James Mill, the Scottish Enlightenment and the Problem of Civil Religion
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uninstructed mankind.” 13 Unable to comprehend the rules that govern the natural world, and unable to comprehend the natural world as one vast interconnected system, primitive men explained unusual occurrences by the intervention of “several limited and imperfect deities.” 14 Indeed, the idea of an omnipotent, supreme power having created the entire world and all its rule would simply be out of reach for rude humans with no conception of the natural world as “one regular plan or connected system.” 15
pointedly refused to portray the transition from poly- to monotheism as the inevitable outcome of the progress of society. In some societies, one god did eventually become elevated above all others, but “the vulgar … are never led into that opinion by any process of argument.” 16 Rather, they attempt to flatter their chosen deity by attributing ever-larger powers to it, but this strategy of divine one-upmanship is “merely verbal”. 17
The masses are simply led from one type of idolatry and superstition to another, and could just as easily reverse back to polytheism. 18 Hume does acknowledge, however, that in refined societies, the progress of knowledge allows a minority of educated men to establish their theism on a “firmer and more durable foundation,” namely the “regularity and uniformity” of the “general laws, by which nature is governed,” which offer “the strongest proof of design and of a supreme intelligence.” 19 Thus the progress of enlightenment corresponds to the progress of “true religion”, at least among the educated classes. 20
sentiment. The essay “Of Superstition and Enthusiasm” (1742) was dedicated to detailing the “pernicious effects” of two opposite types of religious sentiments, and offered “reflections concerning their different influences on government and society.” 21 The 13 Hume, “The Natural History of Religion,” 10. 14 Ibid, 11. 15 Ibid, 10. 16 Ibid, 45. 17 Ibid, 51. 18 “[M]en have a natural tendency to rise from idolatry to theism, and to sink again from theism into idolatry.” Ibid, 54. 19 Ibid, 44. 20 Hume’s frequent references to a “true religion” have often been viewed as ironic nods towards an empty notion. But this is likely too crude an interpretation. See especially J.C.A. Gaskin and Keith Yandell’s views that Hume’s religion was an “attenuated deism” or “diaphanous theism”, and Andre C. Willis’s argument that Hume’s “true religion” was characterized by “genuine theism” and “moderate hope”. Andre C. Willis,
2015); J.C.A. Gaskin, “Hume’s Attenuated Deism,” Archiv Für Geschichte Der Philosophie 65/2 (1983), 160– 73; Keith E. Yandell, Hume’s “inexplicable Mystery”: His Views on Religion (Philadelphia, 1990). 21 David Hume, “Of Superstition and Enthusiasm,” in Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary, ed. Eugene F. Miller (Indianapolis, 1987), 73-79, at 73, 75. 6
essay can be read as an attack on both Catholic superstition and Protestant enthusiasm, whose opposite natures Hume saw as the driving force behind the Reformation. 22 In his account of the English Reformation Hume was at pains to undermine the triumphalist Whig narrative presented in Burnet’s History of the Reformation of the Church of England (1679-1714). Far from describing the Reformation as the inevitable outcome of historical progress, he highlighted the chance combination of widespread Church corruption with individual greed and lust. He equally refused to present an unquestioning celebration of the benefits of Protestantism, as he highlighted the destructive effects of the wars of religion and described the main immediate positives of the Reformation in the destruction of many of the corrupt aspects of Catholicism. 23
unnoticed by his readers. This was why, in an unpublished preface to the second volume of his History of England (1756), he defended himself against charges of impiety by arguing that it was not the historian’s purpose to illustrate “the beneficent influence of Religion”. The “proper Office” of religion, in its true form, was certainly to “reform Men’s Lives, to purify their Hearts, to inforce all moral Duties, and to secure Obedience to the laws & civil magistrate.” 24 But this role was not naturally or easily highlighted by historical narratives focused on faction, war and revolution. It was also mere potential, which could remain unrealized – not least because of the natural tendency of ecclesiastical establishments to undermine true religion and its potential benefits to society, to “pervert the true, by infusing into it a strong mixture of superstition, folly, and delusion.” The best way to check this tendency, Hume suggested, would be for the state to fund and therefore control ecclesiastical institutions, in order to remove the financial necessity to attract followers by preying on the “disorderly affections of the human frame.” Religious institutions could then finally fulfill their proper office and “prove in the end advantageous to the political interests of society.” 25
Smith shared Hume’s skepticism regarding the supposed benefits of previous and current religions, including Christianity - this was why he held that the modern custom of
22 Thomas W. Merrill, Hume and the Politics of Enlightenment (Cambridge, 2015), 145. 23 He acknowledged that Protestantism had had beneficial consequences on European politics, even if these effects were “perhaps neither foreseen nor intended.” For example he highlighted the intolerance of seventeenth-century Puritans, showing that they had been far from willfully paving the ground for a free Whig constitution. David Hume, The History of England, 6 vols. (Indianapolis, 1983), 3:207. 24 Cited in Ernest Campbell Mossner, The Life of David Hume (Oxford, 1980), 306. A similar argument is presented by Cleanthes in the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779). David Hume, “Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion,” in The Philosophical Works of David Hume, 4 vols. (Edinburgh, 1828), 2:419- 548, at 538. 25 Hume, The History of England, 3:136. Yüklə 438,97 Kb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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