Home, a

Presbyterian clergyman who had written the controversial play “Douglas.” The controversy of

the play was not its content, but the simple fact that it was written by a reverend minister and

viewed by other clergy.50 To Mr. Home, Hume writes that despite the “opposition, which prevails between us, with regard to many of our speculative tenets . . . our common passion for

science and letters served as a cement to our friendship.”51 Hume refers to the ancient Greeks and Romans as models of friendship because they cherished “liberty of thought” which allowed

48 NHR Intro.1.

49 “Dedication,” in Four Dissertations and Essays “On Suicide” and “The Immortality of the Soul,” (1992; repr., South Bend: Indiana: St. Augustine’s Press, 1995), i-vii.

50 Letters, 1:240n1. For other references to Home’s play and Hume’s “Dedication,” see Letters, 1:204, 215n3, 238-46, 452. See also Gerhard Streminger, “David Hume and John Home. Two New Letters,” Hume Studies 10, no. 1 (April 1984): 81-83.

51 “Dedication,” in Four Dissertations, iii.

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“men of letters, however different in their abstract opinions, to maintain a mutual friendship and

regard.”52 “Science,” for them, “was often the subject of disputation, never animosity.”53 One of the not-so-subtle messages of the Natural History is that modern society can learn much from the tolerance and amiability of the ancient pagans. Hume also shows that theism or, more specifically, Christianity, fails in promoting tolerance and amiability. With this preview of

Hume’s conclusion in mind, let us now examine Hume’s account of the principles of religion.

1. The Origin of Religion in Human Nature

1.1 The Stated Aims of the Natural History

Hume claims that the two questions of “utmost importance” concerning religion are its

“foundation in reason” and its “origin in human nature”:

Happily, the first question, which is the most important, admits of the most obvious, at least, the clearest solution. The whole frame of nature bespeaks an intelligent author; and no rational enquirer can, after serious reflection, suspend his belief a moment with regard to the primary principles of genuine Theism and Religion. But the other question, concerning the origin of religion in human nature, is exposed to some more difficulty.54

On a cursory read, Hume seems to be saying that the question of religion’s rational foundation is

clear and that as a result, the Natural History instead examines religion’s origin in human nature,

which to Hume’s mind is a more difficult question to answer.

52 “Dedication,” in Four Dissertations, ii-iii.

53 Ibid., iii.

54 NHR Intro.1.

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Scholars often take the distinction between religion’s “foundation in reason” and its

“origin in human nature” at face value, and thus go on to sharply distinguish between the projects of the Natural History and the Dialogues.55 According to this view, the Natural History

examines only the history of religion and its psychological roots in human nature, and the

Dialogues looks specifically at religion’s claim to rationality. Though Hume gives the

impression from the outset that there is a rational and “genuine religion” which does not fall under his critique of so-called vulgar religion, the present chapter of this dissertation will show

that when the Natural History is examined in its entirety, it does not justify this sharp distinction

between the psychological origins of religion and its purported “rational” foundation.

Hume’s inquiry is twofold: first, to explain the principles that give rise to religious belief,

and second, to analyze the “accidents and causes” which direct these principles.56

In the “Introduction,” he identifies religious belief with belief in “invisible, intelligent power.”57

Because religious belief, according to Hume, is neither “found absolutely universal in all nations

and ages” nor does it have a “precise determinate object, which it inflexibly pursues,” he does not consider religious belief an “original instinct or primary impression of nature”:

The first religious principles must be secondary; such as may easily be perverted by various accidents and causes, and whose operation too, in some cases, may, by an extraordinary concurrence of circumstances, be altogether prevented. What those

55 See, for instance, Thomsen, “Hume’s Natural History,” 270; Wheatley, “Polemical Aspects,” 503; Root, introduction to NHR, 9-10; Streminger, “Religion a Threat to Morality,” 277.

56 NHR Intro.1.

57 Ibid. See also NHR 4.1: “THE only point of theology, in which we shall find a consent of mankind almost universal, is, that there is invisible, intelligent power in the world. . . .”

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principles are, which give rise to the original belief, and what those accidents and causes are, which direct its operations, is the subject of our present enquiry.58

In regard to this claim, Stephen Foster observes that “at the very outset . . . Hume denies that religion can function in a fundamental explanatory way.”59 Instead, religion must be “explained”

by more fundamental causes, that is, by natural and psychological principles.60

Because religious principles are not original instincts, but more like “general attendants”

of human nature,61 Hume’s second aim is to locate the “accidents and causes” which direct the

operation of these principles either by activating or, as he says, preventing their operation.62

There is a practical component to Hume’s aim of articulating those causes and accidents which

direct the operation of religious principles. As we will see below, Hume’s aim to uncover these

causes and accidents indicates that his attempt at a natural history of religion is more than purely

theoretical, but practical in that it will point out means by which to moderate or even control the principles which give rise to religious belief.

It is significant that the “Introduction” of the Natural History equates religious principles with those principles of human nature which give rise to belief in invisible, intelligent power.

58 NHR Intro.1.

59 Stephen Foster, “Different Religions and the Difference They Make: Hume on the Political Effects of Religious Ideology,” Modern Schoolman 66 (May 1989): 256.

60 Foster, “Different Religions,” 256. George Sabine further notes that, for Hume, “[r]eligion is regarded not as a miraculous gift from heaven or as a sort of innate idea of axiomatic certainty divinely impressed upon the mind of every rational being, but as a product of natural human tendencies and passions when placed in the environment in which all primitive peoples live” (“Hume’s Contribution to Historical Method,” 30-31).

61 NHR 15.5.

62 NHR Intro.1.

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Religious principles, at least within the context of the “Introduction,” are not the same as

religious beliefs. Recognizing this distinction significantly changes the meaning of the

aforementioned passage where Hume apparently assents to genuine theism:

The whole frame of nature bespeaks an intelligent author; and no rational enquirer can, after serious reflection, suspend his belief a moment with regard to the primary principles of genuine Theism and Religion.63

Commentators typically presume that the “primary principles of genuine Theism and Religion”

in this passage refer to the objects of theistic belief. But on a careful reading of the

“Introduction,” we see that Hume never uses the word “principles” to mean “objects of belief.”

Rather, the religious “principles” that he refers to in the “Introduction” designate those

circumstances which give rise to religious belief. When this observation is taken into account,

the passage reads as saying that a rational person is unable to suspend belief in those principles

which give rise to people’s belief in the objects of theism. Believing in those principles which

cause theistic belief and believing in theism itself are very different things.64 Hume has not

committed himself to theism at all, but only to the search for what causes other people to believe

in it.

63 NHR Intro.1.

64 If Hume is using “principles” in the “Introduction” to mean the objects of religious belief, he gives no indication of it. At minimum, what the above interpretation shows is that there are important passages on religion in the Natural History which are not nearly as straightforward as many commentators take them to be.

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1.2 The Principles of Polytheism

Now let us examine the Natural History’s first aim – articulating the principles that give

rise to religious belief. In Sections 1 through 8 of the Natural History Hume lays out the

principles of religion. The first five of these sections explicate the principles from which

polytheism originates, and the other three sections expound on the principles that explain the

“flux and reflux” between theism and polytheism.65 The present sub-section of this dissertation focuses on Hume’s account of the principles of polytheism in Sections 1 through 5 of the Natural

History.

Hume holds that the “primary religion of men” is polytheism66 and that to account for the

origin of polytheism is ultimately to account for the origin of religion itself: “Hence the origin of

religion: And hence the origin of idolatry or polytheism.”67 Hume turns to human nature to

understand polytheism’s origins:

But it is chiefly our present business to consider the gross polytheism of the vulgar, and to trace all its various appearances, in the principles of human nature, whence they are derived.68

Polytheism, according to Hume, is an outgrowth of common life. Human daily life is taken up with anxious concerns over “happiness, the dread of future misery, the terror of death, the thirst

65 Reference to the title of Section 8: “Flux and Reflux of Polytheism and Theism.”

66 From the title of section one: “That Polytheism was the Primary Religion of Men.” Also, in Section 1, Hume states: “polytheism or idolatry was, and necessarily must have been, the first and most ancient religion of mankind” (1.1). See also NHR 13.1.

67 NHR 8.1.

68 NHR 5.1.

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of revenge, the appetite for food and other necessities.”69 It is not therefore from “speculative

curiosity” or the “pure love of truth” from which polytheism originates, but from “the ordinary affections of human life” and from life’s “various and contrary events.”70

In Section 5 of the Natural History Hume provides a summary of the “general principles of polytheism.”71 He outlines six principles: ignorance, anxiety (fear and hope),

anthropomorphism, allegory, hero-worship, and idolatry. Because these principles are “founded in human nature, and little or nothing dependent on caprice and accident,”72 these principles cannot be expelled from human nature; however, the inability to eradicate religious principles

does not prevent the possibility of moderating them.

The first principle is man’s ignorance of those causes on which his happiness or misery

depend. Ignorance of ultimate causes, according to Hume, is inherent to the human

understanding:

WE are placed in this world, as in a great theatre, where the true springs and causes of every event are entirely concealed from us; nor have we either sufficient wisdom to foresee, or power to prevent those ills, with which we are continually threatened. We hang in perpetual suspence between life and death, health and sickness, plenty and want; which are distributed among the human species by secret and unknown causes, whose operation is oft unexpected, and always unaccountable.73

69 NHR 2.5.

70 Ibid.

71 NHR 5.9.

72 Ibid.

73 NHR 3.1.

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Because these “unknown causes” keep the passions in “perpetual alarm” they give rise to the

second principle, anxious “hope and fear.”74 As a result of this the anxiety, the imagination

spontaneously attempts to grasp the unknown causes by forming a “determinate idea” of them.75

In the imagination’s effort to do so, however, it unwittingly abstracts the content of its ideas from

human nature itself. This anthropomorphism is the third principle:

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 transfer only the former, much elevated and refined, to its .76

74 NHR 3.1. In the Natural History, Hume does not explicate, as explicitly as he does in some of his other works, the significant differences fear and hope have on shaping the character of religion. In his essay, “Of Superstition and Enthusiasm,” Hume names fear as one of the causes of “superstition”: “The mind of man is subject to certain unaccountable terrors and apprehensions. . . . In such a state of mind, infinite unknown are dreaded from unknown agents. . . . Weakness, fear, melancholy, together with ignorance, are . . . the true sources of SUPERSTITION” (73-74). In the same essay, he names hope as one of the causes of “enthusiasm”: “But the mind of man is also subject to an unaccountable elevation and presumption, arising from prosperous success, from luxuriant health, from strong spirits, or from a bold and confident disposition. . . . Hope pride, presumption, a warm imagination, together with ignorance, are, therefore, the true sources of ENTHUSIASM” (74). The effects of fear and hope, however, are a bit more complex than what these passages might imply, for Hume also suggests that the religious effects of fear and hope are not always mutually exclusive, but are often mixed. He says, for instance, that “superstition is a considerable ingredient in almost all religions, even the most fanatical” (SE 75). In the Natural History, Hume suggests that hope plays a significant role in the formation of pagan superstition. For, as we will see later in the present chapter, he claims that paganism inspires in its votaries those very same qualities—“strong spirits,” “boldness,” and “confidence”—that his essay, “Of Superstition and Enthusiasm,” associates with hope. We note that Hume does not attribute these same “pagan” qualities to the theists in the Natural History or elsewhere, indicating that fear is much more dominant within theistic superstition.

75 NHR 5.9.

76 NHR 1.5. See also T 1.3.14.25; SBN 167: “‘Tis a common observation, that the mind has a great propensity to spread itself on external objects. . . .”

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As a result, we tend to represent unknown causes “as intelligent, voluntary agents, like ourselves; only somewhat superior in power and wisdom.”77

Nor is it long before we ascribe to them thought and reason, and passion, and sometimes even the limbs and figures of men, in order to bring them nearer to a resemblance with ourselves.78

It is from these three principles—ignorance, fear and hope, and anthropomorphism—that Hume

says the “first rude notions of religion” and “obscure traces of divinity” begin to appear.79

Men’s initial anxiety over unknown causes is now directed toward their supposed

whereby “[e]ach natural event is supposed to be governed by some intelligent agent.”80

Since men imagine these divinities to differ only in degree from humans, the mind assigns each deity a “limited influence” within the natural order of things.81 The gods of polytheism are not

“creators” or “formers”82 of nature but are subject to nature as everything else in the world.

The last three principles of polytheism—allegory, hero-worship (apotheosis), and

idolatry—follow from the anxious fears and anthropomorphic propensities resulting from men’s

ignorance of natural causes. Allegory is the effect of the imagination’s attempt to invent fitting

77 NHR 5.9.

78 NHR 3.2.

79 NHR 1.5 and 2.5.

80 NHR 2.4. See also 5.9.

81 NHR 5.9.

82 From the title of NHR Section Four: “Deities Not Considered as Creators or Formers of the World.” For discussions of pagan naturalism, see Douglas P. Dryer, “Metaphysics and Christian Faith,” The Review of Metaphysics 10, no. 4 (June 1957): 667ff; Robert Sokolowski, The God of Faith and Reason: Foundations of Christian Theology (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995), 12-13, 21, 48, 125.

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qualities for each divinity’s assigned role. “The god of war will naturally be represented as

furious, cruel, and impetuous; The god of poetry as elegant, polite, and amiable. . . .”83 Because

the gods differ only in degree from humans, hero-worship emerges as people “naturally deify

mortals, superior in power, courage, or understanding.”84 Lastly, idolatry arises from men’s

inability to envision invisible, intelligent power. To compensate for this frailty of mind, they

naturally associate these invisible powers with sensible objects:

As an invisible spiritual intelligence is an object too refined for vulgar apprehension, men naturally affix it to some sensible representation; such as either the more conspicuous parts of nature, or the statues, images, and pictures, which a more refined age forms of its divinities.85

Ignorance, anxiety, anthropomorphism, allegory, hero-worship, and idolatry are what then generate the primary religion of man, that is, polytheism. This religion, of course, manifests itself in many ways—from Greek and Roman paganism to the Ichtypophagi of India86—but all of

them share in these core principles. Theism builds on these same principles. The relation

between theism and polytheism will be taken up in the next section of this chapter.

83 NHR 5.2.

84 NHR 5.9.

85 Ibid.

86 Hume also names as “polytheists” or “idolaters” the Chinese, the Laplanders, Egyptian mythologists, the Caunii, the German nations, the Suevi, the Lacedemonians, the Tyrians, the Babylonians, Carthaginians, Mexicans (likely the Aztecs) as well as the “barbarous and ignorant nations” of Africa, Japan, and India. See NHR 4.2-4, 6, 9; NHR 9.4 and 6; NHR 13.4.

124

1.3 The Principles of Theism

Hume never defines “theism” in the Natural History. Instead, the reader is left to discern its meaning from the various allusions he provides throughout the Natural History’s fifteen sections. He suggests that theism is the belief in an invisible, intelligent power that is “one,”

“single,” “undivided,” and “simple.”87 This power is held to be the “first principle of mind or

thought”88 – the “author” and “first cause of all.”89 As the first cause, this author is the

“sovereign maker and modifier of the universe” and “creator of the world.”90 As a sovereign and

“wise superintendent,” it governs the universe by “uniform maxims” and “fixed general laws.”91

The deity is also “infinite Being, who exists from eternity to eternity.”92 As such, the deity is

“pure spirit, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent”93 – the “perfection of reason and

goodness.”94 Finally, this divine being is deemed the “only true god.”95

The present sub-section of this chapter will argue that Hume alludes to the apparent

reasonableness and moral goodness of theism because he wants the reader to associate his

87 NHR 2.2, 4.1, 6.1, 7.3, 15.1. At 7.3 he indicates that theism is a “unitarian” religion.

88 NHR 4.2. See also 4.10n27, 6.1, 6.2, 7.2.

89 NHR Intro.1 and NHR 4.10n27. See also 2.2, 5.2, 6.1, 7.2, 15.1, 15.6.

90 NHR 6.5-6.

91 NHR 6.3, 15.1 and 6.2. See also 4.2, 6.3, 6.7, 15.6. The Deity governing by fixed laws, according to Hume, excludes “miracles” which, he says, are “the most opposite to the plan of a wise superintendent” (NHR 6.3).

92 NHR 6.2.

93 NHR 1.5. See also 6.1.

94 NHR 9.1. See also 6.5.

95 NHR 7.3. See also 9.1.

125

positive descriptions of theism with the rational, genuine theism he himself purportedly holds.

By doing so, Hume presents himself as one who shares the religion of many of his intellectual

counterparts. For, unlike polytheism, which is “founded entirely in vulgar tradition,”96 Hume

suggests that there are two forms of theism: rational and vulgar (or popular). As he implies in the

“Introduction” and elsewhere in the Natural History, the supposed reasonableness of theism is

substantiated by those “invincible reasons” to which learned men will easily assent,97 so the

focus of the Natural History is on the origin of vulgar theism:

[S]ince the vulgar, in nations, which have embraced the doctrine of theism, still build it upon irrational and superstitious principles, they are never led into that opinion by any process of argument, but by a certain train of thinking, more suitable to their genius and capacity.98

The difficulty which arises when we try to draw a hard and fast distinction between Hume’s

views on vulgar and genuine theism is that his critique of vulgar theism leaves little to be

approved of in any form of theism, and thus whatever “genuine” theism is for Hume cannot be

what people would normally think of as theism. It will be shown that this distinction between

“vulgar” and “genuine” theism is only apparent and Hume’s intention in the Natural History is to

break this distinction down.

Hume’s contemporaries presumed that theism is rationally and morally superior to polytheism. Hume uses this assumption to his advantage, especially in the beginning of the

Natural History. In Sections 1 and 2, which center on the origins of polytheism, he paints a

96 NHR 9.1.

97 NHR 6.1. See also Intro.1.

98 NHR 6.4.

126

picture of “idolaters” who populate “barbarous nations” like the “savage tribes of AMERICA,

AFRICA, and ASIA.”99 It is they, the “ignorant multitude,” who are “plunged into polytheism.”100 The title of Section 3 states that it continues this same subject of the origin of

polytheism; yet, a subtle shift in the language occurs from third person to first. Whereas in

Sections 1 and 2 the polytheists are primarily referred to as “they” and “them,” in Section 3,

Hume switches to “we” and “us,” thereby insinuating that we make up the “vulgar” and

“ignorant multitude.”101 It is we, he says, who look to “unknown causes” with “fear and

hope.”102 It is we who imagine these unknown causes to be similar to ourselves.103 Yet, are we

not the theists? Why include us in a discussion on the origin of polytheism? Hume seems to be

suggesting early in the Natural History that the origins of polytheism and theism do not actually

differ all that much. It is in Sections 6 through 8 of the Natural History where his insinuation

becomes explicit.

The principles of popular theism are shown by Hume to be nothing but those of

polytheism plus the additional principle of adulation. Adulation is simply the extension of the

logic of the principles of polytheism. In the midst of acknowledging its various limited deities,

an “idolatrous nation” will take on one of its deities as its “peculiar patron” or “may represent

99 NHR 1.4.

100 NHR 1.5.

101 NHR 3.1-2.

102 NHR 3.1.

103 NHR 3.2.

127

one god as the prince or the supreme magistrate of the rest.”104 And because men imagine these

deities to be like themselves, vain and capricious, men presume that their patron god will be

satisfied by “praise and flattery.”105 This theo-flattery, or adulation, reaches utmost extremes as

each nation attempts to gain favor with their most prized deity:

In proportion as men’s fears or distresses become more urgent, they still invent new strains of adulation; and even he who outdoes his predecessor in swelling up the titles of his divinity, is sure to be outdone by his successor in newer and more pompous epithets of praise. Thus they proceed; till at last they arrive at infinity itself, beyond which there is no farther progress. . . .106

On Hume’s account, people will heap encomiums upon their chosen deity. These same people,

though, do not really believe what they are proclaiming. They seem to have little choice given

the trajectory of their flattery, for, “when more magnificent ideas are urged upon them, they

esteem it dangerous to refuse their assent.”107 The perceived danger in not assenting to the greatness of one’s deity is the divine wrath awaiting upon their refusal:

Will you say, that your deity is finite and bounded in his perfections; may be overcome by a greater force; is subject to human passions, pains, and infirmities; has a beginning, and may have an end? This they dare not affirm; but thinking it safest to comply with the higher encomiums, they endeavour, by an affected ravishment and devotion, to ingratiate themselves with him.108

104 NHR 6.5.

105 Ibid.

106 Ibid.

107 NHR 7.1.

108 Ibid.

128

The idea of theism is born. People’s assent to one, perfect, and infinite God, however, is “merely

verbal”:

[T]hey are incapable of conceiving those sublime qualities, which they seemingly attribute to the Deity. Their real idea of him, notwithstanding their pompous language, is still as poor and frivolous as ever.109

Since men’s profession of belief is merely verbal, Hume indicates that their ideas of divinity have not essentially changed from those of their polytheistic forebears. Perhaps the divine name and formulation have become more refined, but the minds of men are still those of polytheists and idolaters.

Because of their infirmity of mind, men cannot long sustain the “refined ideas” of “unity and infinity, simplicity and spirituality.”110 Such ideas are “somewhat disproportioned to vulgar

comprehension” and “remain not long in their original purity.”111 Men will naturally look to

demi-gods to serve as mediators or middle-beings between the deity and themselves. In time,

these mediators, being closer in likeness to human nature, become the “chief objects of devotion,

and gradually recall that idolatry, which had been formerly banished by the ardent prayers and

panegyrics of timorous and indigent mortals.”112 Theism will naturally morph back into polytheism. The Roman Catholic faith is a special instance for Hume of a religion reverting back to its pagan roots. The Virgin Mary, the intercession of the saints, and the sacrament of the Real

109 NHR 7.1.

110 NHR 8.2.

111 Ibid.

112 Ibid.

129

Presence reflect that the Catholic Faith in Hume’s view is, as Peter Gay puts it, “a polytheistic superstition masquerading as a monotheistic creed.”113

But polytheism’s return does not last either. People’s fears and anxieties again “make the tide turn again towards theism.”114 Hume portrays this fluid exchange between theism and polytheism as an “alternate revolution of human sentiments”:

The feeble apprehensions of men cannot be satisfied with conceiving their deity as a pure spirit and perfect intelligence; and yet their natural terrors keep them from imputing to him the least shadow of limitation and imperfection. . . . The same infirmity still drags them downwards, from an omnipotent and spiritual deity, to a limited and corporeal one, and from a corporeal and limited deity to a statue or visible representation. The same endeavour at elevation still pushes them upwards, from the statue or material image to the invisible power; and from the invisible power to an infinitely perfect deity, the creator and sovereign of the universe.115

As Peter Gay puts it, “[t]he religions prevalent in modern times were . . . the offspring of a long development, a development that Hume refused to call progress.”116 For Hume, there is no inevitable progress in religion, but rather a “flux and reflux”117 of the various religious principles.

By the end of Section 8 of the Natural History, it becomes apparent that Hume has really been speaking of polytheism and theism as species of one religion all along. Perhaps this is why

113 Peter Gay, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation; The Rise of (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1966), 411.

114 NHR 8.2.

115 Ibid.

116 Gay, Rise of Modern Paganism, 411.

117 From the title of NHR, Section Eight: “Flux and Reflux of Polytheism and Theism.”

130

Hume does not name his work The Natural History of Religions. Anton Thomsen describes

Hume’s depiction of theism and polytheism “as higher and lower strata within religion [emphasis added].”118 Yet, Hume goes even further in homogenizing religion than Thomsen claims. For

Hume, theism and polytheism are not categorically different, but simply variations of one religion. The vulgar belief in invisible, intelligent power is characterized by the fluctuation amongst the core principles giving rise to religious belief. It is this religion which masquerades, at times, as polytheism and, at other times, as theism.

1.4 The Status of Christian Theism in the Natural History

Now that the principles of vulgar religion have been outlined, we can address the question of Hume’s treatment of the Christian faith in the Natural History. The present sub- section of this chapter touches on several ways Hume’s account of vulgar religion encompasses even those religions claiming divine sanction. The second half of the Natural History depicts the great theistic traditions—Christianity, Judaism and Islam—as modern forms of vulgar theism.

Hume thus implicitly denies Christianity’s divine origin. The political fallout from such a denial is that the Christian religion does not deserve any more regard in moral and public affairs than any other vulgar superstition. Even more so, the Natural History goes onto show that European society is morally and intellectually worse off with the influence of Christianity than it would be with paganism (polytheism).

118 Thomsen, “Natural History of Religion,” 279.

131

In the first five sections of the Natural History, Hume does not name the Christian

religion as such. He does, however, allude to it. In Section 1 of the Natural History, he cites the

theism “of one or two nations” as existing about 1700 years before his own time119 – dating

around the beginning of Christianity. He describes this theism as “not entirely pure,” but does

not elaborate further.120 In Section 3 of the Natural History, he draws a parallel between the

“religious fanaticism” of the Getes, who practiced celibacy, and those “monks” of whom his

readers “know by an experience.”121 Later, in Section 4 of the Natural History, he makes a

reference to the theism of “[o]ur ancestors of EUROPE,”122 which can only refer to Christianity.

Finally, in Section 6 of the Natural History, entitled, “Origin of Theism from

Polytheism,” Hume names the practices and beliefs of the Russian Orthodox (the Muscovites),

Roman Catholics, the Jews, and Muslims to show how vulgar theism stems from polytheism, thus making it clear that he thinks these religions have no more divine status than other vulgar religions.

The first time he refers to “Christianity” by name is in Section 6 of the Natural History.

Hume does so in a seeming attempt to prove its divine origin by contrasting it from Islam’s supposed vulgar theism. Yet, there is a glaring oddity in how Hume sets out in his purported proof:

119 NHR 1.2.

120 Ibid.

121 NHR 3.6.

122 NHR 4.1.

132

Were there a religion (and we may suspect MAHOMETANISM of this inconsistence) which sometimes painted the Deity in the most sublime colours, as the creator of heaven and earth; sometimes degraded him nearly to a level with human creatures in his powers and faculties; while at the same time it ascribed to him suitable infirmities, passions, and partialities, of the moral kind: That religion, after it was extinct, would also be cited as an instance of those contradictions, which arise from the gross, vulgar, natural conceptions of mankind, opposed to their continual propensity towards flattery and exaggeration. Nothing indeed would prove more strongly the divine origin of any religion, than to find (and happily this is the case with CHRISTIANITY) that it is free from a contradiction, so incident to human nature.123

Though Hume in this passage seems to assert that Christianity is of “divine origin” because it lacks the contradictions “so incident to human nature,” the example he gives for Islam’s vulgar contradictions can be applied just as much, if not more so, to Christianity. For the Christian religion would certainly go further than Islam in “degrading” the Almighty – God, according to the Christian, literally became man. This identification of the divine with the human is something even the “vulgar” Muslim would reject as a form of idolatry. Further complications arise on how seriously to take Hume’s proclamation of Christianity’s divine beginnings when, in Section 13 of the Natural History, he examines “impious conceptions” of the Deity, which are the effect of the

“contradiction between the different principles of human nature.”124 For here, in Section 13,

Hume depicts the Christian religion as the worst offender.125 Something is awry with Hume’s above “proof.”

Let us turn to Section 13 of the Natural History, entitled “Impious Conceptions of the

Divine Nature in Popular Religions of Both Kinds,” in order to see what Hume says at length

123 NHR 6.12.

124 NHR 13.3. The phrase, “impious conceptions” is taken from the title of Section 13.

125 NHR 13.7n87.

133

about Christianity’s vulgar degradation of the Divine. The body of Section 13 focuses

exclusively on ancient pagan religions, primarily on Greek and Roman polytheism. But Hume

dedicates a lengthy footnote, as long as the entire section, to the barbarous depictions of God

which follow from the Christian teachings of hell and predestination.126

Hume begins the footnote by referencing BACCHUS, the patron deity of the theatre. It is

only “in later ages,” Hume tells us, that the theatre had come to be viewed by the “godly” as “the

porch of hell.”127 The reference to hell seems to lead Hume to ponder how “it is possible for a

religion to represent the divinity in still a more immoral and unamiable light than he was pictured

by the ancients.”128 This, of course, is where Christianity appears on stage.

Hume begins the footnote rather benignly by saying that he will quote the thoughts of

Chevalier Ramsay, a man “who was surely no enemy to CHRISTIANITY.”129 Despite Ramsay’s

“inclination to be orthodox,” Hume tells us that “[h]is humanity alone, of which he seems to have had a great stock, rebelled against the doctrines of eternal reprobation and predestination.”130 Such doctrines, according to Ramsay, “‘divinized cruelty, wrath, fury,

126 Hume’s footnote in Section 13 of the Natural History is the most explicit place in the work where he challenges Calvin’s doctrine of predestination. Morrisroe observes that “[i]n keeping with his method (and with prudence) Hume avoids mentioning any Protestant beliefs that might be viewed by future ages as absurd. Only in one place does he directly provoke thought on Protestant belief, and then it is in the form of a direct quotation upon predestination from Chevalier Ramsay’s Philosophical Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion. . .” (“Rhetorical Methods,” 126-27).

127 NHR 13.7n87. Recall Hume’s “Dedication” and the reaction of the “godly” to Home’s play, “Douglas.”

128 Ibid.

129 Ibid.

130 Ibid.

134

vengeance, and all the black vices.’”131 Near the end of the footnote, Hume says that he himself

“pretend[s] not to warrant the justness” of Ramsay’s accusations, but neither does he deny them.132

On a careful reading of the footnote, it becomes clear that Hume agrees with Ramsay’s

expressed views. He attributes Ramsay’s rebellion against these “barbarous” doctrines to his

“humanity alone.”133 Hume also attributes the doctrines of hell and predestination to “all

received sects of CHRISTIANITY.”134 And it appears that in Hume’s view at least, there is no

(received) Christian sect which escapes Ramsay’s critique.

We see Hume’s references to Christianity increasing as the Natural History progresses.

The last sections of the Natural History give such scant notice to ancient forms of theism that

they are almost totally ignored in his moral critique of theism. He refers only once to the

purported theism of , the Magians, and the Persians in Section 9 of the Natural

History and twice to Xenephon’s in Sections 12 and 13. Yet, there are no fewer than thirteen

references to the Catholic faith, eight to Islam, four to Judaism, three to Christianity-in-general,

one to the Muscovites, and one to the Church of England. Most of these references are overtly

critical or mocking of the moral and intellectual influences of these religions (with the exception

of the Church of England). Hume’s aim is certainly more than observing and explaining the

131 NHR 13.7n87. According to Ramsay, those who attribute such cruelty to the Deity are “modern freethinkers,” “Judaizing Christians,” “fatalistic doctors,” “scholastic drivellers,” and “predestinarian doctors.”

132 Ibid.

133 Ibid.

134 Ibid.

135

origin of religion, but involves undermining people’s regard for Christian and other modern

forms of theism.

As the Natural History proceeds, Hume also increasingly distinguishes between

“ancient” and “modern” religion,135 all the while indicating that Christianity embodies the

“modern” religion to which he directs most of his criticism. The theology of the “ancient” religion, various forms of polytheism, is characterized by “traditional stories” and “superstitious

practices” while the basis of “modern” religion is “scholastic” and marked by “philosophical

argument and controversy.”136 Modern religion codifies its beliefs by a “sacred book” or a

“visible authority”137 while the traditions of the ancients are “complex, contradictory, and, on many occasions, doubtful; so that it could not possibly be reduced to any standard and canon, or afford any determinate articles of faith.”138 Hume’s critique of modern religion in the closing

sections of the Natural History shows that he thinks it is no more deserving of our respect (and

no less deserving of our ridicule) than religions from a bygone era.

Hume, in fact, shows more regard for the ancient forms of theism than for the great

traditions of theism found in modern times. Xerxes the Persian—not Abraham, the Jew—is

deemed by Hume worthy of the accolade “monotheist.”139 Those Hume calls “real theists” are

135 See, for instance, NHR 3.5, 9.2, especially 12.17, 19, and 26.

136 NHR 11.2-3.

137 NHR 11.3.

138 NHR 12.17.

139 NHR 9.4.

136

not the Muslims, but the pagan philosophers Anaxagoras and .140 And those Hume

honors with the appellation of “genuine theists” are not the Christians, but the ancient Getes.141

Since so many commentators today think that Hume embraces “genuine theism,” we

ought to ask what he means to convey by designating the Getes as its representatives.142 H. E.

Root has an important insight on this matter:

To ask what Hume understood the nature of religion to be is not to ask whether he gives any abstract definitions of the Essence of Religion. It is more to ask what sort of descriptions and what sort of facts he thinks bring out the character of religion.143

Hume’s decision to name the Getes as “genuine theists” is all the more significant given that it is

the only time he provides a concrete instance of genuine theism in his writings.

When we take a closer look at the Getes, we see that Hume’s depiction of genuine theism is the opposite of the rational, elite theism that commentators commonly think Hume believed.

Hume’s discussion of the Getes occurs in Section 7 of the Natural History where the stated aim of the section is to provide evidence of theism’s origin in polytheism. Already, we need to be

140 NHR 4.10n27.

141 See NHR 3.6 and 7.3.

142 Interestingly enough, when contemporary scholars deal with the issue of Hume’s purported “genuine theism,” the Getes go largely unnoticed. James Fieser is an exception. In looking at the Gete passage in the Natural History, he digs deeper by reflecting a bit on the Herodotus passage which Hume references as his source. However, Fieser’s approach to the Herodotus passage is more descriptive than analytical. He does not note the irony of naming them “genuine theists,” nor does he seem to notice the analogy that can be made between the Getes and the Christians. See Fieser, “Hume’s Concealed Attack,” 438. To be discussed below, Peter Gay makes a general observation about the aim of the Natural History which sheds light on Hume’s use of the Getes as stand-ins for Christians: “to examine the ‘natural’ history of religion is to treat the sacred as a social phenomenon like any other and to strip it of the privileged status on which its prestige depends” (Rise of Modern Paganism, 409).

143 Root, introduction to NHR, 14.

137

watchful. Hume is using the Getes’s genuine theism as an example of vulgar religion.144 What qualifies the Getes to be called “genuine theists” for Hume is their acknowledgment of their deity as the one, true god while rejecting all other religions as false:

The GETES . . . were genuine theists and Unitarians. They affirmed ZAMOLXIS, their deity, to be the only true god; and asserted the worship of all other nations to be addressed to mere fictions and chimeras.145

Hume immediately makes it apparent that though the theism of the Getes is genuine, it is no less

ridiculous:

But were their religious principles any more refined, on account of these magnificent pretensions? Every fifth year they sacrificed a human victim, whom they sent as a messenger to their deity, in order to inform him of their wants and necessities. And when it thundered, they were so provoked, that, in order to return the defiance, they let fly arrows at him, and declined not the combat as unequal.146

Since Hume’s contemporaries generally assumed that genuine theism designated Christian

theism,147 naming the Getes genuine theists is clearly meant to degrade Christian theism by

equating it with the absurd practices of these pagans. When we turn to Herodotus’s Persian

Wars, which Hume cites as his source on the Getes, we find further evidence that Hume’s main

target is the Christian faith. Herodotus reports that Zalmoxis, the god of the Getes, was said to be

144 The other instances of vulgar theism to which Hume refers in Section 7 are the practices and beliefs of the Magians, the Muslims, and the wearing of the scapular by Roman Catholics – again showing that contemporary theism does not escape the appellation of “vulgar.”

145 NHR 7.3.

146 Ibid.

147 See Warburton, Remarks on Hume, in Responses to Hume 5:327; Caleb Fleming, Three questions, in Early Responses to Religion, 5:300. See also Fieser’s comments on Warburton’s response to the Gete passage in “Concealed Attack,” 438.

138

a man who lived amongst the “poor ignorant race” of the Thracians.148 He taught that they and their posterity were destined for immortality. Unbeknownst to the Getes, however, Zalmoxis had a secret apartment built and, when it was finished, he “withdrew, vanishing suddenly” from the people who then “mourned over him as one dead.”149

He meanwhile abode in his secret chamber three full years, after which he came forth from his concealment, and showed himself once more to his countrymen, who were thus brought to believe in the truth of what he had taught them.150

Is it mere coincidence that Hume chooses this ancient sect, which believed in something akin to divine incarnation and resurrection, to be the representatives of genuine theism? The Getes—and by implication, the Christians—are dupes of their own zeal.

2. Hume’s Critique of Religion: Moral and Intellectual

Part two of the present chapter of this dissertation examines Sections 9 through 14 of the

Natural History where Hume critiques the moral and intellectual ramifications of polytheism and theism on society. Hume’s critique approaches the two species of religion from the standpoint of morality (Sections 9, 10, 13, 14) and religion’s relation to reason (Sections 11-12). The present section of this chapter will argue that the Natural History’s treatment of the moral and

148 Herodotus, The Persian Wars, trans. George Rawlinson, in The Greek Historians: The Complete and Unabridged Historical Works of Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Arrian, ed. Francis R. B. Godolphin (New York: Random House, 1942), Bk. 4, Ch. 95, 259.

149 Ibid., Bk. 4, Ch. 95, 260.

150 Ibid.

139

intellectual influences of religion is not purely theoretical; rather, Hume’s critique clearly pushes for the adoption of pagan attitudes in society through his emphasis on the negative social effects of theism and highlighting pagan attitudes he finds advantageous to society. Throughout his critique Hume is candid about what religious attitudes are most conducive to society

(polytheistic) and what ones are not (theistic).

2.1 Morality and Religion

The present sub-section of this chapter takes up two primary issues of Hume’s moral critique of religion in the Natural History: intolerance and the so-called “monkish virtues.”151

Both critiques, unsurprisingly, are directed primarily at theism. It will be argued that since Hume holds that the principles of theism do not promote social sentiments, toleration is better formed without turning to theism. It will also be shown how the monkish virtues for Hume are not virtues at all, but are qualities that are either useless or burdensome to the practitioner of them (as well as to others). Those who practice these purported virtues end up smothering their natural propensity to virtue and thus do violence to themselves and to those around them. As an alternative to the monkish virtues, Hume provides us a picture of what he considers a genuine morality, whereby peoples’ propensities and temporal interests guide them to virtue and social harmony. Hume indicates, however, that our human propensities alone are not enough to counter men’s attraction to theism. He thus points to the pagans as exemplars of tolerance and great- spiritedness, suggesting that these more sociable and noble dispositions of paganism, if adopted,

151 NHR 10.2.

140

can play a role in countering the intolerance and slavish mentality promoted by theism and the

monkish virtues.

We now turn to Hume’s critique of religious intolerance. The topic recalls to mind his

“Dedication” to the Four Dissertations where he expresses the hope of renewing the ancient (and pagan) attitude of friendship—the basis of which was men’s shared sentiments, and not their shared beliefs. Such friendship exemplified toleration of those who held opposing opinions. The

Natural History seems to suggest that the notion of “friendship” in modern times has

unfortunately reversed the ancient idea by making shared belief the basis of friendship. The

Natural History makes clear that this reversal is largely the result of the intolerance of theism’s

emphasis on orthodoxy, especially Christian theism’s. This theistic notion of “friendship” lends

itself to intolerance and even persecution of those who do not share in the prevailing religious

beliefs of a society.

Though his criticism about religious intolerance will be directed to theism, Hume begins

Section 9 of the Natural History with a scathing assessment of polytheism’s dismal ethical

record:

POLYTHEISM or idolatrous worship . . . is liable to this great inconvenience, that any practice or opinion, however barbarous or corrupted, may be authorized by it; and full scope is given, for knavery to impose on credulity, till morals and humanity be expelled from the religious systems of mankind.152

This “inconvenience” of polytheism would seem to be a devastating blow, but Hume quickly

moves on to accentuate polytheism’s great advantage of tolerance:

152 NHR 9.1.

141

At the same time, idolatry is attended with this evident advantage, that, by limiting the powers and functions of its deities, it naturally admits the gods of other sects and nations to a share of divinity, and renders all the various deities, as well as rites, ceremonies, or traditions, compatible with each other. . . . So sociable is polytheism, that the utmost fierceness and antipathy, which it meets with in an opposite religion, is scarcely able to disgust it, and keep it at a distance.153

It is important to note that in this passage, Hume indicates that the polytheist’s indifference to orthodoxy is what is so advantageous. He is clearly opining on what he deems a religious attitude that can contribute to securing social order in the midst of various religious viewpoints.

The advantages and disadvantages of theism, Hume tells us, are the opposite of those of polytheism. At first, his assessment of theism appears quite benign:

As that system supposes one sole Deity, the perfection of reason and goodness, it should, if justly prosecuted, banish every thing frivolous, unreasonable, or inhuman from religious worship, and set before men the most illustrious example, as well as the most commanding motives, of justice and benevolence [emphasis added].154

Though the passage suggests that theism possesses the moral high ground over polytheism in regard to morals and reason, the reader must be cautious, for, Hume includes a conditional phrase—“if justly prosecuted”—in his account of theism. It is highly dubitable whether Hume thinks any theistic religion has managed to “justly prosecute” its system. He gives no historical instances of theism accomplishing such a task in the Natural History. Instead, he shows that theism, as it is manifested in history, is vulgar and corrupt.155 And if the flesh-and-blood theism

153 NHR 9.1-5.

154 NHR 9.1.

155 For similar views on theism’s historical failure, see Gaskin, Hume’s Philosophy of Religion, 147ff; Thomsen, “Natural History of Religion,” 278. Both thinkers take Hume to be equating historical religion with superstition. Other commentators argue that the History of England might provide The Church of England as an historical example of a theism that works. This challenge will be taken up in Chapter four of this dissertation.

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of history fails to prosecute its system, the implication is that the morals in theism are likely no

better than polytheism’s.

In fact, Hume points out in Section 13 of the Natural History that the very nature of

theism dictates that its ethical failings must be worse than those in polytheism:

But as men farther exalt their idea of their divinity; it is their notion of his power and knowledge only, not of his goodness, which is improved. On the contrary, in proportion to the supposed extent of his science and authority, their terrors naturally augment. . . . Thus it may safely be affirmed, that popular religions are really, in the conception of their more vulgar votaries, a species of daemonism; and the higher the deity is exalted in power and knowledge, the lower of course is he depressed in goodness and benevolence; whatever epithets of praise may bestowed on him by his amazed adorers.156

Pious language hides men’s vulgar notions of the divine. Veiled under the people’s profession of

the one, true God, the supposed source of goodness and perfection, is, in fact, the belief in a

power more akin to the devil. Hume says that these impious notions of God are found in “every

religion”157; however, given his depiction of theism as a form of “daemonism,” his criticism seems to apply most to theism.

Hume points out that the major source of intolerance and persecution by theists is their

insistence on the “unity of faith and ceremonies”:

Nay, this unity of object seems naturally to require the unity of faith and ceremonies, and furnishes designing men with a pretence for representing their adversaries as profane, and the object of divine as well as human vengeance. For as each sect is positive that its own faith and worship are entirely acceptable to the Deity, and as no one can conceive, that the same being should be pleased with different and opposite rites and principles; the

156 NHR 13.6.

157 NHR 14.1.

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several sects fall naturally into animosity, and mutually discharge on each other that sacred zeal and rancor, the most furious and implacable of all human passions.158

In the above passage, Hume explains what is partly behind theism’s intolerance: those

“designing men”—priests, preachers, ecclesiastics, religious founders—who arouse people’s

hatred for religious differences in order to seek their own personal gain. By using pious

and devotion to cover up their dark intentions, these men are able to pursue their worldly

ambitions under the appearance of sanctity.159

Hume’s point in this passage can be summed up by Peter Gay: Hume thinks “polytheism was crude in its teachings but tolerant in its practice, while monotheism, for all the nobility of its theology, easily turned to persecution to enforce its claim to a monopoly of the truth.”160 “The intolerance of almost all religions, which have maintained the unity of God,” as Hume further states, “is as remarkable as the contrary principle of polytheists.”161

Hume singles out the religious descendants of Abraham as models of intolerance and

persecution:

The implacable narrow spirit of the JEWS is well known. MAHOMETANISM set out with still more bloody principles; and even to this day, deals out damnation, though not fire and faggot [as do the Christians], to all other sects.162

158 NHR 9.1.

159 See NHR 12.15.

160 Gay, Rise of Modern Paganism, 412.

161 NHR 9.3.

162 Ibid. In 9.4, Hume also refers to the intolerance of ancient Zoroastrianism, the Persians, and Magians.

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Although religious violence is found amongst theists and polytheists alike, Hume does not deem

the violence committed by polytheists as a form of persecution. He points out that the

Carthaginians and Aztecs, for instance, chose their human sacrifices by lot or by some arbitrary sign;163 they did not, however, seek to sacrifice their victims as punishment for holding

unorthodox beliefs (as do the theists).

The practice of human sacrifice by the pagans, though in itself deplorable, is not, in

Hume’s view, nearly as sinister as “the persecutions of Christianity.”164 Hume depicts attempts

at enforcing religious orthodoxy by Church officials as an assault on those who are the true

lovers of morality, knowledge, and freedom. He refers to the “inquisition and persecutions of

ROME and MADRID” as primary examples of such attacks:

[V]irtue, knowledge, love of liberty, are the qualities, which call down the fatal vengeance of inquisitors; and when expelled, leave the society in the most shameful ignorance, , and bondage.165

Christian (Catholic) theism, as Hume suggests in this passage, has little interest in promoting

those qualities—such as virtue, knowledge, and morality—that make for a civilized and free

people. In their effort to hold on to worldly power, Christian authorities find it to their advantage

to discourage people from thinking independently in religious, ethical, or philosophic matters. So

despite Hume’s rebuke of the unethical and violent practices of polytheism, he shows the

163 NHR 9.6.

164 Beam, “Hume and Nietzsche,” 304.

165 NHR 9.6.

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persecutions of theism to be far worse: “few of idolatry and polytheism are more

pernicious to society than this corruption of theism, when carried to the utmost height.”166

We now turn to Hume’s treatment of the “monkish virtues” in Sections 10 and 14 of the

Natural History.167 He depicts these virtues as the effect of the theistic belief in an “infinitely

superior” God:

Where the Deity is represented as infinitely superior to mankind, this belief, though altogether just, is apt, when joined with superstitious terrors, to sink the human mind into the lowest submission and abasement, and to represent the monkish virtues of mortification, penance, humility, and passive , as the only qualities which are acceptable to him.168

Though Hume refers to the “justness” of representing the Deity as “infinitely superior to

mankind,” he immediately turns the reader’s attention to how such a portrayal of God abases

men and leads them to practice those so-called virtues which, he thinks, really make people fit

for “slavery and subjection”—not freedom.169 The monkish virtues—practiced by many a

Protestant and Catholic alike170—reflect a morality that, in Hume’s view, contradicts human

nature and morality. For recall, Hume claims that people will judge those qualities they find

166 NHR 9.6.

167 NHR 10.2. For an analysis of the monkish virtues, with emphasis on the second Enquiry, see William Davie, “Hume on Monkish Virtues,” Hume Studies 25, no. 1-2 (April-November 1999): 139-53.

168 Ibid.

169 NHR 10.5.

170 See Richard H. Dees, “‘The Paradoxical Principle and Salutary Practice’: Hume on Toleration,” Hume Studies 31, no. 1 (April 2005): 150. Dees notes that “[t]hese ‘virtues’ belong clearly to monks of the Catholic Church, but most of them were much admired by the Puritans of Hume’s History and by many of the clerics in the Presbyterian of Hume’s day.”

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“useful” or “agreeable” in a person’s character as virtuous.171 The monkish virtues, however, are neither. They are disagreeable to the practitioner and they serve no useful purpose for either the individual or society. These “virtues” are clearly vices for Hume.172

Hume points to a more genuine morality as an alternative to the monkish virtues. Since

people are naturally drawn to certain virtues—to what the Treatise calls the “natural virtues”—it

follows that if people are left to abide by their natural propensities, then much of the virtuous life comes about with little effort:

The duties, which a man performs as a friend or parent, seem merely owing to his benefactor or children; nor can he be wanting to these duties, without breaking through all ties of nature and morality. A strong inclination may prompt him to the performance: A sentiment of order and moral obligation joins its force to these natural ties: And the whole man, if truly virtuous, is drawn to his duty, without any effort or endeavour.173

When we look to the civic virtues—what the Treatise calls the “artificial virtues”—we find that

though they are not as natural to men, they are still more attractive than the monkish virtues:

Even with regard to the virtues, which are more austere, and more founded on reflection, such as public spirit, filial duty, temperance, or integrity; the moral obligation, in our apprehension, removes all pretension to religious merit; and the virtuous conduct is deemed no more than what we owe to society and to ourselves. . . . In restoring a loan, or paying a debt, his divinity is nowise beholden to him; because these acts of justice are

171 See, for instance, EPM, Sections 6-8; SBN 233-67.

172 Hume makes this same claim in the second Enquiry: “Celibacy, fasting, penance, mortification, self- denial, humility, silence, solitiude, and the whole train of monkish virtues; for what reason are they every where rejected by men of sense, but because they serve no manner of purpose; neither advance a man’s fortune in the world, nor render him a more valuable member of society; neither qualify him for the entertainment of company, nor encrease his power of self-enjoyment? We observe, on the contrary, that they cross all these desirable ends; stupefy the understanding and harden the heart, obscure the fancy and sour the temper. We justly, therefore, transfer them to the opposite column, and place them in the catalogue of vices. . .” (EPM, 9.1.3; SBN 270).

