The Project Gutenberg eBook of Life and Correspondence of David Hume, Volume I, by John Hill Burton.

"'Tis observable of the human mind, that when it is smit with any idea of merit or perfection beyond what its faculties can attain, and in the pursuit of which it uses not reason and experience for its guide, it knows no mean, but as it gives the rein, and even adds the spur, to every florid conceit or fancy, runs in a moment quite wide of nature. Thus we find, when, without discretion, it indulges its devote terrors, that working in such fairy-ground, it quickly buries itself in its own whimsies and chimeras, and raises up to itself a new set of passions, affections, desires, objects, and, in short, a perfectly new world of its own, inhabited by different beings, and regulated by different laws from this of ours. In this new world 'tis so possessed that it can endure no interruption from the old; but as nature is apt still on every occasion to recall it thither, it must undermine it by art, and retiring altogether from the commerce of mankind, if it be so bent upon its religious exercise, from the mystic, by an easy transition, degenerate into the hermite. The same thing is observable in philosophy, which though it cannot produce a different world in which we may wander, makes us act in this as if we were different beings from the rest of mankind; at least makes us frame to ourselves, though we cannot execute them, rules of conduct different from those which are set to us by nature. No engine can supply the place of wings, and make us fly, though the imagination of such a one may make us stretch and strain and elevate ourselves upon our tiptoes. And in this case of an imagined merit, the farther our chimeras hurry us from nature, and the practice of the world, the better pleased we are, as valuing ourselves upon the singularity of our notions, and thinking we depart from the rest of mankind only by flying above them. Where there is none we excel, we are apt to think we have no excellency; and self-conceit makes us take every singularity for an excellency.

"When, therefore, these barbarians came first to the relish of some degree of virtue and politeness beyond what they had ever before been acquainted with, their minds would necessarily stretch themselves into some vast conceptions of things, which, not being corrected by sufficient judgment and experience, must be empty and unsolid. Those who had first bred these conceptions in them could not assist them in their birth, as the Grecians did the Romans; but being themselves scarce half civilized, would be rather apt to entertain any extravagant misshapen conceit of their conquerors, than able to lick it into any form. 'Twas thus that that monster of romantic chivalry, or knight-errantry, by the necessary operation of the principles of human nature, was brought into the world; and it is remarkable that it descended from the Moors and Arabians, who, learning somewhat of the Roman civility from the province they conquered, and being themselves a southern people, which are commonly observed to be more quick and inventive than the northern, were the first who fell upon this vein of achievement. When it was once broken upon it ran like wild-fire over all the nations of Europe, who, being in the same situation with these nations, kindled with the least spark.

"What kind of monstrous birth this of chivalry must prove, we may learn from considering the different revolutions in the arts, particularly in architecture, and comparing the Gothic with the Grecian models of it. The one are plain, simple, and regular, but withal majestic and beautiful, which when these barbarians unskilfully imitated, they ran into a wild profusion of ornaments, and by their rude embellishments departed far from nature and a just simplicity. They were struck with the beauties of the ancient buildings; but, ignorant how to preserve a just mean, and giving an unbounded liberty to their fancy in heaping ornament upon ornament, they made the whole a heap of confusion and irregularity. For the same reason, when they would rear up a new scheme of manners, or heroism, it must be strangely overcharged with ornaments, and no part exempt from their unskilful refinements; and this we find to have been actually the case, as may be proven by running over the several parts of it."

He then inquires into the reason, why courage is the principal virtue of barbarous nations, and why they esteem deeds of heroism, however useless or mischievous, as far more meritorious than useful efforts of government or internal organization. He contrasts the heroism of the barbarous periods of the ancient world, with those of the dark ages of modern Europe; and finding the former selfish and aggrandizing, while the latter is characterized by the more generous features of chivalry, he thus accounts for this characteristic.

