I EARLY LIFE 21 



Notwithstanding the attempt of George the Third 

 to resuscitate the royal authority, Hume's fore- 

 sight has been so completely justified that no one 

 now dreams of the crown exerting the slightest 

 influence upon elections. 



In the seventh Essay, Hume raises a very inter- 

 esting discussion as to the probable ultimate 

 result of the forces which were at work in the 

 British Constitution in the first part of the 

 eighteenth century : 



"There has been a sudden and sensible change in the 

 opinions of men, within these last fifty years, by the progress 

 of learning and of liberty. Most people in this island have 

 divested themselves of all superstitious reverence to names 

 and authority ; the clergy have much lost their credit ; their 

 pretensions and doctrines have been much ridiculed ; and even 

 religion can scarcely support itself in the world. The mere 

 name of king commands little respect ; and to talk of a king 

 as God's vicegerent on earth, or to give him any of those 

 magnificent titles which formerly dazzled mankind, would but 

 excite laughter in eveiy one." (III. 54.) 



In fact, at the present day, the danger to mon- 

 archy in Britain would appear to lie, not in 

 increasing love for equality, for which, except 

 as regards the law, Englishmen have never 

 cared, but rather entertain an aversion; nor in 

 any abstract democratic theories, upon which the 

 mass of Englishmen pour the contempt with 

 which they view theories in general ; but in the 

 constantly increasing tendency of monarchy to 

 become slightly absurd, from the ever- widening 