173 NHR 14.6.

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what he was bound to perform, and what many would have performed, were there no god in the universe [emphasis added].174

Hume indicates in the above passages that neither the natural nor artificial virtues need a divine source in order to motivate people to live by them. People would pursue these virtues even if there were no God. With no need of a divine foundation, Hume seems to suggest that man’s own inclinations and interests are fit enough to be virtue’s gatekeepers.

However, Hume is under no pretense that his moral alternative to the monkish virtues will appeal to religionists. For many people who are drawn to religion, according to Hume, are drawn to it precisely for those very superstitions that detract men from virtue. “It is certain,” he says,

that, in every religion . . . many of the votaries, perhaps the greatest number, will still seek the divine favour, not by virtues and good morals . . . but either by frivolous observances . . . or by the belief of mysterious and absurd opinions.175

Not being satisfied with pursuing virtue, since it seems too easy and too pleasurable, most

votaries will seek the Deity’s good grace and protection by looking to that

which either serves to no purpose in life, or offers the strongest violence to his natural inclinations. . . . It seems the more purely religious, because it proceeds from no mixture of any other motive or consideration.176

The logic of religious theism leads its votaries to sacrifice those things that are easy and pleasant

in order to satisfy an infinitely superior being. Such thinking leads men to pursue that which is

174 NHR 14.6.

175 NHR 14.1. Hume suggests in the Natural History that the best kind of religion is one that makes virtue and good morals its primary, if not only, focus; see NHR 14.4.

176 NHR 14.6.

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repugnant to their moral constitution. Appeals to good morals alone, then, are not enough to

reform religion.

If theists are to be lifted from their abasement and intolerance, an even more fundamental

change is needed—their very conception of the Deity must be altered. As Donald Siebert notes,

for Hume, “how man pictures his god . . . will determine the moral nature of his religion, and of

course the degree to which he will be a useful or destructive member of his society.”177 This is where the influence of polytheism has a part to play. Indeed, polytheism and theism hold up different models for the citizen to imitate. Hume suggests a practical, pagan remedy to fend off theism from the gates of virtue:

Whatever weakens or disorders the internal frame promotes the interests of superstition: And nothing is more destructive to them than a manly, steady virtue, which either preserves us from disastrous, melancholy accidents, or teaches us to bear them. During such calm sun-shine of the mind, these spectres of false divinity never make their appearance [emphasis added].178

Hume’s remedy, not surprisingly, points the reader to the pagans who serve as his model for

“manly, steady virtue.” Whereas theism’s idea of divinity spawns a nation of slaves,

polytheism’s idea of divinity generates a free and noble people:

But where the gods are conceived to be only a little superior to mankind . . . we are more at ease in our addresses to them, and may even, without profaneness, aspire sometimes to a rivalship and emulation of them. Hence activity, spirit, courage, magnanimity, love of liberty, and all the virtues which aggrandize a people.179

177 Siebert, “Idolatry and Incarnation,” 382.

178 NHR 14.8.

179 NHR 10.2.

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Though polytheism is superstitious, the virtues of paganism bring people in line with a more

human, sociable morality. The “heroes in paganism”—Hercules, Theseus, Hector, and

Romulus—represent those who are founders and defenders of liberty. The “saints in popery,” on

the other hand—Dominic, Francis, Anthony, and Benedict—with their “whippings and fastings, cowardice and humility, abject submission and slavish obedience,” provide examples that make for a servile citizenry.180

In the end, Hume suggests that it is to the ancient pagans we must look if we are to

resurrect a truly human ethic which can provide the moral framework for a free, civil society in

the modern age.

2.2 Reason and Religion

In Hume’s account of the contentious relationship between reason and theism, he indicates certain desirable characteristics that a religion ought to possess if it is to avoid being a hindrance to philosophic pursuits. Hume shows in Section 11 of the Natural History, entitled,

“With regard to Reason or Absurdity,” that reason and popular religion in general cannot be co- partners in the search for truth. The alliance between theism and philosophy has proven detrimental to philosophy while at the same time giving an undue regard to religion. For vulgar theists do not arrive at the “doctrine of one supreme Deity” by means of reason, but through their

“stupidity” and “incurable prejudices.”181 Philosophers, however, are deceived by the appearance

180 NHR 10.3 Hume includes the “dervises of MAHOMETANISM” along with the Catholic saints.

181 NHR 6.1.

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of the rationality of popular theism because the idea of a supreme Deity “is so conformable to sound reason, that philosophy is apt to incorporate itself with such a system of theology.”182 It is in this union of philosophy and theism that we see the “proof that the corruption of the best things begets the worst”183—the best thing being philosophy and the worst thing being the corruption of philosophy by its union with religion.184 Instead of philosophy making religious doctrine more rational, theologians force “rebellious reason” to defend their “unintelligible sophisms.”185 Reason is subordinated to superstition:

philosophy will soon find herself very unequally yoked with her new associate; and instead of regulating each principle, as they advance together, she is at every turn perverted to serve the purposes of superstition.186

Hume clearly thinks that reason, if it is to be tied to religion, ought to be its master. But unfortunately,

all popular theology, especially the scholastic, has a kind of appetite for absurdity and contradiction. If that theology went not beyond reason and common sense, here doctrines would appear too easy and familiar. Amazement must of necessity be raised: Mystery affected: Darkness and obscurity sought after. . . .187

182 NHR 11.3.

183 NHR 11.1.

184 Stephen Foster further observes: “The incorporation of philosophy into religion . . . occurs because theistic religionists aspire for their ideology a ‘reasonability’ and coherency beyond that which the ‘multitude of stories’ furnishes the polytheists. In contrast to the mythical aims of the polytheists, theists strive for a literal and systematic explanation of the world. Philosophy is called upon to assist in this endeavor. . . . However, such a project, Hume argues, is doomed. . .” (Foster, “Different Religions and the Difference They Make,” 259).

185 NHR 11.3.

186 Ibid.

187 Ibid.

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Reasonable men cannot curb such blind religiosity. Such attempts are likened to “pretending to stop the ocean with a bull-rush.”188 Foster explains that, in Hume’s view, under theism reason and truth are

pressed into combative service, perverted by its association with an enterprise that criminalizes doubt. . . . The injection of truth value into religion has the effect of making exclusive adherence to a given system of belief an item of primary consideration. The logical corollary of exclusive belief is heresy, a condemnatory of disbelief which supplies the warrant for ‘righteous’ persecution.189

The right use of reason becomes the real heresy under theism, according to Hume. “Heresy,” he says, “always rests at last on the side of reason.”190 The philosopher ought to be concerned when religionists persecute one another, for, “the same fires, which were kindled for heretics, will serve also for the destruction of philosophers.”191 Hume’s point, as Craig Beam observes, is that

“Christianity forces everyone to accept its speculative creeds and dogmas. This gives rise to furious theological disputes and to the persecution of philosophers.”192 Religious intolerance infuses society with the spirit of intolerance in general, lending itself to the persecution of reasonable men’s right to freely think for themselves.

In Hume’s critique of the dangers which arise upon the union of religion and reason, he only provides instances of theism. According to Hume, polytheism does not tempt the

188 NHR 11.5.

189 Foster, “Different Religions and the Difference They Make,” 259.

190 NHR 11.4.

191 NHR 11.5.

192 Beam, “Hume and Nietzsche,” 304-05.

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philosophers to adopt it into their systems. The pagan religion is built upon a “weak foundation” and is riddled with “traditional stories,” “superstitious practices,” and “contradictory reports” from which one finds it “absolutely impossible to fix a preference amongst them.”193 Polytheists thus make no claim about possessing reason or truth in religious matters. Ancient polytheism’s awareness of its own limitations engenders a peaceful co-existence between reason and religion because neither makes claims upon the other. “The superstition of the many,” as Craig Beam observes, “was able to peacefully co-exist with the philosophy of the wise (with a few exceptions) in the ancient world.”194 Reason was left free to pursue knowledge without being forced to defend superstition, and religion was free to pursue its customs without pretending to be reasonable. The religious and rational were two distinct and separate spheres of political life.

Hume presents two very different critiques of theism and polytheism. Though he begins with moral condemnation of polytheism, he ends up emphasizing its sociable characteristics: toleration, ennobling virtues, and a limited role in public life. Theism, on the other hand, is shown by Hume to be incapable of toleration, to promote a morality that is anti-social and unnatural, and to distort reason and philosophy by putting them at the service of superstition.

3. Circumstances that Contribute to a Remedy for Religion

In Hume’s discussion of the ancient Egyptians, he claims that “the practice of warping the tenets of religion, in order to serve temporal interests, is not, by any means, to be regarded as

193 NHR 11.2.

194 Beam, “Hume and Nietzsche,” 304.

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an invention of these later ages.”195 For Hume, the question of a remedy does not hinge on

whether religion can be molded to suits man’s temporal interests, but rather to which temporal

interests religion ought to be molded. The issue for Hume therefore revolves around whether

religion can be made to serve the public interest rather than the self-interests of the clergy or factious groups within society.

The means by which a religious remedy can be employed refers us to the Natural

History’s stated aim of finding those “accidents and causes” that can moderate the religious principles which give rise to belief in “invisible, intelligent power.”196 Throughout the Natural

History Hume alludes to circumstances that curb religion’s negative influence on society. More often than not, his allusions are in passing and can easily be missed. In Section 10, for instance,

Hume makes a comment in response to Machiavelli’s quip about Christianity’s slavish spirit:

This gave rise to the observation of MACHIAVEL, that the doctrines of the CHRISTIAN religion (meaning the catholic for he knew no other) . . . subdued the spirit of mankind, and had fitted them for slavery and subjection. An observation, which would certainly be just, were there not many other circumstances in human society which controul the genius and character of a religion [emphasis added].197

Hume’s claim here is that religious doctrine is indeed influential in shaping a nation, but that

doctrine is not the only means to “controul” the character of religion. In fact, he says there are many kinds of circumstances that can shape religion.

195 NHR 12.10.

196 NHR Intro.1.

197 NHR 10.5.

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What, then, are these circumstances? The present section of this chapter looks at some of those the Natural History alludes to. We will first examine education, in particular an education which aims to inculcate skepticism and religious indifference. We then turn to political, scientific, and economic circumstances that Hume thinks help moderate men’s opinions on religion’s role in political life.

3.1 Education

The present sub-section of this chapter will argue that the Natural History models techniques and strategies that moderate people’s religious convictions. We will look at three aspects of this education which are discussed in the Natural History: , the pragmatic practice of hypocrisy by those who wish to undermine the place of religion in political life, and the inculcation of the attitude of the religious “bystander.” Because Hume is most concerned with influencing the opinions people hold toward Christianity, this education can be seen as an attempt to temper certain Christian beliefs and practices in the effort to introduce the more sociable attitudes and virtues of polytheism. This is done by inculcating skepticism toward religious truth claims, thereby leading people to be “bystanders” to religion rather than participants. Furthermore, the practice of religious hypocrisy by those teachers who wish to undermine religion’s role in public life allows the spread of religious skepticism to take root within the borders of religion itself. Christian beliefs can thus be undermined or even altered while still leaving its more amenable and harmless rituals intact. The appearance of Christianity remains, but its moral and dogmatic convictions are weakened, making religion more peripheral

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to political life—opening space for a more secular, pagan society that is free from Christianity’s

corrosive moral and intellectual influences.

We will now look at the role of skeptical education in the Natural History. Hume not

only models various skeptical teaching techniques within the Natural History, he also points us

to those philosophers whom he looks to for inspiration in the use of such techniques. His praise

for Cotta the Academic, from ’s De natura deorum, suggests that Hume has learned some

of these techniques from his ancient predecessors. The purpose of Cotta’s skeptical method, he

says, is to shake the convictions of his fellow religionists:

Though some parts of the national religion hung loose upon the minds of men, other parts adhered more closely to them: And it was the chief business of the sceptical philosophers to show, that there was no more foundation for one than for the other. This is the artifice of COTTA in the dialogues concerning the nature of the gods. He refutes the whole system of mythology by leading the orthodox gradually, from the more momentous stories, which were believed, to the more frivolous, which every one ridiculed.198

Hume indicates that Cotta’s technique of showing that all pagan beliefs are equally absurd works

for theism as well. For though Hume says that the “ancient religions” hung “much looser than the modern,”199 he also states that, due to the limits of men’s understanding, the theists of his own age can be brought to question their convictions, because even they cannot achieve absolute conviction:

Since, therefore, the mind of man appears of so loose and unsteady a texture, that, even at present, when so many persons find an interest in continually employing on it the chisel

198 NHR 12.25.

199 NHR 12.17.

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and the hammer, yet are they not able to engrave theological tenets with any lasting impression. . . .200

Attempts to “hammer” specific religious beliefs into people result, at most, in a faith that is

superficial and fleeting. Human nature is simply not equipped to assent unreservedly to ideas

which transcend the understanding. This predicament suggests that religious doubt is more

prevalent than many theists let on, and that polytheists and theists alike can be made to falter in their faith. Hume says, for instance, that

the empire of all religious faith over the understanding is wavering and uncertain, subject to every variety of humour, and dependent on the present incidents, which strike the imagination. The difference is only in degrees [emphasis added].201

Hume further states that doubt is ultimately stronger than any convictions religious zealots

pretend to possess:

We may observe, that, notwithstanding the dogmatical, imperious style of all superstition, the conviction of the religionists, in all ages, is more affected than real, and scarcely ever approaches, in any degree, to that solid belief and persuasion, which governs us in the common affairs of life.202

This brings us to the second aspect of the Natural History’s education program. Despite

the frailty of peoples’ religious convictions, Hume is leery of outright challenging the prevailing

religious belief. To overtly challenge the status quo of theism will indeed trigger doubts in its

votaries, but it will also trigger opposition and persecution. Hume points to a more subtle aspect

of Cotta’s skeptical approach. Cotta combatted religious zealotry by pretending to subscribe to

200 NHR 12.16.

201 NHR 12.19.

202 NHR 12.15.

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the prevailing religious beliefs of society while also actively curbing their “profane” influence by

his use of wit, satire, ridicule, and even condemnation.203 By Cotta pretending to take seriously

the religion of the city, it was harder for people to dismiss his criticisms as coming from a man of

irreligion. Hume, in other words, sees in Cotta a socially useful form of religious hypocrisy.

Hume suggests that Cotta’s duplicity is a more effective way to moderate religious

superstition than attempts by philosophers who might want to outright oppose it and replace it

with a system of so-called rational religion:

The inference is by no means just, that, because a system of religion has made no deep impression on the minds of a people, it must therefore have been positively rejected by all men of common sense, and that opposite principles, in spite of the prejudices of education, were generally established by argument and reasoning. I know not, but a contrary inference may be more probable. . . . An ancient will place a stroke of impiety and one of superstition alternately, throughout a whole discourse. A modern often thinks in the same way, though he may be more guarded in his expression.204

As the passage suggests, the ancient and modern hypocrites both criticize vulgar superstition, but

the modern hypocrite—perhaps Hume himself—must be, as he says, “more guarded in his expression.” The of religious hypocrisy allows those who do not share in the prevailing religious convictions of a society to avoid negative repercussions while still working

to curb religious influence.205

203 See NHR 12.20-25.

204 NHR 12.19.

205 Hume also uses Cicero as a model for the religious hypocrite to imitate. His life reveals that there were two very different sides to him. Hume says that in public, Cicero was openly skeptical of religion while in his so- called private life he was willing to appear devout. I say “so-called” because how “private” was Cicero’s life if we can read about it today? His “private” life was “public” enough for people to be aware of his purported fidelity to religion. See NHR 12.13 and 12.24. The same issue rises with Hume’s letters. Ought we consider them part of his

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Hume’s account of this positive contribution of hypocrisy, as modeled by Cotta, sheds

light on Hume’s own actions as a philosopher. For it should not be surprising that we find his

philosophical writings on religion, as we do find, replete with the very kind of double talk,

ambiguity, and skepticism he praises in Cotta. It is commonly held that Hume’s duplicity on

religious matters was due to the necessity to protect himself from persecution.206 Hume’s

Natural History, as Anton Thomsen notes, thus makes the “occasional bows to Christianity and

to the established Church.”207 And yet, as Thomsen further points out, Hume’s own duplicity

may not be due so much due to his fear of persecution, but rather to his unwillingness to

“martyr” himself for religious issues he so much disdained.208 Overall, Hume seems to find

various reasons for hypocrisy: to avoid persecution or harassment, to be able to more credibly

criticize religion, and because, as Thomsen just noted, attacking religion head on gives it too

much credit.209

private or public life? Did he write them without any thought that someday they might be published and thus be made public?

206 See Immerwahr, “Aesthetic Theism,” 326; Fieser, “Hume’s Concealed Attack,” 431, 434-36; Gaskin, “Attenuated Deism,” 161-62; Root, introduction to Natural History, 16.

207 Thomsen, “Natural History of Religion,” 274ff.

208 Ibid. For Thomsen’s discussion on the rising tide of English deism in the eighteenth century, see 270-73. On the same topic, see Sabine, “Hume’s Contribution to the Historical Method,” 26-28.

209 Hume’s disdain for religion can be seen in this 1764 letter: “It is putting too great a respect on the vulgar, and on their superstitions, to pique one’s self on sincerity with regard to them. Did ever one make it a point of honour to speak truth to children or madmen? If the thing were worthy of being treated gravely, I should tell him, that the Pythian oracle, with the approbation of Xenephon, advised every one to worship the gods—‘For the good of the state.’ I wish it were still in my power to be a hypocrite in this particular. The common duties of society usually require it; and the ecclesiastical profession only adds a little more to an innocent dissimulation, or rather simulation, without which it is impossible to pass through the world. Am I a liar, because I order my servant to say, I am not at home, when I do not desire to see company?” (Letters, 1:439-40). Hume’s letter contains the original Greek of the

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The inculcation of widespread religious skepticism imparts an attitude of religious

indifference to the vulgar, or what Hume refers to as the attitude of the “bystander.”210 The

psychological impact of this indifferentism is the distance it puts between religionists and the doctrines they so dearly hold onto. Hume notes that people are often sensible to the absurdity of others’ religious convictions, but they fail to see that they “have something full as absurd in their own creed, to which they will give a most implicit and most religious assent.”211 If men have enough sense to see the absurdity of another’s religion, then as bystanders they can be brought to see the absurdity of their own as well. We will now look at Hume’s attempts in the Natural

History to have his readers become bystanders to their own religious prejudices.

As we have already pointed out, the beginning sections of the Natural History appear to contrast a rational and moral (genuine) theism from the polytheism of ignorant, barbaric tribesmen and pagans. Hume thus brings himself into many of his Christian readers’ good graces by apparently agreeing with their commonly held prejudices. Hume goes on to obscure this distinction, however, with his account of the principles of religion – showing that there is only a difference of degree between polytheism and theism. Theism, as it is historically manifest, shares in all the same principles of polytheism with only adulation distinguishing them. The reader,

whose bias was toward theism, finds himself having to reconsider his favored religion in a very

Pythian oracle. “For the good of the state” is Greig’s translation. See Thomsen’s discussion of this passage in his article, “Natural History of Religion,” 274ff.

210 NHR 12.8.

211 NHR 12.5. After showing the absurdity of Catholic teachings on the Eucharist, Hume goes on to say that we rarely notice the absurdity of these teachings because we have become so used to them: “But to these doctrines [that is, the Catholic doctrines on the Eucharist] we are so accustomed, that we never wonder at them.”

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different light than he was at first led to believe. By having the reader follow the logic of the

Natural History, Hume forces the reader to look at theism from an outsider’s perspective. In the process, Hume shows the reader that theism is no less absurd than paganism.

In matters of religion, Hume laments that there are not more bystanders: Every by-stander will easily judge (but unfortunately the by-standers are few) that, if nothing were requisite to establish any popular system, but exposing the absurdities of other systems, every votary of every superstition could give a sufficient reason for his blind and bigoted attachment to the principles in which he has been educated.212

Michael Morrisroe thinks that by Hume pointing out the attitude of the bystander, he is

“attempting to develop a clinical attitude in the reader.”213 Hume, however, does not necessarily intend for this “clinical attitude” to be an attempt at scientific objectivity. Rather, the practical effect of such an attitude is to make a person’s religious habits and prejudices appear alien and grotesque to himself.

Hume’s attempt to instill this clinical attitude of the bystander shows up in a variety of ways in the Natural History. His egalitarian approach to religion, for instance, does not exempt any religion from critique. We have previously shown, for instance, that he treats Christianity’s claim of divine origin with no more regard (and usually less) than he does the ancient pagan religions. We have also seen how the Natural History takes absurd beliefs and practices of ancient pagans (for example, the Getes) and indicates how they parallel modern theism. Another technique not yet mentioned is for Hume to depict theism from the pagan’s point of view,

212 NHR 12.8.

213 Morrisroe, “Rhetorical Methods,” 127.

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showing that it was the ancient idolaters who viewed the theists as barbaric and ignorant.214

Hume also presents modern theism from the vantage point of a “future age” in order to show that

people will someday look back on modern theists and wonder—just as we wonder today about

the ancient pagans—how “any human, two-legged creature could ever embrace such

principles.”215 Also, Hume’s wit enables him to present the practices and beliefs of Christianity

in such an absurd light that even the most devout soul might find himself having to go to

confession after chuckling at Hume’s inappropriate jokes about the Eucharist.216

Overall, the goal of the educational program of the Natural History is not to destroy the

Christian religion root and branch (or any religion for that matter), but rather to lessen its

negative moral and cultural effects. Hume again looks to the ancients as providing an example of

what such a religion might look like once it is tamed:

In short, it cannot be doubted, but the votaries of the established superstition of antiquity were as numerous in every state, as those of the modern religion are at present. Its influence was as universal; though it was not so great. As many people gave their assent to it; though that assent was not seemingly so strong, precise, and affirmative.217

214 NHR 9.5.

215 NHR 12.5.

216 NHR 12.2-5. Morrisoe discusses Hume’s description of the Catholic practice of wearing the scapular as a “Swiftian technique of quantifying a sacred object usually discussed in qualitative, emotional terms” (“Rhetorical Methods,”127). On the scapular, see NHR 7.2.

217 NHR 12.14. In the words of Charles Taylor, Hume looked for a religion that “would be primarily defined by cult, and not by doctrines” (Secular Age, 240). In “A Dialogue,” Hume has his character, Palamedes, give voice to a similar idea about the lack of influence of pagan religion: “You know, that religion had, in ancient times, very little influence on common life, and that, after men had performed their duty in sacrifices and prayers at the temple, they thought, that the gods left the rest of their conduct to themselves, and were little please or offended with those virtues or vices, which only affected the peace and happiness of human society. In those ages, it was the business of philosophy alone to regulate men’s ordinary behaviour and deportment. . .” (“A Dialogue,” in EPM, par. 53; SBN 341.)

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There is reason to think that Hume saw the “paganization” of Christianity as a real possibility. First, the plethora of conflicting beliefs, which are the hallmark of paganism, is not much different from the conflicting beliefs of Christians in Hume’s time. He shows that the same sort of educational environments that helped moderate ancient pagan belief can also be made to curb the convictions of theists. In the next quoted passage, for instance, Hume points out the religious consequences of paganism’s inability to settle on a belief system—a similar sort of

environment existing amongst modern Christians in his own day. He says that ancient polytheism was

complex, contradictory, and, on many occasions, doubtful; so that it could not possibly be reduced to any standard and canon, or afford any determinate articles of faith. The stories of the gods were numberless like the popish legends; and though every one, almost, believed a part of these stories, yet no one could believe or know the whole: While at the same time, all must have acknowledged, that no one part stood on a better foundation than the rest.218

Likewise, if the modern Christian would step back from his particular faith community and

survey “Christianity,” with its seemingly endless divisions, he would find that there is not one

article of faith or devotion that is not a matter of debate between Christians. “Christianity,” when

taken as the sum of all these disparate sects, begins to look a lot like the pagan religion which,

Hume further states, “seemed to vanish like a cloud, whenever one approached to it, and examined it piecemeal.”219 Hume elaborates on the psychological effect religious uncertainty had

218 NHR 12.17.

219 Ibid.

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on the pagans, but again, such uncertainty can just as well affect the Christian theist in the same manner:

[The pagan religion] could never be ascertained by any fixed dogmas and principles. And though this did not convert the generality of mankind from so absurd a faith; for when will the people be reasonable? yet it made them faulter and hesitate more in maintaining their principles. . . .220

The pagans did not cease to believe or practice their religion, but they lacked conviction about the truth of their religion. So too, when education emphasizes to Christians the many varieties of

Christianity that are out there, it is only natural that Christians, too, will falter and question the truth of their convictions. The overall effect would seem to naturally lead many people to some kind of religious skepticism and even indifference. Like the pagans, Christians might come to view orthodoxy as peripheral to religion. Religion, in essence, is understood as the arbitrary practice of ritual but little more.

The next sub-section of this chapter looks at how good government and other factors contribute to lessening the influence of modern religion in the moral and intellectual spheres.

3.2 Good Government, Knowledge, Morality, and Economic Prosperity

The present sub-section of this chapter touches on Hume’s allusions to how good governance, the development of the sciences, and material prosperity all help to counter the anti- social effects of religion. We begin with his comments on government.

220 NHR 12.17.

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In Section 3 of the Natural History, Hume states:

In proportion as any man’s course of life is governed by accident, we always find, that he encreases in superstition. . . . All human life, especially before the institution of order and good government, being subject to fortuitous accidents; it is natural, that superstition should prevail every where in barbarous ages, and put men on the most earnest enquiry concerning those invisible powers, who dispose of their happiness or misery [emphasis added].221

The passage suggests that humans have always been and always will be subject to “fortuitous

accidents,” that is, unknown causes. People will therefore always have a propensity to

superstition. The passage also suggests, however, that people are less subject to accidents when

living under the order of what Hume calls “good government.”222 Since unknown causes are less

likely to have as great an influence over men living under good government, Hume implies that

people, in such a circumstance, have fewer opportunities to imagine superstitious terrors. This is

because the order which comes from good government helps prevent the religious principles

from operating in the first place by limiting the number of unknown causes with which humans

must deal. For man to reach a point in political life where he is less at the mercy of accidents suggests that his knowledge and control over previously unknown causes is increasing not only in the art of governance but also in the sciences.

Hume notes on several occasions in the Natural History that the mechanical philosophy, which had emerged with the physical sciences, is particularly useful in alleviating men’s superstitious fears of the unknown:

221 NHR 3.3.

222 Ibid. In the Treatise Hume indicates that the “mutual succor” of society does much to provide the kind of stability that makes men “less expos’d to fortune and accidents” (T 3.2.2.3; SBN 485).

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Could men anatomize nature, according to the most probable, at least the most intelligible philosophy, they would find, that these causes are nothing but the particular fabric and structure of the minute parts of their own bodies and of external objects; and that, by a regular and constant machinery, all the events are produced, about which they are so much concerned.223

As the people of society grow accustomed to viewing the world as an ordered, mechanistic whole, they become less inclined to believe in invisible, intelligent powers. People are either not interested in or capable of following the chain of causes to their ultimate source. Giving them a mechanistic account of their immediate surroundings does much to satisfy their curiosity:

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]n animal, compleat 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.224

Hume suggests here that the vulgar need not have a deep understanding (or any) of mechanistic science in order to be influenced by it. The mechanistic philosophy “exceeds the comprehension of the ignorant multitude, who can only conceive the unknown causes in a general and confused manner.”225 Yet, the issue for Hume is not whether the vulgar understand mechanism, but how a mechanistic view can curb the vulgar’s inclinations toward superstition.

223 NHR 3.1.

224 NHR 1.6.

225 NHR 3.1.

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There is a further, less direct way for mechanism to contribute to curbing superstition,

namely, by means of social pressure. Social pressure, not general enlightenment, keeps the

vulgar in check. In “Of Miracles,” Hume tells his readers, for instance, that they have “heard

many such marvelous relations started, which, being treated with scorn by all the wise and

judicious, have at last been abandoned even by the vulgar.”226 Hume suggests in the Natural

History that when a mechanistic view of things becomes dominant in a culture, those who are

deemed reasonable will be people who are reserved in their religious opinions. Those who

display too much religious zeal will be pegged as fanatical and dogmatic. Hume encourages this

way of thinking in his comparison of the pagan, Varro, and Augustine the Christian:

The learned, philosophical VARRO, discoursing of religion, pretends not to deliver any thing beyond probabilities and appearances: Such was his good sense and moderation! But the passionate, the zealous AUGUSTINE, insults the noble ROMAN on his scepticism and reserve, and professes the most thorough belief and assurance. . . . Is it strange, when mistakes are so common, to find every one positive and dogmatical? And that the zeal often rises in proportion to the error?227

Hume again shows a clear preference in how to approach religious questions. “Moderation,” as

he describes here, is the suspension of belief or at least the recognition that religious belief is

dubitable. Religious skepticism and moderation go hand-in-hand for Hume.

Hume indicates that with the rise of religious skepticism, good government, and a

mechanistic understanding of nature, people, now less tempted by superstition, will naturally return to the pursuit of those temporal interests they find most useful and agreeable. As we will

226 EHU 10.21.

227 NHR 12.11.

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see in the next passage, he suggests that economic systems which give credence to men’s ambitions by promoting material prosperity are more effective than religion in cultivating the moral sentiments. Hard work and industry, so necessary for material success, are themselves strong restraints on people’s propensity to religion, according to Hume. People become too busy

working and enjoying life to get caught up in the fear and melancholic sentiments of religion:

Any of the human affections may lead us into the notion of invisible, intelligent power; hope as well as fear, gratitude as well as affliction: But if we examine our own hearts, or observe what passes around us, we shall find, that men are much oftener thrown on their knees by the melancholy than by the agreeable passions. Prosperity is easily received as our due, and few questions are asked concerning its cause or author. It begets cheerfulness and activity and alacrity and a lively enjoyment of every social and sensual pleasure. And during this state of mind, men have little leisure or inclination to think of the unknown invisible regions.228

The industrious person looks like the unphilosophical and unreligious English gentleman at the

end of Book 1 of the Treatise: “active,” “cheerful,” “sociable,” “enthusiastic,” “sensual.” He is

the opposite of those who practice the monkish virtues.

In contrast to the cheerfulness and activity of the industrious man, clergymen and priests appeal to melancholy and fear at every turn, and constantly remind people how bad things are:

No topic is more usual with all popular divines than to display the advantages of affliction, in bringing men to a due sense of religion; by subduing their confidence and sensuality, which, in times of prosperity, make them forgetful of a divine providence.229

It is to the advantage of religionists to stand in the way of men’s happiness and their progress in

the arts and sciences. The more people are ignorant and fearful of unknown causes, the more

228 NHR 3.4.

229 NHR 3.5.

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people are apt to turn to religion. Hume suggests that such negativity cannot win over a people who have tasted the fruits of prosperity. When a nation possesses both good government and material prosperity, the place given to religion in political life will naturally diminish. A good citizen will increasingly be judged by his industry and fair-mindedness, not his fidelity to a particular religious creed.

In summary, what we have seen in this section of the chapter is that the Natural History points out various ways in which education, government, science, and economic prosperity can help diminish the place of religion in public life while also making society more tolerant of disparate religions by encouraging indifference towards religious truth claims. Hume holds up the English and Dutch as models of such an attitude:

And if, among CHRISTIANS, the ENGLISH and DUTCH have embraced the principles of toleration, this singularity has proceeded from the steady resolution of the civil magistrate, in opposition to the continued efforts of priests and bigots.230

Hume here shows that the move toward toleration in England and the Netherlands was in spite of religion and not because of it. It took secular ideas to counter religious ones. The emergence of toleration amongst the English and Dutch also reveals that, in Hume’s time, a shift was taking place in people’s opinions about the priority that ought to be given to religion in determining what makes a good citizen.231 Economic, scientific, and political bonds were beginning to take

230 NHR 9.3.

231 John Steele Gordon notes of the Dutch settlement in New York: “New York, of course, was founded by the Dutch, not the English, and profit was the sole reason for settling Manhattan. Indeed, so bent on money making were the Dutch that they did not get around to building a church for 17 years, worshiping instead in the fort” (“Entrepreneurship in American History,” Imprimus 43, no. 2 (February 14, 2014): 2.

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precedence in the European mind.232 These bonds, in Hume’s view, ought to be encouraged by

means of civic education (such as the one he proposes in the Treatise), while the inculcation of

religious skepticism would continue to weaken religion’s hold on political life.

Conclusion:

The Natural History of Religion is not purely descriptive in its account of the origin of

religion. Rather, the work gives an extensive critique of popular theism’s intolerance, corruption

of morals, and denigration of reason. Hume criticizes polytheism for its moral corruption and

absurdity; yet, he shows that its sociability, toleration, and love of freedom outweigh its drawbacks for society. He also favors the ancient pagan attitude which viewed religion as subservient to political life and morals. The ancient religion left these issues in the charge of philosophers and statesmen. Hume’s inclusion of the religions of Abraham in a discussion on the origin of natural religion in human nature suggests that all historically influential religions in the

West are to be regarded as no more than the vulgar productions of human psychology.

With regard to offering an educational remedy to popular theism, the Natural History

provides a template for religious skepticism. The work models techniques of how to obfuscate

religious questions and points out people, such as Cotta and Cicero, who reflected such

232 Hume shows in the History that this is precisely what was occurring with the Dutch: “The Dutch began to be more intent on commerce than on orthodoxy; and thought, that the knowledge of useful arts and obedience to the laws formed a good citizen; though attended with errors in subjects, where it is not allowable for human nature to expect any positive truth or certainty” (HE 5:242).

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techniques in their writings or lives with the intent of curbing people’s vulgar religious opinions.

Hume encourages his readers to practice what he deems a socially-useful religious hypocrisy which carries the appearance of orthodoxy while at the same time attempting to limit religion’s cultural significance. The Natural History’s claim that polytheism and theism are in mutual flux indicates that Christianity, a form of vulgar theism, will naturally transition to a “Christian” form of paganism. Nature is thus on the side of philosophers and moralists who push religion in the direction of paganism in order to promote its social advantages.

Besides education, other circumstances are at play in moderating vulgar religion’s anti- social effects, such as the development of art and science, good government, economics, or historical accidents. Men have more control over some of these circumstances than others; yet,

people can take advantage of circumstances as they occur even if people lack the ability to bring

these circumstances about. The present chapter of this dissertation, for instance, has shown that

Hume’s account of theism, particularly Catholicism, already has “polytheistic” elements

contained within it.233 Given enough time, these elements come to color theism to such an extent

that it looks more like polytheism than theism. Hume suggests that there are historical

233 In the History of England, Hume depicts Catholic laypeople in the sixteenth century as leaning toward the polytheistic attitude of doctrinal indifference and superficial observance of ritual. His description of the “genius and spirit” of the “Roman catholic superstition” parallels what we find in the Natural History: “In the preceding state of ignorance and tranquility, into which mankind were lulled, the attachment to superstitious, tho’ without reserve, was not extreme; and, like the antient pagan idolatry, the popular religion consisted more of exterior practices and observances, than of any principles, which either took possession of the heart, or influenced the conduct” (HE 1:xvi). For Hume’s explication of “Protestant enthusiasm” and “Catholic superstition,” see The History of Great Britain: The Reigns of James I and Charles I, ed. and intro. Duncan Forbes (1754; repr., Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1970), 1:71-73 and 2:96-99. These same passages have been reproduced in the foreword to the Liberty Fund edition, 1: xiv-xviii.

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circumstances where we can take advantage of these elements by pushing theism further in the direction of polytheism. In the wake of the divisions of Christianity in modern times, Hume sees the continuing demise of theism in the West. With the rejection of a central, authoritative voice for the Christian faith, the essential beliefs and practices of modern Christianity, just as with the ancient pagans, cannot be agreed upon by its votaries. Though in the immediate circumstances surrounding the Reformation, theism’s emphasis on unity-of-doctrine was dominant enough to send Europe into what today we can only see as intolerance and persecution, in time, and in the face of doctrinal confusion, people’s religious convictions were naturally curbed. Because of the absence of an agreed-upon authority to resolve these disputes, people lost confidence in their ability to know religious truth. The status of religious belief increasingly becomes seen as mere opinion, even amongst those who confess the Christian faith. Hume shows that skeptical education takes advantage of this modern predicament to further curb religious conviction and increase religious indifference. As the influence of religion on political life wanes, Hume suggests that men will tend naturally toward their genuine interests, especially when good government and economic prosperity become their main focus.

Chapter Three The Political Theology of Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

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The Political Theology of the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

Introduction

The present chapter of this dissertation will look at the Dialogues Concerning Natural

Religion, the second of Hume’s major works expressly dedicated to religion. The Dialogues was published in 1779, three years after his death.1 Evidence suggests that the work was begun almost thirty years earlier. Hume’s letter to Gilbert Elliot in 1751, for instance, refers to a dialogue Hume was writing which included a debate of the design argument by the characters,

Cleanthes and Philo.2 Hume would have been forty years of age at the time of this letter. Also, the National Library of Scotland possesses a manuscript believed to be an early draft of the

Dialogues that can be dated to the early 1750s.3 Hume would make revisions to this work throughout his life until his death in 1776. The Dialogues is clearly not an afterthought to his philosophy, but reflects perhaps his most sustained thinking on any philosophical topic.

Hume’s close friends and colleagues discouraged him from having the Dialogues published even posthumously. He asked Adam Smith to serve as his literary executor to see to its publication, but Smith turned down his friend’s last request. Hume therefore entrusted the

1 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (hereafter DNR), ed. and intro. Norman Kemp Smith, 2nd ed. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1947). Notations will refer to part and page number of the DNR, except for the opening statements of Pamphilus, which will refer to page number only.

2 Letters of David Hume, ed. J. Y. T. Greig (1932; repr., New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 1:153- 57. See Gilbert Elliot’s response in his letter to Hume (c. March 1751), in Early Responses to Hume’s Writings on Religion, ed. James Fieser (Bristol, England: Thoemmes Press, 1999), 1:14-16.

3 David McClay, John Murray Archive Senior Curator, National Library of Scotland, NLS reference Ms.2312, email correspondence, September 26, 2012. Hume’s interest in arguments for the existence of God date back still farther. He mentions to Elliot in the same letter that “tis not long ago that I burn’d an old Manuscript Book, wrote before I was twenty; which contain’d, Page after Page, the gradual Progress of my Thoughts on this head” (Letters 1:153-54).

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174 manuscript to his nephew, also a David Hume. Upon the author’s death, the Dialogues finally made its appearance upon the European intellectual stage.

Hume’s investment of time and thought in the Dialogues is paralleled by the attention given to it by scholars. The number of scholarly articles dedicated to the Dialogues is much greater than that given to the Natural History. Similarly, whereas no scholarly book to date has been devoted exclusively to the Natural History, multiple books have been dedicated to the

Dialogues.4 This chapter of the dissertation will begin by presenting a summary of various positions that commentators take toward the Dialogues, with an eye towards later framing an interpretive hypothesis that improves upon these approaches.

Upon the publication of the Dialogues, commentators generally presumed that Philo most represented Hume’s views. Thomas Hayter and Joseph Priestly, for instance, explicitly identified

Philo as Hume’s spokesperson. 5 Others, such as William Rose and an anonymous reviewer from

The London Review, claimed that Philo was the “hero” of the work.6 Commentators also

4 See, for example, Stanley Tweyman, Scepticism and Belief in Hume’s “Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion” (Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1986) and David Hume: “Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion” in Focus (New York: 1991); Timothy Smiley, ed., Philosophical Dialogues: , Hume, Wittgenstein (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995); William Lad Sessions, Reading Hume’s “Dialogues”: A Veneration for True Religion (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002); Eléonore Le Jallé, Le scepticisme de Hume: les “Dialogues sur la religion naturelle” (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2005); John O. Nelson, Hume’s “New Scene of Thought” and The Several Faces of Hume in the “Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion” (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2010).

5 See Thomas Hayter, Remarks on Mr.Hume’s dialogues, concerning natural religion (Cambridge: J. Archdeacon; for T. Cadel, 1780), in Early Responses to Hume’s Writings on Religion, 2:241; Joseph Priestley, “Letter 9” from Letters to a philosophical unbeliever. Part I. Containing an examination of the principal objections to the doctrines of natural religion, and especially those contained in the writings of Mr. Hume (Bath: R. Cruttwell; sold by J. Johnson, London, 1780; “Letter 9” from 1787 edition), in Early Responses to Hume’s Writings on Religion, 2:262.

6 See Anonymous, review of the Dialogues, in The London Review, in Early Responses to Hume’s Writings on Religion, 2:233; Rose, review of Dialogues, in Early Responses to Hume’s Writings on Religion, 2:207. Ironically, in Hume’s aforementioned letter to Gilbert Elliot he states that “I make Cleanthes the Hero of the Dialogue.” Hume’s comment does not contradict the possibility of Philo expressing aspects of Hume’s own views. In the same letter, for instance, Hume describes his affinity with Philo: “Had it been my good Fortune to live near 175 generally thought that Hume’s intention in writing the Dialogues was the promotion of atheism.

Joseph Priestley, for instance, states that “though the debate seemingly closes in favour of the theist [i.e, Cleanthes], the victory is clearly on the side of the atheist [i.e., Philo].”7 Priestly further states that he would “not be surprised if this work should have a considerable effect in promoting the cause of atheism, with those whose general turn of thinking and habits of life make them no ill-wishers to that scheme.”8 And a reviewer from The London Magazine further remarks: “The standard of genuine Theism is displayed, but even this is a false colour. The author’s natural religion terminates in Atheism.”9

Responses to the perceived atheism of the Dialogues were almost universally critical,10 inspiring sarcastic comments about Hume like the following: “[w]ith regard to his dialogues on natural religion, we can only lament that he left no sincere friend behind him, who had so much regard for his character as to bury them with him.”11 Commentators often expressed their dismay at Hume’s willingness to promote an idea that, in their view, had such negative ramifications for

you, I shou’d have taken on me the Character of Philo, in the Dialogue, which you’ll own I coud have supported naturally enough. . .” (Letters 1:153-54).

7 Priestly, “Letter 9,” in Early Responses to Hume’s Writings on Religion, 2:262.

8 Ibid.

9 Anonymous, review of Dialogues, in The London Magazine; Or, Gentleman’s Monthly Intelligencer 48 (September 1779), in Early Responses to Hume’s Writings on Religion, 2:204.

10 The London Review is an exception: “To us at any rate this volume hath afforded much amusement and instruction; and we hope that it will prove no unacceptable present to the orthodox, for whom it seems to have been intended by Mr. Hume as his last legacy, as it will give them an opportunity of displaying their skill and dexterity in defence of the faith” (Anonymous, review of Dialogues, in The London Review 10 (December 1779), in Early Responses to Hume’s Writings on Religion, 2:229).

11 Anonymous, review of Dialogues, in The London Magazine, in Early Responses to Hume’s Writings on Religion, 2:204.

176 society and morals. The London Magazine saw the work as an obvious attempt to undermine the practice of religion:

In one part, the following saying of Seneca is quoted: To know God is to worship him; and PHILO draws this conclusion from it: ‘All other worship is indeed absurd, superstitious, and even impious.’ In another, we are told, that it is impossible for us to know God; here then, in a few words, the drift of the author is discovered, which is, to sap the foundation of every system of religion upon earth. We nothing more need be added concerning these dialogues.12

This undermining of religion would have devastating moral effects on society, according to

William Rose. Rose expresses concern over Hume’s leaving us a hero who is skeptical about the moral goodness of God:

If the principles which he has laboured with so much zeal and earnestness to establish to be true, the wicked are set free from every restraint but that of the laws; the virtuous are robbed of their most substantial comforts; every generous ardor of the human mind is damped; the world we live in is a fatherless world; we are chained down to a life full of wretchedness and misery; and we have no hope beyond the grave. . . . [T]he best system of laws that can be formed by human wisdom, is far from being sufficient to prevent many of those evils which break in upon the peace, order, and welfare of society.13

Rose thinks that if Hume’s apparent attempt to separate morality from a religious grounding ever came to be accepted by the popular culture, it would undermine the very peace and stability

Hume was attempting to promote.14

Hume scholarship since the eighteenth century has shifted from the almost universal presumption that the Dialogues promotes atheism. Reactions in the late twentieth and early

12 Anonymous, review of Dialogues, in The London Magazine, in Early Responses to Hume’s Writings on Religion, 2:204. For a similar comment, see review of Dialogues, in The Critical Review 48 (September 1779), in Early Responses to Hume’s Writings on Religion, 2:193.

13 Rose, review of Dialogues, in Early Responses to Hume’s Writings on Religion, 2:219.

14 Terence Penelhum thinks that a way of explaining this near universal criticism of Hume’s work is the following: “[w]hen Hume wrote the Dialogues, he would have been confronted with a near universal consensus that some belief in God was intellectually indispensable, and that atheism could not be seriously entertained” (“Natural Belief and Religious Belief in Hume’s Philosophy,” The Philosophical Quarterly 33, no. 131 (April 1983): 180).

177 twenty-first century are more varied, representing several different approaches to the work. The first approach is to treat of the philosophical content in the Dialogues without taking into account the work’s dramatic, rhetorical, or literary form, and without showing much concern for which character might be speaking for Hume. According to this approach, the Dialogues is considered primarily as a vehicle for delivering a theoretical or epistemological treatment of the questions of the nature and existence of God. Hume’s own views are generally identified with whatever position is supported in the text by an argument the reader deems to be sound.15

A second approach continues to treat the Dialogues from a primarily theoretical and epistemological perspective. Although this approach also does not accord much if any significance to the literary form of the text, its aim is to discern which character speaks for

Hume.16 Though this approach has been pursued by scholars ever since the first critical reviews, it assumed significance with Kemp Smith’s identification of Hume with Philo in his 1935 introduction to the Dialogues.17 Those who approach the Dialogues in this manner generally

15 John Gaskin employs this approach toward the Dialogues in his Hume’s Philosophy of Religion (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1978): “In what follows I shall take it that Hume in the Dialogues is any speaker who appears to be making a good philosophical point. . .” (13). See also articles by Swinburne and Olding. Both use the Dialogues as a jumping off point in their discussions concerning the a posteriori argument for the existence of God. Neither scholar attempts to discern which character speaks for Hume. Their concern is only with the cogency of the arguments. See R. G. Swinburne, “The Argument from Design,” Philosophy 43, no. 165 (July 1968): 199- 212 and “The Argument from Design: A Defence,” Religious Studies 8, no. 3 (September 1972): 193-205; A.Olding, “The Argument from Design: A Reply to R. G. Swinburne,” Religious Studies 7, no. 4 (December 1971): 361-73 and “A Further Reply to R. G. Swinburne,” Religious Studies 9, no. 2 (June 1973): 229-32.

16 For further discussion of this approach, see John W. Danford, David Hume and the Problem of Reason: Recovering the Human Sciences (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 168. An approach closely related to the second is to identify each of the characters with particular philosophers or philosophical “types”; see M. Pakaluk, “Philosophical ‘Types’ in Hume’s Dialogues,” in Philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment, ed. V. Hope, 116-32 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1984); J. O’Higgins, “Hume and the Deists: A Contrast to Religious Approaches,” Journal of Theological Studies 22 (1971): 479-501; Mossner, “Enigma of Hume,” 335; Michael B. Prince, “End of Religious Dialogue,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 25, no. 3 (Spring 1992): 291-94.

17 See Kemp Smith, introduction to Dialogues, 74. Gaskin claims that in order to interpret the Dialogues “it becomes essential to decide which characters speak for Hume himself” (Hume’s Philosophy of Religion, 160). See also James Noxon, “Hume’s ,” The Philosophical Review 73, no. 2 (April 1964), 249). Noxon is cited in 178 identify Hume with Philo.18 There are also those who think Cleanthes, Pamphilus, or a combination of characters best represents Hume’s views.19

The attempt to identify a character or characters with Hume has fallen somewhat out of favor more recently. The failure to come to a consensus on which character speaks for Hume has led some scholars to conclude that this is the wrong question to ask. In Richard White’s words:

[T]he usual questions are irrelevant – Is Hume Cleanthes or Philo? Is Philo a mitigated sceptic or a Pyrrhonian? Such debates are sterile and miss the point, for however consistent or inconsistent the characters may be, the actual drama of the text has an intention and a direction all of its own. . . .20

John Danford, “‘The Surest Foundation of Morality’: The Political Teaching of Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion,” The Western Political Quarterly 35, no. 2 (June 1982): 141n12.

18 Amongst those who identify Hume with Philo, some think Philo is a theist or deist while others think he is purely a skeptic or atheist. See Ernest Mossner, “Enigma of Hume,” Mind (1936): 334-49; N. P. Jacobson, “The Uses of Reason in Religion: A Note on David Hume.” The Journal of Religion 39 (1959): 103-09; Michael Morrisroe, “Hume’s Rhetorical Strategy: A Solution to the Riddle of the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion,” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 11 (1969): 974; Shahid Hussain, “Hume on Religion,” The Pakistan Philosophical Journal 11 (1972): 115-19; J. C. A. Gaskin, “Hume’s Critique of Religion,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 14 (1976): 301; W. A. Parent, “An Interpretation of Hume’s Dialogues,” Review of Metaphysics 30 (1976): 96; Dilip Basu, “Who is the Real Hume in the Dialogues?” Indian Philosophical Quarterly (1978): 21; J. E. Parsons, “Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion: II,” Independent Journal of Philosophy 3 (1979): 124- 25; Graham Priest, “Hume’s Final Argument,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 2, no. 3 (July 1985): fn 1, 352; John O. Nelson, “The Role of Part XII in Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion,” Hume Studies 14 (1988): 347-71; Isabel Rivers, “‘Galen’s Muscles’: Wilkins, Hume, and the Educational Use of the Argument from Design,” The Historical Journal 36, no. 3 (September 1993): 591.

