Hume's "Inexplicable Mystery": His Views on Religion (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 46i pears by the completed Essay. And, by Draft B Locke refers specifically to primary qualities---of both body and spirit (B, ~ 1o).4 What persists in terminology and in idea is as revealing as what changes or undergoes gradual development. The mind is rasa tabula (sic) in both drafts; sensation and reflection are the two fountains of knowledge from the beginning; the distinction between real and nominal essences of substances specifically is suggested in Draft A, though the terminology is not in place there or in Draft B. From the beginning, morality is discussed most extensively as an idea of relation, as it is in the published Essay. The attention given to words in Draft A, though not as extensive as it will be in Draft B, comes as a surprise especially when one reads in the Essay that Locke did not consider discussion of words necessary when he began the work, "and a good while after" (III. ix. 21). A prodigious effort was required to prepare and produce the present volume. The detailed critical apparatus, the appendices to each draft that relate draft passages to sections of the Essay, the reproduction of manuscript pages all contribute to the value of this first of the three-volume series. A fuller index would have been helpful, but perhaps that will be incorporated into the final volume. Volume I is an important contribution to our understanding of the development of one of the most influential works of modern philosophy. It does honor to the accomplishments of Peter Nidditch and to G. A.J. Rogers. It is an achievement that makes one impatient for the appearance of Volumes II and III. SUE M. WEINBERG Hunter College, C.U.N.Y. Keith E. Yandell. Hume's "Inexplicable Mystery": His Views on Religion. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, a99o. Pp. xvii + 36o. Cloth, $39.95. The scope of Hume's "Inexplicable Mystery" is similar to the second edition of J. C. A. Gaskin's fine study, Hume's Philosophy of Religion (Humanities Press, 1988), covering Hume's Natural History of Religion, the Dialogues, his popular essays on religious topics, and the essay "On Miracles." As Yandell sees their difference, Gaskin's book portrays Hume's perspective on religion as "correct in starting point, method, and conclusions," whereas Yandell argues that, with the exception of Hume's critique of Cleanthes' argument from design, it is "skewed, mistaken, and often indefensible" (5)- Finding Hume's errors to be "intelligent and instructive" nonetheless (5), Yandell believes "Hume touches no topic without making us his debtor for doing so" (341). Yandell sums up Hume's view of religion in the claim that "no religious belief is reasonably accepted by anyone who lacks evidence for it" (3),a conclusion he thinks 4 The primary qualities or properties of body are extension and cohesion of parts; of spirit, knowledge and a power of moving (B, ~1o). Locke drops reference to the primary qualities of spirit in the published Essay. 462 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 30:3 .JULY 1992 follows from Hume's "radical evidentialism." Hume's evidentialism involves the claim that one is not reasonable in accepting any claim that is not evidentially basic or derivable from claims that are evidentially basic. Since Hume does not take religious claims to be evidentially basic, nor derived from those that are, he concludes that no religious belief can be reasonably accepted. Evidentialism, Yandell argues, is indefensible , since it would render all theorizing impossible. Framing Hume's views on religion in the terminology of twentieth-century analytic philosophy tends to obscure rather than illuminate. Hume is a naturalist, not an evidentialist. According to Hume, theorizing about causes, external objects, and enduring selves is made possible by instincts, not inductive or demonstrative reasoning; consequently, in this strict sense of reason these theoretical beliefs are neither reasonable nor unreasonable. One could say, however, they are preconditions of rationality, not to mention human survival, and reasonable in that sense. Evaluating Hume's methodology in the Natural History of Religion, Yandeil rightly notes that while Hume may have identified one set of propensities that produce religious belief, he cannot be confident that other psychological...