Abstract
As we saw in the preceding chapter, Hume draws attention in the History of England to numerous occasions when people’s religious beliefs have been implicated in acts of appalling brutality and savagery. Some of the events he records, like the Crusades and the religious persecutions initiated in England by Mary I, remain sufficiently salient even today to be used in popular denunciations of religion as a pernicious and destructive force in human affairs. However, Hume is also assiduous in uncovering a host of less well-known incidents that he deftly weaves together in order to construct an unedifying picture of the influence of religion, and more especially Christianity, throughout the course of British history.
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Notes
- 1.
In particular, Hume strives strenuously to refute the theory that the mixed monarchy of eighteenth century Britain and its attendant system of political liberty represent a return to ancient liberties that had been subverted in the intervening years by monarchs of a tyrannical disposition. See Forbes 1985, 260–307, Miller 1981, 163–73, and Wooton 1993, 296–307.
- 2.
Hume describes Alfred as follows: ‘The merit of this prince, both in private and public life, may with advantage be set in opposition to that of any monarch or citizen, which the annals of any age or any nation can present to us. He seems indeed to be the model of that perfect character, which, under the denomination of a sage or wise man, philosophers have been fond of delineating, rather as a fiction of their imagination, than in hopes of ever seeing it really existing’ (1778, 1.74).
- 3.
Alfred’s achievements in promoting learning are perhaps exaggerated by Hume, as he repeats the false story that Alfred founded or at least re-established the University of Oxford (1778, 1.79). However, the reputation of this university in the second half of the eighteenth century was so low that Hume’s brother, John Home, saw no advantage in sending his elder son to finish his education there: ‘He thinks his Son rather inclines to be dissipated and idle; and believes that a Year or two at Oxford woud confirm him thoroughly in that Habit, without any other Advantage than the acquiring of a little better Pronounciation’ (Hume 1932, II, 207).
- 4.
Hume contrasts the religious stance of the early Muslims quite favourably with the attitudes prevalent in the Eastern Roman Empire: ‘And though the Alcoran, the original monument of their faith, seems to contain some violent precepts, they were much less infected with the spirit of bigotry and persecution than the indolent and speculative Greeks’ (1778, 1, 234–5).
References
Forbes, D. 1985. Hume’s philosophical politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hume, D. 1739. A treatise of human nature, ed. D.F. Norton and M.J. Norton. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Hume, D. 1772a. An enquiry concerning human understanding, ed. T.L. Beauchamp. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Hume, D. 1778. History of England: From the invasion of Julius Caesar to the revolution in 1688, 6 vols. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund Press.
Hume, D. 1779. Dialogues concerning natural religion. In Hume’s dialogues concerning natural religion, 2nd ed, ed. N. Kemp Smith. Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson, 1947.
Hume, D. 1932. The letters of David Hume, 2 vols., ed. J.Y.T Greig. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Miller, D. 1981. Philosophy and ideology in Hume’s political thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wooton, D. 1993. Hume, the ‘Historian’. In The Cambridge companion to Hume, ed. D.F. Norton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Bailey, A., O’Brien, D. (2014). History and the Evaluation of Religion. In: Hume's Critique of Religion: 'Sick Men's Dreams'. The New Synthese Historical Library, vol 72. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6615-0_12
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