David Hume and the Conservative Tradition by Donald W. Livingston

8/2/2019 David Hume and the Conservative Tradition by Donald W. Livingston

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the intercollegiate review Fall200930

Although the Scottish philosopherDavid Hume (171176) is viewed bysome as a significant figure in the conser-vative political tradition, many find hiscredentials problematic. They point to hisskepticism, which appears to border on

nihilism (J. S. Mill said that regard fortruth formed no part of his character);or to his supposedly utilitarian theory ofmorals (Jeremy Bentham credited Hume

with the origin of utilitarianism); and A.J. Ayer claimed him as the founder of logi-cal positivism, which held that all meta-physical, religious, and value judgmentsare cognitively meaningless, expressingmerely subjective feelings. These skepticaland positivistic strains, along with his sup-posed hostility to religion, seem to placeHume outside the conservative tradition.But these are spectacular misconceptionsof Humes philosophy.1 When corrected,Hume emerges not only as part of, but asa foundational figure in, the conservative

tradition.Russell Kirk defined the conservative

tradition as essentially a critique of ideol-ogy in politics, first exemplified in theFrench Revolution and first exposed andcriticized in 1790 by Edmund Burkeseloquent Reflections on the Revolution inFrance. In Burkes view (and Kirks) a nor-

mal or healthy political society reposes in

the enjoyment of inherited traditions andpractices. The art of politics is to preservethese general arrangements and, when nec-essary, to correct them by recourse to prin-ciples already intimated in them. An ideo-logical style of politics, however, imagines

an alternative order of politics known byreason, entirely independent of traditionand expressed in a set of abstract principles.For the ideologue, the task of politics is toinstantiate that alternative (and philosoph-ically correct) social order.

If we take conservatism to be essentiallya critique of ideology, then Hume must becounted as a founding figure in the con-servative tradition because he was the firstto launch a systematic critique of modernideologies. The critique is grounded in adistinction Hume makes between truephilosophy and false philosophy that

was forged in his first work,A Treatise ofHuman Nature(173940), and that runsthroughout all his writings, including his

historical writings. What Hume calls falsephilosophy is what we would describetoday as ideology, a term unavailable toeither Hume or Burke.

Donald W. Livingston

Donald W. Livingston is a professor of phi-losophy at Emory University. He has writtenHumes Philosophy of Common Life (Chicago,1984) and Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium

(Chicago, 1998).

David Hume and

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Donald W. Livingston David Hume and the Conservative Tradition

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HUME USES philosophy and reasonto mean the same thing; so a critique ofphilosophy is also a critique of reason. Buthow can one distinguish between true andcorrupt forms of philosophy (or of rea-son)? Such a critique would itself be an-other philosophical theory, and how couldone know that the critique was not itself ofthe corrupt sort? This apparent inability ofphilosophy or reason to throw itself seri-ously into question led some to think thatreason is a self-certifying guide to truth.

Descartes, for instance, taught that thecause of error lies in the will, not the intel-lect. Philosophic reason, rightly conduct-ed, is infallible. Hume, however, taughtthat philosophic reason contains withinitself the seeds of its own corruption. Howis this possible?2

According to Hume, the philosophical

act of thought is structured by three prin-ciples: ultimacy, autonomy, and domin-ion. First, philosophical claims purport toprovide an unconditioned understandingof what is thought to be ultimately real.Second, philosophy is autonomous, i.e.,self-determining. The philosopher cannot(without ceasing to be a philosopher) defer

to the pre-reflective authority of custom,tradition, or to the dogmas of priests andpoets. Third, philosophical claims aboutthe real, grounded in the philosophersautonomous reason, have a title to ruleover the domain of the pre-reflective. AsPlato said, philosophers should be kings.

What Hume discovered is that theseprinciples of philosophic reason are

incompatible with human nature. Whencut loose from the authority of the pre-reflective, they are indeterminate and canestablish no judgment whatsoever. Butphilosophers typically do not recognizethis; instead, they secretly smuggle intheir favorite prejudices from pre-reflec-tive custom and pass them off as universal

principles entirely free from the authority

of custom. In doing so they deceive them-selves and others. And since the aim ofphilosophical truth is self-knowledge, thisform of philosophic reason is false in thesense of being self-deceptive.

