The Pursuit of Certainty. Shirley Robin Letwin

debt, and warned that it would go on growing because it enabled a minister to make a great figure without antagonizing the public. He defended free trade against protectionism, and condemned those who urged a “narrow and malignant” politics for trying to destroy the productive powers of colonies.¹ He urged the magistrate in general to trust the encouragement of an art or profession to those who would benefit from it, opposed restrictions on the internal market, and cautioned against high taxes. Such general observations on economics were valid, Hume explained, because in that realm the public good “depends on a concurrence of a multitude of causes.” Economics was very different from foreign affairs, for instance, where it was folly to make such general recommendations, because foreign politics depended “on accidents and chance and the caprices of a few persons.”² It was equally inappropriate to try to account in general terms for phenomena like the rise of learning. But it was proper to speak generally on the rise and progress of commerce, because the desire for gain operated more uniformly than the desire for learning.³ In economic affairs, the same causes operated in much the same way on a multitude, and not merely on odd individuals; they were gross and stubborn causes, not readily affected by private whim and fancy, and therefore amenable to generalization.

      Yet even these “general reasonings,” or as Hume sometimes said, his reasonings on “general subjects,” were regarded by him simply as observations that comprehended a great number of individuals. They were merely “general facts,” or descriptions of “the general course of things.” They were concerned with probabilities not necessities, and had the logical status of maxims (a term often used by Hume) not laws. They were statements about what is likely to happen because it usually happens, and although for practical purposes they might be assumed to hold always, they could not be proved. This meant that Hume was always conscious of the possibility that his general conclusions “may fad in particular cases,”⁴ and exceptions invariably occurred to him. When he showed that the greatness of a state and the happiness of its subjects were “inseparable with regard to commerce,” although not in other respects, Adam Smith commended his observations. But Hume himself added: “This maxim is true in general; though I cannot forbear thinking, that it may possibly admit of exceptions, and that we often establish it with too little reserve and limitation.”⁵

      In fact, not even Hume’s economic recommendations were totally abstract. They were drawn from and supported by historical examples, and directed against particular, current misconceptions. Besides, Hume took care to point out how difficult it was to discover the right policy, and that what was beneficial one moment might easily be harmful the next:

      Though a resolution should be formed by the legislature never to impose any tax which hurts commerce and discourages industry, it will be impossible for men, in subjects of such extreme delicacy, to reason so justly as never to be mistaken, or amidst difficulties so urgent, never to be seduced from their resolution. The continual fluctuations in commerce require continual alterations in the nature of taxes; which exposes the legislature every moment to the danger both of wilful and involuntary error. And any great blow given to trade, whether by injudicious taxes or by other accidents, throws the whole system of government into confusion.¹

      In other fields, while Hume was certain that: “History informs us of nothing new or strange,”² some of the uniformities he pointed out are hardly more than truisms: “A man who at noon leaves his purse full of gold on the pavement at Charing Cross may as wed expect that it will fly away like a feather as that he will find it untouched an hour after.”³ No abstruse scientific truth is revealed by the observation that: “Ambition, avarice, self-love, vanity, friendship, generosity, public spirit, these passions mixed in various degrees and distributed through society have been from the beginning of the world, and still are, the source of all the actions and enterprise which have ever been observed among mankind.”⁴ Any man who had studied history and seen men might know that: “Mankind are, in all ages, caught by the same baits: The same tricks played over and over again, still trepan them. The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny, flattery to treachery; standing armies to arbitrary governments; and the glory of God to the temporal interest of the clergy.”⁵

      Yet Hume was even more anxious to remind his readers that the basic uniformity did not rule out a great “diversity of characters, prejudices, and opinions.”⁶ He condemned unqualified laws such as those Hobbes laid down. One could not deny absolutely the wisdom of resistance because rulers, like other men, may suddenly become so transported by violent passions as to be unendurable: “Our general knowledge of human nature, our observation of the past history of mankind, our experience of present times; all these causes must induce us to open the door to exceptions. …¹ We can learn something about the sentiments and inclinations of the Greeks and Romans by studying the temper and actions of the French and English, but we must not simply transfer all observations from one nation to another.² Men can live together because they can to some degree predict each other’s behaviour, but they also may differ unexpectedly not only from one another, but even from themselves at other moments. The characters of men are bound to be “to a certain degree, inconstant and irregular.”³ This is the only constant character of human nature.

      General reflections, or philosophy, can therefore account only “for a few of the greater and more sensible events; but must leave all the smaller and more delicate revolutions, as dependent on principles too fine and minute for her comprehension.”⁴ After ad, Hume was still firmly addicted to the distinction he had made in the Treatise between artificial rules and natural judgements. He was, if anything, even more conscious of the inadequacies of impersonal dicta. In everything but mathematics, a general truth ought never to be more than a guide. Men of sense, unlike the vulgar, can recognize a general fact without concluding that it covers every individual, or forgetting its tentative character. They remember that “no prudent man, however sure of his principles, dares prophesy concerning any event, or foretell the remote consequences of things.”⁵

      About the science of politics one had to be especially cautious, for its generalizations are very prone to mislead. It is true that, “So great is the force of laws, and of particular forms of government, and so little dependence have they on the humours and tempers of men, that consequences almost as general and certain may sometimes be deduced from them, as any which mathematical sciences afford us.”⁶ This must be pointed out especially when there arises an immoderate zeal for overthrowing a minister, or when law makers are indolent. At other times, however, it might be more pertinent to recall that “the science of politics affords few rules, which may not sometimes be controlled by fortune and accident.”¹ For men are placed in the world like an audience in the theatre. They can see the show, and speculate on how the actors perform; but the “true springs and causes of every event” remain entirely concealed.²

CHAPTER 9

       The Proper Political Disposition

      However reserved Hume was about the possibility of discovering, or the usefulness of acting on general laws in politics, and however impartial he was between political parties, he was altogether committed to a particular style of politics. Whenever he found instances of it, he was ready with praise; when it was absent, he could not be sympathetic. To what he called “the vulgar,” who judged by ordinary party criteria, he seemed inconsistent. For it was not any political principle or doctrine, but his preference for a disposition that gave form to his politics.

      It is a disposition, first of all, that considers visions of another, better world, or indeed any desire to impose some ideal pattern of life or government on all men, irrelevant to politics. Hume was convinced that such attempts were futile; he would have agreed with Dr. Johnson that there is nothing “too little for so little a creature as man.” The ideals men pursued rarely, if ever, had the influence so often attributed to them. The shape of politics, like the shape of a personality, could not