Bayle, Berkeley, and Hume

Harry M. Bracken

Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 11, No. 2. (Winter, 1977-1978), pp. 227-245.

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 Bayle, Berkeley,
and Hume
HARRY M. BRACKEN

IN1959, responding to criticism by Philip P. Wiener for suggesting

that Hume had never read Berkeley, Richard M. Popkin published a
reply in which he contended that there was very little evidence to
support the old philosophical partnership of Locke, Berkeley, and
Hume-e.g. there are no citati0ns.l Popkin reminded us that Hume's
own discussion of abstract ideas "hardly resembles Berkeley's" (p.
539) and that in presenting his views on our knowledge of the ex-
ternal world, Hume seems to be oblivious of Berkeley's arguments.
Nor does Berkeley appear in Hume's discussions of mathematics or
minds.
Nevertheless, matters were altered by the publication of a newly
discovered letter of Hume's. Written to Michael Ramsay in 1737,
it reads in part: "I desire of you, if you have Leizure, to read once
over le Recherche de la VeritC of Pere Malebranche, the Principles
of Human Knowledge by Dr Berkeley, some of the more meta-
.
physical Articles of Bailes Dictionary; such as those . . [of] Zeno,
& Spinoza. Ses Cartes Meditations would also be useful. . . ." He
goes on to say: "These Books will make you easily comprehend the
metaphysical Parts of my Reasoning. . . ."2
A revised version of a paper presented in the Matchette Foundation Lectures on
the Philosophy of David Hume at the Catholic University of America, 11 Novem-
ber 1976. I am indebted to the members of the Catholic University philosophy
department for many helpful criticisms. I wish also to thank Dr. George E. Davie
of the University of Edinburgh for his extremely stimulating discussions concern-
ing the subject matter of this paper. Some of the research for this paper was sup-
ported by the Canada Council and the Qutbec Education Ministry (FCAC).
1 Philip P. Wiener, "Did Hume Ever Read Berkeley?" Journal of Philosophy, 56
(1959), 533-35; 58 (1961), 207-9; 58 (1961), 327-28; Richard H. Popkin, "Did
Hume Ever Read Berkeley?" Journal of Philosophy, 56 (1959), 535-45. There is
an extended discussion with contributions by, among others, Ernest C. Mossner,
Antony Flew, Graham P. Conroy, and Roland Hall. It was precipitated by Popkin's
review of George Boas, Dominant Themes o f Modern Philosophy (New York:
Ronald Press, 1957), in Journal o f Philosophy, 56 (1959), 67-71.
2 The letter is edited by Tadeusz Kozanecki and appears in Archiwum Historii I
228 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES

In his 1964 paper, "So, Hume Did Read Berkeley," Popkin writes
that the letter to Ramsay settles the reading question "decisively."
But despite having read Berkeley there is still, according to Popkin,
no evidence that Berkeley was a major influence upon Hume. Pop-
kin maintained that "no doctrine of Berkeley's is used by Hume to
establish any of his own views." He added that "Hume's develop-
ment makes more sense, I believe, in terms of the complex of think-
ers he wrestled with, such as Bayle, Malebranche, Descartes,
Berkeley, the Scottish moralists, the strange Chevalier Ramsay,
perhaps Bishop Huet, and others" (p. 778).
That certainly seems to be where we stand two hundred years
after Hume's death. In this paper I shall examine several aspects of
the connections among Bayle, Berkeley, and Hume. It is my con-
tention that Bayle independently influences Berkeley and Hume, and
that Berkeley had little or no direct impact on Hume.
First, there is Hume's discussion of finite vs. infinite divisibility
(Treatise I, Pt. 11). Hume seems to say that (a) the parts of space are
finitely, and not infinitely, divisible, (b) the constituent atoms are
colored, and (c) the idea of extension enters only with several such
atoms.3 As Kemp Smith comments, "Extension is the manner or
mode of arrangement in which unextended sensibilia appear to the
mind."4 He subsequently adds that Hume seems to be saying that
"two unextended sensibles, if contiguous, will generate what is
genuinely extended!" (p. 300).
Berkeley, on the other hand, means by a minimum visible that
point which marks the threshold of visual acuity. Locke estimates
(Essay 11, xv, § 9) that it is from thirty seconds to a minute "of a
circle, whereof the eye is the centre." Thus a color spot operationally
defined at the minimum level would not be further divisible. If an
effort were made to divide a minimum, it would simply cease to
exist. Visual minima constitute a sort of visual grid. This grid is not
affected by magnification glasses, since it is not characterized in
terms of dots in the world but in terms of thresholds of sensory

MySli Spotecznej, 9 (1964). It is reprinted in Popkin, "So Hume Did Read Berkeley,"
Journal o f Philosophy, 61 (1964), 773-78.
"avid Hume, A Treatise o f Human Nature, ed. T. H . Green and T. H. Grose,
2 vols. (London, 1898), I, 341 (hereafter G&G), or the edition of Hume's Treatise
ed. Ernest C. Mossner (Harmondsworth, Eng., 1969), pp. 82-83 (hereafter Moss-
ner).
4 Norman Kemp Smith, T h e Philosophy o f David Hume (London, 1949), p. 297.
 BAYLE, BERKELEY, AND HUME 229