There is more. The false philosophernot only smuggles in a favorite part of cus-tom in violation of the autonomy princi-ple, but he spiritualizes that part into the

whole of experience: When a philosopherhas once laid hold of a favorite principle,

which perhaps accounts for many natural

effects, he extends the same principle overthe whole creation, and reduces to it everyphenomenon, though by the most violentand absurd reasoning.3 Thales taughtthat all is really water; Proudhon thatproperty is theft; Marx that all historyis class struggle; Hobbes that love of oth-ers is really self-love. Here the philosophic

act is engaged in world-inversion, whatHume calls philosophical chymistry,i.e., alchemy. Just as the alchemist cantransform base metal into gold, and KingMidas could transform everything hetouched to gold, so Proudhon can trans-form the inherited order of property intotheft, and Marx all of history into class

struggle. In so doing the false philosopheris a worker in black magic: Do you cometo a philosopher as to a cunning man, tolearn something by magic or witchcraft,beyond what can be known by commonprudence and discretion?4

The true philosopher recognizes thatphilosophical reflection consistentlypurged of the authority of the pre-reflec-

tive leads to total skepticism. In thismoment of despair, hubristic reason(structured by the principles of ultimacy,autonomy, and dominion) becomes impo-tent and utterly silent. It is onlythen thatthe philosopher can recognize, for the firsttime, the authority of that radiant worldof pre-reflective common life in which he

has his being and which had always been


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find upon enquiry, that the true philoso-phy approaches nearer to the sentimentsof the vulgar, than to those of a mistakenknowledge.6 Contrary to Mill and manyothers, Hume was not a nihilistic skeptic.Total skepticism is only a moment in thedialectic of true and false philosophy andone that necessarily follows from the auton-omy of philosophy which denies authorityto the pre-reflective. Since true philoso-phy teaches that custom is presumed trueunless shown otherwise, Hume can have

no a priori objection to religion, evenrevealed religion, if it can be made coher-ent with other primordial beliefs in com-mon life. Many forms of revealed religionfail to meet this test, but Hume thoughtthat basic theism (the belief that the uni-verse is the work of a single purposiveintelligence) is not only coherent with our

deepest natural beliefs but is actually pre-supposed by them. Because of this, Humeheld that no reasonable person could seri-ously deny the tenets of basic theism, evenif he might do so in words. DHolbach andother atheistic friends in Paris found thisamusing, and Hume remarked how theyused to laugh at me for my narrow way

of thinking in these particulars. Sir JamesMcDonald, writing from Paris to a friendin England, could speak of poor Hume,

who on your side of the water was thoughtto have too little religion, is here thoughtto have too much.7

HUMES CRITIQUE of natural reli-gion is not a rejection of sacred religious

tradition as such but of rationalistic theo-rizing in religion. Speaking through animaginary Athenian, Hume says: Thereligious philosophers, not satisfied withthe tradition of your forefathers, and doc-trine of your priests (in which I willinglyacquiesce), indulge a rash curiosity, intrying how far they can establish religion

upon the principles of reason; and they

a guide prior to the philosophic act. Thisrecognition is gained not by argument(for total skepticism renders all argumentsilent) but through despair. Moved by thisrecognition, the true philosopher rejectsthe autonomy principle (which had pre-sumed the domain of the pre-reflectiveto be false unless shown otherwise), andreplaces it with what we might call theautonomy of custom: that the pre-reflec-tive is to be presumed true unless shownotherwise. To show otherwise is to criticize

a particular belief or practice in the lightof standards and ideals already intimatedin custom and coherent with the whole.Hume concludes that true philosophy isnothing but reflections of common life,methodized and corrected.5

The principle of dominion is alsorejected. Theory based on the autonomy

principle loses its title to rule since thephilosopher (if he is to inquire at all) nowacknowledges the authority of customas a whole. But the principle of ultimacyremains. Philosophical inquiry is stillabout what is thought to be ultimate real-ity, though now purged of the hubris ofthe autonomy principle.

