The Pursuit of Certainty. Shirley Robin Letwin

prince who imposed taxes expected his subjects to pay; the general who commanded an army counted on a certain courage; the master who ordered his dinner assumed his servants would obey. Anyone who lived in the ordinary way, whatever he said, believed in some regular conjunction of cause and effect in human affairs, as in all others.¹

      In the essays, Hume’s defence of general rules arose out of his concern with immediate political issues. Even under the tide “That Politics may be Reduced to a Science,” he was arguing against Bolingbroke. The essay opens with a pointed reference to the criticisms that were being made of Walpole: “It is a question with several whether there be any essential difference between one form of government and another? and whether every form may not become good or bad, according as it is wed or id administered?” If it were true that all governments were alike, he continues, and that the differences arise only from “the conduct and character of the governors,” all political disputes could end. It would follow that a bad minister must at once be replaced by a better one. But in fact that is not the case, as even the critics of the government had confessed in accusing it of subverting an excellent constitution. If the constitution were ready excellent, Hume pointed out, it would provide a remedy against mal-administration. The state of affairs could not then be as bad as it was painted. If a minister proved to be as destructive as his critics alleged, then the constitution needed revising, and its subversion was quite desirable.

      Hume agreed with Bolingbroke that the British constitution was admirable, but this meant, he pointed out, that it provided some check even on the worst rulers. Those who abused the government so violently ran the risk of undermining a good constitution. And so he concluded the essay “That Politics may be Reduced to a Science” with a plea for moderation:

      Let us therefore try, if it be possible from the foregoing doctrine, to draw a lesson of moderation with regard to the parties into which our country is at present divided. … Those who either attack or defend a minister in such a government as ours, where the utmost liberty is allowed, always carry matters to an extreme, and exaggerate his merit or demerit with regard to the public. … Would men be moderate and consistent their claims might be admitted; at least might be examined. … I would only persuade men not to contend, as if they were fighting pro aris & focis, and change a good constitution into a bad one, by the violence of their factions.¹

      At the same time, Hume had a more general purpose, to convince his readers that it was important to frame laws carefully, that the welfare of a country depended on more than the virtue of its rulers. His contemporaries, being inclined to emphasize persons rather than institutions, were reluctant to use their critical powers on the laws. To encourage more attention to institutions, Hume emphasized that some kinds of laws and constitutions had more desirable effects than others, whatever the character of the ruler. So he declared it a universal maxim in politics, “That an hereditary prince, a nobility without vassals, and a people voting by their representatives, form the best monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy.”² Quite regularly, also, free governments made their own citizens happier than any other, but in their colonies were more ruinous and oppressive than monarchies. Hume reviewed a number of different constitutions, and in each case pointed out the connection between the laws and the conditions of the country—Venice was stable, Athens and Rome were tumultuous, all because of the differences in their laws. It was therefore of first importance to devise laws carefully, for “effects will always correspond to causes; and wise regulations in any commonwealth are the most valuable legacy that can be left to future ages.”³

      By insisting that there were better and worse constitutions, Hume was not, however, supporting any particular form of government. Although he gave one essay the ambitious tide of “The Ideal Commonwealth,” it contains merely some innocuous observations on an administrative machine, representative and republican in form. Nothing Hume says there could inspire revolutionaries. His models are not, he makes it plain, Plato or More: “The idea … of a perfect and immortal commonwealth will always be found as chimerical as that of perfect and immortal man.”⁴ It was amusing to see if one could sketch a better model than Harrington’s. Perhaps it might even prove useful one day. But forms of government were not like engines, which could be tried out and discarded when found useless. Although one could imagine a republic superior to the British constitution, what guarantee was there that it would actually be established once the monarchy was dissolved? Any man able to destroy the existing constitution must have the power of an absolute monarch, and history had shown the folly of expecting such a man ever to relinquish his power.¹

      To tamper, therefore, in this affair, or try experiments merely upon the credit of supposed argument and philosophy, can never be the part of a wise magistrate, who will bear a reverence to what carries the marks of age; and though he may attempt some improvement for the public good, yet will he adjust his innovations as much as possible, to the ancient fabric, and preserve entire the chief pillars and supports of the constitution.²

      Anyway, there was much less difference between forms of government than it seemed. In an absolute government, the monarch may be so confident of his power that he permits a number of liberties. In a republican government, where there is little distrust of the chief magistrate, he may be granted very broad discretionary powers, which become greater than those of an absolute ruler. So there may be “a species of liberty in monarchies, and of arbitrary power in republics,” which make the two governments strongly resemble each other. Similar results may thus be produced by governments seemingly very different. Besides, all governments tend to move toward the same equilibrium: “In monarchical government there is a source of improvement, in popular government, a source of degeneracy which in time will bring these species of civil polity still nearer equality.”³

      But even in their pure state, the drawbacks of the different governments, Hume felt, may easily be in balance. Free and absolute governments were, history showed, equally hospitable to art and science, but commerce tended to decay under absolute government because in a monarchy birth, tide, and place are esteemed above industry and riches.⁴ Neither one was clearly superior even on purely political grounds. The elaborate checks in a mixed government made it less vulnerable to abuse. On the other hand, as Hume reminded Montesquieu, mixed governments, like all complicated machines, are more subject to disturbances arising from the contrast and opposition of the parts.¹ In the case of the British monarchy, the danger from the monarchical part was more imminent, but the threat from the popular part was more terrible. While Hume was not in the least inclined to denigrate England’s mixed government, under other circumstances he might equally wed have accepted a republic. Glorious consequences were not to be expected from any form of government. All that ready mattered was whether power was distributed among the various social orders and governing bodies so as to make an unchecked concentration of power impossible:

      When there offers, therefore, to our censure and examination, any plan of government, real or imaginary, where the power is distributed among several courts, and several orders of men, we should always consider the separate interest of each court, and each order; and if we find that, by the skilful division of power this interest must necessarily in its operation, concur with the public, we may pronounce that government to be wise and happy.²

      This could be achieved, Hume was convinced, in more than one way and under different sorts of government.

      In short, in politics as in morals, merit does not lie in outward conformity to a general standard. No one form of government is necessarily preferable. What counts is how well the dangers potential in every government, whatever its form, are guarded against. Just as in the good man the passions are in balance, so in the good government, the various powers and interests are arranged to prevent any one from becoming excessive. The moral is: do not seek an ideal polity, but seek to safeguard the existing form of government against the weaknesses inherent in it.

      In the realm of economics, however, Hume approved of more substantive general observations. He made a number of definite recommendations, along the lines developed later by his friend, Adam Smith. Not the quantity of money, but men and commodities, he insisted, determined the strength of a community. Its economic condition benefited more from a love of refinements than from simple living. He denied that the lowness of the interest rate indicated that the country was flourishing;