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The distinguished scientific man, in the course of whose researches this curious literary incident was divulged, informs us that Burke was also a candidate for this chair,[351:1] and that the successful competitor was a Mr. Clow. Concerning this fortunate person literary history is silent; but he has acquired a curious title to fame, from the greatness of the man to whom he succeeded, and of those over whom he was triumphant.

It is not, perhaps, to be regretted, that Hume failed in both his attempts to obtain a professor's chair. [352]He was not of the stuff that satisfactory teachers of youth are made of. Although he was beyond all doubt an able man of business, in matters sufficiently important to command his earnest attention, yet it is pretty clear that he had acquired the outward manner of an absent, good-natured man, unconscious of much that was going on around him; and that he would have thus afforded a butt to the mischief and raillery of his pupils, from which all the lustre of his philosophical reputation would not have protected him.

Discoverers do not make, in ordinary circumstances, the best instructors of youth, because their minds are often too full of the fermentation of their own original ideas and partly developed systems, to possess the coolness and clearness necessary for conveying a distinct view of the laws and elements of an established system. But if this may be an incidental inconvenience in one whose discoveries are but extensions of admitted doctrines, the revolutionist who is endeavouring to pull to pieces what has been taught for ages within the same walls, and to erect a new system in its stead, can scarcely ever be a satisfactory instructor of any considerable number of young men. The teacher of the moral department of science especially must be, to a certain extent, a conformist; if he be not, what is taught in the class-room will be forgotten or contradicted in the closet. The teachers of youth are themselves not less irascible and sometimes not less prejudiced than other mortals. They have their hatreds and partisanships, often productive of acrimonious controversy; but when there is something like a unity of opinion in the systems of those who teach the same, or like subjects, these superficial discussions produce no evil fruit. Hume would have been at [353]peace with all who would have let his unobtrusive spirit alone; but he would probably have quietly proceeded to inculcate doctrines to which most of his fellow-labourers were strongly averse; and that, perhaps, without knowing or feeling that he was in any way departing from the simple routine of duties which the public expected of him. And thus he would probably have created in the midst of the rising youth of the day, an isolated circle of disciples, taught to despise the acquirements and opinions of their contemporaries, as these contemporaries held theirs in abhorrence.[353:1]

[354]This was an important epoch in Hume's literary history; in 1751, he produced the work which he himself considered the most meritorious of all his efforts; in 1752, he published that which obtained the largest amount of contemporary popularity, the "Political Discourses."[354:1] After a series of literary disappointments, borne with the spirit of one who felt within him the real powers of an original thinker and an agreeable writer, and the assurance that the world would some day acknowledge the sterling greatness of his qualifications, he now at last presented them in a form, in which they received the ready homage of the public. These Discourses are in truth the cradle of political economy; and, much as that science has been investigated and expounded in later times, these earliest, shortest, and simplest developments of its principles are still read with delight even by those who are masters of all the literature of this great subject.[354:2] But they [355]possess a quality which more elaborate economists have striven after in vain, in being a pleasing object of study not only to the initiated but to the ordinary popular reader, and of being admitted as just and true by many who cannot or who will not understand the views of later writers on political economy.[355:1] They have thus the rarely conjoined merit, that, as they were the first to direct the way to the true sources of this department of knowledge, those who have gone farther, instead of superseding them, have in the general case confirmed their accuracy.

Political economy is a science of which the advanced extremities are the subject of debate and doubt, while the older doctrines are admitted by all as firm and established truths. It may be slippery ground, but it is not a tread-mill, and no step taken has ever to be entirely retraced. It is owing to this characteristic of the science that those who oppose the doctrines of modern economists do not think of denying those of David Hume; and thus, while in these essays the economist finds some of the most important doctrines of his peculiar subject set forth with a clearness and elegance with which he dare not attempt to compete, the ordinary reader, who has a distaste of new doctrines and innovating theories, awards them the respect due to old established opinion.

That they should have been, with all their innovation on received opinions, and their startling novelty, [356]so popular in their own age, is also a matter which has its peculiar explanation. The dread of innovation, simply as change, and without reference to the interests it may affect, sprung up in later times, a child of the French revolution. Before that event some men were republican or constitutional in their views, and declared war against all changes which tended to throw power into the hands of the monarch. Others were monarchical, and opposed to the extension of popular rights. But if an alteration were suggested which did not affect these fundamental principles and opinions, it was welcomed with liberal courtesy, examined, and adopted or rejected on its own merits. Hence both Hume and Smith, writing in bold denunciation of all the old cherished prejudices in matters of commerce, instead of being met with a storm of reproach, as any one who should publish so many original views in the present day would be, at once received a fair hearing and a just appreciation.[356:1]

[357]Thus there was a period during which innovations, however bold or extensive, received a favourable hearing, and in which the literature both of England and of France was daily giving publicity to new theories embodying sweeping alterations of social systems. In this work the two countries presented their national characteristics. The English writers kept always in view the question how far there would be a vital principle remaining in society after the diseased part was removed; how far there was reason to suppose that the small quantity of good done to the public by any irrational system, which at the same time did much evil, might be accomplished after its abolition. The French were indiscriminate in their war against old received opinions, and offered nothing to fill their place when they were gone; and hence in some measure followed results which have made change and innovation words of dread throughout a great part of society.