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The opinion generally acceded to at the present day, that ministerial and judicial functions should be intrusted to responsible individuals, and not to bodies of men who may individually escape from a joint responsibility, is anticipated in the following passage:—"Honour is a great check upon mankind; but where a considerable body of men act together, this check is in a great measure removed, since a man is sure to be approved of by his own party for what promotes the common interest, and he soon learns to despise the clamour of adversaries."[139:1] The Grenville Act, and the subsequent measures for reducing the number of the judges on controverted elections, are a practical commentary on the truth of this remark.
It has often been observed, that foreigners have been the first to remark the leading peculiarities of the British constitution, and of the administration of justice in this country, in a manner rational and unimpassioned, yet so as to give them greater prominence, and a more full descriptive development than they obtain from our own impassioned party writers—an observation attested by the character which the works of Montesquieu and De Lolme held in the preceding century, and those of Thierry, Cottu, Meyer, and Raumer, have obtained in the present. [140]The reason of this superiority is to be sought in the circumstance that the acuteness of these foreign observers was not obscured, or their feelings excited, by any connexion with the workings of the systems they have described; and the isolation from active life in which Hume was placed, appears to have in some measure given him like qualifications for the examination of our political institutions. He expresses a general partiality for the monarchical government of Britain, but it is a partiality of a calm utilitarian character, which would not be inconsistent with an equally great esteem for a well-ordered republic. On his philosophical appreciation of its merits, the monarchy has no stronger claims than these—that to have an individual at the head of the government who is merely the name through which other persons act, and who is not amenable to any laws, while the real actors are personally responsible for what they do in his name, is an expedient arrangement. That it is very convenient to have some fixed criterion such as the hereditary principle, which shall obviate the trouble and danger of a competition for this elevated station. But that these are all recommendations on the ground of expediency, which may be outweighed by others, and the misconduct of a weak or tyrannical prince will justify an alteration in that arrangement, which convenience only, and the avoidance of occasions for turbulence and anarchy, have sanctioned.
It may be observed, that in the edition of these essays which he directed to be published after his death, many of those passages which bear a democratic tendency are suppressed. Such was the fate of the passage in "The Liberty of the Press" quoted above, and of the remarks put within brackets in the quotation which follows, from the essay on "The Parties of Great Britain."
[141]Some who will not venture to assert, that the real difference between Whig and Tory, was lost at the Revolution, seem inclined to think that the difference is now abolished, and that affairs are so far returned to their natural state, that there are at present no other parties amongst us but court and country; that is, men who, by interest or principle, are attached either to monarchy or to liberty. It must indeed be confessed, that the Tory party has of late decayed much in their numbers, still more in their zeal, and I may venture to say, still more in their credit and authority. [There is no man of knowledge or learning, who would not be ashamed to be thought of that party; and in almost all companies, the name of Old Whig is mentioned as an incontestible appellation of honour and dignity. Accordingly, the enemies of the ministry, as a reproach, call the courtiers the true Tories; and, as an honour, denominate the gentlemen in the Opposition the true Whigs.] The Tories have been so long obliged to talk in the republican style, that they seem to have made converts of themselves by their hypocrisy, and to have embraced the sentiments as well as language of their adversaries. There are, however, very considerable remains of that party in England, with all their old prejudices; and a proof that court and country are not our only parties, is, that almost all our dissenters side with the court, and the lower clergy, at least of the Church of England, with the opposition. This may convince us that some bias still hangs upon our constitution, some extrinsic weight which turns it from its natural course, and causes a confusion in our parties.[141:1]
Perhaps the most ambitious of the essays, and those on which the author bestowed most of his skill and attention, are "The Epicurean," "The Stoic," "The Sceptic," and "The Platonist." These are productions of the imagination, suggested apparently by the style and method of The Spectator. There is no attempt either to support or to attack the systems [142]represented by the names of the essays, nor is there a description or definition of them; but on each occasion a member of one of these celebrated schools speaks in his own person, and describes the nature of the satisfaction that he finds in his own code of philosophy, as a solution of the great difficulty of the right rule of thought and action. "The Epicurean" takes a flight of imagination beyond that of Hume's other works. It departs from the cold atmosphere of philosophy, and desires to fascinate as well as enlighten. But though it possesses all the marks of a fine intellect, the reader is apt to feel how far more sweetly and gracefully the subject would have been handled by Addison, to whose department of literature it seems rightly to belong. The follower of Epicurus is not represented, as indulging in that gross licentiousness, as wallowing in that disgusting "stye" which the representations of Diogenes Laertius, and others, have impressed on the vulgar associations with the name of that master. On the other hand, the picture is far from embodying what many maintain to be the fundamental precept of Epicurus, that happiness being the great end sought by man, the proper method of reaching it is by the just regulation of the passions and propensities; a precept embodied in the
"Sperne voluptates. Nocet empta dolere voluptas."
Hume, who was not correcting errors, or instructing his readers in the true meaning of terms, or appreciation of characters, draws in "The Epicurean" a picture of one who is not gross or grovelling in his pleasures, and who restrains himself lest he should outrun enjoyment; but whose ruling principle is still that of the voluptuary.
The reader expects to find an attempt to draw his own picture in "The Sceptic;" but it is not to be found there. [143]The sceptic of the essays is not a man analyzing the principles of knowledge, to find wherein they consist, but one who is dissatisfied with rules of morality, and who, examining the current codes one after another, tosses them aside as unsatisfactory. It is into "The Stoic" that the writer has thrown most of his heart and sympathy; and it is in that sketch that, though probably without intention, some of the features of his own character are portrayed. There are passages which have considerable unison of tone with those autobiographical documents already quoted, in which he describes himself as having laboured to subdue the rebellious passions, to reduce the mind to a regulated system, to drive from it the influence of petty impressions,—to hold one great object of life in view, and to sacrifice before that object whatever stood in the way of his firmly settled purpose.
