Hume | Page 8

similar
to what they are at present, there is no more reason why it should cease
to exist in the next, than in the past, hundred million years or so. The
true ground for doubting the possibility of the establishment of absolute
monarchy in Britain is, that opinion seems to have passed through, and
left far behind, the stage at which such a change would be possible; and
the true reason for doubting the permanency of a republic, if it is ever
established, lies in the fact, that a republic requires for its maintenance
a far higher standard of morality and of intelligence in the members of
the state than any other form of government. Samuel gave the Israelites
a king because they were not righteous enough to do without one, with
a pretty plain warning of what they were to expect from the gift. And,
up to this time, the progress of such republics as have been established
in the world has not been such, as to lead to any confident expectation
that their foundation is laid on a sufficiently secure subsoil of public

spirit, morality, and intelligence. On the contrary, they exhibit
examples of personal corruption and of political profligacy as fine as
any hotbed of despotism has ever produced; while they fail in the
primary duty of the administration of justice, as none but an effete
despotism has ever failed.
Hume has been accused of departing, in his old age, from the liberal
principles of his youth; and, no doubt, he was careful, in the later
editions of the Essays, to expunge everything that savoured of
democratic tendencies. But the passage just quoted shows that this was
no recantation, but simply a confirmation, by his experience of one of
the most debased periods of English history, of those evil tendencies
attendant on popular government, of which, from the first, he was fully
aware.
In the ninth essay, On the Parties of Great Britain, there occurs a
passage which, while it affords evidence of the marvellous change
which has taken place in the social condition of Scotland since 1741,
contains an assertion respecting the state of the Jacobite party at that
time, which at first seems surprising:--
"As violent things have not commonly so long a duration as moderate,
we actually find that the Jacobite party is almost entirely vanished from
among us, and that the distinction of Court and Country, which is but
creeping in at London, is the only one that is ever mentioned in this
kingdom. Beside the violence and openness of the Jacobite party,
another reason has perhaps contributed to produce so sudden and so
visible an alteration in this part of Britain. There are only two ranks of
men among us; gentlemen who have some fortune and education, and
the meanest slaving poor; without any considerable number of that
middling rank of men, which abound more in England, both in cities
and in the country, than in any other part of the world. The slaving poor
are incapable of any principles; gentlemen may be converted to true
principles, by time and experience. The middling rank of men have
curiosity and knowledge enough to form principles, but not enough to
form true ones, or correct any prejudices that they may have imbibed.
And it is among the middling rank of people that Tory principles do at

present prevail most in England."--(III. 80, note.)
Considering that the Jacobite rebellion of 1745 broke out only four
years after this essay was published, the assertion that the Jacobite
party had "almost entirely vanished in 1741" sounds strange enough:
and the passage which contains it is omitted in the third edition of the
Essays, published in 1748. Nevertheless, Hume was probably right, as
the outbreak of '45 was little better than a Highland raid, and the
Pretender obtained no important following in the Lowlands.
No less curious, in comparison with what would be said nowadays, is
Hume's remark in the Essay on the Rise of the Arts and Sciences that--
"The English are become sensible of the scandalous licentiousness of
their stage from the example of the French decency and morals."--(III.
135.)
And it is perhaps as surprising to be told, by a man of Hume's literary
power, that the first polite prose in the English language was written by
Swift. Locke and Temple (with whom Sprat is astoundingly conjoined)
"knew too little of the rules of art to be esteemed elegant writers," and
the prose of Bacon, Harrington, and Milton is "altogether stiff and
pedantic." Hobbes, who whether he should be called a "polite" writer or
not, is a master of vigorous English; Clarendon, Addison, and Steele
(the last two, surely, were "polite" writers in all conscience) are not
mentioned.
On the subject of National Character, about which more