What the stages of Humes dialecticreveal is that no one is a philosopher unlesshe instantiates the principles of ultimacy,autonomy, and dominion; but no one isa truephilosopher unless he comes to seethat those principles are incoherent withhuman nature. In short, no one can bea true philosopher who has not passedthrough the fire and despair of false phi-

losophy, an insight achieved only throughdialectical reasoning: In considering thissubject we may observe a gradation ofthree opinions that rise above each other,according as the persons who form themacquire new degrees of reason and knowl-edge. These opinions are that of the vulgar[the pre-reflective], that of a false philoso-

phy, and that of the true; where we shall


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Philosopher of the conservative tradition

to the vulgarand because it was tightlycontrolled by the pagan political authori-ties, as Socrates and Aristotle discovered.But in Christendom all Christians weretheologians, and as such, practiced subli-mated forms of the philosophic act. Justas ancient philosophers were constrainedby the pagan magistrate, so sacred Chris-tian tradition kept the philosophic act ona short leash: philosophy was the hand-

maiden of sacred tradition. But philoso-phy would become impatient with thisrole, and by the seventeenth century

would break free from its control by sacredtradition in an act that would come to beknown as the Enlightenment. The Catho-

lic philosopher Descartes would revive theradical autonomy of pagan philosophy interms even stronger than the pagans hadconceived it, by laying down as a principleofreason that the whole domain of customshould be presumed false unless shownotherwise.

Since all Christians possessed a subli-

mated philosophical consciousness, many

excite, instead of satisfying, the doubts,which naturally arise from a diligent andscrutinous enquiry.8 Hume sought pro-fessorships at the universities of Glasgowand Edinburgh. Had he secured them, he

would have had to sign the WestminsterConfession of Faith, attend church, andlead students in prayer at Glasgow. He wasprepared to carry out these duties. What-ever Humes personal views might havebeen, like the ancient philosophers, he wasprepared to participate in the sacred rites

and teachings of the established religion.9

In the TreatiseHume wrote, Generallyspeaking, the errors in religion are dan-gerous; those in philosophy only ridicu-lous, but he added that this difference

was a contingent one.10 He observed thatphilosophers in the ancient world (eachimplacably insisting on his own world-

inverting system) were more fanaticalthan the devotees of pagan religion. So

why has modern religion been the scene offanaticism, persecution, and war? Humesanswer is unexpected and quite differ-ent from that offered by his Enlighten-ment colleagues. When Christianity firstappeared it was not a theory rooted in the

thinkers autonomy; it was instead a storygrounded in a sacred tradition. But it soonincorporated Greek philosophy and beganto justify itself philosophically in the formof theology, and this would eventuallyturn Christendom into an unstable com-pound of sacred tradition and philosophicautonomy. What made Christianity a sceneof war and persecution was not its sacred

tradition, but rather the transformationof that tradition by false philosophy intosects of implacable world-inversions.

It was false philosophy among theancients that had made philosophy morefanatical than pagan religion. Philoso-phy, however, posed no threat to ancientsociety because it was practiced by only

a fewits doctrines were not attractive


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Hume presents us with the paradoxicalteaching that what made Christendom thescene of religious wars was not conflictover sacred stories but the spiritualizationof them into corrupt forms of the philo-sophic act. By the seventeenth century themore radical Protestant sects were virtu-ally indistinguishable from instantiationsof philosophic autonomy. Self-certifyingProtestant enthusiasm is isomorphic

with self-certifying philosophical auton-omy. Consequently, Hume held that Puri-

tanism, being chiefly spiritual, resemblesmore a system of metaphysics than areligion. And he compares it unfavor-ably with the Catholic religion which,adapting itself to the senses and enjoiningobservances which enter into the com-mon train of life, is not as inclined tototal alienation from the pre-reflective

order and is, consequently, more reason-able.13 Hume thought that religion in hisown time had become nothing but a spe-cies of philosophy.14

Whereas we tend to see secular ide-ologies such as Marxism, liberalism, andnationalism as forms of religion, Humeviewed modern religious fanaticisms as

disordered forms ofphilosophy. Religionand philosophy spring from different dis-positions: religion, from fear of unknowncauses and humility; philosophy, fromcuriosity, pride, and love of dominion. Theformer issues in a tradition to guide soci-ety; the latter in a theory (entirely eman-cipated from tradition) to guide society.Their union (and tension) in Christendom

created a dynamic civilization.15

THE FIRST instance of modern ideologyin politics was the Puritan Revolution.Puritanism was false philosophy in a reli-gious idiom. By the end of the seventeenthcentury rationalist secular ideologies

would emerge. By 1771 Hume thought

the religious idiom had been driven from

greeted emancipated philosophy as some-thing with which they had been, in some

way, long familiar. For the first time inhistory, a mass consciousness informed bythe philosophic act would appear on thescenedespite Descartes insistence thathis rationalist method applied only tomathematics, physics, and metaphysics,and should not be applied to morals andpolitics. Henceforth, partisan politicaldisputes would not be negotiable conflictsover practical interests, but non-negotiable

conflicts between the seamless world-inversions of the philosophic act: Partiesfromprinciple, especially abstract specula-tive principle, are known only to moderntimes, and are, perhaps, the most extraor-dinary and unaccountable phenomenonthat has appeared in human affairs.11

