Читать книгу The Pursuit of Certainty - Shirley Robin Letwin - Страница 16

CHAPTER 8

The Science of Politics

It is disconcerting then to find that on other questions Hume takes a stand, even lays down general rules, as if for all men and all times. But he is speaking with the authority of prudence, not science, as a man who has learned wisdom more than truth. And his notion of prudence implied that any attempt to settle political questions scientifically was chimerical and dangerous. The adimportant but subtle difference between the rules of a prudent man and the laws of a social scientist never concerned Hume,¹ because the possibility of social science in the twentieth-century sense was not an issue in his day. He was thinking of other opponents.

He was arguing against three sorts of people: those, like Clarke or Hobbes, who tried to deduce rules for human conduct from what Hume regarded as metaphysical absurdities; those, like Berkeley, who denied a natural order because they affirmed man’s direct dependence on God (the appearance of gravitation in some instances did not justify, Berkeley said, concluding it was universal, because God might act sometimes in one way, and sometimes in another, “just as He sees convenient”); those, like Bolingbroke, who, in order to undo Walpole, argued that a government should stand or fall on the merits of the governors. Against the first, Hume was anxious to show that views about politics and morals must be drawn from what men are ready like, not from imaginary pictures of human nature; against the second, he wished to establish the existence of a natural order that is safe from divine interference; the last he wished to persuade that violent abuse of a minister is both unnecessary and dangerous because the nature of a government depends mainly on constitutional arrangements and laws which should not be lightly challenged. He argued, therefore, for experimental knowledge, that is, for experience against “hypotheses” in the sense of metaphysical or a priori principles. And he tried to show that experience revealed the persistence of certain regularities that did not conform to the abstract principles preferred by philosophers, and could not be destroyed by either human or divine will.

Yet when he spoke of an experimental science of man, Hume did not mean it strictly. In fact, he sharply distinguished between the “experimental” and the “scientific” methods, and regarded them as opposed to one another. In speaking of the correct method in morals, he says,

we can only expect success, by following the experimental method, and deducing general maxims from a comparison of particular instances. The other scientific method, where a general abstract principle is first established, and is afterwards branched out into a variety of inferences and conclusions, may be more perfect in itself, but suits less the imperfection of human nature, and is a common source of illusion and mistake in this as well as in other subjects.¹

He was not proposing to “explain” the causes of human phenomena, but only to gather correct observations of human nature and arrange them in some orderly fashion. Even in the Treatise, he intended not to explain why men thought as they did, but only to describe what occurred when they thought. For despite his admiration for Newton, and his adaptation of Newton’s method for his psychology, Hume had a simpler and more consistent view of science.

Newton held that science was incomplete as long as it remained purely descriptive; science had to discover causes, which could, Newton suggested, be seen in phenomena. And he sometimes spoke about gravity as if it were a force implied by the phenomena observed, thus justifying those disciples who persisted in treating gravitation as an explanatory principle. Newton, of course, had no wish to deny, as Hume did, a human capacity for understanding the nature of things. This led him at other times to insist that the theory of gravitation was purely descriptive, so as to avoid any dangerous suggestion that God was unnecessary. But Hume was anxious to restrict science to description, for the opposite reason, because he wished to deny any link to God, which would be implied in a human power to discover causes in the strict sense. Science to Hume meant an orderly body of knowledge disclosing that things in fact behave in certain ways; why they do so must remain an eternal mystery because knowledge of causes, in the sense of seeing the inner nature from which effects flow, is beyond man. Nor was Hume any readier to accept scientific explanation in the later sense of a hypothesis or “leap” beyond experience. He was content to forego explanation altogether and to stay with experience. He would confine himself to observing the appearance of effects in different circumstances:

For to me it seems evident, that the essence of the mind being equally unknown to us with that of external bodies, it must be equally impossible to form any notion of its powers and qualities otherwise than from careful and exact experiments, and the observation of those particular effects, which result from its different circumstances and situations. And tho’ we must endeavour to render all our principles as universal as possible, by tracing up our experiments to the utmost, and explaining all effects from the simplest and fewest causes, ’tis still certain we cannot go beyond experience; and any hypothesis, that pretends to discover the ultimate original qualities of human nature, ought at first to be rejected as presumptuous and chimerical.¹

