So, Hume did Read Berkeley

Author(s): Richard H. Popkin

Source: The Journal of Philosophy , Dec. 24, 1964, Vol. 61, No. 24 (Dec. 24, 1964), pp.
773-778
Published by: Journal of Philosophy, Inc.

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/2023392

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 INSCRIPTIONS AND INDIRECT DISCOURSE 773

COMMENTS AND CRITICISM

SO, HUME DID READ BERKELEY *

FIVE years ago, in Professor Flew's words, I "audaciously

suggested that Hume never actually even read Berkeley, or
at least not in any very strong sense of read." 1 In my argument
in the JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY 2 with Professors Wiener and Moss-
ner, I contended, among other things, that the evidence then avail-
able was insufficient to establish that Hume had read Berkeley, that
it was more likely that he had not than that he had, and that Hume
was better understood if seen not just as Berkeley's successor, but
as the product of many varied forces and sources. As soon as my
piece "Did Hume Ever Read Berkeley?" went into print, I waited
with fear and trembling for someone to produce a previously un-
published letter of Hume, describing what he read in Berkeley, or
a copy of a work of Berkeley annotated by Hume. I was greatly
relieved that, when Mossner published his rejoinder, he did not
have such documents lying around. And I was further relieved
when Wiener published a note on his attempt to find evidence that
Hume was taught about Berkeley's philosophy at the Edinburgh
University, showing that no such record could be found.3 The
silence over the next few years, plus the indications that I had
succeeded in rattling people when they started discussing the
Locke-Berkeley-Hume trio,4 gave me a sense of false security abou
* I should like to thank Mr. David Norton for his advice and suggestions
about this paper.
1 Antony Flew, Hume,'s Philosophy of Belief (New York: Humanities
Press, 1961), p. 261.
2 Richard H. Popkin, "Did Hume Ever Read Berkeley?" this JOURNAL,
56, 12 (June 4, 1959): 535-545; Philip P. Wiener, same title, same issue:
533-535, also 58, 8 (Apr. 13, 1961): 207-209, and 58, 12 (June 8, 1961):
327-328; Ernest Campbell Mossner, 56, 25 (Dec. 3, 1959): 992-995; and
Antony Flew, 58, 2 (Jan. 19, 1961): 50-51.
3 Wiener, op. cit., 58, 12 (June 8, 1961): 327-328. Wiener had pointed
to the major positive or suggestive historical evidence that Hume read Berke-
ley, namely, the references to Berkeley in Hume's discussion of abstract ideas
in the Treatise, and in the discussion of skepticism in the Enquiry, and the
fact that some of Hume's teachers at Edinburgh were discussing Berkeley's
views and apparently corresponding with Berkeley about them. In my original
article I tried to show that this did not establish that Hume himself had
actually read Berkeley. It should be stated that neither Wiener nor Mossner
held to the simple textbook view that Hume was merely a successor to Berkeley,
and we were all to some degree in accord that Hume should be studied in
a wider context of intellectual history than just that of the Locke-Berkeley-
Hume sequence.
4 For example, see Charles W. Hendel, Studies in the Philosophy of
David Hume (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1963), pp. 47n-48n; and John H.

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774 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

my "audacious suggestion." And now, it has finally happened.

A recently discovered letter of Hume in the Czartoryski Museum
of Cracow seems to settle the matter decisively, and to throw much
light on Hume's interests and involvements at the time that he
finished the Treatise.
In a recent issue of the Archiwulrm Historii Filozofii i Mys'li
Spotecznej of the Philosophical and Sociological Institute of ,the
Polish Academy of Science, Tadeusz Kozaneeki published three
letters of Hume to Michael Ramsay (August 26-31, 1737; May 3,
1755; and May-June, 1755); two letters of Hume to his nephew,
David Hume (Jan. 21, 1776; and May 20, 1776); and one from
Adam Smith to Hume (May 9, 1775). These letters were given by
Hume's nephew, David, to the Princess Isabella Czartoryski (1742-
1835), who set up a rich literary and artistic collection at Pulawy.
In 1790 Hume's nephew sent the letters to the princess when she
was in London.5
The earliest letter was written right after Hume left La F1Zche,
and was carrying his just completed manuscript of the Treatise,
with which he hoped to gain his fame.6 He was writing his close
friend Michael Ramsay.7 The text, published by Kozanecki, states:

