AN EXAMINATION OF THE SCOTCH INTELLECT DURING THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
To complete the history and analysis of the Scotch mind, I have now to
examine the peculiar intellectual movement which appeared in the
eighteenth century, and which, for several reasons, deserves careful
attention. It was essentially a reaction against that theological spirit
which predominated during the seventeenth century. Such a reaction would
hardly have been possible, except for the fact which I have already
noticed, namely, that the political activity which produced the rebellion
against the Stuarts, saved the Scotch mind from stagnating, and prevented
that deep slumber into which the progress of superstition would naturally
have thrown it. The long and stubborn conflict with a despotic
government, kept alive a certain alertness and vigour of understanding,
which survived the struggle that gave it birth. When the contest was
ended, and peace was restored, the faculties which, for three
generations, had been exercised in resisting the executive authority,
sought other employment, and found another field in which they could
disport themselves. Hence it was, that the boldness which, in the
seventeenth century, was practical, became, in the eighteenth century,
speculative, and produced a literature, which attempted to unsettle
former opinions, and to disturb the ancient landmarks of the human mind.
The movement was revolutionary, and bore the same relation to
ecclesiastical tyranny, which the previous movement had borne to
political tyranny. But this new rebellion had one striking
characteristic. In nearly every other country, when the intellect has
fairly arrayed itself against the exclusive pretensions of the Church,
it has happened that the secular philosophy, which has been engendered,
has been an inductive philosophy, taking for its basis individual and
specific experience, and seeking, by that means, to overthrow the general
and traditional notions, on which all church power is founded. The plan
has been, to refuse to accept principles which could not be substantiated
by facts; while the opposite and theological plan is, to force the facts
to yield to the principles. In the former case, experience precedes
theory; in the latter case, theory precedes experience, and controls it.
In theology, certain principles are taken for granted; and, it being
deemed impious to question them, all that remains for us is to reason
from them downwards. This is the deductive method. On the other hand, the
inductive method will concede nothing, but insists upon reasoning
upwards, and demands that we shall have the liberty of ascertaining the
principles for ourselves. In a complete scheme of our knowledge, and when
all our resources are fully developed and marshalled into order, as they
must eventually be, the two methods will be, not hostile, but
supplementary, and will be combined into a single system. At present,
however, we are very far from such a result; and not only is every mind
more prone to one method than to another, but we find, historically, that
different ages and different countries have been characterised by the
extent to which one of these two schemes has predominated; and we also
find, that a study of this antagonism is the surest way of understanding
the intellectual condition of any period.
That the inductive philosophy is even more marked by its secular
tendencies than by its scientific ones, will be evident to whoever
observes the epochs in which it has been most active, and has possessed
most adherents. Of this, the history of the French mind, in the
eighteenth century, affords a good instance, where, after the death of
Louis XIV., we may clearly trace the connexion between the growth of the
inductive method, and the subsequent overthrow of the Gallican Church. In
England, too, the rise of the Baconian philosophy, with its determination
to subordinate ancient principles to modern experience, was the heaviest
blow which has ever been inflicted on the theologians, whose method is to
begin, not with experience, but with principles, which are said to be
inscrutable, and which we are bound to believe without further
difficulty. And I need hardly remind the reader, that scarcely was that
philosophy established among us, when it produced those bold inquiries
which quickly ended in the downfall of the English Church under Charles
I. From that terrible defeat, our clergy did, for a time, partly rally;
but as their apparent success, in the reign of Charles II., was owing to
political changes, and not to social ones, they were unable to recover
their hold over society, and, unless the nation should retrograde, there
is no possibility that they ever should recover it. Over the inferior
order of minds, they still wield great influence; but the Baconian
philosophy, by bringing their favourite method into disrepute, has sapped
the very base of their system. From the moment that their mode of
investigation was discredited, the secret of their power was gone. From
the moment that men began to insist on inquiring into the validity of
first principles, instead of accepting them without inquiry, and humbly
submitting to them as matters of faith and of necessary belief; from that
moment, the theologians, driven from one post to another, and constantly
receding before the pressure of advancing knowledge, have been forced to
abandon entrenchment after entrenchment, until what they have retained of
their former territory is hardly worth the struggle. As a last resource,
they, at the close of the eighteenth century, determined to use the
weapons of their opponents; and Paley and his successors, enlarging the
scheme which Ray and Derham had feebly sketched, endeavoured, by a
skilful employment of the inductive method, to compensate their party for
the failure of the deductive one. But their project, though ably
conceived, has come to naught. It is now generally admitted, that nothing
can be made of it, and that it is impossible to establish the old
theological premises by a chain of inductive reasoning. Respecting this,
the most eminent philosophers agree with the most eminent theologians;
and, since the time of Kant in Germany, and of Coleridge in England,
none of our ablest men, even among divines themselves, have recurred to a
plan which Paley, indeed, pursued with vigour, but of which our
Bridgewater Treatises, our Prize-Essays, and such schoolboy productions,
are poor and barren imitations.[613] No great thinkers now follow this
course in matters of religion. On the contrary, they prefer the safer, as
well as the more philosophic, method, of dealing with these subjects on
transcendental grounds, frankly confessing that they elude the grasp of
that inductive philosophy which, in the department of science, has
achieved such signal triumphs.
[613] Of course, I say this merely in reference to their theological
bearings. Some of the Bridgewater Treatises, such as Bell's,
Buckland's, and Prout's, had great scientific merit at the time of
their appearance, and may even now be studied with advantage; but
the religious portion of them is pitiable, and shows either that
their heart was not in their work, or else that the subject was
too wide for them. At all events, it is to be hoped that we shall
never again see men of equal eminence hiring themselves out as
paid advocates, and receiving fees to support particular opinions.
It is truly disgraceful that such great speculative questions,
instead of being subjected to fair and disinterested argument,
with a view of eliciting the truth, should be turned into a
pecuniary transaction, in which any one of much money and little
wit, can bribe as many persons as he likes, to prejudice the
public ear in favour of his own theories.
The opposition of these two methods, and the inapplicability of the
inductive method to theological pursuits being thus apparent, it is not
strange that the Scotch should have adopted one of the methods with great
zeal, and to the almost complete exclusion of the other. Scotland, being
essentially theological, followed the theological plan. The intellectual
history of that country, in the seventeenth century, is almost entirely
the history of theology. With the single exception of Napier, who was
born in the middle of the sixteenth century, all the most vigorous
thinkers were divines. In physical science, scarcely anything was
done.[614] There was no poetry, no drama, no original philosophy, no
fine compositions, no secular literature, now worth reading.[615] The
only men of real influence were the clergy. They governed the nation and
the pulpit was the chief engine of their power. From the pulpit, they
moved all classes and all sorts intellects; the highest as well as the
lowest. There, they instructed them, and threatened them; saying whatever
they liked, and knowing that what they said would be believed.[616] But
all their sermons, and all their controversial writings, are eminently
deductive; not of them attempts an inductive argument. The idea of such a
thing never entered their heads. They assumed the truth of their own
religion and moral notions, most of which they had borrowed from
antiquity; they made those notions the major premises of their
syllogisms, and from them they reasoned downwards till they obtained
their conclusions. They never suspected that premises, taken from ancient
times might be the result of the inductions of those times and that, as
knowledge advanced, the inductions might need revising. They assumed,
that God has given us first principles, and that He, having revealed them
it would ill become us to scrutinize them. That He had revealed them,
they took for granted, and deemed it unnecessary to prove.[617] Their
method being entirely deductive, all they were concerned with was to
beware that no error crept in between the premises and the conclusions.
And this part of their task they accomplished with great ability. They
were acute dialecticians, and rarely blundered in what is termed the
formal part of logic. In dealing with their premises after they obtained
them, they were extremely skilful; how they obtained them, they were very
heedless. That was a point they never examined with anything approaching
to impartiality. According to their method, all that was requisite was,
to draw inferences from what had been supernaturally communicated. On the
other hand, the inductive method would have taught them that the first
question was, whether or not they had been supernaturally communicated?
They, as deductive reasoners, assumed the very preliminaries which
inductive reasoners would have disputed. They proceeded from generals to
particulars, instead of from particulars to generals. And they would not
allow either themselves or others to sift the general propositions, which
were to cover and control the particular facts. It was enough for them
that the wider propositions were already established, and were to be
treated according to the rules of the old and syllogistic logic. Indeed,
they were so convinced of the impropriety of the inductive method, that
they did not hesitate to assert, that it was by means of the syllogism
that the Deity communicated His wishes to man.[618]
[614] 'It is humiliating to have to remark, that the notices of comets
which we derive from Scotch writers down to this time (1682)
contain nothing but accounts of the popular fancies regarding
them. Practical astronomy seems to have then been unknown in our
country; and hence, while in other lands, men were carefully
observing, computing, and approaching to just conclusions
regarding these illustrious strangers of the sky, our diarists
could only tell us how many _yards_ long they seemed to be, what
_effects_ were apprehended from them in the way of war and
pestilence, and how certain pious divines "improved" them for
spiritual edification. Early in this century Scotland had produced
one great philosopher, who had supplied his craft with the
mathematical instruments by which complex problems, such as the
movement of comets, were alone to be solved. It might have been
expected that the country of Napier, seventy years after his time,
would have had many sons capable of applying his key to such
mysteries of nature. But no one had arisen--nor did any rise for
fifty years onward, when at length Colin Maclaurin unfolded in the
Edinburgh University the sublime philosophy of Newton. There could
not be a more expressive signification of the character of the
seventeenth century in Scotland. Our unhappy contentions about
external religious matters had absorbed the whole genius of the
people, rendering to us the age of Cowley, of Waller, and of
Milton, as barren of elegant literature, as that of Horrocks, of
Halley, and of Newton, was of science.' _Chambers' Domestic Annals
of Scotland_, vol. ii. pp. 444, 445.
[615] 'Thus, during the whole seventeenth century, the English were
gradually refining their language and their taste; in Scotland,
the former was much debased, and the latter almost entirely lost.'
_History of Scotland_, book viii., in _Robertson's Works_, p. 260.
'But the taste and science, the genius and the learning of the
age, were absorbed in the gulph of religious controversy. At a
time when the learning of Selden, and the genius of Milton,
conspired to adorn England, the Scots were reduced to such writers
as Baillie, Rutherford, Guthrie, and the two Gillespies.' _Laing's
History of Scotland_, vol. iii. p. 510. 'From the Restoration down
to the Union, the only author of eminence whom Scotland produced
was Burnet.' _Ibid._, vol. iv. p. 406.
'The seventeenth century, fatal to the good taste of Italy, threw
a total night over Scotland.' ... 'Not one writer who does the
least credit to the nation flourished during the century from 1615
to 1715, excepting Burnet, whose name would, indeed, honour the
brightest period. In particular, no poet whose works merit
preservation arose. By a singular fatality, the century which
stands highest in English history and genius, is one of the
darkest in those of Scotland.' _Ancient Scotish Poems, edited by
John Pinkerton_, vol. i. pp. iii. iv., London, 1786.
[616] Ray, who visited Scotland in 1661, could not suppress a little
professional envy, when he saw how much higher ecclesiastics were
rated there than in England. He says, 'the people here frequent
their churches much better than in England, and have their
ministers in more esteem and veneration.' _Ray's Memorials, edited
by Dr. Lankester for the Ray Society_, p. 161.
[617] 'Believing ignorance is much better than rash and presumptuous
knowledge. Ask not a reason of these things, but rather adore and
tremble at the mystery and majesty of them.' _Binning's Sermons_,
vol. i. p. 143. Even Biblical criticism was prohibited; and
Dickson says of the different books of the Bible, 'We are not to
trouble ourselves about the name of the writer, or time of writing
of any part thereof, especially because God of set purpose
concealeth the name sundry times of the writer, and the time when
it was written.' _Dickson's Explication of the Psalms_, p. 291.
[618] 'Christ from heaven proposeth a syllogism to Saul's fury.'
_Rutherford's Christ Dying_, p. 180. 'The conclusion of a
practical syllogism, whereby the believer concluded from the
Gospel that he shall be saved.' _Durham's Law Unsealed_, p. 97.
'All assurance is by practical syllogism, the first whereof must
needs be a Scripture truth.' _Gray's Precious Promises_, p. 139.
It was naturally to be expected, that the clergy, holding these views
respecting the best means of arriving at truth, should do all in their
power to bring over the nation to their side, and should labour to make
their own method of investigation entirely supersede the opposite method.