In the Treatise, where Hume was arguing against the philosophers and theologians, he defended generalizations about human affairs in order to deny free will. He did this, however, not because he wished to advocate determinism, but because the belief in free will was part of the prevailing theological dogma that separated man from the natural world. To say that man had free will was, Hume thought, tantamount to declaring that human behaviour was uncaused, and that every common sense notion about human behaviour was unfounded. It implied that there was no regularity in human life, and knowledge about it had to be independent of experience. Against those who removed man from nature in this way, Hume pointed out that “It is at least possible” that “the contrariety of events may not proceed from any contingency in the cause, but from the secret operation of contrary causes.”² Moreover, he reminded them, politics, war, commerce, indeed everything in human life, depended on the belief in a certain regularity. The prince who imposed taxes expected his subjects to pay; the general who commanded an army counted on a certain courage; the master who ordered his dinner assumed his servants would obey. Anyone who lived in the ordinary way, whatever he said, believed in some regular conjunction of cause and effect in human affairs, as in all others.¹

In the essays, Hume’s defence of general rules arose out of his concern with immediate political issues. Even under the tide “That Politics may be Reduced to a Science,” he was arguing against Bolingbroke. The essay opens with a pointed reference to the criticisms that were being made of Walpole: “It is a question with several whether there be any essential difference between one form of government and another? and whether every form may not become good or bad, according as it is wed or id administered?” If it were true that all governments were alike, he continues, and that the differences arise only from “the conduct and character of the governors,” all political disputes could end. It would follow that a bad minister must at once be replaced by a better one. But in fact that is not the case, as even the critics of the government had confessed in accusing it of subverting an excellent constitution. If the constitution were ready excellent, Hume pointed out, it would provide a remedy against mal-administration. The state of affairs could not then be as bad as it was painted. If a minister proved to be as destructive as his critics alleged, then the constitution needed revising, and its subversion was quite desirable.

Hume agreed with Bolingbroke that the British constitution was admirable, but this meant, he pointed out, that it provided some check even on the worst rulers. Those who abused the government so violently ran the risk of undermining a good constitution. And so he concluded the essay “That Politics may be Reduced to a Science” with a plea for moderation:

Let us therefore try, if it be possible from the foregoing doctrine, to draw a lesson of moderation with regard to the parties into which our country is at present divided. … Those who either attack or defend a minister in such a government as ours, where the utmost liberty is allowed, always carry matters to an extreme, and exaggerate his merit or demerit with regard to the public. … Would men be moderate and consistent their claims might be admitted; at least might be examined. … I would only persuade men not to contend, as if they were fighting pro aris & focis, and change a good constitution into a bad one, by the violence of their factions.¹

At the same time, Hume had a more general purpose, to convince his readers that it was important to frame laws carefully, that the welfare of a country depended on more than the virtue of its rulers. His contemporaries, being inclined to emphasize persons rather than institutions, were reluctant to use their critical powers on the laws. To encourage more attention to institutions, Hume emphasized that some kinds of laws and constitutions had more desirable effects than others, whatever the character of the ruler. So he declared it a universal maxim in politics, “That an hereditary prince, a nobility without vassals, and a people voting by their representatives, form the best monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy.”² Quite regularly, also, free governments made their own citizens happier than any other, but in their colonies were more ruinous and oppressive than monarchies. Hume reviewed a number of different constitutions, and in each case pointed out the connection between the laws and the conditions of the country—Venice was stable, Athens and Rome were tumultuous, all because of the differences in their laws. It was therefore of first importance to devise laws carefully, for “effects will always correspond to causes; and wise regulations in any commonwealth are the most valuable legacy that can be left to future ages.”³

By insisting that there were better and worse constitutions, Hume was not, however, supporting any particular form of government. Although he gave one essay the ambitious tide of “The Ideal Commonwealth,” it contains merely some innocuous observations on an administrative machine, representative and republican in form. Nothing Hume says there could inspire revolutionaries. His models are not, he makes it plain, Plato or More: “The idea … of a perfect and immortal commonwealth will always be found as chimerical as that of perfect and immortal man.”⁴ It was amusing to see if one could sketch a better model than Harrington’s. Perhaps it might even prove useful one day. But forms of government were not like engines, which could be tried out and discarded when found useless. Although one could imagine a republic superior to the British constitution, what guarantee was there that it would actually be established once the monarchy was dissolved? Any man able to destroy the existing constitution must have the power of an absolute monarch, and history had shown the folly of expecting such a man ever to relinquish his power.¹