Enlightenment philosophers welcomed

the liberation of philosophical autonomyand sought to make it popular. Not havingpassed through the fires of Humes dialec-tic of true and false philosophy, they didnot realize that the philosophic act mightcontain a source of corruption internal toitself. Hume taught that the tendency ofphilosophy is to its corrupt forms and that

true philosophy is rare. The philosophicact in politics would inevitably displayitself in corrupt forms. No political partyin the present age, he said, can well sup-port itself, without a philosophical or spec-ulative system of principles annexed to itspolitical or practical one. But the peopleare commonly very rude builders, espe-cially in this speculative way, and more

especially when actuated by party-zeal, soit is natural that their workmanship mustbe a little unshapely, and discover evidentmarks of that violence and hurry, in whichit was raised.12 Hume was a critic of theerrors of religion, but he did not thinkmatters would be improved should masssecular philosophical movements replace

religion as the dominant form of culture.


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Finally there is moral rationalism,which was to have a long and influentialhistory, especially in the form Kant gaveto it. In this view, morality has nothingto do with prudential judgments aboutthe formation of virtuous character butonly with conduct that satisfies universaland necessary relations between abstractpropositions. Hume laid bare the fatalflaw in moral rationalism: either theabstract rules are truly emancipated fromthe whole of custom, in which case they

are indeterminate and incapable of guid-ing any conduct, or, if content is illegiti-mately smuggled in from a favorite partof custom, they are arbitrary because notcritically examined in light of the wholeof custom: [M]orality consists in therelation of actions to the rule of right. . . .

What then is this rule of right? . . . How

is it determined? By reason, you say, whichexamines the moral relations of actions.So that moral relations are determined bythe comparison of action to a rule. Andthat rule is determined by considering themoral relations of objects. Is not this finereasoning?19

Nor is Hume a utilitarian in ethics,

as Bentham and many others have main-tained. Utilitarianism locates moral worthin the consequences of an action. Humeteaches that moral worth is in the motiveof the act, which in turn springs fromcharacter. Morality for Hume, as for Aris-totle and Cicero, is a matter of characterformation, and the task of true philosophyis to provide a rational (as opposed to a

rationalistic) ideal of human excellence.Humes ideal combines the Christian vir-tue of extensive benevolence (humanity)

with the pagan virtue of greatness of mind(honor), and is exemplified in an imagi-nary character called Cleanthes, who isa man of honour and humanity, a char-acter that a philosopher might select . . .

as a model of perfect virtue.20

the political scene: Factious [political]prejudices are more prevalent in Englandthan religious ones, he wrote.16 In 1843Marx could observe to Arnold Ruge thatphilosophy has become secularized, andthe striking proof thereof is that the phil-osophical consciousness itself has beenpulled into the torment of struggle. . . .

What we must accomplish is the ruthlesscriticism of all that exists.17

Of the philosophic superstitions thatwere replacing religious ones, Hume sin-

gled out three for criticism: the contracttheory of government, moral rationalism,and ethical egoism. In Of the OriginalContract, Hume argues that the originof government cannot be explained by acontract because contracts presuppose theexistence of government to enforce them.Furthermore, if consent is taken in its

ordinary sense, hardly any governmenthas been based on consent. If, on the otherhand, we stretch consent to includetacit consent, then any regime that isobeyed is based on consent. The contracttheory is a philosophic superstition thatoccludes political reality and distorts trueprudential judgments about it.