Nor was this a very difficult task. The prevailing credulity was one
great point in their favour, inasmuch as it made men more willing to
accept propositions than to scrutinise them. When the propositions were
accepted, nothing was left but to reason from them; and the most active
intellects in Scotland, being constantly engaged in this process,
acquired complete mastery over it, and the dexterity they displayed
increased its repute. Besides this, the clergy, who were its zealous
champions, had monopolized all the sources of education, both public and
private. In no other Protestant country, have they exercised such control
over the universities; not only the doctrines taught, but also the mode
of teaching them, being, in Scotland, placed under the supervision of the
Church.[619] This power they, of course, used to propagate their own plan
of obtaining truth; and, as long as their power remained undiminished, it
was hardly possible that the opposite, or inductive, plan should gain a
hearing. Over grammar-schools, the clergy possessed an authority fully
equal to that which they had in the universities.[620] They also
appointed and removed, at their own pleasure, teachers of every grade,
from village schoolmasters to tutors in private families.[621] In this
way, each generation, as it arose, was brought under their influence, and
made subject to their notions. Taking the mind of Scotland while it was
young and flexible, they bent it to their own method. Hence, that method
became supreme; it reigned every where; not a voice was lifted up against
it; and no one had an idea that there was more than one path by which
truth could be reached, or that the human understanding was of any use,
except to deal deductively with premisses, which were not to be
inductively examined.
[619] Bower (_History of the University of Edinburgh_, vol. i. p. 217)
says, 'The history of the universities and of the church is, in
modern Europe, and perhaps in every other civilized portion of the
globe, very nearly connected. They are more nearly connected in
Scotland than in any other civilized country called Protestant;
because the General Assembly have the legal power of inquiring
into the economy of the institutions, both as it respects the mode
of teaching, and the doctrines, whether religious, moral, or
physical, which are taught.' Spalding, under the year 1639, gives
an instance of the power of the General Assembly in 'the College
of Old Aberdeen.' _Spalding's History of the Troubles_, vol. i. p.
178. See also, on the authority exercised by the General Assembly
over the universities, a curious little book, called _The
Government and Order of the Church of Scotland_, Edinburgh, 1690,
p. 25.
[620] In 1632, the 'ministers' of Perth were greatly displeased because
John Row was made master of the grammar-school without their
consent. _The Chronicle of Perth_, p. 33, where it is stated that,
consequently, 'thair wes much outcrying in the pulpett.'
[621] See, for instance, _Minutes of the Presbyteries of St. Andrews and
Cupar_, pp. 66, 83, 84, 118. One of the entries is, that in
January 1648, 'The Presbyterie ordained that all young students,
who waittes on noblemen or gentlemen within thir bounds, aither to
teach ther children, or catechise and pray in ther families, to
frequent the Presbyterie, that the brether may cognosce what they
ar reading, and what proficiencie they make in ther studies, and
to know also ther behaviour in the said families, and of their
affectione to the Covenant and present religione.' p. 118. Compare
_Selections from the Registers of the Presbytery of Lanark_,
pp. 56, 65.
The inductive or analytic spirit being thus unknown, and the deductive or
synthetic spirit being alone favoured, it happened that, when, early in
the eighteenth century, the circumstances already mentioned gave rise to
a great intellectual movement, that movement, though new in its results,
was not new in the method by which the results were obtained. A secular
philosophy was, indeed, established, and the ablest men, instead of being
theological, became scientific. But so completely had the theological
plan occupied Scotland, that even philosophers were unable to escape from
its method, and, as I am about to show, the inductive method exercised no
influence over them. This most curious fact is the key to the history of
Scotland in the eighteenth century, and explains many events which would
otherwise appear incompatible with each other. It also suggests an
analogy with Germany, where the deductive method has, for a long period,
been equally prevalent, owing to precisely the same causes. In both
countries, the secular movement of the eighteenth century was unable to
become inductive; and this intellectual affinity between two such
otherwise different nations, is, I have no doubt, the principal reason
why the Scotch and German philosophies have so remarkably acted and
reacted upon each other; Kant and Hamilton being the most finished
specimens of their intercourse. To this, England forms a complete
contrast. For more than a hundred and fifty years after the death of
Bacon, the greatest English thinkers, Newton and Harvey excepted, were
eminently inductive; nor was it until the nineteenth century that signs
were clearly exhibited of a counter-movement, and an attempt was made to
return in some degree to the deductive method.[622] This we are, in many
respects, justified in doing, because, in the progress of our knowledge,
we have, by a long course of induction, arrived at several conclusions
which we may safely treat deductively; that is to say, we may make them
the major premisses of new arguments. The same process has been seen in
France, where the exclusively inductive philosophy of the eighteenth
century preceded a partial resuscitation of deductive philosophy in the
nineteenth century. In Scotland, however, there have been no such
vicissitudes. In that country, men have always been deductive; even the
most original thinkers being unable to liberate themselves from the
universal tendency, and being forced to accept a method which time had
consecrated, and which was interwoven with all the associations of the
national mind.
[622] This I have already touched upon in the first volume, pp. 808,
809. Hereafter, and in my special history of the English mind, I
shall examine it carefully and in detail. The revival of the old
logic is a great symptom of it. Works like those of Whately, De
Morgan, and Mansel, could not have been produced in tho eighteenth
century, or, at all events, if by some extraordinary combination
of events they had been produced, they would have found no
readers. As it is, they have exercised a very extensive and very
salutary influence; and, although Archbishop Whately was not well
acquainted with the history of formal logic, his exposition of its
ordinary processes is so admirably clear, that he has probably
contributed more than any other man towards impressing his
contemporaries with a sense of the value of deductive reasoning.
He has, however, not done sufficient justice to the opposite
school, and has, indeed, fallen into the old academical error of
supposing that all reasoning is by syllogism. We might just as
well say that all movement is by descent.
To understand the investigation into which we are about to enter, the
reader must firmly seize, and keep before his eyes, the essential
difference between deduction, which reasons from principles, and
induction, which reasons to principles. He must remember, that induction
proceeds from the smaller to the greater; deduction, from the greater to
the smaller. Induction is from particulars to generals, and from the
senses to the ideas; deduction is from generals to particulars, and from
the ideas to the senses. By induction, we rise from the concrete to the
abstract; by deduction, we descend from the abstract to the concrete.
Accompanying this distinction, there are certain qualities of mind,
which, with extremely few exceptions, characterize the age, nation, or
individual, in which one of these methods is predominant. The inductive
philosopher is naturally cautious, patient, and somewhat creeping; while
the deductive philosopher is more remarkable for boldness, dexterity, and
often rashness. The deductive thinker invariably assumes certain
premisses, which are quite different from the hypotheses essential to the
best induction. These premisses are sometimes borrowed from antiquity;
sometimes they are taken from the notions which happen to prevail in the
surrounding society; sometimes they are the result of a man's own
peculiar organization; and sometimes, as we shall presently see, they are
deliberately invented, with the object of arriving, not at truth, but at
an approximation to truth. Finally, and to sum up the whole, we may say
that a deductive habit, being essentially synthetic, always tends to
multiply original principles or laws; while the tendency of an inductive
habit is to diminish those laws by gradual and successive analysis.
These being the two fundamental divisions of human inquiry, it is surely
a most remarkable fact in the history of Scotland, that, during the
eighteenth century, all the great thinkers belonged to the former
division, and that, in the very few instances of induction which their
works contain, it is evident, from the steps they subsequently took, that
they regarded such inductions as unimportant in themselves, and as only
valuable in so far as they supplied the premisses for another and
deductive investigation. As the various departments of our knowledge have
never yet been co-ordinated and treated as a whole, probably no one is
aware of the universality of this movement in Scotland, and of the extent
to which it pervaded every science, and governed every phase of thought.
To prove, therefore, the force with which it acted, I now purpose to
examine its working in all the principal forms of speculation, whether
physical or moral, and to show that in each the same method was adopted.
In doing this, I must, for the sake of clearness, proceed according to a
natural arrangement of the different topics; but I will, whenever it is
possible, also follow the chronological order in which the Scotch mind
unfolded itself; so that we may understand, not only the character of
that remarkable literature, but likewise the steps of its growth, and the
astonishing vigour with which it emancipated itself from the shackles
which superstition had imposed.
The beginning of the great secular philosophy of Scotland is undoubtedly
due to Francis Hutcheson.[623] This eminent man, though born in Ireland,
was of Scotch family, and was educated in the University of Glasgow,
where he received the appointment of Professor of Philosophy in the year
1729.[624] By his lectures, and by his works, he diffused a taste for
bold inquiries into subjects of the deepest importance, but concerning
which it had previously been supposed nothing fresh was to be learned;
the Scotch having hitherto been taught, that all truths respecting our
own nature, which were essential to be known, had been already revealed.
Hutcheson, however, did not fear to construct a system of morals
according to a plan entirely secular, and no example of which had been
exhibited in Scotland before his time. The principles from which he
started, were not theological, but metaphysical. They were collected from
what he deemed the natural constitution of the mind, instead of being
collected, as heretofore, from what had been supernaturally communicated.
He, therefore, shifted the field of study. Though he was a firm believer
in revelation, he held that the best rules of conduct could be
ascertained without its assistance, and could be arrived at by the
unaided wit of man; and that, when arrived at, they were, in their
aggregate, to be respected as the Law of Nature.[625] This confidence in
the power of the human understanding was altogether new in Scotland, and
its appearance forms an epoch in the national literature. Previously, men
had been taught that the understanding was a rash and foolish thing,
which ought to be repressed, and which was unfit to cope with the
problems presented to it.[626] Hutcheson, however, held that it was quite
able to deal with them, but that, to do so, it must be free and
unfettered. Hence, he strenuously advocated that right of private
judgment which the Scotch Kirk had not only assailed, but had almost
destroyed. He insisted that each person had a right to form his opinion
according to the evidence he possessed, and that, this right being
inalienable, none but weak minds would abstain from exercising it.[627]
Every one was to judge according to his own light, and nothing could be
gained by inducing men to profess sentiments contrary to their
convictions.[628] So far, however, was this from being understood, that
we found all the little sects quarrelling among themselves, and abusing
each other, merely because their views were different. It was strange to
hear how the professors of one creed would stigmatize the professors of
other creeds as idolatrous, and would demand that penalties should be
inflicted on them. In point of fact, all had much that was good; and
their only real evil was, this love of persecution.[629] But the vulgar
deemed every one a heretic who did not believe what they believed; and
this way of thinking had been too much countenanced by the clergy, many
of whom felt their vanity offended at the idea of laymen pretending to be
wiser than their spiritual teachers, and venturing to disagree with what
they said.[630]
[623] See a letter from Sir James Mackintosh to Parr, in _Mackintosh's
Memoirs_, London, 1835, vol. i. p. 334. 'To Hutcheson the taste
for speculation in Scotland, and all the philosophical opinions
(except the Berkleian Humism) may be traced.' M. Cousin (_Histoire
de la Philosophie_, première série, vol. iv. p. 35, Paris, 1846)
observes, that before Hutcheson 'il n'avait paru en Ecosse ni un
écrivain ni un professeur de philosophie un peu remarquable.'
[624] _Tytler's Memoirs of Kames_, Edinburgh, 1814, vol. i. p. 223.
_Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy_, vol. i. p. iii. London, 1755, 4to.
[625] 'The intention of Moral Philosophy is to direct men to that course
of action which tends most effectually to promote their greatest
happiness and perfection; as far as it can be done by observations
and conclusions discoverable from the constitution of nature,
without any aids of supernatural revelation: these maxims or rules
of conduct are therefore reputed as laws of nature, and the system
or collection of them is called the LAW OF NATURE.' _Hutcheson's
Moral Philosophy_, vol. i. p. 1.
[626] 'The natural understanding is the most whorish thing in the
world.' ... 'The understanding, even in the search of truth
amongst the creatures, is a rash, precipitate, and unquiet thing.'
_Rutherford's Christ Dying_, p. 181. 'Innocent Adam,' indeed, says
Boston, 'Innocent Adam had a stock of gracious abilities, whereby
he might have, by the force of moral considerations, brought
himself to perform duty aright. But where is that with us?'
_Boston's Sermons_, p. 65.
[627] 'A like natural right every intelligent being has about his own
opinions, speculative or practical, to judge according to the
evidence that appears to him. This right appears from the very
constitution of the rational mind, which can assent or dissent
solely according to the evidence presented, and naturally desires
knowledge. The same considerations show this right to be
unalienable: it cannot be subjected to the will of another: though
where there is a previous judgment formed concerning the superior
wisdom of another, or his infallibility, the opinion of this
other, to a weak mind, may become sufficient evidence. As to
opinions about the Deity, religion, and virtue, this right is
further confirmed by all the noblest desires of the soul; as there
can be no virtue, but rather impiety in not adhering to the
opinions we think just, and in professing the contrary.'
_Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy_, vol. i. pp. 295, 296. See also
vol. ii. p. 311. 'Every rational creature has a right to judge for
itself in these matters: and as men must assent according to the
evidence that appears to them, and cannot command their own assent
in opposition to it, this right is plainly unalienable.'
[628] 'Thus no man can really change his sentiments, judgments, and
inward affections, at the pleasure of another, nor can it tend to
any good to make him profess what is contrary to his heart.'
_Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy_, vol. i. pp. 261, 262.
[629] 'Arians and Socinians are idolaters and denyers of God, say the
orthodox. They retort upon the orthodox, that they are Tritheists;
and so do other sects; and thus they spirit up magistrates to
persecute. While yet it is plain that in all these sects there are
all the same motives to all social virtues from a belief of a
moral providence, the same acknowledgments that the goodness of
God is the source of all the good we enjoy or hope for, and the
same gratitude and resignation to him recommended. Nor do any of
their schemes excite men to vices, except that horrid tenet, too
common to most of them, the right of persecuting.' _Hutcheson's
Moral Philosophy_, vol. ii. p. 316. See also vol. i. p. 160; and
_Hutcheson's Inquiry into our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue_, London,
1738, p. 283.
[630] 'We all know the notions entertained by the vulgar concerning all
hereticks; we know the pride of schoolmen and many ecclesiasticks;
how it galls their insolent vanity that any man should assume to
himself to be wiser than they in tenets of religion by differing
from them.' _Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy_, vol. i. p. 167.
Such large views of liberty were far in advance of the country in which
they were propounded, and could exercise no influence, except over a few
thinking men. These, and similar doctrines, were, however, repeated by
Hutcheson, in his lectures, every year.[631] And strange, indeed, they
must have seemed. To those who received them, they were utterly
subversive of the prevailing theological spirit, which regarded
toleration as impious, and which, seeking to confine the human mind
within the limits of foregone conclusions, deemed it a duty to chastise
those who overstepped them. In opposition to this, Hutcheson let in the
elements of inquiry, of discussion, and of doubt. There is also another
point in which his philosophy is memorable, as the beginning of the great
rebellion of the Scotch intellect. We saw, in the last chapter, how
successfully the teachers of the people had inculcated doctrines of the
darkest asceticism, and how naturally those doctrines had arisen out of
the enormous authority possessed by the Church. Against such notions,
Hutcheson set his face strenuously. He rightly supposed, that an
admiration of every kind of beauty, so far from being sinful, is
essential to a complete and well-balanced mind; and the most original
part of his philosophy consists of the inquiries which he made into the
working and origin of our ideas on that subject. Hitherto, the Scotch
had been taught that the emotions which beauty excites, were owing to the
corruption of our nature, and ought to be repressed. Hutcheson, on the
other hand, insisted that they were good in themselves; that they were
part of the general scheme of human affairs, and that they deserved a
special and scientific study.[632] And with such skill did he investigate
them, that, in the opinion of one of the highest living authorities, he
is the originator of all subsequent inquiries into these matters; his
being the first attempt to deal with the subject of beauty in a broad and
comprehensive spirit.[633]
[631] 'As he had occasion every year in the course of his lectures to
explain the origin of government, and compare the different forms
of it, he took peculiar care, while on that subject, to inculcate
the importance of civil and religious liberty to the happiness of
mankind.' _Leechman's Life of Hutcheson_, p. xxxv., prefixed to
Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy.
[632] 'The ideas of beauty and harmony, like other sensible ideas, are
necessarily pleasant to us, as well as immediately so.'
_Hutcheson's Inquiry into our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue_, p. 11.
'Our sense of beauty seems designed to give us positive pleasure.'
p. 71. 'Beauty gives a favourable presumption of good moral
dispositions.' p. 257. 'But it is plain we have not in our power
the modelling of our senses or desires, to form them for a private
interest; they are fixed for us by the Author of our nature,
subservient to the interest of the system; so that each individual
is made, previously to his own choice, a member of a great body,
and affected with the fortunes of the whole; or at least of many
parts of it; nor can he break himself off at pleasure.'
_Hutcheson's Essay on the Passions_, pp. 105, 106.
[633] 'Fille de la scholastique, la philosophie moderne est demeurée
longtemps étrangère aux grâces, et les _Recherches_ d'Hutcheson
présentent, je crois, le premier traité spécial sur le beau, écrit
par un moderne. Elles ont paru en 1725. Cette date est presque
celle de l'avénement de l'esthétique dans la philosophie
européenne. L'ouvrage du père André, en France, est de 1741, celui
de Baumgarten, en Allemagne, est de 1750. Ce n'est pas un petit
honneur à Hutcheson d'avoir le premier soumis l'idée du beau à une
analyse méthodique et régulière.' _Cousin, Histoire de la
Philosophie_, première série, vol. iv. p. 84.
Not only in speculative views, but also in practical recommendations,
Hutcheson displayed the same tendency; every where endeavouring to break
down that gloomy fabric which superstition had built up.[634] His
predecessors, and, indeed, nearly all his contemporaries who exercised
much influence, represented pleasure as immoral, and opposed themselves
to the fine arts, which they considered dangerous, as ministering to our
pleasures, and thereby distracting our minds from serious concerns.
Hutcheson, however, declared that the fine arts were to be cherished;
for, he said, they are not only agreeable, but also reputable, and to
employ our time with them is honourable.[635] That such is the case is
obvious enough to us, but it was long, indeed, since similar language had
been heard in Scotland from a great public teacher, and it was completely
opposed to the prevailing notions. But Hutcheson went even further. Not
content with raising his voice in favour of wealth,[636] which the Scotch
clergy stigmatized as one of the most pernicious and carnal of all
things, he fearlessly asserted that all our natural appetites are lawful,
and that the gratification of them is consistent with the highest
virtue.[637] In his eyes, they were lawful, because they were natural;
while, according to the theological theory, their being natural made them
unlawful. And here lies the fundamental difference between the practical
views of Hutcheson and those previously received. He, like every great
thinker since the seventeenth century, loved human nature, and respected
it; but he neither loved nor respected those who unduly trammelled it,
and thereby weakened its vigour, as well as impaired its beauty. He
placed more confidence in mankind, than in the rulers of mankind. The
Scotch divines, who preceded him, were the libellers of their species;
they calumniated the whole human race. According to them, there was
nothing in us but sin and corruption; and, therefore, all our desires
were to be checked. It is the peculiar glory of Hutcheson, that he was
the first man in Scotland who publicly combated these degrading notions.
With a noble and lofty aim did he undertake his task. Venerating the
human mind, he was bent on vindicating its dignity against those who
disputed its titles. Unhappily, he could not succeed; the prejudices of
his time were too strong. Still, he did all that was in his power. He
opposed the tide which he was unable to stem; he attacked what it was
impossible to destroy; and he cast from his philosophy, with vehement
scorn, those base prejudices, which, by aspersing all that is great and
magnanimous, had long blinded the eyes of their contemporaries, and, by
bringing into fresh prominence the old and mischievous dogma of moral
degeneracy, had represented our nature as a compound of vices, and had
been unable to see how many virtues we really possess, how much of the
spirit of self-sacrifice, and of free disinterested benevolence has
always existed; how much of good even the worst of us retain; and how,
among the ordinary and average characters of whom the world is composed,
the desire of benefiting others is more frequent than the desire of
hurting them, kindness is more common than cruelty, and the number of
good deeds does, on the whole, far outweigh the number of bad ones.[638]
[634] In his _Inquiry into Beauty and Virtue_, p. 107, he so completely
opposed the prevailing notions, as to assert that 'our perception
of pleasure is necessary, and nothing is advantageous or naturally
good to us, but what is apt to raise pleasure, mediately, or
immediately.' Compare what he says at p. 91 respecting
'superstitious prejudices against actions apprehended as offensive
to the Deity.'
[635] 'Hence a taste for the ingenious arts of musick, sculpture,
painting, and even for the manly diversions, is reputable.'
_Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy_, vol. i. p. 83. At p. 129 he says,
that in them 'our time is agreeably and honourably employed.' See
also vol. ii. p. 115.
[636] 'Wealth and power are truly useful, not only for the natural
conveniences or pleasures of life, but as a fund for good
offices.' _Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy_, vol. i. p. 104. Compare
_Hutcheson on Beauty and Virtue_, pp. 93-95; and his _Essay on the
Passions and Affections_, pp. 8, 9, 99. 'How weak also are the
reasonings of some recluse moralists, who condemn in general all
pursuits of wealth or power, as below a perfectly virtuous
character; since wealth and power are the most effectual means,
and the most powerful instruments, even of the greatest virtues,
and most generous actions.'
[637] 'The chief happiness of any being must consist in the full
enjoyment of all the gratifications its nature desires and is
capable of.' _Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy_, vol. i. p. 100. 'The
highest sensual enjoyments may be experienced by those who employ
both mind and body vigorously in social virtuous offices, and
allow all the natural appetites to recur in their due seasons.' p.
121. 'Nay, as in fact it is for the good of the system that every
desire and sense natural to us, even those of the lowest kinds,
should be gratified as far as their gratification is consistent
with the nobler enjoyments, and in a just subordination to them;
there seems a natural notion of _right_ to attend them all.' pp.
254, 255.
[638] ''Tis pleasant to observe how those authors who paint out our
nature as a compound of sensuality, selfishness, and cunning,
forget themselves on this subject in their descriptions of youth,
when the natural temper is less disguised than in the subsequent
parts of life. 'Tis made up of many keen, inconstant passions,
many of them generous; 'tis fond of present pleasure, but 'tis
also profusely kind and liberal to favourites; careless about
distant interests of its own; full of confidence in others;
studious of praise for kindness and generosity; prone to
friendships, and void of suspicion.' _Hutcheson's Moral
Philosophy_, vol. ii. p. 11. 'Men are often subject to anger, and
upon sudden provocations do injuries to each other, and that only
from self love without malice; but the greatest part of their
lives is employed in offices of natural affection, friendship,
innocent self love, or love of a country.' _Hutcheson's Essay on
the Passions_, pp. 97, 98. And at p. 165: 'There are no doubt many
furious starts of passion, in which malice may seem to have place
in our constitution; but how seldom and how short, in comparison
of years spent in fixed kind pursuits of the good of a family, a
party, a country?' ... 'Here men are apt to let their imaginations
run out upon all the robberies, piracies, murders, perjuries,
frauds, massacres, assassinations, they have ever either heard of,
or read in history; thence concluding all mankind to be very
wicked; as if a court of justice were the proper place for making
an estimate of the morals of mankind, or an hospital of the
healthfulness of a climate. Ought they not to consider that the
number of honest citizens and farmers far surpasses that of all
sorts of criminals in any state; and that the innocent or kind
actions of even criminals themselves, surpass their crimes in
numbers? That it is the rarity of crimes, in comparison of
innocent or good actions, which engages our attention to them, and
makes them be recorded in history; while incomparably more honest,
generous, domestic actions are overlooked, only because they are
so common; as one great danger, or one month's sickness, shall
become a frequently repeated story, during a long life of health
and safety.'
Thus much as to the tendency of Hutcheson's philosophy.[639] We have now
to ascertain his method, that is to say, the plan which he adopted in
order to obtain his results. This is a very important part of our present
inquiry; and we shall find that, in the study of moral philosophy, as in
the study of all subjects not yet raised to sciences, there are not only
two methods, but that each method leads to different consequences. If we
proceed by induction, we arrive at one conclusion; if we proceed by
deduction, we arrive at another. This difference in the results, is
always a proof that the subject, in which the difference exists, is not
yet capable of scientific treatment, and that some preliminary
difficulties have to be removed, before it can pass from the empirical
stage into the scientific one. As soon as those difficulties are got rid
of, the results obtained by induction, will correspond with those
obtained by deduction; supposing, of course, that both lines of argument
are fairly managed. In such case, it will be of no importance whether we
reason from particulars to generals, or from generals to particulars.
Either plan will yield the same consequences, and this agreement between
the consequences, proves that our investigation is, properly speaking,
scientific. Thus, for instance, in chemistry, if, by reasoning
deductively from general principles, we could always predict what would
happen when we united two or more elements, even supposing those elements
were new to us; and if, by reasoning inductively from each element, we
could arrive at the same conclusion, one process would corroborate the
other, and, by their mutual verification, the science would be complete.
In chemistry, we cannot do this; therefore, chemistry is not yet a
science, although, since the introduction into it, by Dalton, of the
ideas of weight and number, there is every prospect of its becoming one.
On the other hand, astronomy is a science, because, by employing the
deductive weapon of mathematics, we can compute the motions and
perturbations of bodies; and, by employing the inductive weapon of
observation, the telescope reveals to us the accuracy of our previous,
and, as it were, foregone, inferences. The fact agrees with the idea; the
particular event confirms the general principle; the principle explains
the event; and their unanimity authorizes us to believe that we must be
right, since, proceed as we may, the conclusion is the same; and the
inductive plan, of striking averages, harmonizes with the deductive plan,
of reasoning from ideas.