To tamper, therefore, in this affair, or try experiments merely upon the credit of supposed argument and philosophy, can never be the part of a wise magistrate, who will bear a reverence to what carries the marks of age; and though he may attempt some improvement for the public good, yet will he adjust his innovations as much as possible, to the ancient fabric, and preserve entire the chief pillars and supports of the constitution.²

Anyway, there was much less difference between forms of government than it seemed. In an absolute government, the monarch may be so confident of his power that he permits a number of liberties. In a republican government, where there is little distrust of the chief magistrate, he may be granted very broad discretionary powers, which become greater than those of an absolute ruler. So there may be “a species of liberty in monarchies, and of arbitrary power in republics,” which make the two governments strongly resemble each other. Similar results may thus be produced by governments seemingly very different. Besides, all governments tend to move toward the same equilibrium: “In monarchical government there is a source of improvement, in popular government, a source of degeneracy which in time will bring these species of civil polity still nearer equality.”³

But even in their pure state, the drawbacks of the different governments, Hume felt, may easily be in balance. Free and absolute governments were, history showed, equally hospitable to art and science, but commerce tended to decay under absolute government because in a monarchy birth, tide, and place are esteemed above industry and riches.⁴ Neither one was clearly superior even on purely political grounds. The elaborate checks in a mixed government made it less vulnerable to abuse. On the other hand, as Hume reminded Montesquieu, mixed governments, like all complicated machines, are more subject to disturbances arising from the contrast and opposition of the parts.¹ In the case of the British monarchy, the danger from the monarchical part was more imminent, but the threat from the popular part was more terrible. While Hume was not in the least inclined to denigrate England’s mixed government, under other circumstances he might equally wed have accepted a republic. Glorious consequences were not to be expected from any form of government. All that ready mattered was whether power was distributed among the various social orders and governing bodies so as to make an unchecked concentration of power impossible:

When there offers, therefore, to our censure and examination, any plan of government, real or imaginary, where the power is distributed among several courts, and several orders of men, we should always consider the separate interest of each court, and each order; and if we find that, by the skilful division of power this interest must necessarily in its operation, concur with the public, we may pronounce that government to be wise and happy.²

This could be achieved, Hume was convinced, in more than one way and under different sorts of government.

In short, in politics as in morals, merit does not lie in outward conformity to a general standard. No one form of government is necessarily preferable. What counts is how well the dangers potential in every government, whatever its form, are guarded against. Just as in the good man the passions are in balance, so in the good government, the various powers and interests are arranged to prevent any one from becoming excessive. The moral is: do not seek an ideal polity, but seek to safeguard the existing form of government against the weaknesses inherent in it.

In the realm of economics, however, Hume approved of more substantive general observations. He made a number of definite recommendations, along the lines developed later by his friend, Adam Smith. Not the quantity of money, but men and commodities, he insisted, determined the strength of a community. Its economic condition benefited more from a love of refinements than from simple living. He denied that the lowness of the interest rate indicated that the country was flourishing; he opposed the notion that a balance of trade had to be maintained; he argued against a large public debt, and warned that it would go on growing because it enabled a minister to make a great figure without antagonizing the public. He defended free trade against protectionism, and condemned those who urged a “narrow and malignant” politics for trying to destroy the productive powers of colonies.¹ He urged the magistrate in general to trust the encouragement of an art or profession to those who would benefit from it, opposed restrictions on the internal market, and cautioned against high taxes. Such general observations on economics were valid, Hume explained, because in that realm the public good “depends on a concurrence of a multitude of causes.” Economics was very different from foreign affairs, for instance, where it was folly to make such general recommendations, because foreign politics depended “on accidents and chance and the caprices of a few persons.”² It was equally inappropriate to try to account in general terms for phenomena like the rise of learning. But it was proper to speak generally on the rise and progress of commerce, because the desire for gain operated more uniformly than the desire for learning.³ In economic affairs, the same causes operated in much the same way on a multitude, and not merely on odd individuals; they were gross and stubborn causes, not readily affected by private whim and fancy, and therefore amenable to generalization.