"The method by which these courteous knights acquired this extreme civility of theirs, was by mixing love with their courage. Love is a very generous passion, and well fitted both to that humanity and courage they would reconcile. The only one that can contest with it is friendship, which, besides that it is too refined a passion for common use, is not by many degrees so natural as love, to which almost every one has a great propensity, and which it is impossible to see a beautiful woman, without feeling some touches of. Besides, as love is a capricious passion, it is the more susceptible of these fantastic forms, which it must take when it mixes with chivalry. Friendship is a solid and serious thing, and, like the love of their country in the Roman heroes, would dispel and put to flight all the chimeras, inseparable from this spirit of adventure. So that a mistress is as necessary to a cavalier or knight-errant, as a god or saint to a devotee. Nor would he stop here, or be contented with a submiss reverence and adoration to one of the sex, but would extend in some degree the same civility to the whole, and by a curious reversement of the order of nature, make them the superior. This is no more than what is suitable to that infinite generosity of which he makes profession. Every thing below him he treats with submission, and every thing above him, with contumacy. Thus he carries these double symptoms of generosity which Virgil makes mention of into extravagance.

Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos.

Hence arises the knight-errant's strong and irreconcileable aversion to all giants, with his most humble and respectful submission to all damsels. These two affections of his, he unites in all his adventures, which are always designed to relieve distressed damsels from the captivity and violence of giants.

"As a cavalier is composed of the greatest warmth of love, tempered with the most humble submission and respect, his mistress's behaviour is in every point the reverse of this; and what is conspicuous in her temper is the utmost coldness along with the greatest haughtiness and disdain; until at last, gratitude for the many deliverances she has met with, and the giants and monsters without number that he has destroyed for her sake, reduces her, though unwilling, to the necessity of commencing a bride. Here the chastity of women, which, from the necessity of human affairs, has been in all ages and countries an extravagant point of honour with them, is run into still greater extravagance, that none of the sexes may be exempt from this fantastic ornament.

"Such were the notions of bravery in that age, and such the fictions by which they formed models of it. The effects these had on their ordinary life and conversation was, first, an extravagant gallantry and adoration of the whole female sex, and romantic notions of extraordinary constancy, fidelity, and refined passion for one mistress. Secondly, the introduction of the practice of single combat. How naturally this sprung up from chivalry may easily be understood. A knight-errant fights, not like another man full of passion and resentment, but with the utmost civility mixed with his undaunted courage. He salutes you before he cuts your throat; and a plain man, who understood nothing of the mystery, would take him for a treacherous ruffian, and think that, like Judas, he was betraying with a kiss, while he is showing his generous calmness and amicable courage. In consequence of this, every thing is performed with the greatest ceremony and order; and whenever either chance or his superior bravery make either of them victorious, he generously gives his antagonist his life, and again embraces him as his friend. When these fantastic practices have come in use, the amazed world, who, merely because there is nothing real in all this, must certainly imagine there is a great deal, could not but look upon such a courteous enmity as the most heroic and sublime thing in nature; and instead of punishing any murder that might ensue, as the law directs in such cases, would praise and applaud the murderer."[25:1]

Perhaps the reader of these passages will have come to the conclusion that the powers of reason displayed in them are as bold and original as the imagination is meagre and servile. The reflections on Gothic architecture are the commonplace opinions of the day, uttered by one who was singularly destitute of sympathy with the human intellect, in its early efforts to resolve itself into symmetry and elegance; whose mind shrunk from the contemplation of any work of man that did not bear the stamp of high intellectual culture. The same want of sympathy with man in his rude and grand, though inharmonious efforts, here attends both the chivalric manners and the solemn architecture of the dark ages. Of the former, he has made a cold, clear, unsympathizing, perhaps accurate estimate. The latter, unless a large proportion of the architectural enthusiasts of the present day have raised the taste of the age upon false foundations, he utterly misappreciated.

It must have been about his seventeenth year that Hume commenced, and abruptly relinquished the practical study of the law,—a curious episode in his history, which he thus describes in his "own life:" "My studious disposition, my sobriety, and my industry, gave my family a notion that the law was a proper profession for me; but I found an insurmountable aversion to every thing but the pursuits of philosophy and general learning; and while they fancied I was poring upon Voet and Vinnius, Cicero and Virgil were the authors which I was secretly devouring."