[639] In 1731, Wodrow, who was the last really great specimen of the old
Presbyterian divines, and who was not a little shocked at the
changes he saw going on around him, writes: 'When Dr. Calamy heard
of Mr. Hutcheson's being called to Glasgow, he smiled, and said, I
think to Thomas Randy, that he was not for Scotland, as he thought
from his book; and that he would be reckoned there as unorthodox
as Mr. Simson. The Doctor has a strange way of fishing out privat
storyes and things that pass in Scotland.' _Wodrow's Analecta_,
vol. iv. p. 227. It is interesting to compare with this, the
remarks which that worldly-minded clergyman, the Rev. Alexander
Carlyle, has made upon Hutcheson. See _Carlyle's Autobiography_,
Edinburgh, 1860, 2d edit. pp. 82-85.
But, in the study of morals there is no such harmony. Partly from the
force of prejudice, and partly from the complexity of the subject, all
attempts at a scientific investigation of morals have failed. It is not,
therefore, surprising that, in this field, the inductive inquirer arrives
at one conclusion, and the deductive inquirer at another. The inductive
inquirer endeavours to attain his object by observing the actions of men,
and subjecting them to analysis, in order to learn the principles which
regulate them. The deductive inquirer, beginning at the other end,
assumes certain principles as original, and reasons from them to the
facts which actually appear in the world. The former proceeds from the
concrete to the abstract; the latter, from the abstract to the concrete.
The inductive moralist looks at the history of past society, or at the
condition of the present, and takes for granted that the first step is,
to assemble the facts, and then to generalize them. The deductive
inquirer, using the facts rather to illustrate his principles, than to
suggest them, appeals, in the first place, not to external facts, but to
internal ideas, and he makes those ideas the major premiss of a
syllogistic argument. Both parties agree, that we have the power of
judging some actions to be right, and others to be wrong. But as to how
we get that power, and as to what that power is, they are at utter
variance. The inductive philosopher says, that its object is happiness,
that we get it by association, and that it is due to the action and
reaction of social causes, which are susceptible of analysis. The
deductive philosopher says, that this power of distinguishing between
right and wrong, aims, not at happiness, but at truth; that it is
inherent, that it cannot be analyzed, that it is a primary conviction,
and that we may assume it and reason from it, but can never hope to
explain it by reasoning to it.
It requires but a slight acquaintance with the works of Hutcheson to see
that he belongs to the latter of these two schools. He assumes, that all
men have what he terms a moral faculty, which, being an original
principle, does not admit of analysis.[640] He further assumes, that the
business of this faculty is to regulate all our powers.[641] From these
two assumptions, he reasons downwards to the visible facts of our
conduct, and deductively constructs the general scheme of life. His plan
being entirely synthetic, he depreciates the analytic method, and
complains of it as an artful attempt to diminish the number of our
perceptive powers.[642] The truth is, that every such diminution would
have taken away some of his original principles, and would thereby have
prevented him from using them as the major premisses of separate
arguments. And if you deprive a deductive reasoner of his major
premisses, you leave him nothing on which to stand. Hutcheson, therefore,
like all the philosophers of his school, was extremely jealous of the
invasions of the inductive spirit, with its constant tendency to attack
convictions supposed to be primary, and seek to resolve them into their
elements. He repulsed such encroachments upon his major premisses,
because the power and beauty of his method were displayed in reasoning
from the premisses, and not in reasoning to them. According to him, the
moral faculty, and the authority which it exercised, were impervious to
analysis; it was impossible to track them higher, or to resolve them into
simpler constituents; and it was in vain that many attempted to refer
them to circumstances external to themselves, such as education, custom,
or the association of ideas.[643]
[640] In his _Moral Philosophy_, vol. i. p. 52, he calls it 'an original
determination or sense in our nature, not capable of being
referred to other powers of perception.'
[641] 'This moral sense from its very nature appears to be designed for
regulating and controlling all our powers.' _Hutcheson's Moral
Philosophy_, vol. i. p. 61.
[642] See, in his _Moral Philosophy_, vol. i. p. 79, his complaint
against those who 'would reduce all our perceptive powers to a
very small number, by one artful reference or another.'
[643] ''Tis in vain here to alledge instruction, education, custom, or
association of ideas, as the original of moral approbation.'
_Hutcheson's Moral Philosophy_, vol. i. p. 57. Compare his work on
_Beauty and Virtue_, p. 84.
Hence, the judgments which men pass upon the conduct of others, or of
themselves, are, in their origin, altogether inexplicable; each judgment
being merely a different form of one great moral faculty. Inasmuch,
however, as that faculty escapes observation, and is only known by its
results, it is evident that, for all purposes of reasoning, the judgments
must be deemed primary, and arguments are to be constructed from them, as
if they were the ultimate and highest conditions of our nature. In this
way, Hutcheson was led to that love of multiplying original principles,
which Sir James Mackintosh has justly noticed as a characteristic of his
philosophy, and, after him, of the Scotch philosophy in general;[644]
though the distinguished author of this remark has failed to perceive
that such characteristic was but a single part of a far larger scheme,
and was intimately connected with those habits of deductive thought which
a long train of preceding circumstances had indelibly imprinted on the
Scotch mind.
[644] 'To him may also be ascribed that proneness to multiply ultimate
and original principles in human nature, which characterised the
Scottish School till the second extinction of a passion for
metaphysical speculation in Scotland.' _Mackintosh's Dissertation
on Ethical Philosophy_, edit. Whewell, Edinburgh, 1837, p. 208.
In Hutcheson, the tendency was so strong, as to make him believe, that,
by arguing from a certain number of original principles, he could
construct the theory and explain the march of human affairs, with little
or no aid from the experience of the past, or, indeed, of the present.
His views, for instance, respecting the nature and objects of
legislation, criminal, as well as civil, might have been written by a
recluse who had never quitted his hermitage, and whose purity was still
unsoiled by the realities of the world. Starting from the so-called
nature of things, his first steps were ideal, and from them he sought to
advance to the actual. In his account of the duties of life, as they
existed before the power of government was consolidated, he quotes no
evidence to show what really happened among barbarous tribes who were in
that state; but he contents himself with deductive inferences from the
principles he had previously laid down.[645] Difficult questions relating
to the laws of property, are treated in the same manner; that is to say,
the conclusions respecting them are arrived at on speculative grounds,
and not by comparing how the different enactments have worked in
different countries.[646] Experience is either shut out, or made
subordinate to theory; and facts are adduced to illustrate the inference,
but not to suggest it. So, too, the proper relation between the people
and their rulers, and the amount of liberty which the people should
possess, instead of being inductively generalized from an historical
inquiry into the circumstances which had produced most happiness, might,
in the opinion of Hutcheson, be ascertained by reasoning from the nature
of government, and from the ends for which it was instituted.[647]
[645] See his ingenious chapter, entitled 'A deduction of the more
special laws of nature and duties of life, previous to civil
government, and other adventitious states.' _Moral Philosophy_,
vol. i. p. 227; and compare vol. ii. pp. 294-309, 'How civil power
is acquired.'
[646] See, for example, his remarks on 'the right of possession.' _Moral
Philosophy_, vol. i. p. 344; on 'rights by mortgage,' p. 350; and
on inheritance, p. 356.
[647] In his _Moral Philosophy_, vol. ii. pp. 346, 347, he sums up a
long argument on 'the nature of civil laws,' by saying: 'Thus the
general duties of magistrates and subjects are discoverable from
the nature of the trust committed to them, and the end of all
civil power.'
The next great attempt to study the actions of men scientifically, and to
generalize the principles of their conduct without the intervention of
supernatural ideas, was made by Adam Smith, who, in 1759, published his
_Theory of Moral Sentiments_, and, in 1776, his _Wealth of Nations_. To
understand the philosophy of this, by far the greatest of all the Scotch
thinkers, both works must be taken together, and considered as one;
since they are, in reality, the two divisions of a single subject. In
the _Moral Sentiments_, he investigates the sympathetic part of human
nature; in the _Wealth of Nations_, he investigates its selfish part. And
as all of us are sympathetic as well as selfish; in other words, as all
of us look without as well as within, and as this classification is a
primary and exhaustive division of our motives to action, it is evident,
that if Adam Smith had completely accomplished his vast design, he would
at once have raised the study of human nature to a science, leaving
nothing for subsequent inquirers except to ascertain the minor springs of
affairs, all of which would find their place in this general scheme, and
be deemed subordinate to it. In his attempt to perform this prodigious
task, and to traverse the enormous field which he saw lying before him,
he soon perceived that an inductive investigation was impossible, because
it would require the labour of many lives even to assemble the materials
from which the generalization was to be made. Moved by this reflection,
and, probably, moved still more by the intellectual habits which
prevailed around him, he resolved on adopting the deductive method
instead of the inductive; but, in seeking for the premisses from which he
was to reason, and on which his structure was to be built, he resorted to
a peculiar artifice, which is perfectly valid, and which he had an
undoubted right to employ, though, to make it available, requires such
delicate tact, and involves so many refinements, that extremely few
writers have used it with effect on social questions either before or
since.
The plan to which I allude is, that when any subject becomes unmanageable
by the inductive method, whether from the impossibility of experimenting
upon it, or from its extreme natural complexity, or from the presence of
immense and bewildering details collected around it, we may, in all such
cases, make an imaginary separation of inseparable facts; and reason upon
trains of events which have no real and independent existence, and which
are nowhere to be found except in the mind of the inquirer. A result
obtained in this way, cannot be strictly true; but, if we have reasoned
accurately, it will be as near truth as were the premisses from which we
started. To make it perfectly true, we must confront it with other
results, which we have arrived at in a similar way, and from the same
subject. These separate inferences may eventually be coördinated into a
single system; so that, while each inference contains only an imperfect
truth, the whole of the inferences, when put together, will contain
perfect truth.
Such hypothetical arguments are evidently based upon an intentional
suppression of facts; and the artifice is necessary, because, without the
suppression, the facts would be unmanageable. Each argument leads to a
conclusion which approximates to truth; hence, whenever the premisses are
so comprehensive as almost to exhaust the facts to which they refer, the
conclusion will be so near to complete truth as to be of the greatest
value, even before it is coördinated with other conclusions drawn from
the same department of inquiry.
Geometry exhibits the most perfect example of this logical stratagem. The
object of the geometrician is, to generalize the laws of space; in other
words, to ascertain the necessary and universal relations of its various
parts. Inasmuch, however, as space would have no parts unless it were
divided, the geometrician is forced to assume such a division; and he
takes the simplest possible form of it, a division by lines. Now, a line
considered as a fact, that is, as it is found in the actual world, must
always have two qualities, length and breadth. However slight these
qualities may be, every line has them both. But if the geometrician took
both into consideration, he would find himself in the presence of a
problem too complicated for the resources of the human understanding to
deal with; or, at all events, too complicated for the present resources
of our knowledge. He, therefore, by a scientific artifice, deliberately
strikes off one of these qualities, and asserts that a line is length
without breadth. He knows that the assertion is false, but he also knows
that it is necessary. For, if you deny it, he can prove nothing. If you
insist upon his letting into his premisses the idea of breadth, he is
unable to proceed, and the whole fabric of geometry falls to the ground.
Since, however, the breadth of the faintest line is so slight as to be
incapable of measurement, except by an instrument used under the
microscope, it follows that the assumption, that there can be lines
without breadth, is so nearly true, that our senses, when unassisted by
art, cannot detect the error. Formerly, and until the invention of the
micrometer, in the seventeenth century, it was impossible to detect it at
all. Hence, the conclusions of the geometrician approximate so close to
truth, that we are justified in accepting them as true. The flaw is too
minute to be perceived. But that there is a flaw, appears to me certain.
It appears certain, that whenever something is kept back in the
premisses, something must be wanting in the conclusion. In all such
cases, the field of inquiry has not been entirely covered; and part of
the preliminary facts being suppressed, it must, I think, be admitted,
that complete truth is unattainable, and that no problem in geometry has
yet been exhaustively solved.[648]
[648] That is, so far as the facts are concerned. Geometry, considered
in the most elevated manner, rests on ideas, and from that point
of view is impregnable, unless the axioms can be overthrown. But
if geometricians will insist on having definitions as well as
axioms, they gain, no doubt, increased clearness, but they lose
something in accuracy. I apprehend that, without definitions,
geometry could not be a science of space, but would be a science
of magnitudes, ideally conceived and consequently as pure as
ratiocination could make it. This does not touch the question as
to the empirical origin of the axioms.
