The practical morality sanctioned by the system, and actually recommended by Hume, excludes all the higher virtues and loftier graces.The adoration of a Supreme Being, and love to him, are represented as superstition.He has no God to sanction the moral law, and no judgment day at which men have to give in an account.Repentance has and can have no place in a system which has no fixed law and no conscience.Humility, of which he treats at great length, is disparaged.The stern virtues of justice, of self-sacrifice, of zeal in a good cause, of faithfulness in denouncing evil, and of courage in stemming the tide of error and corruption, these are often so immediately disagreeable, that their ultimate utility will never be perceived except by those who are swayed by a higher principle.It is certain that they were not valued by Hume, who speaks of them as superstition and bigotry, and characterizes those who practise them as zealots and fanatics.His view of the marriage relation was of a loose and flexible character, and did not profess to discountenance the evil practices of his time."A man in conjoining himself to a woman is bound to her ac cording to the terms of his engagement: in begetting children, he is bound by all the ties of nature and humanity to provide for their sustenance and education.When he has performed {153}
these two parts of duty, no one can reproach him with injustice or injury." Not acknowledging a God bestowing the gift of life, and requiring us to give an account of the use we make of it, and setting no value on courage in difficulties, he argues that a man may take away his life when it is no longer useful.
The state of society which he aimed at producing is thus described: " But what philosophical truths can be more advantageous.to society than those here delivered, which represent virtue in all her genuine and most engaging charms, and make us approach her with ease, familiarity, and affection? The dismal dress falls off with which many divines, and some philosophers, have covered her, and nothing appears but gentleness, humanity, beneficence, affability; nay, even at proper intervals play, frolic, and gayety.She talks not of useless austerities and rigors, suffering and self-denial." People have often speculated as to what Hume would have taught had he been elected professor of moral philosophy in Edinburgh.I believe he would have expounded a utilitarian theory, ending in the recommendation of the pleasant social virtues; speaking always respectfully of the Divine Being, but leaving his existence an unsettled question.
And what, it may be asked, is the conclusion to which he wishes to bring us by his whole philosophy? I am not sure that he has confessed this to himself.Sometimes it looks as if his sublime aim was to expose the unsatisfactory condition of philosophy, in order to impel thinkers to conduct their researches in a new and more satisfactory manner." If, in order to answer the doubts started, new principles of philosophy must be laid, are not these doubts themselves very useful? Are they not preferable to blind and ignorant assent? I hope I can answer my own doubts; but, if I could not, is it to be wondered at? " I verily believe that this was one of the alternatives he loved to place before him to justify his scepticism." I am apt," he says, in writing to Hutcheson, " to suspect in general that most of my reasonings will be more useful in furnishing hints, and exciting people's curiosity, than as containing any principles that will augment the stock of knowledge that must pass to future ages." But I suspect that the settled conviction reached by him was that no certainty could be attained in speculative philosophy; he was sure {154} that it had not been attained in time past.The tone of the introduction to his great work is: " There is nothing which is not the subject of debate, and in which men of learning are not of contrary opinions.If truth be at all within the reach of human capacity, it is certain it must be very deep and abstruse; and to hope we shall arrive at it without pains, while the greatest geniuses have failed with the utmost pains, must certainly be esteemed sufficiently vain and presumptuous." As being thus deep, he feels as if the great body of mankind need not trouble themselves much about it.He seems at times complacently to contemplate this as the issue to which he would drive mankind for he sees at once that if men become convinced that they cannot reach certainty in such speculations, they will give up inquiry."For nothing is more certain than that despair has almost the same effect upon us as enjoyment, and that we are no sooner acquainted with the impossibility of satisfying any desire than the desire itself vanishes and he thinks it a satisfactory condition of things when men discover the impossibility of making any farther progress, and make a free confession of their ignorance.Considered in this light, Hume's philosophy, in its results, may be considered as an anticipation of the positive school of M.Comte, which in the British section of it approaches much nearer the position of Hume than most people are aware of.
He allows that man should, as indeed he must, follow his natural impulses, and the lessons of experience, as far as this world is concerned.But he will grant nothing more.
He thus closes his inquiry into the understanding: "When we trace up the human understanding to its first principles, we find it to lead us into such sentiments as seem to turn into ridicule all our past pains and industry, and to discourage us from future inquiries." "The understanding, when it acts alone, and according to its general principles, entirely subverts itself, and leaves not the lowest degree of confidence in any proposition, either in philosophy or common life." In common life this scepticism meets with insuperable barriers, which we should not try to overcome.
