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Hume and the Scottish Enlightenment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2010

Duncan Forbes
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Extract

The term ‘Scottish Enlightenment’ annoys some Scottish historians, because to them it seems to suggest that a state of unenlightenment prevailed in Scotland before the mideighteenth century, but ‘enlightenment’ when used by the historian of ideas is simply a technical term to describe certain aspects of eighteenth-century thought. The trouble is in defining precisely what aspects of eighteenth-century thought it is meant to describe. Different people study the eighteenth century Scottish thinkers for different reasons; for Professor Pocock, for example, they belong to the tradition of ‘civic humanism’ and constitute one of his Machiavellian moments. But they are more widely known nowadays for the modernity and sophistication of their social theory.

Type
Research Article
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 12 , March 1978 , pp. 94 - 109
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 1978

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References

NOTES

1 See, for example, Donaldson, Gordon, Scotland: the shaping of a nation, p. 245.Google Scholar

2 With the notable exception of Comte, who in the System of Positive Polity saluted Hume as ‘the founder of the law of the Temporal or Active Evolution’, meaning the declension of the military and rise and ultimate supremacy of the industrial regime. (See System of Positive Polity, Vol. III (London, 1876), p. 51.)Google Scholar

3 For this see Hume, 's Letters, ed. Greig, J. Y. T., Volume II (Oxford, 1932), pp. 11–12, 133.Google Scholar Writing in February 1766 to Hugh Blair, Hume says that he does not think Ferguson, 's Essay on the History of Civil Society Google Scholar is fit to be given to the public, ‘neither on account of the style nor the reasoning; the form nor the matter’. He begs Blair and Robertson to read the ms again with more severity, because publication may damage Ferguson's reputation and that of his class (in the university). In April 1767 he writes that he is pleased with the success of the book on account of his ‘sincere friendship for the author’, but re-reading does not make him alter his original judgment, ‘to his mortification and sorrow’. ‘We shall see, by the Duration of its Fame, whether or not I am mistaken.’ It is perhaps relevant in this context to notice that Hume then goes on to damn another sociologically epoch making book with rather faint praise. UEsprit des Lois has considerably sunk in vogue and will probably sink further, but will probably never be totally neglected. It has ‘considerable merit’.

4 This is a long and complex story which I have written about elsewhere and summarized in a lecture for the Hume Conference in Edinburgh in August 1976. See Hume, Bicentenary Papers (Edinburgh U.P., 1977).Google Scholar

5 This is not a Humean phrase but comes from Sir Walter Scott.

6 The references are to Oeuvres Completes de Malebranche, Tome 1 (Paris, 1972).Google Scholar

7 One of the disadvantages of the English constitution is the need for a system of dependence and crown patronage and this is at the discretion of the monarch, so that in this important instance, his personality and the strength or weakness of his character does matter.

8 Contrast the anonymous writer in the Political Register quoted by John Brewer. ‘Absolute monarchs choose their ministers as they govern their kingdoms; that is for themselves and their own pleasure: but the Kings of England reign for their people.’ Party Ideology and Popular Politics at the Accession of George III, 119.Google Scholar

9 The references to Hume, 's History of England Google Scholar are to the edition of 1808–10 (London) in ten volumes.

10 See Pangle, T.. Montesquieu's Philosophy of Liberalism Google Scholar, and Hulliung, M., Montesquieu and the Old Regime.Google Scholar

11 Henry VI in my Hume's Philosophical Politics in this context is a mistake. It should be Henry III. This has been corrected in the second impression of 1978.