a ~ u i t yWhile
.~ Hume does speak briefly of minima (Treatise I, Pt.
11, 8 i), his idea that one point of color is not extended, but two are,
simply makes no sense in Berkeley's terms. Their accounts of
minima sensibilia as well as of extension are plainly at variance
with one another.
In the Theory of Vision and the Principles Berkeley defends the
radical thesis that extension is a sensation. Berkeley, unlike Locke,
accords priority to extension among the primary qualities. And
again, unlike Locke, Berkeley uses the so-called mentalization argu-
ments derived from the skeptics, i.e., the appeal to variations in
sense experience, in discussing secondary q~alities.~ He extends the
logic of mentalization to the primary qualities. In so doing he is
pursuing a line of reasoning rooted not in Locke but in B a ~ l eThe.~
other steps in Berkeley's articulation of immaterialism are not rele-
vant to present purposes. My concern is only that we should appre-
ciate that Berkeley is extremely sensitive to the role of extension
because extension constitutes, for the Cartesians, the essence of body
or matter. Accordingly, Berkeley is most anxious to show that color
cannot be separated from extension and that both color and exten-
sion are sensations. Since color as a sensation could be "in the
mind" unproblematically (cf. Principles, 8 49), Berkeley sought very
explicitly to do the same thing for extension.
Hume proceeds in a radically different way from Berkeley. He
does not consider extension a sensation but a manner of perception.
He finds color and extension separable. His definition of modern
philosophy in terms of the primarylsecondary quality distinction (a
topic this putative follower of Berkeley almost never mentions)
seems to come from the definition found in B a ~ l eHad . ~ Hume been
developing Berkeley's account, I believe he would have given rea-
sons for the differences. Instead, what we have are two independent
developments from a common source, Pierre Bayle. Kemp Smith
5 See The Works of George Berkeley, ed. A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop, 9 vols.
(London, 1948-57), I, 204 F. (NTV 080 f.). See also Philosophical Commentaries,
entries 18, 343, 438-40, 464, 632 in Berkeley's Works, vol. I, or in the new and
revised text edited and published by George H. Thomas (Alliance, Ohio, 1976).
6 See the excellent paper by David Berman, "On Missing the Wrong Target. A
Criticism of Some Chapters in Jonathan Bennett's Locke, Berkeley, Hame: Central
Themes," Hermathena, 113 (1972), 54-67.
7 Bayle: Historical and Critical Dictionary-Selections, ed. and trans. Richard
Popkin (Indianapolis, Ind., 1965), Article Pyrrho, remark B (hereafter Dictionary-
Selections).
Dictionary-Selections, Art. Pyrrho, rem. B, pp. 197 f.
230 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES

has sketched Hume's indebtedness to Bayle's article Zeno. Bayle's

fantastically elaborated versions of the four paradoxes, his applica-
tions of them to seventeenth-century atomists, scholastics, and
Cartesians, were the locus classicus of the divisibility question
throughout the eighteenth century. We find in Bayle detailed dis-
cussions of mathematical points and of the penetrations of dimen-
sions and we find echoes of these very discussions in Hume (Treatise
I, Pt. 11, 8 iii). Indeed, as Kemp Smith and Popkin have remarked, a
number of passages from Part I1 seem clearly to have been taken
from Bayle's Z e n ~ . ~
Bayle as a common source is also evident in Berkeley's minima
because they were explicitly designed to resolve Zeno-type prob-
lems.1° A typical Philosophical Commentaries entry on the subject
reads : "M [inimum] S [ensible] is that wherein there are not con-
tain'd distinguishable parts, now how can that wchhath not sensible
parts be divided into sensible parts? if you say it may be divided into
insensible parts. I say these are nothings" (Entry 439). Bayle pre-
sented Berkeley not only with various forms of the finitelinfinite
divisibility paradoxes, but also with an attack on the primary/
secondary quality distinction and an argument to limit the domain
of the intelligible to the ideal. Bayle even expresses doubts about
the existence of matter.I1 Most crucially, Berkeley's esse is percipil
percipere was designed to eliminate that very distinction between
what is perceived and what is real which had been the perennial
target of the skeptical dialectic.12
A second area of profound disagreement between Berkeley and
Hume concerns necessary connections. I again wish to maintain that
Berkeley and Hume hold very different positions. The necessary
connection matter bears directly on a third and closely related area
of disagreement: mind or spirit-or mental substance-which is both
the most important area of disagreement and the most difficult to
appreciate. Via the old Locke-Berkeley-Hume mythology two sug-
gestions continue to be insinuated: (1) Berkeley merely had a
weakened Lockean theory of substance, and (2) Hume directed a
sustained critical attack upon that remnant in Berkeley. One ad-
9 Seealso Richard A. Watson, The Downfall of Cartesianism (The Hague, 1966).

10 D.M. Armstrong, Berkeley's Theory of Vision (Melbourne, 1960), p. 43.

11Dictionary-Selections, Art. Zeno, rem. H, pp. 373 f.

12See my Early Reception o f Berkeley's Immaterialism: 1710-1733, 2nd ed.

(The Hague, 1965), and especially my Berkeley (London, 1974).

 BAYLE, BERKELEY, AND HUME 23 1

vantage of the emphasis on the role of Malebranche and Bayle, an

emphasis recommended by such scholars as A. A. Luce and T. E.
Jessop over the past forty years, is that it encourages one to look
anew at Berkeley. In the light of the new historical and scholarly
data one reads the texts of Berkeley alerted to Cartesian, Male-
branchian, and Baylean elements in his thought. On topics as varied
as innate ideas or that the soul always thinks, Berkeley sides with the
Cartesian tradition.13 Accordingly, not only does a new Berkeley
emerge, it becomes clear that Hume's arguments were neither aimed
at nor did they strike Berkeley.
Hume's thesis that there can be unextended color atoms runs
directly counter to Berkeley's claim that "extension, figure, and
motion, abstracted from all other qualities, are inconceivable"
(Principles § 10). Some of Berkeley's necessary connection claims
are rooted in the antiabstractionism which he had articulated in the
Introduction to the Principles. "For can there," he asks in Principles
§ 5, "be a nicer strain of abstraction than to distinguish the existence
of sensible objects from their being perceived, so as to conceive them
existing unperceived?" Berkeley goes on to say that he is able to
conceive "separately such objects, as it is possible may really exist
or be actually perceived asunder." On the other hand, while Hume
may claim to be a supporter of Berkeley's attack on abstract general
ideas (Treatise I, Pt. I, 8 vii), he appears to have been unaware of
the line Berkeley takes in Principles 8 5 and elsewhere.
Hume rejects Berkeley's criterion and advances his own princi-
ple: "Whatever is distinct, is distinguishable; and whatever is dis-
tinguishable, is separable by the thought or imagination."I4 As he
says, "Where-ever the imagination perceives a difference among
ideas, it can easily produce a separation" (Treatise I, Pt. I , 8 iii).
Like Locke, Hume finds he must dissolve connections. They both
found it necessary to deny that there was a discoverable substance
to which a quality had a necessary connection; nor was there a
necessary connection binding one quality to another. Berkeley,
however, did not espouse those denials. Berkeley finds a necessary