Another philosophical superstition ismoral egoism. Here, self-interest is spiri-tualized by philosophical chymistryinto the whole of moral experience. Thathuman beings are motivated by love ofothers is held to be an illusion. These phi-losophers unmask everything that hashitherto appeard sacred and venerablein the Eyes of Mankind. Reason, Sobri-

ety, Honour, Friendship, Marriage are theperpetual subjects of their insipid Rail-lery: And even public Spirit, and a regardto our Country, are treated as chimericaland romantic. Hume calls these new vul-gar philosophers Anti-reformers becausethey are interested not in a genuine under-standing of experience but in the world-

inversions of false philosophy.18


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tion for a large-scale republic: somethingAmericans would be the first to try put-ting into practice.22

Hume supported independence forthe colonies as early as 1768, even before

Jefferson had come to that view. He wasthe only major British thinker to sup-port American secession from the Britishempire. True, there were friends of Amer-ica, who urged concessions to the colo-niesEdmund Burke, William Pitt, IsaacBarre, John Wilkes, Adam Smithbut

ultimately, all of them wanted to maintainthe empire. Humes friends were shocked

when he refused to write a letter to theKing asking for strong measures againstthe Americans. He replied: Besides, I aman American in my Principles and wish we

would let them alone to govern or misgov-ern themselves as they think proper.23

It is noteworthy that Jefferson and Humeagreed on the evils of public credit. Mort-gaging future revenues enabled the state tofinance wars and patronage projects with-out having to levy taxes for them. This ledto a transfer of wealth from regional andlocal authorities to holders of paper who

would have no interest in the nation and

who can enjoy their revenue in any partof the globe in which they chuse to reside,who will naturally bury themselves in thecapital or in great cities, and who will sinkinto the lethargy of a stupid and pamperedluxury, without spirit, ambition, or enjoy-ment. Adieu to all ideas of nobility, gentry,and family.24

Humelike Jefferson, Tocqueville,

Calhoun, and Actondid not think ofliberty as merely a matter of individualrights. He also recognized the right ofindependent social authorities. These con-stituted for Hume a kind of independentmagistracy in a state, instituted by thehand of nature. He defined afree stateasone composed of a number of indepen-

dent social authorities recognized to have

Hume was at odds with the Whig estab-lishment of his time, which subscribed tothe contract theory of government (a formof false philosophy) and ancient consti-tutionalism (a false history). The lattertaught that liberty is a unique possessionof the English national character due toan unchanged constitution stretchingback to the Saxon forests. Hume thoughtthis history nourished a chauvinisticand aggressive English nationalism thatthreatened liberty, and he wrote TheHis-

tory of England largely to refute it. Heshowed that there had been at least fourdistinct constitutions in English historyand that each was more the result of unin-tended consequences and contingenciesthan of efforts to defend any pre-existing,ancient constitution.

Thomas Jefferson possessed many attri-

butes of Humean true philosophy, buthe was also inclined to philosophic ratio-nalism and to ancient constitutionalism.Consequently, he saw Humes History of England (which was critical of Puritanrepublicanism) as a threat to the Ameri-can republic. This book, he said, hasundermined free principles of the English

government . . . and has spread univer-sal toryism over the land.21 He accord-ingly banned Humes History from theUniversity of Virginia.

Yet Jefferson did not understand justwhat a republican Hume was. Humetaught that civilization began, and had tobegin, in small, barbarous republics. Hethought monarchies could be superior

to republics, but only because they hadlearned the rule of law from republics.Further, he found intimated in modernEuropean civilization the model of anideal republic which he formulated in the1752 essay Idea of a Perfect Common-

wealth. There, Hume rejected the longtradition that republics had to be small

and was the first to work out a constitu-


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did not need to invoke what he wouldsurely have considered the philosophicsuperstition of abstract inalienable rightsthat Jefferson wrote into the Declarationof Independence.

I HAVE argued, following Russell Kirk,that conservatism is a critique of ideologyin politics, or what Oakeshott called ra-tionalism in politics, and that Hume wasthe first to offer a systematic philosophi-cal critique of ideology. He was also the

first to explore its dynamic in an historicalevent. In TheHistory of England, he treatsthe Puritan Revolution as a violent intru-sion of false philosophy into politics, albeitone cast in a religious idiom: The gloomyenthusiasm, which prevailed among theparliamentary party, is surely the mostcurious spectacle presented by any history,

and the most instructive, as well as enter-taining, to a philosophical mind.29

Instead of questions of prudence,debates in Parliament were spiritualizedby false philosophy into implacable meta-physical oppositions. A popular assembly,enflamed with faction and enthusiasm,pretended to discuss questions, to which

the greatest philosophers, in the tranquil-ity of retreat, had never hitherto beenable to find any satisfactory solution.30Speculative theological and philosophicalcontroversies soon spread throughout thenation by means of the pulpit, and everyman began to indulge himself in politicalreasonings and inquiries. London becamea furious vortex of speculative opinions

and principles, which had transported thecapital.31 Even learning and virtue weretransmuted into the most virulent poi-son.