But this by no means gives the reader a full and faithful impression of his motives. The passage calls up the vision of a contemplative, gentle, unambitious youth, shrinking from the arid labours that lead to wealth and distinction, and content to dream away his life in obscurity with the companionship of his favourite books. The document already referred to, and immediately to be quoted, shows that far other thoughts were in his mind; that he did not shrink from the professional labours of the bar, to sink into studious ease, but rejected them to encounter higher and more arduous toils—that he did not drop passively from the path of ambition opened to him, but deserted it for a higher and more adventurous course. He had indeed already before him the prospect of being a discoverer in philosophy, and his mind, crowded with the images of his new system, could see nothing else in life worthy of pursuit.

Without this clue, Hume's aversion to the study of the law would have been a problem not to be easily solved. Had he lived in the present day, when the mass of statute and precedent that have accumulated even within the narrow domain of Scottish law, have completely precluded those luxurious digressions into the field of speculation and theory, which characterized the legal practice of our ancestors, one might readily comprehend the aversion of his fastidiously cultivated logical mind to such hard and coarse materials. But a lawyer's library, in his days, consisted of the classics, the philosophers of mind, and the civilians. The advocate often commenced his pleadings with a quotation from the young philosopher's favourite poet Virgil, and then digressed into a speculative inquiry into the general principles of law and government: the philosophical genius of Themis long soaring sublime, until at last, folding her wings, she rested on some vulgar question about dry multures or an irritancy of a tailzie, to the settlement of which the wide principles so announced were applied. Surely that science, within the boundaries of which the speculative spirit of Lord Kames had room for its flights, could not have been rejected on the ground that it cramped and restrained the faculty of generalizing.[28:1] Yet in a letter to Smith, of 12th April, 1759, which shows that Hume retained his antipathy to the study to an advanced period of his life, he says, "I am afraid of Kames' Law Tracts. A man might as well think of making a fine sauce by a mixture of wormwood and aloes, as an agreeable composition by joining metaphysics and Scottish law. However, the book I believe has merit, though few people will take the pains of inquiring into it."

In truth there appear to have been in Hume all the elements of which a good lawyer is made: clearness of judgment, power of rapidly acquiring knowledge, untiring industry, and dialectic skill; and, if his mind had not been preoccupied, he might have fallen into that gulf in which many of the world's greatest geniuses lie buried—professional eminence, and might have left behind him a reputation limited to the traditional recollections of the Parliament House, or associated with important decisions. He was through life an able, clear-headed man of business, and I have seen several legal documents written in his own hand and evidently drawn by himself. They stand the test of general professional observation; and their writer, by preparing documents of such a character on his own responsibility, showed that he had considerable confidence in his ability to adhere to the forms adequate for the occasion. He talks of it as "an ancient prejudice industriously propagated by the dunces in all countries, that a man of genius is unfit for business;"[29:1] and he showed, in his general conduct through life, that he did not choose to come voluntarily under this proscription.

His writings, however, bear but slight traces of his juridical studies. In analysing the foundations of our notions of property, he criticises some of the subtleties of the early civilians, but shows no more intimate acquaintance with their works than any well-informed scholar of the day might be supposed to exhibit. He shows no pleasure in dwelling on matters connected with this study, but rather appears disposed to release himself and his reader from a subject so little congenial to his taste. The particular law of Scotland is one of those subjects to which he would be careful to avoid a reference, as carrying with it that tone of provincial thought and education which he was always anxious to avoid. It may be perhaps an unfortunate result of this early prejudice against the study of jurisprudence, that in after life he failed to acquire that knowledge of the progress of the law of England, which would have made his history much less amenable than it has been to censorious criticism.

It is now time that the reader should be possessed of the document above alluded to, as throwing much light on Hume's early studies and habits of life; and it is here presented, without any introductory explanation, as it first appeared to me in going through the papers in the possession of the Royal Society.

A Letter to a Physician.