13 These themes are central to my Berkeley and "Berkeley: Irish Cartesian,"

Philosophical Studies (Dublin), 24 (1976), 39-51. Although Descartes did not deny
the existence of matter, the immaterialist tendeqcies in his thought (even in the
titles of Meditations 11, V, and VI) are clear. They were clear to Malebranche and
Bayle before Berkeley revolutionized the arguments.
1 4 Hume, Treatise, Appendix (G&G,I, 558; Mossner, p. 676).
232 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES

connection between color and extension, i.e., between two qualities.

He also says that his reason for using the word idea was "because a
necessary relation to the mind is understood to be implied by that
term," i.e., between a substance and a quality.15
Berkeley thus deals with necessary connections in two very clear
sorts of cases. He appeals positively, one might say, to a principle
of logical "cement." Thus Berkeley's attack on the primarylsecon-
dary quality distinction, which follows Bayle, utilizes the insepara-
bility of the ideas. Insofar as Hume presents an attack on the
primarylsecondary quality distinction at all, it follows from his
massive application of separability, i.e., by a radical atomization
of our data. There is a hint at Treatise I, Pt. I, 8 vii that Hume
appreciates the problem in separating the "colour and figure" of a
white marble globe. And in violation of his separability principle,
he introduces a new factor: "distinction of reason." But as in the
case he admits of the idea of a shade of blue not derived from a
simple impression (Treatise I, Pt. I, $ i), Hume is undeterred by
exceptions; his principles are made to stand. Nor does he turn to
Berkeley's discussion of primary/ secondary qualities.
With respect to necessary connections holding among qualities or
between a substance and a quality, there is no shortage of comments
by Locke. Locke rejects the idea of substance because he can have
no clear and distinct idea of it (e.g., Essay 11, xxiii, $ 4). Moreover,
no logical necessity binds the constituent elements together in the
complex idea (cf. Essay 11, xxiii, § 26 and also IV, vi, 5 § 5 and 10).
Indeed, Locke finally entertains the possibility that matter may
think, thereby reaching the high point in his doubts about necessary
connections.16 On these and related matters, Hume can much more
sensibly be interpreted as building upon Lockean rather than
Berkeleian themes.
The third area of disagreement between Berkeley and Hume
specifically concerns mind or spirit or mental substance. Berkeley
gives us a collection of brief comments from which we must ex-
trapolate to his doctrine. Supposedly, Part I1 of the Principles would
1 5 Third of the Three Dialogues in Works 11, 235-36.
16 Compare Locke's views on the subject (Essay IV, iii, § 6) with Hume's Treatise
I, Pt. IV, § v. (G&G, I, 532; Mossner, p. 298).
 BAYLE, BERKELEY, AND HUME 233

have dealt with minds but the manuscript was lost on his Italian
travels.17 What emerges from his brief comments is a variant of a
Cartesian doctrine of mind. I shall examine spirit under three head-
ings: (1) spirit as substance and perceiver of succession, (2) spirit as
cause, and (3) spirit as an entity not knowable by idea.
(1) At Principles 5 2 Berkeley writes: "This perceiving, active
being is what I call mind, spirit, soul or my self. By which words I
do not denote any one of my ideas, but a thing entirely distinct from
them. .. ." At $ 7 he says that "there is not any other substance than
spirit, or that which perceives." He adds that "for an idea to exist in
an unperceiving thing, is a manifest contradiction." At $ 26 he tells
us that "we perceive a continual succession of ideas." These ideas
require a cause. The cause cannot be an idea because ideas are pas-
sive and inert. "It must therefore be a substance . . . an incorporeal
active substance or spirit." In $ 27 he writes: "Such is the nature of
spirit or that which acts, that it cannot be of it self perceived, but
only by the effects which it produceth." He adds: "so far as I can
see, the words will, soul, spirit, do not stand . . . for any idea at all,
but for something which is very different from ideas, and which
being an agent cannot be like unto, or represented by, any idea
whatsoever."
I take the first point to be essentially Cartesian in that like Des-
cartes, Berkeley is saying that our experience comes dual: there is
a perceiver and a perceived. When we perceive succession, we ac-
cord the status of substance to that which does the perceiving. Thus
the spirit is a necessary condition for the perception of succession.
I submit that this explains why Berkeley and the Cartesians do not
trouble with the question of personal identity. Like Butler, and later
Thomas Reid, an identical spirit or substantial self is a presupposi-
tion for the perception of succession and for memory. It is a pre-
supposition rooted in the most primitive "given" of human experi-
ence. But note Hume's remarks on inhesion in relation to substance:

We have no perfect idea of any thing but a perception. A substance is

xtirely different from a percepltion. We have, therefore, no idea of a
17 Reported in Berkeley's 25 November 1729 letter to Samuel Johnson of Con-
necticut, Works 11, 282.
234 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES

substance. Inhesion in something is suppos'd to be requisite to support the

existence of our perceptions. Nothing appears requisite to support the exist-
ence of a perception. We have, therefore, no idea of inhesion.ls

