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HUME AS AN AMI DE LA LIBERTÉ: THE RECEPTION OF HIS “IDEA OF A PERFECT COMMONWEALTH”*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2014

RYU SUSATO
RYU SUSATO*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Economics, Kansai University E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Despite the recent boom in research on the reception and influence of Hume's writings, most scholars have overlooked the fact that his enigmatic essay “Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth,” published in the Political Discourses in 1752, not only attracted the attention of some French intellectuals before and after the Revolution, but was also taken seriously by a significant number of radicals—such as Paine, Price, Godwin, Wollstonecraft—and other reform-minded Whigs—such as James Mackintosh. Although the influence of Hume's plan on The Federalist, No 10, has been much discussed, what is more important is that these British reformers often associated his plan with the National Assembly after the Revolution in France. This essay demonstrates that Hume's plan of a large republic with a bicameral system through a two-tier election was an important intellectual resource for his contemporaries and for later generations.

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Modern Intellectual History , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , November 2016 , pp. 569 - 596
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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Footnotes

*

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of ECSSS (Eighteenth-Century Scottish Studies Society), North Carolina, 13 April 2012. I would like to thank the participants of the session, especially Craig Smith and Mark G. Spencer, for their useful comments. This research was financially supported by the Kansai University Researcher, 2012, Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B), 2010–2013, and Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C), 2014–2017. I am also grateful to two anonymous referees and Dr Duncan Kelly for their helpful comments and suggestions.

References

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21 Anon., “Review of Discours Politiques de Mr. David Hume. Traduits de l’Anglois par Mr. De M***’. A Amsterdam . . .,” in Nouvelle bibliothèque germanique ou Histoire litéraire de l’Allemagne, de la Suisse, & des Pays du Nord (Amsterdam, July–Sept. 1754), 410–35, at 435. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own.

22 Robinet, Jean-Baptiste-René, ed., Dictionnaire universel des sciences morale, économique, politique et diplomatique: ou Bibliothèque de l’homme d’état et du citoyen, 30 vols. (London, 1777–8), 4: 611–23Google Scholar.

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24 Hume, Essays, 51.

25 Robinet, ed., Dictionnaire universel, 620.

26 Helvétius, Claude Adrien, Oeuvres complètes de M. Helvétius. Nouvelle édition . . ., 2 vols. (London, 1781), 2: 377 Google Scholar. I use the English translation by Hooper, W., A Treatise on Man, his Intellectual Faculties and his Education. A Posthumous work of M. Hélvetius . . ., 2 vols. (London, 1777), 2: 275 Google Scholar. See Bongie, David Hume, 30; Sonenscher, Before the Deluge, 279.

27 Helvétius, Oeuvres complètes, 2: 378, 380 (2: 276, 280 in the English translation).

28 Comte de Mirabeau (Gabriel-Honoré de Riquetti), Considérations sur l’ordre de Cincinnatus, ou imitation d’un pamphlet anglo-américain. . . (London, 1784), 359 Google Scholar. I use the English translation by Romilly, Sir Samuel, Considerations on the Order of Cincinnatus . . . (London, 1785), 255–6Google Scholar. In the “Advertisement” Mirabeau acknowledged that he took a substantial part of this work from an English pamphlet, Considerations on the Society or the Order of Cincinnati . . ., by Aedanus Burke, published two years earlier (vi–vii). In Burke's pamphlet, however, there is no mention of Hume's plan.