"Sir,—Not being acquainted with this handwriting, you will probably look to the bottom to find the subscription, and not finding any, will certainly wonder at this strange method of addressing to you. I must here in the beginning beg you to excuse it, and, to persuade you to read what follows with some attention, must tell you, that this gives you an opportunity to do a very good-natured action, which I believe is the most powerful argument I can use. I need not tell you, that I am your countryman, a Scotsman; for without any such tie, I dare rely upon your humanity even to a perfect stranger, such as I am. The favour I beg of you is your advice, and the reason why I address myself in particular to you, need not be told,—as one must be a skilful physician, a man of letters, of wit, of good sense, and of great humanity, to give me a satisfying answer. I wish fame had pointed out to me more persons, in whom these qualities are united, in order to have kept me some time in suspense. This I say in the sincerity of my heart, and without any intention of making a compliment; for though it may seem necessary, that, in the beginning of so unusual a letter, I should say some fine things, to bespeak your good opinion, and remove any prejudices you may conceive at it, yet such an endeavour to be witty, would ill suit with the present condition of my mind; which, I must confess, is not without anxiety concerning the judgment you will form of me. Trusting, however, to your candour and generosity, I shall, without further preface, proceed to open up to you the present condition of my health, and to do that the more effectually, shall give you a kind of history of my life, after which you will easily learn why I keep my name a secret.

"You must know then that, from my earliest infancy, I found always a strong inclination to books and letters. As our college education in Scotland, extending little further than the languages, ends commonly when we are about fourteen or fifteen years of age, I was after that left to my own choice in my reading, and found it incline me almost equally to books of reasoning and philosophy, and to poetry and the polite authors. Every one who is acquainted either with the philosophers or critics, knows that there is nothing yet established in either of these two sciences, and that they contain little more than endless disputes, even in the most fundamental articles. Upon examination of these, I found a certain boldness of temper growing in me, which was not inclined to submit to any authority in these subjects, but led me to seek out some new medium, by which truth might be established. After much study and reflection on this, at last, when I was about eighteen years of age, there seemed to be opened up to me a new scene of thought, which transported me beyond measure, and made me, with an ardour natural to young men, throw up every other pleasure or business to apply entirely to it. The law, which was the business I designed to follow, appeared nauseous to me, and I could think of no other way of pushing my fortune in the world, but that of a scholar and philosopher. I was infinitely happy in this course of life for some months; till at last, about the beginning of September, 1729, all my ardour seemed in a moment to be extinguished, and I could no longer raise my mind to that pitch, which formerly gave me such excessive pleasure. I felt no uneasiness or want of spirits, when I laid aside my book; and therefore never imagined there was any bodily distemper in the case, but that my coldness proceeded from a laziness of temper, which must be overcome by redoubling my application. In this condition I remained for nine months, very uneasy to myself, as you may well imagine, but without growing any worse, which was a miracle. There was another particular, which contributed, more than any thing, to waste my spirits and bring on me this distemper, which was, that having read many books of morality, such as Cicero, Seneca, and Plutarch, and being smit with their beautiful representations of virtue and philosophy, I undertook the improvement of my temper and will, along with my reason and understanding. I was continually fortifying myself with reflections against death, and poverty, and shame, and pain, and all the other calamities of life. These no doubt are exceeding useful, when joined with an active life, because the occasion being presented along with the reflection, works it into the soul, and makes it take a deep impression; but in solitude they serve to little other purpose, than to waste the spirits, the force of the mind meeting with no resistance, but wasting itself in the air, like our arm when it misses its aim. This, however, I did not learn but by experience, and till I had already ruined my health, though I was not sensible of it. Some scurvy spots broke out on my fingers the first winter I fell ill, about which I consulted a very knowing physician, who gave me some medicine that removed these symptoms, and at the same time gave me a warning against the vapours, which, though I was labouring under at that time, I fancied myself so far removed from, and indeed from any other disease, except a slight scurvy, that I despised his warning. At last, about April 1730, when I was nineteen years of age, a symptom, which I had noticed a little from the beginning, increased considerably; so that, though it was no uneasiness, the novelty of it made me ask advice; it was what they call a ptyalism or wateryness in the mouth. Upon my mentioning it to my physician, he laughed at me, and told me I was now a brother, for that I had fairly got the disease of the learned. Of this he found great difficulty to persuade me, finding in myself nothing of that lowness of spirit, which those who labour under that distemper so much complain of. However upon his advice I went under a course of bitters, and anti-hysteric pills, drank an English pint of claret wine every day, and rode eight or ten Scotch miles. This I continued for about seven months after.