In Treatise I, Pi. IV, § v, Hume "pronounces" his "final decision"

that the consequence of all our perceptions being separable is that
we cannot conceive how they can be tied to any substance-"all our
perceptions are not susceptible of a local union, either with what is
extended or unextended. . . ."lg At Treatise I, Pt. IV, § vi, he seeks
the source of the identity which "binds" the perceptions: "Memory
not only discovers the identity, but also contributes to its produc-
tion, by producing the relation of resemblance among the percep-
t i o n ~ . ' How
' ~ ~ memory can "discover" an identity and also help pro-
duce it, is unclear. Does he mean that there must be a component in
each perception which is the foundation for the relation of re-
semblance? This is perhaps the sort of passage which led Butler and
Reid to consider as question-begging any appeals to memory in
establishing identity. Hume's formulation suggests a dilemma: on
the one side he appears to be moving in the direction of a substantial
self by locating an identical component among his perceptions; on
the other he is asking whether a given "perception" is "really dif-
ferent" from every other. If there is some element which is identical
with or resembles elements in other "perceptions" and there is some-
thing different, then it would seem that "perceptions" are themselves
complex. And if complex, they fall under Hume's ever-present
separability principle (i.e., "Every thing, that is different is distin-
guishable: and every thing, that is distinguishable, may be sep-
arated. . .").
I have already cited, under the rubric necessary connection, the
passage in which Berkeley says that he chose the word idea "because
a necessary relation to the mind is understood to be implied by that
term."" Hume and Berkeley thus hold radically different positions.
What is plausible to Hume is profoundly implausible to Berkeley.
18 Hume, Treatise I, Pt. IV, 5 v (G&G, I, 518; Mossner, p. 282).
19 G&G, I, 532; Mossner, p. 298. See also Treatise I, Pt. IV, 5 vi (G&G, I, 534;
Mossner, p. 300), and Treatise I, Pt. IV, § ii (G&G, I, 495; Mossner, p. 257).
20 G&G, I, 541; Mossner, p. 308.
z1 E.g., Treatise I, Pt. 11, 5 iii (G&G, I, 343; Mossner, p. 85). See also the discus-
sion of the identity of perceived objects and the "falsifying" role of the imagination
at Treatise I, Pt. IV, 5 ii (G&G, I, 496-97; Mossner, pp. 258-59) and C. V. Salmon,
T h e Central Problem o f David Hume's Philosophy (Halle, 1929).
22 Berkeley, Works 11, 235-36.
 BAYLE, BERKELEY, AND HUME 235

Berkeley had already seen the difficulties generated by Locke's

attack on substance. Given that awareness, his reversion to a sub-
stance type philosophy shows this to be a considered feature of his
position.
At Principles $ 98 Berkeley writes: "Time therefore being
nothing, abstracted from the succession of ideas in our minds, it
follows that the duration of any b i t e spirit must be estimated by
the number of ideas or actions succeeding each other in that same
spirit or mind. Hence it is a plain consequence that the soul always
thinks. . . ." George Davie has called to my attention that Principles
$ 112 suggests an analysis which apparently eluded Hume. There
Berkeley maintains that motion is of necessity relative: "So that to
conceive motion, there must be at least conceived two bodies, where-
of the distance or position in regard to each other is varied. Hence
if there was one only body in being, it could not possibly be moved."
Hume worries the problem of the duration of a single object, ignor-
ing Berkeley's reciprocity requirement. One thing cannot move ex-
cept in relation to another thing. Berkeley also holds to an analogue
of this thesis, i.e. the "reciprocity" between spirit and ideas and the
consequent requirement that there be an identical spirit if successive
ideas are to be perceived.
(2) Spirit-as-cause or agent is rooted in both the Cartesian and
the Aristotelian-scholastic traditions. Berkeley's own formulation
of this causal account is complicated by our difficulty in understand-
ing how spirits can do anything, given the contrast between a human
spirit and the divine spirit. If ("real") ideas depend for their exist-
ence on God's will rather than ours, then even in "moving our leg"
our several perceived ideas do not appear to depend in any causal
fashion upon Although Berkeley's talk about spirit as cause has
sometimes been held to fall under Hume's anticausal strictures,
Berkeley does not take causal connections to be necessary ones.
(3) The thesis that spirits are not known by idea is a central in-
gredient in Berkeley's doctrine of notions. There are clear state-
ments in the Philosophical Commentaries, the Principles, and the
Three Dialogues where Berkeley maintained (a) that spirits can be
known and talk about them is meaningful, and (b) that they cannot
be known by (passive) ideas. Some of the relevant passages (e.g.

23Cf. Anita Dunleavy Fritz, "Berkeley's Self-Its Origin in Malebranche,"

Journal of the History of Ideas, 15 (1954), 554-72.
236 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES

Principles $ $ 2, 27) have been cited. At Principles $ 142 Berkeley

writes: "Spirits and ideas are things wholly different . . . to expect
that by any multiplication or enlargement of our faculties, we may
be enabled to know a spirit as we do a triangle, seems as absurd as
if we should hope to see a sound."24 In the second edition (1734),
Berkeley added a brief discussion of notions. But one point is clear:
Berkeley maintained that spirits, although knowable, could not be
known by idea.
Given the traditional claim that Hume is challenging Berkeley
on substance or mind, it is strange that on the technical issue of
notions, Hume has nothing to say,25 although at the opening of
Treatise I, Pt. IV, $ v, he does ask what substance-philosophers
"mean by substance and inhesion." He then comments: "I desire
those philosophers, who pretend that we have an idea of the sub-
stance of our minds, to point out the impression that produces it,
and tell distinctly after what manner that impression operates, and
from what object it is deriv'd." It is not obvious that Hume has an
opponent in this dispute. He clearly does not have Berkeley in mind.
His argument rests on the assumption that all putative knowledge
claims must somehow be reducible to impressions, although as we
have seen in connection with extension, it is an assumption Hume
is at times inclined to ignore in favor of "manner of perception,"
"secret springs," etc. There simply is no suggestion that Hume is
aware of Berkeley's thesis that we cannot have an idea of a spirit.
Leibniz, in his commentary in the New Essays on Locke's similar
antisubstance sentiments (Essay 11, xxiii), says, "In distinguishing
two things in substance, the attributes or predicates, and the com-
mon subject of these predicates, it is no wonder that we can conceive
nothing particular in this subject. It must be so, indeed, since we
have already separated from it all the attributes in which we could
conceive any detail. Thus to demand something more . . . is to de-
mand the impossible. . . ."26 Hume would probably not have been
24 Similar discussions are to be found in the third of the Three Dialogues, Works
11, 23 1 f.
25 The doctrine of notions was hardly a secret. Hume's contemporary, Thomas
Reid, writes: "The whole of Bishop Berkeley's system depends upon the distinction
between notions and ideas . . ." (Essays on the Intellectual Powers, 11, xi, in The
Works o f Thomas Reid, ed. Sir William Hamilton, with an Introduction by H. M.
Bracken [Hildesheim, 19671, I, 289a).
26 Leibniz, New Essays Concerning Human Understanding, trans. A. G . Langley,
3rd ed. (La Salle, Ill., 1949), p. 226.
 BAYLE, BERKELEY, AND HUME 237

appeased by Leibniz' comment, but Humean-type arguments have a

long history within the development of nominalist thought. 1 men-
tion Leibniz because he offers a rejoinder to the attack on substance
and also because in reading Berkeley's Principles, he wrote in the
margin of his copy: "Much of this is correct and agrees with my
sense. . . . True substances are Monads, or perceivers. . . ."27
My overall point is that when one looks at Hume's discussions in
the Treatise on personal identity, on the identity of continuants, on
inhesion, on spirits as perceivers of succession, on the knowability
of spirits, on spirits as causes, etc.-in brief, that cluster of issues
related to spirits and mental substances-the differences with
Berkeley are profound. I find no evidence that Hume was develop-
ing, continuing, drawing paradoxes from, or exploring the skepti-
cism said to be inherent in Berkeley's arguments. In reference to
extension/ minima, necessary connections, and spirits Hume appears
to start from non-Berkeleian premisses and to draw non-Berkeleian
conclusions. There are no indications in those places where one
would expect to find them that Hume took cognizance of the rel-
evant Berkeleian points. The issue is worth consideration because
even in the Hume bicentennial year some philosophers continued to
speak of Locke-Berkeley-Hume as if they were a "team." I have
shown that there are good reasons why that traditional perspective
has been of virtually no help in interpreting Hume.

I1
Recent studies appear to bear out Popkin's suggestion that the
influences upon Hume are much more complex than the traditional
view suggests. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the attention
Books I1 and I11 of the Treatise have been receiving. Thus PA11
Ardal has been urging us to take seriously those parts of the Treatise
which Hume obviously took seriously. And the study of Bayle's in-
27 Willy Kabitz, "Leibniz und Berkeley," Sitzungsberichte der Preussischen
Akademie der Wissenschaften (Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, 1932), pp. 623-36.
Given Berkeley's clear texts and the remarks by Reid and Leibniz, Hume's claims
are puzzling: "The Author [of the Treatise] has not anywhere that I remember
denied the Immateriality of the Soul in the common Sense of the Word. He only
says, That that Question did not admit of any distinct Meaning; because we had
no distinct Idea of Substance. This Opinion may be found everywhere in Mr. Lock,
as well as in Bishop Berkley." See [David Hume], A Letter from a Gentleman to
his Friend in Edinburgh, ed. Ernest C. Mossner and John V. Price (Edinburgh,
1967).
23 8 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES

fluence has received new impetus from Jean-Paul Pittion's brilliant

work on Hume's M e m ~ r a n d a In.~~ his paper at the McGill Univer-
sity Hume Bicentennial Congress, Pittion provided a matrix to im-
pose on the Memoranda whereby we could locate the sources of the
entries in Sections I and 11. The matrix is a particular set of peri-
odicals. Pittion contends that Hume used several identifiable pieces
of periodical literature as his guide to the reading of Bayle. As a
glance at Eayle's Rkspsnse aux questions d'un provincial, Contin-
uation des pense'es diverses, etc., reveals, some sort of guide is
necessary. Kemp Smith had already traced some elements in Hume's
Dialogues concerning natural religion to Bayle's C o n t i n ~ a f i o nHe
.~~
also discovered the source of Hume's discussion of Spinoza in Bayle's
Dictionary article Spino~a.~O But the Memoranda, published by
Mossner in 1948, have defied deciphering31 Mossner once said,
"What treasures are to be found in Bayle, but what an effort to dig
them up! Proper source for a twenty-one-year-old burning with in-
tellectual curiosity, Bayle is definitely to be avoided by the middle-
aged who have little spare time on their hands."32Pittion has demon-
strated that, like Mossner, even the young Hume was probably
overwhelmed by Bayle, and found in early eighteenth-century peri-
odicals a guide to those Baylean topics which most interested him.
It is clear that Bayle's independent effects on Berkeley and Hume
are only now beginning to be sorted out. But there is, in process of
development, a wholly new way of looking at Berkeley and Hume
and the Scottish Enlightenment. Berkeley was always taken seriously
in Scotland. The first extended criticism was by Andrew Baxter in
1733. George Turnbull, Thomas Reid's teacher, lectured on Berke-
ley in the 1720s. Members of the Rankenian Club seem also to have
studied Berkeley and to have carried on a correspondence with
him.33When Berkeley set sail for Rhode Island he was accompanied
by John Smibert of the Rankenians.
The new way of looking at Berkeley and Hume and the Scottish
Enlightenment is not, however, an extension of traditional historical
28 Forthcoming in the Journal o f the History o f Philosophy.

29 Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, ed. Norman Kemp Smith,

2nd ed. (London, 1947), cf. Appendix B.

