It was only towards the end of the 19th century that the tide began to turn, and then only in a limited way. In respect of Hume’s philosophy, eventual disenchantment with Kant was a necessary preliminary to a partial restoration of Hume’s fortunes. The publication of Leslie Stephen’s History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century in 1876 initiated a tentative reassessment of Hume’s philosophy, in that the questions Hume had pondered were rescued from the condition of being simply misconceived. On the contrary: these had been and were still the stubborn, fundamental philosophical questions. Stephen did not find Hume’s answers satisfactory, but the questions had at least been the right ones:
Stephen and other late-Victorian writers such as James McCosh and Hume’s editors T. H. Green and T. H. Grose tended to script Hume’s career as a drama of two acts. In the first, Hume had written the Treatise of Human Nature and had thereby discovered the dismaying truth that progress in philosophy was not to be had. In Act Two, he had turned aside from philosophy, had dabbled in essays and history-writing, had pursued a public career, and amassed considerable wealth and public fame. As Grose sourly remarked, “Few men of letters have been at heart so vain and greedy of fame as was Hume.”
One might have expected that the preferences and aversions of Bloomsbury would have overturned this narrative. In a way, they did. In Portraits in Miniature Lytton Strachey admired what his Victorian predecessors had disparaged: “Had Hume died at the age of twenty-six” — the age at which he had completed the two volumes of the Treatise — “his real work in the world would have been done, and his fame irrevocably established.” For Strachey the Treatise was the “masterpiece” which contained all that was most important in Hume’s thought. The rest of his life had been nothing more than filling in time. It is clear, however, that in reversing the Victorian evaluation of Hume which he had inherited, Strachey had done nothing to reshape the underlying narrative of Hume’s career. This was still a drama of two acts, and the interval still arrived disconcertingly early.
Although later 20th-century study of Hume’s philosophy continued further down this path of rehabilitation, the notion that the Treatise contained all Hume’s really hard and original thinking, and that he spent the rest of his life re-packaging and re-formulating the insights that had broken upon him in his mid-twenties would prove very durable.
Hume began as a philosopher . . . but in the Treatise reasoned himself into a position which made philosophy look as though it had destroyed itself under the pressure of systematic sceptical argumentation. Therefore, he turned from philosophy to subjects which could be treated purely empirically, such as politics, political economy, and history, but in each case the work that he produced was evidence that . . . his power as a destroyer was much greater than his abilities as a creator. . . . Hume’s scepticism left him trying to make ropes of sand in his writings on these topics.
Stephen and other late-Victorian writers such as James McCosh and Hume’s editors T. H. Green and T. H. Grose tended to script Hume’s career as a drama of two acts. In the first, Hume had written the Treatise of Human Nature and had thereby discovered the dismaying truth that progress in philosophy was not to be had. In Act Two, he had turned aside from philosophy, had dabbled in essays and history-writing, had pursued a public career, and amassed considerable wealth and public fame. As Grose sourly remarked, “Few men of letters have been at heart so vain and greedy of fame as was Hume.”
One might have expected that the preferences and aversions of Bloomsbury would have overturned this narrative. In a way, they did. In Portraits in Miniature Lytton Strachey admired what his Victorian predecessors had disparaged: “Had Hume died at the age of twenty-six” — the age at which he had completed the two volumes of the Treatise — “his real work in the world would have been done, and his fame irrevocably established.” For Strachey the Treatise was the “masterpiece” which contained all that was most important in Hume’s thought. The rest of his life had been nothing more than filling in time. It is clear, however, that in reversing the Victorian evaluation of Hume which he had inherited, Strachey had done nothing to reshape the underlying narrative of Hume’s career. This was still a drama of two acts, and the interval still arrived disconcertingly early.
Although later 20th-century study of Hume’s philosophy continued further down this path of rehabilitation, the notion that the Treatise contained all Hume’s really hard and original thinking, and that he spent the rest of his life re-packaging and re-formulating the insights that had broken upon him in his mid-twenties would prove very durable.
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