19 For those who identify Hume with one of the other characters or a combination of them, see R. J. Butler, “Natural Belief and the Enigma of Hume,” Archiv für Geshichte der Philosophie 42 (1960): 73; Nicholas Capaldi, “Hume’s Philosophy of Religion: God without Ethics,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 1 (1970): 237-40; Bertram Mitchell Laing, David Hume (1932; repr., New York, 1968), 178-82 and “Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion” Philosophy 12 (1937): 175; Richard H. Popkin, ed. and intro., Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, 2nd ed. (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1998), xvi; Jeffrey Wieand, “Pamphilus in Hume’s Dialogues,” The Journal of Religion 65, no. 1 (January 1985): 33-34.

20 Richard White, “Hume’s Dialogues and the Comedy of Religion,” Hume Studies 14 (1988): 390. See also J. Laird, “Symposium: The Present-Day Relevance of Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplement Volume 18 (1939): 206-07; Donald Livingston, Hume’s Philosophy of Common Life (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1984), 43-44; Keith Yandell, “Hume on Religious Belief,” in Hume: A Re-evaluation, ed. Donald Livingston and James King (New York: Fordham University Press, 1976), 111.

179

The second approach, therefore, has given way to a third, which shifts focus from “Who speaks for Hume?” to the literary, rhetorical, and dramatic form of the Dialogues.21 Not all who approach the Dialogues in this manner categorically reject the question of who speaks for

Hume,22 but they agree that the form of the Dialogues has been unduly overlooked by scholars and is critical to interpreting the text. Michael Prince warns, however, that the recovery of the rhetorical aspects of the Dialogues runs the risk of unduly treating the content of the text as

“literature” and not as philosophy.23 Prince urges readers to understand how the form and the philosophical content are a unified whole in the Dialogues.

The integral link between the form and content of the Dialogues is best realized by a political reading of the text which takes into account how Hume’s notion of dialogue is suited to

21 See John Bricke, “On the Interpretation of Hume’s Dialogues,” Religious Studies 11 (1975): 1-18; W. B. Carnochan, “The Comic Plot of Hume’s Dialogues,” Modern Philology 85, no.4 (May 1988): 514-22; Jonathan Dancy, “‘For Here the Author is Annihilated’: Reflections on Philosophical Aspects of the Use of the Dialogue Form in Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion,” Proceedings of the British Academy 85 (1995): 33, 39, 46, and 49; Michel Malherbe, “Hume and the Art of Dialogue,” in Hume and Hume’s Connexions, ed. M. A. Stewart and John P. Wright (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995), 201-23; Michael Morrisroe, “Hume’s Rhetorical Strategy: A Solution to the Riddle of the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion,” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 11, no. 2 (Summer 1969): 963-74; Michael B. Prince, “End of Religious Dialogue,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 25, no. 3 (Spring 1992): 283-308; Dennis Rohatyn, “Hume’s Dialectical Conceits: The Case of Dialogue XII,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 43, no. 4 (June 1983): 519-32; James Rurak, “Hume’s Dialogues as a Drama: Some Implications for the Argument from Design,” Perkins Journal of Theology 34 (Summer 1981): 16-33; William Lad Sessions, “A Dialogic Interpretation of Hume’s Dialogues,” Hume Studies 17, no. 1 (April 1991): 15-40; Gary Shaprio, “The Man of Letters and Author of Nature: Hume on Philosophical Discourse,” Eighteenth Century 26, no. 2 (1985): 115-37; David Simpson, “Intimate Voices and the Method of Dialogue,” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 21 (1979): 68-92; Michael Szczekalla, “Philo’s Feigned in Hume’s Dialogues concerning Natural Religion,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 80 (1998): 75-87; Terrence Tilley, “Hume on God and Evil: Dialogues X and XI as Dramatic Conversation,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 56, no. 4 (Winter 1988): 703-26; A. G. Vink, “The Literary and Dramatic Character of Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion,” Religious Studies 22, no. 3-4 (September-December 1986): 387-96.

22 Szczekalla is a good example of someone who takes into account the dramatic elements of the Dialogues while still defending what he calls the “standard interpretation” which “subscribes to the view that Hume exposes the poverty of natural theology” and that Philo speaks for Hume: “Though my paper shares some of the concerns of the critics of the ‘standard interpretation’, it fully endorses it and intends to make it less vulnerable to criticism. It takes the issue of genre seriously, but regards form as subservient to content” (“Philo’s Feigned Fideism,” 75).

23 Prince, “End of Religious Dialogue,” 284-85.

180 philosophic and theological discourse. John Seed thinks Hume’s choice to write a dialogue indicates his “rejection of philosophy as some kind of autonomous sphere separate from the everyday world of custom and civility.”24 The sphere of philosophical debate, according to this view, belongs to the larger sphere of common life. Michel Malherbe argues that the “dialogue form was not just a rhetorical device” for Hume; rather, he “was employing exactly the kind of writing that is demanded by any philosophical enquiry into natural religion.”25 Hume’s decision to write in the form of dialogue, according to Malherbe, is not something “arbitrarily added” but is “derived from the very nature of the enquiry.”26 Samuel Clark argues that the use of dialogue in the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion is for “dramatizing a political ideal” and is part of

Hume’s larger aim “to transform our individual and collective self-understanding and action.”27

According to John Danford, Hume’s use of dialogue and rhetoric is itself a form of “political speech,” and places the Dialogues in the classical philosophical tradition which unites reason and rhetoric for the defense of religion in the polis.28

It might seem odd that Danford depicts Hume as a defender of civic religion. Yet, ascribing to Hume this task makes sense once we realize that he does not do so out of religiosity, but out of practical necessity. There is a kinship between Hume and the ancient philosophers in

24 John Seed, “The Spectre of Puritanism: Forgetting the Seventeenth Century in David Hume’s History of England,” Social History 30, no. 4 (November 2005): 452.

25 Malherbe, “Art of Dialogue,” 201.

26 Ibid.

27 Samuel Clark, “Hume’s Uses of Dialogue,” Hume Studies 39, no. 1 (April 2013): 61.

28 Danford, Problem of Reason, 167ff. For others who give a political reading of the Dialogues, see Richard H. Dees, “Morality above Metaphysics: Philo and the Duties of Friendship in Dialogues 12,” Hume Studies 28, no. 1 (April 2002): 131-47 and “‘The Paradoxical Principle and Salutary Practice’: Hume on Toleration,” Hume Studies 31, no. 1 (April 2005): 145-64; John O. Nelson, “The Role of Part XII in Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion,” Hume Studies 14 (1988): 347-71.

181 this regard. Leo Strauss observes that though the ancient philosophers “denied indeed the possibility of an areligious civil society,” they were still “irreligious” in a certain respect, for ancient philosophy also “subordinated the religious to the political.”29 For the ancients, the gods were answerable to the polis.

Those such as Plato and Cicero defended civic religion because they believed piety benefitted the moral character of the city whereas the atheism of the physicists did not.30 Hume’s defense of a religion, however, is more circumspect. Popular religion, as practiced by the vulgar, does not of itself promote good morals. Yet, man’s propensity to religion is too deep-seated to root out. The promotion of widespread atheism will not eradicate this propensity, but only leave it unmonitored and allowed to manifest itself in even more extreme forms of superstition and enthusiasm.31 It is better for society to have a mitigated form of vulgar religion than to ignore or even deny man’s religious inclinations by the promotion of outright atheism. Hume finds it necessary to defend some form of religion that will be subservient to the ordering of a free society.

According to Danford, the “general failing” of recent Hume scholarship is due to its treatment of the Dialogues “as being of exclusively philosophical or theological interest, rather than as an example of political philosophy.”32 By approaching the Dialogues as a work of political philosophy, the attempt to pin down Hume’s personal religious views becomes

29 Leo Strauss, “The Liberalism of Classical Political Philosophy,” The Review of Metaphysics 12, no. 3 (March 1959): 391.

30 Danford, Problem of Reason, 165.

31 Ibid., 170.

32 Ibid., 172. See also Danford, “Surest Foundation of Morality,” 137-60.

182 secondary if not, as Samuel Clark states, simply the “wrong question.”33 As Danford puts it,

Hume was not attempting to “resolve a personal philosophical problem but to come to terms with a problem of vastly larger scope, a political problem.”34 The issue is what Hume thinks is the best means of curbing religious influence in modern society while at the same time allowing religion to maintain a presence.

The present chapter of this dissertation will give a political reading of the Dialogues by treating the work as Clark suggests – a “political drama.”35 Whereas Clark’s primary focus is on the issue of toleration and Part 12 of the Dialogues,36 the present chapter will approach the

Dialogues by focusing on the educational methods discussed by each of the characters throughout the work. For, as Danford rightly observes, the Dialogues is “shadowed” throughout by the topic of the “nature of education in piety and theology appropriate to young men.”37

Danford recognizes that Pamphilus, a young man, plays an important role in the Dialogues,38 but the present chapter will argue that Pamphilus plays a much more central part than even Danford depicts. Another way the present chapter departs from Danford is that his analysis of the conversations between Cleanthes, Demea, and Philo depicts Cleanthes as a most insightful character who educates Philo, so to speak, about the dangerous social implications Philo’s

33 Samuel Clark, “No Abiding City: Hume, Naturalism, and Toleration,” Philosophy: The Journal of the British Institute of Philosophical Studies 84 (2009): 84. See also Danford, Problem of Reason, 168.

34 Danford, Problem of Reason, 169. Ernest Mossner, for instance, sees reflected in Hume’s philosophical writings, including the Dialogues, a “religion of man,” which, according to Mossner, “constitutes the personal religion of David Hume” (“The Religion of David Hume,” Journal of the History of Ideas 39, no. 4 (October- December 1978): 654).

35 Clark, “No Abiding City,” 75.

36 Clark also compares the views he finds in the Dialogues with Rawlsian views of toleration.

37 Danford, Problem of Reason, 175.

38 For Danford’s discussion of Pamphilus, see “Surest Foundation of Morality,” 144-47. 183 irresponsible skepticism has on the vulgar. The present chapter will argue that, on the contrary,

Philo is fully aware of the effect his skepticism has on the vulgar and that his duplicity towards both Cleanthes and Demea reveals that he has a hidden agenda that neither character grasps – but

Pamphilus does. The present chapter will show why Pamphilus, an oft-neglected character, is fundamental to a correct political interpretation of the Dialogues and that it is therefore necessary for us to carefully examine what he says, how he says it, and any observations he makes along the way. For Pamphilus is the issue for Cleanthes, Demea, and Philo precisely because, for them, the education of the young is relevant to politics, and religious education, in particular, is relevant to political life. To varying degrees, Pamphilus is viewed by these three main interlocutors as easy to mold, but Pamphilus shows himself to possess views of his own and observes the subtle undercurrents which occur in their conversations.

Section 1 will provide an analysis of the introductory remarks of Pamphilus where he outlines his general theory of religion and explains to Hermippus why dialogue is the appropriate avenue to discuss “natural religion.” Section 2 will examine what Demea, Cleanthes, and Philo each considers the primary political problem of religion and how each one proposes a different method of instruction to remedy the problem. Analysis of the text will focus primarily on Part 1 of the Dialogues, where the issue of education is introduced, and Parts 10 through 12, where the moral and political problems of religion are thematic. The chapter concludes with an assessment of the last words of Pamphilus in light of the issues raised from the analysis of the discussions between Cleanthes, Demea, and Philo. Parts 2 through 9 of the Dialogues, which center on the a posteriori argument, will be invoked when they are pertinent to the political issues raised in the text. 184

1. Pamphilus: Pedagogue and Pupil

It is common for readers of the Dialogues to depict the character of Pamphilus as negligible. Samuel Clark, for example, states that “Pamphilus takes little part in the Dialogues, offering only a framing narrative at the beginning and a partisan summation at the end.”39

Likewise, Richard Popkin thinks Pamphilus is little more than a “stupid bystander” and “has no real role in the Dialogues.”40 Scott Davis says that Pamphilus is “obtuse” and Michael Morrisroe thinks Pamphilus “a naif, a tool of Hume, who misunderstands both the issues and outcome of the argument.”41 These views fail to understand the central role Pamphilus plays in the

Dialogues. He opens the work by explicating his views on the purpose of religious dialogue and closes it with an assessment of the views of Demea, Philo, and Cleanthes. In between lay the

“conversations” and “disputes” over “natural religion” between the three interlocutors with

Pamphilus as a silent but insightful observer.42 His narration notes not only what is being said, but who is saying it, how it is said, and to whom. A careful reading of the text reveals that

Pamphilus observes certain emotional and bodily reactions in the speakers which go unnoticed even by themselves. Everything the reader is told of these debates depends entirely on

Pamphilus’s retelling of them. If he is merely “stupid,” “obtuse,” or “naïf,” his ability to accurately present the debate in the first place is open to question. The present section of this

39 Clark, “No Abiding City,” 82.

40 Popkin, introduction to DNR, xvi.

41 Davis, “Irony and Argument,” 254; Michael Morrisroe, Jr., “Rhetorical Methods in Hume’s Works on Religion,” Philosophy & Rhetoric 2, no. 3 (Summer 1969): 134.

42 Pamphilus uses the plural—“conversations,” “disputes,” “reasonings,” “arguments”—to describe the exchanges recorded in Parts 1 through 12 between Cleanthes, Demea, and Philo. Pamphilus’s “recital” of these exchanges is referred to in the singular. See DNR.128-29.

185 chapter will establish first, that commentators are mistaken to downplay the role of Pamphilus in the Dialogues and second, when his central importance to the work is recognized, the issue of religious education becomes paramount to the work.

1.1 The Setting of the Dialogues

Pamphilus begins the Dialogues by distinguishing between the instructional method of the “ancient philosophers” and the method “now expected of philosophical enquirers.”43 As to when the “now” is to which Pamphilus refers, we can infer that since the most recent historical figures Demea, Cleanthes, and Philo reference are persons from the eighteenth-century—Leibniz

(1646-1716) and Samuel Clarke (1675-1729), for instance44—“now” for Pamphilus is around the time of Hume’s own present day. As to where the Dialogues takes place, we can infer that since

Pamphilus communicates to Hermippus in the English tongue, and because references to modern-era historical persons in the Dialogues are exclusively to those from the European

Renaissance and Enlightenment,45 the geographical setting is Europe, likely somewhere in Great

Britain.

Yet, Hume’s choice of Greek names is a little strange and draws the reader’s attention to the ancient pagans.46 John Danford thinks Hume’s choice of names indicates his sympathies with

43 DNR.127.

44 For Clarke, see DNR 9.190. For Leibniz, see DNR 10.194.

45 For references to Copernicus (1473-1543), DNR 1.136, 3.152, 12.214; Francis Bacon (1561-1626), DNR 1.139; Galileo (1564-1642), DNR 1.136, 2.151; John Milton (1608-1674), DNR 1.133-34, 5.168, 10.195-96; (1612-1694), DNR 1.137; John Locke (1632-1704), DNR 1.138; Pierre Bayle (1647-1706), DNR 1.138; Malebranche (1638-1715), DNR 2.141; Bishop Peter Daniel Huet (1630-1721), DNR 1.138.

46 This has led some commentators, for instance, to examine the parallels between Hume’s Dialogues and Cicero’s Dialogues Concerning the Nature of the Gods; see Christine Battersby, “The Dialogues as Original 186 the ancients who attempted to carve out a place for civic religion in the polis.47 Given that the

Dialogues is set in the eighteenth century, the names also give the sense that we are watching modern pagans speak about “religion” within the context of a modern Christian culture. And if, as Rohatyn suggests, the characters of the Dialogues make up, so to speak, a “microcosm” of eighteenth-century British society,48 then Hume might be suggesting that there was a crucial role for modern “pagans” to shape the dialogue about religion in eighteenth-century Europe, despite the important role the Christian faith still played.

Carl Becker reports that the religious issues raised by the interlocutors were indeed of great importance to eighteenth-century European society, but he also suggests that there was also much uncertainty as to the answers to such issues:

[E]veryone, the readers as well as the writers of books, was concerned to know whether there was a God to care for his immortal soul, or no God and no immortal soul to care for. . . . Were they living in a world ruled by a beneficent mind, or in a world ruled by an indifferent force? That was the question which, in this cynical age of reason, men could become heated over, a question debated everywhere. . . .49

The religious question in the Dialogues was not only whether it is reasonable for men to dialogue about the Divine, but whether it is reasonable for men to enter into dialogue with the Divine at all (the claim of Christianity). Given the setting of the Dialogues in eighteenth-century Britain, the question of God and natural religion naturally turns to the question of the influence of the

Imitation: Cicero and the Nature of Hume’s Skepticism,” in McGill Hume Studies, eds. David Fate Norton, Nicholas Capaldi, and Wade L. Robison (San Diego: Austin Hill Press, 1979), 239-52; Peter Fosl, “Doubt and Divinity: Cicero’s Influence on Hume’s Religious Skepticism,” Hume Studies 20, no. 1 (April 1994): 103-20; Günter Gawlick, “Cicero and the Enlightenment,” Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 25 (1963): 657-82; Battersby, “Dialogues as Original Imitation,” in McGill Hume Studies, 239-52.

47 Danford, Problem of Reason, 167, 171-74.

48 Rohatyn, “Dialectical Conceits,” 531.

49 Carl Becker, The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth Century Philosophers (1964; repr., New Haven: Yale University Press, 1932), 73-74.

187

Christian religion. Despite the fact that the title of the Dialogues states that its topic is “natural religion,” Demea, Cleanthes, and Philo express their opinions on Christianity and divine revelation as well. Natural and divine religion are not completely separate topics for these gentlemen. Surrounded by the myriad of books and manuscripts in the library, the characters of the Dialogues participate, so to speak, in the conversations which have taken place between the great thinkers of another society – the republic of letters. The religious questions Demea,

Cleanthes, and Philo discuss are of importance to themselves, eighteenth-century British culture, and the philosophers and theologians throughout the ages. We turn now to the opening remarks of Pamphilus.

1.2 Pamphilus’s Opening Remarks

The whole of the Dialogues—from the very first line to the last—is, in a sense, a monologue delivered by Pamphilus to his friend, Hermippus. In Pamphilus’s introductory remarks,50 he speaks in his own voice and lays out his general thoughts concerning the utility of dialogue in theological discussion. Sections 1 through 12 make up what Pamphilus calls his

“recital” of the debates between Cleanthes, Demea, and Philo. This “recital” (or narration) integrates short, intermittent observations he makes of the interlocutors’ body language and

50 The first six paragraphs of the Dialogues, which consist of Pamphilus’s opening remarks, is often referred to by commentators as the “Introduction” or “Prologue.” These labels, however, might not be the most accurate way to describe the opening paragraphs. For one, Hume does not use any such designation. The designation he does use is “Pamphilus to Hermippus.” Second, by referring to the first six paragraphs as the “Introduction” or “Prologue,” it implies that Pamphilus’s statements are only a forerunner to the real substance of the work. Though Hume chose to make a break between Pamphilus’s opening remarks and Part 1, Hume does not make a break between Part 12 and Pamphilus’s concluding statement. The choice to do so might be simply because the final words of Pamphilus take up a very short paragraph; thus it might be odd stylistically to designate a break. Yet, having Pamphilus conclude Part 12 might indicate that there has been no real break at all; rather, the whole of the Dialogues is one continuous flow of Pamphilus speaking to Hermippus.

188 emotive reactions.51 In the very last sentence of Part 12, Pamphilus speaks again in his own voice, this time expressing his judgment on the “principles” of Cleanthes, Demea, and Philo.52

One of the often overlooked but important aspects of Pamphilus’s introductory remarks is that they are told to Hermippus after Pamphilus has had time to reflect on the conversations between Cleanthes, Demea, and Philo. These conversations are perhaps the most influential events of Pamphilus’s intellectual formation, for he claims that “nothing ever made greater impression on me, than all the reasonings of that day.”53 We have good reason to suppose, then, that what Pamphilus says in the opening paragraphs of the Dialogues is in large part the result of his reflections on the arguments put forth by these three gentlemen. His opening remarks, therefore, ought to be read in light of everything that follows.

In the first sentence, Pamphilus contrasts the method of “instruction” of the “ancient philosophers” with the method “now expected of philosophical enquirers.”54 Pamphilus tells

Hermippus that the ancient philosophers “conveyed most of their instruction in the form of dialogue” whereas “in later ages” this method has “seldom succeeded in the hands of those who have attempted it.”55 The reason dialogue is not as successful as it once was, according to

Pamphilus, is because philosophers now have a penchant for “systems”: “To deliver a SYSTEM in conversation,” he tells his friend, “scarcely appears natural.”56 Presenting a philosophical

51 DNR.129.

52 DNR 12.228.

53 Ibid.

54 DNR.127.

55 Ibid.

56 Ibid. 189

“system” is more amendable to a “direct style of composition” which incorporates “[a]ccurate and regular argument.”57 This “methodical and didactic manner” of presentation allows a person to “immediately, without preparation, explain the point at which he aims; and thence proceed, without interruption, to deduce proofs, on which it is established.”58

Though the “dialogue-writer,” in Pamphilus’s view, is not well-suited to present a

“system,” dialogue-writing is “still preferable” and “peculiarly adapted” to certain subjects.59

One such instance is when a “point of doctrine” is both “so obvious, that it scarcely admits of dispute,” and “so important, that it cannot be too often inculcated.”60 In such a case, dialogue imparts “novelty,” “vivacity,” and “variety” into what otherwise might be experienced by the reader as mere “triteness.”61 Another instance when dialogue is preferable is when a “question of philosophy . . . is so obscure and uncertain, that human reason can reach no fixed determination with regard to it; if it should be treated at all.”62 Pamphilus implies here that though questions lacking a determinate answer are perhaps best left alone, such questions are often so fascinating that people generally cannot refrain from pursuing them. Our limitations in understanding need not lead us to abandon discussion about such topics. Dialogue allows such a pursuit to take place in an entertaining manner while not giving the impression that a system is being put forth or that any definite answers are being given; rather, the reader is exposed to an array of divergent

57 DNR.127.

58 Ibid.

59 Ibid.

60 Ibid.

61 Ibid.

62 DNR.128. 190 opinions. In fact, a greater sense of amusement can be had in discussing these topics once we stop taking them so seriously:

Opposite sentiments, even without any decision, afford an agreeable amusement: And if the subject be curious and interesting, the book carries us, in a manner, into company; and unites the two greatest and purest pleasures of human life, study and society.63

The above passage indicates that another advantage of dialogue is its ability to naturally lead the reader into “the two greatest and purest pleasures of human life, study and society.” And given that “opposite sentiments” enhance this “agreeable amusement,” Pamphilus seems to suggest that our opposing opinions about obscure issues need not hinder our social interactions, but can enhance them. “Reasonable men may be allowed to differ,” Pamphilus tells us, “where no one can reasonably be positive.”64 Those with whom we associate need not be people we agree with; to the contrary, once a person realizes that the answers to obscure topics are perpetually hidden from human comprehension, conversations are more amusing if one’s friends do not agree.65

Pamphilus clearly suggests here the need for toleration, at least in matters he considers “obscure and uncertain.”66

“NATURAL RELIGION,” as it turns out, is a suitable subject for dialogue because it contains “obvious” and “important” elements as well as those that are “obscure” and “uncertain”:

63 DNR.128.

64 Ibid. The mutual amusement had in such company is contingent on both parties being “reasonable”; otherwise, such amusement may not end up being so friendly in the end. This latter scenario is precisely what happens when Demea—who does not take too kindly being made a fool of by Philo’s false alliance with him— leaves the company of Cleanthes and Philo.

65 This should remind us of Hume’s notion of friendship in his “Dedication” letter to Home (discussed in this dissertation’s last chapter on the Natural History).

66 DNR.128. Pamphilus makes no mention of tolerating diverse opinions in those subjects he deems “obvious” and “important” (DNR.127); neither does he say we ought to be intolerant.

191

What truth so obvious, so certain, as the being of a God. . . ? What truth so important as this, which is the ground of all our hopes, the surest foundation of morality, the firmest support of society, and the only principle which ought never to be a moment absent from our thoughts and meditations? But in treating of this obvious and important truth; what obscure questions occur, concerning the nature of that divine Being; his attributes, his decrees, his plan of providence? . . . But these are topic so interesting, that we cannot restrain our restless enquiry with regard to them; though nothing but doubt, uncertainty, and contradiction, have, as yet, been the result of our most accurate researches.67

The distinction Pamphilus makes here between the “being” and “nature” of God is significant.

First of all, he says “the being of a God” is an “obvious and important truth” whereas the “nature of that divine Being”—that is to say, “his attributes, his decrees, his plan of providence”—only leads to “obscure questions.” The obscurity of the divine nature seemingly leads Pamphilus to further claim that God’s being alone provides the “ground of all our hopes, the surest foundation of morality, [and] the firmest support of society.” This should strike us as strange. For Pamphilus is saying the attributes, decrees, and providence of the divine nature—which have traditionally been treated as the basis of hope, morality, and society—do not enter into the equation at all.

Yet, how can the mere existence of a being of which we know nothing about provide a basis for human hope and morality at all?

The apparent oddity of Pamphilus’s claim is mitigated if we look at his views as politically motivated. He seems to hold that in the effort to provide a ground for hope, virtue, and social stability, we err if we attempt to impose agreement concerning God’s nature. Given the incomprehensible nature of God, such agreement is not possible. As long as people are led to believe that God’s nature is within the grasp of the human understanding, disputes will inevitably break out. Attempts to impose universal agreement lend themselves to intolerance and persecution, not virtue and social stability. Pamphilus proposes that we shift focus to something

67 DNR.128. 192 men can universally agree upon – the existence of something we call “God.” Though Pamphilus has not said so, this shift is more momentous than it might at first seem. Given the utter incomprehensibility of the divine nature, the word “God” has no meaning. We can mean almost anything when assenting to “God’s” existence. “God” might be only a principle of order in nature. The political import of this is that religious differences matter very little. Society can be thus freed of the bitter squabbles between religious sects and get on with those things that will actually bring about social stability and virtue.

If my assessment of Pamphilus is correct, it reveals that he is no mere fool, but someone with subtle political and religious intentions of his own. Indeed, by introducing his philosophy of religious dialogue at the beginning, Pamphilus indicates the significance of his recitation of the dialogues between Demea, Philo, and Cleanthes. After all, Pamphilus is not only telling

Hermippus about religious dialogue, he will narrate a religious dialogue as well.68 He is putting his theory into practice. Pamphilus notes two challenges that he faces which threaten to undermine the effect of his recitation. He says that in the effort of the “dialogue-writer” to “avoid the appearance of author and reader, he is apt to run into a worse inconvenience, and convey the image of pedagogue and pupil.”69 Here Pamphilus suggests that his own narration of dialogue will aim to avoid the appearance of “author-reader” and “pedagogue-pupil.” The goal in avoiding these appearances, however, is precisely so the reality of “author-reader” and

“pedagogue-pupil” can transpire unnoticed. A well-written dialogue, in other words, absorbs the

68 We lack conclusive evidence concerning whether Pamphilus is speaking or writing to Hermippus. Pamphilus’s act of giving a “recital” connotes an oral presentation, but he also emphasizes the role of the “dialogue- writer” and “reader” in his opening remarks, which gives the sense that he is composing a written document. The latter scenario seems more likely given Hermippus’s silence throughout the Dialogues.

69 DNR.127.

193 reader so as to make him forget that he is reading. Likewise, good dialogue instructs the pupil without the pupil necessarily noticing. Pamphilus (and Hume), in making this technique explicit, flag the reader to view the Dialogues itself as a teaching tool on how to dialogue about religion.

It should be emphasized that since it is Pamphilus who will narrate the dialogues between

Demea, Cleanthes, and Philo, it is Pamphilus who is the teacher of Hermippus. Though

Pamphilus was once a student of these same dialogues when he first heard them in Cleanthes’s library—“[m]y youth rendered me a mere auditor of their disputes”—now, after reflection, it is

Pamphilus who teaches Hermippus by using these disputes to show how “nothing but doubt, uncertainty, and contradiction” arise from questions concerning God’s nature.70 Pamphilus’s opening remarks reveal that his decision to present these dialogues on religion is not to give an answer to the question of God’s nature, but to teach Hermippus about the uncertainty of arriving at any answer, and consequently, the toleration and indifference which should be shown toward people’s opinions concerning this question. And yet, the toleration Pamphilus is promoting consists of a disregard for the very issues which matter most to the religionist. For Pamphilus empties “God” of its religious sense by rejecting the very idea that religious duties, beliefs, and practices are to be derived from the attributes, decrees, and providence which reflect God’s nature.

Pamphilus shows himself to be aware of the social and political implications of his views on religion and encourages Hermippus to take on an attitude of indifference toward religious disputes as well. Pamphilus’s purpose in encouraging such an attitude has serious consequences.

His proposal shifts the traditional understanding of religion’s relationship to humanity—which

70 DNR.128-29. 194 has based hope, morality, and society on God’s existence and nature—to the notion that God’s existence alone, whose nature is utterly incomprehensible, is the cornerstone.

Though Pamphilus’s views grow out of the conversations between Demea, Cleanthes, and Philo, he has provided us some theological lessons of his own. The next section of the present chapter will look at the theme of education as it shows up in the conversations between these three main interlocutors.

2. The Methods of Instruction

The present section will argue the Dialogues demonstrates that instruction71 is the fundamental factor in determining the effects of religion in political life. Demea, Cleanthes, and

Philo present different methods of instruction they believe best form a person’s character and theological views. During the course of their debates each suggests what he believes to be the primary religious problem facing society and how his own method of instruction helps remedy this problem. Before examining each of the three methods of instruction proposed by Demea,

Cleanthes, and Philo, we will look at how the Dialogues suggests a connection between a person’s character and his theology.

Pamphilus suggests that the differences in religious views of Demea, Cleanthes, and

Philo are not simply theoretical. He draws attention to the difference in each of the men’s characters and relates this difference to the theology each holds. He flags these differences shortly before beginning his narration in Part 1. Pamphilus is also a bit circumspect in his

71 The term “instruction” here is being used in a general sense to encompass (1) rational argument and (2) vulgar education, i.e., indoctrination. This distinction between types of instruction will appear later in the present section of this chapter when examining each of the character’s methods.

195 characterizations of the three men, for he presents these characterizations as Hermippus’s judgment, not his own:

The remarkable contrast in their characters still farther raised your expectations; while you opposed the accurate philosophical turn of CLEANTHES to the careless scepticism of PHILO, or compared either of their dispositions with the rigid inflexible orthodoxy of DEMEA.72

Pamphilus may very well agree with Hermippus’s characterizations, but the point to be made here is that Pamphilus directs the focus to his friend as the one holding such opinions. In doing so, Pamphilus does not necessarily commit himself to Hermippus’s view, thereby leaving open the question what his own judgments are of the three speakers. Nevertheless, Pamphilus is not averse to Hermippus drawing a connection between the men’s characters and the kind of theology each holds; in fact, he seems to encourage it.

Demea, Cleanthes, and Philo each presents his instructional method based on whether he thinks modern society is made up of almost exclusively vulgar characters, philosophical, or a mixture. In presenting their different methods of instruction the three interlocutors show that instruction plays a significant role in cultivating a nation’s character and theology. The remaining sub-sections in Section 2 of this chapter will focus on the role of instruction in the remedies proposed by Demea, Cleanthes, and Philo for the political problem of religion.

2.1 Demea’s Method: Vulgar Skepticism

The present sub-section will argue that Demea thinks the primary political problem with which religion must deal is the increasing secularization of social norms – primarily due to

72 DNR.128. Recall that Pamphilus says his present aim is to simply “enter into a more exact detail of their reasonings” since he had already given Hermippus an “imperfect account” of the debates. Hermippus therefore was already familiar with the three parties involved and Pamphilus’s overall narrative. 196 science and philosophy. For Demea, religion’s influence on political life is a positive good that needs not to be curbed, but increased. The independence and self-confidence that comes with men’s study of philosophy is what needs to be moderated. Demea’s aim therefore is to attach people to religion by promoting skepticism toward reason and the sciences while habituating the young to a life of piety. Demea appeals to rhetoric, not reason, in order inculcate the idea that science and the arts are insufficient to secure men’s interests. In this manner, he hopes his pupils will be more likely to yield to religious mysteries without feeling the need (or having the capacity) to submit these mysteries to the supposed arrogance of natural reason. Instruction, for

Demea, is ultimately a form of indoctrination whereby the confidence of young people to reflect upon and question theological issues is undermined so as to make way for a religious faith that holds ultimate authority in matters both religious and social.

Though Pamphilus does not participate directly in the discussions between Cleanthes,

Demea, and Philo, his presence directs their discussions. As Danford observes, Pamphilus’s presence “is one of the first indications of the political character of this work: it is not a discussion among philosophers only, since, to begin with, a young man is present.”73

We see Pamphilus’s influence from the very outset of Part 1 when he enters the library where the three men are present. Demea immediately shifts the conversation to Cleanthes’s “education” of

Pamphilus.74 He praises Cleanthes for his “prudence” and “industry” in teaching Pamphilus

“every useful branch of literature and science.”75 The qualities of prudence, industry, and

73 Danford, “Surest Foundation of Morality,” 144.

74 DNR 1.130.

75 Ibid.

197 utility—practical virtues—appear to be what Demea most values in a youth’s education and he seems to presume that Cleanthes does too. Before letting Cleanthes respond, however, Demea immediately expounds on the method of education he applies to his own children. It is here where his idea of “education” is revealed to be really a form of indoctrination –not a rational pursuit of truth.

The first indication of Demea’s vulgar conception of instruction is that he justifies it neither by appealing to a rational basis nor by showing how his method is confirmed by human experience. Rather, he quotes an ancient authority to prove to Cleanthes and Philo that his method is on firm ground.76 From this authority, Demea garners that the “science of natural theology” should be left toward the end of a student’s instruction – after he has learned such basics as logic, ethics, and physics. The reason for putting theology last, according to Demea, is because questions concerning the nature of the gods are the “most profound and abstruse” of all sciences and are therefore in need of “the maturest judgment.”77

When Philo questions the prudence of Demea’s decision to introduce his children “so late” to the “principles of religion,” Demea responds by saying that he only delays the scientific investigation of religion, i.e., the “subjection” of theology to “human reasoning and disputation.”78 As for “piety,” his “chief care,” Demea teaches it by “example” as well as by

76 Demea is wont to appeal to authority first and foremost when attempting to justify the stances he takes. At DNR 2.141, Demea justifies his view of piety by citing Malebranche, who he refers to as a “very great authority” on the subject. At 2.145, Demea refers to the dangerous effect the a posteriori argument might have on Pamphilus because of the influence Cleanthes’s teaching authority might have on his youth. At 10.194, Demea looks to the authors of the various books in the library to support his claim of universal suffering in the world. At 10.199, Demea looks to “all pious divines and preachers” who have set the example of arousing men’s religiosity by emphasizing their misery—a rhetorical technique that Demea himself practices.

77 DNR 1.130.

78 Ibid. 198

“continual precept and instruction” in an effort to “imprint deeply on their minds an habitual reverence for all the principles of religion.”79 While strengthening his children’s piety, he proceeds in their instruction by undermining the other sciences’ claims to rationality by reminding them of the “uncertainty of each part, the eternal disputations of men, the obscurity of all philosophy, and the strange, ridiculous conclusions, which . . . have derived from the principles of mere human reason.”80

Only after he has “thus tamed their mind to a proper submission and self-diffidence” does he consider his pupils ready to examine the “greatest mysteries of religion.”81 But at this point in their education, Demea’s pupils have little aptitude to subject natural theology to any meaningful rational analysis. For, if Demea’s method has been successful, the “arrogance of philosophy” has been weeded out of their souls.82 The mind of the student has been cultivated all along to submit to those “established doctrines and opinions” proposed by religious authorities.83 These doctrines, Demea suggests, being utterly incomprehensible, would likely lead any person of a philosophical bent to either reject them or suspend judgment. Demea’s children, however, feel at home referring to the meaningless perfections of the divine nature—infinite goodness, power, knowledge, and so on—because such panegyrics are seen by them as simply extensions of piety, not claims to knowledge:

79 DNR 1.130. William Sessions points out that the issue of piety “is surprisingly neglected by commentators, even though all the characters in the Dialogues, and Pamphilus, too, agree that it is more important than natural theology” (“Dialogic Interpretation,” 31n10).

80 Ibid.

81 DNR 1.130-31.

82 DNR 1.131.

83 Ibid.

199

At least, if it appear more pious and respectful (as it really is still to retain these terms, when we mention the supreme Being,)* we ought to acknowledge, that their meaning, in that case, is totally incomprehensible; and that the infirmities of our nature do not permit us to reach any ideas, which in the least correspond to the ineffable sublimity of the divine attributes.84

The “mature judgment” of the student, for Demea, does not mean rational judgment, but rather submissiveness to the mysteries of religion and its authorities.

The only point of doctrine Demea attempts to rationally justify is the existence of God.

He first declares in Part 2 that all men of “common sense” cannot “seriously doubt” the “truth” of God’s existence, a truth he deems “certain and self-evident.”85 In Part 9 he follows up this claim with an a priori argument. Yet, his presentation of the argument is more akin to an exercise in dogmatic formulation than a rational demonstration of truth. One gets a sense that his argument, though succinctly put together, is too tidy insofar as there is no part of it that he seems capable of elaborating on or explaining once it is challenged by Cleanthes and Philo. Unlike

Cleanthes, who puts forth an argument for God’s existence and then proceeds to defend it against

Philo’s unrelenting attacks throughout the middle sections of the Dialogues, Demea does not even attempt to defend his argument when it is criticized. It is as though he has been trained to formulate the argument, but does not know how to frame a rational response when it is criticized.86

84 DNR 3.157. *Parenthesis is missing after “Being” in the Norton text.

85 DNR 2.141.

86 We see a similar response on Demea’s part in Book 10 when he discovers Philo’s betrayal. Rather than stand his own ground against his two counterparts, or simply remain silent as in Part 9, he decides to physically depart the company of Cleanthes and Philo. Demea may have lasted as long as he did because his alliance with Philo allowed Demea to lean on him as Philo did most of the heavy lifting in Parts 2 through 11. Demea’s education simply has not equipped him to take on Cleanthes and Philo in intellectual debate.

200

Demea is convinced that God’s existence is settled by the a priori argument, period. Such an argument allows for establishing the being of God while leaving in total obscurity God’s nature87 – ignorance of the latter being requisite to true piety. Thus, the votary can maintain an air of being “philosophical” while still remaining pious by claiming complete ignorance of God’s nature:

It is profaneness to attempt penetrating through these sacred obscurities: And next to the impiety of denying his existence, is the temerity of prying into his nature and essence, decrees, and attributes.88

Arguments that fall short of certainty in proving God’s existence or that attempt to prove God’s attributes are, according to Demea, acts of impiety. This perspective of his explains the marked concern he demonstrates for Pamphilus being present while Cleanthes and Philo discuss the a posteriori argument:

Good God! Cried DEMEA, interrupting him, where are we? Zealous defenders of religion allow, that the proofs of a Deity fall short of perfect evidence! . . . [W]hy spare my censure, when such principles are advanced, supported by such an authority, before so young a man as PAMPHILUS?89

Demea’s main fear, it seems, is the effect Cleanthes’s reasoning might have on Pamphilus’s regard for religion. If the “proofs of a Deity fall short of perfect evidence,” Pamphilus might question God’s existence or, almost as impious, he might attempt to penetrate into the mysteries of God by attempting to understand the a posteriori argument.

Demea thinks that by de-emphasizing reason, people will naturally tend toward religion.

87 Pamphilus and Philo make this same claim about the existence and nature of God, but both draw a different conclusion than Demea about piety and the place of religion in society.

88 DNR 2.141.

89 DNR 2.145.

201

It is my opinion, I own, replied DEMEA, that each man feels, in a manner, the truth of religion within his own breast; and from a consciousness of his imbecility and misery, rather than from any reasoning, is led to seek protection from that being, on whom he and all nature is dependent.90

For Demea, the use of rhetoric helps focus men’s attention on their “imbecility” and “misery.” In

Part 10 of the Dialogues we see Demea engaging in the art of rhetoric as he describes the torments of human existence:

Wretched creatures that we are! What resources for us amidst the innumerable ills of life, did not religion suggest such methods of atonement, and appease those terrors, with which we are incessantly agitated and tormented?91

He educates by giving a vivid depiction of suffering for the purpose of arousing people’s “hopes and fears” so as to lead them to “prayers, adoration, and sacrifice” in order to “appease those unknown powers . . . so able to afflict and oppress us.”92 Demea’s depiction of religion is what

Hume characterizes as vulgar religion. Demea here clearly shows himself to support such a religion because he thinks it acts as a source of relief for men’s anxieties.

In conclusion, for Demea the intended political effect of rejecting reason in religious education is to firmly attach people to the teachings of religion so that religious authority retains a central place in all aspects of political life. For at bottom, Demea’s theory of education ends up making no distinction between the “vulgar” and those who have the capacity for establishing religious and scientific truths by rational argument and evidence. Everyone, according to him, ought to be shown reason’s inability to examine not only the mysteries of religion but science too. Everyone, in other words, is reduced to the vulgar on Demea’s account. Religion therefore

90 DNR 10.193. For other comments by Demea where he explicitly excludes the need of reason to bring people to a felt need for religion see, DNR 10.193-94.

91 Ibid.

92 Ibid.

202 ought to hold the highest place in society – even over that of the sciences and arts. All men should willingly submit their intellects to those entrusted with teaching the sacred mysteries. For

Demea, the young should be taught God’s existence as unquestionable and self-evident. If need be, the a priori proof can be supplied in support of this truth, but even here the proof is used more as a formula to be memorized and repeated than something to be truly demonstrated.

Neither should people “pry” into attempting to understand the nature of God. Demea’s anxiety over Pamphilus hearing Cleanthes’s “impious” attempts to do so suggests that if Demea had his way, there would be close regulation of what can and cannot be freely discussed about religious matters, especially in front of the youth.

Despite Demea’s insistence on our ignorance of the divine nature, his position does not thereby lead toward religious toleration. According to him, our ignorance ought not to lend itself toward openness to various opinions on religion; rather, it ought to lead us to submit to the proper religious authority. “True religion” and “true piety” are still promoted by Demea, but they are contingent on a blind faith in authority. Implicit in Demea’s perspective is the notion that if people are allowed to judge religion by reason, they will likely reject many of the religious doctrines, which, in turn, will lead people to stray from the approved religious orthodoxy of society. Cleanthes is a person who does just this.

2.2 Cleanthes’s Method: Reason and Argument

The current sub-section will argue that in Cleanthes’s view, the political problem of religion is not excessive confidence in reason; rather, the real danger is the anti-rationalism of vulgar religion and education. Cleanthes proposes what he conceives to be a religion which 203 coheres with both common life and reason. Cleanthes diagnoses the problem of religion and its remedy using a distinction he makes between the “vulgar” and “philosophical” early on in Part 1 of the Dialogues.93 To his mind, the “vulgar” skepticism of Demea, especially when encouraged by Philo’s “philosophical” skepticism, has the grave potential of becoming “dangerous to the state, to philosophy, or to religion.”94 For vulgar skepticism, in his view, “is fatal to knowledge, not to religion.”95 The rejection of reason undermines people’s confidence in the rational elements of political life—science and art, for instance—and opens the way to either religious and political enthusiasm or the tyranny of superstition.96 Cleanthes proposes, therefore, a rational religion he thinks is suitable to a more modern, enlightened age. He reflects his own method of instruction through his willingness to rationally combat Demea’s vulgar skepticism head on.

Cleanthes’s aim is to restore reason and argument to theology in order to save both religion and political life. Cleanthes’s notion of the “proper office of religion” and “genuine theism” plays an essential role in promoting a secular form of piety through an appeal to the natural and civic virtues.”97

Cleanthes’s approach to learning encourages independent thinking while also displaying a confidence in reason’s ability to guide people to the truths of religion.98 He holds that reason

93 DNR 1.136.

94 DNR 1.132. Danford develops this argument in Problem of Reason, 164-86.

95 DNR 1.136.

96 On this point, see Danford, Problem of Reason, 183.

97 DNR 12.220.

98 Isabel Rivers reminds us that Hume’s Dialogues deal with the “very important cultural shift of the second half of the seventeenth century in which reason and faith are no longer perceived as antagonistic but as mutually supporting, so that natural religion becomes vitally necessary to the defence of revealed religion. This relationship remained firmly in place throughout the eighteenth century. . .” (“Galen’s Muscles,” 591). 204 can grasp the existence and nature of God. His method of religious instruction aims to teach the student both the right process of how one ought to reason (from experience) and the end to which right reasoning leads (knowledge of the existence and nature of God). Hence, his method enables one to both reason to and defend religious doctrine. His method cannot be said to be a mere form of indoctrination since he relies primarily on argument, not custom or authority. He thinks that those who reason correctly will come to the same conclusions as himself. Based on

Cleanthes’s willingness to debate in front of Pamphilus, it seems that good instruction, according to him, trains a pupil to reason correctly by having the student watch debates—and presumably, at some point, engage in them—by having the instructor model for the pupil the correct manner of reasoning so as to arrive at theological truth. But this method is risky because, obviously, the pupil is free to disagree with his teacher.99

The teacher-student relationship between Cleanthes and Pamphilus appears quite close.

Demea refers to the father of Pamphilus as having been an “intimate friend” of Cleanthes.100 Out of regard for his friend, Cleanthes has taken Pamphilus on as a “pupil” and treats him as an

99 Cleanthes, however, seems willing to listen to only so much opposition – at least amongst his colleagues. We see this in his dismissal of Demea’s appeals to faith or revelation when making theological claims. When, for instance, Demea attempts to give an answer to the by appealing to a “future point of existence” where people are “opened to larger views of things” and see how the “present evil phenomena” is “rectified,” Cleanthes reacts in the following way: “No! replied CLEANTHES, No! These arbitrary suppositions can never be admitted, contrary to matter of fact, visible and uncontroverted. Whence can any cause be known but from its known effects? Whence can any hypothesis be proved but from the apparent phenomena? To establish one hypothesis upon another is building entirely in the air; and the utmost we ever attain, by these conjectures and fictions, is to ascertain the bare possibility of our opinion; but never can we, upon such terms, establish its reality” (DNR 10.199-200). Given Cleanthes’s refusal to admit anything into religion that is not based on observed experience and reason, it appears that in his instruction of Pamphilus, there might be a risk of indoctrination on Cleanthes’s part if his methodology is rigidly affixed to excluding revelation from what he considers genuine religion.

100 DNR 1.130. Demea refers to the friendship between Cleanthes and Pamphilus’s father in the past tense. It seems likely that Pamphilus’s father has passed away since Cleanthes treats Pamphilus like an “adopted son.” Pamphilus, however, does not live with Cleanthes on a permanent basis.

205

“adopted son.”101 Cleanthes’s tutelage has been going on some years, for, Pamphilus notes that it was his usual practice to spend part of the summer at Cleanthes’s estate.102 The kind of instruction Cleanthes provides Pamphilus integrates a level of risk-taking that would be foreign to Demea’s method. Whereas Demea aims to produce the type of character who can more easily be controlled by those in religious authority, Cleanthes seems totally at ease with having

Pamphilus listen to the debates between himself, Philo, and Demea even though the three men express opposing viewpoints about religion. If Cleanthes’s only aim was to inculcate a particular doctrine to his pupil, it seems that of the three gentlemen, Cleanthes would be the one expressing concern about Pamphilus’s presence. Instead, the contrary is the case. Cleanthes is the only one of the party who never even mentions Pamphilus. This lack of acknowledgement does not seem so much the effect of indifference on his part, but rather a familiarity between himself and

Pamphilus. If Pamphilus lives with Cleanthes during the summers, it is likely his presence at these types of conversations was a regular occurrence. Cleanthes’s willingness to have

Pamphilus be present during the debates indicates that, as a teacher, he thinks it is beneficial for his pupil to be exposed to lively disagreement and philosophical argument. We shall proceed by looking at Cleanthes’s critique of vulgar skepticism, and why he thinks it necessary for philosophers to moderate not only religion but the Christian religion as well.