30 See his Philosophy of David Hume, Appendix to Ch. xxiii.
31 In the Journal o f the History o f Ideas, 9 (1948), 492-518.
32 Ernest C. Mossner, Life o f David Hume (Austin, Texas, 1954), pp. 78-79.
33 Cf. G . E. Davie, "Berkeley's Impact on Scottish Philosophers," Phibsophy, 40
(1965), 222-34. See also Mossner, Life o f David Hume, pp. 48-49.
 BAYLE, BERKELEY, AND HUME 239

data collecting, although that remains essential to the larger enter-

prise. What is new is counting aspects of the social and political
history of the period as philosophically relevant. The sort of thing
I have in mind is well illustrated in George Davie's superb essay,
"The Social Significance of Scottish Philo~ophy."~~ The net effect of
this approach is to place philosophers at "cultural center-stage."
Philosophical theories of human nature, for example, take on crucial
importance in reference to the development of economic policy,
educational theory, racism, etc.
Davie's McGill Hume Bicentennial paper, "Berkeley, Hume and
the Central Problem of Classical Scottish Philosophy," is rich, pro-
vocative, and complex. A brief sketch of his account is in order
because it appears to run counter to what I have been saying about
Berkeley and Hume. I say "appears" because Davie is not trying to
reestablish the old connections. He is (and has been) arguing for a
new way of looking at the entire Scottish Enlightenment-and the
roles of Berkeley and Hutcheson in creating the intellectual condi-
tions which gave rise to it. With respect to Berkeley, Davie shifts
from the traditional emphasis on the Principles and epistemological
issues to the vast sweep of Alciphron.
Davie locates what he calls the "creative element in this Irish
Enlightenment" not only in the systems Berkeley and Hutcheson
built to answer the freethinkers, but also in the "very sharp and
stimulating tension" between their philosophies. He finds their sys-
tems to have been constructed from "Mandeville's economism,
Shaftesbury's aestheticism and the empiricist radical reductiv-
ism. . . ." It is in the tension between Hutcheson and Berkeley,
generated by this concern over freethinkers, that the new kind of
philosophy associated with the Scottish school develops. These
philosophers seek to "connect the treatment of the problem of the
perception of body with the problem of the perception of society,
and both with the problem of ethics. . . . " 3 H e concludes that these
tensions between Berkeley and Hutcheson continued to stimulate
Scottish philosophers for generations.
I cannot even begin to do justice to the richness of Davie's thesis.
But I do think that it puts the whole question of Hume's relation to
34 Published as the Dow Lecture for Dundee University, 1973. See also his
Democratic InteElect, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh, 1964).
35Forthcoming in McGill Hume Studies, ed. David Fate Norton, Nicholas
Capaldi, and Wade Robison (San Diego: Austin Hill Press, 1978).
240 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES

Berkeley in a new light-one which I find eminently plausible-and

which I hope will be expanded upon in the future. Indeed, it seems
to me clearly to be the most promising route for Hume scholars to
pursue. For present purposes, my point is quite simple: Davie is
offering us a very different way of looking at Berkeley's relation to
Scottish philosophy, a way which does not undercut the view of
Bayle, Berkeley, and Hume which I have been presenting.
There is however still another area within which Bayle-Berkeley-
Hume can be discussed. Bayle offered a wide range of skeptical
arguments which, as we have seen, affected Berkeley and Hume.
Bayle was also a storehouse of Cartesian and Malebranchian argu-
ments. This side of Bayle found a sympathetic response in Berkeley
but not in Hume. Similarly, Bayle's interest in history affected Hume
but not Berkeley. I have no new explanation for the propensity of
the skeptic to write history. One would think that the skeptical
dialectic would be thoroughly effective in undermining historical
research. Yet Bayle was a zealous and critical historian.
Bayle wrote at the end of the era of Providential history, when
the human drama was no longer automatically seen as the unfolding
of God's plan in history. Bayle was totally familiar with the argu-
ments engendered by the Reformation as to which church was the
true church, which book was the Bible, and how correctly to inter-
pret the Scriptures. He also knew well the literature being produced
in which biblical texts, translations, etc., were being subjected to
critical examination. And he knew that it was possible so to subject
Catholic or Calvinist religious issues to slteptical assault that a total
"historical Pyrrhonism" would result. Nevertheless, Bayle wrote
history. He may have had doubts about mathematics, science, and
metaphysics, but he thought there was much to be learned in study-
ing human events and their patterns. Given Bayle's philosophical
influence on Hume, given that Bayle and Hume devoted a large part
of their literary output to history, a brief comparison of them as
historians is in order. There are similarities, but more often there
are differences.
In his "Dissertation Concerning the Project," his proposal for a
historical and critical dictionary (1692), Bayle comments at some
length concerning history and the historian's task. He raises these
issues because the Dictionary was originally conceived as a set of
corrections in matters of fact to the Dictionary of Moreri. He writes:
 BAYLE, BERKELEY, AND HUME 241

It may, perhaps, be observed, that those things, which seem the most
abstracted and fruitless in the Mathematics, are productive, at least, of the
following advantage, that they lead us to the discovery of truths which
cannot be doubted of; whereas, historical enquiries, and researches into
the actions of men, leave us always in the dark, and ever furnish occasions
for fresh contests. But how imprudent it is to touch this string! I assert that
historical truths may be carried on to a more undoubted degree of certainty,
than what geometrical truths are brought to, provided we consider these
two kinds of truth according to the species of certainty which is peculiar
to them. . . .