29 de Maistre, Joseph-Marie, Considérations sur la France. Seconde édition, revue par l’auteur (London [Basel], 1797), 100 Google Scholar. I use the English translation, Considerations on France, ed. and transl. by Richard A. Lebrun, with an introduction by Isaiah Berlin (Cambridge, 1994), 52. See also Ronchetti, Emanuelle, “Appropriating Hume: Joseph de Maistre, Benjamin Constant and the ‘History of England’,” in Mazza, Emilio and Ronchetti, Emanuelle, eds., New Essays on David Hume (Milan, 2007), 365–88Google Scholar, at 368–9; Bongie, David Hume, esp. 159–62. De Maistre also contrasts “Le sage Hume” with “Thomas Payne,” and favorably cites Hume's opinion in the History that the parliamentary right of remonstrance against grievances should be treated not by strict and written rules but by “certain delicate ideas of propriety and decency” ( Hume, , History of England: from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to The Revolution in 1688, 6 vols. (Indianapolis, 1983), 6: 568–9Google Scholar, note W). On the other hand, argues De Maistre, Paine “pretends that a constitution does not exist unless one can put it into his pocket” (94–5 n. 1). Interestingly, as Bongie notes, Abbé Maury, a fierce enemy of Mirabeau and one of the early counter-Revolutionary leaders, cited Hume's political writings and History of England to criticize the theory of the sovereignty of the people and justify his traditionalist standpoint. Bongie, David Hume, 103–8.

30 Chisick, Harvey, “David Hume and the Common People,” in Jones, Peter, ed., The “Science of Man” in the Scottish Enlightenment (Edinburgh, 1989), 5–32, at 32 n. 80Google Scholar.

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33 Sieyès, “Views,” 1–67, at 54; Hume, Essays, 524 (“As faction supposes a combination in a separate interest, it is prevented by their [i.e. the senate's] dependence on the people”).

34 Sonenscher, Introduction to Sieyès: Political Writings, xxix–xxx.

35 Sonenscher, Before the Deluge, 75–94. See also Sonenscher, Sans-Culottes: An Eighteenth-Century Emblem in the French Revolution (Princeton, NJ, 2008), 25–6Google Scholar. In his manuscripts Sièyes comments on Hume's Treatise of Human Nature, and mentions the History of England and the essay “Of Populousness of Ancient Nations.” Sieyès, Emmanuel-Joseph, Des manuscrits de Sieyès 1773–1799, ed. Fauré, Christine, with Guilhaumou, Jacques and Valier, Jacques, (Paris, 1999), 66–7Google Scholar; Sieyès, , Des manuscrits de Sieyès, tome 2, 1770–1815, ed. Fauré, Christine (Paris, 2007), 119, 105, 168Google Scholar. The editor of his manuscripts doubts whether Sieyès knew enough English to read Hume in the original (ibid., 26; see also 120 n. 220), but he perhaps knew Hume's “Perfect Commonwealth” through French translations.

36 Sonenscher, Introduction to Sieyès: Political Writings, xiii.

37 Crook, M., Elections in the French Revolution: An Apprenticeship in Democracy, 1789–1799 (Cambridge, 1996), 29 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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39 Paine, Common Sense; with the Whole Appendix the Address to the Quakers also, the Large Additions . . . (Philadelphia, 1776), 93–4Google Scholar.

40 The full text appears in Hyneman, Charles S. and Lutz, Donald S., eds., American Political Writing during the Founding Era, 1760–1805, 2 vols. (Indianapolis, 1983), 1: 368–89, at 385–6Google Scholar. On the attribution of these anonymously published letters to Paine, see Aldridge, Alfred Owen, Thomas Paine's American Ideology (Newark, NJ, 1984), 219–21Google Scholar.

41 Claeys, Gregory, Thomas Paine: Social and Political Thought (London and New York, 1989), 89 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In the “Answer to Four Questions on the Legislative and Executive Powers,” written between 1791 and 1792, translated by Condorcet and published in 1792, Paine proposed a form of two-chamber system. Paine, Thomas, The Complete Writings of Thomas Paine, ed. Foner, Philip, 2 vols. (New York, 1945), 2: 526–8Google Scholar. He also confirmed the necessity of having a two-chamber system in the pamphlet “Dissertation on First Principles of Government” published in 1795. Ibid., 585. To be precise, Paine's proposal was not to establish two separate houses, but to “separate the legislature into two bodies” with equal numbers of representatives. Ibid., 526.