Shortly after hearing Demea’s proposed method of skeptical education (and Philo’s so- called refinement of it), Cleanthes appears to warn Philo against encouraging Demea:

There is indeed a kind of brutish and ignorant scepticism . . . which gives the vulgar a general prejudice against what they do not easily understand, and makes them reject every principle which requires elaborate reasoning to prove and establish it. This species

101 DNR 1.130.

102 DNR.128. 206

of scepticism is fatal to knowledge, not to religion; since we find, that those who make greatest profession of it, give often their assent, not only to the great truths of theism, and natural theology, but even to the most absurd tenets, which a traditional superstition has recommended to them. They firmly believe in witches; though they will not believe nor attend to the most simple proposition of Euclid. But the refined and philosophical sceptics . . . push their researches into the most abstruse corners of science; and their assent attends them in every step, proportioned to the evidence which they meet with. 103

According to Danford, Cleanthes is not criticizing Philo here for his skepticism per se (after all, we can garner from the above passage that Cleanthes thinks of himself as possessing the qualities of a philosophical skeptic, that is to say, a scientific mind). Instead, Danford thinks that

Cleanthes criticizes Philo for being politically irresponsible in his skepticism by encouraging the

“brutish and ignorant” skepticism of Demea. Danford surmises that Cleanthes is warning Philo of the negative social implications of bolstering this kind of brutish skepticism:

Genuine skepticism as a way of life is impossible, except perhaps for a very few, and even for them, only in reflection and not in action. It is incompatible with a political community because . . . [h]uman nature is such that men are bound to live by their beliefs and opinions. Hence the political question is, what beliefs? If Philo’s skepticism teaches us that we can know nothing, and thus encourages a kind of humility, it too easily contributes to the kind of dogmatic—and in effect skeptical—humility Demea represents. Such a skepticism, which Cleanthes characterized as ‘brutish and ignorant,’ is not inconsistent with a fervent belief in witches.104

As Danford sees it, Hume (in the voice of Cleanthes) is warning his philosophical contemporaries (Philo) that the promotion of skepticism in the vulgar (Demea) does not lead to the “death of religion . . . but to its debasement, into forms of superstition and enthusiasm.”105 By

103 DNR 1.136. Emphasis added. For further discussion on this distinction, see Danford, Problem of Reason, 181-84.

104 Danford, “Surest Foundation of Morality,” 152. For further discussion of Philo’s socially irresponsible skepticism, see Danford, Problem of Reason, 180-81.

105 Ibid., Problem of Reason, 170. Danford further states that Cleanthes is warning Philo that his “skepticism may contribute not to a reserved and philosophical faith, but to the most blind and abject superstition imaginable” (“Surest Foundation of Morality,” 152).

207 encouraging vulgar skepticism, Philo risks making vulgar religion an authority over the whole of political life. Philosophy, the arts, science, and politics would be subsumed under the aegis of a religion which is blatantly anti-rational.106

In criticizing Philo, then, Cleanthes does not reject . Rather, he indicates that when properly employed, philosophical skepticism does a great service to reason and political life. A responsible skeptic, according to Cleanthes, does not abandon reason and argument (nor does he encourage others to abandon them as he seems to think Philo is doing); rather, the socially responsible, philosophical skeptic attempts to influence enquirers to be more cautious in their researches. The evidence of everyday experience, in Cleanthes’s view, serves as a starting point for the philosophical skeptic. He does not think that “common” or “vulgar experience” sets the bounds of knowledge.107 Rather, experience, so to speak, points to a reality beyond mere appearances. It is the aim of the philosopher or scientist to rationally uncover the principles underlying the appearances. Cleanthes tells Philo as a matter of course that even philosophical skeptics understand the necessity to go beyond appearances and are “obliged to acknowledge, that the most abstruse and remote objects are those which are best explained by philosophy”108:

106 It will be argued later in this chapter of the dissertation that Philo is not nearly so naïve on this issue as Cleanthes (and perhaps Danford) apparently thinks he is. We will show how Philo is not only deceiving Demea in Part 1 of the Dialogues, but that he is also laying the groundwork for his deception of Cleanthes. Philo has his own ulterior purposes, of which Cleanthes is not aware.

107 For reference to Cleanthes’s attempt to “conform” theology to “common experience,” see DNR 8.186. For reference to Cleanthes’s “founding” theology on “vulgar experience,” see DNR 6.172.

108 DNR 1.136. He goes on to give an example of how our modern understanding of light and the movement of the planets appeals to principles outside of common life: “Light is in reality anatomized: The true system of the heavenly bodies is discovered and ascertained.”

208

These sceptics, therefore, are obliged, in every question, to order each particular evidence apart, and proportion their assent to the precise degree of evidence which occurs. This is their practice in all natural, mathematical, moral, and political science. And why not the same, I ask, in the theological and religious?109

The practice of true philosophical skepticism, in Cleanthes’s view, ought to lead to genuine knowledge that is superior to common sense. Consequently, Cleanthes insists that there be a

“distinction between science and common life.”110 Whereas science is the realm of cautious, methodical reason which can lead the philosopher to obscure and abstract existences, common life is the realm of common sense and custom. Theological science ought, therefore, to be restored to its rational status and no longer be reduced to mere custom by the anti-rationalism of vulgar skepticism.

Shortly after Cleanthes makes the distinction between “vulgar” and “philosophic” skepticism, he claims that the Christian tradition is a major culprit in employing the kind of vulgar education Demea so much admires. In a brief run-down of the history of Christianity and its role in religious instruction, Cleanthes clearly shows—as did Demea—that the forebears of the Christian faith embraced vulgar skepticism with the intent of strengthening people’s fidelity to religion:

After the union of philosophy with the popular religion, upon the first establishment of Christianity, nothing was more usual, among all religious teachers, than declamations against reason, against the senses, against every principle, derived merely from human research and enquiry. All the topics of the ancient Academics were adopted by the Fathers; and thence propagated for several ages in every school and pulpit throughout Christendom. The Reformers embraced the same principles of reasoning, or rather declamation; and all panegyrics on the excellency of faith were sure to be interlarded with some severe strokes of satire against natural reason. . . .111

109 DNR 1.137.

110 Ibid.

111 DNR 1.138. 209

Later, in Part 11, Cleanthes further reveals his thoughts on the Christian religion when he refers to the “injudicious reasoning of our vulgar theology.”112 In referring to “our vulgar theology,”

Cleanthes is clearly not referring to his own particular theology—which he deems philosophic, not vulgar—but the Christian theology that he and his contemporaries have inherited. When

Cleanthes expounds on Christian orthodoxy, he indicates that it is better suited for “ages of stupidity and ignorance,” not his present age:

The total infirmity of human reason, the absolute incomprehensibility of the divine nature, the great and universal misery and . . . still greater wickedness of men; these are strange topics surely to be so fondly cherished by orthodox divines and doctors. In ages of stupidity and ignorance, indeed, these principles may safely be espoused; and perhaps, no views of things are more proper to promote superstition, than such as encourage the blind amazement, the diffidence, and melancholy of mankind. But at present. . . .113

Cleanthes here not only displays a disregard for what he takes to be the orthodox Christian tradition, which, he suggests, amounts to the promotion of “superstition,” but also insinuates that the rhetorical strategies employed by Demea—such as the inculcation of “blind amazement,”

“diffidence,” and “melancholy”—are integral to maintaining orthodoxy. Cleanthes indicates that his present age, however, calls for a new kind of religious instruction.114

Because Cleanthes’s above remarks are cut off by Philo, the passage does not make clear exactly what kind of contrast Cleanthes was going to make between his own age and ages of

“ignorance.” But he does give us a sense of what he thinks about his own age when he comments on Locke’s approach to religion:

112 DNR 11.213. Emphasis added.

113 Ibid. The passage ends abruptly because Cleanthes is cut off by Philo.

114 Cleanthes traces the renewal of philosophy and argument in his own age to the rediscovery of the “[a]ncient learning” of the Greeks. On his account, the Christian religion at most served as a conduit between the ancient and present ages, but it did not contribute anything of philosophic significance; see DNR 6.172-73.

210

LOCKE seems to have been the first Christian, who ventured openly to assert, that faith was nothing but a species of reason, that religion was only a branch of philosophy, and that a chain of arguments, similar to that which established any truth in morals, politics, or physics, was always employed in discovering all the principles of theology, natural and revealed.115

Cleanthes does not attempt a rebuttal of Locke’s remarks (here or elsewhere). Since Cleanthes is not one to refrain from critiquing that which he disagrees with, his lack of criticism suggests that he is not averse to Locke’s view of religion. Cleanthes thus appears sympathetic towards the idea that all religious doctrine—both natural and what is thought to be revealed—ought to be submitted to the standards of human reason. In his view, then, all religion, including Christianity, is reduced to natural religion.

Religion, according to Cleanthes, has intellectual and moral ends. In order for theology to motivate people toward these ends, religious truth must be within human comprehension.

Demea’s view of religion, in Cleanthes’s opinion, may be filled with “many sublime eulogies,” but they serve no proper end since they are only “unmeaning epithets.”116

But if our ideas, so far as they go, be not just and adequate, and correspondent to his real nature, I know not what there is in this subject worth insisting on. Is the name, without any meaning, of such mighty importance?117

The desired aim of Cleanthes is to closely align—by means of analogy—the languages of theology and everyday experience. The a posteriori argument contributes to this purpose:

The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the productions of human contrivance; of human design, thought, wisdom, and intelligence. Since therefore the effects resemble each other, we are led to infer, by all the rules of analogy, that the causes also resemble; and that the Author of nature is

115 DNR 1.138.

116 DNR 4.158.

117 Ibid.

211

somewhat similar to the mind of man; though possessed of much larger faculties, proportioned to the grandeur of the work, which he has executed [emphasis added].118

Cleanthes limits himself to the a posteriori argument alone. Only this argument can “prove at once the existence of a Deity, and his similarity to human mind and intelligence.”119 His reason for insisting that the argument is the only possible justification for theism is not only that it is logically coherent, but also that people can relate it to their experience:

[O]ne great advantage of the principle of theism, is, that it is the only system of cosmogony which can be rendered intelligible and complete, and yet can throughout preserve a strong analogy to what we every day see and experience in the world.120

Philo, too, recognizes that the aim of Cleanthes’s theology is to “preserve a conformity to common experience.”121 Cleanthes thinks that rational theism need not exclude the generality of men. In fact, it is precisely when theology is made proportional to the evidence of experience that religion can appeal to the philosopher and vulgar alike. The philosopher can rationally pursue theology as long as he is careful to proportion each of his steps to the evidence. The vulgar, likewise, are assured that theological speech and the speech of common life are indeed similar. They are also freed from the anxiety of appeasing an unknowable God, for they would be at liberty to pursue what they naturally experience in common life as their genuine, human good.122 At the same time, it is important to point out that Cleanthes’s theology complements

118 DNR 2.143. For another formulation, see DNR 12.216.

119 Ibid.

120 DNR 12.216. Thus he tells Demea that “if we abandon all human analogy, . . . I am afraid we abandon all religion, and retain no conception of the great object of our adoration” (DNR 11.203).

121 DNR 8.186.

122 His argument also fits with the growing number of eighteenth-century philosophers and theologians who had a felt need to rationally infer the existence and nature of God from the order of nature. As Carl Becker states: “The very foundation of the new philosophy was that the existence of God, if there be one, and his goodness, if goodness he could claim, must be inferred from the observable behavior of the world. Following Newton, the 212 common life but is not, strictly speaking, reduced to common life. For theology, according to him, is a science distinct from common life. As a science, theology is separate from common life and is thus not ultimately subject to it – just as the discoveries of natural science are not subject to common sense. Though theology will proportion itself to common life, theology is not beholden to defend customs, no matter how revered, which are deemed unreasonable by the theist.

Rational religion, therefore, need not conform to the mysteries of faith or revelation as they are proposed by Christianity. For instance, Cleanthes rejects the Christian claim that God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. Instead, he proportions his belief in the goodness, power, and knowledge of God to the amount of suffering and evil in the universe:

I have been apt to suspect the frequent repetition of the word, infinite, which we meet with in all theological writers, to savour more of panegyric than of philosophy, and that any purposes of reasoning, and even of religion, would be better served, were we to rest contended with more accurate and more moderate expressions. . . .123

Given Cleanthes’s emphasis on the need for proportional reasoning in scientific matters, it is not difficult to see why he claims that our ideas of God should also be proportional to human understanding. Cleanthes seems to think that the closer religion corresponds to the common sentiments of people in civil society, the more religion will motivate them to pursue their genuine interests. Consequently, “supposing the Author of nature to be finitely perfect,”124 does more to move people in this right direction than those that insist on His infinite perfections:

Philosophers had all insisted on this to the point of pedantry, and so, even had the enlightened Christian theologians in their desperate effort to find arguments to convince doubting Thomases” (Becker, Heavenly City, 67).

123 DNR 11.203.

124 Ibid. Emphasis added to “finitely perfect.”

213

The terms, admirable, excellent, superlatively great, wise, and holy; these sufficiently fill the imaginations of men; and any thing beyond, besides that it leads into absurdities, has no influence on the affections or sentiments.125

These remarks suggest that for Cleanthes, the idea of God must be proportional to our understanding if such an idea is to have any relevance to morality and social life.

Cleanthes’s notion of the “proper office of religion”—which, according to him, has as its sole purpose to support the virtues of political life—strengthens morality by promoting a religion more proportional to common life:

The proper office of religion is to regulate the heart of men, humanize their conduct, infuse the spirit of temperance, order, and obedience; and as its operation is silent, and only enforces the motives of morality and justice, it is in danger of being overlooked, and confounded with these other motives. When it distinguishes itself, and acts as a separate principle over men, it has departed from its proper sphere, and has become only a cover to faction and ambition.126

A question that arises here is what Cleanthes means when claiming that religion ought to be

“silent.” He says, after all, that when religion is fulfilling its proper function it will become

“overlooked” and “confounded” with morality and justice. What he seems to indicate here is that people’s experience of religion should not differ much, if at all, from living the natural and civic virtues. His disapproval of attempts of religion to “distinguish” itself suggests that the elements that traditionally characterize a religious group—certain beliefs, ritual, worship, acts of piety, ranks of office—are superfluous or unimportant.

It appears that for Cleanthes, religious doctrine and practice are reasonable to the extent they lend themselves to the peace and order of society. His depiction of “genuine theism,” for instance, shows that he thinks that some doctrines are a necessary support for good morals:

125 DNR 11.203.

126 DNR 12.220.

214

[G]enuine theism . . . represents us as the workmanship of a Being perfectly good, wise, and powerful; who created us for happiness, and who, having implanted in us immeasurable desires of good, will prolong our existence to all eternity, and will transfer us into an infinite variety of scenes, in order to satisfy those desires, and render our felicity complete and durable.127

Cleanthes mentions no requirement for religious acts of piety or worship as a part of “genuine theism.” He seems to promote a secularized and intellectual notion of religion which has little need for religious observances. The notion of piety, in effect, is reduced to the social virtues.

Overall, Cleanthes sees himself as modeling for Pamphilus what a responsible philosophical skeptic looks like, one who holds “to a kind of middle ground between the abject and humble piety of Demea and the [irresponsible] philosophical skepticism of Philo.”128 His distinction between the “vulgar” and the “philosophical” suggests that his method of instruction differs depending on whether the pupil displays vulgar or philosophical traits. Yet, this distinction might not actually play as major a role as one might expect when applied to people living in his own age. The reason for this is indicated in Part 11 of the Dialogues where he refers to the “vulgar” as those who have lived in previous ages marked by “stupidity and ignorance.”129

Though he acknowledges that the “vulgar”—Demea, for instance—are still prevalent in his present age, the fact that Cleanthes is willing to rationally engage Demea suggests that with the right instruction, Cleanthes thinks even the “vulgar” of his age have the potential to be lifted up, so to speak, to the level of reason and argument in religious matters. Vulgar religious education might have been necessary in earlier times, but Cleanthes seems to indicate by his actions that it

127 DNR 12.224. See also Cleanthes’s remarks at DNR 12.219: “The doctrine of a future state is so strong and necessary a security to morals, that we never ought to abandon or neglect it.”

128 Danford, Problem of Reason, 180.

129 DNR 11.213.

215 is no longer suited for the age in which he and his compatriots now live.130 Reason and experience, not indoctrination, should be appealed to in matters of religion.

Cleanthes is also likely using the occasion of these conversations as a way to show

Pamphilus the superiority of his own approach over those of Demea or Philo. Even if Demea is not able to grasp the reasonableness of what Cleanthes is saying, at least Pamphilus, a more philosophical type, can learn from watching and listening. Cleanthes, in some ways, seems to embody the optimism of the eighteenth-century enlightenment. He has decided views about what can meaningfully be said about the nature of the divine based on reason alone. These rational, theological beliefs need not be limited to the intellectual minority; for, with the growing enlightenment of the age, a rational religion can become increasingly embraced by those who in past ages would not have had the benefit of true philosophy. With the eventual acceptance of rational religion by society, vulgar religionists will increasingly become more moderate (and rational) in their sentiments and doctrines. Reason can thereby gain a predominate place in political life and secure peace and stability in society.131

2.3 Philo’s Method: Inculcating Indifference

The present sub-section of this chapter will examine Philo’s diagnosis of and remedy for the political problem of vulgar religion. This sub-section is the longest because we will argue that Philo offers what Hume deems the most comprehensive and effective remedy to the political problem of religion. Philo suggests the need for a paradigm shift in how people view religion and

130 DNR 11.213.

131 DNR 1.132.

216 religion’s relation to political life; for, despite his social criticism of vulgar religion, he still thinks that civil society can and must accommodate corrupted forms of religion due to men’s vulgar propensities. He rejects the remedies proposed by Demea and Cleanthes because both hinge on convincing people of true religion. Though Philo rejects their approach, he does not thereby dismiss the idea of “true religion” altogether.132 He says of himself, for instance, that “no one has a deeper sense of religion impressed on his mind, or pays more profound adoration to the divine Being, as he discovers himself to reason.”133 He tells Cleanthes that “in proportion to my veneration for true religion, is my abhorrence of vulgar superstitions.”134 Philo also says he exempts “philosophical and rational” religion from his moral critique.135 For Philo, however, when seeking a political remedy for religion, true religion is beside the point:

True religion, I allow, has no pernicious consequences. But we must treat of religion, as it has commonly been found in the world; nor have I any thing to do with that speculative tenet of theism, which, as it is a species of philosophy, must partake of the beneficial influence of that principle, and at the same time must lie under a like inconvenience, of being always confined to very few persons.136

The attempt to teach people a more philosophic type of religion will fail to curb vulgar religion since reason has so little influence on people’s religious propensities. The “vulgar,” according to

Philo, are “utterly incapable of so pure a religion.”137 Even if a rational religion was taught, most people would either fail to grasp it or end up opposing it in favor of vulgar superstition. Rather

132 DNR 12.223.

133 DNR 12.214.

134 DNR 12.219.

135 DNR 12.220.

136 DNR 12.223.

137 DNR 12.221.

217 than attempting to promote what religion ought to be, Philo indicates in the above passage that an effective remedy must deal with human nature and religion as they are.

For Philo, a remedy consists in curbing the negative social effects of vulgar religion rather than attempting to instill into people an idea of true religion. He points to political, moral, economic, and educational ways of curbing religion’s effects. Of these ways, the present sub- section will focus primarily on the fundamental role of education. Education provides the fertile ground from whence the political, moral, and economic elements of a remedy can take practical effect. Integral to Philo’s notion of education is inculcating religious indifference. Religious indifference of itself does not rid society of religious belief, but it does curb people’s convictions, thereby making them less likely to act fanatically.

We will proceed by first outlining Philo’s references to economic, moral, and political remedies for religion, examine why these are not by themselves enough to serve as a remedy for religion, and then look at why he thinks the inculcation of religious indifference is necessary for their success. We will then examine how Philo himself models methods of instruction that are aimed at instilling religious indifference into the vulgar and learned alike.

In Part 12 of the Dialogues Philo refers to industriousness as a contributing economic factor to curbing religion’s social effects. He refers to the many desirable social benefits that spring from “industry and labour,” “activity of mind,” and “business”:

In order to cure most of the ills of human life, . . . I am contended to take an increase in one single power of faculty of his soul. Let him be endowed with a greater propensity to industry and labour; a more vigorous spring and activity of mind; a more constant bent on business and application. Let the whole species possess naturally an equal diligence with that which many individuals are able to attain by habit and reflection; and the most 218

beneficial consequences, without any allay of ill, is the immediate and necessary result of this .138

Philo presents the possession of these desirable economic qualities as an ideal, but not a quality which people naturally possess. He says, however, that such a quality can be achieved by “habit and reflection,” indicating that it can be learned. He also approvingly observes that when people are in a happy mood they will naturally favor industriousness while also forgetting about religion: “when a man is in a cheerful disposition, he is fit for business or company or entertainment of any kind; and he naturally applies himself to these, and thinks not of religion.”139 Industry motivates a person to a productive, useful life and contributes to their sense of well-being.

In contrast, religion is a hindrance to cheerfulness, according to Philo, for religion encourages melancholy by emphasizing men’s misery and suffering.140 Idleness is a contributing factor to this melancholy of the religionist. In fact, Philo claims that idleness is the source of

“[a]lmost all the moral, as well as natural evils of human life.”141 Philo suggests that when a person is idle he naturally gets stuck in a melancholic temperament which in turn directs the person’s imagination to superstitious terrors: “When melancholy, and dejected, he has nothing to do but brood upon the terrors of the invisible world, and to plunge himself still deeper in

138 DNR 11.208-09. Philo further adds: “[W]ere our species, by the original constitution of their frame, exempt from this vice or infirmity, the perfect cultivation of land, the improvement of arts and manufactures, the exact execution of every office and duty, immediately follow; and men at once may fully reach that state of society, which is so imperfectly attained by the best-regulated government.”

139 DNR 12.225.

140 For Philo’s remarks on how “misery,” “melancholy,” “fear,” and “terror” are principles integral to popular religion, see DNR 10.196-97, DNR 11.213, 12.224-26.

141 DNR 12.209.

219 affliction.”142 The political problem is that even though industriousness leads to the improvement of society’s moral and economic prosperity and curbs people’s attention to religion, most people are inclined toward idleness:

But as industry is a power, and the most valuable of any, nature seems determined, suitably to her usual maxims, to bestow it on men with a very sparing hand; . . . . She has so contrived his frame, that nothing but the most violent necessity can oblige him to labour. . . .143

Philo indicates that habituating people to industry is part of a remedy to curb the influence of religion in society, but due to people’s tendency toward idleness, relying on people’s industriousness is not enough. We look next to his reflections on the possibility for a moral remedy.

Philo claims in Part 12 of the Dialogues that popular religion does not make morals better but worse. According to Philo, a means of opposing religion’s negative effects on morality is nature itself. He observes that though people may have a general inclination to the vices of superstition, they are also inclined toward the countering forces of natural virtue. Furthermore, humans are not naturally drawn to many of the specific practices of superstition or popular religion. This is why, according to him, we find so many people making excuses to avoid their religious obligations. Philo suggests that this habit of excuses is a good thing:

Another advantage of inclination: It engages on its side all the wit and ingenuity of the mind; and when set in opposition to religious principles, seeks every method and art of eluding them: In which it is almost always successful. Who can explain the heart of man, or account for those strange salvos and excuses, with which people satisfy themselves, when they follow their inclinations, in opposition to their religious duty?144

142 DNR 12.225.

143 DNR 12.209.

144 DNR 12.221.

220

Humans also have a natural propensity to earthly interests that often crowd out their spiritual concerns. Philo tells Cleanthes that the “strongest” motive driving the “common behaviour and conduct of the world” is not the idea of an afterlife, which is “remote and uncertain,” but rather

“present things” that represent “finite and temporary rewards and punishments.”145 Men are more apt to lead a virtuous life when left to pursue their natural, more genuine interests than when they follow the foreign dictates of religion.

Even the civic virtues, which are not natural, do not need a religious grounding. Philo uses the example of oaths to make his point:

Oaths are requisite in all courts of judicature; but it is a question, whether their authority arises from any popular religion. It is the solemnity and importance of the occasion, the regard to reputation, and the reflecting on the general interests of society, which are the chief restraints upon mankind.146

Philo’s appeal to reputation and the public good are the motives that Hume himself thinks are essential to civic education. To induce people to virtue, religion is ineffectual because the motives religion offers are so detached from common life. Appealing to people’s basic humanity is the best way to form virtuous characters:

It is certain, from experience, that the smallest grain of natural honesty and benevolence has more effect on men’s conduct, than the most pompous views suggested by theological theories and systems. A man’s natural inclination works incessantly upon him; it is for ever present to the mind; and mingles itself with every view and consideration: Whereas religious motives, where they act at all, operate only by starts and bounds; and it is scarcely possible for them to become altogether habitual to the mind.147

145 DNR 12.220.

146 DNR 12.224.

147 DNR 12.221.

221

Because religious motives are so disconnected from human experience, people are naturally

“sunk into the deepest lethargy and unconcern about their religious interests,” so much so, that the “motives of vulgar superstition have no great influence on general conduct.”148

Though popular religion has little effect on general conduct, religion does influence the specific actions of men. It is because religious motives are not natural that people’s feelings and actions are often in opposition to what they profess. This opposition does violence to the inner life of the religious votary. In order for the votary to maintain his religious zeal, he must deceive others as well as himself. Hypocrisy, not virtue, is what becomes ingrained in the religious character:

Many religious exercises are entered into with seeming fervor, where the heart, at the time, feels cold and languid: A habit of dissimulation is by degrees contracted: And fraud and falsehood become the predominant principle. Hence the reason of that vulgar observation, that the highest zeal in religion and the deepest hypocrisy, so far from being inconsistent, are often or commonly united in the same individual character.149

Though the invisible motives of religion do not constantly act on the human mind, they do prepare the way for those imagined terrors of superstition—terror being the “primary principle of religion.”150 Even the “fits of excessive, enthusiastic joy” of the enthusiast, “by exhausting the spirits, always prepare the way for equal fits of superstitious terror and dejection.”151 The remedy, Philo thinks, is a “calm and equable” mind.152 This disposition of mind is within reach

148 DNR 12.220-23.

149 DNR 12.222.

150 DNR 12.225-26.

151 DNR 12.226.

152 Ibid.

222 of humans to achieve; however, the influence of religious beliefs are just enough to prevent this calmness of mind from taking root:

But this state is impossible to support, where a man thinks, that he lies, in such profound darkness and uncertainty, between an eternity of happiness and an eternity of misery. . . . And though that opinion is seldom so steady in its operations as to influence all the actions; yet it is apt to make a considerable breach in the temper, and to produce that gloom and melancholy, so remarkable in all devout people.153

The ideas of heaven and hell may not be able to influence men in all their actions, but where such ideas do take effect, they hinder a person’s ability to experience the agreeable pleasures of virtue. When vulgar religion does “predominate” and affect human conduct at a social level, its

“operation,” according to Philo, is not “very favourable to morality”154:

How happens it then, said PHILO, if vulgar superstition be so salutary to society, that all history abounds so much with accounts of its pernicious consequences on public affairs? Factions, civil wars, persecutions, subversions of government oppression, slavery; these are the dismal consequences which always attend its prevalency over the minds of men. If the religious spirit be ever mentioned in any historical narration, we are sure to meet afterwards with a detail of the miseries which attend it.155

Since religion often justifies , Philo suggests that a moral remedy consists in disconnecting our notion of morality from a religious grounding and basing virtue on the propensities of human nature. Even so, industry and nature by themselves cannot counteract men’s propensity to idleness, melancholy, and their fears of invisible terrors. A more fundamental remedy is needed.

153 DNR 12.226.

154 DNR 12.223.

155 DNR 12.220.

223

Philo points to the possibility of a political remedy. It is in his discussion of a political remedy where he indicates that there can be no definitive solution to social ills due to the very nature of the vicissitudes of human existence: He states that when we examine the

considerations derived from the nature of human society, which is in continual revolution, between ignorance and knowledge, liberty and slavery, riches and poverty; . . . it is impossible for us, from our limited experience, to foretell with assurance what events may or may not be expected.156

In terms of a political remedy, Philo says that the “utmost a wise magistrate can propose with regard to popular religions, is, as far as possible, to make a saving game of it.”157 On the one hand, if the magistrate only allows one religion, then important aspects of political life, such as liberty, must be sacrificed:

If he admits only one religion among his subjects, he must sacrifice, to an uncertain prospect of tranquility, every consideration of public liberty, science, reason, industry, and even his own independency.158

On the other hand:

If he gives indulgence to several sects, which is the wiser maxim, he must preserve a very philosophical indifference to all of them, and carefully restrain the pretensions of the prevailing sect; other wise he can expect nothing but endless disputes, quarrels, factions, persecutions, and civil commotions.159

There is one particular principle, however, that he insists on if a political remedy is employed:

Is there any maxim in politics more certain and infallible than that both the number and authority of priests should be confined within very narrow limits, and that the civil magistrate ought, for ever, to keep his fasces and axes from such dangerous hands.160

156 DNR 6.172.

157 DNR 12.223.

158 Ibid.

159 Ibid.

160 Ibid.

224

To “confine” and “limit” the authority of priests needs a government that has authority over religious practice. Religion therefore ought to be subsumed to the state. Philo also implies by his statement that people do not possess a natural right to practice religion as they see fit.

Though he prefers limited toleration to the promotion of one religion, Philo also says that the only way toleration can work is if the magistrate possesses a “philosophical indifference” toward the disparate religious sects. The magistrate must be above the fray in religious disputes, favoring no belief or practice above another. Yet, because the vulgar cannot be taught philosophical indifference, it follows that even if the magistrate is indifferent, he will still be called upon to settle vulgar religious disputes. The only means of avoiding this scenario is if the vulgar themselves adopt some kind of indifference toward religious issues. Philo seems to suggest that in order for religious toleration to be effective in society, religious issues must come to be seen by people as opinions not worth disputing.

Since the vulgar cannot become philosophically indifferent, they must be led to religious indifference by another road. In Part 1 of the Dialogues Philo hints at how this vulgar indifference can be achieved when remarking on Demea’s skeptical method:

The vulgar, indeed, we may remark, who are unacquainted with science and profound enquiry, observing the endless disputes of the learned, have commonly a thorough contempt for philosophy; and rivet themselves the faster, by that means, in the great points of theology, which have been taught them.161

If people are led to abandon reason and science because of the “endless disputes” amongst the philosophers, could people’s religious convictions be curbed by exposing the vulgar to unresolvable religious disputes? Philo’s comments indicate that he thinks so. He states that “at present, when the influence of education is much diminished, . . . men, from a more open

161 DNR 1.131.

225 commerce of the world, have learned to compare the popular principles of different nations and ages.”162 People’s exposure to the various principles of nations certainly includes variants in religious principles. Unlike past ages, when people’s knowledge of religion was predominantly limited to their own culture’s, in Philo time the vulgar can be exposed to the “endless disputes” amongst religionists. Just as the vulgar have contempt for reason and philosophy, so too, it seems possible that they can come to have contempt for religious differences. Philo suggests, in fact, that his goal in getting Cleanthes and Demea to debate one another on religion is to show them, and perhaps more so Pamphilus, that all religious systems are “on a like footing, and that no one of them has any advantages over the others.”163 In Part 8, Philo alludes to his aim:

All religious systems, it is confessed, are subject to great and insuperable difficulties. Each disputant triumphs in his turn; while he carries on an offensive war, and exposes the absurdities, barbarities, and pernicious tenets of his antagonist. But all of them, on the whole, prepare a complete triumph for the sceptic; who tells them, that no system ought ever to be embraced with regard to such subjects. . . .164

Throughout the Dialogues Philo models the kind of skeptical method he thinks is necessary to ground the economic, moral, and political remedies to make them socially effective. His method aims to lead Demea and Cleanthes to religious indifference by having each one point out the absurdities of the other’s system and then himself turning their own respective principles against them. He attempts to show them that their theological principles lead not to conviction, but to doubt and even impiety.

162 DNR 1.139.

163 DNR 6.175.

164 DNR 8.186. See also DNR 6.175. As noted in Chapter two of the dissertation, Hume recommends a similar approach at the end of the Natural History: we ought to “enlarge our view, and opposing one species of superstition to another, set them a quarelling; while we ourselves, during their fury and contention, happily make our escape, into the calm, though obscure, regions of philosophy” (NHR 15.13).

226

Philo’s distinction between the “vulgar” and the “learned” is the basis of understanding the approaches he takes with Demea and Cleanthes.165 Both Demea and Cleanthes need to be instructed in a manner suited to each of their characters. Cleanthes is a learned individual, yet being learned does not, in Philo’s view, make him a true philosopher. When Philo approaches

Cleanthes, his method takes a more-or-less philosophical approach by attempting to reason with him. However, Philo’s alliance with Demea is also aimed at deceiving Cleanthes (as will be shown),166 so we cannot say that Philo only appeals to reason when dealing with the learned.

Philo’s method toward the vulgar, on the other hand, forgoes any attempt at reasoning. Instead,

Philo disarms Demea by pretending to side with his views. This way, Demea willingly follows

Philo’s train of thought up to the point when Philo shows Demea that his own vulgar skepticism can be wielded to support impiety. We shall look first at Philo’s approach to Demea.

Philo’s strategy toward Demea throughout the Dialogues is to appear to support Demea’s theology while in reality attempting to undermine it. Though Philo feigns agreement with

Demea’s view of religion and education, he indicates what his true opinion is when he depicts

Demea’s method as “vulgar” and contrasts it with the method that Philo really favors –

“philosophy and learning”:

Your precaution . . . of seasoning your children’s minds with early piety, is certainly very reasonable; and no more than is requisite, in this profane and irreligious age. But what I chiefly admire in your plan of education is your method of drawing advantage from the very principles of philosophy and learning, which, by inspiring pride and self-sufficiency,

165 DNR 1.131.

166 Philo’s deception becomes apparent to Cleanthes at DNR 10.199: “And have you at last, said CLEANTHES smiling, betrayed your intentions, PHILO? Your long agreement with DEMEA did indeed a little surprise me; but I find you were all the while erecting a concealed battery against me. And I must confess, that you have now fallen upon a subject worthy of your noble spirit of opposition and controversy. If you can make out the present point, and prove mankind to be unhappy or corrupted, there is an end at once of all religion. For to what purpose establish the natural attributes of the Deity, while the moral are still doubtful and uncertain?”

227

have commonly, in all ages, been found so destructive to the principles of religion. The vulgar, indeed, we may remark, who are unacquainted with science and profound enquiry, observing the endless disputes of the learned, have commonly a thorough contempt for philosophy; and rivet themselves the faster, by that means, in the great points of theology, which have been taught them.167

Philo presents “education” here as a form of indoctrination intended for the vulgar – not a form of rational argument and reflection: when a doctrine “has become so essential a part even of our earliest education . . . we are not commonly very scrupulous in examining the reasons upon which it is founded.”168 Education, on Philo’s account, habituates people to unthinkingly accept whatever opinions they are inculcated with. He characterizes Demea’s method of vulgar education as sharing in the same qualities of the Christian instruction which occurred during those “ignorant ages” when “presumptuous questioning of received opinions” was discouraged.169 “Education,” he says, “had then a mighty influence over the minds of men.”170 In fact, “religion stood entirely upon temper and education.”171

Philo’s skeptical musings in the lengthy passage above are not, in themselves, disingenuous. What makes his comments deceptive is the fact that Philo leads Demea to believe that both Demea and himself wield their skepticism for the same purpose. Philo pretends to

“improve” and “cultivate” Demea’s principles – stressing the “weakness, blindness, and narrow

167 DNR 1.131.

168 DNR 2.150. Philo, here, is referring specifically to the principles of modern astronomy which, he says, had to be argued for in the beginning, but which in their own age had come to be unthinkingly accepted.

169 DNR 1.139.

170 Ibid.

171 See DNR 11.213.

228 limits of human reason” in science, the senses, even “common life.”172 Demea has no idea of

Philo’s trickery and naively drinks in everything with “unreserved satisfaction.”173

To further ingratiate himself to Demea, Philo says to him,

where reasonable men treat these subjects, the question can never be concerning the being, but only the nature of the Deity. The former truth, as you well observe, is unquestionable and self-evident. Nothing exists without a cause; and the original cause of this universe (whatever it be) we call GOD; and piously ascribe to him every species of perfection.174

Philo here accurately describes his own and Demea’s theological position (as well as

Pamphilus’s). Both Philo and Demea agree that ascribing perfections to God in no way captures the unknowable divine essence; rather, such attempts are to be understood as no more than nominal acts of piety reflecting the limits of the human imagination.175 But Philo will draw a very different conclusion from this than does Demea. For Demea, the acknowledgement of the incomprehensibility of the deity is a mark of piety which rejects philosophy and humbly submits to the teachings of religious authority. For Philo, the incomprehensibility of the Deity leads to a conception of piety that Demea would regard as impious. Philo goes on to show how it is possible for the philosopher to give a nominal assent to the words of faith while emptying these words not only of their meaning but even their pious sense.

172 DNR 1.131.

173 DNR 1.132.

174 DNR 2.142.

175 See further remarks by Philo in DNR 2.142: “Wisdom, thought, design, knowledge; these we justly ascribe to him; because these words are honorable among men, and we have no other language or other conceptions, by which we can express our adoration of him.” For Demea’s comments on ascribing pious names to God see, DNR 3.157.

229

In Part 11 of the Dialogues Philo reveals the end to which his nominal piety leads. All three men agree that there must be an ultimate cause to the universe. Each of them is willing to call this cause, “God.” Both Philo and Demea emphasize the great mixture of good and evil in the universe and insist that Cleanthes’s view of God, which draws an analogy between divine and human goodness, cannot account for this mix. Up to this point we can easily imagine Demea standing by Philo shaking his head in agreement. From Demea’s perspective, in order to uphold

God’s infinite power and goodness in the face of existing evil, we must blindly assent to the absolute incomprehensibly of these qualities in God’s nature. If God is good in the way humans understand the term, then, since evil exists, God is either not all-powerful, or not all-good, or not all-knowing.176 Philo uses Demea’s principles to conclude, however, that regardless of the pious names we ascribe to the divine, since God is the ultimate cause of all things, God is the cause of evil:

[S]o long as there is any vice at all in the universe, it will very much puzzle you anthropomorphites, how to account for it. You must assign a cause for it, without having recourse to the first cause. But as every effect must have a cause, and that cause another; you must either carry on the progression in infinitum, or rest on that original principle, who is the ultimate cause of all things. . . .177

According to Philo, because God is the cause of good and evil in the universe, it is most likely that God possesses “neither goodness nor malice.”178 Finally, Demea awakens to Philo’s ruse:

Hold! Hold! cried DEMEA: Whither does your imagination hurry you? I joined in alliance with you, in order to prove the incomprehensible nature of the divine Being, and refute the principles of CLEANTHES, who would measure every thing by a human rule and standard. But I now find you running into all the topics of the greatest libertines and

176 DNR 11.212.

177 Ibid.

178 Ibid.

230

infidels; and betraying that holy cause, which you seemingly espoused. Are you secretly, then, a more dangerous enemy than CLEANTHES himself?179

Philo’s deception is the direct cause for Demea’s departure. Pamphilus describes his departure in the following manner:

Thus PHILO continued to the last his spirit of opposition, and his censure of established opinions. But I could observe, that DEMEA did not at all relish the latter part of the discourse; and he took occasion soon after, on some pretence or other, to leave the company.180

Rather than attempting to moderate the religious views of the vulgar via rational persuasion or external force,181 Philo shows that a more effective method is to moderate the effects of vulgar religion by undermining its relevance to public discourse. The society of men with whom Demea thought he could engage as an equal has shown itself to disdain him. Demea departs not having changed his views on religion, but having realized that such views are dismissed by those who hold the prevailing view of common sense in society. Demea is left free to follow whatever religion he chooses, but he also shows by his actions that he resigns his religion to private life.

Commentators have depicted Demea as more hostile in his departure than the text allows.

Dees says he “leaves in a huff” because “Philo carries his arguments so far that they outrage

Demea.”182 According to Jonathan Dancy, “Demea stomps off in dudgeon.”183 John Nelson

179 DNR 11.212-13.

180 DNR 11.213.

181 Philo never directly argues against Demea’s views. He lets Cleanthes take on that task. Philo’s most marked criticism of Demea is his critique of Demea’s a priori argument. But Philo does not criticize the argument itself; rather, he only says that the “argument a priori has seldom been found very convincing, except to people of a metaphysical head” (DNR 9.191).

182 Dees, “Morality above Metaphysics,” 134 and 136. Samuel Clark, Isabel Rivers, and Eric Dean also describe Demea as leaving in a “huff” from the scene; see Clark, “No Abiding City,” 87; Rivers, “Galen’s Muscles,” 592; Eric Dean, “Hume on Religious Language,” The Journal of Religion 42, no. 1 (January 1962): 44.

183 Dancy, “For Here the Author is Annihilated,” 56. 231 describes Demea’s “heated departure” as what one would expect from the “unwarranted . . . intellectual intolerance of the religious fanatic.”184 If these commentators are correct in their depiction of Demea, then Philo’s attempt at curbing Demea’s zealousness fails. In fact, if Demea is as outraged and upset as commonly depicted, Philo has likely made the situation worse. Yet nowhere do we find Demea in a rage as he departs company. Instead, Demea simply makes an excuse that he has other business to which he must attend and quietly leaves. Philo’s remedy for limiting the influence of vulgar religion appears to work without the use of violent persecution.

Demea exiles himself.

A useful way of looking at the significance of Demea’s departure is to observe the way the dynamic of the Dialogues changes after he leaves. James Dye notes that after Demea’s departure in Part 11, the conversation in Part 12 shifts from “an inquiry into the nature of God” to an inquiry into the “utility of religion.”185 A. G. Vink further notes that there is also a “change in the way the discussion is carried on,”186 where Philo appears to reveal his true intentions to

Cleanthes. For in Part 12, Philo mentions that he and Cleanthes “live in unreserved intimacy”187 and that he feels free to express his “unfeigned sentiments” to him.188 Both the content of the conversations as well as the manner of discussion shifts. Hume’s decision to exclude Demea from Part 12’s overtly political discussion of religion implies that he did not think it prudential for the Demeas of society to be in on Philo’s political theology.

184 Nelson, “Role of Part XII,” 352.

185 James Dye, “Demea’s Departure,” Hume Studies 18, no. 2 (November 1992): 478.

186 Vink, “Dramatic Character,” 391.

187 DNR 12.214.

188 DNR 12.219.

232

The fact that Hume has Philo discuss the moral and political effects of religion with

Cleanthes and in the presence of Pamphilus suggests various possibilities as to Hume’s intent.

According to W. B. Carnochan, for instance, Demea’s departure represents the “eviction of a disruptive presence” which, on Carnochan’s telling, “reasserts social order.”189 Now that Demea is gone, Philo can get down to brass tacks, so to speak, and openly discuss his social concerns about religion. It might be that Hume thinks it is possible for the Philos of society to rationally persuade the learned (Cleanthes) and the learned-to-be (Pamphilus) of the political problem of religion and the best means to remedy it. There is evidence to support such a view. For Philo also suggests that Cleanthes is, like himself, a “man of common sense.”190 As a man of common sense, Cleanthes is “sensible” to Philo’s “veneration for true religion.”191 The “eviction” of

Demea’s “disruptive presence” therefore reasserts not only social order but religious order as well, and Philo sees himself and Cleanthes as co-equals in this endeavor.

Another possibility, one for which the present section of this chapter will argue, is that

Philo is not nearly as forthright with Cleanthes in Part 12 as he says he is. This is not to claim that the comments Philo directs to Cleanthes in Part 12 are utterly disingenuous. Philo appeals to

Cleanthes’s common sense in a genuine effort to persuade Cleanthes to his own way of thinking.

Philo, however, is also attempting to subtly change Cleanthes’s idea of what “common sense” is.

For Cleanthes’s notion of common sense allows him to enter into theological issues by way of proportional reasoning. For Philo, common sense limits itself to the practical affairs of common

189 W. B. Carnochan, “The Comic Plot of Hume’s Dialogues,” Modern Philology 85, no. 4 (May 1988): 515.

190 DNR 12.214.

191 DNR 12.219.

233 life and the senses. As a result, religion for him is totally cut off from the realm of common sense.

We will now look at several ways Philo instructs Cleanthes: his overt criticism of

Cleanthes’s a posteriori argument, his so-called reversal in Part 12, and his duplicity toward

Cleanthes throughout the Dialogues.

With regard to the a posteriori argument, Philo is not critical of the fact that people are inclined to believe in a divine designer; rather his criticism is directed at Cleanthes’s claim that belief in a divine designer is rationally justified. We see as early as Part 3 of the Dialogues indications that Philo acknowledges the propensity to believe in a designer. There he becomes

“embarrassed and confounded”192 after Cleanthes claims that upon the examination of the complex structure of the eye, the idea of a designer unavoidably strikes us:

Consider, anatomize the eye: Survey its structure and contrivance; and tell me, from your own feeling, if the idea of a contriver does not immediately flow in upon you with a force like that of sensation. The most obvious conclusion surely is in favour of design; and it requires time, reflection and study, to summon up those frivolous, though abstruse, objections, which can support infidelity.193

Philo never attempts to refute Cleanthes’s claim. In fact, Philo agrees that the idea of a designer strikes us when we unreflectively look at the order of nature.

In many views of the universe, and of its parts, particularly the latter, the beauty and fitness of final causes strike us with such irresistible force, that all objections appear (what I believe they really are) mere cavils and sophisms. . . .194

192 DNR 3.155.

193 DNR 3.154.

194 DNR 10.202.

234

Philo and Cleanthes do not differ in their being struck by design in nature, but they do differ in the value they give to the “feeling” and “force” which lead them to the idea of a designer. Philo says that design strikes him with an “irresistible force,” but he does not thereby commit himself to saying that this “force” is a rational insight into the truth of things. Certainly, in the face of such a compelling force, all objections will indeed appear (and are) “mere cavils and sophisms,” but only because we fail to stand back and reflect. When we do take the time to reflect on our experience of nature, our original vulgar belief in a designer can indeed be shaken. After all, even Cleanthes acknowledges in the above passage that “time, reflection, and study” lead us to

“objections” that undermine our initial impression of a “contriver.”

Cleanthes, however, seems to make the mistake of conflating “feeling,” “force,” and

“sensation” with rational insight. And this is Philo’s main criticism of Cleanthes’s a posteriori argument. The “feeling” of design does not rationally justify belief in a designer, nor does it obligate a person of common sense, who takes the time to reflect upon his original experience, to take seriously the idea of a divine intelligence. Philo’s stance, therefore, in no way acknowledges the soundness of Cleanthes’s a posteriori argument.

Philo takes great pains to show Cleanthes that this immediate impression of design cannot be supported by reason. In Part 2 of the Dialogues, for instance, Philo criticizes

Cleanthes’s design argument as being more akin to the “precipitate march of the vulgar” than to the “slow and deliberate steps of philosophers.”195 Cleanthes takes too “wide a step” and draws no more than a “weak” and “imperfect analogy” between human invention and the ordering of the universe.196 In contrast, Philo says that the “cautious proceedings of the astronomers,” though

195 DNR 2.147.

235 at times coming to conclusions which have run counter to common opinion, used hypotheses based on “exact similarity.”197 Furthermore, Philo says Cleanthes shows a “partiality in our own favour” because he falsely presumes that this mere feeling of design rationally justifies inferring an intelligence analogous to the human mind.198 “[S]ound philosophy,” Philo reminds Cleanthes,

“ought carefully to guard against so natural an illusion.”199 Philo suggests that he himself, not

Cleanthes, follows in the steps of the true philosopher.

Throughout the Dialogues, Philo attempts to show Cleanthes that common life ought to be the horizon of true philosophy and human reason. We would therefore be mistaken if we took

Philo’s philosophical skepticism to be “absolute,”200for he tells us that he himself is beholden to act and live in common life as any other person:

To whatever length any one may push his speculative principles of scepticism, he must act, I own, and live, and converse like other men; and for this conduct he is not obliged to give any other reason than the absolute necessity he lies under of so doing.201

No rational justification can be given for why a person must live and act; men are simply compelled by nature to do so. Yet, how does our compulsion to live in accord with the principles of common life differ from men’s propensity to believe in a divine designer? The answer lies in utility: common life is absolutely essential to survival, society, and commerce whereas the belief in divine intelligence is not. In Philo’s view, such a belief is unhinged from daily life and is

196 DNR 2.144 and 147.

197 DNR 2.144, 151.

198 DNR 2.148.

199 Ibid.

200 DNR 1.132.

201 DNR 1.134. For similar remarks see, DNR 1.139.

236 either frivolous or even harmful to the commonsensical morality of common life. The true philosopher is therefore cautious in his characterization of the divine, because he recognizes that his own vulgar propensity to believe in a divine author is only a feeling which ought to be either ignored or at least subsumed to the practical principles of common life.