Instead of reforms, demands were madefor a total transformation of the world.The Crown could do nothing to placatethe endless demands of certain insatiable

and turbulent spirits, whom nothing less

constitutional status, such as the Lords,Commons, Church, and Crown in Eng-land or the states in the American federa-tion. Since encroachments were inevitable,Hume, like Jefferson, taught a doctrine offrequent resistance: In such mixd gov-ernments, the cases, wherein resistanceis lawful, must occur much oftener, andgreater indulgence be given to the subjectsto defend themselves by force of arms,than in arbitrary governments.25

The resistance described here is not

Hobbesian or Lockean revolution but law-fulconstitutional resistance. Hume puts itthis way: As matter woud have been cre-ated in vain, were it deprivd of a powerof resistance, without which no part of itcoud preserve a distinct existence, and the

whole might be crowded up into a singlepoint: So tis a gross absurdity to suppose,

in any government, a right without a rem-edy, or allow, that the supreme power isshard with the people, without allowing,that tis lawful for them to defend theirshare against every invader.26

This is of a piece with Jeffersons natu-ral law doctrine of frequent resistance,and his view expressed in the 1799 Ken-

tucky Resolutions that an American statecan lawfully nullify unconstitutionalacts of the central government and if nec-essary lawfully secede from the Union.27Likewise, Hume saw secession of thecolonies as a natural evolution of Ameri-can society. How so? The English colo-nies planted under James I, he said, wereestablished on the noblest footing that

has been known in any age or nation. Bythis he meant that the Crown left themalone to govern themselves. Over thirtyyears before the Declaration of Indepen-dence, Hume wrote, the Charter Gov-ernments in America are almost entirelyindependent of England.28 So it is notsurprising that by 1768 he could welcome

American independence.In so doing, he


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will content than a total subversion of theancient constitution.32 Accordingly, thebands of society were everywhere loos-ened, and the irregular passions of men

were encouraged by speculative principles,still more unsocial and irregular.33 Specu-lative opinions informed all business andevery discourse or conversation.34 Everyman had framed the model of a republic;and however new it was, or fantastical, he

was eager in recommending it to his fel-low citizens, or even imposing it by force

upon them.35 The Puritans fractured intomore radical sects: the Independents, theQuakers, Millenarians, Fifth Monarchists,and so forth. These thought themselvesdispensed from all the ordinary rules ofmorality, by which inferior mortals mustallow themselves to be governed.36

As false philosophy became a habit,

nothing remained to confine the wildprojects of zeal and ambition. And everysuccessive revolution became a precedentfor that which followed it.37 Simple plea-sures were transmuted into crimes. Minis-ters, magistrates, and the Bible itself wereno longer needed by those into whosehearts Christ had descended. Christians

no longer had to pay rent to their equals.A Quaker woman walked into Cromwellspresence naked because clothes are no lon-ger needed for the saints.38

The Puritan Revolution cast a grimshadow over monarchical and ecclesias-tical Europe for over a century. Humes

was the most popular account, especiallyin France, where more editions of the His-

torywere published than in England. By1789 the French had been reading Humefor some thirty years. Humes accountof the Puritan Revolution was used as atemplate to understand the French Revo-lution as it unfolded. Endless parallels

were drawn between the two revolutionsin speeches given in the National Assem-

bly, in pamphlets, and in sermons.39 The

Catholic Right celebrated Humes defenseof tradition and reform and noticed thegenerous remarks made in the Historyabout Catholic and Anglican respect fortradition as opposed to the abstract phi-losophy of Puritanism. The latter leadsto melancholy self-absorption and hubris,

whereas a liturgical religion allows themind to relax itself in the contemplationof pictures, postures, vestments, build-ings, and all the fine arts, which minis-ter to religion.40 Puritan ideologues were

identified with the Jacobins; Charles Iwith Louis XVI; Cromwell with Robespi-erre and/or Napoleon. And since Hume

was known to be a skeptic from a Prot-estant background, his judgments wereall the more valuable because they couldnot be dismissed as Catholic. Some evencalled him the Scottish Bossuet.41

Catherine Macaulays whiggish His-tory of England(176382) was written tosubvert Humes anti-republican accountof the Puritan Revolution. Hume wrote aletter to Macaulay trying to explain thedifference between reform and the world-inverting act of false philosophyandhow dangerous the latter could be if it

informed political life. His letter appar-ently made no impression, for Macaulaylater wrote a pamphlet attacking BurkesReflectionsand praising the French Revo-lution.42 Madame Roland, who had theambition of becoming the CatherineMacaulay of France, helped promote aFrench translation of her Historythat shehoped would counter Humes influence in

France. But Madame Roland was killedby the Revolution she did so much tosupport and is famous for lamenting, asshe faced the guillotine, O Liberty, whatcrimes are committed in thy name.43 Nei-ther she nor Macaulay understood howthe world-inversions of false philosophycan transmute liberty into tyranny and

tyranny into liberty.