My Dear Friend
I have quitted La Fleche two days after receiving yours I am now at
Tours in my way to Paris, where I do not intend to stay any considerable
time, unless some extraordinary Accident intervene: So that I propose to
see you in London about 3 or 4 Weeks hence. You may be sure that this
Meeting will afford me a very great Satisfaction, & 'tis with the utmost
Concern I hear you will leave the City a little after my Arrival. Nothing can
be more useful & agreeable than to have an intimate Friend with one at any
critical Time of Life such as that which I am just going to enter upon. & I
must certainly esteem it a great Loss to be depriv'd of your Advice, as well
in points that regard my Conduct & Behavior, as in those of Criticism &
Learning. I can assure you I have great Confidence in your Iudgement even
in this last particular, tho' the State of your Health & Business have never
permitted you to be a regular Student, nor to apply yourself to any part of

Randall, Jr., The Career of Philosophy (New York: Columbia Univ. Press,
1962), pp. 629n-630n.
5 Tadeusz Kozanecki, " Dawida Hume 'a Nieznane Listy w Zbiorach Mu-
zeum Czartoryskich (Polska)," IArchiwun lHistorii Filozofii i Mysli Spotecznej,
9 (1963) (Beligie Bacjonalne. Studia z filozofli religii xv-xvii w): 127-141.
6Mossner, in his The Life of David Hume (Austin: Univ. of Texas
Press, 1954), gives no exact date for the completion of the Treatise or the
departure from La Fleche, and just states the work was completed by the
middle of 1737, and that Hume was back in London early in September
1737; cf. pp. 104-105.
7 Michael Ramsay was a friend from Hume's early days in Edinburgh,
and Mossner describes him as "Hume's most intimate friend" (Life, p. 60).
The first known letter of Hume is to Ramsay, July 4, 1727. Their friendship
continued for many years.

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 COMMENTS AND CRITICISM 775

Learning in a methodical manner, without which 'tis almost impossible to

make any mighty Progress. I shall submit all my Performances to your
Examination, & to make you enter into them more easily, I desire of you,
if you have Leizure, to read once over le Recherche de la Verite of Pere
Malebranehe, the Principles of Human Knowledge by Dr Berkeley, some of
the more metaphysical Articles of Bailes Dictionary; such as those [. . . of]
Zeno, & Spinoza. Des-Cartes Meditations woud also be useful but don 't
know if you will find it easily among your Acquaintainces These Books will
make you easily comprehend the metaphysical Parts of my Reasoning and
as to the rest, they have so litlle Dependence on all former systems of Philoso-
phy, that your natural Good Sense will afford you Light enough to judge
of their Force & Solidity.
I shall be oblig 'd to put all my Papers into the Chevalier Ramsay's hands
when I come to Paris; which I am really sorry for. For tho' he be Free-
thinker enough not to be shockt with my Liberty, yet he is so wielded to
whymsical Systems, & is so litlle of a Philosopher, that I expect nothing
but Cavilling from him. I even fortify myself against his Dis-approbation
& am resolv 'd not to be in the least discouraged by it, if I shoud chance
to meet with it. All Counsels are good to be taken, says the Cardinal de
Richelieu. The good are good of themselves. The bad confirm the Good
& give new Force to them. This is more especially true in works of Learning
& Philosophy, where frivolous Objections & bad Reasoning give us alwise [?]
greater Assurance in the Truth.
I come now to that Article of your last Letter, wherein you seem to
doubt either of my present Friendship [for] you or of its Continuance. I
cannot imagine upon what such a Doubt may be founded. You know my
Temper well enough not to expect any Romantic Fondness from me. But
Constancy, Equality, Fidelity & a hearty Good will you may justly look for,
& shall ne[ver] be disappointed. You speak of my superior Progress in the
Sciences. I know not how far there may be a Foundation for what you say.
I must flatter myself that there is some Ground for it in order to support
my Courage in that dangerous Situation, in which I have placed myself. But
however that may be I have enough of Science to know, that a Man who is
incapable of Gratitude & Friendship is in a very disconsolate Condition,
whatever Abilities be may he endow'd with & whatever Fame he may acquire.

