Page 81 of 109
[337:1] Mrs. Dysart of Eccles, "a much valued relation of Hume," according to Mackenzie's Account of the Life of Home, p. 104.
[338:1] Alexander Home, Solicitor-general for Scotland.—Mackenzie.
[339:1] Sic.
[340:1] In allusion to that mayor who, on his first introduction to field sports, hearing a cry that the hare was coming, exclaimed, in a fit of magnanimous courage, "Let him come, in God's name; I fear him not!"
[340:2] Mackenzie's Home, p. 104. The original is in the MSS. R.S.E.
[341:1] Essays Moral and Political, published in 1741.
[343:1] From a copy transmitted by Ramsay's nephew to Baron Hume, in the MSS. R.S.E. The blank denoted above is in the copy.
[344:1] London: 8vo, printed for A. Millar. It is in the book list of the Gentleman's Magazine, for December.
[344:2] "A Delineation of the Nature and Obligation of Morality, with Reflections upon Mr. Hume's book, entitled an 'Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals.'"
On the publication of this book, Hume wrote the following letter, addressed "To the Author of the Delineation of the Nature and Obligations of Morality," and left it with the bookseller.
"Sir,—When I write you, I know not to whom I am addressing myself: I only know he is one who has done me a great deal of honour, and to whose civilities I am obliged. If we be strangers, I beg we may be acquainted, as soon as you think proper to discover yourself: if we be acquainted already, I beg we may be friends: if friends, I beg we may be more so. Our connexion with each other as men of letters, is greater than our difference as adhering to different sects or systems. Let us revive the happy times, when Atticus and Cassius the epicureans, Cicero the academic, and Brutus the stoic, could all of them live in unreserved friendship together, and were insensible to all those distinctions, except so far as they furnished agreeable matter to discourse and conversation. Perhaps you are a young man, and being full of those sublime ideas, which you have so well expressed, think there can be no virtue upon a more confined system. I am not an old one; but, being of a cool temperament, have always found, that more simple views were sufficient to make me act in a reasonable manner; , ; in this faith have I lived, and hope to die.
"Your civilities to me so much overbalance your severities, that I should be ungrateful to take notice of some expressions which, in the heat of composition, have dropped from your pen. I must only complain of you a little for ascribing to me the sentiments, which I have put into the mouth of the Sceptic in the "Dialogue." I have surely endeavoured to refute the sceptic, with all the force of which I am master; and my refutation must be allowed sincere, because drawn from the capital principles of my system. But you impute to me both the sentiments of the sceptic, and the sentiments of his antagonist, which I can never admit of. In every dialogue no more than one person can be supposed to represent the author.
"Your severity on one head, that of chastity, is so great, and I am so little conscious of having given any just occasion to it, that it has afforded me a hint to form a conjecture, perhaps ill-grounded, concerning your person.
"I hope to steal a little leisure from my other occupations, in order to defend my philosophy against your attacks. If I have occasion to give a new edition of the work, which you have honoured with an answer, I shall make great advantage of your remarks, and hope to obviate some of your criticisms.
"Your style is elegant, and full of agreeable imagery. In some few places it does not fully come up to my ideas of purity and correctness. I suppose mine falls still further short of your ideas. In this respect, we may certainly be of use to each other. With regard to our philosophical systems, I suppose we are both so fixed, that there is no hope of any conversions betwixt us; and for my part, I doubt not but we shall both do as well to remain as we are.
"Edinburgh, March 15, 1753."
[345:1] It is stated in Ritchie's "Account of the Life and Writings of Hume," from which the above letter is taken, and in some works of reference, which appear to have depended on the authority of that book, that Hume was a competitor with Balfour for the chair. This statement has probably arisen out of some misapprehension as to his previous competition for the chair.
[347:1] See the dawning of this view in his correspondence with Hutcheson, supra, p. 112. An essay, entitled "Of some Verbal Disputes," published in the later editions of the work now under consideration, contains some curious elucidations of it.
[351:1] Thomson—Life of Cullen, 72-73—where the above letter is first printed. Dr. Thomson tells me, that the evidence of Burke having been a candidate is merely traditional, but that it was enough to satisfy his own mind. In the "Outlines of Philosophical Education," by Professor Jardine, who afterwards filled the same chair, there is this passage, (p. 21:) "Burke, whose genius led him afterwards to shine in a more exalted sphere, was thought of by some of the electors as a proper person to fill it. He did not, however, actually come forward as a candidate."
[353:1] Dr. Thomson says, "It might afford curious matter of speculation to conjecture what effect the appointment of Mr. Hume, or of Mr. Burke, to the chair of logic in Glasgow, would have had upon the character of that university, or upon the metaphysical, moral, and political inquiries of the age in which they lived; and what consequences were likely to have resulted from the influence which the peculiar genius and talents of either of these great men, had they been exerted in that sphere, must necessarily have had in forming the minds of such of their pupils as were to be afterwards employed in the pursuits of science, or the conduct and regulation of human affairs. It seems difficult to conceive how, as instructors of youth, they could either of them, without a considerable modification of their opinions, have taught philosophy upon the sceptical or the Berkeleian systems which they had respectively adopted; while the strict purity of their moral characters, and the great reverence which they both entertained for established institutions, give the fullest assurance, that, had either of them been appointed to the chair of logic, their academical duties would have been executed with an unceasing regard to the improvement of their pupils, and to the reputation of the society into which they had been admitted." Life of Cullen, p. 73.
Smith, in a letter to Dr. Cullen, says, "I should prefer David Hume to any man for a colleague; but I am afraid the public would not be of my opinion; and the interest of the society will oblige us to have some regard to the opinion of the public. If the event, however, we are afraid of should happen, we can see how the public receives it. From the particular knowledge I have of Mr. Elliot's sentiments, I am pretty certain Mr. Lindsay must have proposed it to him, not he to Mr. Lindsay." Ib. p. 606.