Still, the amazing triumphs effected in this branch of mathematics, show
how powerful a weapon that form of deduction is, which proceeds by an
artificial separation of facts, in themselves inseparable. So little,
however, is the philosophy of the method understood, that when, late in
the eighteenth century, political economy assumed a scientific form, many
persons, who were otherwise well instructed, reproached its cultivators
with their hard-heartedness; such objectors being unable to see, that the
science could not be constructed if it were necessary to take in the
whole range of generous and benevolent affections. The political
economist aims at discovering the laws of wealth, which are far too
complicated to be studied under every aspect. He, therefore, selects one
of those aspects, and generalizes the laws as they are exhibited in the
selfish parts of human nature. And he is right in doing so, simply
because men, in the pursuit of wealth, consider their own gratification
oftener than the gratification of others. Hence, he, like the
geometrician, blots out one part of his premisses, in order that he may
manipulate the remaining part with greater ease. But we must always
remember, that political economy, though a profound and beautiful
science, is only a science of one department of life, and is founded upon
a suppression of some of the facts in which all large societies abound.
It suppresses, or, what comes to the same thing, it ignores, many high
and magnanimous feelings which we could ill afford to lose. We are not,
therefore, to allow its conclusions to override all other conclusions. We
may accept them in science, and yet reject them in practice. Thus, the
political economist, when confining himself to his own department, says,
with good reason, that it is both absurd and mischievous for government
to undertake to supply the working-classes with employment. This
assertion, he, as a political economist, can prove; and yet,
notwithstanding its scientific truth, it may be practically right for a
government to do the exact opposite. It may be right for a government to
supply the employment, when the people are so ignorant as to demand it,
and when, at the same time, they are so powerful as to plunge the country
into anarchy if the demand is refused. Here, the view of the politician
takes in all the premisses of which the political economist had only
taken in a portion. In the same way, as a matter of economic science, it
is wrong for any one to relieve the poor; since nothing is better
established, than that to relieve poverty increases it, by encouraging
improvidence. But, in spite of this, the antagonistic principle of
sympathy will come into play, and will, in some minds, operate with such
force, as to make it advisable, that he who feels it should give alms,
because, if he abstains from giving them, the violence which he does to
his own nature may inflict more mischief on himself, than his bestowal of
charity would inflict on the general interests of society.
It will not, I hope, be considered that, in these remarks, I have
digressed from the main argument of the present chapter, since, although,
in making them, I have aimed at clearing up a general question respecting
the nature of scientific proof, I have only done so with the more
particular object of illustrating the philosophy of Adam Smith, and of
explaining the method which that most profound and original thinker
pursued. We shall now be able to see how entirely his plan was deductive,
and what a peculiar form of deduction it was. In his two great works, he
first lays down certain ideas, and from them he marches on to the facts
of the external world. And, in each work, he reasons from only part of
his premisses; supplying the other part in the other work. None of us are
exclusively selfish, and none of us are exclusively sympathetic. But Adam
Smith separates in speculation qualities which are inseparable in
reality. In his _Moral Sentiments_, he ascribes our actions to sympathy;
in his _Wealth of Nations_, he ascribes them to selfishness. A short view
of these two works will prove the existence of this fundamental
difference, and will enable us to perceive that each is supplementary to
the other; so that, in order to understand either, it is necessary to
study both.
In the _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, Adam Smith lays down one great
principle from which he reasons, and to which all the others are
subordinate. This principle is, that the rules which we prescribe to
ourselves, and which govern our conduct, are solely arrived at by
observing the conduct of others.[649] We judge ourselves, because we had
previously judged them. Our notions are obtained from without, and not
from within. If, therefore, we lived entirely alone, we could have no
idea of merit or demerit, and it would be impossible for us to form an
opinion as to whether our sentiments were right or wrong.[650] To acquire
this knowledge, we must look abroad. Inasmuch, however, as we have no
direct experience of what other persons actually feel, we can only gain
the information by conceiving what we should feel if we were in their
place.[651] Hence, all men are, in imagination, constantly changing
situations with others; and though the change is ideal, and lasts but for
a moment, it is the foundation of that great and universal impulse which
is called Sympathy.[652]
[649] 'Our continual observations upon the conduct of others, insensibly
lead us to form to ourselves certain general rules concerning what
is fit and proper either to be done or to be avoided.' ... 'It is
thus that the general rules of morality are formed. They are
ultimately founded upon experience of what, in particular
instances, our moral faculties, our natural sense of merit and
propriety, approve or disapprove of. We do not originally approve
or condemn particular actions; because, upon examination, they
appear to be agreeable or inconsistent with a certain general
rule. The general rule, on the contrary, is formed by finding from
experience that all actions of a certain kind, or circumstanced in
a certain manner, are approved of or disapproved of.' _Smith's
Theory of Moral Sentiments_, vol. i. pp. 219, 220. At p. 153: 'We
either approve or disapprove of our own conduct according as we
feel that, when we place ourselves in the situation of another
man, and view it, as it were, with his eyes and from his station,
we either can or cannot entirely enter into and sympathize with
the sentiments and motives which influenced it.'
[650] 'Were it possible that a human creature could grow up to manhood
in some solitary place, without any communication with his own
species, he could no more think of his own character, of the
propriety or demerit of his own sentiments and conduct, of the
beauty or deformity of his own mind, than of the beauty and
deformity of his own face.' _Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments_,
vol. i. p. 154. 'Our first moral criticisms are exercised upon the
characters and conduct of other people.' p. 156.
[651] 'As we have no immediate experience of what other men feel, we can
form no idea of the manner in which they are affected, but by
conceiving what we ourselves should feel in the like situation.'
_Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments_, vol. i. p. 2.
[652] 'That imaginary change of situation, upon which their sympathy is
founded, is but momentary.' _Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments_,
vol. i. p. 21. Compare vol. ii. p. 206.
By proceeding from these premisses, a vast number of social phenomena may
be explained. We naturally sympathize with joy more than with
sorrow.[653] Hence, that admiration for prosperous and successful
persons, which is quite independent of any benefit we expect from them;
and hence, too, the existence of different ranks and of social
distinctions, all of which emanate from the same source.[654] Hence,
also, the feeling of loyalty, which is a product, not of reason, nor of
fear, nor of a sense of public convenience, but rather of sympathy with
those above us, begetting an extraordinary compassion for even their
ordinary sufferings.[655] Custom and fashion play a great part in the
world, but they owe their origin entirely to sympathy;[656] and so do the
various systems of philosophy which have flourished at different times,
the disagreement between which depends on the fact, that each philosopher
has sympathized with different ideas, some sympathizing with the notion
of fitness or congruity, some with that of prudence, some with that of
benevolence, and every one developing the conception paramount in his own
mind.[657] To sympathy, again, we must ascribe the establishment of
rewards and punishments, and the whole of our criminal laws, none of
which would have existed but for our disposition to sympathize with those
who either do good or suffer harm; for the circumstance of society being
protected by penal laws, is a subsequent and subordinate discovery,
which confirms our sense of their propriety, but did not suggest it.[658]
The same principle causes the difference of character exhibited by
different classes, such as the irritability of poets, compared with the
coolness of mathematicians;[659] it likewise causes that social
difference between the sexes, which makes men more remarkable for
generosity, and women for humanity.[660] All these results illustrate the
workings of sympathy, and are the remote, but still the direct,
operations of that principle. Indeed, we can trace to it some of the
minutest divisions of character; pride and vanity, for instance, being
dependent on it, although those two passions are often confused together,
and are sometimes strangely blended in the same mind.[661]
[653] 'I will venture to affirm that, when there is no envy in the case,
our propensity to sympathize with joy is much stronger than our
propensity to sympathize with sorrow.' _Smith's Theory of Moral
Sentiments_, vol. i. p. 58. 'It is because mankind are disposed to
sympathize more entirely with our joy than with our sorrow, that
we make parade of our riches, and conceal our poverty.' p. 65.
[654] 'Upon this disposition of mankind to go along with all the
passions of the rich and the powerful, is founded the distinction
of ranks, and the order of society. Our obsequiousness to our
superiors more frequently arises from our admiration for the
advantages of their situation, than from any private expectations
of benefit from their good will.' _Smith's Theory of Moral
Sentiments_, vol. i. p. 69. See also vol. ii. p. 72.
[655] See the striking remarks in _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, vol. i.
p. 70-72.
[656] _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, vol. ii. pp. 23 seq.
[657] _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, vol. ii. pp. 131-244. This sketch of
the different systems of philosophy is perhaps the ablest part of
the book, notwithstanding two or three errors which it contains.
[658] _Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments_, vol. i. pp. 89, 92, 115,
116. The utmost which he will concede to the notion of social
convenience, is that 'we frequently have occasion to confirm our
natural sense of the propriety and fitness of punishment, by
reflecting how necessary it is for preserving the order of
society.' p. 122.
[659] _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, vol. i. pp. 172-174.
[660] 'Humanity is the virtue of a woman, generosity of a man. The fair
sex, who have commonly much more tenderness than ours, have seldom
so much generosity.' _Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments_, vol.
ii. p. 19. Sufficient facts have not yet been collected to enable
us to test the truth of this remark, and the loose experience of
individual observers is worth very little on so wide a subject.
Still, I venture to doubt the truth of Adam Smith's distinction. I
suspect that women are, on the whole, more generous than men, as
well as more tender. But to establish a proposition of this sort,
would require the most extensive research, made by a careful and
analytic mind; and, at present, there is not even any tolerably
good work on the mental characteristics which distinguish the
sexes, and there never will be one until physiology is united with
biography.
[661] _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, vol. ii. pp. 115-122.
Sympathy, then, is the main-spring of human conduct. It arises, not so
much from witnessing the passions of other persons, as from witnessing
the situation which excites those passions.[662] To this single process
we are indebted, not only for the highest principles, but also for the
deepest emotions. For, the greatest affection of which we are capable, is
merely sympathy fixed into habit; and the love which exists between the
nearest relations, is not inherent, but is derived from this mighty and
controlling principle, which governs the whole course of affairs.[663]
[662] 'Sympathy, therefore, does not arise so much from the view of the
passion, as from that of the situation which excites it.' _Smith's
Theory of Moral Sentiments_, vol. i. p. 6.
[663] 'What is called affection, is, in reality, nothing but habitual
sympathy.' _Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments_, vol. ii. p. 63.
'In some tragedies and romances, we meet with many beautiful and
interesting scenes, founded upon what is called the force of
blood, or upon the wonderful affection which near relations are
supposed to conceive for one another, even before they know that
they have any such connection. This force of blood, however, I am
afraid, exists nowhere but in tragedies and romances.' p. 66.
By this bold hypothesis, Adam Smith, at one stroke, so narrowed the field
of inquiry, as to exclude from it all considerations of selfishness as a
primary principle, and only to admit its great antagonist, sympathy. The
existence of the antagonism, he distinctly recognizes. For, he will not
allow that sympathy is in any way to be deemed a selfish principle.[664]
Although he knew that it is pleasurable, and that all pleasure contains
an element of selfishness, it did not suit the method of his philosophy
to subject the principle of sympathy to such an inductive analysis as
would reveal its elements. His business was, to reason from it, and not
to it. Concentrating his energy upon the deductive process, and
displaying that dialectic skill which is natural to his countrymen, and
of which he himself was one of the most consummate masters the world has
ever seen, he constructed a system of philosophy, imperfect indeed,
because the premisses were imperfect, but approaching truth as closely as
it was possible for any one to do who abstained from giving due
consideration to the selfish part of human nature. Into the workings of
its sympathetic part, he looked with a minuteness, and he reasoned from
it with a subtlety, which make his work the most important that has ever
been written on this interesting subject. But, inasmuch as his plan
involved a deliberate suppression of preliminary and essential facts, the
results which he obtained do not strictly correspond to those which are
actually observed in the world.[665] This, however, as I have shown, is
not a valid objection; since such discrepancy between the ideal and the
actual, or between the abstract and the concrete, is the necessary
consequence of that still early condition of our knowledge, which forces
us to study complicated questions piecemeal, and to raise them to
sciences by separate and fragmentary investigations.
[664] 'Sympathy, however, cannot, in any sense, be regarded as a selfish
principle.' _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, vol. ii. p. 206. In
vol. i. p. 9, he complains of 'those who are fond of deducing all
our sentiments from certain refinements of self-love.'
[665] This is noticed by Sir James Mackintosh, whose sketch of Adam Smith
is hasty, and somewhat superficial, but who, nevertheless, truly
observes, that Smith 'has exposed himself to objections founded on
experience, to which it is impossible to attempt any answer.'
_Mackintosh's Dissertation on Ethical Philosophy_, pp. 239, 240.