42 Kalyvas, Andreas and Katznelson, Ira, Liberal Beginnings: Making a Republic for the Moderns (Cambridge, 2008), 88–117 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 Chalmers, James, Plain Truth: addressed to the Inhabitants of America . . ., 2nd edn (Philadelphia, 1776), 35 Google Scholar, cited in Spencer, ed., David Hume and Eighteenth-Century America: The Reception of Hume's Political Thought in America, 1740–1830 (Rochester, 2005), 114 Google Scholar.

44 Although Gilbert and Werner emphasized Paine's intellectual debt to Hume's political writings, both neglect to mention this reference to him in Additions to Common Sense. Gilbert, Felix, “The English Background of American Isolationism in the Eighteenth Century,” William and Mary Quarterly, third series, 1/2 (1944), 138–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 156; Werner, John M., “David Hume and America,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 33/3 (1972), 439–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 449–50.

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46 Cartwright, John, Take Your Choice! (London, 1776), 51–2Google Scholar. He also favorably cited Hume's description of the standing army as a “mortal distemper” to attack the institution in his English Constitution Produced and Illustrated (London, 1823), 54, 423, italics in original.

47 Hume, History of England, 2: 452–3.

48 Cartwright, John, The Legislative Rights of the Commonalty Vindicated; or, Take your choice! 2nd edn (London, 1777), 47 Google Scholar.

49 For his view on the independence of American colonies see, for example, his letters to Mure of Caldwell, 27 Oct. 1775, Letters of David Hume, 2: 302; and to William Strahan, 13 Nov. 1775, ibid., 2: 304–5. Regarding British parliamentary reform: “It is a pleasure however that the Wilkites and the Bill of Rights-men are fallen into total and deservd Contempt.” Ibid., 2: 235 (to William Strahan, 21 Jan. 1771); see also ibid., 2: 197 (to the Rev. Hugh Blair, 28 Mar. 1769).

50 Godwin, William, Considerations on Lord Grenville's and Mr. Pitt's bills . . . (London, 1795)Google Scholar, in Political and Philosophical Writings of William Godwin, gen. ed. Mark Philp, 7 vols. (London, 1993), 2: 140. This passage is mentioned in Philp, Mark, Reforming Ideas in Britain: Politics and Language in the Shadow of the French Revolution, 1779–1815 (Cambridge, 2013), 223 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The appellation of Hume as a republican was not necessarily rare even in Hume's lifetime. Thomas Comber wrote “Mr. Hume . . . appears to me not a Jacobite, but a Republican.” Comber, Thomas, Vindication of the Great Revolution in England (London 1758)Google Scholar, 131 n., cited in Mossner, Ernest Campbell, The Life of David Hume, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1980)Google Scholar, 310 n. 3. Rousseau also asserted in his Confessions that “I was persuaded, based on what I had been told about him, that M. Hume associated a very republican soul with the English paradoxes in favour of luxury.” Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, The Confessions , ed. Masters, Roger D. and Kelly, Christopher, Collected Writings of Rousseau, 12 vols. (Hanover, 1995), 5: 527 Google Scholar.

51 Godwin, Considerations, 140, 142.

52 Ibid., 143. William Thelwall, a radical British writer and one of the founders of the London Corresponding Society, cites this sentence in his periodical Tribune: “Hume might have been hanged for his ‘Idea of a Free Commonwealth,’ . . . as Godwin has shewn in his ‘Considerations’.” The Tribune, a Periodical Publication, consisting chiefly of the Political Lectures of J. Thelwall, 3 vols. (London, 1795–6), 3: 259, italics in original. See also Roe, Nicholas, Wordsworth and Coleridge: The Radical Years (Oxford, 1988), 148 Google Scholar.

53 Godwin, Considerations, 143. Godwin goes on to argue that “I am no longer to be liable, for saying in the course of a casual conversation ‘in the abstract, I like a republican government better than monarchy,’ to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.” Ibid., 46. This reminds us what Hume said in one of his letters to his nephew: “I cannot but agree with Mr Millar, that the Republican Form of [Government] is by far the best.” Letters of David Hume, 2: 306 (to David Hume the Younger, 8 Dec. 1775).