"Though I was sorry to find myself engaged with so tedious a distemper, yet the knowledge of it set me very much at ease, by satisfying me that my former coldness proceeded not from any defect of temper or genius, but from a disease to which any one may be subject. I now began to take some indulgence to myself; studied moderately, and only when I found my spirits at their highest pitch, leaving off before I was weary, and trifling away the rest of my time in the best manner I could. In this way, I lived with satisfaction enough; and on my return to town next winter found my spirits very much recruited, so that, though they sank under me in the higher flights of genius, yet I was able to make considerable progress in my former designs. I was very regular in my diet and way of life from the beginning, and all that winter made it a constant rule to ride twice or thrice a-week, and walk every day. For these reasons, I expected, when I returned to the country, and could renew my exercise with less interruption, that I would perfectly recover. But in this I was much mistaken; for next summer, about May 1731, there grew upon me a very ravenous appetite, and as quick a digestion, which I at first took for a good symptom, and was very much surprised to find it bring back a palpitation of heart, which I had felt very little of before. This appetite, however, had an effect very unusual, which was to nourish me extremely; so that in six weeks' time, I passed from the one extreme to the other; and being before tall, lean, and raw-boned, became on a sudden the most sturdy, robust, healthful-like fellow you have seen, with a ruddy complexion and a cheerful countenance. In excuse for my riding, and care of my health, I always said that I was afraid of consumption, which was readily believed from my looks, but now every body congratulated me upon my thorough recovery. This unnatural appetite wore off by degrees, but left me as a legacy the same palpitation of the heart in a small degree, and a good deal of wind in my stomach, which comes away easily, and without any bad goût, as is ordinary. However, these symptoms are little or no uneasiness to me. I eat well; I sleep well; have no lowness of spirits, at least never more than what one of the best health may feel from too full a meal, from sitting too near a fire, and even that degree I feel very seldom, and never almost in the morning or forenoon. Those who live in the same family with me, and see me at all times, cannot observe the least alteration in my humour, and rather think me a better companion than I was before, as choosing to pass more of my time with them. This gave me such hopes, that I scarce ever missed a day's riding, except in the winter time; and last summer undertook a very laborious task, which was to travel eight miles every morning, and as many in the forenoon, to and from a mineral well of some reputation. I renewed the bitter and anti-hysteric pills twice, along with anti-scorbutic juice, last spring, but without any considerable effect, except abating the symptoms for a little time.

"Thus I have given you a full account of the condition of my body; and without staying to ask pardon, as I ought to do, for so tedious a story, shall explain to you how my mind stood all this time, which on every occasion, especially in this distemper, have a very near connexion together. Having now time and leisure to cool my inflamed imagination, I began to consider seriously how I should proceed in my philosophical inquiries. I found that the moral philosophy transmitted to us by antiquity laboured under the same inconvenience that has been found in their natural philosophy, of being entirely hypothetical, and depending more upon invention than experience: every one consulted his fancy in erecting schemes of virtue and of happiness, without regarding human nature, upon which every moral conclusion must depend. This, therefore, I resolved to make my principal study, and the source from which I would derive every truth in criticism as well as morality. I believe it is a certain fact, that most of the philosophers who have gone before us, have been overthrown by the greatness of their genius, and that little more is required to make a man succeed in this study, than to throw off all prejudices either for his own opinions or for those of others. At least this is all I have to depend on for the truth of my reasonings, which I have multiplied to such a degree, that within these three years, I find I have scribbled many a quire of paper, in which there is nothing contained but my own inventions. This, with the reading most of the celebrated books in Latin, French, and English, and acquiring the Italian, you may think a sufficient business for one in perfect health, and so it would had it been done to any purpose; but my disease was a cruel encumbrance on me. I found that I was not able to follow out any train of thought, by one continued stretch of view, but by repeated interruptions, and by refreshing my eye from time to time upon other objects. Yet with this inconvenience I have collected the rude materials for many volumes; but in reducing these to words, when one must bring the idea he comprehended in gross, nearer to him, so as to contemplate its minutest parts, and keep it steadily in his eye, so as to copy these parts in order,—this I found impracticable for me, nor were my spirits equal to so severe an employment. Here lay my greatest calamity. I had no hopes of delivering my opinions with such elegance and neatness, as to draw to me the attention of the world, and I would rather live and die in obscurity than produce them maimed and imperfect.

