Humphry Clinker (18 page)

35
. (
p. 72
) ‘Had the poor Indian philosopher (who imagined that the earth also wanted something to bear it up) but thought of this word
substance
, he needed not to have been at the trouble to find an elephant to support it, and a tortoise to support his elephant: the word
substance
would have done it effectually.' John Locke,
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
, ed. P. H. Nidditch, Oxford, 1975. 2, 13, 19.

36
. (
p. 74
) In Cicero,
De Natura Deorum
, the Stoic, Balbus, says: ‘For when we gaze upward to the sky and contemplate the heavenly bodies, what can be so obvious and so manifest as that there must exist some power possessing transcendent intelligence by whom these things are ruled? Were it not so, how comes it that the words of Ennius carry conviction to all readers–

37
. (
p. 75
) Titus Lucretius Carus (c.99-55
BC
) wrote
De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things
), a poem expounding Epicureanism. Epicurus (341-270
BC
), Greek philosopher and scientist, was taught as a boy by the Platonist, Pamphilus, and studied at the Academy. He settled in Athens, and taught in the Gardens. Our knowledge of Epicureanism is largely dependent on Lucretius. The passage quoted means: ‘Who is strong enough to rule the sum of the immeasurable, who to hold in hand and control the mighty bridle of the unfathomable? who to turn about all the heavens at one time and warm the fruitful worlds with ethereal fires, or to be present in all places and at all times'. Trans. W. H. D. Rouse, revised M. Ferguson Smith, Loeb, London, 1975, p. 181.

38
. (
p. 75
) ‘What power of mental vision enabled your master Plato to descry the vast and elaborate architectural process which, as he makes out, the deity adopted in building the structure of the universe? What method of engineering was employed? What tools and levers and derricks? What agents carried out so vast an undertaking? And how were air, fire, water and earth enabled to obey and execute the will of the architect?' Cicero, op. cit., trans. H. Rackham, p. 23.

39
. (
p. 76
) Compare: ‘I shall only observe this one thing, that the greater the improvements and discoveries are, which are daily made in astronomy and natural philosophy; the more clearly is this question [whether the supreme cause of all things is a being indued with liberty and choice] continually determined, to the shame and confusion of atheists.' Samuel Clarke,
A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God
, p. 142.

40
. (
p. 76
) Compare the attack on anthropomorphism by the Sceptic, Cotta, in
De Natura Deorum:
‘You don't perceive what a number of things you are let in for, if we consent to admit that men and gods have the same form.' Cicero, op. cit., p. 93.

41
. (
p. 77
) Compare: ‘'Tis evident therefore, that the self-existent being must be infinite in the
strictest
and most
complete
sense. But now as to the particular
manner
of his being infinite… it is as impossible for our finite understandings, to comprehend or explain; as it is for us to form an adequate idea of infinity.' Samuel Clarke, op. cit., p. 91.

42
. (
p. 78
) John Milton,
Paradise Lost
, viii, 150-1.

43
. (
p. 78
) See the Epicurean argument: ‘… since it is agreed that the gods are supremely happy, and no one can be happy without virtue, and virtue cannot exist without reason, and reason is only found in the human shape, it follows that the gods possess the form of man.' Cicero, op. cit., p. 49.

44
. (
p. 81
) For example: ‘As for Pythagoras, who believed that the entire substance of the universe is penetrated and pervaded by a soul… Next, Xenophanes endowed the universe with mind, and held that, as being infinite, it was god.' Cicero, op. cit., p. 31.

45
. (
p. 83
) L. Licinius Lucullus (c. 110-57
BC
), Roman general, famous as the
conqueror of Mithradates. He obtained great wealth from his campaigns in Asia, and was renowned for his lavish life style. See the introductory sections of Cicero,
Academica
, II.

46
. (
p. 84
) ‘…' tis commonly allow'd by philosophers, that what the vulgar call chance is nothing but a secret and conceal'd cause.' T.181.

47
. (
p. 85
) Hesiod (c. 700
BC
), one of the oldest known Greek poets. The
Theogony
, one of his two major poems to have survived, gives an account of the gods of Greece and their genealogy. See also NHR. 28, n.I.

48
. (
p. 88
) Compare: ‘It is confessed, that the utmost effort of human reason is to reduce the principles, productive of natural phenomena, to a greater simplicity, and to resolve the many particular effects into a few general causes, by means of reasonings from analogy, experience, and observation. But as to the causes of these general causes, we should in vain attempt their discovery…' E.30.

49
. (
p. 90
) Plato,
Timaeus
, 29d—31g.

50
. (
p. 91
) Compare: ‘While a warm imagination is allow'd to enter into philosophy, and hypotheses embrac'd merely for being specious and agreeable, we can never have any steady principles, nor any sentiments, which will suit with common practice and experience.' T.319.

51
. (
p. 92
) ‘Thus the wise man will make use of whatever apparently probable presentation he encounters, if nothing presents itself that is contrary to that probability, and his whole plan of life will be charted out in this manner.' Cicero, op. cit., p. 595.

52
. (
p. 92
) ‘A correct
judgment…
avoiding all distant and high enquiries, confines itself to common life, and to such subjects as fall under daily practice and experience.' E.162.

53
. (
p. 92
) ‘While we cannot give a satisfactory reason, why we believe, after a thousand experiments, that a stone will fall, or fire burn; can we ever satisfy ourselves concerning any determination, which we may form, with regard to the origin of worlds, and the situation of nature, from, and to eternity.'
Idem.

