FIFTH EPOCH. THE ARGUMENTS OF IDEALISM CARRIED OUT INTO SKEPTICISM. CHAPTER I. HUME. § I. LIFE OF HUME. MR. BURTON'S ample and excellent biography* would furnish us with materials for a pleasant memoir, could we here afford the requisite space; but we must content ourselves with referring the reader to that work, and with merely recording the principal dates and events of an uneventful life. David Hume was born at Edinburgh, 26th April, 1711; the youngest child of a poor laird of good blood. He was an orphan before his education was completed. His guardians first thought of the profession of law, but, owing to his repugnance, he was absolved from that career, and was placed in a Bristol countinghouse, where he did not remain long. On coming of age he found himself in possession of a small property, too small for honorable subsistence in England, but large enough for France, and to Rheims he went; from thence to La Flèche, where the Jesuits' college and library were great attractions to the studious youth; and there he passed several years in solitary study. * The Life and Correspondence of David Hume, from the Papers bequeathed to the Royal Society of Edinburgh. By John Hill Burton. 2 vols. A great ambition moved him : he was to accomplish for moral science a revolution analogous to that which Bacon had effected in physical science. His Treatise on Human Nature, which appeared in 1737, and which fell still-born from the press, was announced as an attempt to introduce the experimental method into reasonings on moral science. We need scarcely point out the profound misconception of the Experimental Method here implied; nor is it necessary to show at any length that there was no novelty whatever in Hume's attempt to test psychology by experience. In 1741 appeared the first part of his immortal Essays; and in 1747 he accompanied General St. Clair, as secretary, in the embassy to Vienna and Turin. In 1752 he published his Political Discourses and the Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals. The appointment of Librarian to the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh—the salary of which he generously gave to the poor poet Blacklock-placed at his disposal a fine collection of books; and this suggested the undertaking which has long been held his greatest title to fame-the History of England, the first volume of which appeared in 1754. For the literary historian there are two piquant episodes in the life of Hume. The first is the ovation given to the philosopher in Paris, whither he had accompanied the Marquis of Hertford; the second is his friendship and quarrel with Rousseau. We cannot pause to dwell on either. Hume died in the spring of 1776, leaving a name imperishable in our literature, although it is a name attached to opinions which have roused, and will continue to rouse, the most vehement opposition. It should never be forgotten, moreover, that, in spite of Hume's opinions, so wise and good a man as Adam Smith could publicly write of him, "Upon the whole, I have always considered him, both during his lifetime and since hist death, as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man, as perhaps the nature of human frailty will permit." § II. HUME'S SKEPTICISM. The marvellous acuteness and subtlety of Hume have never been denied; and his influence upon speculation has been aided as much by the alarm his doctrines excited, as by the ingenuity with which they were upheld. If Berkeley met with no refuters, Hume could meet with none. Antagonists have generally been compelled to admit that the skeptical reasoning was unanswerable. Locke had shown that all our knowledge was dependent upon experience. Berkeley had shown that we had no experience of an external world independent of perception; nor could we have any such experience. He pronounced matter to be a figment, Hume took up the line where Berkeley had cast it, and flung it once more into the deep sea, endeavoring to fathom the mysteries of being. Probing deeper in the direction Berkeley had taken, he found that not only was Matter a figment, Mind was a figment also. If the occult substratum, which men had inferred to explain material phenomena, could be denied, because not founded on experience; so also, said Hume, must we deny the occult substratum (mind) which men have inferred to explain mental phenomena. All that we have any experience of, is impressions and ideas. The substance of which these are supposed to be impressions, is occult-is a mere inference; the substance in which these impressions are supposed to be, is equally occult -is a mere inference. Matter is but a collection of impressions. Mind is but a succession of impressions and ideas.* Аф Thus was Berkeley's dogmatic Idealism converted into Skepticism. Hume, speaking of Berkeley, says, "Most of the writings of that very ingenious philosopher form the best lessons of skepticism which are to be found either among the ancient or * Locke had already shown that we are as ignorant of spirit as of substance. We know mind only in its manifestation; we cannot know it per se as a substratum. Hume's argument therefore had a firm foundation in philosophy. He only concluded from admitted premises. modern philosophers, Bayle not excepted. He professes, however, in his title-page (and undoubtedly with great truth) to have composed his book against the Skeptics, as well as against the Atheists and Free-thinkers. But that all his arguments, though otherwise intended, are in reality merely skeptical, appears from this, that they admit of no answer, and produce no conviction." Remark, also, that Hume's skepticism, though it reduces philosophy to a singular dilemma, viz. that of either refuting the skeptical arguments, or of declaring itself and its pretensions to be vain and baseless, nevertheless affects in no other way the ordinary judgments or actions of mankind. Much stupid ridicule and frivolous objection have been, and probably will continue to be, brought against Hume. Reid, from whom one might have expected something better, is surprised at Hume's pretending to construct a science upon human nature, "when the intention of the whole work is to show that there is neither human nature nor science in the world. It may, perhaps, be unreasonable to complain of this conduct in an author who neither believes his own existence nor that of his reader; and therefore could not mean to disappoint him, or laugh at his credulity. Yet I cannot imagine that the author of the Treatise on Human Nature is so skeptical as to plead this apology. He believed, against his principles, that he should be read, and that he should retain his personal identity, till he reaped the honor and reputation justly due to his metaphysical acumen." He continues further in this strain, dragging in the old error about Pyrrho having inconsistently been roused to anger by his cook, "who probably had not roasted his dinner to his mind," and compares this forgetfulness to Hume's every "now and then relapsing into the faith of the vulgar."* If this was meant for banter, it was very poor banter; if for argument, it was pitiable. But if such arguments appeared * Inquiry, Introd. i. § 5. valid to a thinker of Reid's reputation, it is reasonable to suppose that inferior men may also receive them as conclusive. Hume shall, therefore, be allowed to speak for himself; and he shall speak in the language of that very Treatise on Human Nature to which Reid alludes: "Should it be here asked me whether I sincerely assent to this argument which I seem to take such pains to inculcate, and whether I be really one of those skeptics who hold that all is uncertain, and that our judgment is not in any thing possessed. of any measures of truth and falsehood, I should reply that this question is entirely superfluous, and that neither I nor any other person was ever sincerely and constantly of that opinion. Nature, by an absolute and uncontrollable necessity, has determined us to judge as well as to breathe and feel; nor can we any more forbear viewing certain objects in a stronger and fuller light upon account of their customary connection with a present impression, than we can hinder ourselves from thinking as long as we are awake, or seeing the surrounding bodies when we turn our eyes towards them in broad sunshine. Whoever has taken the pains to refute the cavils of this total skepticism, has really disputed without an antagonist, and endeavored by arguments to establish a faculty which Nature has antecedently implanted in the mind and rendered unavoidable. "My intention, then, in displaying so carefully the arguments of that fantastic sect, is only to make the Reader sensible of the truth of my hypothesis, that all our reasonings concerning causes and effects, are derived from nothing but custom; and that belief is more properly an act of the sensitive than of the cogitative part of our natures. If belief were a simple act of the thought, without any peculiar manner of conception, or the addition of force and vivacity, it must infallibly destroy itself, and in every case terminate in a total suspense of judgment. But as experience will sufficiently convince any one, that although he finds no error in my arguments, yet he still continues to believe and think and reason as usual, he may safely conclude that his |