"Such a miserable disappointment I scarce ever remember to have heard of. The small distance betwixt me and perfect health makes me the more uneasy in my present situation. It is a weakness rather than a lowness of spirits which troubles me, and there seems to be as great a difference betwixt my distemper and common vapours, as betwixt vapours and madness. I have noticed in the writings of the French mystics, and in those of our fanatics here, that when they give a history of the situation of their souls, they mention a coldness and desertion of the spirit, which frequently returns; and some of them, at the beginning, have been tormented with it many years. As this kind of devotion depends entirely on the force of passion, and consequently of the animal spirits, I have often thought that their case and mine were pretty parallel, and that their rapturous admirations might discompose the fabric of the nerves and brain, as much as profound reflections, and that warmth or enthusiasm which is inseparable from them.

"However this may be, I have not come out of the cloud so well as they commonly tell us they have done, or rather began to despair of ever recovering. To keep myself from being melancholy on so dismal a prospect, my only security was in peevish reflections on the vanity of the world and of all human glory; which, however just sentiments they may be esteemed, I have found can never be sincere, except in those who are possessed of them. Being sensible that all my philosophy would never make me contented in my present situation, I began to rouse up myself; and being encouraged by instances of recovery from worse degrees of this distemper, as well as by the assurances of my physicians, I began to think of something more effectual than I had hitherto tried. I found, that as there are two things very bad for this distemper, study and idleness, so there are two things very good, business and diversion; and that my whole time was spent betwixt the bad, with little or no share of the good. For this reason I resolved to seek out a more active life, and though I could not quit my pretensions in learning but with my last breath, to lay them aside for some time, in order the more effectually to resume them. Upon examination, I found my choice confined to two kinds of life, that of a travelling governor, and that of a merchant. The first, besides that it is in some respects an idle life, was, I found, unfit for me; and that because from a sedentary and retired way of living, from a bashful temper, and from a narrow fortune, I had been little accustomed to general companies, and had not confidence and knowledge enough of the world to push my fortune, or to be serviceable in that way. I therefore fixed my choice upon a merchant; and having got recommendation to a considerable trader in Bristol, I am just now hastening thither, with a resolution to forget myself, and every thing that is past, to engage myself, as far as is possible, in that course of life, and to toss about the world, from the one pole to the other, till I leave this distemper behind me.

"As I am come to London in my way to Bristol, I have resolved, if possible, to get your advice, though I should take this absurd method of procuring it. All the physicians I have consulted, though very able, could never enter into my distemper; because not being persons of great learning beyond their own profession, they were unacquainted with these motions of the mind. Your fame pointed you out as the properest person to resolve my doubts, and I was determined to have somebody's opinion, which I could rest upon in all the varieties of fears and hopes, incident to so lingering a distemper. I hope I have been particular enough in describing the symptoms to allow you to form a judgment; or rather, perhaps, have been too particular. But you know it is a symptom of this distemper, to delight in complaining and talking of itself. The questions I would humbly propose to you are: Whether, among all those scholars you have been acquainted with, you have ever known any affected in this manner? Whether I can ever hope for a recovery? Whether I must long wait for it? Whether my recovery will ever be perfect, and my spirits regain their former spring and vigour, so as to endure the fatigue of deep and abstruse thinking? Whether I have taken a right way to recover? I believe all proper medicines have been used, and therefore I need mention nothing of them."

The history of this eventful period in the mental biography of Hume, is very briefly narrated in his "own life." Alluding to his adoption of the life of a student, he says, "My very slender fortune, however, being unsuitable to this plan of life, and my health being a little broken by my ardent application, I was tempted, or rather forced, to make a very feeble trial for entering into a more active scene of life. In 1734, I went to Bristol, with some recommendations to eminent merchants, but in a few months found that scene totally unsuitable to me."