The true philosopher, for Philo, is thus characterized by his slow, cautious formation of general principles from common life:

. . . that from our earliest infancy we make continual advances in forming more general principles of conduct and reasoning; that the larger experience we acquire, and the stronger reason we are endowed with, we always render our principles the more general and comprehensive; and that what we call philosophy is nothing but a more regular and methodical operation of the same kind. To philosophise on such subjects is nothing essentially different from reasoning on common life; and we may only expect greater stability, if not greater truth, from our philosophy, on account of its exacter and more scrupulous method of proceeding.202

Since philosophy is the methodical ordering of experience, it follows that, according to Philo,

“[o]ur ideas reach no farther than our experience.”203 And since, according to him, “[w]e have no experience of divine attributes and operations,”204 we can form no ideas of the divine. “[O]ur vulgar methods of reasoning,” Philo claims, are “peculiarly appropriated” to common life.205 To go beyond common life, therefore, is to build on mere speculation:

So long as we confine our speculations to trade, or morals, or politics, or criticism, we make appeals, every moment, to common sense and experience. . . . But in theological reasonings, we have not this advantage. . . . We are like foreigners in a strange country, to whom everything must seem suspicious, and who are in danger every moment of

202 DNR 1.134.

203 DNR 2.142-43.

204 DNR 2.143.

205 DNR 1.135.

237

transgressing against the laws and customs of the people with whom they live and converse.206

The error that men like Cleanthes make is that their success in reasoning about the affairs of common life leads them to think that the rules of reason can go beyond appearances and obtain knowledge of ultimate principles. What they find instead, according to Philo, is a world of arbitrary fancy:

In a word, CLEANTHES, a man, who follows your hypothesis, is able, perhaps, to assert, or conjecture, that the universe, sometime, arose from something like design: But beyond that position he cannot ascertain one single circumstance, and is left afterwards to fix every point of his theology, by the utmost licence of fancy and hypothesis.207

He goes on to say that when we go beyond the bounds of common life “there is no conjecture, however wild, which may not be just; nor any one, however plausible, which may not be erroneous.”208 “A mere possible compatibility is not sufficient.”209 As Klaas Kraay observes,

Philo attempts to show that Cleanthes’s theological principles “can equally be wielded in service of a wholly incompatible view”210—just as we saw Philo do with Demea. For Philo, the true philosopher recognizes that theology is the product of human whim and emotion. He claims at one point, for instance, that people’s various ideas of divinity are merely manifestations of fear and hope:

206 DNR 1.135.

207 DNR 5.168-69. For similar remarks by Philo see, DNR 1.131, 134-36; DNR 4.162; DNR 8.182; DNR 10.199-201; DNR 11.205.

208 DNR 11.205.

209 DNR 10.201.

210 Klaas Kraay, “Philo’s Argument for Divine Amorality Reconsidered,” Hume Studies 29, no. 2 (November 2003): 284.

238

It is true; both fear and hope enter into religion; because both these passions, at different times, agitate the human mind, and each of them forms a species of divinity, suitable to itself.211

There is nothing in what Philo says which suggests that simply because people are at first struck by design, a belief in a divine designer is rational or that such an idea needs to be taken seriously upon careful reflection.

Part of Philo’s educational approach to those who are learned, such as Cleanthes, is his willingness to reason with them. Another aspect of his method, however, involves subterfuge— just as he does with the vulgar. The guiding question for us at present is in what way Philo’s deception lends itself to curbing religion’s influence in moral and political matters. We see two ways Philo deceives Cleanthes in the Dialogues: first, in Parts 1 through 10 of the Dialogues and then in Philo’s supposed reversal in Part 12. In Part 1, Cleanthes suspected that Philo had a hidden agenda aimed at Demea. What Cleanthes did not realize is that Philo’s ruse was aimed at both Demea and himself. Philo was making a conscious effort to get both men to undermine each other’s theological principles.212 It is not until Part 10 of the Dialogues when Cleanthes comes to realize that Philo has deceived him:

And have you at last, said CLEANTHES smiling, betrayed your intentions, PHILO? Your long agreement with DEMEA did indeed a little surprise me; but I find you were all the while erecting a concealed battery against me.213

This deception on Philo’s part suggests that he does not picture Cleanthes and himself as equals in their alliance against vulgar religion. Curiously, Hume does not have Cleanthes depart after

211 DNR 12.225.

212 See again Philo’s remarks about his aim, DNR 8.186 and DNR 6.175.

213 DNR 10.199.

239 discovering he has been duped. By having Cleanthes stay to the end of the Dialogues, Hume seems to suggest that the learned in society indeed have a positive role to play in curbing vulgar religion, but even so, this does not necessarily mean that the learned themselves are true philosophers. Furthermore, we see that the discussions in Part 12 of the Dialogues are increasingly taken over by Philo as he counters Cleanthes’s claims about the supposed advantages of religion.214 Philo directs the conversations to his own purposes. By having Philo dominate the discussions in Part 12, Hume also seems to indicate that the true philosopher is in charge of directing the learned.

Philo’s so-called “reversal” in Part 12 of the Dialogues,215 where he purportedly assents to the rationality of Cleanthes’s a posteriori argument, is an instance of how Philo continues to be duplicitous despite his proclaimed forthrightness. Throughout the Dialogues, Philo has been attempting to counter Cleanthes’s a posteriori argument, when suddenly he appears to give full assent to it:

214 Kemp Smith refers to Parts 11 and 12 as “practically monologues placed in the mouth of Philo. Demea speaks only a few more sentences, and so takes occasion to leave. Even Cleanthes ceases to share in the argument. For, though Parts XI and XII are among the longest in the Dialogues, and Part XII actually the longest, Cleanthes occupies less than one and a half pages out of the 11 pages in Part XI, and less than 3 pages out of the 14 pages in Part XII; and these he uses solely for repeating his previous assertions, not for rebutting Philo’s objections to them” (introduction to DNR, 68).

215 The issue of Philo’s “reversal” has been a major theme in the Hume literature. See, for instance, Bricke, “On the Interpretation of Hume’s Dialogues,” 1-18; Peter Dendle, “Reconciling Philo and Hume: Habits, Caprice, and Inclinations,” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 40, no. 1 (Spring 1998): 26-47; Paul Draper, “Hume’s Reproduction Parody of the Design Argument,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 8, no. 2 (April 1991): 135-48; Rich Foley, “Unnatural Religion: Indoctrination and Philo’s Reversal in Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion,” Hume Studies 32, no. 1 (April 2006): 83-112; James E. Force, “Hume in the Dialogues, the Dictates of Convention, and the Millennial Future State of Biblical Prophecy,” Southwestern Journal of Philosophy 8 (1977): 131-41; John Immerwahr, “David Hume on Incompatible Religious Beliefs,” International Studies in Philosophy 16, no. 1 (1984): 25-33; Noxon, “Hume’s Agnosticism,” The Philosophical Review 73, no. 2 (April 1964): 248-61; Terence Penelhum, “Hume’s Skepticism and the Dialogues,” in McGill Hume Studies, eds. David Fate Norton, Nicholas Capaldi, and Wade L. Robison (San Diego: Austin Hill Press, 1979): 253-78; Priest, “Hume’s Final Argument,” 349-52; N. K. Smith, introduction to Dialogues, 120-23.

240

A purpose, an intention, or design strikes everywhere the most careless, the most stupid thinker; and no man can be so hardened in absurd systems, as at all times to reject it.216

But is Philo’s remark here any different from those that we looked at earlier? For again, he only claims that people are “struck” by a “purpose,” “intention,” or “design.” He does not say that people reason to these beliefs. Furthermore, his wording is rather strange, for if taken literally,

Philo is saying that design “strikes” those who are the “most careless” and the “most stupid.”

Again, he is not saying that belief in design is the result of careful and rational analysis. In this same passage, he even alludes to the possibility of rejecting one’s belief in design. For, notice he says that no one can reject the idea of design “at all times.” This seems to imply that there are times when a person can reject such ideas. Perhaps, it is the person of reflection who, once taking a step back from being struck by design, is able to calmly realize that such an impression need not be assented to.

Regardless of whether commentators are correct or not to think that Philo’s comments in

Part 12 constitute a reversal, we can still garner insights from these commentators into Philo’s political purposes. For commentators generally agree that Philo is up to something. John O.

Nelson, for instance, describes Philo’s “reversing himself” not so much as an act of deception, but as an attempt at “intellectual benevolence,” that is, toleration of those frivolous religious ideas which are the product of “mere taste and fancy.”217 Philo, according to Nelson, “shows that

216 DNR 12.214. Philo makes similar comments in DNR 12,214-16. We do not have space to go over each comment in detail, but note the ambiguous nature of the following one: “And thus all the sciences almost lead us insensibly to acknowledge a first intelligent Author. . .” (DNR 12.214-15). If the sciences “almost” lead us to an “intelligent Author,” could that not be another way of saying that the sciences do not lead us to an intelligent Author? This question and others are raised when we take a close look at other comments Philo makes during his supposed reversal.

217 Nelson, “Role of Part XII,” 355.

241 both advocacy of, and opposition to, the argument from design can be united with the desideratum of all theorizing: tolerance.”218 Richard Dees claims that Philo’s “concession” in

Part 12 is an attempt to reconcile the damaged friendship between himself and Cleanthes after he had offended one of Cleanthes’s guests.219 Though “Philo never renounces his skeptical arguments,” according to Dees, “he recasts them in ways that emphasize his points of agreement with Cleanthes so that he can then refocus the conversation on the moral questions that he takes to be of the utmost importance.”220 Philo’s concern to save his friendship with Cleanthes, in the words of Dees, places “morality above metaphysics.”221 The Dialogues, according to Nelson’s and Dees’s readings, indicates that disputes over metaphysics and religious doctrine, in the end, should not take precedence over civility, friendship, and morality. Religious toleration, for Philo, is therefore both prudential and desirable

Though it is correct to say that Philo places morals above metaphysical disputes, his ultimate aim in Part 12 is a bit more devious than Nelson and Dees suppose. For his aim in stressing the force of design on the human mind is ultimately meant to alienate religion from morality and politics. With regard to morality, for instance, we return to a previously examined passage quoting Philo, but now with some additional context:

Formerly, when we argued concerning the natural attributes of intelligence and design, I needed all my skeptical and metaphysical subtilty to elude your grasp. In many views of the universe, and of its parts, particularly the latter, the beauty and fitness of final causes strike us with such irresistible force. . . . But there is no view of human life, or of the condition of mankind, from which, without the greatest violence, we can infer the moral

218 Nelson, “Role of Part XII,” 355.

219 Dees, “Morality above Metaphysics,” 132.

220 Ibid.

221 Ibid., 131.

242

attributes, or learn that infinite benevolence, conjoined with infinite power and infinite wisdom, which we must discover by the eyes of faith alone.222

Philo’s insistence on our natural propensity to believe in an intelligent designer starkly contrasts with his claim about the impossibility of any serious thinker to believe in the goodness of such an intelligence. The implication is that genuine morality need not be derived from the idea of

God. And if we do attempt to derive our morality from religion, such a morality will be based in

“faith alone,” with no connection to common life and human affairs.

There is another dubious reason why Philo emphasizes men’s near universal assent to an author of nature. If it is the case that everyone is struck by the idea of a divine designer, then perhaps all of our disagreements over this designer’s nature are beside the point, that is to say, that such disputes are only about “words”:

So little . . . do I esteem this suspense of judgment in the present case to be possible, that I am apt to suspect there enters somewhat of a dispute of words into this controversy, more than is usually imagined.223

Philo goes on to claim that all theological disagreements are ultimately “verbal disputes.”224

Since, according to Philo, the “remedy” for verbal disputes is the explication of “clear definitions,” we are led to conclude that there is no remedy for religious disputes because religious language itself “is involved in perpetual ambiguity.”225 There is therefore no way of resolving disputes over religion unless, of course, people come to recognize that “the dispute

222 DNR 10.201-02.

223 DNR 12.216.

224 DNR 12.217.

225 Ibid.

243 concerning theism is of this nature, and consequently is merely verbal.”226 To say that religious disputes are essentially disputes about words implies that there is nothing of substance captured by religious language. The political implication of all this is that since political life is taken up with the things of common life, that is to say, things of substance, religion is at best a distraction from those things that really matter and is best left outside the realm of politics. Philo’s conclusion is certainly not one with which Cleanthes would agree. Nor does it mesh with the

Christian culture of which Demea, Cleanthes, and Philo are a part.

Colen McEvedy observes that “[s]peech play[s] an important role in the creation and maintenance of social units.”227 The religious language of eighteenth century Europe, that is to say, the language of Christianity, expressed the core vision of medieval and early modern

Europe. In Christianity, the power of language takes on particular importance. God is identified as the Logos. As Larry P. Arnn reports, the “word Logos is also the word for human reason and speech. It is the specific gift that human beings have that distinguish them from the animals. That means we are invited to cultivate an understanding of God.”228 God, who is Logos, invites man to share in community with Him – to know Him, to speak of Him, to speak with Him. With such an understanding of the relation between reason and religion, Christians have predominantly used language as a legitimate means to articulate the truths of its religion and culture. Religious language, according to this perspective, has a central role to play in the public square.

226 DNR 12.218.

227 Colin McEvedy, The New Penguin Atlas of Medieval History (Penguin Books), 3.

228 Larry P. Arnn, “The Founder’s Constitution and the Challenge of Progressivism,” Hillsdale College, https://constitution.hillsdale.edu/page.aspx?pid=1121 (accessed September 18, 2012).

244

If Philo’s theory about religious language were to be adopted by a Christian society, there would be significant ramifications for the character of its people. Religious language would not be able to retain its central place of shaping social cohesion as it did under a more traditional understanding of Christianity. For without a shared religious language, the religious bond of

Christian society would inevitably break down only to be replaced by a new bond using a new language deemed more “reasonable” and “commonsensical.”

Philo articulates what a moderate religion might look like under these more modern conditions of political life. He depicts the atheist and the theist as differing only nominally in how they express their “religious” attitudes. The theist, for instance, will naturally emphasize the similarity he sees between art and nature, yet his piety will lead him to affirm the “great,”

“immeasurable,” and “incomprehensible, difference between the human and the divine mind.”229

The atheist, on the other hand, will emphasize the dissimilarity between art and nature, yet, even he can be brought to acknowledge that there is a

certain degree of analogy among all the operations of nature, in every situation and in every age; whether the rotting of a turnip, the generation of an animal, and the structure of human thought be not energies that probably bear some remote analogy to each other: It is impossible he can deny it: He will readily acknowledge it [emphasis added].230

A close reading of this passage shows that the atheist need not admit belief in divinity at all. He need only recognize that each thing “probably bear[s] some remote analogy” to one another.

Presumably, then, as long as the atheist can acknowledge that there is probably some remote resemblance between intelligence and a rotting turnip, he fulfills Philo’s criteria for being a

229 DNR 12.218.

230 Ibid.

245 religionist. Philo says that the atheist “is only nominally so.”231 Curiously, he fails to mention that the theist, likewise, is only “nominally so” as well, given that, as he said earlier, theism is

“merely verbal” and “incurably ambiguous.”232

Philo’s confession of faith near the end of Part 12 allows him to claim fidelity to theism while at the same time emptying it of any meaningful content or motivating force:

If the whole of natural theology . . . resolves itself into one simple, though somewhat ambiguous, at least undefined proposition, that the cause or causes of order in the universe probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence [or anything else for that matter]: If this proposition be not capable of extension, variation, or more particular explication: If it afford no inference that affects human life, or can be the source of any action or forbearance. . . . If this really be the case, what can the most inquisitive, contemplative, and religious man do more than give a plain, philosophical assent to the proposition, as often as it occurs. . . ?233

Philo’s confession, which he himself says amounts to an “undefined proposition,” is utterly non- committal and well-nigh meaningless.234 The ordering of the universe, he states, could be one cause or multiple ones, thus paving the way for theism or polytheism. The criteria that qualifies the atheist to be a religionist does not even require belief that the divine cause(s) resembles human intelligence – only that there is “probably” some “remote analogy” between them.

According to Philo’s own confession, therefore, there might not be any such analogy at all. His

“religion” is indeed one with which the atheist could agree.

231 DNR 12.218.

232 Ibid.

233 DNR 12.227.

234 Graham Priest observes that even if Philo admits that the “Argument from Design has some measure of validity, . . . its conclusion is absolutely worthless” (“Hume’s Final Argument,” 351).

246

With regard to religious worship, Philo suggests that religion is best when freed from the superstitious practices of “entreaty, solicitation, presents, and flattery,”235 in other words, freed from traditional religious devotions. He quotes Seneca as saying, “‘To know God . . . is to worship him,’” in order to justify his rejection of the aforementioned “superstitious” and

“impious” practices of the vulgar.236 He essentially reduces the concept of “worship” to an assent to the “undefined proposition” of God’s existence.237

Reducing religious language to “undefined” statements is the means by which Philo hopes to inculcate social indifference to claims about religious truth, thereby curbing religion’s moral and political influence on society. The language of religion still remains intact but its meaning is limited to the individual or his particular religious community. Dees rightly calls

Philo’s downplay of the metaphysical and moral substance of religion “a pragmatic argument based on the need for peace and orderly government.”238 The effect of Philo’s message is that religious language, as Yandell states, “has no legitimate office”239 in public life because it is incapable of expressing the shared, lived experience of a modern people. On Philo’s account, it is

235 DNR 12.226.

236 Ibid.

237 Hume holds a similar position as Philo. In 1743, Hume indicates in a letter that much of what is popularly understood as constituting the principal elements of “religion”—devotion and prayer, for instance—ought to be excluded from the idea of true religion. Referring to the Sermon on Prayer by William Leechman, Hume states, “As to the Argument I cou’d wish Mr. Leechman wou’d in the second Edition answer this Objection both to Devotion & Prayer, & indeed to every thing we commonly call Religion, except the Practice of Morality, & the Assent of the Understanding to the Proposition that God exists.” Hume’s supposed religion has no problem with assenting to the proposition, God exists. But such a proposition carries with it no expectation—much less duty—to prayer, piety, or worship as commonly understood: “were Devotion never so much admitted, prayer must still be excluded” (Greig, Letters,1:50-51).

238 Dees, “‘Paradoxical Principle,’” 146.

239 Yandell, “Religious Belief,” 119.

247 possible for the language of the public square to be restricted to the affairs of a secularized common life—trade, politics, morals, criticism.240 Society and the general happiness of mankind would be better off if this were achieved. Philo seems to think that by reducing religion to verbal disputes he has found a way of viewing religion which allows the atheist and theist to tolerate each other:

Will you quarrel, Gentlemen, about the degrees, and enter into a controversy, which admits not of any precise meaning, nor consequently of any determination? If you should be so obstinate, I should not be surprised to find you insensibly change sides. . . . Consider then, where the real point of controversy lies, and if you cannot lay aside your disputes, endeavour, at least, to cure yourselves of your animosity.241

Once people can see religious disputes for the verbal entanglements they are, people can “cure” themselves of their “animosity.” Philo here indicates that inculcating this new understanding of religion is essential to undergirding the moral, economic, and political remedies previously discussed in the present sub-section of this chapter.

Religious issues, while not being overtly rejected by Philo, are pushed outside the realm of common sense and knowledge. What Philo is doing in Part 12 of the Dialogues with

Cleanthes is similar to what he did with Demea early on – ingratiating himself in an effort to get

Cleanthes to be open to this more limited notion of common sense. By telling Cleanthes that he is a man of common sense, Philo appeals to the self-interest of the learned for whom being viewed by others as men of common sense is important. Philo ushers in a more restricted notion of common sense in an effort to convince the learned to reject religious controversies as frivolous. In turn, this attitude of the learned will place a social pressure on the vulgar of society

240 Philo names these as subjects on which people are capable of coherent discourse at DNR 1.135.

241 DNR 12.218-19.

248 who, in a scientific age, will increasingly feel that religion is no more than mere opinion. With society being habituated to such an attitude, the economic, moral, and political remedies will be much more effective.

Philo suggests that with public life somewhat freed from the stifling forces of religious orthodoxy, policies of toleration can take practical effect and people will experience that their true human interests are better realized in a well-ordered, secular society which promotes material prosperity and the natural and civic virtues. Religion can be tolerated under such circumstances because the general populace will come to view a person’s religion as personal preference. The more significant aspects of political life are left to the realm of reason and common sense, as defined by true philosophy. In this way, it may be possible for multiple religions to co-exist in society while no one of them comes to have too much influence. Even a state-established, tolerant religion could accommodate a variety of sects. With the lessening of people’s convictions and an increase in religious indifference, religious controversies that would have otherwise caused social tumult will be curbed due to the lack of opposition or even interest.

Teaching men religious indifference—not true religion—is the most effective remedy according to Philo.

3. Conclusion: Pamphilus’s Final Words

Near the end of the Part 12 of the Dialogues, Philo shifts to the topic of Christian revelation as the way to compensate for the fragility of human reason. He recommends Cleanthes and Pamphilus to “fly to revealed truth” so as to better understand “the nature, attributes, and 249 operations of the divine object of our Faith.”242 His final remarks are then directed solely to

Pamphilus:

To be a philosophical sceptic is, in a man of letters, the first and most essential step towards being a sound, believing Christian; a proposition which I would willingly recommend to the attention of PAMPHILUS: And I hope CLEANTHES will forgive me for interposing so far in the education and instruction of his pupil.243

The fact that Philo’s last words are spoken to Pamphilus suggests that Philo is quite aware of the youth in his presence. Philo advises Pamphilus as one who is on his way to becoming a “man of letters” and a philosophical sceptic such as himself. Philo’s actions throughout the Dialogues have supplied Pamphilus with examples of how to appear to hold the orthodox view while using the very language of orthodoxy to undermine its fundamental dogmas, thereby clearing the way for a more tolerant, less political religion. In time, and with effort, future generations, including

Pamphilus’s, can continue to frame religious disputes as inherently frivolous.

Pamphilus shows himself to be a dutiful student. He perceives that Philo is duplicitous from the start. By observing Philo’s two-facedness so early on, Pamphilus would certainly have his ears and eyes open to discern Philo’s ruse. Pamphilus observes and explicates the content of the discussions as well as the emotional responses, body language, interruptions, and hesitations of the interlocutors.244 He notes those occasions when Demea misunderstands the gist of what is even being discussed.245 By having Pamphilus be the one to point these things out, Hume shows

242 DNR 12.227.

243 DNR 12.228.

244 For Pamphilus’s observations on the emotional states of Demea, Cleanthes and Philo, see DNR 2.145, 2.150, 3.155, 10.199, 11.212, 11.213. For his observations on body language, interruptions, and facial expressions, see DNR 1.132, 2.150, 10.199, 11.213. For his observations on when one of the men remained silent, hesitated, or paused, see DNR 2.147, 3.155, 6.172.

245 See DNR 2.145, 3.155, 7.176-77. 250 that this youth is perspicacious and observes more than what the other characters give him credit for.

Pamphilus closes the work in the same sort of ambiguity that Philo has modeled throughout the whole of the Dialogues:

[A]s nothing ever made greater impression on me, than all the reasonings of that day; so I confess, that, upon a serious review of the whole, I cannot but think, that PHILO’S principles are more probable than DEMEA’S; but that those of CLEANTHES approach still nearer to the truth.246

Pamphilus does not say which “principles” he refers to, thus making it difficult to assess what he means when he says that Cleanthes’s principles are “closer to the truth.” This ambiguity on the part of Pamphilus may be a mark of unreflective agreement with his teacher, but it could also signify the practiced art of duplicity. Gaskin and Rivers take the first position. Gaskin thinks that

Pamphilus sides with Cleanthes because the youth is so hopelessly indoctrinated to Cleanthes’s teaching that he is unable to think differently from his master.247 Isabel Rivers thinks that both

Cleanthes and Pamphilus are “totally uninfluenced by Philo’s attack.”248 Pamphilus, according to

Rivers, is “obtuse” and “shows that he does not understand what is at issue.”249 She thinks that

Pamphilus’s remarks in the beginning and end of the Dialogues are the result of his educational prejudices, not an independent, intelligent mind. For Gaskin and Rivers, Pamphilus amounts to a mere ideologue who, having been habituated to Cleanthes’s way of thinking, is incapable of forming his own original thoughts or even understanding the difficulties raised by Philo.

246 DNR 12.228.

247 Gaskin, Hume’s Philosophy of Religion, 160.

248 Rivers, “Galen’s Muscles,” 594.

249 Ibid., 591.

251

The difficulty with maintaining the interpretations of Gaskin and Rivers is that the views

Pamphilus expresses in the beginning of the Dialogues are diametrically opposed to the theology of Cleanthes and are much more akin to Philo’s. If Pamphilus was no more than a parrot of

Cleanthes’s, this disparity would not exist. Two previous passages we looked at earlier in this chapter are apropos here. In stark contrast to Cleanthes, Pamphilus holds (along with Philo) that questions concerning the nature of God lead to “nothing but doubt, uncertainty, and contradiction.”250 It is precisely because the nature of God is unknowable, that Pamphilus (like

Philo) claims that “[r]easonable men may be allowed to differ, where no one can reasonably be positive.”251 Far from being disagreeable, such disagreement offers an “agreeable amusement” which “unites the two greatest and purest pleasures of human life, study and society.”252 Samuel

Clark notes that Pamphilus’s political message is that religious disagreement need not lead to intolerance because “sociable pleasure in company is more important than winning arguments or gaining knowledge.”253 Christine Battersby suggests that Pamphilus is much more in tune with

Philo’s method when she states that Pamphilus’s “use of dialogue instead of monologue to tackle the problems of natural religion” incorporates the technique of “counterpoising” opposite sentiments in order to “maintain that hesitation or balance that the dogmatist so much dislikes.”254 According to Battersby, Pamphilus frames his presentation of religion with the purpose of curbing the reader’s religious convictions. What such an interpretation suggests and

250 DNR.128.

251 Ibid.

252 Ibid.

253 Clark, “Hume’s Uses of Dialogue,” 61,

254 Battersby, “Dialogues as Original Imitation,” 247.

252 what the present chapter of this dissertation claims, of course, is that Pamphilus has learned this technique from Philo.

When Hume was writing his first draft of the Dialogues in 1751, he tells Gilbert Elliot, “I make Cleanthes the Hero of the Dialogue.”255 And indeed, on the surface, Cleanthes is the hero.

His principles, at the end, are declared by Pamphilus to be “nearer to the truth.” Yet, as the present chapter discussed, Pamphilus’s opening remarks in the Dialogues, which are made after he has had time to reflect on these conversations, contradict this declaration. This raises questions about the sincerity of Pamphilus’s final words in Part 12. Furthermore, Hume, in his letter to Elliot, alludes to Cleanthes’s a posteriori argument as unsound. He states in the letter that though the mind has a “propensity” to believe in a divine design based on the appearance of order, if this propensity is no different than “our Inclination to find our own Figures in the

Clouds,” then such a propensity “ought to be controul’d & can never be a legitimate Ground of

Assent.”256 Consequently, even if Cleanthes is the hero of the Dialogues, this is no guarantee that

Hume intended him to be the victor. Like a number of the ancient Greek heroes, it might mean he must face a tragic defeat. It seems that Hume intended Philo to “triumph” instead.257 For, in the end, Philo is able to weaken Cleanthes’s argument by insisting that it is founded on nothing but inclination. He also shows that the incomprehensibility of God’s nature makes religious language irrelevant to public life. All religious inquiry is hopelessly entangled in ambiguity and empty words. Even if Philo’s message is lost on Demea and Cleanthes, which it may very well

255 Letters, 1:153.

256 Ibid., 1:155.

257 DNR 8.186. 253 be, there will be those in upcoming generations, such as Pamphilus, who, regardless of what they confess with their lips, are open to Philo’s way of thinking.

Hume’s aim, as demonstrated through Philo and Pamphilus, is, in the end, similar to that of the ancient Greek philosophers. The ancients may have “denied indeed the possibility of an areligious civil society,” but they also “subordinated the religious to the political.”258 Hume, too, hopes that in modern times, the gods will once again be answerable to the polis.

258 Leo Strauss, “The Liberalism of Classical Political Philosophy, The Review of Metaphysics 12, no. 3 (March 1959): 391.

Chapter Four The Political Theology of The History of England

254

The Political Theology of The History of England

Introduction

The last chapter of this dissertation examines the History of England,1 a work Hume began in 1752 and wrote and revised until his death in 1776.2 The work makes explicit Hume’s final thoughts on the historical significance of the intersection between religion and politics.

Religion is a dominant theme throughout, from the discussion of Druidism in the opening pages of volume one, to Hume’s summary of the Protestant Settlement under William of Orange in the last volume.

The year 1752 found Hume, now in the late summer of his life, busy publishing and gaining notoriety.3 He was chosen for the distinguished position of Librarian for the Faculty of

Advocates at the Library of Edinburgh, and it is here where he commenced with his writing of

The History of England. The History is made up of various volumes divided into three major epochs of English history—each epoch being distinguished by particular monarchies or historical circumstances. Hume chose to write the History in what he described as a “retrograde Motion.”4

The first installments, released in 1754 and 1757, covered the third and final epoch concerning

1 David Hume, The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to The Revolution in 1688 (hereafter, HE), 6 vols. (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1983). The Liberty Fund edition is organized by six volumes. It is the 1778 edition of the History which contains Hume’s last revisions. The Stuart reigns take up volumes five and six of the Liberty edition, the Tudor reigns are located in volumes two through four, and ancient history is found in volumes one and two.

2 Hume dedicated a decade of his life to writing the History and would spend another fifteen years revising the volumes for the publication of eight further editions (William B. Todd, foreword to HE, xxi).

3 Published at this time was his Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, a recasting of Book 3 of the Treatise. Also published were his Political Discourses which were, as he says, “well received abroad and at home.” “My Own Life,” in Essays Moral, Political, and Literary (hereafter Essays), ed. Eugene F. Miller (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1987), xxxvi. Note: All references to Hume’s various essays will be taken from the Miller edition.

4 The Letters of David Hume, ed., J. Y. T. Greig, 2 vols. (1932; reprint, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 1:251.

255 256 the Stuart monarchy, Protectorate, and Glorious Revolution. The installments on the second epoch, dealing with the House of Tudor, were released in 1759. The last installments, having to do with England’s ancient history, were published in 1761.

Hume’s venture into history was not a departure from his philosophy as some commentators think; rather, his marked interest in the study of history is present even from his earliest days of philosophizing.5 Ernest Mossner, for instance, traces Hume’s intention to “turn historian” to the “Advertisement” of the 1739 publication of the Treatise and shows that even as a “skeptical” philosopher, Hume was thinking about history’s tie to philosophy.6 Furthermore,

Victor G. Wexler points out that Hume’s 1742 essay, “Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and

Sciences,” and his 1751 essay, “Of the Populousness of Ancient nations,” were excursions into historical essay.7 Also, in 1747, Hume writes to Henry Home of his desire “to prosecute my historical projects.”8 Wexler surmises that Hume is referring to a sixty-four page manuscript he had already written of the history of England in 1745 while a tutor to the Marques of

5 On those who claim that Hume abandoned philosophy for history, see Robert Chambers, “David Hume” from Cyclopaedia of English Literature; a history, critical and biographical, of British authors, from the earliest to the present times, Edinburgh, W. and R. Chambers, 1844, in Early Responses to Hume’s History of England, ed. James Fieser, 2 vols. (Bristol, England: Thoemmes Press, 2002), 2:331; Beatrice F. Hyslop, “From Manuscript to Print: Some Reflections and Comments,” in Carl Becker’s ‘Heavenly City’ Revisited, ed. Raymond O. Rockwood (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1958), 111. For commentary on this commonly held notion, see Ernest Campbell Mossner, “An Apology for David Hume, Historian,” PMLA 56, no. 3 (September 1941): 659; David Fate Norton, “History and Philosophy in Hume’s Thought,” in David Hume: Philosophical Historian (New York: Bobbs- Merrill Company, 1965), xxxii.

6 Ernest Campbell Mossner, “Hume’s Early Memoranda 1729-1740: The Complete Text,” Journal of the History of Ideas 9 (1948): 208-09.

7 Victor G. Wexler, David Hume and the “History of England” (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1979), 9. See also Wexler’s, “David Hume’s Discovery of a New Scene of Historical Thought,” Eighteenth- Century Studies 10, no. 2 (Winter 1976-1977): 185-87. Hume’s 1742 essay, “Of the Study of History,” also indicates that he thought history was a subject worth contemplating.

8 Letters, 1:99.

257

Annandale.9 In 1748, Hume again mentions in a letter to James Oswald of Dunnikier that “I have long had an intention, in my riper years, of composing some History.”10 Hume’s words indicate that his writing a history of England went hand-in-hand with his writing of philosophy. More so, while writing the History he continued refining his philosophical works. This would be an odd endeavor if he had given up on philosophy.

Religion, thematic throughout his philosophical writings, also emerges in the History’s first publication of volume one.11 There are two passages in particular, on Protestant enthusiasm and Catholic superstition, which reflect what Hume thinks are Christianity’s effects on society and political life. In these passages, he indicates that his discussion of religion will not be purely descriptive, but pragmatic and that “some alteration” of religion is possible depending on the

“different situation of civil affairs, and the different species of government.”12 Hume criticizes both Catholicism and Protestantism with equal vivacity in these passages. Whatever social goods the two religions might provide, these goods generally result despite the intentions of religionists. He identifies the religion of the reformers—Protestantism—with a “fanaticism” characterized by their rejection of priestly authority and ceremony.13 As for the “Roman catholic

9 Wexler, David Hume and the “History of England,” 9. See also Ernest Mossner, Harry Ransom, and Gavin Hamilton. “Hume and the ‘Conspiracy of the Booksellers’: The Publication and Early Fortunes of the History of England,” The University of Texas Studies in English 29 (1950): 164.

10 Letters, 1:109.

11 See The History of Great Britain: The Reigns of James I and Charles I, ed. and intro. Duncan Forbes (1754; repr., Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1970), 1:71-73 and 2:96-99. These passages have been reproduced in the foreword to the Liberty Fund edition, xiv-xviii. The present chapter of this dissertation will cite these passages from the Liberty Fund edition. As will be discussed shortly, Hume ended up removing them from later editions.

12 HE 1:xiv-xv.

13 As Hume states: “Hence that rage of dispute, which every where seized the new religionists; that disdain of ecclesiastical subjection; that contempt of ceremonies, and of all the exterior pomp and splendor of worship. And 258 superstition,” it “employed the stake and gibbet against her avowed enemies.”14 Under

Catholicism, all “learning and philosophy” was subordinated to theology, thus bringing true learning to a “severe check” since the best minds were taken up with religious disputes.15 Not being armed militarily, the Roman pontiff “propagated the doctrine of rebellion and even assassination” to quiet his political and religious opponents, while “the absolute resignation of all private judgment, reason, and inquiry” prevailed amongst the populace.16 In response to “critical commentary,” Hume removed these passages from future printings.17 Yet, even with the passages removed, the main ideas remained. Some of these ideas were eventually moved to footnotes18 while others were scattered throughout the volumes of the History.19

Hume’s 1741 essay, “Of Superstition and Enthusiasm,” which approaches religion in view of its “different influence on government and society,”20 parallels his approach to

Christianity in the History. In the essay, he depicts Christian superstition and enthusiasm as each

hence too, that inflexible intrepidity, with which they braved dangers, torments, and even death itself; while they preached the doctrine of peace, and carried the tumults of war, thro’ every part of Christendom” (HE 1:xiv).

14 HE 1:xvi.

15 HE 1:xvi-xvii.

16 HE 1:xvii.

17 Todd, foreword to HE 1:xiv.

18 See especially HE 5:556-59nJ.

19 Hume’s political treatment of religion continued throughout his various revisions of the History as indicated in this passage from the final revised edition: “Disputes concerning religious forms are, in themselves, the most frivolous of any; and merit attention only so far as they have influence on the peace and order of civil society” (HE 6:171). Elsewhere in the History, Hume states that “Religion can never be deemed a point of small consequence in civil government” (HE 6:86).

20 “Of Superstition and Enthusiasm (hereafter SE),” 75.

259 moved by a “different spirit.”21 The “bold and ambitious tempers” of enthusiasm manifest a

“spirit of liberty” whereas superstition “renders men tame and abject, and fits them for slavery.”22 The different spirit of each, Hume thinks, is what “principally distinguishes them” and “alone merits our attention” when assessing their advantages and disadvantages for society.23

Hume’s History shows that the disparate spirits of enthusiasm and superstition err on the side of either excessive liberty or authority, and that these extremes color English politics. The

“wild fanaticism” of the Puritans had “inclined them to arrogate, in their actions and conduct, the same liberty, which they assumed, in their rapturous flights and ecstasies.”24 This spirit of enthusiasm was the primary impetus behind the push for parliamentary prerogative and the formation of the party of liberty—represented by the country party and later the Whigs. The

“slavish” spirit of Catholic superstition naturally led people to side with the party of authority— represented by the court party and later the Tories or Jacobites. Both spirits would lead to faction.

With regard to factions, Hume does not mince words. In his essay, “Of Parties in

General,” he condemns the “founders of sects and factions” and says they are to be “detested and hated; because the influence of faction is directly contrary to that of laws.”25 Factions “subvert government, render laws impotent, and beget the fiercest animosities among men of the same

21 SE, 79.

22 SE, 78.

23 SE, 79.

24 HE 5:558-59nJ.

25 “Of Parties in General,” 55.

260 nation, who ought to give mutual assistance and protection to each other.”26 But Hume also claims that neither absolute nor limited governments are “wholly free from them.”27 Factions are a noxious but unavoidable reality. A remedy for factions will therefore not seek to rid society of them, but to steer them to serve the public good. For, despite Hume’s criticism of religious and political factions, he believes that opposition between parties helps bring about a balance of liberty and authority in society—this balance being a necessary component for the emergence and maintenance of civilization.28 Religious and political faction unintentionally aid in achieving this balance as long as no sect or party holds total sway over society. Concerning the court and country parties, Hume states that though “they oft threaten the total dissolution of the government,” they are also “the real causes of its permanent life and vigour.”29 “[T]rue liberty” is attained when extremes are avoided,30 and the effects of such opposition are generally those very views of moderation that are so necessary to hold a regime together.

26 “Of Parties in General,” 55.

27 Ibid., 55-56. There is some controversy on this point. Edmund S. Morgan, for instance, argues that Hume thought the only solution to factions was preventing them from forming in the first place. See Morgan, “Safety in Numbers: Madison, Hume, and the Tenth Federalist,” Huntington Library Quarterly 49, no. 2 (Spring 1986): 109- 10. Douglass Adair and Mark G. Spencer argue that Hume only opposes those factions that threaten the stability of government. Moderate factions can be a social benefit. See Adair, “‘That Politics May Be Reduced to a Science’: David Hume, James Madison, and the Tenth Federalist,” in Hume: A Re-evaluation, edited by Donald W. Livingston and James T. King (New York: Fordham University Press, 1976), 404-17; Spencer, “Hume and Madison on Faction,” The William and Mary Quarterly 59, no. 4 (October 2002): 878-82, 884.

28 Hume makes numerous comments on “authority” and “liberty” in the History. On the dangers of the lack of their proper balance, see HE 1:168-69, 215-16, 254-55, 237, 323-24; HE 2:174; HE 3:137, 212, 227; HE 4:145- 46, 367; HE 5:492, 538, 545-46, 550, 572; HE 6:4-5, 54, 74, 85, 93, 117, 136, 286, 530-31. On the benefits of their proper balance, see HE 1:125, 161, 254, 311; HE 2:21, 519-22, 525; HE 3:212; HE 4:124, 145-46, 355; HE 5:240, 544-45, 556-57; HE 6:38, 531, 533. See also “Of the Liberty of the Press,” 10-12; “Of the Origin of Government,” 39-41; “Of the Parties of Great Britain,” 65, 71, and 613.

29 HE 5:556nJ.

30 HE 1:168. See Letters, 1:198: “That I am a Lover of Liberty will be expected from my Countrey, tho’ I hope, that I carry not that Passion to any ridiculous Extreme.” See also Constant Noble Stockton, “Hume – Historian of the English Constitution,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 4, no. 3 (Spring 1971): 292-93. 261

Hume’s notion of a remedy juxtaposes opposing forces as a means of moderating religious and political extremism.31 A Humean remedy accepts the restraints imposed on man by nature and his circumstances. One such restraint is that human understanding and foresight are severely limited. We can neither get at the of things—if there even be any—nor can we completely control fortune. Much of what we have come to understand is the effect of our a posteriori beliefs garnered from the trials and errors of experience. Another limitation, for Hume, is that the generality of mankind will always hold some sort of religious or political prejudices. A remedy only aims at moderating or attenuating men’s religious and political bias – not attempting to rid society of them.

Despite the limitations of a remedy, with greater insight into history comes greater understanding of human nature and the principles that direct men’s motives and actions. By providing a framework from which to interpret history, the historian sifts through the experiences of the past and distinguishes between those characters, events, and institutions that are morally and politically useful and those that are not. We will see in this chapter how Hume belieives that through the study of history and human nature, legislators and magistrates can gain at least some level of prediction and control over the religious behaviors of those they are governing. A religious remedy for Hume, though limited, is therefore proactive in moderating religious belief and sentiment.

Because Hume’s references to religion are sometimes found in the unlikeliest of places, we must delve into the nooks and crannies of the History in order to track them down. The six

31 It is important to note that for Hume a remedy is not a solution. See “Introduction” to the present dissertation for the distinction between a “remedy” and a “solution”: 6-7. A remedy does not rid the mind of religious and political extremism, but lessens its effects. In contrast to mathematical problems, solvable by a purely rational scheme, the common life of politics and religion does not have an ideal solution.

262 volumes of the Liberty Fund edition of the History number over three thousand pages. The present chapter does not therefore attempt an exhaustive study of the place of religion in society, especially since Hume discusses religion throughout the entire six volumes. His distinction between “superstition” and “enthusiasm” will be the guiding principle of our investigation since the History provides an analysis of the natures of Christian “superstition” and “enthusiasm” and their influence on religious belief and sentiment in British life. With regard to the issue of

Christian superstition, we are most interested in what Hume says about Catholicism in the first two volumes. With regard to Christian enthusiasm, we will sketch Hume’s account of the emergence of Protestant Christianity as a political phenomenon in volumes three through six. We will then look at how Hume thinks the cultural influence of the Christian religion can be moderated given the positive and negative elements of Catholicism and Protestantism.

Part one of this chapter examines in what way Hume is a bridge, so to speak, between ancient and modern approaches to history. Seeing Hume in this light helps us better understand what he is attempting to accomplish in his narrative on religion and political life. We will look at

Hume’s eclectic approach to history by examining Hume’s self-identification as an impartial historian and why this claim is best understood in light of his embodying two apparently disparate historical traditions. On the one hand, he is clearly dissatisfied with the state of eighteenth century British historiography. He wants to push it forward by making it more

“scientific.” On the other hand, he attempts to recapture the political—and less “scientific”— spirit of the ancient historians. Hume does not merely imitate either tradition; rather, he recapitulates them within his own philosophical framework. This framework, in turn, provides the theoretical grounding for remedying religious and political extremism. Part one of this 263 chapter concludes by seeing how Hume’s theoretical framework lays the groundwork for a historical education that contributes to modifying religion’s social influence.

Parts two and three of this chapter look at the History’s examination of the causes and effects of Catholic superstition and Protestant enthusiasm. Hume’s narrative provides a clear warning of the negative impact both species of religion have on political life, but he also indicates that both types of religion contain elements with the potential to contribute to an ordered, free society. The sensible nature of Catholic ritual, for instance, keeps its votaries in touch with common life while promoting a sense of structure and community, while puritanism engendered and preserved a love of liberty so central to modern political life. The issue becomes to what degree a remedy can salvage the good aspects of these two species of the Christian religion while attenuating their negative qualities.

Part four of this chapter examines how the History indicates the socially amendable aspects of Christian superstition and enthusiasm that can be harnessed to produce a more moderate religion. Hume points to the Church of England as the best, albeit imperfect, historical model of effective regulation of religion by the state. Yet, he indicates that state-controlled religion itself is not enough. A new, more modern attitude toward religion must also be encouraged – toleration. Hume’s view of toleration is not grounded on natural rights nor does his view of toleration have any connection to the idea of religious freedom. Rather, the basis of religious toleration, according to Hume, is most effective when rooted in religious indifference.

This means, of course, that religious indifference ought to be promoted in society. A genuine historical education contributes to such a task not only by exposing the ulterior motives of religionists and the detrimental historical effects of religion, but also by providing the wisdom 264 that makes possible the development of the arts and sciences (and the prosperity and good morals that often follow from such development), all of which are means of turning people’s attention from religious concerns toward their genuine, earthly interests. With the increase of religious indifference in society, philosophers, legislators, and scientists can take a more active role in the political sphere.32

1. Hume: Impartial Historian

Hume’s claim to have written an impartial history suggests that he thinks his portrayal of religion and political life in the History is accurate and unprejudiced. Yet, some of his critics question whether the History is “impartial” or even “historical.” The present section of this chapter will show that Hume’s self-identification as an impartial historian is best understood in light of his regard for the ancient historians and his attempt to integrate the practices of eighteenth century historiography. The section concludes by examining how the history is an educational tool for both the vulgar and the legislator.

1.1 Critical Commentary

In the age of Hume, British historians were not known for impartiality; instead, they were

“party” historians and apologists. As Mossner reports, the “soundest historian” of England in the first half of the eighteenth century was Paul de Rapin-Thoyras, a Huguenot refugee, who was,

32 Besides toleration, religious establishment, and education, Hume also indicates that economic prosperity tempers religious zealousness. Though this topic is relevant to our investigations, it deserves a chapter unto itself and will be left for a future time. The present dissertation has already shown the moderating effects of economic prosperity on religion in the chapters on the Treatise, Natural History, and Dialogues.

265 himself, a Whig historian.33 The Whigs were the dominant party in Britain and thus the primary influence in the writing of British history. Whig historians dated “modernity” from the Glorious

Revolution of 1688, considered by them to be the beginning of liberty and civilization, and condemned the “tyranny” of the preceding Stuart reign.34 The Jacobite or Tory historical school was significantly less influential and defended the Stuart monarchy while often portraying the

Revolution as a step backward.

Hume prided himself in having risen above writing a party history and boasts of his

“impartiality” in his letters.35 In the History, he expresses his aim to combat the failure of his fellow historians to pay “an entire regard to truth.”36 Hume explains that the reason he began the

History with the Stuart period (instead of the ancient) was to specifically combat the misrepresentation of party histories: “I commenced with the accession of the House of Stuart, an epoch, when, I thought, the misrepresentations of faction began chiefly to take place.”37 In his view, historians had “extremely clouded and obscured” the circumstances surrounding the

Glorious Revolution.38 The Whigs, because of their political dominance, were especially at fault in this regard:

Even that party amongst us, which boasts of the highest regard to liberty, has not possessed sufficient liberty of thought in this particular; nor has been able to decide impartially of their own merit. . . .39

33 Mossner, “Apology for Hume,” 659.

34 Ibid.

35 See Letters, 1:170, 179-80, 185, 193, 210, 221-222, 226.

36 HE 6:532.

37 “My Own Life,” xxxvi.

38 HE 6:532.

39 Ibid. 266

In “My Own Life,” Hume claims that he was the “only historian” up to his day to escape the partiality and prejudice characterizing all modern histories before him.40 He has choice words for

Rapin: “Style, judgement, impartiality, care—everything is wanting to our historians; and even

Rapin, during this latter period, is extremely deficient.”41 In 1753, while finishing his first volume on the Stuarts, he again compares himself to Rapin:

The more I advance in my undertaking, the more am I convinced that the History of England has never yet been written, not only for style, which is notorious to all the world, but also for matter; such is the ignorance and partiality of all our historians. Rapin, whom I had an esteem for, is totally despicable. I may be liable to the reproach of ignorance, but I am certain of escaping that of partiality.42

And indeed, there were many who viewed Hume as the impartial historian par excellence.43 In

1761, an anonymous reviewer states that “[n]o man perhaps has come nearer to that so requisite and so rare a quality in an historian of unprejudiced partiality.”44 The author goes on to say that

Hume had finally “discharged our country” from the “opprobrium” of the inability of the British to write history.45

40 “My Own Life,” xxxvi-xxxvii.

41 Letters, 1:170.

42 Ibid., 1:179.

43 For instance, George Keith, 10th Earl Marischal of Scotland, describes him as “the only historian impartial” while Mme la Comtesse de Boufflers praises him for his “divine impartialité” (Letters, 2:365-69). On the French Anglomania for Hume’s History, see Laurence L. Bongie, David Hume: Prophet of the Counter-Revolution, 2nd ed. (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2000) and Wexler’s David Hume and the “History of England,” 90, 93-95.

44 Anonymous review of Hume’s History of England, in Annual Register for the year 1761, December 1761, in Early Responses to HE, 1:264.

45 Anonymous review, Annual Register, in Responses to HE, 1:263. Another reviewer claimed that Hume’s “abilities have already contributed eminently to wipe off the reproach too long urged by foreigners, that the genius of the British nation was either averse or unequal to historical composition.” Quoted from Anonymous review of the History of England, from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Accession of Henry VIII, in The Critical Review, January and February, 1762, vol. 13, in Responses to HE, 1:290.

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Yet, many of Hume’s contemporaries believed that his History disregarded historical truth and favored party politics and irreligion.46 Francis Garden claimed the History revealed

Hume to be a “bitter Tory.”47 Others, such as John Pinkerton, said the History aimed to “depress the church” and served as an “apology” for monarchy.48 The accusation of partisanship continued into the nineteenth century. Francis Jeffrey claimed that the History expressed

“sincere Tory opinions.”49 characterized the work as so bent on Toryism that it partook in a “systematic suppression of truth” and was “calculated to mislead.”50 Still others, such as Gilbert Elliot of Minto, accused Hume of having too many Whig tendencies. Hume seems to find some truth in this latter criticism. While revising his narrative on the Stuarts in

1764, a decade after he had finished the original, he states in a letter to Elliot:

I now find that they [the volumes on the Stuarts], above all the rest, have been corrupted by Whig Rancour, & that I really deserv’d the name of a Party Writer, and boasted without any Foundation of my Impartiality: But if you now do me the Honour to give this part of my Work a second Perusal, I am perswaded that you will no longer

46 His critics lined up from every direction. In “My Own Life,” Hume states: “I was assailed by one cry of reproach, disapprobation, and even detestation; English, Scotch, and Irish, Whig and Tory, churchman and sectary, freethinker and religionist, patriot and courtier, united in their rage against the man, who had presumed to shed a generous tear for the fate of Charles I. . .” (xxxvii). See also Letters, 1:196 and 214.

