Noble Infirmity

1 Noble Infirmity: Hume’s Dialectical Love of Fame Andrew Sabl UCLA Department of Public Policy 3250 Public Policy Building Los Angeles, CA 90095-1656 (310) 825-7196 sabl@ucla.edu 2 Paper to be delivered before the 2005 annual meeting of the Southern Political Science Association, New Orleans, 6 January 2005. This is a draft version (a particularly rough draft at that); comments are most welcome, but please do not cite without permission. 3 “Love of fame, the ruling passion of the noblest minds” may be Hamilton’s best-known phrase. But it inspires more than it instructs. Since Douglass Adair’s landmark essay, we know that the idea of fame was no idle speculation but a central topic of intense, often angry argument among a founding generation that knew that revolutionary times gave an opportunity for immortality and was determined to establish which forms of immortality were most worth pursuing, both because this would guide their own lives and so that posterity would appreciate the achievements they had chosen to aim at.1 Adair notes a pre-history of this debate: Jefferson, in lauding Bacon, Newton, and Locke above all others, was following Voltaire, who in turn echoed Bacon’s own argument in Advancement of Knowledge that philosophers deserved more immortal fame than even the best politicians. Hamilton, in praising Julius Caesar as the greatest man who ever lived, was maintaining the republican (Adair calls it “antique”) tradition that Bacon—himself a famous politician before becoming a 2 writer—initially endorsed but finally opposed. Determined to maintain the dignity of fame-loving against reductionist theories of motivation, Adair does not stress the eighteenth-century counter-tradition, largely literary rather than Douglass Adair, “Fame and The Founding Fathers,” in Edmund P. Willis, ed., Fame and the Founding Fathers (Bethlehem, PA: Moravian College,1967): 27-52; reprinted in Adair, Fame and the Founding Fathers, ed. Trevor Colbourn (New York: W.W. Norton & Comopany, Inc., 1974): 3-26. Page citations are from the reprint. 2 Adair, 14-19; Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning, ed. Arthur Johnston (Oxford: Clarendon, 1974), First Book, VII.1; Adair also notes [tk] that Hume gave the “first place of honour” to “LEGISLATORS and founders of states,” not the producers of “useful inventions in the arts and sciences”—with direct apology to Bacon. Hume, “Of Parties in General,” Essays, 545. Hume’s reasons here are characteristic: speculative sciences improve the mind, but this benefits only the leisured few; practical arts produce “commodities and enjoyments of life,” but “men’s happiness” comes not from the number of goods but from peace and security in enjoying them (55). 1 4 formally philosophic, of mocking the whole Renaissance obsession with fame. Satirical treatments potrtrayed lovers of fame as ignoring the random element of future reputation and the place of slander and distortion in it; slighting the lives of plain good people who preferred honesty to eminence; and forgetting (in the literary and intellectual case) the sheer weight of paper produced, which guaranteed that posterity was bound to remember, let alone praise, very little.3 And of course there was an ancient tradition urging virtue as its own reward, and a Christian one urging the rewards of Heaven, the former still respectable among philosophes and the latter among everyone else. Not everyone was convinced that fame deserved our love. David Hume, an avid student of literature, politics, and philosophy alike, was in a position (as Hamilton, man of war and politics, was not) to assess these competing traditions and to treat them with his trademark benevolent corrosion. This essay shall sketch Hume’s treatment and explore some of its paradoxes. Hume has been called “dialectical” by both his supporters and his critics, not in See, respectively (though these themes and others intermesh), Alexander Pope, “The Temple of Fame” (1711[?]), in The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems, ed. Geoffrey Tillotson (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1940), esp. lines 318ff.; Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews (1742); Jonathan Swift, “The Epistle Dedicatory, to His Royal Highness Prince Posterity” to A Tale of a Tub (1704), in The Basic Writings of Jonathan Swift, ed. Claude Rawson(New York: Modern Library, 2002), 19-23. ( For comparison, Hume’s Treatise was published in 1739 and the first set of his Essays in 1741, and the Enquiries, History and later Essays well after Joseph Andrews. By the time he took up the question of fame, these ideas were in the air. Swift, one may note, pointed out that in order to think one deserves immortal fame, one must claim (absurdly) that one is the first to write on a subject or excel in a form—a point Hume seconds, in the contrapositive, in “Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences,” in Essays, Moral Political, and Literary ed. Eugene F. Miller (Revised ed., Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1987), 135 (a nation with many sterling “models of eloquence” will arouse “admiration and modesty” as opposed to “emulation”). [More needed here: chasing up citations on the literary History.] Note that none of the satirical authors thought that one should not be attentive to others’ opinions in every respect; typically, they mocked some exaggerated notions of fame, not always the same ones, while praising others. And all thought we should praise famous ancients even if it was arrogant to aspire to match them. 3 5 the Marx-Hegel sense of a synthetic system-builder but in the Socratic sense of one who examines every firmly held belief and doctrine, finds none fully adequate, and counsels us to learn how to live without perfect knowledge of virtue and truth.4 He approached the love of fame in just this spirit. He interrogated that passion in all its available forms—conformist, Stoic, Skeptical, military, literary—and showed them all to be inadequate, either poorly defined or less glorious than we think. And he did so, like Socrates, not because he thought the question was unimportant (as he thought metaphysics and theology) but precisely because it was important. It was important in general not to be taken in by false dogmas, which can have catastrophic effects, even if one cannot suggest perfectly true ones in their place.5 And it was important in particular to explore the love of fame, thought in Hume’s day to be a key element of moral motivation and admitted by Hume to be a “ruling passion” in himself. I. Conformist fame: the social mind. Most works on Hume’s moral theory, even those that give proper weight to the social origins of Hume’s virtues, do not treat “love of fame” as a separate Annette Baier, A Progress of Sentiments: Reflections on Hume’s Treatise (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1991), 2, 173; John Herman Randall, Jr., “David Hume: Radical Empiricist and Pragmatist,” in Freedom and Experience, ed. Sidney Hook and Milton R. Konvitz (Ithaca and New York: Cornell Univ Press,1947), 296. 5 David Miller, Philosophy and Ideology in Hume’s Political Thought 96-7 and Chapter 4 passim, ascribes this character to Hume’s theory of political obligation (without noticing its Socratic character and without finding it very satisfying). Hume, Mil;ler shows, does not put forth a systematic theory of obligation but criticizes as extreme and ill-thought-out both radical theories that blithely justify revolution and Tory theories of passive obedience. He is not a mere trimmer: he thinks that both accounts are thoroughly inadequate, though we can do no better in practice than trying to live responsibly while drawing insights from both (and in particular from wise appreciation of the fact that some other people believe both). 4 6 passion.6 This is quite understandable for those who focus on his “systematic” moral works: those works, the Treatise and second Enquiry, contain respectively nothing on fame in the relevant sense, and one passage which (as we shall see) Hume by his own admission does not fit into the system. But Hume fails to treat the love of fame systematically not because he thinks it trivial, but because it it too sublime and uncommon to be systematized. When, in the Essays and especially the History, Hume turns from scientific moral theory to practical instruction and judgment, fame appears everywhere, and Hume appreciates it in all its richness. Hume’s Treatise, though containing a whole section called “Of the Love of Fame,” treats this passion as synonymous with our regard for “our reputation, our character, our name.” One’s fame is a cause of “pride and humility” rooted in “the opinions of others” as a general category. Fame in the sense of immortal praise from worthy posterity is not a topic of separate discussion. 