54 Thomas Muir, [An Account of the Trial of Thomas Muir, Esq. younger . . .] ([Edinburgh], [1793]), 109–10. He also reports in his own trial for sedition that “Mr. Paine has composed no model of a perfect Commonwealth, as Mr. Hume has done; yet I dare say you have all read the political works of Mr. Hume, and even applauded them.” Mackenzie, Peter, The Life of Thomas Muir Esq. Advocate . . . (Glasgow, 1831), 93 Google Scholar.

55 London Corresponding Society, 1792–1799, ed. Michael T. Davis, 6 vols. (London, 2002), 6: 264. Cf. anon., A Defence of the Constitution of England . . . (London, 1791), 60, cited in Philp, Godwin's Political Justice (London, 1986), 167 n. 33.

56 Dew, Ben, “‘Waving a Mouchoir à la Wilkes’: Hume, Radicalism and the North Briton ,” Modern Intellectual History, 6/2 (2009), 235–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 Winch, Donald, Riches and Poverty: An Intellectual History of Political Economy in Britain, 1750–1834 (Cambridge, 1996), esp. part IIGoogle Scholar.

58 See Morgan, William, a nephew of Richard Price, in his Memoirs of Richard Price (London, 1815)Google Scholar, repr. in Fieser, James, ed., Early Responses to Hume's Life and Reputation, 2 vols. (Bristol, 2003), 2: 235–6Google Scholar. See also Mossner, The Life of David Hume, 394; and The New Letters of David Hume, ed. Raymond Klibansky and Ernest Campbell Mossner (New York, 1983), 233–4.

59 Price, Richard, A Discourse on the Love of our Country . . . (London, 1790)Google Scholar, Appendix, 43–4, italics in original. Nagai, Yoshio points this out in a note to the Japanese translation of Price's A Discourse of the Love of our Country (Sokokuai ni tsuite) (Tokyo, 1966), 78 Google Scholar.

60 In addition to this, post-Revolutionary France was divided into eighty-three equal departments and these were subdivided into 249 equal territories, mainly for elections. This administrative segmentation also resembles that laid out in Hume's “Perfect Commonwealth.”

61 [Flower, Benjamin], The French Constitution; with Remarks on Some of its Principal Articles . . . (London, 1792), 158 Google Scholar. He seems to mean the 1791 Constitution (i.e. the Legislative Assembly) here.

62 Anon., An Historical Sketch of the French Revolution from its Commencement to the Year 1792 (Dublin, 1792), 14.

63 “There were thus two-orders of deputies; or deputies of deputies, an institution which Mr. Hume (Idea of a perfect Commonwealth) produces as the highest improvement in representative government; and which, Dr. Price . . . greatly extols the French republic, for being the first state to carry it into execution. Notwithstanding all this, the States-General of France contributed nothing to the benefit of the country.” Gillies, John, Aristotle's Ethics and Politics . . . [1797], 2 vols. (London, 1813), 2: 78, note [a]Google Scholar.

64 Wollstonecraft, Mary, An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution . . . (London, 1794), 356 Google Scholar. This passage is mentioned in O’Neill, Daniel I., The Burke–Wollstonecraft Debate: Savagery, Civilization, and Democracy (University Park, PA, 2007), 253 Google Scholar.

65 In 1793, Gerrald, Joseph, a political reformer, composed a “Plan of Convention” that is extremely similar to Hume's plan (A Convention the Only Means of Saving us from Ruin: In a Letter to the People of England [1793] (London, 1794), 108–22)Google Scholar.

66 Jones, William, The Principles of Government, in a Dialogue, between a Gentleman & a Farmer, Re-Published . . . (Norwich, 1797), 44 Google Scholar. On Jones see Franklin, Michael J., “Jones, Sir William (1746–1794),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. Matthew, H. C. G. and Harrison, Brian, 60 vols. (Oxford, 2004), 30: 665–74Google Scholar, at 668–70; Franklin, Orientalist Jones: Sir William Jones, Poet, Lawyer, and Linguist, 1746–1794 (Oxford, 2011), chaps. 4 and 5.