I am sure the reader will sympathize with me in esteeming it a high privilege to be the humble instrument of ushering into the world so curious a piece of literary autobiography as that which he has just perused. We are here admitted into the confessional. So secret is the communication of thought by the writer to the receiver, that the latter, who was made acquainted with so much of the internal meditations of the former, was not to be allowed to know with what outward man this mind of which he obtained a description was connected. The individual mind was fully and minutely described—to what individual man this mind belonged was to be preserved a profound secret. The writer shrunk from the admission of any man to a participation with him in his self-conferences, and he planned that by keeping his name a secret, the link which would connect this knowledge of the inner to an acquaintance with the outer man should be broken. We have surely in this an argument in favour of the candour and explicitness of his narrative. He felt that to be known, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, by the person he addressed, would be a restraint on the freedom of his revelations—he threw off this restraint, and we are entitled to infer that his letter is a piece of full and candid self-examination. Every word of it, as it was originally written, is here printed, and it will perhaps be admitted that there is not one word of it that does not do honour to its writer. To Aristotle and others it is attributed that they taught esoteric doctrines to a chosen few—doctrines not to be promulgated to the world at large, because they were likely to have a dangerous influence on minds not skilfully trained for their reception. For any vestiges of these hidden doctrines the world searches, anticipating that in them will be found a nearer approach to that which the philosopher believed in his own mind, as distinct from that which he desired to inculcate on others. In all ages there has been a natural and a praiseworthy curiosity to know the hidden thoughts of great teachers. Mankind in general admit, that truth is what is valuable in all philosophy, and if a man entertained thoughts in his own mind in any way different from those which he taught, it has been a conclusion certainly quite legitimate, that truth is more likely to be found in the former than in the latter. But certainly there can hardly be found any other instance in which a document, so likely to be the honest impress of a philosopher's own mind, has been laid before the world; and it is an attestation of the sincerity with which the opinions then in the course of formation in his mind were believed.

But, independently of the philosophical value of the document, to be thus admitted into the secrecy of the thoughts of a man ambitious of high literary distinction, and who has attained his object, is a rare privilege. The revelation, notwithstanding its foreboding tone, is calculated to give far more pleasure than pain. The future, which seemed to the desponding philosopher for a moment so dark, we know to have brightened on him. Hume was of the happy few who lived to see their airy castles substantially realized. Comparing what it reveals of the inner man, with the subsequent history of his achievements, the picture supplied by this fragment of autobiography is a happy one. We sympathize with the aspiring dreams of the young man, without feeling that they were afterwards doomed to disappointment. The immediate occasion of his earnest appeal is undoubtedly one of despondency; but it was preceded by hope, as we know it was followed by success; and notwithstanding this passing cloud, it may fairly be pronounced, that though Hume enjoyed through life more than the average portion of human happiness, he had no moments of purer felicity than those in which, in the retirement of his paternal home, he was sketching the airy outline of his subsequent career.

Perhaps the feature that will most forcibly strike the reader, is the evidence of the deep-rooted ambition to found a philosophical reputation, that seems to have filled the mind of the writer of this document. The consciousness that the receiver of the paper must at once perceive this circumstance, and the desire not to let a stranger penetrate his aspiring thoughts, must have been the reasons of his desire for secrecy: it was natural that one who had not entered the lists to struggle for literary distinction, should wish to conceal how strong and inextinguishable was his desire to obtain the prize. The intensity of his anxiety on this subject seems to have made him, in relation to his mind, what the ordinary hypochondriac is as to his physical constitution. The desire to preserve the elements of distinction was so intense, that it disturbed him with vain fears for their disappearance. Feeling within him, at times, the consciousness of possessing an original genius,—that it should depart from him, and that his lot should be cast among that of ordinary mortals, with good physical health and commonplace abilities, appeared to him the most awful calamity which fate could have in store for him. Of the excellent physical health which accompanied these unpleasant variations of his mental capacity, he speaks with an almost sardonic scorn, as one who, in the bitterness of being bereft of what is all in all to him, talks of some paltry trifle which fortune in her sarcastic malice has chosen to leave untouched. In short, the manner in which he speaks of the departure of his cunning, must almost necessarily convey to the reader a considerable portion of that ludicrous character which is always presented by a scene in which a man appears to be dreadfully anxious about the safety of that which either is of no importance, or is not in danger.