7 Baier’s Progress of Sentiments has as an index entry “Fame, see Reputation”—quite right for a book mostly on the Treatise. [Other citations to follow but please trust the author, who looked hard, for now. Suggestions of commentators who do treat love of fame as a separate theme are welcome.] 7 In the chapter “Of the Love of Fame,” the word “fame” does not even appear except in the chapter title. While fame of course could certainly mean simply “reputation” in all its senses (OED 2a), it could also mean “rumor, unsupported story” (similar to OED 1a; see examples in Hume, The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to The Revolution in 1688, 6 vols. (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1983), e.g. I.440, V.169) and the sense more proper to this paper, “Reputation derived from great achievements; celebrity, honour, renown” (OED 3a). [Pope’s “Temple of Fame” mixed the last two senses and in effect pronounced them inseparable, thus striking a skeptical attitude towards the idea of pursuing renown. In the poem, the goddess fame apparently cannot see through the thick smoke spread by slander: lines 328-341 {credit Tillotson’s introduction for pointing this out; page tk}] Hume’s chapter on love of fame would be clearer if called “of the love of reputation” or “of the love of praise from others”—but then, most readers have taken it that way in any case. The word “fame” only appears one more time in the Treatise, in a discussion of how the prospect of “bad fame or reputation” serves as an effective check on inchastity by women, which would otherwise be completely natural, women having normal sex 6 7 Fame is lacking from Hume’s “scientific” writing on morals for good reason: its unequal presence in different people threatens his project both directly, by throwing a non-generalizable element, and indirectly, by threatening to block the operation of passion. On the first point, If the Treatise of Human Nature is meant to treat of what is “natural” as opposed to extraordinary or deeply unusual (one sense Hume discusses), Hume quite reasonably dismisses heroic virtue as “as little natural as the most brutal barbarity.”8 As regards sympathy, in the Treatise Hume is determined to stress the ways in which we are all alike, for that is how sympathy, the main carrier of social passions and Hume’s most proud discovery, works: by communicating the feelings of one person to another who knows 9 what it is like to feel the same way. The result of this principled neglect is a treatment of fame that stresses the motivating power of our “sensitivity to the sentiment of others.” Far from spurring extraordinary and self-assertive acts, Hume’s account of fame and of sympathy generally in the Treatise “emphasize the weakness of the individuals’ independent sense of self and his reliance on others both for ideas and opinions and for the passions and judgments that drives (David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, 2d ed., ed. L.A. Selby-Bigge and P.H. Nidditch [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978], 571). 8 Treatise, III.II.475. “Natural” also means the opposite of “rare and unusual”—what Hume calls its “common” meaning, in Treatise 474 [and possibly elsewhere: check in later versions.] 9 “…’tis obvious, that nature has preserv’d a great resemblance among all human creatures, and that we never remark any passion or principle in others, of which, in some degree or other, we may not find a parallel in ourselves. The case is the same with the fabric of the mind, as with that of the body. However the parts may differ in shape or size, their structure and composition are in general the same. There is a very remarkable resemblance, which preserves itself amidst all their variety; and this resemblance must very much contribute to make us enter into the sentiments of others, and embrace them with facility and pleasure.” Treatise Book II, p. 318. See similarly T. III.I.575-6 drawing the link even more tightly: “The minds of all men are similar in their feelings and operations, nor can any one be actuated by any affection, of which all others are not, in some degree, susceptible.” 8 through sympathy are incorporated into the individuals own affective character.” 10 Hume of course tries to save fame’s reputation (so to speak) by noting that a regard for others opinions tends towards peace—vanity, no deadly sin, is “a social passion”11—and stressing that we care more about “the approbation of those, whom we ourselves esteem and approve of, than of those we hate and despise.” 12 But this does not establish our independence of others’ opinions, nor is it meant to. On the contrary, it can lead to a vicious rather than a virtuous circle, as each person seeks praise from people of similar qualities to their own 13 and actively shuns those who value qualities they lack. And we even value the praise of those we think we despise, provided that there are enough of them, quantity of sympathetic vibration making up for quality: “[the vulgar’s] multitude gives them additional weight and authority.”14 So love of fame in the sense of reputation tends to reinforce our passions—including those acquired from intercourse with others—rather than redirecting them or inspiring new Frederick G. Whelan, Order and Artifice in Hume’s political Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1985), 174, 176. For a similar treatment with a different evaluative spin—praising Hume for grounding our sense of self in our social situatedness—see Baier [tk]. 11 Treatise, III.1.491, and many other places. 12 Treatise, 321. 13 Treatise, 322. It should be noted, here and elsewhere, that Hume is not himself intending a practical point here; his tone throughout is one of proving his speculative hypotheses through examples rather than advising what to do about the examples. 14 Treatise, 324. In an alternate reading of the Essay “of Impudence and Modesty,”Hume attributed to a friend the bon mot “Popular Fame...is nothing but Breath or Air; and Air very naturally presses into a Vacuum” (italics in original. FN a, citing Editions A and B, 1741-2, Page citation tk.] But the context of this bon mot is worth noting: Hume admits that his friend said this after Hume himself lamented “That popular Applause should be bestowed with so little Judgment, and that so many empty forward Coxcombs should rise up to a Figure in the World.” Hume, in spite of himself, still cared, in spite of his philosophical reasonings that the opinions of the vulgar did not matter. Perhaps he struck the passage from later versions because he knew it shamed him. 10 9 objects. While Hume notoriously endorses the love of praise as a social virtue and humility as a vice (tweaking Christianity), he cannot deny that a view to praise can sap independence of mind: “Reputation is often as great a fascination upon men as sovereignty, and is equally destructive to the freedom of thought and examination.”15 “The Rise of the Arts and Sciences,” Essays 120. Cf. 122: “…CHINA is one vast empire, speaking one language, governed by one law, and sympathizing in the same manners. The authority of any teacher, such as CONFUCIUS, was propagated easily from one corner of the empire to the other. None had courage to resist the torrent of popular opinion. And posterity was not bold enough to dispute what had been universally received by their ancestors.” So far are these passages from unqualified endorsement of love of fame and reputation in the first, conformist sense that they seem quite likely to have inspired the similar claims, and portrayal of China, in Mill’s On Liberty. 