I mist the Post at Tours, so that I finish this Letter at Orleans tho
I have nothing farther to add, but farther Assurance of my Good will &
Friendship. I know this will be more satisfactory to you than any De-
scriptions of Fields & Buildings, which I have met with in my Road: Besides
that I will be able in a short time to satisfy your Curiosity in this particular,
if you have any. Adieu

Orleans, August 31, 1737 8

Though one could perversely contend that Hume's advice to

young Ramsay to read Malebranche, Berkeley, Bayle, and Descartes
if he wanted to understand the metaphysical parts of Hume does
not indisputably prove that Hume read all of the works in ques-
tion,9 I shall not do so. Instead I shall concede as gracefully as
8 Kozaneeki, op. cit., pp. 133-134.
9 There is also a letter by Lord Monboddo to James Harris, June 18,
1769, in which he says he read Berkeley after having heard " David Hume

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776 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

I can that it now seems definite that Hume was aware of the con-
tents of Berkeley's Principles, and that, on the evidence now
available, it would no longer be audacious, but rather foolish, to ask
"Did Hume ever read Berkeley?"
The letter contains many interesting and intriguing points
about the sources, the influences upon, and the nature of Hume's
views at the time of the completion of the Treatise.
The coupling of Malebranche's Recherche de la Verite', Berke-
ley's Principles, and Bayle's articles on Spinoza and Zeno is odd
in the Locke-Berkeley-Hume tradition of interpretation. Locke is
not mentioned, though he certainly looms large in Hume's preface
and Part I. Bayle's articles figure greatly in Parts II and IV,
while Malebranche dominates the famous section xiv of Part III,
"On the Idea of Necessary Connexion." The Scottish moralists,
who are cited by Hume as his predecessors in the preface, and
who influenced much of his naturalism in Part III, are completely
absent. Descartes as an afterthought is also surprising, in the
light of how we now see the history of modern philosophy. (And
the indication that it would be harder to find a copy of Descartes's
Meditations than a copy of Malebranche, Berkeley, or Bayle is a
bit surprising, too.)
One possible explanation lies in the content of the next para-
graph. Chevalier Ramsay, whom Hume had visited when he first
came to France,'0 was extremely interested in Bayle 's, Male-
branche's and Spinoza's ideas, and was quite critical of Berkeley's.
Ramsay was little concerned with the Scottish moralists or the
empirical tradition (if there actually was one then), but was
vitally concerned with metaphysics and skepticism and with the
crisis in the quest for metaphysical knowledge engendered by both
Bayle and Malebranche.'1 The unexplained remark that "I shall
be oblig'd to put all my Papers into the Chevalier Ramsay's hands
when I come to Paris'" confirms the view some of us have had that
the very curious Chevalier Ramsay was a major influence on flume

say that his [Berkeley 's] arguments are absolutely unanswerable. " See
William Knight, Lord Monboddo and Some of His Contemporaries (London:
Dutton, 1900), p. 51. Monboddo 's comment on reading Berkeley was, "I
cannot help saying that it is as poor a piece of sophistry as ever I saw
composed by a man who seems to be in earnest. "
l0 Hume 's relations with the Chevalier Andrew Michael Ramsay, 1686-
are discussed in Mossner, Life, pp. 93-97. For more biographical details about
Ramsay, see G. D. Henderson, Chevalier Ramsay (Edinburgh: Nelson, 1952).
"1 Some of Ramsay 's views are discussed in R. H. Popkin, "David Hume
and the Pyrrhonian Controversy," The Review of Metaphysics, 6 (1952-53):
65-81; others in a forthcoming paper by Herbert Schneider. A student of
mine, Leonard A. Hitchcock, is preparing a dissertation on Ramsay 's philoso-
phy, especially on his views on causation that seem to have influenced Hume.

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 COMIMENTS AND CRITICISM 777

during the Treatise period. They had strikingly similar and

strikingly divergent views, but they came to have a low opinion
of each other's philosophies 12 (Hume's expectations about Ram-
say's reaction to the Treatise were fully confirmed). The fact that
Hume was obliged to show his manuscript to Ramsay definitely
deserves investigation and consideration, and indicates that their
relationship at this time was far more than that of casual ac-
quaintance.13 Ramsay had been a Pyrrhonian, a mystic convert
to Catholicism, the secretary of F6enelon, the tutor of Bonnie Prince
Charlie, the Grand Master of the Free Masons, a very successful
author, and a strange metaphysician and theologian. Young
Hume went to see him as soon as he arrived in France full of
enthusiasm for his great project. Ramsay seems to have discussed
matters with him, advised and counseled him, and perhaps greatly
influenced him, so that the finished product was a combination
of Hume 's original concerns and those he acquired during his
Ramsayan period. If Ramsay told Hume what he said to others
about the Treatise, one can understand Hume's concern when he
later sent the work to Desmaizeaux and asked the latter to tell
him frankly if he found the work sufficiently intelligible, true,
and tolerably well-written! 14

