genuity with which the most objectionable passages of the Treatise are brought
forward to stand in naked grotesqueness without connexion, it must have come
from some one who had carefully perused the book, and from no ordinary writer.
The vulgar raillery with which it is filled might point out Warburton, but then
the critic does not call the author a liar, a knave, or a fool, and the following
almost prophetic passage with which the critic concludes (differing considerably
in tone from the other parts), could not possibly have emanated from the head
and heart of the great defender of the church: "It bears, indeed, incontestable
marks of a great capacity, of a soaring genius, but young, and not yet thoroughly
practised. The subject is vast and noble, as any that can exercise the understanding; but it requires a very mature judgment to handle it as becomes its dignity and importance ; the utmost prudence, tenderness, and delicacy, are requisite to
this desirable issue. Time and use may ripen these qualities in our author; and Ave shall probably have reason to consider this, compared with his later productions, in the same light as we view the juvenile works of Milton or the first
manner of a Raphael."
The third part of Mr Hume's Treatise of Human Nature was published in 1740: it treated the subject of morals, and was divided into two parts, the first discussing "Virtue and Vice in general," the second treating of "Justice and Injustice." The scope of this essay is to show that there is no abstract and certain distinction betwixt moral good and evil, and while it admits a sense of virtue to have a practical existence in the mind of every human being, (however it may have established itself,) it draws a distinction betwixt those virtues of which every man's sense of right is capable of taking cognizance ; and justice, which it maintains to be an artificial virtue, erected certainly on the general wish of mankind to act rightly, but a virtue which men do not naturally follow, until a system is invented by human means, and based on reasonable principles of general utility to the species, which shows men what is just, and what is unjust, and can best be followed by the man who has best studied its general artificial form, in conjunction with its application to utility, and who brings the most acute perception and judgment to assist him in the task.[1] Before publishing this part of the work, Hume submitted the manuscript to Francis Hutcheson, professor of moral philosophy in the university of Glasgow, whose opinions he was more disposed to receive with deference than those of any other man. Nevertheless, it was only in matters of detail that he would consent to be guided by that eminent person. The fundamental principles of the system he firmly defended. The correspondence which passed betwixt them shows how far Hume saw into the depths of the utilitarian system, and proves that it was more completely formed in his mind than it appeared in his book. "To every virtuous action (says he) there must be a motive or impelling passion distinct from the virtue, and virtue can never be the sole motive to any action." The greater plainness of the subject, and its particular reference to the hourly duties of life, made this essay more interesting to moral philosophers, and laid it more widely open to criticism, than the Treatise on the Understanding, and even that on the Passions. The extensive reference to principles of utility, produced discussions to which it were an idle and endless work here to refer ; but without any disrespect to those celebrated men who have directly combated the principles of this work, and supported totally different theories of the formation of morals, those
- ↑ Thus this portion of the system bore a considerable resemblance to the theory so elaborately expounded in the Leviathan of Hobbes, with this grand distinction, that Hume, while maintaining the necessity that a system of justice should be framed, does not maintain that it had its origin in the natural injustice of mankind, and their hatred of each other, nor does he attribute the formation of the system to a complicated social contract, like that which occurred to the mind of the Malmesbury philosopher.