15 10 II. “Generous” fame: dignity and socialized independence. Love of fame in the sense of something extraordinary and grand does appear in Hume—and then disappears, precisely because it is extraordinary and not to be relied on. Fame in this grand sense of reverence for self and others is something that we can all admire but few can rely on to move them strongly and consistently. In his only extended treatment of this passion, Hume writes towards the end of the second Enquiry, Another spring of our constitution, that brings a great addition of force to moral sentiments, is the love of fame; which rules, with such uncontrolled authority, in all generous minds, and is often the grand object of all their designs and undertakings. By our continual and earnest pursuit of a character, a name, a reputation in the world, we bring our own deportment and conduct frequently in review, and consider how they appear in the eyes of those who approach and regard us. This constant habit of surveying ourselves, as it were, in reflection, keeps alive all the sentiments of right and wrong, and begets, in noble natures, a certain reverence for themselves as well as others, which is the surest guardian of every virtue. The animal conveniencies and pleasures sink gradually in their value; while every inward beauty and moral grace is studiously acquired, and the mind is accomplished in every perfection, which can adorn or embellish a rational creature. Here is the most perfect morality with which we are acquainted: here is displayed the force of many sympathies. Our moral sentiment is itself a feeling chiefly of that nature, and our regard to a character with others seems to arise only from a care of preserving a character with ourselves; and in order to attain this end, we find it necessary 16 to prop our tottering judgement on the correspondent approbation of mankind. This passage is stunningly dialectical and in need of explication. Hume is clearly talking about a passion present only in a few: “generous minds,” “noble Second Enquiry(Concerning the Principles of Morals, in David Hume, Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals, 3d d., Ed. L.A. Selby-Bigge and P.H. Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), IX.I, page 276 (para. 225). Note that here, perhaps uniquely in the second Enquiry, “sympathy” retains its Treatise sense of participation in another’s passions, rather than a weak passion for others’ good or utility. 16 11 natures.”17 This cannot be the same love of fame that is attributed to all of us in the Treatise,18 and because of its rarity and non-generalizability cannot ground a systematic theory either of what drives our psyches (the Treatise) or of what structures our practices of moral praise (the Enquiry).19 Moreover, this passion is not something that motivates us occasionally, but something that drowns out other motivations (as makes sense: only an “uncontrolled authority” that constantly presses us could motivate “continual and earnest pursuit of a character, a name, a reputation” [emphasis mine]). Love of fame might be a noble passion to have, but it would not be an easy one. It works by never letting those it rules alone. Generous in its root meaning means not “liberal with gifts” but nobly born or, by analogy, magnanimous or lacking meanness (OED 1-2). Hume uses it this way throughout the Enquiry: it rarely means simply “liberal” with money and generally means either simply benevolent or more specifically high-minded (the latter most clearly on VI, Part II, par. 202, p. 249; VIII paras. 213-214, p 265). 18 Baier, in a rare clear mistake, omits with ellipses the words from “love of fame” until the end of the sentence—precisely those that attribute this passion to only certain people. This is perhaps driven by her desire to assimilate this passage to the discussion of motivation by reputation in the Treatise—which she proceeds to do, unconvincingly (Progress of Sentiments, 210). 19 Whelan is the only commentator to myknowledge to catch this: focusing on “reverence to themselves” (or oneself), he writes, “such reverence, being restricted to ‘noble natures,’ cannot be counted on as a usual motive” (Order and Artifice, 268). Hume in a section just preceding the one on love of fame has described the “sentiment of humanity” (otherwise known as benevolence, or “sympathy” famously redefined in the second Enquiry to mean not, as in the Treatise, a tendency to share others’ sentiments, whatever they might be, but more narrowly a tendency to approve of 19 what gives others happiness) as the only sentiment or passion “common to all mankind, which recommends the same object to general approbation…[the others are] neither felt so much in common, nor are so comprehensive, as to be the foundation of any general system and established theory of blame or approbation” Second Enquiry Sect. IX, Part 1, p. 272 (paragraph 221). Love of fame seems so obviously removed from what could serve as this common basis that Hume does not even bother rebutting objections to it. Immediately after the fame passage above, he writes:: “But, that we may accommodate matters, and remove if possible every difficulty, let us allow all these reasonings to be false. Let us allow that, when we resolve the pleasure, which arises from views of utility, into the sentiments of humanity and sympathy, we have embraced a wrong hypothesis.” The pleasure arising from love of fame is not even treated as a “hypothesis”—because it would be absurd to take as a hypothesis the idea that people’s sense of others’ happiness generally is connected with the stern and refined sense of one’s own and others’ worth that the “generous” lovers of fame acquire. 17 12 Love of fame here makes reference to others’ praise only indirectly. The habit of surveying ourselves “keeps alive all the sentiments” but does not directly orient those sentiments, at least not in the “noble natures” with which Hume is concerned. Rather, it “begets”—fathers, rather than itself consisting in—the “reverence” that can then apparently stand apart from others’ praise and serve as “guardian” of the virtues when mere love of praise might lead us astray. (It also does not, it seems, create any virtues; here as always, Hume doubts that one’s passions, once formed, can be completely remade through mental action alone.20) This reverence raises us in ways that Hume can only describe in the language of beauty: it serves to “adorn or embellish” us as distinctly human and rational rather than animal. Hume in the Treatise distinguished between the virtues of goodness, which arouse love in others but little esteem and little pride in ourselves, and those of greatness, which we most take pride in but which others regard with admiration (or envy) but less love. 21 But here greatness seems fused with lovableness; the lover of fame becomes transcendently moral, not just selfconfident (though presumably that too, if perfect); these noble natures are, to use Hume’s category, useful and agreeable to others and themselves.22 The closest “” ‘tis certain we can naturally no more change our own sentiments, than the motions of the heavens; nor by a single act of our will, that is, by a promise, render any action agreeable or disagreeable, moral or immoral; which, without that act, wou’d have produc’d contrary impressions, or have been endow’d with different qualities”(Treatise III.V.5, 517). Hume does not mean to deny that sentiments can be reformed, but it must be through the workings of education and changes in social circumstances, not mere willing or wishing. 21 Treatise II.II.10, 390-393; Second Enquiry, Appendix IV, pars. 263-5, pp. 314-318 [and further citations tk]. 22 Hume in a passage on courage (Second Enquiry, Section VII, para. 205, p. 254) describes Demosthenes’ praise of Philip for having a “thirst of fame” that enables him to withstand the most horrible injuries. [check original: Pro corona 247 according to Schneewind notes]. But note 20 13 thing to this description in Hume is, in fact, Hume’s account of romantic love or “amourous passion.” 23 Hume’s account is complex and dialectical but perfectly coherent: our regard to a “character [well-founded or justified reputation24] with others” “seems to arise only from a care of preserving a character with ourselves.” But if the care of noble natures is for their character with themselves (this may be what makes them noble), they cannot get what they care about, a sterling character, without looking to others for corrections. Their judgment (not their passions or motivations) is “tottering” and requires at least a hypothetical canvass of what others might think. “The most perfect morality with which we are acquainted” is perfect in its aspirations, not its taste.25 Finally, Hume clearly attributes the passion to himself: in referring to the “continual and earnest pursuit of a that this sort of fame is not moralized fame but the ordinary kind, founded in the glory of conquest. As a result, it is far from being moral or useful: Philip’s disdain for injury was rooted in a love of glory that caused him to destroy all the political values that Demosthenes himself held dear. 23 Second Enquiry 267 (para. 216), where Hume himself says that this “manner,… grace…ease…genteelness, … I-know-not-what, which some men possess above others” is often talked about in a romantic context but is more general and “forms no inconsiderable part of personal merit.” He also says it “must be considered as a part of ethics, left by nature to baffle all the pride of philosophy, and make her sensible of her narrow boundaries and slender acquisitions.” Compare Treatise, 394-6, which makes the point less vividly. 