12In 1742, Ramsay, in a letter to Dr. John Henderson, wrote to Hume,

"By the little I heard from & read of that young Gentleman, he seems to me
far from being a True master of metaphysicks . . . That bright ingenious
Spark does not seem to me to have acquir 'd a sufficient Stock of solid
Learning, nor to be born with a fund of noble Sentiments, nor to have a
genius capable of all that Geometrical attention, penetration and Justness,
necessary to make a True Metaphysician. I am affrayd his spirit is more
lively than solid, his Imagination more luminous than profound, and his heart
too dissipated with material objects & spiritual Self-Idolatry to pierce into
the secret recesses of divine Truths. . . . He seems to me one of those
philosophers that think to spin out Systems, out of their own brain, without
any regard to religion, antiquity or Tradition sacred or profane." Quoted
in Mossner, Life, pp. 94-95. Hume already, as the letter to Michael Ramsay
indicates, had a low opinion of the Chevalier as a serious thinker. A note in
Hume's Natural History of Religion of 1757 said this again in a milder way.
Compare Hume, The Philosophical Works of David Hfume, ed. Green & Grose
(London: Longmans Green, 1874-5), vol. IV, p. 355n.
I3 Mossner, Life, p. 95, indicates that at the time of writing of the
letter to Stevenson, August 24, 1742, Ramsay had not read the published
Treatise. He had received a copy from Hume about fifteen months earlier,
but Ramsay claimed he had "neither time nor health to peruse such an
obscure, dark, intricate performance.'" He then said that he intended to
read it when he went to Boulogne. The part of Ramsay's letter, quoted in
note 12, indicates he had read something of Hume's, perhaps either part of
the manuscript of the Treatise, or some now lost letters.
14 Letter of Hume to Pierre Desmaizeaux, April 6, 1739, in J. Y. T. Grieg,
The Letters of David Hume (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932), vol. I, p. 29.

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 778 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

Leaving Ramsay aside, since Hume did read Berkeley, the

problem still remains, why is there so little trace of Berkeley in
Hume's writings? This new letter notwithstanding, Berkeley still
does not appear in the notebooks of Hume we possess, written
during the period 1727-1740. Berkeley is mentioned only three
times in Hume's total published works. No doctrine of Berkeley's
is used by Hume to establish any of his own views, and where
Hume and Berkeley come closest to discussing the same subject or
holding the same view, Hume neither uses Berkeley's terms nor
refers to him. On the other hand, Bayle and often Malebranche
can be found all through the Treatise, and the influence of the
Port-Royal Logic, of Ramsay, and others is not hard to discern.
This, I submit, still indicates that Hume did not consider himself
Berkeley's successor, nor was Berkeley the major influence upon
him. Hume's development makes more sense, I believe, in terms of
the complex of thinkers he wrestled with, such as Bayle, Male-
branche, Descartes, Berkeley, the Scottish moralists, the strange
Chevalier Ramsay, perhaps Bishop Huet, and others. In my
original article, I stated, "The mind of Hume becomes far more
interesting and exciting when seen in terms of the manifold issues
and traditions of his time." My brash or rash conclusion, "How
much bolder a figure Hume becomes seen in this rich context than
when he is seen as only the extremely clever successor of a Berke-
ley whom he probably never read!" X15 must obviously be altered
a bit. So, Hume did read Berkeley, but he nonetheless seems to
have developed his views from a wider context in which Berkeley
played at most a small role. Once Hume has been conceived
without Berkeley-as we surely were able to do-, and Berkeley
without Hume, both philosophers gain greatly as original and
individual thinkers offering unique answers to the rich complex
of problems and issues of their time. They no longer have to be
read solely as one preparing the ground for the other, and as
the middle and end of the Locke-Berkeley-Hume trio. Perhaps
my original "audacious" suggestion has aided in freeing us from
the shackles of a rigid interpretation, and now, through further
probing of documents, such as this newly found letter of Hume, we
can assess both Hume's and Berkeley's contributions with more
historical understanding and profit.
RICHARD H. POPKIN
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO

'5 Popkin, "Did Hume Ever Read Berkeley?" p. 545.

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