Bayle contends that there is much to b e said for keeping track of

historical falsehoods. A t the very least it may encourage people "to
judge more cautiously of their neighbour, and to escape the snares,
which satyr and flattery spread everywhere t o catch unwary read-
ers.. ..)>

We should search, in vain, for these moral advantages in the most refined
parts of Algebra. Besides, with submission to the Mathematicians, they
cannot so easily attain to the requisite certainty, as Historians can arrive
at the certainty necessary for their purpose. No good objection can ever be
raised against the following certain fact, that Caesar beat Pompey; and on
what principles soever two persons may proceed in disputing, they will
scarce find any thing more immovable than the following proposition,
Caesar and Pompey have existed, and were not merely a modification of
the minds of those who wrote their lives. But as to the object of the Mathe-
matics, it would not only be a very difficult task to prove that it exists out
of our minds, but it may also be very easily shewn that it can be no more
than an idea of the human mind. . . . Thus it is more certain metaphysically,
that Cicero has existed out of the understanding of any other man, than
it is certain that the object of the Mathematics exists out of our under-
standing.36

Bayle of course also appreciated that certitude about matters of

fact could be difficult to come by. I n the Dictionary, article Zuerius,
rem. P, Bayle discusses the formal charge that Jurieu had, before
1,200 people, preached the doctrine that one ought t o hate one's
neighbors-particularly when they were, like the Socinians, heretics.
Bayle introduces two considerations: " I f it were false, that a Min-
ister preached before twelve hundred persons the heresy o f the hatred
of one's neighbour, n o man would have dared to charge him with it
36Bayle's Dictionary, ed. and trans. John Peter Bernard, Thomas Birch, and
John Lockman, 10 vols. (London, 1734-41), X, 386-87.
242 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES

three days after." But on the other hand, "If it were true that a
Minister preached that heresy before twelve hundred persons, he
would not have dared to deny it publicly three days after."37 After
an extremely lengthy account of the episode, Bayle concludes: "If
when things were still fresh, some one or other had taken the pains
to clear them up, as I have done this, we should not be obliged to
admit on so many occasions an historical Pyrrh~nisrn."~~
David Fate Norton takes Hume's historical work to be an exten-
sion of his skepticism and argues that history and philosophy are
"inextricably connected in all of Hume's work,"39 and that Hume
sought to extend the new skeptical science from an account of hu-
man nature to the history in which human nature has been involved,
with the philosophy illuminating the history and vice versa. Un-
fortunately, so far as a "science of history" was concerned, "one
needed to know facts about the past to find out 'the spi-ings and
principles' of the human mind; but one had, at the same time, to
decide what these springs and principles were in order to reach a
decision, and even then only a strictly personal decision, as to what
the facts were."40 Similarly, Duncan Forbes writes, "the Treatise of
Human Nature was designed to be a contribution to an empirical
science of man, and history was an essential part, a laboratory of
such a ~ c i e n c e . " ~ ~
When one reflects on Bayle's own view that a study of human
emotions is essential to a study of history, one sees that, in a larger
sense, Hume may be operating within Bayle's historiographical cate-
gories. Bayle had even offered psychological reasons when he sought
to explain human conduct in religious contexts. In addition, some-
thing like a moral sense doctrine is already to be found in Bayle.
Parenthetically, it should be recalled that Bayle's influence is evi-
dent in the writings of two generally accepted Hume sources, Man-
deville and Shafte~bury.~~ (Mandeville may actually have been
37 Ibid., X, 296.
38 Ibid., p. 302.
39 "History and Philosophy in Hurne's Thought," in David Hume: Philosophical
Historian, ed. David Fate Norton and Richard H. Popkin (Indianapolis, Ind., 1965),
p. xxxiii.
40 Ibid., pp. xlviii-xlix.
4 1 Hume, History of Great Britain: The Reigns of James I and Charles I, ed.
Duncan Forbes (Harmondsworth, Eng., 1970), p. 9.
42 The definitive study of Bayle is Elisabeth Labrousse, Pierre Bayle, 2 vols. (The
Hague, 1963-64). Cf. I, 177n and 249n. See also David Fate Norton, "Shaftesbury
 BAYLE, BERKELEY, AND HUME 243

Bayle's student; Shaftesbury was an intimate friend.) In any case

there is in both Bayle and Hume that so-called naturalism which has
been an accepted part of Bayle's Pyrrhonism and a source of per-
plexity in Hume.
There are also fundamental differences.There is the theme of the
priority accorded historical fact over mathematics. Bayle takes this
very seriously. In his article Manicheans, rem. D, he writes, "There
is nothing more foolish than to argue against the facts. The axiom,
'From the act to the potency is a valid inference', is as clear as that
two plus two equals four."43 In Paulicians, rem. E, he also writes,
"it is no more evident that four and four makes eight than it is
evident that if a thing has happened, it is possible. 'From the act to
the potency is a valid inference' is one of the clearest and most in-
contestable axioms of all metaphysics."44 Despite the historical
Pyrrhonism one finds on occasion in Bayle, despite the evident de-
light he takes in juxtaposing conflicting reports, he seems often to
have as much faith in fact as in metaphysics.
Hume, on the other hand, does not rely on the metaphysical
axiom: it has happened, therefore it is possible. He appeals to: what
is separable in the imagination is separable in reality. In many pas-
sages in Book I of the Treatise, Hume is prepared to challenge the
very foundations of matters of fact. I must emphasize that, with rare
exceptions, when he deals with matters of historical fact, Hume does
not write "critical history." He comes close to it in "Of Miracles"
and "Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations," but he does not set
historian against historian as does Bayle.
Both Bayle and Hume are prepared to support various metaphys-
ical principles, even as they are ultimately inclined, for different
reasons, to be skeptical about them. But Hume's appeal to the axiom
that what is separable by the imagination is separable in reality and
his distinction between matters of fact and relations of ideas, in-
dicate that Hume, unlike Bayle, is prepared to grant epistemic
priority to logic over fact. However, at Treatise I, Pt. IV, § i, Hume
advances a "scepticism with regard to reason" to undermine logic