24 Baier, 188f., contains a fascinating account of “character” in Hume of which the above is a fiveword summary. 25 Baier aptly cites here a passage from the Treatise: “No one can well distinguish in himself betwixt the vice and virtue, or be certain, that his esteem of his own merit is well founded.” (Treatise 5978). Baier says that the self-reverence of the fame-loving “needs the nourishment of the esteem of those one esteems. It also needs their verdict to confirm or correct one’s own self-evaluations, especially evaluations concerning how proper and properly veiled on’es pride is, whether or not it is verging on conceit.” If my reading is correct, her second statement is correct but her first is not: these noble natures need others to correct their judgment but not to “nourish” their original drive. Once properly nourished and developed through thinking about others’ regard, they can now stand on their own, motivated by reverence for self and others itself. 14 character, a name, a reputation,” he uses “our,” not “their”—and given the alleged rarity of this passion, he cannot mean “our” in a casual, general sense. 26 Love of fame, in this sense, is at once rare, all-consuming, based on dignity rather than a love of praise,27 and duly conscious of its remaining imperfection. It is no wonder that Hume thought it beautiful, and aspired to possess it (though not loudly, since that would spoil the dignity), in spite of its burdens. But those burdens are great, and the rewards completely different from those that encomiums to fame usually consider. This kind of love of fame, which we might call “dignity-fame,” is noble and generous in the mode of a Stoic, though a cheerful and confident one: its reward is a reverence for oneself that is admired qua reverence (as well as for its effects) by those who know one’s character well—not the praise of posterity. In fact, to the extent that it seeks praise, it forsakes the independence and dignity that deserves it. III. Stoicism and Skepticism He could, one supposes, mean to refer to himself and all possible readers—but this seems unlikely. More likely, it was a revealing slip. In History V.583 (note KK), Hume coyly says that even a historian “prompted by his courageous generosity, should venture, though from the most authentic and undisputed facts, to vindicate the fame of that prince [Charles I, “pursued by falsehood and by obloquy”], would be sure to meet with such treatment, as would discourage even the boldest from so dangerous, however splendid an enterprise.” Though expressed in the subjunctive, this is exactly Hume’s case: he himself was the historian of “courageous generosity” who took on Charles’ case, and paid for it. [For later version: check on when this Appendix first appeared. After the initial Whig condemnation of the volume?] 27 Whelan astutely comments that this self-judgment will be “felt as an independent motive only when the esteem of others is no longer deliberately sought as a pleasurable object—when this kind of sensibility becomes so habitual as to influence conduct in situations when one’s reputation is not actually vulnerable” (268). 26 15 Hume’s Essay “The Stoic” pursues precisely this theme (in an artificial and mock-didactic language that reminds us that the Stoic is a philosophical role Hume is trying on, not Hume’s own voice). Asking the ancient question of what reward virtue can command, Hume says that “nature” has given virtue— personified as a woman—a rich dowry, namely “immortal fame” or “GLORY.” She has also “wisely provided, that this dowry can have no charms but in the eyes of those who are already transported with the love of virtue.” So the desire for immortal fame is self-defeating, and fame goes most appropriately to those who seek not fame but virtue—a common ancient theme. But the virtuous person seeking rewards must trick not only his passions but his intellect. The Stoic character, apparently having forgotten immortal fame (or found it unlikely or its prospect unsatisfying), speculates about life after death, posits a God for no particularly good reason (“There surely is a being who presides over the universe…”), banishes doubt about God’s care for human beings and the existence and nature of the afterlife to “speculative reasoners,” and in the end is not disappointed if virtue does turn out to be its own reward. Both fame and heaven, it seems, are important to think about when we feel morally weak and bereft of supports for unrewarded integrity, but too unlikely to take quite seriously. Not having Rousseau’s gifts or Kant’s transmuted piety, Hume could not make a useful but unlikely deism the doctrine of a fictional vicar or proclaim 16 it a postulate of practical reason to believe things extremely improbable. As Hume had the misfortune to be honest, his Stoic virtue remains unsupported. 28 Hume’s “Sceptic” (following the Stoic and the Platonist—again a dialectic, though not Hegel’s) takes up an even simpler argument for fame’s irrelevance— only to reject it, as Hume always rejects pure skepticism, as unsuited to human sentiments. In a footnote directed to “Philosophical reflections” that “entertain and nourish” comes the simple statement “I desire fame. Let this occur: If I act well, I shall have the esteem of all my acquaintance. And what is all the rest to me?”29 This dismissal of the opinions of people one will never meet is of course rational. But it is only rational, and therefore not relevant to human life: “where any real, affecting incident happens; when passion is awakened, fancy agitated, example draws, and counsel urges; the philosopher is lost in the man, and he seeks in vain for that persuasion which before seemed so firm and unshaken” (emphasis added). Hume’s remedy is to read “the entertaining moralists” (“Moral precepts, so couched, strike deep, and fortify the mind against the illusions of passion”) and to train one’s temperament. But Hume’s correction of skepticism is skeptical of these supports for skepticism: “Despise not these helps; but confide not too much in them neither; unless nature has been favourable in the temper, with which she has endowed you.” In times of trouble and decision, More exploration for later versions: Cleanthes in the Dialogues, mentions of Cicero’s Offices and the rewards of virtue in the Enquiries. 29 “The Sceptic,” FN 17, Essays, 179.This is, by Hume’s own moral theory, a bit naïve in itself, failing to distinguish between the good qualities that evoke others’ love, and the great ones that evoke their admiration (and one’s own). But in general, Hume’s objection is to the strength of the motivation posited, not the nature of the esteem. 28 17 most human beings as normally constituted will, in spite of philosophy and however “irrationally,” care about the opinions of those people who will remain unknown (and, paradoxically, unable to give us actual encouragement and support). Presumably the opinions of posterity are no less desirable for being by their nature the most completely useless for this task. The problem is that the pursuit of those opinions as a motivating tool tends to undermine the moral strength that fame as dignity most values. Those of us who lack noble and generous natures have to choose between caring only about the right thing to do and having the strength, from the prospect of actual praise, to do things that are not quite right. IV. Fame as glory: dazzling dangers. “Not quite right” is a bit of an understatement. The easiest road to the history books has always been military adventure, and Hume spends much ironic ink reminding his readers that the glory of the conqueror was the misery of the conquered (and the conqueror himself, who will tend to overreach). This theme goes back to the Treatise: “an excessive courage and magnanimity, especially when it displays itself under the frowns of fortune, contributes, in a great measure, to the character of a hero, and will render a person the admiration of posterity; at the same time, that it ruins his affairs, and leads him into dangers and difficulties, with which otherwise he 30 wou’d never have been acquainted.” 