47 Francis Garden, Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, Edinburgh: Printed by J. Robertson, 1791, in Early Responses to HE, 2:194.

48 John Pinkerton, Letters of literature. Printed under the pseudonym of Robert Heron, Esq. London: printed for G. G. J. and J. Robinson, 1785, in Responses to HE, 2:142.

49 Francis Jeffrey, review of Brodie’s History of the British Empire (1822), in Edinburgh Review, March 1824, in Responses to HE, 2:271.

50 John Stuart Mill, review of George Brodie’s History of the British Empire (1822) in Westminster Review, October 1824, in Responses to HE, 2:289-90. According to F. A. Hayek, Hume has been wrongly labeled a biased Tory when in fact he was “an eminently just man” who “defended the Tory leaders against many of the unfair accusations brought against them—and, in the religious field, chided the Whigs for the intolerance which, contrary to their own doctrine, they showed toward the Catholic leanings prevalent among the Tories” (“The Legal and Political Philosophy of David Hume,” in Hume, ed.V. C. Chappell (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966), 340-41). Scholars now tend to side with Hayek against Mill on this point.

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throw upon me this reproachful Epithet, and will acquit me of all Propensity to Whiggism.51

In “My Own Life,” Hume refers to his efforts to correct his bent toward Whiggism:

[I]n above 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 to the Tory side.52

Interestingly, given what he says in his letter to Elliot, Hume makes these changes not because he thought of himself as a Tory, but rather to correct his own partialities to the Whig party.53

Hume’s impartiality was also challenged with regard to his approach to religion in the

History. He was informed in 1756 that a stop was put to the sale of the first volume of his

History in London due to “some Strokes of Irreligion which had raisd the Cry of the Clergy against me.”54 Criticism of Hume’s treatment of religion was not limited to the clergy.

Reviewers, such as Daniel MacQueen, for instance, took offense at Hume’s “loose and irreligious sneers” scattered throughout the first volume.55 William Rose found in it “indecent excursions on the subject of religion,” which, he says, “no doubt, have given offence to every

51 Letters, 1:379.

52 “My Own Life,” xxxviii.

53 Hume tells John Clephane in 1757 that the accusation of —of which he had been accused—is “the most terrible ism of them all” (Letters 1:264). The debate continues on whether and to what degree Hume may have been moved by political partisanship in his writing of the History. See Ernest Campbell Mossner, “Was Hume a Tory Historian? Facts and Reconsiderations,” Journal of the History of Ideas 2, no. 2 (April 1941):225-36; Marjorie Grene, “Hume: Sceptic and Tory?” Journal of the History of Ideas 4, no. 3 (June 1943):333-48; Benjamin Ring, “David Hume: Historian or Tory Hack?” North Dakota Quarterly (Winter 1968):50-59; James Conniff, “Hume on Political Parties: The Case for Hume as a Whig,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 12, no. 2 (Winter 1978- 1979):150-73.

54 Letters, 1:249. For other possible explanations surrounding the halt of sales, see Ernest Mossner, Harry Ransom, and Gavin Hamilton, “Hume and the ‘Conspiracy of the Booksellers’: The Publication and Early Fortunes of the History of England,” The University of Texas Studies in English 29 (1950): 162-82.

55 Daniel MacQueen, Letters on Mr. Hume’s History of Great Britain, Edinburgh: printed by Sands, Donaldson, Murray, and Cochran. For A. Kincaid and A. Donaldsom, 1756, in Early Responses to HE, 143.

269 candid Reader.”56 According to one commentator, Hume “expresses his opinion at the expense of the truth” particularly with regard to “religious matters.”57 In the preface to his own History of

England, Oliver Goldsmith suspects Hume of “playing a double part, of appearing to some readers as if he reverenced, and to others as if he ridiculed” religion.58 Hume’s early reputation as a historian suffered as a result of these accusations.59

Still, despite the critics, the History set record sales in Britain within a decade of its release and became the standard history of England for the next century,60 so much so, that in the closing years of the eighteenth century, Francis Garden stated that the “name of RAPIN is now almost forgotten.”61

56 William Rose, review of The History of Great Britain. Vol. 2. Containing the Commonwealth and the Reigns of Charles II and James II, in The Monthly Review, January, 1757, in Early Responses to HE, 1:160.

57 Anonymous review of The History of Great Britain, Vol. 1, in Göttingische Anzeigen von gelehrten Sachen, December 8, 1755, in Responses to Hume’s HE, 1:25.

58 Oliver Goldsmith, preface to the 1789 edition of History of England, from the earliest times to the death of George II, London, printed for T. Davies, 1771, in Responses to HE, 1:344.

59 In the eyes of his critics, Hume’s failure as a historian was also due to the unoriginality of his research, lack of accuracy, and even lack of integrity. See Thomas Birch, An Inquiry into the share, which King Charles I. had in the transactions of the earl of Glamorgan. . . ., London: printed for A. Millar, 1756, in Responses to HE, 1:29; George Brodie, A history of the British empire . . . including a particular examination of Mr. Hume’s statements relative to the character of the English government, Edinburgh, printed for Bell & Bradfute, 1822, in Responses to HE, 2:216; Chambers, “David Hume,” in Early Responses to HE, 2:332; Garden, Miscellanies, in Early Responses to HE, 2:194; Jeffrey, review of Brodie’s History, in Responses to HE, 2:270-71; Rose, review of HE, in Responses to HE, 1:172; Joseph Towers, Observations on Mr. Hume’s History of England, London: printed by H. Goldney, for G. Robinson, 1778, in Early Responses to HE, 2:64; John Whitaker, The history of Manchester. In four books, London, 1773-1775, in Responses to HE, 2:8, 10, and 16. For a response to Whitaker’s accusation against Hume’s lack of original research, see Henry Hallam, “Review of John Lingard’s A history of England,” in Edinburgh Review, March, 1831, vol. 53, in Responses to HE, 2:306.

60 See Mossner, “Apology for David Hume,” 657; Mossner, et al., “Hume and Booksellers,”163; Norton, “History and Philosophy,” xxxvii.

61 Garden, Miscellanies, in Early Responses to HE, 2:193.

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By the early twentieth century, however, the History’s popularity had waned.62 This was partly due to Madame Macaulay’s attempts, since the mid-1760s, to refute Hume’s “Tory” history. She inspired a century of Whig historians to continue her work.63 But perhaps what was more destructive of the History’s popularity was the rise of nineteenth-century .

According to the historicist, Hume makes the “fallacious assumption” that the proper object of history is a stable, unchanging human nature.64 The historicist takes the genuine objects of history to be instead “the various opinions, beliefs, and presuppositions of different ages.”65 J. B.

Black’s critique of Hume captures the historicist perspective:

But the principal consequence of Hume’s doctrine of uniformity as applied to history is this: if, as he asserts, human nature is a constant quantity, composed of certain qualities or powers which, in the sum total, are the same for all epochs and countries, it follows that history is simply a repeating decimal. The great drama is transacted on a flat and uniform level. . . .66

Since, according to the historicist, a historical explanation limits itself to temporal phenomena, the object of history cannot be an unchanging human nature.67 According to Stromberg, Hume

62 John Danford notes, for instance, that the work “is rarely read today, though it once adorned the bookshelves of nearly every literate English speaker who professed any interest in political life” (“Hume on Development: The First Volumes of the History of England,” The Western Political Quarterly 42, no. 1 (March 1989), 108).

63 Wexler, David Hume and the “History of England,” 91.

64 See J. B. Black, The Art of History: A Study of Four Great historians of the Eighteenth Century (New York: F. S. Crofts & Co., 1926), 84-87.

65 John Danford, David Hume and the Problem of Reason: Recovering the Human Sciences (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 91.

66 Black, Art of History, 97-98.

67 According to Christopher Berry, the concept of “human nature” for the historicist has meaning only insofar as “sociocultural contexts” are recognized as “constitutive or definitive” of it. (“Hume on Rationality in History and Social Life,” History and Theory 21, no. 2 (May 1982): 241). For Berry’s detailed discussion of “contextualism,” see 235-41.

271 was “interested in history,” but he did not have a “real historical-mindedness.”68 Hume’s approach to history is simply too rationalistic and, dare we say, Platonic to be considered genuinely historical.69 It thus happened that historiographers considered the History as more of a literary curiosity than a genuine historical work.70

Whereas the historicist deems Hume’s History too philosophic,71 many philosophers came to view the History as a departure from Hume’s philosophical pursuits and therefore failed to glean from the History its full philosophical significance. Beginning around the mid-twentieth century, however, a renewed interest in the philosophical-historical elements of the History opened discussion on the historical-mindedness of the History.72 It was argued that one ought to read the work in light of the standards of Hume’s own age rather than those of nineteenth or twentieth century history. Duncan Forbes points out that though the History had certain aims specific to its age, it is “going too far” to call the work a “‘tract for the times’ or ‘anti-

68 R. N. Stromberg, “History in the Eighteenth Century,” Journal of the History of Ideas 12, no. 2 (April 1951): 297.

69 For those who make this critique, see Thomas Preston Peardon, The Transition in English Historical Writings: 1760-1830 (New York: AMS Press, Inc., 1966), 10-12, 19; Black, Art of History, 91-94; Stockton, “Hume – Historian of the English Constitution,” 292-93. Mossner defends Hume against this criticism in “Apology for Hume,” 664.

70 Mossner sums up this attitude of the historicist: “Although Hume’s History is not for our times, it is proper to . . . enjoy it as literature, or to learn from it how the greatest mind of the Enlightenment interpreted the past for his age [emphasis added].” In The Life of David Hume, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 318. For further comments on the historicist attitude, see Danford, “Hume on Development,” 126 ff; Mossner, “Apology for Hume,” 657-58.

71 J. B. Black calls it a “highly polished and skilfully articulated ,” but not history proper (Art of History, 85).

72 See David Fate Norton and Richard H. Popkin, David Hume: Philosophical Historian (New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1965); Duncan Forbes, Hume’s Philosophical Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1975); Mossner’s two articles, “Apology for Hume,” 657ff and “Was Hume a Tory Historian?,” 225-36.

272 historical.’”73 Norton and Popkin presented Hume as a philosophical historian, for whom genuine history needs a steady foundation to undergird the constantly changing stream of human events. According to Danford, “without some conception of a genuine human nature, that is, of men and women as having reasonably permanent needs and desires,” attempts to account for the historical development of mankind are nonsensical.74 But old views die hard. Danford reports that even as the twentieth century was coming to a close, the “predominant” view in Hume scholarship still held that the History had little if anything of philosophic or enduring substance.75 Yet, the work’s “chief lessons,” according to Danford, “are as important as they were in 1762.”76 “At the very least,” he suggests, “we should not casually assume that it produces no transhistorical truths.”77

Having looked now at various criticisms and defenses of Hume’s History, we will look at some of his own statements on how he himself views his impartiality and why considering him as a bridge between modern and ancient approaches to history helps reconcile his claim about the

History’s impartiality despite its political and religious agenda.

73 Forbes, Philosophical Politics, 264 and 264n1. Forbes is responding to comments J. B. Stewart makes in The Moral and Political Philosophy of David Hume (1963; repr., Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977), 298-99.

74 Danford, “The First Volumes of the History of England,” 108. Danford here is speaking specifically of economic development, but his point is applicable to human development in general.

75 Ibid., 126n16.

76 Ibid., 126.

77 Ibid., 108.

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1.2 The Politics of Impartiality

1.2.1 Authority and Liberty

What does Hume intend to convey by writing a so-called impartial history? In this section of the chapter, we will approach this question by first looking at his aims of correcting political and religious myths. These aims, after all, ought to coincide with what he means by his own impartiality. It will be shown that Hume does not present his own impartiality as an attempt to set his own opinions aside. He presents his impartiality as a freedom from factional interests. His impartiality therefore, far from limiting him from expressing personal judgments, allows him to convey his philosophical and political opinions. Viewing Hume as a bridge between modern and ancient historiography reconciles his view of impartiality with his promotion of an ordered, liberal political society.

In “My Own Life,” Hume describes his “impartiality” as a freedom from “present power, interest, and authority.”78 Impartiality, as he defines it here, is akin to freethinking – to think and judge for oneself without being beholden to any political party, religious group, or social authority.79 Being of “no party,” Hume claims that he “adopt[s] the most moderate & most reasonable Sentiments on all Subjects” while remaining “above any Regard either to Whigs or

Tories.”80

Being above party or sect, of course, does not mean Hume withholds his own political and religious views from the History. His attempt to articulate the delicate balance of liberty and

78 “My Own Life,” xxxvii.

79 For a similar view, see Stockton, “Hume – Historian of English Constitution,” 289.

80 See Letters, 1:180, 185 and 221-22.

274 authority in society is thematic throughout the History. For Hume, “extremes of all kinds are to be avoided.”81 This is particularly the case in striking the balance between authority and liberty.

When the proper balance is struck, then society enjoys the fruits of “true liberty.”82 Extreme forms of freedom or authority, whether in political or religious matters, are ultimately destructive of true liberty. “Governments, too steady and uniform,” he tells us, are “seldom free,” for they

“abate the active powers of men; depress courage, invention, and genius; and produce an universal lethargy in the people.”83 The Tory party, with its emphasis on authority, was more apt to fall into this extreme. Hume’s account of religious superstition in the History shows that a similar type of excessive emphasis on authority is found in societies where Catholic superstition is rampant. At the same time, a notion of liberty that disregards the “sacred boundaries of the laws” is nothing more than “license” or the “wild projects of zeal and ambition.”84 According to

Hume, although Whig governance “in some particulars, has been advantageous to the state,”

Whig bias “has proved destructive to the truth of history, and has established many gross falsehoods.”85 In the effort to promote freedom, in Hume’s view, the Whigs failed to accord a proper regard to authority. Hume’s account of religious enthusiasm in the History also shows that a similar type of extremism is found in societies where Protestantism is left unchecked.

81 HE 6:533-34.

82 HE 1:168.

83 HE 6:530. See also HE 1:168-69.

84 HE 5:492. See also HE 5:520 and 6:530-31.

85 HE 6:533.

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Though “liberty is the perfection of civil society,” Hume reminds us that “authority must be acknowledged essential to its very existence.”86

According to Hume, the bias of Whig historians toward freedom showed itself in their myth of an ancient constitution. In their view, England had always had a plan of liberty, an

“ancient constitution” of sorts, which culminated in the Revolution of 1688 with the overthrow of the Catholic James II and the installation of the Dutch Protestant William of Orange.87 To

Hume however, it was “ridiculous to consider the English constitution before that period as a regular plan of liberty”88 because “[t]he English constitution, like all others, has been in a state of continual fluctuation.”89 Furthermore, according to Hume, much of England’s history reveals that authoritarianism, not freedom, was the main element making up its constitution.90 Hume therefore distinguishes between what he calls England’s “present plan of liberty”—which has only come into existence since the Glorious Revolution—and the fluctuating “ancient constitution” which “prevailed before the settlement of our present plan.”91

86 “On the Origin of Government,” 41.

87 On the Whig “myth” of the ancient constitution, see Stockton, “Hume – Historian of English Constitution,” 280-82; Wexler, “David Hume’s Discovery,” 189.

88 “My Own Life,” xxxviii.

89 HE 4:355nl. Hume’s depiction of the ancient constitution is that of a series of constitutions lacking any overarching plan or foresight. Each of its incarnations reflects an adaptation to the specific circumstances of the time: “In each of these successive alterations, the only rule of government, which is intelligible or carries any authority with it, is the established practice of the age, and the maxims of administration, which are at that time prevalent, and universally assented to” (HE 2:525).

90 According to Hume, though England can “boast” that at no time “the will of the monarch” had been “entirely absolute and uncontrouled,” it is also the case that “the balance of power has extremely shifted among the several orders of the state; and this fabric has experienced the same mutability, that has attended all human institutions (HE 2:524).

91 HE 4:355nl.

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In contrast to the Whigs, Hume locates the origins of liberty in the era of Tudor absolutism. Though the Tudor era “required the authority almost absolute of the sovereigns” in order to hold in check “disorderly and licentious tyrants,” an unintended effect of this near- absolutism was the establishment of “that regular execution of laws” essential for the functioning of a stable society.92 It was precisely this lawful order that in the “following age, enabled the people to erect a regular and equitable plan of liberty.93 Though the basis of Tudor law was the arbitrary will of the monarch, the stability these laws provided was the very pre-condition for conceiving the possibility of ordered liberty. For Hume, we therefore need not view authority as a necessary enemy of freedom.94 Instead, the History encourages “moderate” views when it comes to finding the proper balance of authority and liberty in religious and political matters:

“though no one will ever please either faction by moderate opinions, it is there we are most likely to meet with truth and certainty.”95 A “moderate” religion, as will be shown later in the present chapter of this dissertation, will result from playing superstition and enthusiasm against one another in the hope of striking the proper balance between authority and liberty. Another balance which Hume attempts to strike in his approach to history is the balance between modern and ancient historiography. This issue will be taken up next.

92 HE 2:524-25.

93 HE 2:525.

94 Hume warns, for instance, that the Whiggish view of history, often emphasizing liberty at the expense of authority will, if not tempered, undermine the very liberty the Whigs profess to defend: “And forgetting that a regard to liberty, though a laudable passion, ought commonly to be subordinate to a reverence for established government, the prevailing faction [i.e., the Whigs] has celebrated only the partizans of the former, who pursued as their object the perfection of civil society, and has extolled them at the expence of their antagonists, who maintained those maxims [of stability and order], that are essential to its very existence” (HE 6:533).

95 HE 6:534. See also Letters, 1:226.

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1.2.2 Hume: Ancient and Modern

When we approach Hume as both a modern and an ancient, further light is shed on his self-understanding as a historian. On the one hand, Hume alludes to Newton as the exemplar of the scientific attitude and suggests that his own History is modelled after Newton’s method.96 On the other hand, Hume aligns himself with the great ancient historians, such as Tacitus, Livy, and

Herodotus, who held a very different view of history than modern historicists. To judge Hume’s aims by the standards of modern historiography alone therefore misconstrues his objectives. The present sub-section of this chapter shall first look at how Hume integrates a Newtonian, mechanistic approach to history, and then look at how Hume’s shared attitude with the ancients allows him the independence to pursue history with political and religious aims in mind.

Hume takes special care to emphasize the parallel between history and science. He states that when a particular science begins to “increase and improve,” people construct methods to organize information into “general theorems” so as to “comprehend in a few propositions a great number of inferences and conclusions.”97 History, Hume says, is one such science. Because it is a “collection of facts which are multiplying without end,” the historian must use “arts of abridgement” to bring out those “more material events” which provide lessons that transcend any particular time or place.98 For Hume, a proper history does not merely accumulate facts, but sifts through, orders, and interprets them. History is the telling of a story and is unified by a narrative.

The lack of a narrative, Hume says, is what plagues many attempts at history because without a

96 HE 6:542.

97 HE 2:3.

98 HE 2:3-4.

278 unifying theme, events are chronicled, but not understood. A historical chronicle “abounds in names, but is extremely barren of events” and “the most profound or most eloquent writer must despair of rendering them either instructive or entertaining to the reader.”99

Hume aligns his methodical approach to history with Newton’s method of natural science. In the History, he praises Newton for being “[c]autious in admitting no principles but such as were founded on experiment.”100 Newton helped “draw off the veil from some of the mysteries of nature” while at the same time showing the limitations of the “mechanical philosophy; and thereby restored her ultimate secrets to that obscurity, in which they ever did and ever will remain.”101 Hume’s panegyric suggests that he, too, aims to accomplish in the

History what Newton did in natural science. He, too, will unveil some of the secrets of history— such as those natural causes covered over by superstition or political myth. Hume claims, instance, that during the medieval age “fables” were “commonly employed to supply the place of true history.”102 The result was that “knowledge of natural causes was neglected from the universal belief in miraculous interpositions and judgments.”103 The History exposes these false histories and supplies in their place a natural history. When reviewing Joan of Arc’s life, for instance, he explains away her mystical visions by psychological explanations:

99 HE 1:25. Hume refers to his History as a “narration” at HE 3:81-82 and a “narrative” at HE 6:142.

100 HE 6:542.

101 Ibid.

102 HE 1:4.

103 HE 1:51.

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Her unexperienced mind, working day and night . . . mistook the impulses of passion for heavenly inspirations; and she fancied, that she saw visions, and heard voices, exhorting her to re-establish the throne of France, and to expel the foreign invaders.104

In Hume’s attempt to unveil the underlying causes of historical phenomena, he cautions against appealing to “marvellous” explanations and he outright rejects “miraculous” ones:

It is the business of history to distinguish between the miraculous and the marvellous; to reject the first in all narrations merely profane and human; to doubt the second; and when obliged by unquestionable testimony . . . to admit of something extraordinary, to receive as little of it as is consistent with known facts and circumstances.105

In Hume’s hands, the study of history is purely a secular endeavor.106 His a priori denial of miracles in this passage is unabashedly dogmatic, indicating that his approach to history cannot be purely empirical. Instead, Hume’s notion of history is infused with a naturalism that excludes the supernatural from historical explanation.107 A divine, providential history is alien to his understanding of history.108 As Richard Popkin observes, Hume’s History “was an attempt, and one of the first, to portray human history as meaningful and comprehensible in its own secular

104 HE 2:397-98.

105 HE 2:398. See also EHU 10.4-5; SBN 110-111.

106 In the History, Hume condemns the work of “monkish” historians during the medieval era and indicates his preference for a secular approach to history (HE 1:14). He tells us that neither “the search after truth” nor “candid indifference” can be expected from those moved by “theological controversy” (HE 5:12). The monks, being the “only annalists” during “those barbarous and illiterate ages” were too “strongly infected with credulity, with the love of wonder, and with a propensity to imposture” to be genuine historians (HE 1:25).

107 See Norman Kemp Smith’s, “The Naturalism of Hume,” Mind 14, no. 54 (April 1905): 149-73 and The Philosophy of David Hume: A Critical Study of Its Origins and Central Doctrines (London: Macmillan, 1941; repr., New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).

108 As Francis Palgrave says of Hume’s History, “[a]ll the workings of Providence in worldy affairs are denied: or blurred when he cannot deny them” (“Hume and his influence on history,” in Quarterly Review, (March 1844, vol. 73), in Early Responses to HE, 2:361). William D. Melaney states that it is precisely Hume’s “philosophical orientation” that “allows him to propose a specifically secular paradigm” (“Hume’s Secular Paradigm: Skepticism and Historical Knowledge,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 25, no. 3 (July 2008): 243).

280 terms, according to a complex of human and natural factors.”109 Religion, as it shows up in history, is thus explainable in terms of psychological principles with no need to appeal to revelation.

When we turn to the influence of ancient historians on Hume, we see a concerted effort on his part to model the History after them as well. In a letter to John Clephane in 1753, he states that his division of the work into three epochs is an effort to imitate the conciseness of the ancients: “Style, judgement, impartiality, care—everything is wanting to our historians. . . . I make my work very concise, after the manner of the Ancients.”110 Hume’s aim at conciseness gives us a sense for why he was perhaps tentative in citing sources in his early work on the

History. In 1754, he explains to the Abbé Le Blanc that, in the interest of conciseness, he chose not to document many of his original sources. This decision, he says again, is modelled after the practice of the ancients:

[M]y Narration is rapid, and that I have more propos’d as my Model the concise manner of the antient Historians, than the prolix, tedious Style of some modern Compilers. I have inserted no original papers, and enter’d no Detail of minute, uninteresting Facts.111

Due to some of the criticism he received on this matter, Hume ended up providing “more precise and extensive footnoting” as he proceeded in his writing of the History.112 Yet, note the explanation he gives in 1758 to for why he did not originally do so:

109 Popkin, “Skepticism and Study of History,” in Philosophical Historian, xxx-xxxi.

110 Letters, 1:170. In a letter to William Strahan in 1757 Hume draws a parallel between the “retrograde Motion” of his History with the practice of Tacitus, who also “wrote his Annals after his History; tho’ they treat of a preceding Period” (Letters, 1:251).

111 Ibid., 1:193.

112 Todd, foreword to HE, xviii.

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I own that I was so much the less excusable for not taking this precaution, that such an exactness would have cost no trouble; and it wou’d have been easy for me, after I had noted and markd all the passages, on which I founded my narration, to write the references on the margin. But I was seduc’d by the example of all the best historians even among the moderns, such as Matchiavel, Fra paolo, Davila, Bentivoglio; without considering that that practice was more modern than their time, and having been once introduc’d, ought to be follow’d by every writer. And, tho’ it be easy for the falsest and most partial historian to load his margin with quotations, nor is there any other certain method of assuring ones self of the fidelity of an author than to read most of the original writers of any period; yet the reader has reason to expect that the most material facts, at least all such as are any way new, shou’d be supported by the proper authorities.113

Although Hume concedes the necessity of citing his sources, given that doing so had become standard practice, he does not consider the new standard an improvement and does not think historians are any less partial as a result. After all, the “best historians”—implying here the ancients along with a few early moderns—did not engage in the practice.

As seen in the above passage, Hume includes Machiavelli amongst those early humanist historians worthy of inclusion with the ancients. Harvey Mansfield, in his introduction to the

Florentine Histories, explains how Machiavelli shares a close kinship with the ancients in the understanding of history. Mansfield’s observations can help shed light on what Hume so admired in these men. Mansfield points out that “for us history is both the object of study and the study itself,” that is, history is a narrative of events the only concern of which is those events themselves.114 For the ancients, however, istoria refers to a “narration” or “description” about

“something other than history,”115 that is to say, the purpose of history is to discover trans-

113 Letters, 1:284-85.

114 Harvey C. Mansfield Jr., introduction to Florentine Histories, by Niccolò Machiavelli, trans. Laura F. Banfield and Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr. (Princeton University Press: Princeton, New Jersey, 1988), vii.

115 Ibid.

282 historical truths. These trans-historical truths are to provide the “context” by which the facts of history are to be understood and analyzed.116

Hume, like the ancients, searches for trans-historical principles of human nature that act as a “coordinating principle” by which to unite the various characters, actions, institutions, and events of history.117 Just as human nature provides the stable grounding for the study of history, history, in turn, provides material from which more general principles of human nature can be established. As a “moral historian,” Hume attempts to “flesh out” principles of human nature previously laid out in the Treatise and Enquiries.118 In this way, history becomes the experimental field in which the philosopher can better articulate the science of man.119 Although set in Great Britain, the History is an account of religious and political principles which are not limited to the English people, but are constitutive of human nature itself.

The specific object of the History is the story of how human nature manifests and makes sense of the English people’s emergence from their so-called “ancient” constitution to a regular

116 Mansfield, introduction to Florentine Histories, viii-ix.

117 Mossner, “Apology for Hume,” 660.

118 Foster, “Different Religions,” 253-54. In a 1754 letter to Abbé Le Blanc, Hume refers to the philosophic impetus behind his approach to the History: “The philosophical Spirit, which I have so much indulg’d in all my Writings, finds here ample materials to work upon” (Letters, 1:193).

119 For instances of those who refer to Hume as a philosophical historian, see John Allen, review of John Lingard’s A history of England, from Edinburgh Review, April 1825, in Early Responses to HE, 2: 295; Stephen Foster, “Different Religions and the Difference They Make: Hume on the Political Effects of Religious Ideology,” Modern Schoolman 66 (May 1989): 253; Andrew Sabl, “When Bad Things Happen from Good People (and Vice- Versa): Hume’s Political Ethics of Revolution,” Polity 35, no. 1 (Autumn 2002): 76; Black, Art of History, 84-85; Danford, Problem of Reason, 108; Forbes, Philosophical Politics, 264; Melaney, “Hume’s Secular Paradigm,” 243; Mossner, “Apology for Hume,” 660,663, 666-67; Norton, “History and Philosophy,” xxxii-iv, xxxvii-xxxix; Popkin, “Skepticism and History,” ix, xxx-xxxi; Spencer, “Hume and Madison on Faction,” 878-79.

283 plan of liberty.120 A major element to this story is Britain’s emergence from superstition and barbarity121—characterized by Catholic priests subsuming all civil authority under their control—toward a civilization of ordered liberty with regard for law, limited government, the pursuit of science and the arts, economic prosperity, and state-controlled religion.122 Hume’s narrative is political insofar as it warns of the ignorance and barbarity which lies in wait when a people fail to curb the extremes threatening the fragile equilibrium of authority and liberty.123

The aims of Hume’s History cohere with the practical approaches of ancient historians.

Historical truth is the goal of the ancient historians, but unlike today’s historian—who “is supposed to be above concern for ‘one’s own’ and would not admit to choosing a topic for its utility to his own country”—the ancients think “historical truth is not only compatible with patriotism and rhetoric but in need of them”:

120 For commentators who think that the History’s narrative is fundamentally about England’s development from barbarism to civilization, see, Black, Art of History, 85, 88-89; Danford, “Hume on Development,” 109-10; Mossner, “Apology for Hume,” 660 and 680-81.

121 Hume’s account of “barbarism” is more complex than what we can go into at present. He takes the reader through a “series of many barbarous ages” (HE 2:518). Each barbaric age—such as Druid paganism, Germanic tribalism, the Christianization of the Britons and Anglo-Saxons, the feudalism of the late middle ages, or the frenzied era of the Crusades—displays its own unique character while also manifesting features of “barbarism.”

122 Though “civilization” does not look the same in all times and places, it is marked by certain fundamental characteristics opposite to those of barbarism, including but not limited to an “exact rule of succession” (see HE 1:48-49, 55, 161-62), equitable laws that are “regulated by fixed maxims” (see HE 1:160-63, 254; HE 2:162, 174, 284, 519-22; HE 5:558), and “strict legal limitations” set by rules of justice for the protection of property (see HE 1:160-63, 168-69, 174-78, 254, 286; HE 2:141, 160, 284; HE 5:240.) For further commentary on Hume’s views of civilization, see Neil McArthur, “Laws Not Men: Hume’s Distinction between Barbarous and Civilized Government,” Hume Studies 31, no. 1 (April 2005): 123-44; Black, Art of History, 88-89; Danford, “Hume on Development,” 126.

123 Since “barbarism” lacks a science of civil law according to Hume, “freedom” becomes nothing more than the “incapacity of submitting to government (see HE 1:168-69; 237; HE 2:521; HE 5:556.) And when license reigns, then martial law—i.e., force—becomes the primary means of bringing about social order where the “passion for revenge” substitutes for justice (see HE 1:5, 27, 168, 174; HE 2:173-74, 284, 409-10, 521-22; HE 6:141.)

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On behalf of truth, the historian may—or must—criticize the actions he relates. But if the criticism is to serve a practical end and is to be accepted by the citizens to whom it is directed, it must appear to be patriotic.124

In this way, as Mansfield notes, the ancient and humanist historians “have a notion of the truth of history that does not concede the sovereignty of historical fact. Fact, in their view, needs to be filled out with opinion . . . in order to arrive at truth.”125 Historical truth therefore is not limited to temporal facts, but includes truths that are morally and politically beneficial.126 An effect of this conception of truth, in Mansfield’s view, is that it “does not allow, much less encourage, historical research as practiced today.”127 Though when Hume’s History was finally completed he clearly had taken great pains to document his sources as was the modern practice, his work is not purely academic, but also teaches, warns, and persuades readers of those things which will enhance or destroy human civilization.

Hume’s philosophical and political approach to truth is captured by his use of the appellation, “philosophical patriot” – Cato being an example of one such patriot for Hume.128

124 Mansfield, introduction to Florentine Histories, ix and xi.

125 Ibid., xi.

126 Interestingly, given that he considers “truth” the basis of history (“Of the Study of History,” 564), Hume does something that no serious academic historian would ever do today, that is, he invents detailed speeches of some of the principal agents in his historical narrative. Here again, we see that the ancient and early modern humanist historians model this technique of inventing speeches. Mansfield notes that “[f]act, in their view, needs to be filled out with opinion, and it is the duty of the historian, in the absence of scribes and witnesses, to infer human intention and to make it explicit in speeches, adding sense to actions in order to arrive at truth. And if the speeches had been recorded, he might even have been compelled to change them for their own good” (Mansfield, introduction to Florentine Histories, xi).

127 Mansfield, introduction to Florentine Histories, xi.

128 EHU 10.9; SBN 113.

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Hume may have even viewed his study of history as the work of a “disinterested patriot.”129

Others viewed him in this light. In 1825, John Allen writes of Hume’s History:

[N]o historian had a stronger sense than Mr Hume of the benefits of civil liberty; no one has pleaded with more success, or defended with steadiness, the cause of humanity and toleration; and, on great occasions, no one has expressed a deeper interest in the struggles for liberty and limited government.130

Hume’s purported impartiality, far from being a limitation, frees him to do a philosophical history which not only provides an account of the underlying causes of human history, but judges and criticizes those people and institutions—social, governmental, and religious in nature—that have either helped or hindered progress toward modern civilization. As a moral history, the

History of England instructs its readers of those circumstances that are either harmful or helpful to human happiness and the social good. It is this practical aim that we will examine in the next subsection of this chapter on the educational elements of the History.

1.3 A Humean, Historical Education

The present subsection will look at how Hume views history as a form of moral and political instruction for magistrates, moralists, and the vulgar. Genuine history, according to him, acts as a civic education that contributes to the advancement of the arts, sciences, and morality – all of which help moderate the negative effects of religious and political sectarianism.

129 See HE 2:40 where Hume describes Louis IX as possessing the “justice and integrity of a disinterested patriot.”

130 Allen, review of Lingard’s History of England, in Responses to HE, 2:297.

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1.3.1 History: The Path to Progress

“[G]ood morals and knowledge,” according to Hume, “are almost inseparable in every age.”131 History particularly contributes to this union because it “improves the understanding” and “strengthens virtue.”132 The study of history is so central to human development that Hume considers history the “most improving part of knowledge” and the “great mistress of wisdom.”133

In “Of the Study of History,” he explains this link between history and wisdom:

[I]f we consider the shortness of human life, and our limited knowledge, even of what passes in our own time, we must be sensible that we should be for ever children in understanding, were it not for this invention, which extends our experience to all past ages, and to the most distant nations; making them contribute as much to our improvement in wisdom, as if they had actually lain under our observation. A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.134

Wisdom, according to Hume, allows us to systematically improve upon the arts, sciences, and morality. Since the source of this improvement is the effect of the trials and errors of human experience, those arriving late on the historical scene inherit and build on the hard-won knowledge of their predecessors.

Hume distinguishes “knowledge” from theological belief.135 Theology, far from leading men to knowledge and good morals, serves to “pervert learning” and “refine away the plainest

131 HE 1:79. For further comments by Hume on this matter, see “Of the Refinement of the Arts,” 270-71 and 276-78.

132 “Of the Study of History,” 565.

133 Ibid., 566. See also HE 5:545.

134 Ibid., 566-67.

135 See, for instance, his critical comments on the corrupting influence of theological learning: HE 1:xvi- xvii, 27, 50-51, 179-81, 207, 215, 265, 277, 324, 333-34; HE 2:70-72; HE 3:85, 135-36; HE 4:187-88, 223; 388- 89nF; HE 5:155, 348. 287 dictates of morality.”136 In contrast, genuine history is complementary to “true or sound philosophy” and “impartial reasoning.”137 He further suggests in the History that this kind of philosophical and historical “learning” is “the only effectual remedy against superstition.”138

Hume also characterizes historians as the “true friends of virtue.”139 We can see more clearly why this is the case by looking at how Hume views the study of history in moral education. In the History, he states that “virtue” “never flourishes. . . except where a good education becomes general; and where men are taught the pernicious consequences of vice, treachery, and immorality.”140 Historical study holds a special place in moral education precisely because it “furnishes examples” of these pernicious consequences while also pointing to “every prudential, as well as moral precept . . . which her enlarged mirror is able to present to us.”141

Hume aims to teach these “lessons of common life” by providing the reader of the

History with a vantage point from which to praise or blame the characters, events, and institutions of English history.142 The vantage point, however, is always from a strictly human and “earthly perspective.”143 Hume’s view of a historical, moral judgment is, in Annette Baier’s

136 HE 4:188.

137 See HE 1:287; 3:142, 191; 5:153, 155, and 195. Also see, T 3.2.10.15; SBN 562.

138 HE 4:188. See also HE 1:215, HE 2:72, 519, HE 3:191.

139 “Of the Study of History,” 567.

140 HE 1:179-80. Danford notes that Hume gives a “high place” to history because “moral philosophy is essentially history, or the lessons of common life” (Problem of Reason, 89).

141 HE 5:545.

142 “Of the Study of History,” 568.

143 Annette C. Baier, The Cautious Jealous Virtue: Hume on Justice. Cambridge (MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 237.

288 words, “unashamedly humanist” insofar as there is no need for the historian to look at morality from a “God’s-eye-view” or to “look beyond human communities.”144 She reports that since

Hume held that the monastic practice of prayer, celibacy, and penance served to “harden the heart” and “sour the lives of the monks,” a religious viewpoint distorted their view of history rather than enlightening it – especially when it came to depicting their enemies in a negative light.145 For Hume, the search for “true history” in the midst of this “dark industry of antiquaries” is a “fruitless labour.”146

Genuine historians contribute not only to the preservation and development of good morals, but are also the primary instruments by which all knowledge is conveyed. Historical knowledge therefore benefits the artisan, scientist, legislator, and the vulgar alike. Vulgar education will be taken up in the next subsection of this chapter, and then we will look at how a historical education aids the magistrate.

1.3.2 History as Vulgar and Political Education

In 1840, we find William Smyth commenting on the immense popularity of Hume’s

History, which, Smyth claims, was largely due to its accessibility to the “ordinary reader”:

144 Baier, Cautious Jealous Virtue, 237-38.

145 Ibid., 237. See HE 1:94, where Hume gives an account of the monks’ treatment of King Edwy, a young man in possession of “the most promising virtues” but who, according to canon law, entered into an invalid marriage. The monks, whose “austerity . . . made them particularly violent on this occasion,” set out to publicly shame both him and his “wife.” Ever since, Hume says, the monks “have pursued his memory with the same unrelenting vengeance, which they exercised against his person and dignity during his short and unfortunate reign.” See also Hume’s account of the monks’ negative depiction of Prince William Rufus, son of William the Conqueror, who dared to challenge the ecclesiastical order of the Church, HE 1:240-41. Also, Hume clearly disagrees with the positive portrayal of certain saints by Church historians. See his critical judgments of , Pope Gregory the Great, and Thomas Becket (HE 1:90-93, 96-97, 216-17, 333-34).

146 HE 1:17. For other references to the prejudices of “monkish” historians, see HE 1:52, 1:99, 1:133.

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[I]t is Hume who is read by every one. Hume is the historian, whose views and opinions insensibly become our own. He is respected and admired by the most enlightened reader; he is the guide and philosopher of the ordinary reader to whose mind, on all the topics connected with our history, he entirely gives the tone and law. . . .147

The History’s accessibility is due to Hume’s constant effort to make his eloquence ever more appealing to the reader. For Hume, eloquence, along with instruction, are the key aims of the historian. Entertaining readers through good style keeps the reader’s attention so that he might be instructed in the “truth”—which is, as we have seen, the very “basis of history,” according to

Hume.148 The historical search for “truth” primarily involves “tracing the history of the human mind.”149 In tracing this history, the author’s finely-penned “opinions,” as Smyth notes above,

“insensibly become our own.” Hume’s conscious attempt to appeal to the generality of readers leads Victor Wexler to characterize him as a “popularizer and synthesizer” of history who thought it was “his job to glean from the monuments of the past what he thought was useful for his readers to know.”150 This didactic function indicates that Hume does not approach history from a solely theoretical perspective, but politically and morally. In the History, Hume intends to shape the opinions of his readers on political and moral subjects.

A vulgar, historical education, however, does not turn the generality of people into enlightened individuals—“for when will the people be reasonable?”151—but it does make them

147 William Smyth, Lectures on modern history: from the irruption of the northern nations to the close of the American Revolution, London: William Pickering; J. and J. J. Deighton, 1840, in Responses to HE, 2:314.

148 “Of the Study of History,” 563-64. Here, we might remind ourselves that the ancient tradition regards historical “truth” superior to “facts.” On the didactic function of history, see also HE 1:3-4, 287-88; 2:518-19, 525; 3:81-82; 4:44.

149 HE 5:240-41.

150 Wexler, David Hume and the “History of England,” 99-100.

151 NHR 12.17.

290 amenable to the opinions of those who are. One of the practical advantages to exposing the vulgar to a genuine historical education is that they are introduced to some level of what Hume deems genuine learning. Since genuine learning is “a sovereign antidote against superstition” and

“the most effectual remedy against vice and disorders of every kind,”152 the History acts as a conduit for the enlightenment of the few, mainly Hume, to influence the opinions of the many on issues such as religion and politics.153

The lessons to be learned from the History, however, are not limited to the vulgar, but are also geared toward legislators and statesmen. Equipped with the lessons of history, the legislator can avoid the errors of his predecessors, build on policies that have been shown to bring a balance between authority and liberty, and shape the opinions and actions of the vulgar to better conform to a free, civil society. The success of all this, of course, depends on the legislator’s proper knowledge of the principles of human nature. The History instructs the legislator and offers a political science of sorts to aid him.154 Though, according to Hume, the experiences of common life already serve as a natural education, these experiences can and ought to be refined by artifice. In chapter one of this dissertation, we saw that the Treatise proposes a civic, secular education to accomplish this task. The History indicates how historical study is part of a civic education which instills a regard for a stable, free society in both the citizens and legislators.

152 HE 2: 518-19.

153 See HE 3:140-41 for Hume’s account of the effect of the printing press had on the ability of those such as Luther to influence vulgar opinion by appealing to history.

154 Hume distinguishes between the “legislator” and the “vulgar politician.” A “legislator” possesses “enlarged sentiments and cool reflection” (HE 5:460). He is generally above partisanship and attempts to strike a harmonious balance between order and liberty. In contrast, “vulgar politicians” are generally partisan, short-sighted and thus prone to “have recourse to more hasty and more dangerous remedies” (HE 6:322). For other comments by Hume on the “wisdom” of legislators, see HE 1:337, 2:141, 3:135-36. Hume puts forward Alfred the Great, founder of the English monarchy in the ninth century, as a prime example of a wise legislator. See HE 1:79-81.

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Central to civic education is a “reverence” for liberty and authority.155 Because government is

“founded on opinion” and not on reason, 156 according to Hume, there is no purely rational means by which magistrates or the citizenry can settle political disputes.157 From studying the

History, the legislator can learn policies that better conform to the principles of good government and can be on the lookout for those circumstances which are apt to trigger men’s harmful propensities toward superstition or enthusiasm. As a result, the statesman can promote circumstances in society that encourage political and religious opinions which support the proper balance of authority and liberty.

In looking at the History’s utility for the legislator, it is beneficial to remind ourselves of the theoretical framework Hume provides for his approach to history in the Enquiry Concerning

Human Understanding:

Mankind are so much the same, in all times and places, 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. These records of wars, intrigues, factions, and revolutions, are so many collections of experiments, by which the politician or moral philosopher fixes the principles of his science. . . [emphasis added].158

Hume, here, does not say the aim of history is to improve the knowledge of the historian; rather, he states that such knowledge contributes to the science of the politician and moral philosopher.

It is because history provides evidence of the principles of human nature that these principles, in

155 Reverence for authority here being a regard for the “duty of allegiance” (HE 5:544). For comments on “allegiance” as a useful “illusion” (i.e., artificial virtue), see HE 5:544-45.

156 HE 5:544. See also “Of the First Principles of Government,” 32.

157 On the importance of the “public authority” obtaining “social consensus,” see Thomas W. Merrill, “The Rhetoric of Rebellion in Hume’s Constitutional Thought,” The Review of Politics 67, no. 2 (Spring 2005): 275 .

158 EHU 8.7; SBN 83-84. 292 turn, can be used for political and moral purposes by those who seek to influence or govern human behavior. 159

Although Hume often presents the circumstances that contribute to England’s development as outside of men’s control, this lack of control is due in part to our progenitors’ lack of knowledge of human nature. With the emergence of Hume’s science of man and its historical framework, some of this knowledge is now obtainable. Like the natural scientist who aims to predict and control, the legislator has an increased opportunity to shape a society’s political future.160

Section one of this chapter showed that genuine history, according to Hume, contributes significantly to the development of the arts, sciences, and morals. With the historical wisdom that comes from man’s accumulated experience, our knowledge of human nature improves as well as our knowledge of those institutions that best contribute to social order and liberty. Hume intends the History to play an influential role in narrating the story of modern civilization’s departure from the ignorance and religious superstition which dominated previous ages. The vulgar and the legislator can therefore both benefit from the History. The vulgar benefit by their exposure to the lessons of history as presented to them by Hume. Legislators benefit by seeing how Hume “flesh[es] out” the principles of human nature through his depiction of concrete circumstances of English political life.161

159 See EHU 8.7; SBN 84.

160 See EHU 8.7; SBN 83-84. See also Hume’s “That Politics May Be Reduced to a Science,” 15-16 and Adair’s article that goes by the same name, “‘That Politics May Be Reduced to a Science’: David Hume, James Madison, and the Tenth Federalist,” 406.

161 Foster, “Different Religions,” 253-54.

293

Parts two and three of the present chapter of this dissertation will examine Hume’s depiction of the political extremism that results when Christian “superstition” and “enthusiasm” go unchecked by external social forces. We will also look at how Christian superstition and enthusiasm possess characteristics that, if moderated, can actually contribute to civil life. We will first look at the effects of Catholic “superstition” on English culture in the ages leading up to the

Reformation.

2. The Politics of Catholic Superstition

2.1 The Papal Plan of Slavery

There are few positive lessons Hume thinks his English readers can garner from the medieval era. Such an era is marked by superstition and ignorance. The “chief” lesson Britons will learn from studying barbarous ages is to “cherish their present constitution.”162 Hume details in the History the social evils caused by the medieval Church. He paints an unflattering portrait of the Catholic faith: the widespread “hypocrisy” of Catholic leaders and purported saints,163 the

Church’s violent persecutions of heresy,164 the vices resulting from scholastic and the idleness of monastic life,165 the usurpation of “true learning” by superstition,166 and the undue

162 HE 2:525. For a similar statement, see HE 2:518-19.

163 HE 1:52, 90-96, 98-99, 215, 238-39, 306-10, 333-34; HE 2:70-72; HE 3:138; HE 5:31.

164 HE 1:54, 56; HE 2:336, 355, 379, 409-10, 502; HE 3:137; HE 4:19, 187-88; HE 5:442; HE 6:471, 477, 482-83.

165 HE 1:94-95, 99, 133, 215-16; HE 2:518-19; HE 3:137, 228-29; HE 4:223; HE 5:25.

166 HE 1:42, 50-52, 179-81, 207, 215, 265, 277, 324, 333-34; HE 2:70-72, 518-19, 521; HE 3:85,137, 228- 29; HE 4:187-88, 223, 367, 388-89; HE 6:154.

294 priority given to religious devotion over civil responsibilities.167 Hume’s analysis of these social ills warns us of superstition—i.e., the Catholic faith—gaining a foothold in England once again.

We will examine Hume’s depiction of the political and worldly motives that drive the hierarchs of the Catholic Church. Throughout his account of medieval Catholicism, Hume is cynical of any genuine faith by Church leaders. He explains the priestly appearance of holiness as rife with self-interest. For Hume, “ecclesiastical power . . . cover[s] its operations under a cloak of sanctity” so priests and bishops are freer to pursue their “sole motive” – an “indelible regard to self-interest.”168 The real agenda of priests and bishops is political power. Francis

Palgrave captures the point of Hume’s message: “All active operation of holiness, all sincerity, is excluded. He constantly labours to suppress any belief in belief, as an efficient cause of action: he will rather infer any other influential motive.”169

Because Hume presumes that ecclesial power does not originate from divine institution but priestly ambition, the Roman Catholic Church, headed by the pope, introduces an even more profound problem. The Roman Church, under the guise of its purported concern for souls, masks a papal agenda. Priests and bishops may seek to grow their individual and regional power, but the papacy’s interests are universal in scope and look to the usurpation of both ecclesiastical and civil authority. Papal interests, therefore, place the Roman bishop at direct odds with many of the hierarchs within the Church as well as the civil magistrates outside the Church, who, like the pope, seek to expand their own sovereign power.

167 HE 1:41, 44, 46, 48-49, 51-52, 59, 61, 139-40, 215-16, 238.

168 HE 2:4, 71. See also HE 3:287.

169 Palgrave, “Hume and History,” in Early Responses to HE, 2:361.

295

According to Hume, the papacy not only usurps powers rightfully belonging to the clergy and civil authorities, but also systematically commandeers powers to which the Christian laity is a rightful heir. The papacy’s transgression in this area is seen most clearly in Hume’s discussion of the eleventh century pope, Gregory VII. The destructive aim of Gregory, in Hume’s view, was the separation of “the ecclesiastical from the civil power.”170 According to Hume’s account, up until Gregory’s reign, the emperors had “hitherto exercised the power of appointing the pope on every vacancy” or “at least ratifying his election.”171 Hume tells us that though the emperors did not originally possess such a power, neither did the churchmen. Gregory tried to convince the people that such a prerogative originally resided in the clergy. But Hume tells us that the opposite is the case. The emperors had usurped the practice “not by encroachments on the church, but on the people, to whom it originally belonged [emphasis added].”172 According to

Hume, then, it is the Catholic laity who rightfully possesses the authority to determine the pope’s successor. Hume seems to be suggesting that Church hierarchs have an invested interest in keeping power out of vulgar hands in an effort to protect their own priestly interests.