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A century-and-a-half later, after anocean of blood had been spilled in ideo-logical wars and totalitarian revolutions,others would reach insights similar toHumes. Writing at the height of the Cold

War, Albert Camus could say: There arecrimes of passion and crimes of logic. Weare living in the era of the perfect crime,and our criminals have a perfect alibi:philosophy, which can be used for anypurposeeven for transforming murder-ers into judges. . . . On the day when crime

dons the apparel of innocence througha curious transposition peculiar to ourtimesit is innocence that is called uponto justify itself.44 Camus curious trans-position is just what Hume, two centuriesearlier, called philosophical chymistry.

Hume was introduced to the futureLouis XVI at court when Louis was a boy,

and recalled that the young prince praisedhis History. As the Revolution advanced,Louis became obsessed with the parallelsbetween the two revolutions. Upon receiv-ing the death penalty, the Kings secretaryrecorded that he asked for Humes accountof Charles trial and execution to be readin the days he had left. And there is reason

to think that he patterned his conduct atthe trial and at the guillotine on the noblebearing of Charles I as drawn by the mas-terful pencil of Hume.45

IF CONSERVATISM is a critique of ide-ology in politics, then it can be said thatHume, not Burke, was the first conserva-tive because he was the first to work out

a systematic philosophic critique of ide-ology. When Burke looked at what washappening in France in 1789, he saw thebeginning of a whole drama that Humeshistory of the Puritan Revolution had pre-pared him to see.

Burkes Reflectionstried to convince thewhiggish English that the French Revo-

lution was not a reform movement but a

spiritual pathology. But Humes Historyhad been doing the same thing in Francebefore the publication of Burkes book.It seemed to some in France as if Humehad already written the history of whatthey were living though. Thus, one of thefounders of French conservatism, Josephde Maistre, titled the last chapter of hisfamous Considerations sur la France(1796),Fragments of a history of the French Rev-olution by David Hume. Humes Historyalso influenced another founder of French

conservatism, Louis de Bonald.46Humes dialectic of true and false phi-

losophy also traveled well in Germany. Itawakened Kant, as he said, from his dog-matic slumbers (though only partially,because Kant never could emancipatehimself from moral rationalism). Humealso had a considerable influence on the

rise of a German conservatism springingfrom the thought of Johann Hamann andFriedrich Jacobi. The history of Humesinfluence on Continental conservatismhas yet to be written.

Burkes conservatism is rooted in elo-quence. He inveighed against metaphysi-cal scribblers and celebrated wisdom

without reflection, but he did not explainhow wisdom without reflection can gen-erate rational criticism. A conservatism ofthe heart, though not to be despised, leadsto a romantic, nostalgic view of traditionas a refuge from philosophical reflection.De Maistre left France for Russia hoping,as he said, to find a country not scrib-bled on by philosophy. What he found

instead was an intelligentsia thoroughlytaken with the French Enlightenment.Hume described his own age sarcasticallyas this philosophic age. There had neverbeen an age in which the philosophic act,unrestrained by religious tradition, wasthe dominant form of culture. But, asHume was one of the first to see, we live

in such an age. Henceforth, there can be


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no country not scribbled on by philoso-phy. In such a world, conservatism, if itis to have substantial meaning, must be acritical philosophical engagement, and forthis project, Hume has more to teach usthan Burke.

1 See John Stuart Mill, review of BrodiesHistory of the British Empire in The West-minster Review 2 (1824), 14. For Hume asfounder of positivism see A. J. Ayer, LogicalPositivism (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1959),4. For an alternative view of Hume and a

systematic interpretation of his conceptionof philosophy and his critique of ideology,see Donald W. Livingston, Humes Philoso-

phy of Common Life (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1984), and Philosophical

Melancholy and Delirium (Chicago: Uni-versity of Chicago Press, 1998). The latter

work thoroughly discusses Humes distinc-tion between true and false philosophy andthe place of philosophic reason in culture.