See also a letter from Hume to Adam Smith, in _Burton's Life and
Correspondence of Hume_, vol. ii. p. 60.
That Adam Smith saw this necessity, and that his seeing it was the cause
of the method he pursued, is evident from the fact, that in his next
great work he followed the same plan, and, though he argued from new
premisses, he carefully avoided arguing from any of the old ones.
Convinced that, in his theory of morals, he had reasoned as accurately as
possible from the principles supplied by sympathy, his capacious and
insatiable mind, deeming that nothing had been done while aught remained
to do, urged him to pass on to the opposite passion of selfishness, and
treat it in the same manner, so that the whole domain of thought might be
covered. This he did in his _Wealth of Nations_, which, though even a
greater work than his _Moral Sentiments_, is equally one-sided, in
reference to the principles which it assumes. It assumes that selfishness
is the main regulator of human affairs, just as his previous work had
assumed sympathy to be so. Between the two works there elapsed an
interval of seventeen years; the _Wealth of Nations_ not being published
till 1776. But what shows that to their author both were part of a single
scheme, is the notable circumstance, that, so early as 1753, he had laid
down the principles which his later work contains.[666] This was while
his former work was still in meditation, and before it had seen the
light. It is, therefore, clear, that the study which he made, first of
one passion, and then of its opposite, was not a capricious or accidental
arrangement, but was the consequence of that vast idea which presided
over all his labours, and which, when they are rightly understood, gives
to them a magnificent unity. And a glorious object of ambition it was.
His aspiring and comprehensive genius, sweeping the distant horizon, and
taking in the intermediate space at a glance, sought to traverse the
whole ground in two separate and independent directions, indulging the
hope, that, by supplying in one line of argument the premisses which were
wanting in the other, their opposite conclusions would be compensatory
rather than hostile, and would serve as a broad and permanent basis on
which one great science of human nature might be safely built.
[666] 'Mr. Smith's political lectures, comprehending the fundamental
principles of his "Inquiry," were delivered at Glasgow as early as
the year 1752 or 1753.' _Dugald Stewart's Life of Adam Smith_,
p. lxxviii., prefixed to _Smith's Posthumous Essays_, London, 4to,
1795.
The _Wealth of Nations_ is, as I have elsewhere observed,[667] probably
the most important book which has ever been written, whether we consider
the amount of original thought which it contains, or its practical
influence. Its practical recommendations were extremely favourable to
those doctrines of freedom which the eighteenth century ushered in; and
this secured to them an attention which otherwise they would not have
received. While, therefore, the _Wealth of Nations_ was the proximate
cause of a great change in legislation,[668] a deeper analysis will show,
that the success of the book, and, consequently, the alteration of the
laws, depended upon the operation of more remote and general causes. It
must also be confessed, that those same causes predisposed the mind of
Adam Smith to the doctrines of liberty, and gave him a sort of prejudice
in favour of conclusions which limited the interference of the
legislator. Thus much he borrowed from his age; but one thing he did not
borrow. His wide and organizing mind was all his own. This would have
made him great under any circumstances; to make him powerful, required a
peculiar conjunction of events. That conjunction he enjoyed, and he
turned it to good account. The influence of his contemporaries was enough
to make him liberal; his own capacity was enough to make him
comprehensive. He had, in a most remarkable degree, that exuberance of
thought, which is one of the highest forms of genius, but which leads
those who possess it into distant excursions, which, though they have one
common aim, are often stigmatized as digressions, simply because they who
criticize are unable to discern the great principle which pervades the
whole, and unites the various parts into a single scheme. This has been
especially the case with Adam Smith, whose immortal work has often been
exposed to such shallow objections. And certainly, the _Wealth of
Nations_ displays a breadth of treatment which those who cannot
sympathize with, are very likely to ridicule. The phenomena, not only of
wealth, but also of society in general, classified and arranged under
their various forms; the origin of the division of labour, and the
consequences which that division has produced; the circumstances which
gave rise to the invention of money, and to the subsequent changes in its
value; the history of those changes traced in different ages, and the
history of the relations which the precious metals bear to each other; an
examination of the connection between wages and profits, and of the laws
which govern the rise and fall of both; another examination of the way in
which these are concerned, on the one hand, with the rent of land, and,
on the other hand, with the price of commodities; an inquiry into the
reason why profits vary in different trades, and at different times; a
succinct, but comprehensive, view of the progress of towns in Europe
since the fall of the Roman Empire; the fluctuations, during several
centuries, in the prices of the food of the people, and a statement of
how it is, that, in different stages of society, the relative cost of
land and of meat varies; the history of corporation laws and of municipal
enactments, and their bearing on the four great classes of apprentices,
manufacturers, merchants, and landlords; an account of the immense power
and riches formerly enjoyed by the clergy, and of the manner in which, as
society advances, they gradually lose their exclusive privileges; the
nature of religious dissent, and the reason why the clergy of the
established Church can never contend with it on terms of equality, and,
therefore, call on the State to help them, and wish to persecute when
they cannot persuade; why some sects profess more ascetic principles, and
others more luxurious ones; how it was, that, during the feudal times,
the nobles acquired their power, and how that power has, ever since, been
gradually diminishing; how the rights of territorial jurisdiction
originated, and how they died away; how the sovereigns of Europe obtained
their revenue, what the sources of it are, and what classes are most
heavily taxed in order to supply it; the cause of certain virtues, such
as hospitality, flourishing in barbarous ages, and decaying in civilized
ones; the influence of inventions and discoveries in altering the
distribution of power among the various classes of society; a bold and
masterly sketch of the peculiar sort of advantages which Europe derived
from the discovery of America and of the passage round the Cape; the
origin of universities, their degeneracy from their original plan, the
corruption which has gradually crept over them, and the reason why they
are so unwilling to adopt improvements, and to keep pace with the wants
of the age; a comparison between public and private education, and an
estimate of their relative advantages;--these, and a vast number of other
subjects, respecting the structure and development of society, such as
the feudal system, slavery, emancipation of serfs, origin of standing
armies, and of mercenary troops, effects produced by tithes, laws of
primogeniture, sumptuary laws, international treaties concerning trade,
rise of European banks, national debts, influence of dramatic
representations over opinions, influence of foreign travels over
opinions, colonies, poor-laws,--all topics of a miscellaneous character,
and many of them diverging from each other,--all are fused into one great
system, and irradiated by the splendour of one great genius. Into that
dense and disorderly mass, did Adam Smith introduce symmetry, method, and
law. At his touch, anarchy disappeared, and darkness was succeeded by
light. Much, of course, he took from his predecessors, though nothing
like so much as is commonly supposed. On this sort of borrowing, the best
and strongest of us are dependent. But, after making every possible
allowance for what he gathered from others, we must honestly say, that no
single man ever took so great a step upon so important a subject, and
that no single work which is now preserved, contains so many views, which
were novel at the time, but which subsequent experience has ratified.
What, however, for our present purpose, is most important to observe, is,
that he obtained these results by arguing from principles which the
selfish part of human nature exclusively supplied, and that he omitted
those sympathetic feelings of which every human being possesses at least
some share, but which he could not take into consideration, without
producing a problem, the number of whose complications it would have been
hopeless to unravel.
[667] _History of Civilization_, vol. i. p. 214.
[668] 'Perhaps the only book which produced an immediate, general, and
irrevocable change in some of the most important parts of the
legislation of all civilized states.' _Mackintosh's Ethical
Philosophy_, p. 232. But this is too strongly expressed, as the
economical history of France and Germany decisively proves.
To avoid, therefore, being baffled, he simplified the problem, by erasing
from his view of human nature those premisses which he had already
handled in his _Theory of Moral Sentiments_. At the beginning of the
_Wealth of Nations_, he lays down two propositions: 1st, that all wealth
is derived, not from land, but from labour; and 2d, that the amount of
the wealth depends, partly on the skill with which the labour is
conducted, and partly on the proportion between the number of those who
labour and the number of those who do not labour. The rest of the work,
is an application of these principles, to explain the growth and
mechanism of society. In applying them, he everywhere assumes, that the
great moving power of all men, all interests, and all classes, in all
ages, and in all countries, is selfishness. The opposite power of
sympathy he entirely shuts out; and I hardly remember an instance in
which even the word occurs in the whole course of his work. Its
fundamental assumption is, that each man exclusively follows his own
interest, or what he deems to be his own interest. And one of the
peculiar features of his book is, to show that, considering society as a
whole, it nearly always happens that men, in promoting their own
interest, will unintentionally promote the interest of others. Hence, the
great practical lesson is, not to restrain selfishness, but to enlighten
it; because there is a provision in the nature of things, by which the
selfishness of the individual accelerates the progress of the community.
According to this view, the prosperity of a country depends on the amount
of its capital; the amount of its capital depends on the habit of saving,
that is, on parsimony, as opposed to generosity; while the habit of
saving is, in its turn, governed by the desire we all feel of bettering
our condition,--a desire so inherent in our nature, that it comes with us
from the womb, and only leaves us in the grave.[669]
[669] 'Parsimony, and not industry, is the immediate cause of the
increase of capital. Industry, indeed, provides the subject which
parsimony accumulates; but whatever industry might acquire, if
parsimony did not save and store up, the capital would never be
the greater.' ... 'But the principle which prompts to save, is the
desire of bettering our condition; a desire which, though
generally calm and dispassionate, comes with us from the womb, and
never leaves us till we go into the grave.' _Smith's Wealth of
Nations_, book ii. chap. iii. pp. 138, 140, edit. Edinb. 1839.
This constant effort of every man, to better his own condition, is so
salutary, as well as so powerful, that it is often capable of securing
the progress of society, in spite of the folly and extravagance of the
rulers of mankind.[670] If it were not for this propensity, improvement
would be impossible. For human institutions are constantly stopping our
advance, by thwarting our natural inclinations.[671] And no wonder that
this should be the case, seeing that the men who are at the head of
affairs, and by whom the institutions are contrived, have, perhaps, a
certain rough and practical sagacity; but being, from the narrowness of
their understandings, incapable of large views, their councils are
determined by those mere casual fluctuations which alone they are able to
perceive.[672] They do not see that we have prospered, not on account of
their enactments, but in the teeth of them; and that the real cause of
our prosperity is the fact that we enjoy undisturbed the fruit of our own
labour.[673] Whenever this right is tolerably secure, every man will be
bent on procuring for himself either present enjoyment or future profit;
and if he does not aim at one of these objects, he is void of common
understanding.[674] If he possess capital, he will probably aim at both,
but, in doing so, he will never consider the interest of others; his sole
motive will be his own private profit.[675] And it is well that such
should be the case. For, by thus pursuing his personal interest, he aids
society more than if his views were generous and exalted. Some people
affect to carry on trade for the good of others; but this is mere
affectation, though, to say the truth, it is an affectation not very
common among merchants, and many words are not needed to dissuade them
from so foolish a practice.[676]
[670] 'The uniform, constant, and uninterrupted effort of every man to
better his condition, the principle from which public and
national, as well as private, opulence is originally derived, is
frequently powerful enough to maintain the natural progress of
things towards improvement, in spite both of the extravagance of
government and of the greatest errors of administration. Like the
unknown principle of animal life, it frequently restores health
and vigour to the constitution, in spite not only of the disease,
but of the absurd prescriptions of the doctor.' _Wealth of
Nations_, book ii. chap. iii. p. 141. 'The natural effort of every
individual to better his own condition, when suffered to exert
itself with freedom and security, is so powerful a principle, that
it is alone, and without any assistance, not only capable of
carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of
surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the
folly of human laws too often encumbers its operations.' Book iv.
chap. v. p. 221.
[671] See an admirable passage, p. 156, too long to quote, beginning,
'If human institutions had never thwarted those natural
inclinations,' &c.
[672] 'That insidious and crafty animal, vulgarly called a statesman or
politician, whose councils are directed by the momentary
fluctuations of affairs.' _Wealth of Nations_, book iv. chap. ii.
p. 190.
[673] 'That security which the laws in Great Britain give to every man,
that he shall enjoy the fruits of his own labour, is alone
sufficient to make any country flourish, notwithstanding these and
twenty other absurd regulations of commerce.' _Wealth of Nations_,
book iv. chap. v. p. 221.
[674] 'In all countries where there is a tolerable security, every man
of common understanding will endeavour to employ whatever stock he
can command, in procuring either present enjoyment or future
profit.' _Wealth of Nations_, book ii. chap. i. p. 115.
[675] 'The consideration of his own private profit is the sole motive
which determines the owner of any capital to employ it either in
agriculture, in manufactures, or in some particular branch of the
wholesale or retail trade.' _Wealth of Nations_, book ii. chap. v.
p. 154.