Hume reveals the same self-seeking agenda throughout his account of Church history. He details the conscious and deliberate efforts of popes to seek ecclesiastical power as a means to political and earthly authority. Unlike England’s “ancient constitution,” which lacked a coherent plan, Hume presents the papacy’s centuries-long commitment to ecclesiastical and civil usurpation as single-minded and intentional:

170 HE 1:215.

171 Ibid.

172 Ibid.

296

The industry and perseverance are surprising, with which the popes had been treasuring up powers and pretensions during so many ages of ignorance; while each pontiff employed every fraud for advancing purposes of imaginary piety, and cherished all claims which might turn to the advantage of his successors, though he himself could not expect ever to reap any benefit from them [emphasis added].173

Each pope, though interested in expanding his own personal power, was willing to sacrifice his own present gain for the long-term advantage of the papal office. In Hume’s view, the papacy possesses, in stark contrast to England’s recent “plan of freedom,” a plan of enslavement. We will examine Hume’s account of how the papacy gained influence over English society through a series of deceptions.

Hume begins his presentation of papal usurpation by depicting the Britons of the early middle period as utterly free of papal constraints. They “never acknowledged any subordination to the Roman pontiff” and instead “conducted all ecclesiastical government by their domestic synods and councils.”174 It was only later, when the Saxons “received that doctrine through the corrupted channels of Rome,” that a “profound reverence for that see” was formed and “naturally led to regard it as the capital of their religion [emphasis added].”175 Pilgrimages to the eternal city became widely popular.176 Though the Saxons made a distinction between religious devotion and devotion to Rome, successive popes encouraged the Saxon people’s “superstitious attachment to

173 HE 1:214.

174 HE 1:52.

175 Ibid.

176 As an act of penance, for instance, the eighth century Saxon prince, Offa, made one such pilgrimage. So as to better “ingratiate himself with the sovereign pontiff,” the prince offered to pay a yearly donation to the pope by imposing a tax of one penny on his Saxon households. This practice came to be known as Peter’s Pence. On Hume’s account, the prince’s penitential offering was only “conferred . . . as a gift” and “charitable donation” (HE 1:42 and 217). The pope and his successors, however, saw Offa’s piety as an opportunity to claim it as “a badge of subjection,” and thus claimed that such “tributes” were to be paid by all the island’s future monarchs (HE 1:217).

297

Rome,” which, in time, led to “the gradual subjection of the kingdom to a foreign jurisdiction.”177

By the ninth century, Pope Agatho was “encouraged by this blindness and submissive disposition of the people” and saw further opportunity for usurpation when he was invited to intervene in a conflict amongst the bishops of England. Bishop Wilfrid of Lindisferne, who in

Hume’s words was “the haughtiest and most luxurious prelate of his age,” appealed to Rome.

Hume tells us that this was unusual for English bishops to do. In doing so, Bishop Wilfrid only had his own interests in mind. He did not like the decision of an English synod to reduce the size of his bishopric, and having no allies on the island, he turned to the pope for his defense.178

Wilfrid justified his peculiar appeal to the Roman bishop by claiming “that St. Peter, to whose custody the keys of heaven were entrusted, would certainly refuse admittance to every one who should be wanting in respect to his successor.”179 Though the English bishop’s justification for papal primacy was so strange that it “confounded the imaginations of men,” it was “suited to vulgar conceptions” and made “great impression on the people during several ages.”180 Aided by

Wilfrid’s personal ambitions, the pope was thus able “to lay the foundation of this papal pretension” and “advanced every day in his encroachments on the independence of the English churches.”181

177 HE 1:51.

178 HE 1:52.

179 Ibid.

180 Ibid.

181 Ibid.

298

In another instance, Hume shows how the Roman Church’s imposition of celibacy on

English priests and monks was instrumental in increasing its ecclesiastical as well as temporal authority. By the tenth century, Benedictine monastic life had become a powerful religious institution in Italy. Due to their “mistaken piety,” the Benedictines “renounced all claim to liberty” and “made a merit of the most inviolable chastity.”182 In England, however, matters were very different. English monks were a “species of secular priests” and were “intermingled, to some degree, with the world.”183 English priests and monks had “no vows of implicit obedience to their superiors” and, if they so desired, could be married.184 The Roman pontiff saw that by enforcing a strict adherence of celibacy on English priests and monks, he could cut off any fidelity they might have to familial, social, or political ties and thus move the papacy toward possessing absolute sovereignty over them.

The Roman pontiff . . . perceived, that the celibacy of the clergy alone could break off entirely their connexion with the civil power. . . . He was sensible, that, so long as the monks were indulged in marriage, and were permitted to rear families, they never could be subjected to strict discipline, or reduced to that slavery under their superiors, which was requisite to procure to the mandates, issued from Rome, a ready and zealous obedience. Celibacy, therefore, began to be extolled, as the indispensible duty of priests. . . [emphasis added].185

The pontiff’s plan was, in Hume’s words, a “master-stroke of art,” and in time, the plan worked, as the new generations of priests viewed celibacy as an important aspect of the priesthood. By the thirteenth century, the “several orders of monks” in England were “regular troops or

182 HE 1:90.

183 Ibid.

184 Ibid.

185 HE 1:91.

299 garrisons of the Romish church” and were the “chief supports of that mighty fabric of superstition.”186

Hume’s use of military imagery in describing the monks is more than metaphorical. The

Roman Catholic Church’s presence in England was, in his view, an enemy occupation – both religiously and civilly. The papacy’s slow progress over England’s ecclesia was preparation for an earthly monarchy. We can return to Gregory VII to see how this political goal was unfolding.

We might be inclined to think that Gregory’s only concern was bringing the English bishops under his subjection. Hume, however, reveals the pope’s true aim. He tells us that while Gregory

“extended his usurpations all over Europe . . . he seemed determined to set no bounds to the spiritual, or rather temporal monarchy, which he had undertaken to erect [emphasis added].”187

Hume here suggests that Gregory’s underlying aim in expanding his so-called spiritual kingdom was political domination:

He pronounced the sentence of excommunication against Nicephorus, emperor of the East; Robert Guiscard, the adventurous Norman, who had acquired the dominion of Naples, was attacked by the same dangerous weapon: He degraded Boleslas, king of Poland, from the rank of king; and even deprived Poland of the title of kingdom: He attempted to treat Philip king of France with the same , which he had employed against the emperor. He pretended to the entire property and dominion of Spain; and he parceled it out amongst adventurers, who undertook to conquer it from the Saracens, and to hold it in vassalage under the see of Rome. . . .188

Gregory’s earthly aim, as well as the popes who followed, should be of no surprise, given

Hume’s view of religious hierarchs. He attempts to show that the pontiffs, especially in the late

186 HE 2:71-72.

187 HE 1:216.

188 Ibid.

300 medieval period, were simply following “the practice of so many preceding popes” who made

“their spiritual arms subservient to political purposes.”189

Another example is Pope Alexander’s self-interested involvement in the dispute of 1066 between King Harold of England and William of Normandy:

That kingdom, though at first converted by Romish missionaries, though it had afterwards advanced some farther steps towards subjection to Rome, maintained still a considerable independence in its ecclesiastical administration; and forming a world within itself, entirely separated from the rest of Europe, it had hitherto proved inaccessible to those exorbitant claims, which supported the grandeur of the papacy.190

By supporting William, Pope Alexander hoped that the Normans “might import into that country a more devoted reverence to the , and bring the English churches to a nearer conformity with those of the continent.”191 But even more than ecclesiastical dominance, we see Alexander’s political ambitions coming to light:

The Roman pontiff, after an insensible progress during several ages of darkness and ignorance, began now to lift his head openly and above all the princes of Europe; to assume the office of a mediator, or even an arbiter, in the quarrels of the greatest monarchs; to interpose in all secular affairs; and to obtrude his dictates as sovereign laws on his obsequious disciples.192

Papal interest, not England’s, is what induced the pope to back William’s invasion of England.

“Thus,” Hume tells us, “were all the ambition and violence of that invasion covered over safely with the broad mantle of religion.”193 Hume points out, too, that Alexander played no small role in the political overthrow of Harold. The pope declared Harold a “perjured usurper” and

189 HE 3:142. See also HE 2:21.

190 HE 1:151.

191 HE 1:152.

192 HE 1:151.

193 HE 1:152.

301 employed the dreaded weapon of excommunication against him.194 Hume even names Pope

Alexander the “most important ally” of William, more politically significant than the emperor

Henry IV.195 The importance of having the pope on one’s side, however, is not due to the added moral authority he might bring. Instead, Hume shows that an alliance with the pope was beneficial because of his power to excommunicate a monarch, pronounce him “rightfully deposed,” and thus to “free his subjects from their oaths of allegiance.”196

The Roman Church had come far in its usurpation of civil authority by the late Middle

Ages: the “spiritual powers . . . in the primitive church, were, in a great measure, dependant on the civil, but by a gradual progress, reached an equality and independance.”197 The “ignorance of the age” only “encouraged the ecclesiastics daily to extend their privileges” until they finally came “to advance maxims totally incompatible with civil government.”198 The “clergy,” according to Hume, “were at that time an overmatch for any monarch” and presently made their invasion on the civil powers “open and visible.”199 Ecclesiastical councils began to invent

“privileges and immunities” for themselves that, in Hume’s mind, were clearly “dangerous to the civil magistrate” and to social order in general.200 According to their canons, only “spiritual

194 HE 1:151.

195 Ibid.

196 HE 1:215. See also HE 1:216 and 4:177.

197 HE 1:324.

198 Ibid.

199 HE 1:286 and 314.

200 HE 1:314.

302 penalties” could be employed upon those clergy who broke civil laws.201 By the late-twelfth century, English priests and bishops, claiming that they were subject to Church law, not civil, could “scarcely . . . be deemed subjects to the crown,” for they “had renounced all immediate subordination to the magistrate.”202 A crisis was at hand:

The usurpations of the clergy, which had at first been gradual, were now become so rapid, and had mounted to such a height, that the contest between the regale and pontificale was really arrived at a crisis in England; and it became necessary to determine whether the king or the priests . . . should be sovereign of the kingdom.203

Hume paints a vivid image of the priestly license that soon followed as a consequence:

And as the clergy had extremely multiplied in England, and many of them were consequently of very low characters, crimes of the deepest dye, murders, robberies, adulteries, rapes, were daily committed with impunity by the ecclesiastics.204

Hume estimates that “no less than a hundred murders” had been “perpetrated by men of that profession, who had never been called to account for these offences.”205 In effect, the failure of the English magistrates in curbing religious authority had opened the door to anarchy and barbarity amongst Church authorities.

About this time, the papacy became entangled in other crises on the continent. England’s

King Henry II “rightly judged,” according to Hume, that if such a “favourable opportunity were neglected, the crown must, from the prevalent superstition of the people, be in danger of falling

201 HE 1:312.

202 HE 1:284 and 312.

203 HE 1:305.

204 HE 1:312.

205 Ibid.

303 into an entire subordination under the mitre.”206 Clearly, from Hume’s and Henry’s perspective, something needed be done to rein in the Church:

But during the progress of ecclesiastical usurpations, the state, by the resistance of the civil magistrate, is naturally thrown into convulsions; and it behoves the prince, both for his own interest, and for that of the public, to provide, in time sufficient barriers against so dangerous and insidious a rival. This precaution had hitherto been much neglected in England, as well as in other catholic countries; and affairs at last seemed to have come to a dangerous crisis. . . .207

Henry’s efforts to curb papal supremacy in England led to the Constitution of Clarendon.

Clarendon was the first attempt in English history to put into writing the limits of Church and

State. The Constitution, however, was foremost “calculated to . . . put an effectual stop to the usurpations of the church” that “threatened the total destruction of the civil power.”208 In the attempt to establish the “superiority of the legislature above all papal decrees or spiritual canons,” Clarendon made all “appeals to the pope” in civil or ecclesiastical affairs “treasonable” and “criminal by law” because doing so “tended directly to the subversion of the government.”209

Hume certainly appears to agree with Henry’s steps toward curbing the potential of political usurpation by the Roman pontiffs. Hume’s account of the papacy in the History reveals that he views the papal claim to teach authoritatively on matters of faith and morals as no more than a ruse for political power that leads to civil strife and faction.

206 HE 1:311. Catholic superstition in England had reached such heights that Thomas Beckett, the of Canterbury, could tell King Henry to his face, and with a straight face, that even “kings reign solely by the authority of the church” (HE 1:324).

207 HE 1:311-12.

208 HE 1:315. Though Clarendon was perhaps a step towards a more civil constitution, it cannot yet be considered the beginnings of a “plan of liberty.” The Constitution is still the product of arbitrary power: it was “enacted by the sole authority of the king” and its principles were “derived entirely from his will and pleasure” (HE 1:324).

209 HE 1:315-16, 321-23.

304

The Constitution of Clarendon is a quintessential instance of two major factions— religious and regal—vying for political dominance. And though Henry comes out the better man on Hume’s account, he is still the political loser. Pope Alexander “abrogated, annulled, and rejected” the principles of Clarendon.210 He “plainly saw, that these laws were calculated to establish the independency of England from the papacy, and of the royal power on the clergy.”211

In the end, Alexander had his way with Henry by bringing him to an unsavory compromise by means of, once again, the weapon of excommunication.212

Hume further shows how the Church’s political usurpations are linked to the accumulation of property and wealth. “As power naturally follows property,”213 so the medieval

Church’s growing political influence was contingent on its ability to pillage the wealth of nations. By the late thirteenth century, papal power reached its “summit” under Pope Gregory

IX.214 Like the popes before him, the “supreme head of the church was a foreign potentate, guided by interests, always different from those of the community.”215 Because the “pope and his courtiers were foreigners to most of the churches which they governed,” they could not “have any other object than to pillage the provinces for present gain.”216

210 HE 1:316.

211 Ibid.

212 HE 1: 328-29.

213 HE 1:203.

214 HE 2:70.

215 HE 3:136.

216 HE 2:4. On the same page, Hume further notes that “the great dignitaries of the catholic church, while they pretended to have nothing in view but the salvation of souls, had bent all their attention to the acquisition of riches, and were restrained by no sense of justice or of honour, in the pursuit of that great object.”

305

Much of the Church’s pillaging was done through promotion of certain spiritual practices. Though Hume acknowledges that the Roman Church genuinely “maintained the efficacy of good works” and “did not exclude from this appellation the social virtues,” still it

“chiefly extolled and recommended” those “superstitions, gainful to the church.”217 According to

Hume, two primary sources of revenue came from tithing and penance. The idea of tithing,

Hume thinks, though biblical, was misconstrued by Catholic priests in an effort to claim a divine right over one-tenth of the produce of the land:

The ecclesiastics, in those days of ignorance, made rapid advances in the acquisition of power and grandeur; and inculcating the most absurd and most interested doctrines, . . . they found no obstacle in their reason or understanding. Not content with the donations of land made them by the Saxon princes and nobles, . . . they had cast a wishful eye on a vast revenue, which they claimed as belonging to them, by a sacred and indefeizable title. However little versed in the scriptures, they had been able to discover, that, under the Jewish law, a tenth of all the produce of land was conferred on the priest-hood; and forgetting, what they themselves taught, that the moral part only of that law was obligatory on Christians, they insisted, that this donation conveyed a perpetual property, inherent by divine right in those who officiated at the altar. During some centuries, the whole scope of sermons and homilies was directed to this purpose; and one would have imagined, from the general tenor of these discourses, that all the practical parts of Christianity were comprised in the exact and faithful payment of tythes to the clergy.218

Yet even this was not enough for the priests, according to Hume. They wanted a tenth of almost the whole of economic activity:

Encouraged by their success in inculcating these doctrines; they ventured farther than they were warranted even by the Levitical law, and pretended to draw the tenth of all industry, merchandize, wages of labourers, and pay of soldiers; nay, some canonists went so far as to affirm that the clergy were entitled to the tythe of the profits, made by courtezans in the exercise of their profession.219

217 HE 3:215.

218 HE 1:60-61.

219 HE 1:61.

306

As for Christian penance, Hume tells us that the practice was so successful at raising revenue for the clergy that, according to King Henry II’s calculation, “this invention alone . . . levied more money upon his subjects, than flowed, by all the funds and taxes, in to the royal exchequer.”220 The reason the people were willing to pay out money to atone for their sins is because priests had “inculcated the necessity of pennance as an atonement for sin.”221 “[T]he sins of the people,” in essence, “had become a revenue to the priests.”222

In the History, Hume uncovers the heavenly facade of the “court of Rome” in order to expose the “rapacity, ambition, and artifices” that lie beneath.223 The History shows that it took centuries for Catholic “superstition” to subtly infiltrate English politics. By the time people realized Catholicism’s negative political effects, its influence was pervasive and difficult to purge. In “Superstition and Enthusiasm,” Hume makes this same point:

Superstition . . . steals in gradually and insensibly; renders men tame and submissive; is acceptable to the magistrate, and seems inoffensive to the people: Till at last the priest, having firmly established his authority, becomes the tyrant and disturber of human society, by his endless contentions, persecutions, and religious wars.224

Though the Church can be characterized as a faction, Hume indicates it is something more sinister because it does not confine its interests within the framework of the existing political regime, but claims authority over the whole of political and social life. Hume portrays the

220 HE 1:312. For Hume’s critical comments on penance, see HE 1:51, 90, 106, 124-25, 237-38. See also HE 3:137, where Hume discusses the “scheme of selling indulgences” as a means to “draw money from the christian world.”

221 Ibid.

222 Ibid.

223 HE 2:4. See also 2:70. The facade makes the Church all the more diabolical: “But we may observe, that few ecclesiastical establishments have been fixed upon a worse foundation than that of the church of Rome, or have been attended with circumstances more hurtful to the peace and happiness of mankind” (HE 3:136).

224 SE, 78.

307

Catholic Church as an absolutist theocracy existing within, and competing with, secular political states. As a theological-political state in its own right, the Church has its own form of taxation via penitential practices, vast amounts of land, monkish armies to protect and oversee the use of

Church wealth, and a hierarchical structure headed by a papal monarch with a variety of spiritual weapons at his disposal. Whereas the ancient pagans had relegated religion to ritual and devotion, leaving philosophers and statesmen to shape the moral life of a community, Christian hierarchs claim for themselves moral and political authority.225

Ironically, some of the Church’s rituals and devotions unintentionally temper the religious zealotry of its votaries, thereby making them more moderate in their ideas and actions.

The next section of this chapter will explore this topic.

2.2 The Political Advantages of Catholic Superstition

In the years leading up to the Reformation, Rome had already been losing its hold on the

English people. Even in the thirteenth century, when the Church was at the height of its powers and England “was sunk in the deepest abyss of ignorance and superstition,” men had begun to entertain “thoughts of shaking off the papal yoke.”226 Pope Boniface, who filled the papal chair in the late thirteenth century, “was among the last of the sovereign pontiffs that “exercised an

225 In the Enquiry Concerning Morals, Hume refers to this absolutist view of religion as the defining characteristic of “modern religion” – meaning, almost certainly, the Christian. See “A Dialogue,” in EPM, par. 53; SBN 341-42: “At present, when philosophy . . . seems to confine itself mostly to speculations in the closet; in the same manner, as the ancient religion was limited to sacrifices in the temple. Its place is now supplied by the modern religion, which inspects our whole conduct, and prescribes an universal rule to our actions, to our words, to our very thoughts and inclinations. . . .”

226 HE 2:70.

308 authority over the temporal jurisdiction of princes,”227 and by the fourteenth century, there was a

“sensible decay of ecclesiastical authority.”228 The English, as Hume presents it, were weary of the papacy.

The gradual lessening of Church influence was also the result of increasing religious indifference amongst English Catholics. This growing indifference was due in large part to the empty repetition of religious observances. Though the practice of the Catholic faith still prevailed in early sixteenth century England, on Hume’s account, it had as little relevance to daily affairs as paganism did to the daily goings on of the ancients. It looked as though

Catholicism was becoming what Hume considers to be a moderate religion:

The attachment to superstition, tho’ without reserve, was not extreme; and, like the antient pagan idolatry, the popular religion consisted more of exterior practices and observances, than of any principles, which either took possession of the heart, or influenced the conduct. It might have been hoped, that learning and knowledge, as of old in Greece, stealing in gradually, would have opened the eyes of men, and corrected such of the ecclesiastical abuses as were the grossest and most burthesome.229

Mere mechanical acts of devotion took precedence over the role of religion in political and moral affairs. Catholic Christianity was actually returning back to a more pagan attitude where religion has a more limited, superficial role in people’s lives.230 Hume indicates that with an extra push from “learning and knowledge,” the exorbitant claims of the Church would soon hold little, if any, sway over the people.

227 HE 2:124.

228 HE 2:325.

229 HE 1:xvi.

230 This phenomenon should not surprise us considering Hume’s view in the Natural History on the “flux” and “reflux” of paganism and theism. 309

By incorporating sensible devotion into worship, Catholic superstition contained the seeds of its own undoing because, in time, its devotees become taken up with the ritual itself rather than the spiritual reality the ritual represents or communicates. As superficial devotion increasingly takes precedence in such a religion, science and philosophy have the opportunity to step in and take larger moral and political roles previously usurped by Catholic religionists.

Unfortunately, this trajectory was slowed down by another form of “modern” religion –

Christian enthusiasm. For the enthusiasm of the reformers did not attempt to put an end to the absolutist claims of Christianity, but only of Catholic “superstition.” Men of reflection were

“alarmed at the sharpness of the remedy” of the reformers, “and it was easily foreseen, from the offensive zeal of the reformers, and defensive of the church, that all Christendom must be thrown into combustion.”231 Luther and other reformers “denominated the pope antichrist, called his communion the scarlet whore, and gave to Rome the appellation of Babylon.”232 Across Europe the development of knowledge—the “sovereign antidote” to superstition233—almost ceased due to the antagonisms between Christian enthusiasts and their superstitious compatriots. Instead of pursuing knowledge for human benefit, “minds of the studious were every where turned to polemical science; and, in all schools and academies, the furious controversies of theology took place of the calm disquisitions of learning.”234

231 HE 1:xvi.

232 HE 3:141.

233 HE 2:519. On the subject of knowledge and learning as the remedy to superstition, see HE 1:146, 207, 215, 265, 333; HE 2:72; HE 3:142, 187, 191; HE 4:188, 389; HE 5:155. See also “Of Suicide,” 577.

234 HE 1:xvii. See also HE 1:xvi.

310

Though religious enthusiasts eventually curbed Catholic influence in England, their own mode of worship lacked the salutary social effects of the Church’s sensible worship. In pursuit of direct communion with the divine essence, the enthusiasts sought to rid religious worship of any appeal to the senses, and as a result, with nothing to direct the imagination in its attempts at mystical union, the votary was left to a world of fancies no longer tied to common life. It was the

“sensible, exterior observances” of Catholic superstition which helped to “abate the violence” of the imagination’s “disappointed efforts” to comprehend Divinity.235 Catholicism’s mechanical, sensible devotions induced a spiritual lethargy into its followers which led them to hold more moderate opinions and to “enter into the common train of life” thereby preserving a bond with the larger human community.236

Hume shows a regard for Catholic worship to the extent that it instills moderation and sociability in its followers. Instead of the frenzied, futile effort of the imagination to experience the divine, the Catholic mind is free to “relax itself in the contemplation of pictures, postures, vestments, buildings; and all the fine arts, which minister to religion.237 This ease in approaching worship mitigates violent sentiments that might otherwise arise from the lack of sensible direction. Donald Siebert makes the following observation on the matter:

As long as mankind is religious—and that seems a disposition well-nigh universal— anything serving as an antidote to the poison of fanaticism is to be promoted…. Anything drawing people out of themselves and into contact with their fellows or with the objects of this world is beneficial, and curiously for Hume sacred rites came to have that function.238

235 HE 5:460.

236 HE 4:14.

237 HE 5:460. For related comments see also HE 4:14, 122-23; HE 5:68-69, 223-28, 240-41.

238 Donald T. Siebert, The Moral Animus of David Hume (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1990), 111-12. 311

The “Romish ritual” can therefore serve, “in a very innocent manner, to allure, and amuse, and engage the vulgar,”239 because it has a “mellowing” effect on men’s “obstinate and dangerous” propensities.240

Hume’s regard for Catholic devotion is evident in his praise of the Church of England.

The Anglicans were able to make religion more “compatible with the peace and interests of society,” not by ridding themselves completely of Catholic worship but “by mitigating the genius of the ancient superstition.”241 In his discussion of Bishop Laud’s decision to reintroduce some of the “Catholic” rituals into the Anglican liturgy, Hume clearly thinks Laud made the right decision because of the positive social effects that would follow:

Whatever ridicule, to a philosophical mind, may be thrown on pious ceremonies, it must be confessed, that, during a very religious age, no institutions can be more advantageous to the rude multitude, and tend more to mollify that fierce and gloomy spirit of devotion, to which they are subject. Even the English church, though it had retained a share of popish ceremonies, may justly be thought too naked and unadorned, and still to approach too near the abstract and spiritual religion of the puritans. Laud and his associates, by reviving a few primitive institutions of this nature, corrected the error of the first reformers. . . .242

The Catholic Church offers a double-edged sword. On the one hand, its representatives are a danger to civil society because they seek independence from the state. On the other hand,

Catholic devotion preserves a sense of social unity and common life. In time, people’s habitual devotion overshadows their fidelity to the dogmas and morals of Church teaching. Religion thus

239 HE 4:122-23.

240 HE 5:68.

241 HE 4:120.

242 HE 5:459-60. For related comments see also HE 4:14, 122-23; HE 5:68-69, 223-28, 240-41.

312 becomes relegated to mere observances and, as we see with the pagans, opens the way for secular influences to shape opinion and morality.

Derek Hirst observes that “since so much of religion was about politics, and vice versa; rethinking the ecclesiastical frame ought to have shifted understandings of politics . . . and shape reflection on how England was constituted and held together.”243 Indeed, it did. For enthusiasm introduced a host of political changes and social ills of its own. The next section of this chapter examines the advantages and disadvantages which occurred with the emergence of puritan enthusiasm. We will begin by looking at what Hume considers some of enthusiasm’s positive effects on English political life.

3. The Politics of Puritan Enthusiasm

In comparison to the gradual infiltration of Catholic superstition into English politics, the impact of puritan enthusiasm on the isle’s political landscape was immediate and furious.244 In the History, Hume attributes to the puritans a paradoxical contribution in advancing the cause of liberty and toleration. On the one hand, when enthusiasm first arises in a society, its love of freedom goes to extremes and oftentimes lends itself more to the undermining of law and established custom than it does to true liberty. Enthusiasm’s rejection of religious ritual also means its votaries do not benefit from any of the sociable and humanizing effects that certain

243 Derek Hirst, “Bodies and Interests: Toleration and the Political Imagination in the Later Seventeenth Century,” Huntington Library Quarterly 70, no. 3 (September 2007): 401.

244 According to Hume, there are social advantages and disadvantages to enthusiasm’s fury: “Enthusiasm being founded on strong spirits, and a presumptuous boldness of character, it naturally begets . . . a contempt for the common rules of reason, morality, and prudence. “It is thus enthusiasm produces the most cruel disorders in human society; but its fury is like that of a thunder and tempest, which exhaust themselves in a little time and leave the air more calm and serene than before” (SE, 77).

313 rituals might have. On the other hand, if it were not for the perseverance of the puritans in the face of seemingly insurmountable Tudor absolutism, then England’s present constitution—what

Hume calls “the most perfect and most accurate system of liberty that was ever found compatible with government”245—would not have come to be. Despite, then, his many criticisms of enthusiasm, Hume thinks it is to the “puritans alone” that “the English owe the whole freedom of their constitution.”246 We shall proceed by looking at the History’s presentation of these paradoxical elements of enthusiasm. We start with the great advantage of puritan politics.

3.1 Rekindling the Spark of Freedom

Hume traces the English love of liberty to its ancient, pagan roots. The Saxons arrived on the island after the Romans withdrew in the fifth century. The newly arrived Saxon tribes

“enjoyed great liberty in their own country” and naturally “imported into this island the same principles of independance, which they had inherited from their ancestors.”247 Though Europe in

Hume’s day prided itself on possessing “sentiments of liberty, honour, equity, and valour superior to the rest of mankind,” he tells us, it “owes these advantages chiefly to the seeds implanted by those generous barbarians.”248 Whereas the Germanic peoples “rekindled” the spark of freedom for ancient times,249 the puritan reformers fanned liberty’s flames by curbing

245 HE 2:525.

246 HE 4:146. Hume never attributes such accomplishments to the Royalists or Tories, much less the Catholics.

247 HE 1:160-61. In particular, they prized “valour and love of liberty, the only virtues,” Hume tells us, “which can have any place among an uncivilized people” (HE 1:15.)

248 HE 1:161.

249 HE 1:160. 314 ecclesial and monarchical absolutism. Our task at present will be to look at Hume’s account of enthusiasm’s preservation of liberty in the midst of such obstacles.

In 1534 Henry VIII promulgated the Act of Supremacy, which established the monarch’s authority over ecclesial, doctrinal, and devotional affairs of the established religion. According to

Hume, the English people had become weary of papal interference in the island’s affairs and were willing participants in Henry’s break with Rome.

THE ANCIENT and almost uninterrupted opposition of interests between the laity and clergy in England, and between the English clergy and the court of Rome, had sufficiently prepared the nation for a breach with the sovereign pontiff; and men had penetration enough to discover abuses, which were plainly calculated from the temporal advantages of the hierarchy, and which they found destructive of their own.250

The political and spiritual battleground between enthusiasts and the votaries of superstition was now centered on the ability of either group to influence the newly-founded Church of England.

The battle between the two species of Christianity was not only religious in nature.

Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries superstition and enthusiasm split along political lines as well. Catholics, typically strong supporters of order and monarchy, were caught between a rock and a hard place. On one side was the monarch’s national religion to which all citizens were expected to submit. On the other side were enthusiasts who opposed the new religion—which, for them, retained too much superstition—but who were even greater enemies to Catholicism. Those of England’s established religion, of course, aligned themselves politically with the monarch and those of the court party:

The same alliance, which has ever prevailed between kingly power and ecclesiastical authority, was now fully established in England; and while the prince assisted the clergy in suppressing schismatics and innovators, the clergy, in return, inculcated the doctrine of an unreserved submission and obedience to the civil magistrate. The genius of the church

250 HE 3:210.

315

of England, so kindly to monarchy, forwarded the confederacy; its submission to episcopal jurisdiction; its attachment to ceremonies, to order, and to a decent pomp and splendor of worship; and in a word, its affinity to the same superstition of the catholics, rather than to the wild fanaticism of the puritans.251

“Puritan” is a name Hume applies to enthusiasts who claim to possess “a superior purity of worship and discipline” in religion.252 In the passage just quoted, Hume shows that given enthusiasm’s affinity to liberty, puritan spirituality also manifests itself in what can only be deemed a politics of puritanism – “partly fanatical, partly republican.”253 The “bold and daring spirit” of the puritans, “which accompanied them in their addresses to the divinity, appeared in their political speculations.”254 Because enthusiasts sought to cleanse the newly established

Church of practices that might “restrain the liberal effusions of their zeal and devotion,”255 an alliance was naturally formed between enthusiasts and the country party, that is, the party seeking to delimit the powers of monarchy:

On the other hand, opposition to the church, and the persecutions under which they labored, were sufficient to throw the puritans into the country party, and to beget political principles little favourable to the high pretensions of the sovereign. The spirit too of enthusiasm; bold, daring, and uncontrouled; strongly disposed their minds to adopt republican tenets; and inclined them to arrogate, in their actions and conduct, the same liberty, which they assumed, in their rapturous flights and ecstasies.256

251 HE 5:558nJ.

252 HE 4:124. See, for instance, HE 4:138.

253 HE 6:83. Hume tells us that “through the whole reign of Elizabeth as well as of James, puritanical principles had been understood in a double sense, and expressed opinions favourable both to political and to ecclesiastical liberty” (HE 5:559).

254 HE 4:123.

255 Ibid.

256 HE 5:558-59nJ. See also HE 4:123. In an age when “[r]eligion was the capital point, on which depended all the political transactions,” the religious and political principles of the puritans were understood by everyone to be of one piece (HE 4:176).

316

Because this “republican spirit . . . naturally took place among the reformers,”257 the puritans naturally began seeking seats in the House of Commons.

Yet they had their work cut out for them. For, even though, in principle, parliament was to check the power of the monarchy, in practice, it had little sway over royal prerogative during the Tudor reigns.258 Centuries of superstition, along with the practice of near-absolutism by the monarchy, had accustomed members of parliament to passively submit to the will of the monarch.

Furthermore, although Hume says the English people desired a break with the Roman

Church, their readiness did not reflect a longing for liberty per se. The “established principles of the times” held that the royal will was “the origin of law” and possessed “indefeizable power.”259

Such a view, according to Hume, “ensured more effectually the slavery of the people.”260 They had become well suited for a Tudor religion which attempted to “regulate the actions of men” as well as “controul their words, and even direct their inward sentiments and opinions.”261 Queen

Elizabeth exemplifies this absolutist way of thinking in both religious and political matters:

Religion was a point, of which Elizabeth was, if possible, still more jealous than of matters of state. She pretended, that, in quality of supreme head or governor of the church, she was fully empowered, by her prerogative alone, to decide all questions,

257 HE 3:212.

258 “They [members of parliament] were not to canvass any matters of state: Still less were they to meddle with the church. Questions of either kind were far above their reach, and were appropriated to the prince alone, or those councils and ministers, with whom he was pleased to entrust them” (HE 4:144). See also HE 4:138-39 for a glimpse of the submissive attitude of parliament, especially its members’ reactions to some of the puritan parliamentary upstarts.

259 HE 4:367. See also HE 5:85.

260 Ibid.

261 HE 3:311.

317

which might arise with regard to doctrine, discipline, or worship; and she never would allow her parliaments so much as to take these points into consideration.262

Interestingly enough, it is precisely because the “maxims of her reign were conformable to the principles of the times,” that the despotic Queen Elizabeth—“the last of that arbitrary line, herself no less arbitrary”—was considered the “most popular sovereign that ever swayed the scepter of England.”263 The puritans, therefore, found themselves amongst a people who seemed to have happily exchanged the chains of Catholic absolutism for those of absolute monarchy and established religion. Much would have to change in England’s political outlook before its subjects would be amendable to a plan of freedom.

This slavish attitude of the English may have continued indefinitely if it were not for the perseverance of the puritans. For Hume claims that “so extensive was royal authority, and so firmly established in all its parts, that it is probable the patriots of that age would have despaired of ever resisting it, had they not been stimulated by religious motives.”264 In his view, the puritans definitively turned England away from a slavish trajectory toward a more liberal society.

By “inculcating the doctrine of resisting or restraining the princes,”265 the puritans reawakened in the English people the ancient spirit of the Saxons:

So absolute, indeed, was the authority of the crown, that the precious spark of liberty had been kindled, and was preserved, by the puritans alone; and it was to this sect, whose principles appear so frivolous and habits so ridiculous, that the English owe the whole freedom of their constitution. Actuated by that zeal which belongs to innovators, and by the courage which enthusiasm inspires, they hazarded the utmost indignation of their sovereign; and employing all their industry to be elected into parliament; . . . they first

262 HE 4:138-39.

263 HE 5:85 and 4:145.

264 HE 5:558nJ. See also HE 5:338.

265 HE 4:124.

318

acquired a majority in that assembly, and then obtained an ascendant over the church and monarchy.266

This ascendancy of puritan politics was not immediate, but by the time of the Stuart reigns of

James and Charles I the “spirit of civil liberty” had “gradually revived from its lethargy” and “by means of its religious associate [i.e., enthusiasm] . . . secretly enlarged its dominion over the greater part of the kingdom.267

Although Hume claims that England’s constitution, which he so cherishes, would not exist without the puritans, the indebtedness he feels toward them is qualified. For puritan zeal, rather than being tempered by reason and common sense, displayed a fanaticism that undermined social order and endangered the very freedom the enthusiasts supposedly sought. These anarchical and tyrannical strains of enthusiasm, according to Hume, contributed to the unnecessary civil wars which led up to Cromwell’s Protectorate. These negative strains of enthusiasm will be the topic of the next section.

3.2 Puritan Anarchy and Tyranny

Whereas Whig histories presented parliament as the defender of the people against the usurpations of Stuart monarchy, Hume attempts to show that it was the “continued encroachments of popular assemblies on Elizabeth’s successors” that were the primary impetus to the civil wars so destructive of public order.268 For, he says, it was only “natural for James,” the first Stuart king to follow Elizabeth—one of the most absolutist and beloved monarchs in

266 HE 4:145-46.

267 HE 5:559nJ.

268 HE 4:145. See also HE 5:348.

319

English history—“to take the government as he found it, and to pursue her measures, which he heard so much applauded.”269 James, however, did not fully grasp that “a new spirit discovered itself every day in the parliament; and a party, watchful of a free constitution, was regularly formed in the house of commons.”270

By the time James’s successor, Charles I, took the throne, the “humour of the nation ran .

. . into the extreme opposite of superstition.”271 When Charles attempted to “maintain his prerogative at the high pitch, to which it had been raised by his predecessors,” he found that the

“enthusiastic zeal of the reformers” was so “universally diffused” that the populace had been

“gradually disposed to a revolution in religion,” which, of course, indicated a revolution in politics.272 The “English reformers, being men of more warm complexions and more obstinate tempers, endeavoured to push matters to extremities” not only “against the church of Rome,” but against “all former practices,” including monarchy.273 By 1641, the majority of English parliament began “exalting . . . their own authority” and “diminishing” the king’s.274 The

“political system of the independents,” consisting primarily of Puritans, “aspired to a total abolition of the monarchy . . . and projected an entire equality of rank and order.”275 Because their fanaticism was “exalted to a higher pitch” than any other party, they were able to push

269 HE 5:558nJ.

270 Ibid.

271 HE 5:223.

272 HE 5:221 and HE 3:282. See also HE 5:348.

273 HE 4:120.

274 HE 5:347.

275 HE 5:443.

320 parliament in the direction of republican principles.276 The King’s “present inability to invade the constitution” had curbed his power to such an extent “that the of the people were no longer exposed to any peril from royal authority.”277 In 1642, things came to a head when parliament presented the king with such extreme demands that they “amounted to a total abolition of monarchical authority.”278 The king, in Hume’s view, had little choice but to

“support his authority by arms.”279

But the ensuing civil war—the first of two wars leading up to the Protectorate—did not settle matters. According to Hume, with religious fanaticism at its peak in the mid-seventeenth century, civility and humanity were at a near low. Once the “fanatical spirit” was “let loose” amongst the English, it “confounded all regard to ease, safety, interest; and dissolved every moral and civil obligation.”280 By 1645 the Independents controlled the military, with Oliver

Cromwell as its commander, and by 1649 the world witnessed the “murder” and “tragical death of Charles” at the hands of the parliamentary “fanatics.”281

Hume tells us that the of King Charles—motivated by puritanical enthusiasm— contradicted the “general voice of reason and humanity.”282 Hume links the enthusiasts’ capacity

276 HE 5:442.

277 HE 5:380.

278 HE 5:384.

279 HE 5:385.

280 HE 5:380.

281 HE 5:544. Hume refers to the “murder” of King Charles no fewer than five times in volume six of the History. His various references to the incident clearly indicate that he thinks the parliament’s motive in the king’s death was reprehensible. See HE 5:544 and HE 6:3, 5, 17, 58, 59, 61, and 110.

282 HE 5:538.

321 to go to such extremes to a type of religious “hypocrisy” unique to enthusiasm.283 The concept of

“hypocrisy,” when applied to the enthusiast, is not the same as the hypocrisy practiced by the

Catholic hierarchy. Whereas Catholic hierarchs knowingly hide their true motives from the public eye, enthusiasts actually become “dupes of their own zeal.”284 In other words, the enthusiast’s true motives are often hidden even from himself. For enthusiasm, according to

Hume, is moved by a “principle the most blind, headstrong, and ungovernable, by which human nature can possibly be actuated.”285

This self-delusion often led enthusiasts to rationalize their pursuit of worldly interests in the name of religion:

So congenial to the human mind are religious sentiments, that it is impossible to counterfeit long these holy fervours, without feeling some share of the assumed warmth. And, on the other hand, so precarious and temporary, from the frailty of human nature, is the operation of these spiritual views, that the religious ecstasies . . . must be warped by those more familiar motives of interest and ambition, which insensibly gain upon the mind. . . . This indeed seems the key to most of the celebrated characters of that age. Equally full of fraud and of ardour, these pious patriots talked perpetually of seeking the Lord, yet still pursued their own purposes; and have left a memorable lesson to posterity, how delusive, how destructive, that principle is by which they were animated.286

But the hypocrisy of the enthusiasts could also manifest itself in the opposite way – the pursuit of religious interests in the name of political ideals. An enthusiast might proclaim high-sounding

283 HE 5:572nAA.

284 Ibid.

285 “Of the Coalition of Parties,” 500. Such a principle, Hume goes on to say, “disclaims all controul by human law, reason, or authority.” See also HE 5:68, 380, 550, 556J; HE 6:141.

286 HE 5:572nAA. Strains of enthusiasm and self-deception are also seen in Hume’s portrayal of Catholics such as Joan of Arc and Thomas Becket. Christopher Bernard makes a similar observation in “Madness of Religion,” 231-33.

322 political principles, but these often masked a blind religious fervor. Hume finds that the civil war of 1650, which led to the death of King Charles I, was one such example:

It is in vain . . . to dignify this civil war and the parliamentary authors of it, by supposing it to have any other considerable foundation than theological zeal, that great and noted source of animosity among men.287

How else, he wonders, could people have “flown out into such a fury” to “obtain new privileges and acquire greater liberty” unfamiliar to themselves and their forebears.288 “With regard to the people, we can entertain no doubt, that the controversy was, on their part, entirely theological.”289 And when Hume remarks on the king’s death in “Of the Coalition of Parties,” he again refers to this hypocritical aspect of enthusiasm: “the fury of the people, though glossed over by pretensions to civil liberty, is in reality incited by the fanaticism of religion.”290

In some ways, the enthusiast may not be morally culpable for his deception since his behavior is rooted in delusion. He is simply not aware of his hypocrisy. But it is precisely because he is delusional that reason and common sense cannot rein him in and he is a danger to society:

No character in human society is more dangerous than that of the fanatic; because, if attended with weak judgment, he is exposed to the suggestions of others; if supported by more discernment, he is entirely governed by his own illusions, which sanctify his most selfish views and passions.291

287 HE 5:572nAA. See also 5:380.

288 Ibid.

289 Ibid.

290 “Of the Coalition of Parties,” 500. Note that Hume is speaking in the voice of a Royalist in this and the following quotation. Yet, given what Hume has been saying thus far, these remarks do not conflict with his own views.

291 HE 6:113. See also HE 5:527

323

Fanaticism can lend itself to either tyranny or license depending on the character of the fanatic.

Fanatics who possess “weak judgment”—the vulgar—are susceptible to the tyrant. The tyrant, however, “entirely governed by his own illusions,” is free to pursue his own interests while dictating those of others. With the killing of King Charles, an act which displayed “undisguised usurpation, and the most heinous insult on law and justice”292 the English enthusiasts, though proclaiming love of freedom, showed themselves more deserving of despotism.

The subsequent subjection of England to martial law under Cromwell’s Protectorate was the only logical consequence to such illogical fervor:

The bands of society were every where loosened; and the irregular passions of men were encouraged by speculative principles, still more unsocial and irregular. . . . What alone gave some stability to all these unsettled humours, was the great influence, both civil and military, acquired by Oliver Cromwel.293

According to Hume, Cromwell was not exempt from the hypocrisy of his fellow enthusiasts, for he also exhibited a hypocrisy based in self-deception: the murder of the king was “for him covered under a mighty cloud of republican and fanatical illusions.”294 Yet, Hume holds that

Cromwell was also consciously duplicitous at times, for despite his religious fervor, he was well aware of his desire for absolute power. He could be “[t]ransported to a degree of madness with religious extasies,” yet “he never forgot the political purposes, to which they might serve.”295

Thus, upon the king’s death, Cromwell put the practice of hypocrisy to his advantage:

292 HE 5:538.

293 See HE 6:4-5 and 85.

294 HE 6:110. For further comments on Hume’s view of Cromwell’s role in the regicide of the King, see Andrew Sabl, Hume’s Politics: Coordination and Crisis in the “History of England” (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012), 238.

295 HE 6:5.

324

Hating monarchy, while a subject; despising liberty, while a citizen; though he retained for a time all orders of men under seeming obedience to the parliament; he was secretly paving the way, by artifice and courage, to his own unlimited authority.296

When Hume turns to the enthusiasts’ mode of worship, he shows how it lends itself to the self-delusion and dehumanization of the fanatic. Religious enthusiasm, “being chiefly spiritual,” is similar to a “system of metaphysics” that is unhinged from common life.297 The

Church in Scotland exemplifies the harm committed against the human psyche when subjected to this fanatical worship:

[A]ll rites and ornaments, and even order of worship, were disdainfully rejected as useless burthens; retarding the imagination in its rapturous ecstasies, and cramping the operations of that divine spirit, by which they supposed themselves to be animated. A mode of worship was established, the most naked and most simple imaginable; one that borrowed nothing from the senses; but reposed itself entirely on the contemplation of that divine Essence, which discovers itself to the understanding only. This species of devotion, so worthy of the supreme Being, but so little suitable to human frailty, was observed to occasion great disturbances in the breast, and in many respects to confound all rational principles of conduct and behaviour. The mind, straining for these extraordinary raptures, reaching them by short glances, sinking again under its own weakness, rejecting all exterior aid of pomp and ceremony, was so occupied in its inward life, that it fled from every intercourse of society, and from every chearful amusement, which could soften or humanize the character.298

In the enthusiast’s attempt to imagine the unimaginable, he replaces the world of common life, custom, and community with a world of fancy. His disconnection from common life severs the natural social ties that bind men to one another. Severing these ties produces a species of fanaticism that is “not restrained by any rules of morality, and is scarcely to be accounted for in

296 HE 6:5. Cromwell thus “arrogated in every thing the superiority” including religious matters (HE 6:88). His own fanaticism was marked by the “most frantic whimsies,” but he made sure that he “adopted a scheme for regulating this principle in others [emphasis added]” (HE 6:86). Similarly, Martin Luther, discovered a “glory superior to all others, the glory of dictating the religious faith and principles of multitudes” (HE 3:139).

297 HE 4:14. See also “Of Parties in General,” 60-61.

298 HE 5:68.

325 its operations, by any principles of ordinary conduct and policy.”299 The enthusiast, in essence, becomes increasingly de-humanized as he is “animated” by a “gloomy and sullen disposition.”300

Being a species of modern religion, Scottish enthusiasm had a consuming hold on the daily affairs and manners of the people:

And all orders of men had drunk deep of the intoxicating poison. In every discourse or conversation, this mode of religion entered; in all business, it had a share; every elegant pleasure or amusement, it utterly annihilated; many vices or corruptions of mind, it promoted; even diseases and bodily distempers were not totally exempted from it; and it became requisite, we are told, for all physicians to be expert in the spiritual profession, and, by theological consideration, to allay those religious terrors, with which their patients were so generally haunted.301

Hume portrays enthusiasm as a poison of society. When this poison was “drunk,” enthusiasm literally manifested itself in mental and physical disorders and as something medical doctors could only relieve, but not cure.

The next section of this chapter will explore the History’s proposals for remedying

Christian enthusiasm and superstition by means of religious establishment and toleration.

According to Hume, along with education, these are two necessary pillars for an ordered, free society. Though both Christian superstition and enthusiasm are different in spirit, they are species of modern religion. We will see how Hume aims to temper this modern religion by encouraging opinions that downplay religion’s role in shaping the moral and political life of people. He also shows that by integrating what is good in each species—the rituals of

299 HE 4:221.

300 HE 5:68.

301 See HE 5:348. Even science and learning—which otherwise help to temper religion—“served on this occasion to exalt that epidemical frenzy which prevailed.”

326 superstition and the enthusiast’s love of liberty—it is possible for religion to support civil society.

4. Religious Establishment and Toleration

In the present section of this chapter, we will explore Hume’s notion that the most workable political remedy to curb the opposing forces of vulgar religion is the establishment of a state-controlled, but tolerant religion. I say “workable” because the remedy is not utopian in scheme. He believes, as Andrew Sable observes, that “philosophy was precisely unqualified to give us blueprints for new political orders.”302 Hume instead weighs the trade-offs and takes into consideration the limitations of a remedy, given men’s propensity to vulgar religion. In his view, political and religious opinions are not grounded purely in reason, but a mix of interest, ambition, custom, and sentiment (fear or hope, for instance).

Hume’s goal is much less ambitious, for instance, than his friend Adam Smith’s. Smith believed that religious diversity “might in time . . . reduce the doctrine of the greater part of them to that pure and rational religion, free from every mixture of absurdity, imposture, or fanaticism.”303 As will be shown, Hume, far from thinking that rational religion is possible for the multitude, appeals to the establishment of a more socially-friendly, vulgar form of religion.