54
. (
p. 92
) In the system of Epicurus, the atoms
(primordia)
‘… being many and shifted in many ways, they are harried and set in motion with blows throughout the universe from infinity, thus by trying every kind of motion and combination, at length they fall into such arrangements as this sum of things consists of…' Lucretius, op. cit., p. 85.

55
. (
p. 92
) ‘At this point must I not marvel that there should be anyone who can persuade himself… that the fortuitous collision of… particles produces this elaborate and beautiful world?' Cicero, op. cit., p. 213.

56
. (
p. 96
) Compare Cicero, op. cit., II, lxii-lxiv.

57
. (
p. 97
) ‘Doubt, uncertainty, suspense of judgment appear the only result of our most accurate scrutiny, concerning this subject.' NHR. 76.

58
. (
p. 98
) ‘… therefore I shall not at this time use any variety of arguments, but endeavour by one clear and plain series of propositions necessarily connected and following one from another, to demonstrate the certainty of the being of God, and to deduce in order the necessary attributes of his nature…' Samuel Clarke, op. cit., p. 16.

59
. (
p. 99
) ‘Whatever exists, has a cause of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature; and then it must have been eternal: or in the will of some other being; and then that other being must, at least in the order of nature and causality have existed before it… Either there has always existed one unchangeable and independent being, from which all other beings that are or ever were in the universe, have received their original; or else there has been an infinite succession of changeable and dependent beings… which latter supposition is so very absurd…'
idem.,
pp. 18-19, 23-4.

60
. (
p. 99
) See above, Introduction, p. 18.

61
. (
p. 100
) ‘Now that the material world does not exist thus necessarily, is evident… For whether we consider the
form
of the world, with the
disposition
and
motion
of its parts; or whether we consider the
matter
of it, as such, without respect to its present form; every thing in it, both the
whole
and every one of its
parts,
their
situation
and
motion,
the
form
and also the
matter,
are the most arbitrary and dependent things… If he [the atheist] says that the particular
form
is necessary; he must affirm it to be a contradiction to suppose that any part of the world can be in any respect otherwise than it now is…' Samuel Clarke, op. cit., pp. 43-5.

62
. (
p. 101
) See T.
121
-6.

63
. (
p. 104
) Perhaps a reference to Edward Young (1683-1765).

64
. (
p. 104
) Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1641-1716) had maintained that in creating the world, God creates the best of all possible worlds. (See his
Theodicy,
trans. E. M. Huggard, ed. A. Farrer, London, 1951.)

65
. (
p. 105
) Compare, Hume, ‘Of Superstition and Enthusiasm', loc. cit.

66
. (
p. 106
) John Milton,
Paradise Lost
, xi, 484-93, omitting line 488.

67
. (
p. 106
) ‘Monuments to human misery and wickedness are found every-where – prisons, hospitals, gallows, and beggars. Here you see the ruins of a flourishing city; in other places you cannot even find the ruins… Properly speaking, history is nothing but the crimes and misfortunes of the human race.' Bayle, op. cit., ‘Manicheans'.

68
. (
p. 108
) Charles V (1500-1558), King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, resigned his thrones in 1556 and 1558. Hume is quoting from the article on Charles V in Bayle, op. cit.

69
. (
p. 108
) Probably a reference to Cicero,
De Senectute (On Old Age)
, xxiii, 83-4, where Cato says: ‘Nay, if some god should give me leave to return to infancy from my old age, to weep once more in my cradle, I should vehemently protest; for truly, after I have run my race I have no wish to be recalled, as it were, from the goal to the starting-place. For what advantage has life — or, rather, what trouble does it not have?' Trans. W. A. Falconer, Loeb, London, 1923.

70
. (
p. 108
) John Dryden,
Aureng–Zebe
, iv, i, 41-2. Hume has ‘hope' in place of ‘think'.

71
. (
p. 109
) Compare Bayle, op. cit., ‘Paulicians'. This whole speech by Philo shows the influence of Bayle's discussion of the problem of evil. Like Bayle, Philo opposes anthropomorphic theodicies, and declares that reason can provide no solution.

72
. (
p. 109
) ‘For example, if you say that God has permitted sin in order to manifest his wisdom, which shines forth more in the midst of the disorders that man's wickedness produces every day than it would in a state of innocence, you will be answered that this is to compare God either to a father who allows his children to break their legs so that he can show everyone his great skill in mending their broken bones, or to a king who allows seditions and disorders to develop through his kingdom so that he can gain glory by overcoming them. The conduct of this father and this monarch is so contrary to the clear and distinct ideas by which we judge goodness and wisdom and in general all the duties of a father and a king, that our reason cannot conceive how God could act in this way. But, you will say, the ways of God are not our ways. Stop at this point, it is a text of scripture [Isaiah 55:8], and do not reason any further.' Bayle, op. cit., ‘Paulicians'.

73
. (
p. 112
) ‘One does not have to be a metaphysician to know this… All of this warns us that we should not dispute… until we have established the doctrine of the
elevation of faith and the abasement of reason.' Idem.

74
. (
p. 113
) For a discussion of the problems, outlined here by Cleanthes, for a natural theology which argues from analogy, and some historical background to Hume's treatment, see Anders Jeffner, op. cit., pp. 200ff.

75
. (
p. 117
) In Hume's manuscript there is here a deleted note:
'Caesar
, speaking of the woods in Germany, mentions some animals as subsisting there, which are now utterly extinct. These, and some few more instances, may be exceptions to the proposition here delivered.
Strabo
quotes from
Polybius
an account of an animal about the Tyrol, which is not now to be found. If
Polybius
was not deceived, which is possible, the animal must have been then very rare, since
Strabo
cites but one authority, and speaks doubtfully.'