David Hume and Skeptical Conservatism

Except among specialists, the eighteenth-century philosopher David Hume is likely to seem a pretty remote figure, and even when we do think of him it is probably in his comic moments that he is most vivid. There was the time the famous fat atheist (Gibbon called him the fattest of Epicurus’ hogs) fell into a Scottish bog, and was rescued by a peasant woman—but only on condition that he repeat the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer as she extricated him. We remember him, also, in that tableau vivant at Paris, where the salons lionized him—Hume, with his broad Scottish countryman’s face, absurdly dressed as the Sultan and surrounded by a harem of the most beautiful women of the day. But of course the best episode of all came on his diplomatic mission to Turin, where the portly philosopher suddenly fell in love with a reigning beauty, the Countess of Dunveman, and in a fantastic scene, a Restoration comedy come to life, plumped down on his knees and sighingly confessed his passion, only to discover, while the countess’s young lover, convulsed with laughter, listened from behind a screen, that he was too fat to get up.

Yet for all this rather ancien regime comedy, Hume possesses for us today a good deal of intellectual relevance. His mind was anything but comic and self indulgent. It was tough, morally impressive, and, though we may well conclude him wrong as regards ultimate things, even, in its own way, heroic. As a skeptic, Hume denied the possibility of religious transcendence; but as a thoroughgoing skeptic he also denied the possibility of historical transcendence: human fulfillment did not reside in radically transforming earthly existence for the better. Religion was an illusion, but so was utopian politics. He was thus a skeptic and an atheist, but at the same time a lucid and profound conservative. He was more skeptical than Voltaire, but on the issues of his day more conservative than Burke. The philosophes, who adored his atheism, were outraged by his conservatism, and as a political thinker Hume was influential not among the French radicals but among the French traditionalists, even among the religious traditionalists. His influence in France, as Professor Bongie makes clear (in David Hume: Prophet of the Counter-Revolution), was even greater than that of Burke.

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Jeffrey Hart

Jeffrey Hart is a contributor to National Review.

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Except among specialists, the eighteenth-century philosopher David Hume is likely to seem a pretty remote figure, and even when we do think of him it is probably in his comic moments that he is most vivid. There was the time the famous fat atheist (Gibbon called him the fattest of Epicurus’ hogs) fell into a Scottish bog, and was rescued by a peasant woman—but only on condition that he repeat the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer as she extricated him. We remember him, also, in that tableau vivant at Paris, where the salons lionized him—Hume, with his broad Scottish countryman’s face, absurdly dressed as the Sultan and surrounded by a harem of the most beautiful women of the day. But of course the best episode of all came on his diplomatic mission to Turin, where the portly philosopher suddenly fell in love with a reigning beauty, the Countess of Dunveman, and in a fantastic scene, a Restoration comedy come to life, plumped down on his knees and sighingly confessed his passion, only to discover, while the countess’s young lover, convulsed with laughter, listened from behind a screen, that he was too fat to get up.

Yet for all this rather ancien regime comedy, Hume possesses for us today a good deal of intellectual relevance. His mind was anything but comic and self indulgent. It was tough, morally impressive, and, though we may well conclude him wrong as regards ultimate things, even, in its own way, heroic. As a skeptic, Hume denied the possibility of religious transcendence; but as a thoroughgoing skeptic he also denied the possibility of historical transcendence: human fulfillment did not reside in radically transforming earthly existence for the better. Religion was an illusion, but so was utopian politics. He was thus a skeptic and an atheist, but at the same time a lucid and profound conservative. He was more skeptical than Voltaire, but on the issues of his day more conservative than Burke. The philosophes, who adored his atheism, were outraged by his conservatism, and as a political thinker Hume was influential not among the French radicals but among the French traditionalists, even among the religious traditionalists. His influence in France, as Professor Bongie makes clear (in David Hume: Prophet of the Counter-Revolution), was even greater than that of Burke.