30 Treatise III.2.600 18 Military heroism thus wins cheap fame from people who admire the zest the hero takes in his actions while ignoring the happier life he could have led with more prudence. It is not only cheap, of course, but also dangerous: while “the generality of mankind” consider military glory “the most sublime kind of merit,” men of cool reflexion are not so sanguine in their praises of it. The infinite confusions and disorder, which it has caus’d in the world, diminish much of its merit in their eyes. When they wou’d oppose the popular notions on this head, they always paint out the evils, which this suppos’d virtue has produc’d in human society; the subversion of empires, the devastation of provinces, the sack 31 of cities. But the fact remains that the “generality of mankind” does think military glory the most sublime kind of merit, so refreshing is it to behold the confidence of the hero to persists despite dangers to himself and others (if they count to the hero). Even “men of cool reflexion” are not immune: while Locke could dismiss conquerors with casual insult as “the butchers of mankind,” Hume is more honest: “when we fix our view on the person himself, who is the author of all this mischief, there is something so dazling in his character, the mere contemplation 32 of it so elevates the mind, that we cannot refuse it our admiration.” If even Hume is dazzled by characters whose actions everything in his system tells him to hate, what hope is there that anyone else striving for ordinary fame—even out of the motive of spurring himself to moral action—will avoid military aggression? ibid.600-601. ibid., 601. Hume is dazzled by Alexander, or at least reports another’s dazzling with apparent lack of condemnation, on Treatise 599—and see the above-cited passage from the second Enquiry on courage: Philip’s “thirst of fame” helped him nobly defy physical injury but ruined Athens (Second Enquiry, Section VII, para. 205, p. 254). 32 31 19 Hume does his best in the History to dissuade by faint praise. Prince Robert, William the Conqueror’s son,33 was “Greedy of fame”—but this is not a compliment; he was courageous but not prudent or gifted in “policy and dissimulation, by which his father was so much distinguished, and which, no less than his military valour, had contributed to his great success.” Richard Lionheart, “elated with the hopes of fame” and suited as he was to win it in battle, ignored all of England’s interests to go on the Crusades. Not only did he in effect pawn Scotland for 10,000 marks to finance his war, but he wanted to keep fighting in the Holy Land when “every one, except the king of England,” was tired of death and ready to go home.34 Henry VII, “all on fire for military fame,” is driven to ignore military and diplomatic reality in planning an attack on France when his allies are melting away. 35 In the French religious wars the younger duke of Guise, whose destiny was “unrivaled fame and grandeur,” was not therefore praiseworthy: comparing the younger Guise to his father, Hume finds them Equal in affability, in munificence, in address, in eloquence, and in every quality, which engages the affections of men; equal also in valour, in conduct, in enterprize, in capacity; there seemed only this difference between them, that the son educated in more turbulent times, and finding a greater dissolution of all law and order, exceeded the father in ambition and temerity, and was engaged in enterprizes still more destructive to the authority of his sovereign and to the 36 repose of his native country. Love of fame is one of the few passions that can turn all useful passions into pure destruction. Hume suggests that precisely “generous natures, who always love 33 34 History I.218. History I.380; I.392. 35 History III.97-8. 36 History IV.149 20 fame,” if not directed towards the neo-Stoic version of fame as moral dignity, will be tempted towards military catastrophe: “The unhappy prepossession, which men commonly entertain in favour of ambition, courage, enterprize, and other warliek virtues, engages generous natures, who always love fame, into such pursuits as destroy their own peace, and that of the rest of mankind.”37 Hume’s main technique in these passages is, crucially, not to make conquerors seem cruel and destructive—this would not keep them from dazzling—but to make them seem foolish. Essex, Elizabeth’s consort and selfappointed leader of an invasion of Ireland, is described not as someone heedless of bloodshed and dangerous to England’s constitutional order (though both descriptions would have been fair) but as a ship flying with “sails, which were already too much expanded” and needed only the encouragement of his enemies to “push him upon dangers, of which he seemed to make such small account.” After Essex’ expedition failed miserably, he blamed everyone but himself, wrote letters to Elizabeth filled with “peevish and impatient expressions,” and generally displayed his own idiocy. 38 His career ended in intrigue, arrest, trial, and execution; being “ambitious for fame”39 did not make him either happy or successful. History V.51. Hume writes this in the context of a rare piece of historical cruelty: he is glad that Henry, prince of Wales under James I, died before he could become King. His “extraordinary” merit, “dignity” that commanded great respect, lack of vice, and “sole passion” for “business and ambition” have made historians describe him with a “peculiar fondness”—but in fact, only made him more dangerous. “Had he lived, he had probably promoted the glory, perhaps not the felicity, of his people” (ibid., emphasis added). 38 History IV.317ff. 39 History IV.317 37 21 On the other hand, true heroism and deserved fame consist essentially in capacity for government. Here Hume’s idea of “heroism” (his word) is Elizabeth, whom Hume is glad to say is praised by a “uniform judgment” in his time. “Her vigour, her constancy, her magnanimity, her penetration, vigilance, address, are allowed to merit the highest praises, and appear not to have been surpassed by any person that ever filled a throne.”40 Elizabeth was not perfect— too “imperious” and not “indulgent” enough for that—but what she lacked in inegnuous perfection she made up for with “a great command over herself”: “The force of the tender passions was great over her, but the force of her mind was still superior; and the combat, which her victory visibly cost her, serves only to display the firmness of her resolution, and the loftiness of her ambitious sentiments.” 41 The only threat to her “fame” is “prejudice…founded on the consideration of her sex”—she seems too manly—but the true method of estimating her merit, is to lay aside all these considerations, and consider her merely as a rational being, placed in authority, and entrusted with the government of mankind. We may find it difficult to reconcile our fancy to her as a wife or a mistress, but her qualities as a sovereign, though with some considerable exceptions, are the object of undisputed applause and 42 approbation.” Complex feminist readings of this and other parts of Hume’s treatment of Elizabeth are certainly possible. (Is it a compliment to either a man or a woman to be considered merely as a rational being? Was this expected of Charles II?) But the point in this case is that Elizabeth deserves “undisputed applause and approbation”—albeit in a specialized role—because of how she governed, not 40 41 History IV. 351. ibid. 352. 42 ibid. (emphasis added). 22 where she conquered. It could even be that lack of political and military power makes true fame easier to gain: “Few sovereigns of England succeeded to the throne in more difficult circumstances; and none ever conducted the government with more uniform success and felicity.”43 If one cannot be peacefully famous, it is better to be privately honest and obscure—like Richard Cromwell, who once deposed as Protector “extended his peaceful and quiet life to an extreme old age. His social virtue, more valuable than the greatest capacity [Richard, Hume wrote earlier, “possessed neither resolution nor penetration”44] met with a recompence, more precious than noisy fame and more suitable, contentment and tranquillity.”45 V. Literary fame: the ruling passion of imperfect minds. If private life in general has “contentment and tranquillity” exceeding public, literary life has the merit of being harmless but still meaningful. 