[676] 'By pursuing his own interest, he frequently promotes that of the
society more effectually than when he really intends to promote
it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to
trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very
common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in
dissuading them from it.' _Wealth of Nations_, book iv. chap. ii.
p. 184.
In this way, Adam Smith completely changes the premisses which he had
assumed in his earlier work. Here, he makes men naturally selfish;
formerly, he had made them naturally sympathetic.[677] Here, he
represents them as pursuing wealth for sordid objects, and for the
narrowest personal pleasures; formerly he represented them as pursuing it
out of regard to the sentiments of others, and for the sake of obtaining
their sympathy.[678] In the _Wealth of Nations_, we hear no more of this
conciliatory and sympathetic spirit; such amiable maxims are altogether
forgotten, and the affairs of the world are regulated by different
principles. It now appears that benevolence and affection have no
influence over our actions. Indeed, Adam Smith will hardly admit common
humanity into his theory of motives. If a people emancipate their slaves,
it is a proof, not that the people are acted on by high moral
considerations, nor that their sympathy is excited by the cruelty
inflicted on these unhappy creatures. Nothing of the sort. Such
inducements to conduct are imaginary, and exercise no real sway. All that
the emancipation proves, is, that the slaves were few in number, and,
therefore, small in value. Otherwise, they would not have been
emancipated.[679]
[677] In his _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, vol. i. p. 21, he says that
mankind are 'naturally sympathetic.'
[678] 'Nay, it is chiefly for this regard to the sentiments of mankind,
that we pursue riches and avoid poverty.' _Theory of Moral
Sentiments_, vol. i. p. 66. 'To become the natural object of the
joyous congratulations and sympathetic attentions of mankind, is,
in this manner, the circumstance which gives to prosperity all its
dazzling splendour.' p. 78.
[679] 'The late resolution of the Quakers in Pennsylvania, to set at
liberty all their negro slaves, may satisfy us that their number
cannot be very great. Had they made any considerable part of their
property, such a resolution could never have been agreed to.'
_Wealth of Nations_, book iii. chap. ii. p. 159.
So, too, while in his former work, he had ascribed the different systems
of morals to the power of sympathy, he, in this work, ascribes them
entirely to the power of selfishness. He observes, that, among the lower
ranks of society, dissipation is more fatal to individuals, than it is
among the higher ranks. The extravagance which dissipation produces, may
injure the fortune of a wealthy man, but the injury is usually capable of
being repaired, or, at all events, he can indulge his vices for years
without completely destroying his fortune, and without bringing himself
to utter ruin. To the labourer, a similar indulgence would be fatal in a
single week; it would not merely reduce him to beggary, and perhaps send
him to jail, but it would destroy his future prospects, by taking away
that character for sobriety and regularity on which his employment
depends. Hence, the better class of common people, guided by their
interest, look with aversion on excesses which they know to be fatal;
while the upper ranks finding that a moderate amount of vice hurts
neither their purse nor their reputation consider such license to be one
of the advantages which their fortune confers, and they value, as one of
the privileges belonging to their station, the liberty of indulging
themselves without being censured. Therefore it is, that they who dissent
from the established Church have a purer system of morals, or, at all
events, an austerer one, than they who agree with it. For, new religious
sects usually begin among the common people, the thinking part of whom
are, by their interest, driven to strict views of the duties of life.
Consequently, the advocates of the new opinion profess a similar
strictness, seeing that it is the surest means of increasing their
proselytes. Thus it is that sectaries and heretics, governed by interest
rather than by principle, adopt a code of morals which is suited to their
own purpose, and the rigidity of which is strongly contrasted with the
laxer code of more orthodox believers.[680] Owing to the operation of the
same principle, we also find, that, among the orthodox themselves, the
clergy embrace a stricter system of morals in countries where church
benefices are nearly equal than they do in countries where the benefices
are very unequal. This is because, when all the benefices are nearly
equal, none can be very rich, and, consequently, even the most
conspicuous among the clergy will have but small incomes. But a man who
has little to spend can have no influence, unless his morals are
exemplary. Having no wealth to give him weight the vices of levity would
make him ridiculous. To avoid contempt, and also to avoid the expense
which a looseness of conduct occasions, and which his narrow
circumstances cannot afford, he has but one remedy, and that remedy he
adopts. He retains his influence, and saves his pocket, by protesting
against pleasures which he cannot conveniently enjoy; in this, as in all
other cases, pursuing that plan of life which his own interest urges him
to follow.[681]
[680] 'In every civilized society, in every society where the
distinction of ranks has once been completely established, there
have been always two different schemes or systems of morality
current at the same time; of which the one may be called the
strict or austere; the other the liberal, or, if you will, the
loose system. The former is generally revered and admired by the
common people; the latter is commonly more esteemed and adopted by
what are called the people of fashion. The degree of
disapprobation with which we ought to mark the vices of levity,
the vices which are apt to arise from great prosperity, and from
the excess of gaiety and good humour, seems to constitute the
principal distinction between those two opposite schemes or
systems. In the liberal, or loose system, luxury, wanton, and even
disorderly mirth, the pursuit of pleasure to some degree of
intemperance, the breach of chastity, at least in one of the two
sexes, provided they are not accompanied with gross indecency, and
do not lead to falsehood and injustice, are generally treated with
a good deal of indulgence, and are easily either excused or
pardoned altogether. In the austere system, on the contrary, these
excesses are regarded with the utmost abhorrence and detestation.
The vices of levity are always ruinous to the common people, and a
single week's thoughtlessness and dissipation is often sufficient
to undo a poor workman for ever, and to drive him, through
despair, upon committing the most enormous crimes. The wiser and
better sort of the common people, therefore, have always the
utmost abhorrence and detestation of such excesses, which their
experience tells them are so immediately fatal to people of their
condition. The disorder and extravagance of several years, on the
contrary, will not always ruin a man of fashion; and people of
that rank are very apt to consider the power of indulging in some
degree of excess, as one of the advantages of their fortune; and
the liberty of doing so without censure or reproach, as one of the
privileges which belong to their station. In people of their own
station, therefore, they regard such excesses with but a small
degree of disapprobation, and censure them either very slightly or
not at all.
'Almost all religious sects have begun among the common people,
from whom they have generally drawn their earliest as well as
their most numerous proselytes. The austere system of morality
has, accordingly, been adopted by those sects almost constantly,
or with very few exceptions; for there have been some. It was the
system by which they could best recommend themselves to that order
of people, to whom they first proposed their plan of reformation
upon what had been before established. Many of them, perhaps the
greater part of them, have even endeavoured to gain credit by
refining upon this austere system, and by carrying it to some
degree of folly and extravagance; and this excessive rigour has
frequently recommended them, more than any thing else, to the
respect and veneration of the common people.' ... 'In little
religious sects, accordingly, the morals of the common people have
been almost always remarkably regular and orderly; generally much
more so than in the established church. The morals of those little
sects, indeed, have frequently been rather disagreeably rigorous
and unsocial.' _Wealth of Nations_, book v. chap. i. pp. 332, 333.
[681] 'Where the church benefices are all nearly equal, none of them can
be very great; and this mediocrity of benefice, though it may, no
doubt, be carried too far, has, however, some very agreeable
effects. Nothing but exemplary morals can give dignity to a man of
small fortune. The vices of levity and vanity necessarily render
him ridiculous, and are, besides, almost as ruinous to him as they
are to the common people. In his own conduct, therefore, he is
obliged to follow that system of morals which the common people
respect the most. He gains their esteem and affection, by that
plan of life which his own interest and situation would lead him
to follow.' _Wealth of Nations_, book v. chap. i. p. 340.
In these striking generalizations, which, though they contain a large
amount of truth, are far from containing the whole truth, no room is left
for the magnanimous parts of our nature to act; but the system of morals,
prevailing at any one time or in any one class, is solely ascribed to the
dictates of unalloyed selfishness. Adam Smith, by reasoning from this
principle, with that exquisite subtlety which characterized his mind,
explains many other circumstances which society presents, and which at
first sight appear incongruous. According to the old notions, which,
indeed, are not yet quite extinct, those who received wages were under a
personal obligation to those who paid them; that is to say, they were
under a moral obligation, over and above the obligation of performing
certain services. It was believed that a master could not only select
what servants he chose, but could pay them what he chose; or, at all
events, that it was the will of the masters, considered as a body, which
fixed the usual and average rate of wages.[682] The lower classes were,
therefore, much indebted to the higher ones for giving them so much as
they did; and it was incumbent upon all persons, who received wages, to
take them with humble thankfulness, and with a feeling of gratitude, on
account of the favour bestowed upon them by the generosity of their
superiors.
[682] Besides the evidence supplied by economical treatises, the laws in
our statute-book, respecting wages, show the general conviction,
that their rate could be fixed by the upper classes.
This doctrine, so convenient to the upper classes of society, and so
natural to the universal ignorance which formerly prevailed on these
matters, began to be shaken by the speculative thinkers of the
seventeenth century; but it was reserved for the eighteenth century to
overthrow it, by letting in the great idea of necessity, and proving,
that the rate of wages established in a country, was the inevitable
consequence of the circumstances in which that country was placed, and
had no connexion with the wishes of any individual, or, indeed, with the
wishes of any class. To all instructed persons, this is now a familiar
truth. Its discovery has excluded the notion of gratitude from the
pecuniary relation between employers and employed, and has made known
that servants or workmen who receive wages, have no more reason to be
grateful than those who pay them. For, no choice having been exercised in
fixing the wages, no favour can be conferred in their payment. The whole
process is compulsory, and is the result of what had previously happened.
Scarcely had the eighteenth century passed away, when this most important
discovery was completed. It was decisively proved, that the reward of
labour depends solely on two things; namely, the magnitude of that
national fund out of which all labour is paid, and the number of the
labourers among whom the fund is to be divided.
This vast step in our knowledge is due, mainly, though not entirely, to
Malthus, whose work on Population, besides marking an epoch in the
history of speculative thought, has already produced considerable
practical results, and will probably give rise to others more
considerable still. It was published in 1798; so that Adam Smith, who
died in 1790, missed what to him would have been the intense pleasure of
seeing how, in it, his own views were expanded rather than corrected.
Indeed, it is certain, that without Smith there would have been no
Malthus; that is, unless Smith had laid the foundation, Malthus could not
have raised the superstructure. It was Adam Smith, who, far more than any
other man, introduced the conception of uniform and necessary sequence
into the apparently capricious phenomena of wealth, and who studied those
phenomena by the aid of principles, of which selfishness alone supplied
the data. According to his view, the employers of labour have, as
employers, no benevolence, no sympathy, no virtue of any kind. Their sole
aim is, their own selfish interest. They are constantly engaged in a
tacit, if not in an open, combination, to prevent the lower ranks from
being benefited by a rise of wages; and they sometimes combine for the
purpose even of depressing those wages below their actual rate.[683]
Having no bowels, they think only of themselves. The idea of their
wishing to mitigate the inequalities of fortune, is to be exploded as one
of the chimeras of that protective spirit, which imagined that society
could not go on, unless the richer classes relieved the poorer ones, and
sympathized with their troubles. This antiquated notion is further
rebutted by the fact, that wages are always higher in summer than in
winter, although the expenses which a labourer incurs in winter, being
heavier than in summer, he ought, on principles of common humanity, to
receive more money during the more expensive season.[684] In the same
way, in years of scarcity, the dearness of food causes many persons to go
to service, in order to support their families. The masters, instead of
charitably paying such servants more on account of the unfortunate
position in which they are placed, avail themselves of that position to
pay them less. They make better terms for themselves; they lower wages
just at the moment when sympathy for misfortune would have raised them;
and, as they find that their servants, besides being worse remunerated,
are, by poverty, made more submissive, they consider that scarcity is a
blessing, and that dear years are to be commended as more favourable to
industry than cheap ones.[685]
[683] 'We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters,
though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon
this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the
world as of the subject. Masters are always and every where in a
sort of tacit, but constant and uniform, combination, not to raise
the wages of labour above their actual rate. To violate this
combination is every where a most unpopular action, and a sort of
reproach to a master among his neighbours and equals. We seldom,
indeed, hear of this combination, because it is the usual, and,
one may say, the natural state of things which nobody ever hears
of. Masters, too, sometimes enter into particular combinations to
sink the wages of labour even below this rate.' _Wealth of
Nations_, book i. chap. viii. p. 28.
[684] 'First, in almost every part of Great Britain, there is a
distinction, even in the lowest species of labour, between summer
and winter wages. Summer wages are always highest. But, on account
of the extraordinary expense of fuel, the maintenance of a family
is most expensive in winter. Wages, therefore, being highest when
this expense is lowest, it seems evident that they are not
regulated by what is necessary for this expense, but by the
quantity and supposed value of the work.' _Wealth of Nations_,
book i. chap. viii. p. 31.
