Hutcheson on Hume's Treatise : An Unnoticed letter

NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 69 idealistic premise, is highly controversial. A and C together secure the impossibility of material substance, as defined within the classical tradition. The three theses combine to refute representationalism. By thus explicating the Likeness Principle , we have succeeded in showing that Berkeley's arguments do not depend upon his use of the term "idea." And thereby we can see the truth of Berkeley's claim that the issue between the materialists and him is not a verbal one.2~ PHILIP D. CUMMINS State University of Iowa "~Nor is it a matter of the linquistic analysis of "appears" and related words. See Works, IL 239-240 and esp. 261-262. HUTCHESON ON HUME'S Treatise: AN UNNOTICED LETTER "IN LOOKINGOVERYOURL~TERS," wrote David Hume to his cousin by courtesy, Henry Home, 1 on February 13, 1739, "I find one of a twelve-month's Date, wherein you desire me to send down a great many Copys to Scotland." In view of the subject matter of the Treatise of Human Nature, however, it occurred to Hume that commending copies and pushing their sale would gain little. He was preparing a third book of the Treatise for publication, and he was planning to develop in a systematic way his ideas on politics and criticism; consequently, his most urgent need was for an informed judgment on that part of the Treatise already in print: If you know any body that is a Judge, you wou'd do me a sensible Pleasure in engaging him to a serious Perusal of the Book. Tis so rare to meet with one, that will take Pains on a Book, that does not come recommended by some great Name or Authority, that, I must confess, I am as fond of meeting with such a one, as if I were sure of his Approbation.* The man in Scotland best qualified to meet Hume's requirements was Francis Huteheson, Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow, and author of works which had helped shape Hume's intellectual development) Henry Home, in his turn, was just the kind of energetic friend to set this matter in train. After all, in his youth, 1Henry Home (1696-1782), admitted advocate, 1723, raised to the Bench as Lord Kames, 1752; through his friendships and works on law, morals, criticism, social history, agriculture, and education, he contributed powerfully to the intellectual ferment in eighteenth-century Scotland. New LetLers o] David Hume, eds. R. Klibansky and •. C. Mossner (Oxford, 1954), p. 4. 3An Inquiry into the Original o] our Ideas o] Beauty and Virtue (1725) and An Essay on the Nature and Conduct o] the Passions and Af]ections. With Illustrations on the Moral Sense (1728); Hume paid his tribute to Hutcheson in the Philosophical Essays concerning Human Understanding (1748): "A late Philosopher [Hutcheson] has taught us, by the most convincing Arguments, that Morality is nothing in the abstract Nature of Things, but is entirely relative to the Sentiment or mental Taste of each particular Being.... Moral Perceptions, therefore, ought not to be elass'd with the Operations of the Understanding, but with the Taste or Sentiments" (Philosophical Works, eds. T. H. Green and T. H. Grose [London: 1874-1875],IV, 10 n.). The largest claims for Hume's debt to Huteheson are made by N. Kemp Smith, The Philosophy o] David Hume (London: 1941), pp. 14-20, 24. 70 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY he had opened a philosophical correspondence with Samuel Clarke, and more recently he had pursued Joseph Butler to his own rooms to exchange ideas with him.4 Now, from a hitherto unnoticed letter printed below,5 we learn that Henry Home prevailed on an old pupil of Hutcheson's to take to him a copy of the Treatise. This action drew from Hutcheson a preliminary judgment on the book, at once flattering to the author and not a little revealing of the older philosopher's own views at a most interesting stage in their development. The letter shows Hutcheson complaining, as academics will, about the demands on his time of administration, teaching, and private tuition. Yet the tone of the letter entirely bears out Hume's later acknowledgment of Hutcheson's "GoodNature...