It may be a question whether this strange letter was ever sent to its destination, as the version from which it is here printed is not a rough draught, but a neatly written copy, such as might have been prepared for transmission. But this does not afford so full a presumption in Hume's case, as it would in that of the average of literary men, as he seems to have felt a sort of enjoyment in his earlier years in having his papers neatly written out. The first name that suggested itself as that of the person to whom the paper was addressed was Arbuthnot, whose fine genius was just then flickering in the socket. But a more full consideration showed to my satisfaction that it must have been destined for Dr. George Cheyne, and that it was suggested by that eminent physician's publication, in the preceding year, of "The English Malady; or, a Treatise of Nervous Diseases of all kinds, as Spleen, Vapours, Lowness of Spirits, Hypochondriacal Distempers, &c." There is a certain unison of tone between Hume's letter and this book, that, added to other coincidences, strongly impresses on the mind their connexion with each other; and though it is perhaps necessary, before this is fully seen, to enter into the whole tenor and tone of Cheyne's book, the reader will perhaps find the following passage sufficient to render the conjecture probable:—

"It is a common observation, (and I think has great probability on its side,) that fools, weak or stupid persons, heavy and dull souls, are seldom much troubled with vapours or lowness of spirits. The intellectual faculty, without all manner of doubt, has material and animal organs, by which it mediately works, as well as the animal functions. What they are, and how they operate, as I believe very few know, so it is very little necessary to know them for my present purpose. As a philosophical musician may understand proportions and harmony, and yet never be in a condition to gratify a company with a fine piece of music, without the benefit of sounds from proper organs, so the intellectual operations (as long as the present union between soul and body lasts) can never be performed in the best manner without proper instruments. The works of imagination and memory, of study, thinking, and reflecting, from whatever source the principle on which they depend springs, must necessarily require bodily organs. Some have these organs finer, quicker, more agile, and sensible, and perhaps more numerous than others; brute animals have few or none, at least none that belong to reflection; vegetables certainly none at all. There is no account to be given how a disease, a fall, a blow, a debauch, poisons, violent passions, astral and aerial influences, much application, and the like, should possibly alter or destroy these intellectual operations without this supposition. It is evident, that in nervous distempers, and a great many other bodily diseases, these faculties and their operations are impaired, nay, totally ruined and extinguished to all appearance; and yet, by proper remedies, and after recovery of health, they are restored and brought to their former state. Now, since this present age has made efforts to go beyond former times, in all the arts of ingenuity, invention, study, learning, and all the contemplative and sedentary professions, (I speak only here of our own nation, our own times, and of the better sort, whose chief employments and studies these are,) the organs of these faculties being thereby worn and spoiled, must affect and deaden the whole system, and lay a foundation for the diseases of lowness and weakness. Add to this, that those who are likeliest to excel and apply in this manner, are most capable and most in hazard of following that way of life which I have mentioned, as the likeliest to produce these diseases. Great wits are generally great epicures, at least, men of taste. And the bodies and constitutions of one generation are still more corrupt, infirm, and diseased, than those of the former, as they advance in time and the use of the causes assigned."

Then there are the farther coincidences, that Cheyne was a Scotsman, that he was an eminent man in his profession, and that he had bestowed some attention on mental philosophy. "I passed my youth," he tells us, "in close study, and almost constant application to the abstracted sciences, wherein my chief pleasure consisted." "Having," he elsewhere says, "had a liberal education, with the instruction and example of pious parents, (who at first had designed me for the church,) I had preserved a firm persuasion of the great and fundamental principles of all virtue and morality: viz. the existence of a supreme and infinitely perfect Being, the freedom of the will, the immortality of the spirits of all intellectual beings, and the certainty of future rewards or punishments. These doctrines I had examined carefully, and had been confirmed in, from abstracted reasonings, as well as from the best natural philosophy, and some clearer knowledge of the material system of the world in general, and the wisdom, fitness, and beautiful contrivance of particular things animated and inanimated; so that the truth and necessity of these principles was so riveted in me, (which may be seen by the first edition of my 'Philosophical Principles,' published some years before that happened,[45:1]) as never after to be shaken in all my wanderings and follies."[45:2] It may be mentioned also, as a circumstance likely to bring Cheyne's work early under Hume's observation, that it contains a long statement of the case of Dr. William Cranstoun, an eminent medical man then residing at Jedburgh, in the same district of country with Ninewells.