46 Hume called “love of literary fame” his own “ruling passion.”47 What are we to make of it: was it “noisy,” was it suitable, and did it give him contentment? Hume’s choice of words and unwelcome talent as a writer have left him open to misunderstanding and insult. Critics have said that he sacrificed philosophic 43 44 ibid. print 352. History VI. 114. 45 History VI. 115. 46 “Were there no advantage to be reaped from these studies, beyond the gratification of an innocent curiosity, yet ought not even this to be despised; as being one accession to those few safe and harmless pleasures, which are bestowed on human race [sic].”—First Enquiry Sect. I, para. 6, p. 11. 47 “My Own Life,” in Essays, xl (published posthumously). 23 integrity for popularity, and published the Essays and History out of a love of money and recognition rather than truth.48 Ernest Campbell Mossner has gently pointed out the flaws in this argument: “literary” in Hume’s time (and his own autobiographical essay) meant not just belles-letttres and fiction but “philosophy and general learning”;49 Hume consistently sought the approval of the “learned world,” not mere book sales; and he hoped throughout his work that his philosophical reasonings would benefit mankind. In fact, the Hume that emerges from his letters and life seems—again—more a Socrates than a Dickens: Hume’s greatest laments are that the Treatise took a “positive [arrogant] Air” and that he is left in “real ignorance” of his errors because first-rate thinkers have not trusted him with their criticisms. 50 But if Hume was no cheap scribbler, what was he? His passion for literary fame is elusive, containing complex combinations of passions for public service, recognition, and love of truth for its own sake. I shall argue that Hume did not, in the end, endorse the pursuit of literary fame except as necessary for altrustic reasons and useful in leading to what may be hoped more durable and admirable motives for learning. See Ernest Campbell Mossner, “Philosophy and Biography: The Case of David Hume,” in V.C. Chappell, ed., Hume (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc. [Anchor Books], 1966). 712. Examples of the critics in Hume’s time include Warburton, Beattie, Boswell, and Johnson, and in later years Mill, Huxley, and Hume scholar John H. Randall. 49 “My Own Life,” xxxiii. Compare Treatise, Introduction, xiv., where “metaphysical reasonings of all kinds” are contrasted with “every other part of literature” (emphasis added). 50 Mossner, “Philosophy and Biography,” quotations on 19, 30-31. In Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (written around 1650 though published posthumously), Hume’s “air” is so clearly not positive that scholars hotly dispute which character most speaks for him. And the second Enquiry also ends in a dialogue. Of course, Hume’s model may have been Cicero or other self-styled followers of Socrates, in innumerable schools, as much as Plato. 48 24 Literary fame did not make Hume happy: to the extent that he was happy it was in spite of that passion. The passage where he names it his ruling passion, makes this clear: To conclude historically with my own character. I am, or rather was (for that is the style I must now use in speaking of myself, which emboldens me the more to speak my sentiments); I was, I say, a man of mild dispositions, of command of temper, of an open, social, and cheerful humour, capable of attachment, but little susceptible of enmity, and of great moderation in all my passions. Even my love of literary fame, my ruling passion, never soured my temper, notwithstanding my 51 frequent disappointments. Hume was not proud of the passion of literary fame: he dares name it only posthumously, thinking of himself in the past and therefore immune to shame. It was precisely Hume’s mildness in pursuing this passion fame that kept it from souring his temper—as it otherwise would have, given his disappointments. In the same autobiographical piece, Hume (inconsistently) names “a passion for literature” (from context, it is clear he means reading, not writing) as “the ruling 52 passion of my life, and the great source of my enjoyment” (emphases added)—an enjoyment that the love of fame did not apparently provide.53 Writing of Thomas Becket in the History and noting the legions of pilgrims who came to Canterbury to worship him, Hume calls it “My Own Life,” Essays, xl (emphases added). “My Own Life,” Essays xxxiii (emphases added). 53 Even such reputation as Hume was gaining towards the end of his life he claims not to have enjoyed. In the same sketch, still thinking of himself in the present, he describes his enjoyment of his dying days: “I possess the same ardour as ever in study, and the same gaiety in company. I consider, besides, that a man of sixty-five, by dying, cuts off only a few years of infirmities; and though I see many symptoms of my literary reputation’s breaking out at last with additional lustre, I knew that I could have but few years to enjoy it. It is difficult to be more detached from life than I am at present” (“My Own Life,” xl, emphasis added). Apparently, the prospect of literary praise pales on considering one’s mortality, but the pleasures of study—because they commune, à la Aristotle, with eternal truths?—do not. 52 51 25 indeed a mortifying reflection to those who are actuated by the love of fame, so justly denominated the last infirmity of noble minds, that the wisest legislator and most exalted genius, that ever reformed or enlightened the world, can never expect such tributes of praise, as are lavished on the memory of pretended saints, whose whole conduct was probably, to the last degree, odious or contemptible, and whose industry was entirely directed to the pursuit of objects pernicious to mankind. It is only a conqueror, a personage no less intitled to our hatred, who 54 can pretend to the attainment of equal renown and glory. The bitterness of this passage is palpable,55 and its logic even more discouraging than its tone. Fame is “the last infirmity of noble minds,” not their (proper) ruling passion. Only a fool can deny that the religious fanatics and even conquerors— apparently in spite of Hume’s efforts; this volume of the History is the second-last that he wrote—are likely to end up more praised by posterity than “the wisest legislator and most exalted genius, that ever reformed or enlightened the world.” But such foolishness is exactly what noble minds tend to fall into, not thinking the fact of the reform and enlightenment sufficient reward. This does not mean that Hume merely regrets his passion for literary fame. This passion had instrumental value both for Hume and for others. And it led him to write clearly and accessibly with a view to spreading the truths of “abstruse” thought more widely throughout a busy society that mostly lacked the leisure to read such as the Treatise. Even when it came to the abstruse Treatise itself, it spurred Hume to apply himself constantly and ferociously to the details of philosophic reasoning as he never would have done (at first) from mere History I.337 (emphasis added). As noted, I believe uniquely, by Donald T. Siebert, The Moral Animus of David Hume (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1990), 19-20—who also helpfully supplies the reference: Milton’s “Lycidas” (lines 70-71) calls “Fame…/that last infirmity of Noble mind”—in a passage “lametning that a young poet’s sacrifice and merit should go unrewarded on earth.” 55 54 26 “curiosity” alone—and, in the end, to acquire the facility in philosophy that let him largely jettison the inferior motive of fame. In the style of other Enlightenment philosophers, Hume was a reformist.56 He thought that even the most “abstruse” reasonings—especially the most abstruse, because most careful and accurate—could improve not only our habits of thought but “domestic government” (what we would now call economic policy; Hume is writing on commerce).57 A “spirit of accuracy” carries even the most practical arts—constitution-ordering, law, military science—“nearer their 58 perfection, and renders them more subservient to the interest of society.” That said, “the easy philosophy”—well written, engaging moral essays that are not too remote from everyday language and not too rigorous in their reasoning— earns “the most durable, as well as justest fame…abstract reasoners seem hitherto to have enjoyed only a momentary reputation, from the caprice or ignorance of their own age, but have not been able to support their renown with more equitable posterity.”59 The most thorough vindication of this view, and refutation of the earlier orthodoxy that Hume, because he derived morals from custom, must be “conservative, “ see John B. Stewart, Opinion and Reform in Hume’s Political Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1992), esp. Chapter 5, from which many of the citations drawn below are taken. 