The Pursuit of Certainty. Shirley Robin Letwin

has no merit.”¹

      What the moral sentiment approves may vary enormously. And Hume shows us that we have tacitly recognized as much. We admire the Athenians, who permitted their best citizens to marry their sisters, murder their children, and forsake their wives in order to court young men. Brutus, whom we call a hero, conspired to assassinate his best friend. The French, commonly thought to be the most civilized of modern nations, praised adultery, took pride in their subjection to an absolute ruler, honoured men who killed to avenge lighthearted raillery, and applauded parents who sent off their children to be mistreated in holy jails. Indeed, wherever we look, if we judge by what is approved, morality seems to be a mass of contradictions: Fénelon’s standards are not Homer’s; the Koran is revered by Mohammedans for its sublime moral teachings but to Englishmen it seems to teach treachery, cruelty, and inhumanity; the luxuries valued in England and France for their benefits to art and industry are regarded in Switzerland as wanton and vicious.²

      But in fact the disagreements are unimportant; they arise not from differences in morality, but in circumstances. The moral sentiment operating at different times and places dictates quite different conclusions. It is with morality as with rivers: “The Rhine flows north, the Rhone south; yet both spring from the same mountain, and are also actuated, in their opposite directions, by the same principle of gravity. The different inclinations of the ground, on which they run cause all the difference of their courses.”³ In almost everything he wrote, Hume emphasized that there was no reason for all men, even all creatures, to live in the same way:

      What seems the most delicious food to one animal, appears loathsome to another; what affects the feeling of one with delight, procures uneasiness in another. This is confessedly the case with regard to all bodily senses: But if we examine the matter more accurately, we shall find, that the same observation holds even where the mind concurs with the body, and mingles its sentiment with the exterior appetite.¹

      It is always difficult to understand that another man might enjoy what we are indifferent to. And depending on our inclinations, our temperament, mood, and circumstances, we ourselves will judge the same things differently: “Man is a very variable being, and susceptible of many different opinions, principles, and rules of conduct. What may be true while he adheres to one way of thinking, will be found false, when he has embraced an opposite set of manners and opinions.”² We need neither admire nor condemn another man’s preferences. It is foolish to stand staring at one another like the Capucin monk and the Ambassador from Tunisia who had never seen the like of each other before, and could not be persuaded that “the turban of the African is just as good or bad a fashion as the cowl of the European.”³

      Whereas other philosophers had taken great pains to draw the best or highest sort of man, to decide whether the practical man or the contemplative man was superior, Hume denied precedence to any sort. He said only that human happiness seems to consist of three ingredients, action, pleasure, and indolence, “and tho’ these ingredients ought to be mixed in different proportions, according to the particular disposition of the person, yet no one ingredient can be entirely wanting without destroying in some measure, the relish of the whole composition.”⁴ It seems to be true, he thought, that action and employment make men less vulnerable to the stings of fortune, moderate the affections, and provide entertaining thoughts. But not all men are fit for such pursuits; indeed men have very different aptitudes for happiness. They are governed by their native temper and constitution, over which “general maxims have little influence.”⁵ Those of great delicacy of passion have perhaps “more lively enjoyments as well as more pungent sorrows than men of cool and sedate tempers,” but they are more nearly at the mercy of fortune. Contentment can be courted best by developing a highly refined taste, which “enlarges the sphere both of our happiness and misery, and makes us sensible to pains as well as pleasures, which escape the rest of mankind.”⁶ But delicate taste is not as burdensome as sensitive passions, because, although we cannot control external circumstances, we can decide what books we shall read, what diversions we choose, what company we keep. Thus a man becomes more self-sufficient and less dependent on accident: “When a man is possessed of that talent, he is more happy by what pleases his taste, than by what gratifies his appetites, and receives more enjoyment from a poem or a piece of reasoning than the most expensive luxury can afford.”¹ This was, however, merely homely advice to those seeking contentment. It did not impose anything on them in the name of virtue. There is no single set of virtuous choices. What matters with respect to virtue is only how well a man balances his passions, so that he never falls victim to one or the other, and never becomes obsessed by some enthusiasm that must torment him and his fellow men. “If a man have a lively sense of honour and virtue, with moderate passions, his conduct will always be conformable to the rules of morality. …²

      Hume’s only firm moral commandment was a negative one—that there is no a priori way of deciding for or against some kinds of gratification. He did not therefore share the attitude of most moralists to luxury, but insisted that it has a good as well as a bad sense. Whether it is vicious depends entirely on the circumstances: “In general, it means great refinement in the gratification of the senses; and any degree of it may be innocent or blameable, according to the age or country, or condition of the person. The bounds between virtue and vice cannot here be exactly fixed more than in other moral subjects.”³ Any form of asceticism outraged Hume. He could not see that any gratification, however sensual, could “of itself be esteemed vicious.”⁴ Only those whose minds are “disordered by the frenzies of enthusiasm,” he declared, could imagine anything vicious in enjoying meat, drink, or apparel. Such indulgences become vices only when they are “pursued at the expense of some virtue.” But where they do not interfere with the needs of friends, family, and every proper object of generosity or compassion,” they are perfectly “innocent and have in every age been acknowledged by all moralists.”⁵

      What this might mean in practice is admirably illustrated in Fielding’s novels. In Fielding’s mind, the philosophical problem about the relation between reason and passion, that impressed Hume, took the shape of a difference between Allworthy and Masters Thwackum and Square. Like Hume, though by a different route, Fielding became interested in the teachings of the divines; and his library was well stocked with theological treatises. He declared himself in the party of the rational Low Church which Clarke represented, but his pharisees, whether free thinkers or pious, all speak in Clarke’s syllogisms. Not any particular belief, but simply the propensity to reduce every issue to a matter of good reasoning distinguished Fielding’s villains. They are men who can justify anything. When Tom lies to protect Black George, Thwackum can demonstrate that he ought to be punished with texts from Solomon. And Square explains that although there was something resembling fortitude in the action, as fortitude was a virtue and falsehood a vice, they could not be united together, and since the pardoning of Tom would confound vice and virtue, his punishment should be even larger to keep the distinction clear. But within Allworthy’s breast, there was something with which “the invincible fidelity which that youth had preserved corresponded much better than it would have done with the religion of Thwackum or with the virtue of Square.”

      It was those who “utterly discarded all natural goodness of heart” that Fielding hunted. He had no use for the virtuous lady who despaired over the loss of a ribbon but ostentatiously affected contempt for things of the world; for the good man, who owed no one a shilling, entertained his neighbours lavishly, and gave charity to the poor, but had nothing beyond justice for suffering sinners; for anyone who shuffled with principles and combined the greatest primness of expression and regularity of behaviour with the least possible sacrifice of his own interests. He preferred Parson Adams, who lived with exuberance, absorbed vast quantities of beer, tobacco, and gossip in Lady Booby’s kitchen, and settled disputes vigorously with a terrifying mutton fist.

      Parson Adams perfectly represents the benevolent man Hume admired. He is a man of good heart whose virtue is instinctive, and the opposite of a formalist who compensates for his want of generous impulses by rigidly observing the law. That moral standards are not something apart from mankind, unyielding and impersonal, is the essence of Hume’s moral teaching. It is the opposite of Kant’s view that man’s reason obliges him to set up rational goals that he must forever keep before