HUME. 



345 



Hum?. 



and u near to perfection as the lot of humanity will 

 admit. Such i* the character assigned him by his 



! l)r Mnith. Another writer aays, we may find 

 fault with the measure of his faith, but we cannot deny 

 him the credit of good works. To this Bishop Home 

 replies, that the promotion of religion is the best of 

 work*; and a conduct the reverse of this the worst and 

 mo*t infamous. As for religious principles, and every 

 quality that ii strictly implied in them, Mr Hume's 

 character must be given up: and if such terms as vir- 

 tue, morality, and goodness, are to be so restricted, he 

 cannot be allowed the credit of them. But if we take 

 such words iu the sense in which they have been used 

 I>v the world at large, and by men who scarcely enter- 

 tain any religious knowledge or sentiment, we must ac- 

 knowledge Mr Hume to have been honourably di.-tin- 

 guishetl from the great mass of mankind, whether infi- 

 del or religious. Some have remarked, that, by his own 

 confession, his ruling passion was the love of fame, and 

 that this is at best a selfish principle. The validity of 

 thi> reflection involves a question concerning the com- 

 parative propriety of preferring the ends of self-love or 

 the good of other* in adjusting the motives of human 

 conduct. We seldom object to a man'* character because 

 he lias a ruling passion, although it should not be the 

 moat dignified in it* nature. \\ itli regard to self' -h 

 even a man who enters on holy order* is allowed to be 

 po**c**ed of real worth, though his chief motive is the 

 procuring of a tiring, provided he is attentive to hi* 

 professional duties : and sucnc of our grave* and best 

 represent the cultivation of a fund of internal 

 a* the first duty of a man, and a far more 

 source of benignant conduct than could be 

 formed ! \ cultivating social feeling* at the first and 

 leading object of attention, and making personal hap- 

 piness a subordinate considers -!i the amplest 

 allowance for difference* of opinion, and taking bt 

 lence in the mort accommodating acceptation which li- 

 centiousness itself could desire, poMewing also the fullest 

 conviction of Mr Hume'* personal sincerity, we cannot 

 consider the general strain of hi* philosophical writing* 

 a* indications of a pure benignity, even though we 

 should proceed on the hypothesis of the truth of hi* 

 speculative views. They had an evident tendency to 

 make many persons unhappy : liard struggle* are re- 

 quired from an admiring reader to surmount this ten- 

 dency, truggle for which the author furnishes but 

 feeble assistance Though hr entertained no bel 

 the moat consoling doctrines which had been cherished 

 among mankind, benignity would not have led him to 



with overturning them, but rathrr with showing 



might be enjoyed independently of them, 

 thus he might have been considered as contribu- 

 ting to the creation of habits of feeling which were 

 more to be relied on - permanence, and a* la- 



bouring to prepare the mind more completely for the 

 comfortable exercise of a curiosity free from con t run I. 

 Yet by penons whose reading on these subjects i* ex- 

 tensive, the works of Mr Hume may be read with ad- 

 vantage. The German philosophers, whose conclu- 

 sion* are the most liberal i..l . ! lumc 

 as an author who m itrd to guide ml. I- 



tood in need of 

 truth , .-.ii'l tin y 



peak witli great contemi which the 



red to subvert his doctrine*. 

 Sservations a* these emanating from the 

 achoo .ough chargeable with obscu- 



'!< titute of acutcneaa. 



Tvl. It. I All! I. 



lectoid reM-arch, thougf 

 some ulterior steps to t 

 eak with irres.' 



The censure which we hare expressed is most of all Huate. 

 applicable to two tracts published after his death, one '* "Y" 

 On the Immortality of the Soul, and the other On Sui- 

 cide. The former is little more than a compression of 

 doctrines which he had advanced, or to which he had 

 at least pointed in his other works, but expressed in 

 more dogmatic language. His tract On Suicide con- 

 tain* an argument which he hail not formerly touched 

 upon ; and it must be admitted to have a most per- 

 nicious tendency. We read without unpleasant emo- 

 tions the sentiments which the Romans entertained on 

 this subject, becau.se they cultivated a species of manli- 

 ness, mistaken indeed, but plausible, and apparently 

 consistent. Mr Hume, on the contrary, encourages 

 that temper which leads to suicide, not by cultivating 

 a heroic contempt of death, but by laying the mind 

 open to the most wretched discontent. He maintains 

 that those whose happiness is marred by the gloom of 

 superstition have the most urgent motives tn rid them- 

 selves of life, yet are cruelly prevented by the dread 

 which their belief of future punishment inspires. This 

 remark, inculcated with all the zeal of appai 

 rity, tends to generate the utmost degree of moral con- 

 fusion ; and the motive which could have prompted any 

 writer to commit such a sentiment to paper cannot 

 be assigned, except by referring it to the perverseness 

 which is so incident to the human mind. If the super- 

 stitious arc deceived in the dread which they < :.:ert*an 

 of suicide, they mint also be deceived in entertain 

 belief in those gloomy opinions whicii r. -n-ler theii 

 miserable; and a philosopher wit! pate 



them from their errors, can have no rea- 

 mending suicide, since he relieve* them from the evils 

 which generated a wearine** of life. The only tci 

 ey that such a sentiment can have, i<. by supcradding 

 a new doubt to their former perplex it ie- pro- 



duce a (till more wt\ 



suicide committed in a tumult f horror, and degraded 

 by cowardice. Whoever the pcwon was that puM. 

 this posthumous piece, he could not have any motive 

 that could bear examin.it ion. 



It is as a historian that Mr 1 1 nine i* moat generally po- 

 pular. The beauty of his diction, and the interest winch. 

 his elegant turn of thought imparts to the course of 

 event* deacrilx-d, render it on the whole the most plea- 

 sing book of English history in our language. Many 

 who are sensible of the faults formerly mentioned, do 

 not substitute any other for it in tin ir recommendations 

 to general reader*. It might perhap* K ! let* 



exceptionable in it* tendency, and more valuable for 

 common use, if accompanied with corrn-tn-r notes, 

 and reference* in the most Guilty places to other au- 

 thor*. It would require much delicacy, however, to 

 do this without spoiling the effect, by harsh inter- 

 ruption of the current of the narrative, and an inter- 

 ference with the general spirit of the hi-tori.m I 

 historical fragment published uniform with some 

 pular edition of it, would greatly contribute to render 

 it worthy of general perusal, by correcting the (!>- 

 produced by the peculiar colouring of the author. 



See Hume't Lit' , -intien by kimielj, prefixed to hi* 

 History; Smellie's /./ v , lim!,:, nu : 



and a variety of anecdotes scattered in different biogra- 

 phical tracts, as Professor Stewart's Live* r./' I)r l{l>trt- 

 tmt and Dr S-iiilh, Lord Woodhouslee's I.i/e i,f l^ord 

 Unmet, and the Memoirs of Mr Gibbon in hi* L'otthii- 



'..rtr. (ILD.) 



HlMinm. SM 



2x 