57 “Of Commerce,” Essays 253-5. 58 First Enquiry (Concerning Human Understandging, in Enquiries, ed. Selby-Bigge and Nidditch, op. cit.), para. 5, p. 10. [In later versions: find the place in the History where Hume says that a lot of unnecessary bloodshed occurred in earlier ages because generals, not understanding military science and confident that their opponents did not either, engaged in military ventures as if rolling dice when one party or another would have avoided conflict had they known the true odds . Hume was an early deterrence theorist, and deterrence requires knowing what one’s own and the enemy’s forces are and how much they matter.] 59 ibid., para. 4, p. 7. It is ironic, by the way, that the authors that Hume thought would be remembered because easy (Cicero, La Bruyere, Addison) are now less famous than those he thought would be forgotten because abstruse (Aristotle, Malebranche, Locke). His was perhaps a 56 27 It may seem strange that the literary fame of easy philosophers not just expected but “just and more equitable,” given that they do not really establish solid truths. Part of the reason is that abstruse reasoners, if too far removed from the corrective influence of common sense, may make one error, reason relentlessly from it, and end up with nonsense.60 There are also the rhetorical advantages arising from a moral philosophy that is pleasantly drawn so as to make virtue look attractive.61 More important, however, is Hume’s consistent claim that the pleasure of philosophy is in solving practical puzzles and serving humankind. Then Hume’s assessment of justice and equitable fame makes sense: a philosophy too obscure to “gradually diffuse itself throughout the whole 62 society, and bestow a similar correctness on every art and calling” cannot, however perfect, fulfill its mission. Abstract philosophers spurn the attention of “common readers” and “aim at the approbation of the learned and the wise,” but they “think themselves sufficiently compensated for the labour of their whole lives, if”—only if—they can discover some hidden truths, which may contribute to the instruction of posterity.”63 Every time Hume seems to be saying that philosophy is worth pursuing for its own sake, motivated by “curiosity” or “love strange age in which people expected amusement from philosophy and instruction from letters, deforming the art of both. 60 First Enquiry, Section I, para. 4, p. 7. Hume goes on in this section to mock scholastic philosophy, but may also have in mind Spinoza, often praised for his commitment to pure cognition and heedlessness of literary style. See the sarcastic treatment in Treatise I.IV.5, 240f. 61 Second EnquirySection IX, Part II, para. 228, p. 279. 62 First Enquiry. para. 5, p. 10. Baier, Progress of Sentiments, 284, sees such diffusion as having occurred in Britain, France, and—as Hume himself hoped—America. [Later versions: add consideratin of “Off Essay-Writing”—more complex than usually thought and requires some work to interpret.] 63 ibid. para. 2 p. 6. 28 of truth,” he qualifies this by saying that the truths to be found must benefit society. 64 This is why he ends his longest defense of “accurate and abstruse” philosophy with a promise to write in the Enquiries clearly and accessibly as well as accurately and rigorously. He aims not just to resolve the “uncertainty” plaguing the “wise” on these matters, but the “obscureness” that prevents instructing the “ignorant.”65 In the Treatise, as well, in what Hume admits to be a strikingly personal passage that Hume allows can neither be justified as the result of reason nor generalized, Hume writes that his own passionate “uneasiness” that keeps him from surrendering to common sense and common pleasures encompasses passions for instructing the learned, “contributing to the instruction of mankind,” and “acquiring a name by my inventions and discoveries.” These reasons combined would make him “a loser in point of pleasure” if he stopped engaging in philosophy: it is not clear if any one of them would do this alone. That was Hume writing as a young man: alone, unknown,writing philosophy while living off not only his tiny income but his tiny capital. It is not the last word. While Hume took both “a name” and the (useful) instruction of mankind as indispensible spurs at that point in his philosophic career, his own theory suggests that he knew these to involve elaborate self-trickery, and his later writings suggest that he later did not need this, or at least thought he did not. ibid. para. 10, p. 16: “whatever pains these researches may cost us, we may think ourselves sufficiently rewarded, not only in point of profit but of pleasure, if, by that means, we can make any addition to our stock of knowledge, in subjects of such unspeakable importance.” Cf. Treatise, introduction, pp. xv-xvii. 65 ibid. para.10, p. 16. 64 29 Hume himself, in a neglected passage, notes that philosophers are often inspired by pursuit of the public good to do philosophy—but not to perform any other public action. The object makes the higher activity engaging even when it would not draw us to pursue it directly. In a Treatise passage on “curiosity, or the love of truth,” Hume wonders why many “philosophers” have consum’d their time, have destroy’d their health, and neglected their fortune, in the search of such truths, as they esteem’d important and useful to the world, tho’ it appear’d from their whole conduct and behaviour, that they were not endow’d with any share of 66 public spirit, nor had any concern for their interests of mankind. If one is public-spirited, why not stop philosophizing and do something clearly useful? But if philosophers lack a passion to be useful, why are do they keep insisting (as Hume did himself) on their work’s practical use? 67 Hume’s answer is that the use of philosophy motivates indirectly: a useful object does not justify or motivate the activity but keeps us focused on the activity that is worth pursuing and even enjoyable to pursue but that is hard enough that we will not begin to pursue it unless a spur motivates us to overcome the difficulties. The joys of philosophy require that we “fix our attention,” but the prospect of philosophical joy cannot itself do that: “Men 66 67 Treatise III.10, p. 450. Hume at the end of the Treatise admits that his work is too analytical to move people, “interest every principle of our nature,” as written. (Perhaps the History of England, decades later, was a different matter.) But he compares himself to an anatomist advising a painter: the latter produces work that is “graceful and engaging,” as the anatomist cannot, but his work but would not be possible without knowing anatomy. “And thus the most abstract speculations concerning human nature, however cold and unentertaining, become subservient to practical morality; and may render this latter science more correct in its precepts, and more persuasive in its exhortations.” Treatise III.6, pp. 620-621. The service of anatomy to the painter is repeated in the first Enquiry, Section I, paragraph 5 (p. 10). 30 generally are of such indolent dispositions” that they cannot focus intensely on anything that seems useless, even if doing so will give them happiness. In philosophy, as in hunting (Hume’s purposely prosaic comparison), the joy comes from “the motion, the attention, the difficulty, and the uncertainty,” but the presence of a useful object—pheasants, which taste good, not crows—are needed to “support the imagination” and produce “attention to [the] end.”68 The object may be only a little useful—hunting, Hume notes, is a leisurely waste compared to other ways of getting food—but once we start with a slightly interesting end, we get more and more excited about it over time so that “we are very uneasy under any disappointments, and are sorry when we either miss our game, or fall into any error in our reasoning.” 69 Love of literary-philosophical fame—desire to be lauded for one’s intellectual service—here serves to motivate, of all things, careful philosophical reasoning. But it does so by an admitted mental trick. One can take up useful philosophy as a way to keep one’s mental muscles in shape—as Hume took up riding not because he liked it, but to give him a reason to exercise and cure his depression70—but it would be better, if possible, to enjoy philosophy for its own sake.71 To reflect on one’s own motivations in such a case is to see how artificial 68 69 Hume, Treatise, 450-452. Ibid., 452. 