Yet even these “general reasonings,” or as Hume sometimes said, his reasonings on “general subjects,” were regarded by him simply as observations that comprehended a great number of individuals. They were merely “general facts,” or descriptions of “the general course of things.” They were concerned with probabilities not necessities, and had the logical status of maxims (a term often used by Hume) not laws. They were statements about what is likely to happen because it usually happens, and although for practical purposes they might be assumed to hold always, they could not be proved. This meant that Hume was always conscious of the possibility that his general conclusions “may fad in particular cases,”⁴ and exceptions invariably occurred to him. When he showed that the greatness of a state and the happiness of its subjects were “inseparable with regard to commerce,” although not in other respects, Adam Smith commended his observations. But Hume himself added: “This maxim is true in general; though I cannot forbear thinking, that it may possibly admit of exceptions, and that we often establish it with too little reserve and limitation.”⁵

In fact, not even Hume’s economic recommendations were totally abstract. They were drawn from and supported by historical examples, and directed against particular, current misconceptions. Besides, Hume took care to point out how difficult it was to discover the right policy, and that what was beneficial one moment might easily be harmful the next:

Though a resolution should be formed by the legislature never to impose any tax which hurts commerce and discourages industry, it will be impossible for men, in subjects of such extreme delicacy, to reason so justly as never to be mistaken, or amidst difficulties so urgent, never to be seduced from their resolution. The continual fluctuations in commerce require continual alterations in the nature of taxes; which exposes the legislature every moment to the danger both of wilful and involuntary error. And any great blow given to trade, whether by injudicious taxes or by other accidents, throws the whole system of government into confusion.¹

In other fields, while Hume was certain that: “History informs us of nothing new or strange,”² some of the uniformities he pointed out are hardly more than truisms: “A man who at noon leaves his purse full of gold on the pavement at Charing Cross may as wed expect that it will fly away like a feather as that he will find it untouched an hour after.”³ No abstruse scientific truth is revealed by the observation that: “Ambition, avarice, self-love, vanity, friendship, generosity, public spirit, these passions mixed in various degrees and distributed through society have been from the beginning of the world, and still are, the source of all the actions and enterprise which have ever been observed among mankind.”⁴ Any man who had studied history and seen men might know that: “Mankind are, in all ages, caught by the same baits: The same tricks played over and over again, still trepan them. The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny, flattery to treachery; standing armies to arbitrary governments; and the glory of God to the temporal interest of the clergy.”⁵

Yet Hume was even more anxious to remind his readers that the basic uniformity did not rule out a great “diversity of characters, prejudices, and opinions.”⁶ He condemned unqualified laws such as those Hobbes laid down. One could not deny absolutely the wisdom of resistance because rulers, like other men, may suddenly become so transported by violent passions as to be unendurable: “Our general knowledge of human nature, our observation of the past history of mankind, our experience of present times; all these causes must induce us to open the door to exceptions. …¹ We can learn something about the sentiments and inclinations of the Greeks and Romans by studying the temper and actions of the French and English, but we must not simply transfer all observations from one nation to another.² Men can live together because they can to some degree predict each other’s behaviour, but they also may differ unexpectedly not only from one another, but even from themselves at other moments. The characters of men are bound to be “to a certain degree, inconstant and irregular.”³ This is the only constant character of human nature.

General reflections, or philosophy, can therefore account only “for a few of the greater and more sensible events; but must leave all the smaller and more delicate revolutions, as dependent on principles too fine and minute for her comprehension.”⁴ After ad, Hume was still firmly addicted to the distinction he had made in the Treatise between artificial rules and natural judgements. He was, if anything, even more conscious of the inadequacies of impersonal dicta. In everything but mathematics, a general truth ought never to be more than a guide. Men of sense, unlike the vulgar, can recognize a general fact without concluding that it covers every individual, or forgetting its tentative character. They remember that “no prudent man, however sure of his principles, dares prophesy concerning any event, or foretell the remote consequences of things.”⁵

About the science of politics one had to be especially cautious, for its generalizations are very prone to mislead. It is true that, “So great is the force of laws, and of particular forms of government, and so little dependence have they on the humours and tempers of men, that consequences almost as general and certain may sometimes be deduced from them, as any which mathematical sciences afford us.”⁶ This must be pointed out especially when there arises an immoderate zeal for overthrowing a minister, or when law makers are indolent. At other times, however, it might be more pertinent to recall that “the science of politics affords few rules, which may not sometimes be controlled by fortune and accident.”¹ For men are placed in the world like an audience in the theatre. They can see the show, and speculate on how the actors perform; but the “true springs and causes of every event” remain entirely concealed.²