67 William Taylor of Norwich, “A Contribution to the Theory of Representation; Being so much of the Decree Promulgated 22 Dec. 1789, by the National Assembly of France . . .,” Monthly Magazine, 8 (1799), 953–9, at 959Google Scholar. Taylor also mentions similarities between the substitute electors in the National Assembly and the “court of competitors” in Hume's plan. Ibid., 958.

68 Collini, Stefan, Winch, Donald and Burrow, John, That Noble Science of Politics: A Study in Nineteenth-Century Intellectual History (Cambridge, 1983), 98 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

69 Mackintosh, James, “Review of Plan of Parliamentary Reform, in the Form of a Catechism ,” Edinburgh Review, 31/61 (1818), 165–203, at 167Google Scholar.

70 Mackintosh, Review of Plan of Parliamentary Reform, 190–91.

71 Incidentally, John Horne Tooke, an English radical politician and philologist, met Hume in d’Alembert's house. Mossner, The Life of David Hume, 482–3.

72 It is also possible, however, to point some similarities between Hume's and Bentham's plans: the frequent elections, the equal division of electoral districts and the secret ballot, all of which were “radical” elements in Hume's plan. Some early nineteenth-century reviews also highlighted the resemblance between Hume's plan and Milton's “The Readie & Easie Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth” (1660). A review of The Prose Works of John Milton in the Annual Review and History of Literature argues that Hume's plan “is superior to [Harrington's]; he displays an intellect more inventive, and principles more comprehensive than Milton: they both agree in preferring a gradationed representation.” Anon., review of The Prose Works of John Milton, Annual Review and History of Literature, 5 (Jan. 1806), 574–85, at 582. In 1827 a review of The Poetical Works of John Milton in the Quarterly Review asserts that “the poet's plan of election is that recently adopted, with some modifications, in France” and emphasized the originality of Milton in “the annual retirement of a third part of the Senators which has been admitted by the French” and “of which David Hume is commonly supposed to have originated the idea.” Quarterly Review, 36/71 (June 1827), 29–61, at 34. See also Bailey, Samuel (the “Bentham of Hallamshire”), The Rationale of Political Representation (London, 1835), 97–8Google Scholar.

73 Wyvill, Christopher, Considerations on the Twofold Mode of Election adopted by the French (York, 1804), 8–9 Google Scholar. As Wyvill observes, Harrington proposes in Oceana a multilayered (three-tier) electoral system with the qualification for franchise based on property, though it is far more complicated than Hume's. Cf. Harrington, The Commonwealth of Oceana and A System of Politics, ed. Pocock, J. G. A. (Cambridge, 1992), esp. 234–5Google Scholar.

74 [Pye, Henry James], Xenophon's defence of the Athenian democracy . . . (London, 1794), 69 Google Scholar. Surprisingly, Hume's two-tier election was claimed as the model for reforms introduced as far off as Bolivia and Portugal in some journals: “It is a curious fact, that this constitution [of Bolivia] is merely a copy of that proposed by our celebrated countryman, Mr. Hume in his Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth.” Anon., “New Constitution of Bolivia or Upper Peru,” in “The Examiner (London, 29 Dec. 1826),” The Examiner, 987 (31 Dec. 1826), 842. A review of Charte Constitutionelle de Portugal in the Edinburgh Review considered the “double election” that formed Chamber of Deputies of Portugal to be the system “proposed by Mr. Hume.” Edinburgh Review, 54/89 (Dec. 1826), 199–247, at 232–3.

75 Other features of Hume's plan also attracted the interest of some radicals. Edward Wynne, an English legal scholar, acclaimed Hume's proposal to remove from his imaginary republic the bishops and Scotch peers and to introduce an elective system. Wynne, Edward, Eunomus or, Dialogues concerning the Law and Constitution of England . . ., 4 vols. (London, 1774), 4: 132–3Google Scholar, see also 137–8. Citing John Adam's unpublished letter to John Jebb (25 Sept. 1785), Anthony Page points out that “Adams suggested that Jebb's view was close to David Hume's ideal political system composed of a salaried administration and unpaid magistrates and elected representatives.” Page, Anthony, John Jebb and the Enlightenment Origins of British Radicalism (Westport, CT, 2003), 199 Google Scholar.