[685] 'In years of scarcity, the difficulty and uncertainty of
subsistence make all such people eager to return to service. But
the high price of provisions, by diminishing the funds destined
for the maintenance of servants, disposes masters rather to
diminish than to increase the number of those they have.' ...
'Masters of all sorts, therefore, frequently make better bargains
with their servants in dear than in cheap years, and find them
more humble and dependent in the former than in the latter. They
naturally, therefore, commend the former as more favourable to
industry.' _Wealth of Nations_, book i. chap. viii. p. 35.
Adam Smith, therefore, though he failed in grasping the remote cause of
the rate of wages, clearly saw that the approximate cause was, not the
generosity of human nature, but its selfishness, and that the question
was one of supply and demand; each side striving to extract as much as
possible from the other.[686] By the aid of the same principle, he
explained another curious fact, namely, the extravagant rewards bestowed
on some of the most despicable classes of society, such, for instance, as
opera-dancers, who always receive enormous pay for insignificant
services. He observes, that one of the reasons why we pay them so highly,
is, because we despise them. If to be a public dancer were a creditable
occupation, more persons would be brought up to it, and the supply of
public dancers becoming greater, competition would lower their wages. As
it is, we look on them disdainfully. By way of compensating the disdain,
we have to bribe them largely to induce them to follow their
pursuit.[687] Here we see, that the reward which one class bestows on
another, instead of being increased by sympathy, is increased by scorn;
so that the more we contemn the tastes and the way of life of our
fellow-creatures, the more liberal we are in recompensing them.
[686] 'The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little,
as possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise,
the latter in order to lower, the wages of labour.' _Wealth of
Nations_, b. i. c. viii. p. 27.
[687] 'It seems absurd at first sight, that we should despise their
persons, and yet reward their talents with the most profuse
liberality. While we do the one, however, we must of necessity do
the other. Should the public opinion, or prejudice, ever alter
with regard to such occupation, their pecuniary recompense would
quickly diminish. More people would apply to them, and the
competition would quickly reduce the price of their labour. Such
talents, though far from being common, are by no means so rare as
imagined. Many people possess them in great perfection, who
disdain to make this use of them; and many more are capable of
acquiring them, if any thing could be made honourably by them.'
_Wealth of Nations_, book i. ch. x. p. 44.
Passing to another, and somewhat different, class, Adam Smith threw new
light on the cause of that hospitality for which the clergy were famous
during the Middle Ages, and for the magnificence of which they have
received great praise. He shows that, although they undoubtedly relieved
a large amount of distress, this is not to be ascribed to them as a
merit, since it resulted from the peculiarity of their position, and
since, moreover, they did it for their own advantage. In the Middle Ages,
the clergy possessed enormous wealth, and their revenues were mostly
paid, not in money, but in kind, such as corn, wine, and cattle. Trade
and manufactures being hardly known, the clergy could find no use for
these commodities except to feed other people. By employing them in that
way, they benefited themselves in the most effectual manner. They gained
a reputation for extensive charity; they increased their influence; they
multiplied the number of their adherents; and they not only advanced
themselves to temporal power, but they secured to their spiritual threats
a respect, which, without this contrivance, it would have been impossible
for them to obtain.[688]
[688] 'Over and above the rents of those estates, the clergy possessed
in the tithes a very large portion of the rents of all the other
estates in every kingdom of Europe. The revenues arising from both
those species of rents were, the greater part of them, paid in
kind, in corn, wine, cattle, poultry, &c. The quantity exceeded
greatly what the clergy could themselves consume; and there were
neither arts nor manufactures, for the produce of which they could
exchange the surplus. The clergy could derive advantage from this
immense surplus in no other way than by employing it, as the great
barons employed the like surplus of their revenues, in the most
profuse hospitality, and in the most extensive charity. Both the
hospitality and the charity of the ancient clergy, accordingly,
are said to have been very great.' ... 'The hospitality and
charity of the clergy, too, not only gave them the command of a
great temporal force, but increased very much the weight of their
spiritual weapons. Those virtues procured them the highest respect
and veneration among all the inferior ranks of people, of whom
many were constantly, and almost all occasionally, fed by them.'
_Wealth of Nations_, book v. chap. i. p. 336.
The reader will now be able to understand the nature of that method of
investigation which is adopted in the _Wealth of Nations_, and of which I
have given more instances than I should otherwise have done, partly
because the question of philosophic method lies at the very root of our
knowledge, and partly because no attempt has hitherto been made to
analyze the intellect of Adam Smith, by considering his two great works
as the opposite, but yet the compensatory, parts of a single scheme. And,
as he is by far the greatest thinker Scotland has produced, I need hardly
apologize, in a history of the Scotch mind, for devoting so much
attention to his system, and endeavouring to examine it at its base. But,
having done so, it would be a needless prolixity to treat with equal
fulness the productions of those other eminent Scotchmen who lived at the
same time, and nearly all of whom pursued a method essentially, though
not entirely, the same; that is to say, they preferred the deductive
process of reasoning from principles, to the inductive process of
reasoning to them. In that peculiar form of deduction which consists in a
deliberate suppression of part of the principles, Adam Smith stands
alone. For, though others attempted to follow that plan, they did so
irregularly, and at intervals, and did not, like him, see the importance
of keeping close to their method, and of invariably abstaining from
letting into the premisses of their arguments, considerations which would
complicate the problem that they wished to solve.
Among the contemporaries of Adam Smith, one of the first, in eminence, as
well as in reputation, is David Hume. His views respecting political
economy were published in 1752,[689] that is, the very year in which Adam
Smith taught the principles subsequently unfolded in the _Wealth of
Nations_. But Hume, though a most accomplished reasoner, as well as a
profound and fearless thinker, had not the comprehensiveness of Adam
Smith, nor had he that invaluable quality of imagination without which no
one can so transport himself into past ages as to realize the long and
progressive movements of society, always fluctuating, yet, on the whole,
steadily advancing. How unimaginative he was, appears, not only from the
sentiments he expressed, but likewise from many traits in his private
life.[690] It appears, also, in the very colour and mechanism of his
language; that beautiful and chiselled style in which he habitually
wrote, polished as marble, but cold as marble too, and wanting that fiery
enthusiasm and those bursts of tempestuous eloquence, which, ever and
anon, great objects naturally inspire, and which rouse men to their
inmost depths. This it was, which, in his _History of England_,--that
exquisite production of art, which, in spite of its errors, will be
admired as long as taste remains among us,--prevented him from
sympathizing with those bold and generous natures, who, in the
seventeenth century, risked their all to preserve the liberty of their
country. His imagination was not strong enough to picture the whole of
that great century, with its vast discoveries, its longings after the
unknown, its splendid literature, and what was better than all these, its
stern determination to vindicate freedom, and to put down tyranny. His
clear and powerful understanding saw these things separately, and in
their various parts, but could not fuse them into a single form, because
he lacked that peculiar faculty which assimilates the past to the
present, and enables the mind to discern both with almost equal ease.
That Great Rebellion, which he ascribed to the spirit of faction, and the
leaders of which he turned into ridicule, was but the continuation of a
movement which can be clearly traced to the twelfth century, and of which
such events as the invention of printing, and the establishment of the
Reformation, were merely successive symptoms. For all this, Hume cared
nothing. In regard to philosophy, and in regard to the purely speculative
parts of religious doctrines, his penetrating genius enabled him to
perceive that nothing could be done, except by a spirit of fearless and
unrestrained liberty. But this was the liberty of his own class; the
liberty of thinkers, and not of actors. His absence of imagination
prevented him from extending the range of his sympathy beyond the
intellectual classes, that is, beyond the classes of whose feelings he
was directly cognizant. It would, therefore, appear, that his political
errors were due, not, as is commonly said, to his want of research, but
rather to the coldness of his temperament.[691] It was this which made
him stop where he did, and which gave to his works the singular
appearance of a profound and original thinker, in the middle of the
eighteenth century, advocating practical doctrines, so illiberal, that,
if enforced, they would lead to despotism, and yet, at the same time,
advocating speculative doctrines, so fearless and enlightened, that they
were not only far in advance of his own age, but have, in some degree,
outstripped even the age in which we live.
[689] _Burton's Life of Hume_, vol. i. p. 354.
[690] See Mr. Burton's valuable _Life of Hume_, Edinburgh, 1846, vol. i.
pp. 58, 267, vol. ii. pp. 14, 134.
[691] What confirms me in this view, is the fact, that the older Hume
grew, and the more he read on history, the more he became imbued
with these errors; which would not have been the case if the
errors had, as many of his critics say, been the result of an
insufficient acquaintance with the evidence. Mr. Burton, by
comparing the different editions of his _History of England_, has
shown that he gradually became less favourable to popular liberty;
softening, or erasing, in later editions, those expressions which
seemed favourable to freedom. _Burton's Life of Hume_, vol. ii.
pp. 74-77. See also pp. 144, 434. In his _Own Life_, p. xi (in
vol. i. of _Hume's Works_ Edinb. 1826), he says: 'In a hundred
alterations, which farther study, reading, or reflection engaged
me to make in the reigns of the two first Stuarts, I have made all
of them invariably the Tory side.' In one of his essays, he
observes (_Philosophical Works_, vol. iv. p. 172) that 'there is
no enthusiasm among philosophers;' a remark perfectly true, so far
as he was concerned, but very unjust towards the class of men to
whom it refers.
Among his speculative views, the most important are his theory of
causation as discarding the idea of power, and his theory of the laws of
association. Neither of these theories are, in their primary conception,
quite original, but his treatment made them as valuable as if they had
been entirely his own. His theory of miracles, in connexion, on the one
hand, with the principles of evidence, and, on the other hand, with the
laws of causation, is worked out with consummate skill, and, after having
received the modifications subsequently imposed by Brown, has now become
the foundation on which the best inquirers into these matters take their
stand.[692] His work on the principles of morals, by generalizing the
laws of expediency, prepared the way for Bentham, who afterwards
incorporated with them an estimate of the more remote consequences of
human actions; Hume, having chiefly confined himself to their more
immediate consequences. The doctrine of utility was common to each; but
while Hume applied it mainly to the individual, Bentham applied it to the
surrounding society. Though Bentham was more comprehensive, yet Hume,
having come first, was more original. The praise of originality must also
be accorded to his economical theories, in which he advocated those
principles of free trade, which politicians began to adopt many years
after his death.[693] In opposition to the notions then prevailing, he
distinctly asserted, that all commodities, though apparently bought by
money, are in reality bought by labour.[694] Money, therefore, is not the
subject of commerce, and is of no use except to facilitate it.[695]
Hence, it is absurd for a nation to trouble itself about the balance of
trade, or to make regulations to discourage the exportation of the
precious metals.[696] Neither does the average rate of interest depend on
their scarcity or abundance, but upon the operation of more general
causes.[697] As a necessary consequence of these positions, Hume inferred
that the established policy was wrong, which made trading states look
upon each other as rivals, while, in point of fact, the question, if
considered from a certain height, was one, not of rivalry, but of
coöperation; every country being benefited by the increasing wealth of
its neighbours.[698] Those who know the character of commercial
legislation, and the opinions of even the most enlightened statesmen a
century ago, will consider these views as extremely remarkable to have
been propounded in the year 1752. But what is more remarkable still, is,
that their author subsequently detected the fundamental error which Adam
Smith committed, and which vitiates many of his conclusions. The error
consists in his having resolved price into three components, namely,
wages, profit, and rent; whereas it is now known that price is a compound
of wages and profit, and that rent is not an element of it, but a result
of it. This discovery is the corner-stone of political economy; but it is
established by an argument so long and so refined, that most minds are
unable to pursue it without stumbling, and the majority of those who
acquiesce in it are influenced by the great writers to whom they pay
deference, and whose judgment they follow. It is, therefore, a striking
proof of the sagacity of Hume, that in an age when the science was but
dawning, and when he could receive little help from his predecessors, he
should have discovered a mistake of this sort, which lies so far beneath
the surface. Directly the _Wealth of Nations_ appeared, he wrote to Adam
Smith, disputing his position that rent is a part of price;[699] and this
letter, written in the year 1776, is the first indication of that
celebrated theory of rent, which, a little later, Anderson, Malthus, and
West, saw, and imperfectly developed, but which it was reserved for the
genius of Ricardo to build up on a broad and solid foundation.
[692] Brown, in his great work,--one of the greatest which this century
has produced,--candidly confesses that his own book is 'chiefly
reflective of the lights, which he' (Hume) 'has given.' _Brown's
Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and Effect_, London, 1835, p.
253. See also p. vii.