Since the “usual propensity of mankind towards the marvellous . . . can never be thoroughly extirpated from human nature,”304 Hume looks to the establishment of a religion which

302 Sabl, “When Bad Things,” 75.

303 Adam Smith, Art. 3, Wealth of Nations, in Responses to Hume’s HE, 2:45.

304 EHU 10.20; SBN 119.

327 incorporates both superstition and enthusiasm for the intended purpose that each will keep the other in check.

What comes to light is that part of Hume’s political remedy attempts to keep alive the spirit of freedom—which had been sustained by religious enthusiasm—while at the same time habituating a people to think of freedom as independent of its religious roots. Hume points out that history shows that this separation is indeed possible. In his essay “Of the Coalition of

Parties,” he refers to this severance of enthusiasm from liberty as though it had already occurred and as though it was something with which his contemporaries were familiar:

They now find, that the spirit of civil liberty, though at first connected with religious fanaticism, could purge itself from that pollution, and appear under a more genuine and engaging aspect; a friend to toleration, and an encourager of all the enlarged and generous sentiments that do honour to human nature [emphasis added].305

Religious enthusiasm was waning; yet, the English desire for personal and political liberty was still strong. Though religious enthusiasm kept the idea of alive under the Tudor regimes, it appears that such an idea had matured enough by Hume’s time to take on a life of its own. As a result, modern political life—or what would later come to be called “liberalism”— could become a completely secular endeavor.

The History also indicates that a remedy cannot simply be imposed on society according to the whims of an enlightened class. Ideas and circumstances cannot be arbitrarily invented and forced upon society by legislators or moralists without causing violent opposition in response.

But the History also shows that it is possible to work with and shape present circumstances through education. The process is similar to the civil education of Book 3 of the Treatise where men’s partial interests are steered gradually to appreciate the need for justice and government in

305 “Of the Coalition of Parties,” 501.

328 modern political life. Likewise, the History shows that a nation’s experience with superstition and enthusiasm leads it to slowly realize the roles and advantages that toleration and state- established religion play in controlling religious and political conflict. We will look first at how

Hume indicates the need for religious establishment in civil society.

4.1 Religious Establishment

Given Hume’s countless criticisms of religion, we might find it perplexing when he says that “there must be an ecclesiastical order, and a public establishment of religion in every civilized community.”306 We can ask ourselves the following: Why must a civilized society establish religion? Does not the History clearly show the problems that arise with an ecclesiastical order?

Will R. Jordan interprets the above statement as indicating that Hume is not critical of religion per se, but only of its corrupt manifestations of superstition and enthusiasm.307 Jordan disputes the position of scholars who “regard his [Hume’s] writings as an attempt to rescue morality from the corrupting influence of religion”; rather, Jordan argues that “Hume actually defends religion for its ability to strengthen society and to improve morality.”308 According to

Jordan, the Church of England for Hume embodies a “moderate religion, untainted by either superstition or enthusiasm.”309 What Jordan suggests by claiming that the Anglican Church is

306 HE 3:134-35.

307 Will R. Jordan, “Religion in the Public Square: A Reconsideration of David Hume and Religious Establishment,” The Review of Politics 64, no. 4 (Autumn 2002), 691.

308 Ibid., 687 and 688.

309 Ibid., 694.

329 free from superstition and enthusiasm is that this Church is a historical example of what Hume means by “true” and “genuine” religion.

What we find in the History, however, are explicit references by Hume that contradict

Jordan’s claim about the Church of England being free from superstition. Part of the “genius of the church of England,” Hume tells us, is precisely “its attachment to ceremonies, to order, and to a decent pomp and splendor of worship; and in a word, its affinity to the same superstitions of the catholics [emphasis added].”310 Hume also says that the moderation of England’s “new religion” was due to its “mitigating the genius of the ancient superstition,”311 not purifying religion of it. Though Hume considers the Church of England a moderate form of religion and therefore desirable, he does not think it is free from so-called false religion.

The fact that the Church of England retains superstition shows that Hume’s notion of a remedy does not involve establishing “true religion”; rather, it shows his willingness to work with men’s superstitious propensities in an effort to both accommodate these propensities and moderate them. Hume, as Sabl observes, “does not think absolute ideals of much relevance to situations involving people with imperfect and differing judgments.”312 The Anglican Church, in

Hume’s view, can act as a moderating force precisely because it does not attempt to rid people of their propensities to false religion, but instead directs these propensities under the guidance of a political sovereign. Frederick G. Whelan notes the negative emphasis Hume places on the role of establishment:

310 HE 5:558nJ.

311 HE 4:120.

312 Sabl, “Last Artificial Virtue,” 520.

330

Hume’s principal interest is less the furtherance of religion than the ‘security and stability’ of society; moreover, . . . a religious establishment will have the effect, desirable from a secular or civil point of view, of dampening religious enthusiasm or fanaticism.313

Though Hume shows throughout the History that the ecclesiastical order of the Catholic Church poses a grave risk to the sovereignty of the state, he also claims that if ultimate religious authority is kept out of the hands of clergy and is instead placed in the hands of the temporal sovereign, religious interests are apt to align with the interests of society. We find this in the case of the Church of England:

The union of the civil and ecclesiastical power serves extremely, in every civilized government, to the maintenance of peace and order; and prevents those mutual incroachments, which, as there can be no ultimate judge between them, are often attended with the most dangerous consequences. Whether the supreme magistrate, who unites these powers, receives the appellation of prince or prelate, is not material: The superior weight, which temporal interests commonly bear in the apprehensions of men above spiritual, renders the civil part of his character most prevalent; and in time prevents those gross impostures and bigoted persecutions, which, in all false religions, are the chief foundation of clerical authority [emphasis added].314

The human concern about his temporal advantages over that of his spiritual ones will incline the magistrate to subsume religious conflicts to the public interest. The magistrate’s preoccupation with worldly concerns not only tempers him from wielding the religious scepter excessively, but also checks the exorbitant claims of ecclesiastics. Upon the founding of the Anglican Church in

1534, for instance, Hume says the following:

The acknowledgement of the king’s supremacy introduced there a greater simplicity in the government, by uniting the spiritual with the civil power, and preventing disputes about limits, which never could be exactly determined between the contending jurisdictions. A way was also prepared for checking the exorbitancies of superstition, and

313 Frederick G. Whelan, “Church Establishments, Liberty & Competition in Religion,” Polity 23, no. 2 (Winter 1990): 156.

314 HE 1:311. See also HE 3:206-07, 228, and 310-11.

331

breaking those shackles, by which all human reason, policy, and industry had so long been encumbered. The prince, it may be supposed, being head of the religion, as well as of the temporal jurisdiction of the kingdom, though he might sometimes employ the former as an engine of government, had no interest, like the Roman pontiff, in nourishing its excessive growth; and, except when blinded by his own ignorance or bigotry, would be sure to retain it within tolerable limits, and prevent its abuses.315

By placing both scepters in the hands of the sovereign, the perennial disputes on the limits of religious and governmental authority are checked as religion is subsumed to the state. Hume looks to the Anglican Church of his own day as an example of a religion that has become “more compatible with the peace and interests of society” by way of the “interposition of the civil magistrate.”316 For Hume, subsuming religion to the state is the only means by which to reap social benefits from religion. Hume’s comments on this matter are pointed:

[I]f we consider the matter more closely, we shall find, that this interested diligence of the clergy is what every wise legislator will study to prevent; because in every religion, except the true, it is highly pernicious, and it has even a natural tendency to pervert the true, by infusing into it a strong mixture of superstition, folly, and delusion. Each ghostly practitioner, in order to render himself more precious and sacred in the eyes of his retainers, will inspire them with the most violent abhorrence of all other sects. . . . No regard will be paid to truth, morals, or decency in the doctrines inculcated. Every tenet will be adopted that best suits the disorderly affections of the human frame. . . . And in the end, the civil magistrate will find, that he has dearly paid for his pretending frugality, in saving a fixed establishment for the priests; and that in reality the most decent and advantageous composition, which he can make with the spiritual guides, is to bribe their indolence, by assigning stated salaries to their profession, and rendering it superfluous for them to be farther active, than merely to prevent their flock from straying in quest of new pastures. And in this manner ecclesiastical establishments, though commonly they arose at first from religious views, prove in the end advantageous to the political interests of society [emphasis added].317

315 HE 3:206-07.

316 HE 4:119-20. He also remarks that the “gradual and slow steps” of the English Reformation also contributed to the Anglican Church’s moderation and ability to contribute to society.

317 HE 3:135-36. As is his , Hume does not specify what the “true” religion would be.

332

It is clear from the passage that Hume does not think the government can simply establish a national religion and then leave its charge to the clergy. He has already shown us the grave results when the Catholic Church is left to its own authority. Instead, the sovereign needs to be diligent in keeping the clergy in line. However, Hume’s recommendation of bribing the clergy almost sounds superficial. His flippant suggestion perhaps reflects his belief that worldly interests are ultimately what move the hearts of religious leaders. It is a warning, so to speak, not to be fooled by the hypocrisy which covers the pretended faith of clergymen.

We ought to therefore read Hume’s claim about the necessity of civilized society to establish religion as a way for government to limit and control popular religion and not, as

Jordan suggests, to promote true religion. Annette Baier is correct when she states that, for

Hume, “[a]n established religion is a necessary evil, a way of palliating what cannot be cured, namely, the human impulse toward religion, and our tendency to disagree about the details of our religious faith, when there is a free market for such .”318 Hume points to the Anglican

Church of his day as a moderate, state-established religion which helps curb men’s religious impulses.

Yet, religious establishment alone can only go so far in securing ordered freedom. The

History shows that the sixteenth and seventeenth century English Church not only notoriously failed to reign in the reformers, but under Elizabeth’s policies of persecution increased their rebellious intensity. Andrew Sabl rightly points out that, in Hume’s view, religious establishment alone is a “superficially politic approach to religion” and even “bordering on willfully obtuse.”319

318 Baier, Jealous Virtue, 7.

319 Sabl, “Last Artificial Virtue,” 523.

333

According to Sabl, “Hume thinks that Elizabethan establishment and quasi-uniformity was a praiseworthy ideal but not practical, indeed destined to fail under factional and sectarian pressure.”320 Sable concludes that the policy of toleration, for Hume, is the “least bad alternative” to establishment.321

Contrary to Sable’s suggestion, it will be shown that toleration is not an alternative to religious establishment for Hume, but its complement. Hume, after all, never backs away from his claim that an established religion is necessary for civil life. The History does not show that religious establishment per se failed; rather, it shows that the failure lay in the attempt of Tudor magistrates to persecute nonconformists. Hume’s proposal of toleration does not depart from the need for religious establishment. Donald Siebert, for the most part, is correct in saying the following:

This policy of ecclesiastical establishment might imply that the magistrate will permit no other religion but the official one, but Hume is adamant that only complete toleration will assure the tranquility of society…. Hume implies that most of these bovine human beings will be satisfied by being part of an official, albeit tepid, religion.322

Mark Spencer, too, points out that toleration and establishment go hand-in-hand. Spencer notes that even though Hume thinks the “mechanism of an established church was the only way to control the destructive forces of religious faction,” he also “argue[s] for a multiplicity of dissenters to be tolerated within any state.”323

320 Sabl, “Last Artificial Virtue,”524.

321 Ibid.

322 Donald T Siebert, The Moral Animus of David Hume (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1990), 115. I qualify my agreement with Siebert insofar as it is questionable whether Hume believed that “complete toleration” was possible. This question will be taken up shortly.

323 Spencer, “Hume and Madison,” 892-93 and 888.

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A question arises, however. To what extent does Hume think “toleration” should be instituted by government? Does he favor “complete” toleration as Siebert suggests or one more limited in scope? And what is the basis of toleration according to Hume? Does he view the necessity of toleration as a right of conscience or as purely pragmatic? And why do we not find him speaking of religious freedom, but only toleration? To get our answers, we will look at

Hume’s opinions concerning the intolerance of Elizabeth’s regime, the origin of toleration with the enthusiasts, and his approval of the people’s intolerance of Stuart attempts to institute toleration.

4.2 Toleration

There are passages in the History that certainly make it appear that Hume condemns persecution absolutely. He tells us, for instance, that “the violent maxims of persecution” are

“incompatible at all times with the peace of society.”324 When we look to certain passages on toleration he can sound just as resolute:

So fruitless is it for sovereigns to watch with a rigid care over orthodoxy, and to employ the sword in religious controversy, that the work, perpetually renewed, is perpetually to begin; and a garb, a gesture, nay, a metaphysical or grammatical distinction, when rendered important by the disputes of theologians and the zeal of the magistrate, is sufficient to destroy the unity of the church, and even the peace of society.325

Upon closer examination, however, even the foregoing passages contain significant qualifications. Though Hume says the sovereign ought to avoid watching over orthodoxy with

“rigid care,” nowhere does he say that the sovereign should abandon his watch. Hume, as we

324 HE 6:65.

325 HE 4:123. Emphasis added.

335 have seen, shows a marked concern for the sovereign’s ability to maintain an authority and unity over the clergy of the national religion. To maintain unity means the necessity of some level of intolerance, at least within the establishment. We will proceed by looking at Hume’s discussion of persecution and the origin of toleration to see how he indicates that neither unlimited toleration nor religious freedom are always the most effective policies.

4.2.1 The Origin of Toleration in an Age of Persecution

The practice of persecution, Hume tells us, is the natural result of modern religion, where orthodoxy is an essential ingredient in the formation of social, moral, and political cohesion.

With regard to the Catholic Church, for instance, he thinks that “persecution is less the result of bigotry in the priests, than of a necessary policy”326:

And as the hierarchy was necessarily solicitous to preserve an unity of faith, rites, and ceremonies, all liberty of thought ran a manifest risque of being extinguished; and violent persecutions, or what was worse, a stupid and abject credulity took place every where.327

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, both Catholics and Protestants were suspicious of religious diversity. Religious diversity, it was believed, would lead to the breakdown of moral and political allegiance. Up through the reign of Charles I, Hume tells us, it “was generally deemed” that “religious toleration” was “incompatible with all good government.”328 It was only natural, then, given the tenor of the “persecuting spirit of the age,” for English monarchs to treat

326 HE 4:19. See also HE 6:452.

327 HE 3:136. See also HE 2:379, where Hume states that “toleration is none of the virtues of priests in any form of ecclesiastical government.” Hume also says that the Catholics, “pretending to an infallible guide, had justified, upon that principle, their doctrine and practice of persecution” (HE 5:422).

328 HE 5:240. 336 religious dissidents in the same manner as they did traitors. 329 Under the “old persecuting laws of Elizabeth,”330 for instance, little distinction was made between religious and political dissidents: “For these two species of criminals were always, at that time confounded together, as equally dangerous to the peace of society.”331 Even an attempt at “reconciling” with the “Roman church” was deemed an act of “treason.”332

We should be careful to assume that Hume would be quick to condemn all forms of persecution. Though he says that he condemns the “violent maxims of persecution,” what, for him, constitutes “violence”? It is not readily apparent in reading the History whether he thinks that the violent persecution pertains only to physical acts,333 or whether it also refers to the coercion of a person’s will or conscience. Hume is not nearly so forthright in condemning the latter. For instance, under Elizabeth’s reign, “the exercise of every religion but the established was prohibited by statute.”334 There were “severe laws” for those who were in communion with the “Roman church” and for those who failed to attend “protestant services.”335 In these instances, we see an obvious plight for Catholics and nonconformists alike, and yet, we find

329 HE 4:288.

330 HE 6:176.

331 HE 4:288.

332 HE 4:187.

333 See HE 6:144-46 and 540 where Hume provides some clear examples of what can be considered physical acts of violence toward religious dissidents: burning by fire or hot irons, pillorying or whipping, and death. He also includes putting Quakers in “madhouses” and prisons. However, it is questionable whether these latter cases are considered acts of persecution or violence in every case by Hume. He makes no such judgment, for instance, when Catholics were imprisoned.

334 HE 4:177.

335 HE 4:187. See also HE 4:287-88.

337

Hume entirely unsympathetic to them.336 First, he points out that though saying mass (even in private homes) was illegal under Elizabeth’s regime, it was not that bad since there were “many instances” when the crime was merely “connived at” by authorities.337 Second, Hume makes it sound as if the average Catholic did not really mind Elizabeth’s statues all that much. He tells us that “the catholics, in the beginning of her reign”—displaying their ever-growing indifference to orthodoxy—“shewed little reluctance against going to church, or frequenting the ordinary duties of worship.”338

The pope, in fear of losing his political foothold on the island, could see that if this practice continued amongst his flock, they would go the way of the new religion. To reinvigorate

Catholic opposition, he excommunicated the queen, and Elizabeth’s response, of course, was to crack down even harder against religious dissidents. Does Hume show any admiration for the renewed vigor of Catholics as they stand against manifest government coercion? He does not.

Rather, he makes excuses for Elizabeth’s policies, implying that Catholics ought not to complain given their own Church’s policies of intolerance and the fact that the monarchy was even more severe with nonconformists.339

336 Sable notes that Hume does find other Elizabethan policies worthy of condemnation, such as the institution of “pursuivants” who could imprison people without trial, or “purveyors” who were allowed to take the possessions of political adversaries for very little payment, or the harsh treatment of the Jewish people; see Sabl, Hume’s Politics in “History of England,” 116-17.

337 HE 4:177.

338 Ibid.

339 “These practices, with the rebellion, which ensued, encreased the vigilance and severity of the government; but the Romanists, if their condition were compared with that of the Non-conformists in other countries, and with their own maxims where they domineered, could not justly complain of violence or persecution” (HE 4:177).

338

It seems that Hume neither considers criminalizing the practice of religion as an instance of persecution nor does he condemn penalizing religious dissenters who refuse to attend the state-prescribed worship. He indicates that, indeed, there may very well be times when coercion in matters of religion is justified when it is beneficial to maintaining social order. The basis of choosing between toleration and persecution for Hume, therefore, looks to be more pragmatic than principled. For, when persecution serves some practical benefit, as seen in his account of the

Elizabethan age, Hume seems to justify the policy for its usefulness.

Persecution, however, did not work against the puritans; rather, it only served to fan the flames of fanaticism. It is in narrating their story that Hume finds the practice of toleration a necessary tool in tempering religious zeal. With changing times come changing policies. Perhaps persecution worked in an age dominated by the slavish spirit of superstition, but the old stratagems do not work in an age when the liberal spirit of enthusiasm resides:

But though such overgrown hierarchies may long support themselves by these violent expedients, the time comes, when severities tend only to enrage the new sectaries, and make them break through all bounds of reason and moderation.340

For magistrates and subjects alike, toleration did not become a viable or agreeable option overnight, and it did not originate from within the old regime where persecution was the general policy. Rather, it took a counter-movement of enthusiasts to gradually plant the seeds and then a

Puritan-led Protectorate to institute it.

To find the origin of toleration on the isle, we must look to the Independents, because their openness to toleration, Hume says, was born directly from their religious enthusiasm:

340 HE 4:19. Hume gives numerous examples where violence or persecution increased the opposition of enthusiasts rather than curbing it. See, for instance, HE 3:138-39, 141, 186-87, 282; HE 4:62, 123, 287-88; HE 5:558; HE 6:144-46, 328, 419-20.

339

The independents, from the extremity of the same zeal, were led into the milder principles of toleration. Their mind, set afloat in the wide sea of inspiration, could confine itself within no certain limits; and the same variations, in which an enthusiast indulged himself, he was apt, by a natural train of thinking, to permit in others. Of all christian sects, this was the first, which, during its prosperity, as well as its adversity, always adopted the principle of toleration; and, it is remarkable, that so reasonable a doctrine owed its origin, not to reasoning, but to the height of extravagance and fanaticism.341

The Independent-controlled parliament of 1651 expounded ideas of religious toleration (and even freedom) pre-dating America’s founding by over a hundred years:

It seemed even the intention of many leaders in the parliament to admit of no established church, and to leave every one, without any guidance of the magistrate, to embrace whatever sect, and to support whatever clergy, were most agreeable to him.342

The rejection of an established religion by many Independents did not lead Cromwell to abolish the Anglican Church, but it did open avenues for tolerating Christian sects. He “granted an unbounded liberty of conscience, to all but catholics and prelatists,”343 and though his policies of toleration were political calculations made at his will and pleasure, they were more lenient than the policies of preceding magistrates. Yet, even with such leniency, Cromwell was not loath to punish nonconformists when he thought it was to his political advantage.344 Within the decade, the English became accustomed to religious toleration, and by 1661, “catholics, independents,

341 HE 5:442-43. The passage captures Hume’s take on so much of what is good in modern political life. From unreason and fanaticism (or superstition) arises a policy so utterly reasonable that one might easily mistake it for the invention of reason.

342 HE 6:40.

343 HE 6:88.

344 The Quakers, for instance, suffered under Cromwell’s policies: “Amidst the great toleration,which was then granted to all sects, and even encouragement given to all innovations, this sect alone suffered persecution. . . . Sometimes they were thrown into mad-houses, sometimes into prisons: Sometimes whipped, sometimes pilloried” (HE 6:144).

340 and other sectaries were content with entertaining some prospect of toleration.”345 An idea once held by only the most fanatical of Christians had now become mainstream.

We can garner from Hume’s above accounts of persecution and toleration that he does not think that either approach is, in itself, the soundest means of securing social harmony.

Rather, he examines these approaches from a pragmatic perspective which considers their effectiveness within particular circumstances. In the Elizabethan age, for instance, the idea of toleration was hardly conceivable by anyone, and it would have been ridiculous to have expected

Elizabeth to have imposed such policies. The institutions of Church and government were simply too entrenched in the age-old practice of persecution. Besides, the intolerance shown towards the

Catholics seems to have worked fairly well at establishing some level of order. To make way for religious toleration, it took a counter-movement based on a growing enthusiasm.

The next sub-section looks at the rocky road that still lay ahead in order for religious toleration to take hold on the island. For Hume shows that even though the Stuart kings, Charles

II and James II, vigorously attempted to institute religious toleration during the Restoration, their policies were curiously rejected by the English people – including the puritans. Hume’s explanation for this irony is that both kings were suspected of being Catholic; it was therefore not unreasonable, according to Hume, for people to suspect the Stuarts of having insidious motives for promoting toleration. He goes on to show why the English people’s mistrust of

Catholic monarchy rightly led to the Glorious Revolution. We shall now examine in more detail

Hume’s account of the intolerance the English displayed toward the last of the Stuart kings.

345 HE 6:170.

341

4.2.2 When Toleration Is Justly Rejected

Both Charles and James II went through great pains to institute religious toleration on the island. Hume even calls James the “great patron of toleration” and “an enemy to all those persecuting laws, which, from the influence of the church, had been enacted both against dissenters and catholics.”346 Yet, neither could convince parliament or the general populace of the soundness of their policies.347 In 1662, King Charles II and his brother the Duke of York— later James II—“agreed upon a plan for introducing a general toleration, and giving the catholics the free exercise of their religion; at least, the exercise of it in private houses.”348 But meeting with resistance from parliament, Charles retracted the plan, not wanting to push matters so soon after being restored to the monarchy. Ten years later, in 1672, while parliament was not in session, he again granted a similar declaration of indulgence.349 But by the next year, Charles was forced to retract his indulgence once again in order to mollify the commons.350 Likewise, in

1687 and 1688, shortly before the Glorious Revolution, James II attempted to grant a “general liberty of conscience to all his subjects,” but, this too, was “condemned by the general voice of the nation.”351

346 HE 6:481.

347 The focus, here, is on the policies of toleration of Charles and James II. They did, however, also engage in persecution, according to Hume. See, for instance, HE 6:419-20 (where Charles II persecutes non-conformists) and HE 6:477-78 (where James II persecutes Protestants in Ireland).

348 HE 6:186.

349 HE 6:254.

350 HE 6:275.

351 HE 6:482. See also 6:489-90.

342

The English people’s rejection of toleration under the Stuarts, however, was not because they were against toleration. Rather, they were fearful that the kings touting toleration

(particularly, toleration for the Catholics) would pave the way for the return of Catholic persecution. For, though the kings were the official head of the Church of England, both were suspected of holding the Catholic faith. Charles, Hume tells us, was never public about his faith, but his marriage to Catherine of Portugal, a Catholic, did not help allay fears of his suspected popery.352 James, on the other hand, “openly declared his conversion to the church of Rome” and

“zealously adopted all the principles of that theological party” even before rising to the throne.353

According to popular opinion, something was awry when men who held to a religion whose

“maxims” were “repugnant to the principles of toleration” were vigorously promoting those very principles.354

For Hume, too, such an “unnatural alliance” could not but raise suspicions.355 He himself does not think the Stuart kings were actually interested in supporting toleration. He surmises that the Stuarts were using toleration as a means to re-establish the Catholic faith—not out of love for the Church—but to better reaffix “arbitrary” power to the crown.356 “The catholic religion, indeed, where it is established, is better fitted than the protestant for supporting an absolute

352 HE 6:177. Hume portrays Charles as a closet Catholic, albeit a bit lax in his religiosity. See HE 6:186, 207, 381-82; 446.

353 HE 6:186 and 251.

354 HE 6:482.

355 HE 6:487.

356 HE 6:254 and 481. See also 6:496-97.

343 monarchy.”357 Though Hume admits he lacks the direct evidence to prove his accusation, he finds no other scenario capable of explaining their policies of toleration. In commenting on the actions of Charles II, he states:

But the utter impossibility of accounting, by any other hypothesis, for those strange measures embraced by the court, as well as for the numerous circumstances, which accompanied them, obliges us to acknowledge (though there remains no direct evidence of it) that a formal plan was laid for changing the religion, and subverting the constitution, of England, and that the king and the ministry were in reality conspirators against the people [emphasis added].358

In an interesting twist of logic, Hume takes Charles’s policies of toleration as evidence for his hidden intolerance and betrayal of England. According to Hume, there was an inchoate Catholic regime forming under Charles. In the king’s pursuit of absolute power, his “indulgent maxims” were simply part of his strategy to “mollify” even the “most inveterate enemies of the court.”359

By the end of his reign, Charles had prepared the ground for an absolute monarchy by accustoming his subjects to his subtle abuses and usurpations of power. And because he had been guarded in his Catholic leanings, the people’s attention was no longer taken up by fears of the

King’s popery.

According to Hume’s account, then, Charles was laying the groundwork for regime change while James (the zealot) waited in the wings. When James II ascended the throne in

1685, the kingdom was ripe for absolute monarchy:

Never king mounted the throne of England with greater advantages than James; nay, possessed greater facility, if that were any advantage, of rendering himself and his

357 HE 6:286. According to Hume, in the Stuarts’ efforts to institute toleration, Charles’s and James’s contempt for standing laws indicates their hidden goal of absolute power. See, HE 6:254-55, 284-87, 482-87.

358 HE 6:286-87.

359 HE 6:254. Recall, Hume implies that this was also the strategy of Cromwell. But Cromwell could get away with it more easily since he was an Independent.

344

posterity absolute. . . . The nation seemed disposed of themselves to resign their liberties. . . .360

And James was perfectly willing to play his part:

So lofty was the idea, which he had entertained of his legal authority, that it left his subjects little or no right to liberty, but was dependent on his sovereign will and pleasure.361

Hume says James “might even have succeeded in surmounting at once their liberties and religion, had he conducted his schemes with common prudence and discretion”362; however,

James showed little “regard and affection to the religion and constitution of his country.”363

Instead, he openly attended mass, which was, at the time, still an “illegal meeting.”364 He sent a representative to Rome to make “submissions” to Pope Innocent XI so as to “pave the way for re-admission of England into the bosom of the catholic church.”365 The king and his newly wedded wife were so smitten with the Jesuits that “all public measures” were “taken originally from the suggestions of these men, and bore evident marks of their ignorance in government, and of the violence of their religious zeal.”366 As a result, the “former horror against popery was revived.”367

360 HE 6:470.

361 HE 6:520. See also 6:482.

362 HE 6:470.

363 HE 6:520.

364 HE 6:451.

365 Ibid.

366 HE 6:452.

367 HE 6:470. See also 6:479.

345

By 1687, the people were confirmed in their fears. Under James’s policies of toleration,

Catholics penetrated the highest positions of authority while Protestants were losing theirs:

The whole power in Ireland had been committed to catholics. In Scotland, all the ministers, whom the king chiefly trusted, were converts to that religion. Every great office in England, civil and military, was gradually transferred from the protestants.368

When James attempted to open the universities to Catholics, his disregard for popular opinion and law could no longer be ignored even by those sympathetic to him. Even “judicious persons of the catholic communion” wisely deemed that “all attempts to acquire power, much more to produce a change of the national faith” were “dangerous and destructive.”369 James, in the end,

“left himself entirely without friends and adherents.”370

The English people looked to “the prince and princess of Orange, two zealous protestants,”371 to be their defenders against the purported rise of Catholic tyranny:

The prince [William of Orange] was easily engaged to yield to the applications of the English, and to embrace the defence of a nation, which, during its present fears and distresses, regarded him as its sole protector. . . .372

William, in turn, “effected the deliverance of this island.”373 The revolution was complete:

A profound tranquility prevailed throughout the kingdom; and the prince’s administration was submitted to, as if he had succeeded in the most regular manner to the vacant throne.374

368 HE 6:487.

369 HE 6:478. Many of them could still remember the “extreme antipathy, which the nation bore to their religion” over the events surrounding the “popish plot.”

370 HE 6:487.

371 HE 6:494.

372 HE 6:503.

373 HE 6:521.

374 HE 6:522-23.

346

Though Hume is well known for his warnings about the destabilizing effects of revolution,375 he makes exception for the Revolution of 1688 because it ushered in an era of ordered liberty:

The revolution forms a new epoch in the constitution; and was probably attended with consequences more advantageous to the people, than barely freeing them from an exceptionable administration. By deciding many important questions in favour of liberty, and still more, by that great precedent of deposing one king, and establishing a new family, it gave such an ascendant to popular principles, as has put the nature of the English constitution beyond all controversy. And it may justly be affirmed, without any danger of exaggeration, that we, in this island, have ever since enjoyed, if not the best system of government, at least the most entire system of liberty, that ever was known amongst mankind.376

What does Hume want us to glean from his narrative of the Restoration and subsequent

Revolution? First, the History justifies intolerance toward Catholic monarchy and religion.

Hume’s depiction of the sinister intentions of the Stuart kings to gain absolute power via religion is parallel to his portrayal of the Catholic hierarchy in pre-Reformation Europe. The not-so- subtle implication is that if the Catholic faith had been allowed to gain a foothold in England again, the effects would have been a step backward toward absolute monarchy and, even worse, religious absolutism. For the History indicates that even if the Stuarts succeeded in obtaining absolute power by means of promoting the Catholic faith, this power would have been short- lived. Even absolute monarchs cannot ultimately stave off the usurpations of the Catholic

Church. The revolution was not so much saving England from the Stuart monarchy, but from a return to the barbarism and ignorance of Catholic superstition.

375 See HE 5:492, 520, 538, 544-46; HE 6:4-5, 38, 54, 136, 141.

376 HE 6:531. For an instance where Hume acknowledges that no constitution has benefitted more from “violent innovations” than the British, see HE 4:355.

347

What also comes to light is that Hume’s basis of religious toleration is not the rights of human conscience but, as Samuel Clark notes, “pragmatic grounds.”377 Hume downplays the governmental coercion that took place under Elizabeth and defends the religious intolerance shown toward the last two Stuart kings.378 The final sub-section concludes this chapter by looking at Hume’s pragmatic foundation for toleration and why he thinks religious differences in modern times are better moderated through toleration, rather than persecution.

4.3 Conclusion: The Pragmatic Basis for Toleration

Recall that in Book 1 of the Treatise, Hume contrasts “madness” and “poetical enthusiasm.” With regard to the latter, he states that

whatever emotion the poetical enthusiasm may give to the spirits, ’tis still a phantom of belief or perswasion. . . . There is something weak and imperfect amidst all that seeming vehemence of thought and sentiment, which attends the fictions of poetry.379

Poetical enthusiasm arouses the passions, but not belief. There are some individuals, however, who have such vivid imaginations that passion crosses over into belief. When this happens the person “often degenerates into madness or folly.”380 The imagination no longer has the means

“of distinguishing betwixt truth and falsehood, but every loose fiction or idea . . . is receiv’d on the same footing, and operates with equal force on the passions.381 Chapter one of this

377 Samuel Clark, “No Abiding City: Hume, Naturalism, and Toleration,” Philosophy: The Journal of the British Institute of Philosophical Studies 84 (2009): 78.

378 Clark notes that, for Hume, “[i]n different circumstances . . . intolerance might be the better bet” (“No Abiding City,” 78).

379 T 1.3.10.10; SBN 630-31.

380 T 1.3.10.9; SBN 629.

381 Ibid. 348 dissertation argued that the Treatise’s depiction of “madness” is akin to what Hume means by religious enthusiasm. This similarity between madness and enthusiasm, as will be shown presently, explains why persecution does not work against enthusiasts.

In the History, Hume also associates enthusiasm with madness. Let us turn to his diagnosis of why the government mishandled the Scottish non-conformists of 1678:

[T]he government, instead of treating them like madmen, who should be soothed, and flattered, and deceived into tranquility, thought themselves intitled to a rigid obedience, and were too apt, from a mistaken policy, to retaliate upon the dissenters, who had erred from the spirit of enthusiasm.382

Here, Hume is clear that when dealing with religious disputes involving enthusiasts, we are wrong to assume that we are dealing with rational individuals. Just as one would not attempt to argue a “madman” out of his delusions, the best remedy for enthusiasts is to “soothe,” “deceive,” and “flatter” them into “tranquility.” Another one of Hume’s examples of enthusiasm’s propensity to madness is the Quaker, James Naylor. Naylor’s “madness” led him to profess himself to be Jesus Christ.383 Persecution only intensified Naylor’s delusions:

They condemned him to be pilloried, whipped, burned in the face, and to have his tongue bored through with a red hot iron. All these severities he bore with the usual patience. So far his delusion supported him. But the sequel spoiled all. He was sent to Bridewell, confined to hard labour, fed on bread and water, and debarred from all his disciples, male and female. His illusion dissipated; and after some time, he was contented to come out an ordinary man, and return to his usual occupation.384

Though persecution did not abate the Quaker’s madness, Hume shows that when Naylor was prevented from communicating with his disciples, he returned from his exile an “ordinary man.”

382 HE 6:322-23.

383 HE 6:145.

384 HE 6:145-46.

349

Enthusiastic reformers, such as Naylor, thrive on the attention paid to them.385 When the public withdraws its attention, however, the enthusiast’s supposed inspiration also dissipates.386

Yet, we would be mistaken to interpret Hume as saying that ignoring heresy alone sufficiently curbs religious opposition. He is still of the opinion that a state-established religion is necessary to control ecclesiastical authorities and regulate religious disputes. A tolerant national religion, however, can gradually accustom people to religious diversity. For when a people become acclimated to diverse religious opinions, religious differences do not arouse violent opposition amongst sects. The practice of ignoring heresy (i.e., religious toleration) becomes viable.

When diagnosing the government’s mishandling of religious disputes in Scotland, Hume indicates that there may come a time when even “unlimited toleration” might be possible:

There was here, it is apparent, in the political body, a disease dangerous and inveterate; and the government had tried every remedy, but the true one, to allay and correct it. An unlimited toleration, after sects have diffused themselves and are strongly rooted, is the only expedient, which can allay their fervor, and make the civil union acquire a superiority above religious distinctions. But as the operations of this regimen are commonly gradual, and at first imperceptible, vulgar politicians are apt, for that reason, to have recourse to more hasty and more dangerous remedies.387

On a cursory reading, one might think that Hume’s reference here to “unlimited toleration” is an implicit denial of the need for state-established religion, but there are significant points he makes that show the opposite is the case. First, Hume emphasizes “toleration” in the passage – not freedom. He does so as if to remind us that “unlimited toleration” is not the same as religious

385 See also HE 3:138-39, 282, 6:144-46.

386 Hume points to a similar remedy for heretics and witches: “Witchcraft and heresy are two crimes, which commonly encrease by punishment, and never are so effectually suppressed as by being totally neglected” (HE 4:62).

387 HE 6:322.

350 freedom. The state still reserves the authority to determine the extent to which people can practice religion. The state’s decision for “unlimited toleration” does need not mean that it has a duty to continue such a policy if such a policy later becomes impractical. Second, Hume indicates that “unlimited toleration” might work only “after sects have diffused themselves and are strongly rooted.” Such a qualification suggests that limited toleration is a legitimate means of acclimating society to religious diversity. Third, Hume indicates that “unlimited toleration” is not a good in itself, but a pragmatic means of lessening people’s fidelity toward particular religious sects while strengthening allegiance to the “civil union,” that is to say, allegiance to the state.

Fourth, Hume says that the positive social effects resulting from the “operations” of unlimited toleration are “gradual” and “at first imperceptible.” This suggests that toleration is most effective when it is not rigorously imposed, but should be introduced slowly, acclimating people to its advantages.

Overall, Hume holds that toleration promotes religious diversity, and it is precisely this religious diversity that Hume sees as desirable because it leads people to view religion with confusion, doubt, and indifference. A moderate form of Christianity retains its rituals and sensible devotions while the spiritual reality to which these rituals and devotions point is void of significance. As a consequence, religion’s influence in moral, intellectual, and political affairs decreases and is taken up by the secular agenda of moralists, magistrates, and philosophers. A civic education, which integrates the study of genuine history, gathers the experience and wisdom of the ages, warns of religious pitfalls, and emphasizes those circumstances which promote moderate religion. Conclusion

Hume lived in a time when the dream of a re-unified Christian Europe was giving way to more secular views of society, morality, and culture. Hume was a catalyst in questioning the central role religion had traditionally played in shaping these areas of political life. Contrary to those who treat Hume’s interest in religion as a purely speculative issue and contrary to those who think the main task in reading Hume on the subject of religion is to determine the nature of his own religious belief, this dissertation has argued that Hume is interested in religion as a feature of human nature, and above all as a feature of human nature that is politically consequential. His primary approach to religion is to trace its various manifestations to basic principles of human nature and examine how religion can best be modified to coexist with the increasing secularization of modern political life.

Chapter one of this dissertation examined some of the political and theological aspects of

A Treatise of Human Nature. Though this work is commonly treated as having little to say on religion, Hume states in the Treatise that he hopes his new science of man will most improve

“natural religion.” The first chapter of this dissertation showed that Hume’s political interest in religion is central to understanding the Treatise. In choosing passages from Tacitus and Lucan as epigrams in the Treatise, Hume surreptitiously introduces his political interest in religion. The fact that both the Tacitus and Lucan passages had been used by eighteenth-century freethinkers to indirectly communicate their intentions to challenge prevailing political and religious systems suggests that the Treatise shares a similar agenda.

The first chapter also argued that Hume’s critique of religious superstition in the Treatise uses the same criteria as that used for his general critique of mental “fictions,” as he calls them.

He criticizes our belief in some fictions while acknowledging the utility and even necessity of 351

352 believing in others. The fictions of common life, for instance, are so fundamental to human experience that without our belief in bodies, minds, and causal connections, we would not be able to function as human beings. In Book 1 of the Treatise, Hume attempts to show that our belief in these fictions is justified neither by reason nor the senses, and yet, he is adamant that nature compels us to believe in them. When we look to Hume’s critique of Christian superstition in the Treatise, we see that it is not aimed solely or even primarily at the purported falsity of

Christian teaching, but at Christianity’s tendency toward sectarianism, intolerance, and an anti- social morality. He also shows that belief in religiously-inspired moral fictions—such as a deity, providence, the afterlife, or an eternal, moral law—is not necessary to ground human virtue.

Hume argues that men’s experience of particular pleasures and pains, in conjunction with sympathy and custom, acclimate men to the more sociable virtues.

In Book 3 of the Treatise, Hume further points out the utility of believing in the political fictions of property and the rules of justice. Though humans are not compelled by nature to believe in these political fictions, such belief is absolutely necessary if men are to find happiness and security in modern civil life. Hume claims in Book 3 that political fictions have no more theoretical basis than Catholic superstitions. The difference between political and religious fiction is moral—political fictions promote the public good while Catholic superstition promotes priestly faction. By making material property the fundamental political fiction on which the idea of justice rests, Hume suggests that social stability is primarily the effect of the protection of property – not religious orthodoxy. This economic stability, in turn, contributes to good government, the development of the sciences, and genuine morality. Religion need not play an active role in any of these. Chapter one of this dissertation further examined Hume’s proposal for 353 a civic education which appeals to men’s worldly ambitions as an effective means of inculcating a regard for the rules of justice. In contrast, he portrays Christian education as detrimental to social stability and the human good because of its attempts to instill beliefs and sentiments alien to human experience. Hume’s praise of the English gentlemen at the end of Book 1 of the

Treatise suggests that they might be the desired result of a secular, civic education. Religious and philosophical issues hold no interest for them; instead, these English gentlemen are men of reputation and business engaged in the affairs of common life and who find happiness through industry and entertainment.

Chapter two of this dissertation looked at the Natural History of Religion, Hume’s first major work with an explicitly religious theme. Rather than approaching this work as anti- religious propaganda or as a purely descriptive piece of natural history, the second chapter of this dissertation approached the Natural History as an attempt by Hume to explore ways to make religion more amendable to secular, political life. Hume assumes from the outset of the work that religion originates in human nature, thereby reducing religious phenomena to psychology. By claiming that religious belief originates from the “secondary” principles of human nature, he indicates that the operation of these beliefs can be “perverted” or “prevented” by various causes and accidents. The second chapter of this dissertation argued that an aim of the Natural History, often overlooked by commentators, is Hume’s attempt to identify some of these causes and effects in view of modifying religious belief. Of the various forms of theism, the Natural History makes the most references to Christianity as the religion requiring reform. Hume’s inclusion of

Christianity in a “natural history” of religion indicates that he thinks Christianity can be explained by the principles of human nature and is thus a “natural religion.” This suggests that 354 the Natural History continues the stated aim of the Treatise to improve natural religion—with

Christianity a primary concern.

Hume attempts in the Natural History to debunk the presumption of his Christian readers about the inherent superiority of theism. He tries to show that the difference between popular forms of theism and polytheism (paganism) is only a matter of degree. The Natural History traces theism and polytheism to principles of human nature that are in a constant state of “flux and reflux,” thus suggesting that theism is not necessarily any more rational or enlightened than polytheism. When we get to Hume’s moral critique of theism and polytheism, he reveals that polytheism is actually more advantageous to social life than theism. Because the pagan does not lay claim to religious truth, he is more tolerant of differing religious views and is thus more

“sociable” than the theist. Hume also argues that the pagan virtues of honor and great- mindedness make for a free and noble people while theism’s inculcation of abject humility makes men fit to be slaves. Because paganism does not attempt to answer questions about origins or ultimate causes, it does not interfere with the researches of philosophy and science. Theism, to the contrary, because of its appearance of reasonableness, has been adopted by philosophers and has thus corrupted philosophy and science.

The Natural History points to various ways of reforming the Christian religion.

Education attempts to make theism more sociable by weakening people’s religious convictions, thereby increasing toleration of variant religious beliefs and practices. With people’s growing sense of religious skepticism, they are less inclined to see theism as “reasonable,” leaving philosophers and scientists to pursue their respective fields of study without the corrupting interference of religious opinion. As our knowledge of natural causes increases, especially 355 through a mechanistic understanding of the world, people’s propensities to imagine superstitious fears of unknown causes are curbed. Furthermore, with the emergence of the stability and order that comes from good government, people are less subject to “accidents” which arouse superstitious fears. Hume also suggests that economic prosperity turns people’s attention to industry and the fruits of labor and away from those religious sentiments resulting from melancholy and idleness. The Natural History encourages its readers to adopt a secular approach to religion, to become, as Hume says in the work, “bystanders.” Hume also encourages a type of religious hypocrisy which allows a person to appear religiously orthodox while working to undermine orthodoxy through the art of obfuscation, skepticism, and duplicity.

Chapter three of this dissertation explored the political theology of the Dialogues

Concerning Natural Religion. Although the title purports that the work is about natural religion, it is the issue of Christianity that Hume has his characters consistently discuss. The Dialogues is often interpreted as Hume’s theoretical treatment of the nature and existence of God, whereby

Hume’s characters serve as conduits for his own personal views on religion. In contrast, and building on the approaches of John Danford and Samuel Clark, the third chapter interpreted the dialogic form of the Dialogues as expressing Hume’s political concern with religion. Chapter three argued that Hume’s inclusion of the young Pamphilus indicates the need for a political reading of the Dialogues. For Pamphilus, far from being a minor character, is central to understanding the importance Hume places on the issue of moderating religion in the civic education of the youth. Furthermore, Pamphilus’s own opening remarks reveal that of the three methods of education proposed by Demea, Cleanthes, and Philo, it is Philo’s skeptical and duplicitous approach which Pamphilus appears to have embraced even over that of his teacher, 356

Cleanthes. Throughout the conversations, Philo models techniques of skeptical religious instruction while also pointing out how good government, religious establishment, prosperity, and morals have potential for modifying the negative influences of religion when working in conjunction with skeptical education.

Hume seems to suggest that attempts to modify the religious beliefs of older generations may very well have little effect—Demea, Cleanthes, and Philo do not appear to convince each other of their own respective positions—but with the impressionable young there is hope of success. After all, even though Pamphilus’s teacher had been Cleanthes, Pamphilus’s own views on religion are much more similar to Philo’s. Pamphilus even adopts Philo’s duplicity. Like

Philo, he declares the existence of God to be evident, but God’s nature to be unknowable. In this manner, Philo and Pamphilus cover themselves with the mantle of piety while going on to conclude that religious questions are inherently obscure and unanswerable. As Pamphilus states in his opening remarks, religious questions are suited for dialogue because even though we cannot obtain answers to them, we can, at least, be tolerant of divergent religious views and thereby enjoy the sociability that comes with conversation. In essence, Pamphilus sets up the

Dialogues as a lesson of how philosophers, moralists, and politicians can promote religious toleration and curb religious zeal by using a strategy that mixes honest discussion and deception.

The fourth chapter of this dissertation examined the History of England as a philosophical history which explores the underlying causes shaping English political life.

Chapter four argued that Hume views himself as an impartial historian in the sense that he claims to be free from having to adhere to the religious or political views of any particular group. His impartiality therefore allows him to judge people’s characters, events, and institutions in the 357 effort to exhort men to virtue, to an appreciation of modern civilization, and to esteem for the proper balance of authority and freedom necessary for good government. With regard to religion, the History goes to great lengths outlining the disadvantages of Catholic superstition and the worldly interests of priests, bishops, and popes as well as the licentiousness that Protestant enthusiasm unleashes upon society. Hume depicts the Church of England as a tolerable type of religious establishment which mixes the more sociable superstitious practices of Catholicism with the tolerant spirit of enthusiasm while at the same time possessing an ordered, ecclesiastical hierarchy whose authority is subsumed to the state. The fourth chapter argued that when religion is thus modified, it opens the ways for legislators and moralists to play a more active role in political life.

When the elements from these four chapters are brought together, we come to some general conclusions. This dissertation has argued that though Hume suggests his critique of religion only applies to “popular” and “vulgar” religion, his critique leaves little left of what the

Christian West has traditionally understood by “true” religion – a religion characterized by divine revelation, sacrifice and worship, prayer and devotion, a religiously-infused moral life, and belief in a God who transcends the authority of human institutions. Hume’s duplicitous use of the concept of “true” or “genuine” religion is part of his obfuscation of true religion in

Christian society, thus paving the way for a new understanding of religion he considers more conducive to human happiness and freedom. While retaining the traditional Christian language of theism, Hume is able at the same time to reject the substance of what this language signifies.

Hume determines whether a particular religion is good or bad based on its effect on the peace and order of society and not whether the religion is true. To the extent religion upsets the delicate 358 balance of authority and liberty in civil society, he criticizes it. According to Hume, religious enthusiasm’s love of freedom comes at the expense of law and order, and religious superstition undermines the freedom necessary for men to think, feel, and act in accord with their genuine, earthly interests.

Hume’s “remedy” does not attempt to rid modern society of religion, but rather to curb religion’s negative moral, political, and cultural influences. A more secular view of the world and religion is needed in order for this to happen. Because his aim is not to rid society of vulgar religion but only to moderate it, Hume points out aspects of superstition and enthusiasm that lend themselves to the public interest. The sensible imagery and practices of superstition ground people in common life and instill a sense of community while the violent license of enthusiasm eventually subsides, being replaced with toleration and freethinking.

For Hume, the political question of what kind of religion is best suited to society centers on a religion’s willingness to give up its place of moral, political, and cultural influence. Hume points to ancient polytheism as modeling such a religion. Ancient polytheism, that is, paganism, focused on appeasing the gods by superstitious rituals and prayer, leaving the political and moral affairs of common life to philosophers and statesmen. According to Hume, the ancient Greek and

Roman pagans loved freedom and embodied noble virtues that make for a great people. These virtues have no need for a religious grounding, but are the effect of nature, utility, and necessity.

It is by delimiting the social effects of Christianity, inculcating religious skepticism, and grafting, so to speak, pagan attitudes and morals onto the Christian religion, that Christianity can become more paganized and thus more favorable to modern, secular life. 359

In the final analysis, this dissertation has shown that Hume holds that secular civic education, religious skepticism, good government, the progress of the arts and sciences, and an economic system that promotes material prosperity all contribute to curbing peoples’ reliance on religion in moral, cultural, and political matters. Skeptical religious education is the most fundamental element of Hume’s remedy, for it promotes an outlook which treats religious questions as secondary (or even inimical) to the peace and order of society.

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