Both works argue that the standard view ofHume as an empiricist is understandablebut mistaken.

2 I explore Humes distinction between true andfalse philosophy in Philosophical Melancholyand Delirium. See especially chapters 2 and12.

3 David Hume, Essays Moral, Literary, andPolitical, ed. Eugene Miller (Indianapolis:Liberty Classics, 1985), 159.

4 Ibid., 161.5 David Hume, Enquiries Concerning Human

Understanding and Concerning the Principlesof Morals, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1975), 162.

6 David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature,ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford: ClarendonPress, 1978), 22223.

7 Quoted in E. C. Mossner, The Life of Da-

vid Hume(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970),48386.8 Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding,

135.9 Roger Emerson, The affair at Edinburgh

and the project at Glasgow: The politicsof Humes attempt to become a professor,in Hume and Humes Connexions, ed. M. A.Stewart and John Wright (Edinburgh: Ed-inburgh University Press, 1994), 16. That

Humes philosophical reflections on religion

are complicated is discussed in PhilosophicalMelancholy and Delirium, chapters 3 and 5.

10 Treatise, 272.11 Essays, 60. Humes italics.

12 Ibid., 46566.13 David Hume, The History of England, Fromthe Invasion of Julius Caesar to The Revolutionin 1688, 6 vols. (Indianapolis: Liberty Clas-sics, 1983), 4:14.

14 Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding,146.

15 See Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium,chapters 3, 5, and 9.

16 The Letters of David Hume, 2 vols., ed. J. Y.

T. Greig (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), 2:223.

17 Karl Marx, Karl Marx on Revolution, ed. &trans. Saul K. Padover (New York: McGrawHill, 1971), 516. For a discussion of Humescritique of ideology see Philosophical Melan-choly and Delirium, chapters 9 and 10. For hisbreak with Rousseau, 24455.

18 Essays, 538; for Humes critique of the self-ish system, see Appendix II, Of Self-Love,

in Enquiry Concerning Human Understand-ing.

19 Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals,289.

20 Ibid., 26970.21 Quoted in Craig Walton, Hume and Jef-

ferson on History, in Hume: A Re-Evalua-tion (New York: Fordham University Press,1976), 393.

22 On republicanism and civilization see in

Humes Essays, Of the Rise and Progress ofthe Arts and Sciences, and Of Civil Lib-erty. See also True Philosophy and Civiliza-tion and False Philosophy and Barbarismin myPhilosophical Melancholy and Delirium;also in this work, see Hume and Americafor a study of Humes republicanism and the

American regime.23 Letters, 2:184, 210, 303. See also English

Barbarism: Wilkes and Liberty! EnglishBarbarism: The Poor Infatuated Americans,and Hume and America in Philosophical

Melancholy and Delirium.24 Essays, 35758.25 Treatise, 564.26 Ibid.27 Thomas Jefferson, letter to W. Crawford, 20

June 1816 in The Writings of Thomas Jeffer-son, ed. Albert Bergh (Washington, D.C.:

Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of


12/12


the United States, 1905) 15:27.28 Humes Early Memoranda 17291740: The

Complete Text,Journal of the History of Ideas9 (1948), 504.

29 History, 6:142.30 Ibid., 5:21112.31 Ibid., 5:378, 380.32 Ibid., 5:321.33 Ibid., 6:4.34 Ibid., 5:348.35 Ibid., 5:3.36 Ibid., 5:514.37 Ibid., 5:492.38 Ibid., 6:4, 145, 288, 546, 547.

39 For a fascinating examination of Humes in-fluence in the French Revolution on the Right

and Left, see Lawrence Bongie, David Hume:Prophet of the Counter-Revolution (Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1965).

40 History, 5:45960.

41 Bongie, 30.42 Catherine Macaulay, Reflections of the RightHon. Edmund Burke, on the Revolution inFrance, in a Letter to the Right Hon. Earl of Stanhope(1790).

43 Bongie, 119.44 Albert Camus, The Rebel(New York: Vintage

Books, 1956), 23.45 Bongie, 12026.46 Ibid. For Humes influence on French coun-

ter-revolutionary thought, see Bongie, espe-cially 15872.

David Hume and the Conservative Tradition by Donald W. Livingston

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