206 HUME 



IX 



ander's rage, who intended to exterminate a whole nation 

 because they had seized his favourite horse Buchephalus ? 



" Heaven and hell suppose two distinct species of men, the 

 good and the bad ; but the greatest part of mankind float be- 

 twixt vice and virtue. Were one to go round the world with the 

 intention of giving a good supper to the righteous and a sound 

 drubbing to the wicked, he would frequently be embarrassed in 

 his choice, and would find the merits and demerits of most men 

 and women scarcely amount to the value of either." 1 



One can but admire the broad humanity and 

 the insight into the springs of action manifest in 

 this passage. Comprendre est d moitti pardonner. 

 The more one knows of the real conditions which 

 determine men' s acts the less one finds either to 

 praise or blame. For kindly David Hume, " the 

 damnation of one man is an infinitely greater 

 evil in the universe than the subversion of a 

 thousand million of kingdoms." And he would 

 have felt with his countryman Burns, that even 

 " auld Nickie Ben " should " hae a chance." 



As against those who reason for the necessity of 

 a future state, in order that the justice of the 

 Deity may be satisfied, Hume's argumentation 

 appears unanswerable. For if the justice of God 



1 "So reason also shows, that for man to expect to earn for 

 himself by the practice of virtue, and claim, as his just right, 

 an immortality of exalted happiness, is a most extravagant and 

 groundless pretension." Whately, I.e. p. 101. On the other 

 hand, however, the Archbishop sees no unreasonableness in a 

 man's earning for himself an immortality of intense unhappi- 

 ness by the practice of vice. So that life is, naturally, a venture 

 in which you may lose all, but can earn nothing. It may be 

 thought somewhat hard upon mankind if they are pushed into 

 a speculation of this sort, willy-nilly. 