and Two Scepticisms," Filosofia (Supplemento a1 fascicolo IV, 1968), 713-24, and
J. C. A. Gaskin, "Hume, Atheism, and the 'Interested Obligation' of Morality,"
forthcoming in McGill Hurne Studies (1978).
43 Popkin, Bayle-Selections, p. 152.
44 Ibid., p. 168.
244 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES

by the non-Baylean technique of raising the problem of our ever

being able to know a logical truth because of the probabilities that
we shall make errors in applying (and in checking) logical princi-
p l e ~ That
. ~ ~ skepticism is, in turn, countered by the appeal to na-
ture-an appeal which continues to puzzle commentators. One is
saved by nature according to the Pyrrhonians, Bayle, and Hume.
Bayle admittedly grounds religious belief in divine grace but he
talks often of the natural and psychological foundations for all
forms of belief. With respect to metaphysics, Bayle's sympathies
were with Descartes and Malebranche. Moreover, when Bayle offers
a "scepticism with regard to reason" it bears no resemblance to
Hume's. Bayle uses theological principles. He is often to be found
setting philosophical axioms against theological ones, although at
bottom he holds a most un-Humean thesis: "The bark of Jesus Christ
is not made for sailing on this stormy sea [of philosophical disputa-
tions], but for taking shelter from this tempest in the haven of
faith."46
I believe that their choices of different metaphysical axioms is
behind some of the differences Bayle and Hume display in reference
to history. By that I mean that Bayle shows an interest in the his-
torical details which, with rare exceptions, is lacking in Hume and
that Hume's philosophical dissatisfaction with the domain of mat-
ters of fact taints his history. In other words, his choice of a dif-
ferent metaphysical axiom from Bayle's reflects different attitudes
toward facts. Both Bayle and Hume are anxious to tell us what we
should learn about human nature from the historical narrative, but
Hume's interest in the lessons is single-minded, whereas Bayle
gives us layers of interpretations on top of an already complex and
fascinating set of matters of fact.
I began by discussing a philosophical topic on which Hume may
seem to be derivative from Berkeley and I showed that Bayle was
the likely (and independent) source for both Berkeley and Hume.
In pressing the case for Hume's independence from Berkeley on
narrowly philosophical topics, I mentioned the contrary evidence
supplied by George Davie. His thesis is that two Irish philosophers,
Berkeley and Hutcheson, provided the framework in which Scottish
45 Cf. Richard H. Popkin, "David Hume: His Pyrrhonism and His Critique of
Pyrrhonism," in Hume, ed. V. C . Chappell (New York, 1966).
46 From Bayle's Third Clarification, in Popkin, Bayie-Selections, p. 423.
 BAYLE, BERKELEY, AND HUME 245

philosophy developed-with the central problems those of the foun-

dations for individual and social moral awareness within the con-
text of increased commercial activity. Finally, I sketched a com-
parison between Bayle and Hume as historians, always bearing in
mind that roughly half of Hume's literary work was historical. I
hope I have rendered implausible the traditional Locke-Berkeley-
Hume I have no new secret source whose influence will
explain or clarify all of the difficulties we find in Hume. Just as the
American bicentennial has prompted Americans to rethink sources,
so the net effect of the Hume bicentennial meetings has been to
underscore the complexity of Hume's thought. We shall have to
study the new discoveries-e.g., Robert Connon's remarkable work
on the Treatise and the " A b s t r a ~ t , "Jean-Paul
~~ Pittion's disclosures
about Bayle and the Memoranda, and George Davie's thesis about
Hutcheson, Berkeley, and the Scottish Enlightenment. An entire
layer of long-forgotten sources including Malebranche, Mandeville,
Shaftesbury, Ramsay, Turnbull, and others must be reexamined.
We are in a good position to begin the third century of Hume studies.

McGill University

47 In denying the traditional Berkeley-Hume tie I do not propose to minimize the

direct Locke-Hume connections. Hume's indebtedness to Locke with respect to
doctrines of substance, memory, and identity is clear.
48 Cf. Robert W.Connon, "Some MS Corrections by Hume in the Third Volume
of his Treatise o f H u m a n Nature," Long R o o m [Trinity College, Dublin], 11
(1975), 14-22, and "Some Hume MS Alterations on a Copy of the Abstract,"
Journal o f the History o f Philosophy, 14 (1976), 353-56. And "The Naturalism of
Hume Revisited," forthcoming in McGill H u m e Studies (1978).
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Bayle, Berkeley, and Hume
Harry M. Bracken
Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 11, No. 2. (Winter, 1977-1978), pp. 227-245.
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[Footnotes]

1
Did Hume Ever Read Berkeley?
Philip P. Wiener
The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 56, No. 12. (Jun. 4, 1959), pp. 533-535.
Stable URL:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-362X%2819590604%2956%3A12%3C533%3ADHERB%3E2.0.CO%3B2-U

1
Did Hume Ever Read Berkeley?
Richard H. Popkin
The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 56, No. 12. (Jun. 4, 1959), pp. 535-545.
Stable URL:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-362X%2819590604%2956%3A12%3C535%3ADHERB%3E2.0.CO%3B2-O

2
So, Hume did Read Berkeley
Richard H. Popkin
The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 61, No. 24. (Dec. 24, 1964), pp. 773-778.
Stable URL:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-362X%2819641224%2961%3A24%3C773%3ASHDRB%3E2.0.CO%3B2-X

31
Hume's Early Memoranda, 1729-1740: The Complete Text
Ernest Campbell Mossner
Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 9, No. 4, Arthur O. Lovejoy at Seventy-Five: Reason at Work.
(Oct., 1948), pp. 492-518.
Stable URL:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-5037%28194810%299%3A4%3C492%3AHEM1TC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-N
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http://www.jstor.org

LINKED CITATIONS
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33
Berkeley's Impact on Scottish Philosophers
G. E. Davie
Philosophy, Vol. 40, No. 153. (Jul., 1965), pp. 222-234.
Stable URL:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8191%28196507%2940%3A153%3C222%3ABIOSP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-M

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