76 Anon., “Review of Proceedings at a Meeting of the Roman Catholics of Dublin . . .,” Analytical Review, or History of Literature, Domestic and Foreign, 14 (1792), 468–72, at 469.

77 Anon., General Committee of Roman Catholics of Ireland, Sub-Committee ([Dublin], [1792]), 2–3.

78 de Lolme, Jean Louis, A Parallel between the English Constitution and the Former Government of Sweden (London, 1772), 60–61 note [a]Google Scholar.

79 Ensor, George, On National Government, 2 vols. (London, 1810), 2: 65 Google Scholar.

80 Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), in Burke, , Revolutionary Writings: Reflections on the Revolution in France and the First Letter on a Regicide Peace, ed. Hampsher-Monk, Iain (Cambridge, 2014), 62 Google Scholar.

81 Rothschild, Emma, Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorcet, and the Enlightenment (Cambridge, MA, 2001), 57–9Google Scholar. For details on the British radical movement during 1790s see Goodwin, Albert, The Friends of Liberty: The English Democratic Movement in the Age of the French Revolution (Cambridge, MA, 1979)Google Scholar.

82 Stewart, Dugald, “An Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith, LL.D.” [1792], in Adam Smith, Essays on Philosophical Subjects, eds. Wightman, W. P. D. and Bryce, J. C., vol. 3 of the Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith, 7 vols. (Indianapolis, 1982), 269–351, at 339, note (G)Google Scholar.

83 Ibid., 311.

84 Ibid., 319; Hume, Essays, 513–14.

85 On the significance of the science of politics for Stewart shown in the Elements see Collini, Winch and Burrow, That Noble Science of Politics, 37.

86 Stewart, Dugald, Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind , 3 vols., in vol. 2 of The Collected Works of Dugald Stewart, ed. Hamilton, Sir W., repr. (Bristol, 1994; first published 1854), 1: 233 Google Scholar. Stewart, however, underestimates the difference between Hume or Smith and the French Physiocrats, Collini, Winch and Burrow, That Noble Science of Politics, 39).

87 Collini, Winch and Burrow, That Noble Science of Politics, 32; Winch, Riches and Poverty, 169; see 39–40 on Stewart's commitment to French perfectibilité.

88 Dugald Stewart, The Lectures on Political Economy, in Stewart, The Collected Works, vols. 8–9, 9: 365 (chap. 1, Sec. 2).

89 Ritchie, Thomas Edward, An Account of the Life and Writings of David Hume (London, 1807), 342–3Google Scholar.

90 [Stephen Jones], Review of Wyvill's Consideration on the Two-fold Model of Election, Monthly Review, 45 (Oct. 1804), 208–9, at 209. For the attribution of this short review to Stephen Jones (1763–1827) see Nangle, Benjamin Christie, The Monthly Review Second Series 1790–1815 (Oxford, 1955), 34–6, 257Google Scholar.

91 Houghton, Walter E., ed., The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals 1824–1900, 5 vols. (Toronto, 1966), 1: 475 Google Scholar.

92 [Rich, Henry], “Review of Charte Constitutionelle de Portugal ,” Edinburgh Review, 54/89 (1826), 199–247, 232–3Google Scholar.

93 Burgh, James, Crito or Essays on Various Subjects, 2 vols. (London, 1766–7), 2: 1 Google Scholar.

94 Ibid., 2: 38. He went on to demonstrate his support for annual parliamentary elections, and a rule prohibiting the re-election of representatives within a space of six years. He also proposed a revision of the “one-man–one-vote” system, suggesting that common townsmen and countrymen should receive one vote and the middle and high-ranking citizens should receive two votes each.