70 Mossner, Life of David Hume, tk. 71 Hume himself suggests the parallel “it is with some minds as with some bodies, which being endowed with vigorous and florid health, require severe exercise, and reap a pleasure from what, to the generality of mankind, may seem burdensome and laborious.” First Inquiry Sect. I para. 6, p. 11. 31 and jury-rigged they are and how desirable it would be to live without them.72 Perhaps that is what happened in Hume’s case. Elsewhere in the Treatise he observes, in Aristotelian mode, that repeating an action produces a “facility” that increases the pleasure taken in it, and later produces a “tendency or inclination” towards it. 73 And he notes that a person who feels the lack of a certain motivation inside him may “perform the action without the motive, from a certain sense of duty, in order to acquire by practice, that virtuous principle, or at least, to disguise to himself, as much as possible, his want of it.”74 Putting these insights together, perhaps this is what Hume tried to do. Perhaps he acquired a greater “tendency or inclination” towards pure philosophizing over time as it became easier—so that on his death-bed he was more eager to study than to read his ever-more-favorable book reviews. Or perhaps, less optimistically, he only disguised to himself his lack of pure motives: after all, while claiming the priority of study he still paused to note his literary disappointments. Conclusion. Dialectially, we have ended up close to where we started. Fame as reputation is sociable but conformist. Fame as dignity is admirable but impossible for most of us to sustain. Fame as divine promise is a myth stirring enough to sustain us As Baier notes, “reflexion” for Hume generally means something quite literal: a virtue, to be worth having, must not be self-undermining when turned back upon itself. 73 Treatise II.III.5, . 422-424. Hume here writes of “custom,” but in his work this generally means “habit.” This pleasure increases only up to a point when the action becomes too easy—but this is presumably not a danger when it comes to metaphysics. 74 TreatiseIII.II.1, p. 479. 72 32 but not one that survives a bit of thought. Fame as esteem from personal acquaintance is pleasant enough but too weak to counter-balance real-world passions. Fame as military glory is strong enough to make us do anything but for that reason likely to spur immoral acts not moral ones. Finally, the pursuit of philosophic “literary” fame, though harmless and possibly beneficial, is not only likely to result in disappointment but a distinct second-best compared to love of intellectual inquiry for its own sake. Hume’s two most unalloyed specimens of human perfection—Alfred the Great and Newton—complete their perfection by not having had, it seems, any regard for fame at all. Alfred’s merit both in public and private life...may with advantage be set in opposition to that of any monarch or citizen, which the annals of any age or any nation can present to us...His civil and his military virtues are almost equally the objects of our admiration; excepting only, that the former, being more rare among princes, as 75 well as more useful, seem chiefly to challenge our applause. Hume is not one to praise anyone across all dimensions, but here he does: someone who bears comparison with “any monarch or citizen” bears comparison with any human being. More privately congenial and less political than Elizabeth, yet politically unequaled in “prudence and justice and valour,” Alfred seems the most perfect human being imaginable, and that is what Hume calls him: “[h]e seems indeed to be the model of that perfect character, which, under the denomination of a sage or wise man, philosophers have been fond of 75 History I.74-5 33 delineating, rather as a fiction of their imagination, than in hopes of ever seeing it really existing.” 76 And what was his fate? “Fortune alone, by throwing him into that barbarous age [he reigned 871-901], deprived him of historians worthy to transmit his fame to posterity; and we wish to see him delineated in more lively colours, and with more particular strokes, that we may at least perceive some of those small specks and blemishes, from which, as a man, it is impossible he could be entirely exempted.”77 In fact, a livelier personal narrative would make Hume’s own assessment of Alfred’s character more convincing and more sympathetic: Alfred was deprived from the lack of proper historians in his day from being remembered as a human being as opposed to a secular saint. He may be praised for doing everything he did out of virtue alone, without hope of proper remembrance, but pitied for the same reason. Alfred’s barbarous royalty would presumably be hard to imitate, and his unchosen obscurity hard for a modern to replicate. Closer to home as example is Newton, whom Hume calls simply “the greatest and rarest genius that ever arose for the ornament and instruction of the species.” Cautious in admitting no principles but such as were founded on experiment; but resolute to adopt every such principle, however new or unusual: From modesty, ignorant of his superiority above the rest of mankind; and thence, less careful to accommodate his reasonings to common apprehensions: More anxious to merit than acquire fame: He was from these causes long unknown to the world; but his reputation at last broke out with a lustre, which scarcely any writer, during his 78 own lifetime, had ever before attained. 76 77 ibid. Ibid., 75 (emphasis added). 78 History VI.542; emphases added. 34 As with the Stoic with his bridesmaid’s dowry, Newton never sought an iota of fame; therefore paid no heed to fame, it seems, in any of its senses, only to truth; and for this received more intellectual fame than anyone before him (and all but a few since). Love of fame is a distant second best for indolent natures—most of us—and Hume knew this. His heroes were heroes in the Humean sense—people whose qualities were so rare that they are misleading as examples or models, and definitely not worth systematic treatment. “What would Alfred or Newton do” is a question of no practical worth: not having Alfred’s unique virtues, nor Newtons, knowing what they would do does not help us to do anything of the kind. Hume asked instead, “what will make Hume do all he can do.” Hume, neither Newton in his modesty (and phlegmatic ability to work without reward) nor Alfred in his barbaric freedom from criticism, cared about fame, had to care to keep himself going, and it showed. His greatest philosophical work, the Treatise, at turns coy, brash, unctuous, and selfpromoting, neither displayed him pleasingly nor avoided stylistic embarrassments that mar the purity of its reasoning. Hume may have dragged along his indolent self by deliberately letting himself become anxious to acquire fame, but he paid a price: his reputation for the pure love of truth never fully recovered. Hume lacks the fame of a Newton. Still venerated in moral philosophy and proclaimed vaguely as “great” by those who have only a hazy idea what he 35 wrote, his work is mostly neglected except by specialists. Nobody ever wore a David Hume necktie. But if not famous, Hume was certainly useful. His epistemology woke Kant from dogmatic slumber, and in history and politics, his polemical successes rendered some of the views so obvious that nobody now needs to remember the person who smote their enemies.79 Hume’s equivocal, temporary, self-restraining love of fame may have served his fame badly but it served his thankless posterity well. The love of fame remains a strange, partly unphilosophic virtue. To reflect carefully on its character risks undermining its driving force. Only Hume, the professional defender and outwitter of useful fictions, could look it in the face and not turn to stone. [Note to the panelists: all cited sources are, if not convenient in print form, available as searchable .pdf files and in various other formats through the Liberty Fund’s Online Library of Liberty: http://oll.libertyfund.org/Intros/ Hume.php/ The electronic edition of the History of England is especially valuable in navigating a work of 3000 pages.] 79 A point nicely made by Phillipson, Hume, 139, who calls Hume “the author of his own neglect.”