320
The
Writing of David Hume's My Own Life: The Persona of the Philosopher and
the Philosopher Manqué
SAGE Publications, Inc.200710.1177/0967550706ab051oa
LizStanley
University of Edinburgh, UK, Liz.Stanley@ed.ac.uk
Address
for correspondence: Liz Stanley, Sociology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh
EH8 9LL, UK; Email: Liz.Stanley@ed.ac.uk
The question of what the
appropriate genre terms are in which to consider the philosopher David Hume's
(1711—76) My own Life (with a published version appearing in
1777 as The Life of David Hume, Esq. Written by himself ) is examined
through the detailed discussion of 10 significant amendments, excisions and
insertions that Hume made to the original manuscript. Ideas about self-biography,
autobiography, philosophical autobiography, persona of the philosopher and
philosopher manqué are discussed in relation to Hume's writing of the manuscript
as indicated by these amendments; and the epigraphic nature of My own
Life is considered in relation to Hume's work as a whole.
...
another man may, perhaps, perceive something simple and continued which he
calls himself; though I am certain there is no such principle in me. (David
Hume The Philosophical Works, Volume I, 1825: 321) INTRODUCTION: `LACKING
THE USUAL ATTRACTIONS OF THE GENRE' Debates about `writing lives' are by no
means new, occurring across the long eighteenth century (1670 to 1830) and
in part fuelled by philosophical discussions questioning the nature of identity
and perceptions, particularly by Locke and Hume (Aaron, 1978; Browning, 1980; Longaker, 1971; Nussbaum, 1989; Spacks, 2003; Treadwell, 2005). In Britain,
biography was well established though itself `under development' from the
start of the period. Autobiographical writings were produced in a variety
of
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interconnected
forms, including testimony, legal deposition and religious apologia, with
an exponential growth in `self-biography' or autobiography from approximately
the 1780s on, published because of readers' curiosity rather than moral edification,
and with publishers' desire for volume sales giving rise to `collected' as
well as individual lives. These developments are a backcloth to the consideration
here of what the appropriate genre terms might be within which to situate
the philosopher David Hume's1 – Hume's what? The key question is what
to call it and so I will for now defer attributing a genre to the short text
written by Hume on 18 April 1776 and known either as the manuscript My own
Life or as the book The Life of David Hume, Esq. Written by himself, the first
edition of which was published in March 1777, preceded by a brief untitled
preface by Hume's publisher William Strahan and followed by a lengthy letter
to Strahan by Hume's friend Adam Smith. An interesting light is thrown on
what a written `life' might consist of through examining the process of writ-
ing that Hume engaged in, the ways in which authorial purposes as well as
the actual practices of writing can be traced out around the manuscript of
My own Life, and contemporary reactions to the publication of The Life of
David Hume. These matters are explored here through a detailed examination
of Hume's original manuscript and its relationship to the posthumously pub-
lished The Life of David Hume.2 As Hume was one of the central figures in
Enlightenment philosophy, his writings, including those concerned with selves
and identity, continue to receive enormous scholarly attention (see for example
the contributions on `Personal Identity' in Tweyman, 1995, Volume III: 627–745).
By con- trast, the few present-day discussions of My own Life treat this particular
text as a puzzlingly slight work, given Hume's intellectual stature and the
sophistication of his other work (although its 1777 publication actually occasioned
contemporary controversy, as had various of Hume's earlier publications).3
Even recent theorists of eighteenth-century biography have largely ignored
My own Life, while according importance and influence to Hume's ideas about
selves elsewhere in his writings (Nussbaum, 1989; Spacks, 2003; Treadwell,
2005). My own Life has not fared much better in readings from philosophers
either. For instance, A. J. Ayer's discussion of Hume's overall thinking includes
just one comment on it: David Hume, to my mind the greatest of all British
philosophers, was born at Edinburgh on what, in the old calendar, was 26 April
1711. In his valedictory My Own Life, an autobiography running to only five
pages, which Hume composed in April 1776, four months before his death, he
showed pride in coming of good family, on both sides. His father, Joseph Home
... his mother, Katherine ... (Ayer, 1980: 1)
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For
Ayer, then, My own Life is a valediction, a short autobiography, and a source
of some facts about Hume's family pride. In general, commentators are somewhat
confounded by My own Life. Fourteen pages from Donald Siebert (1995), an eighteenth-century
litera- ture specialist, provide the sole discussion of this text in a mammoth
six-volume re-assessment of Hume's work, with Siebert commenting that: David
Hume's is a remarkable autobiography, even though it may lack the usual attractions
of that genre ... in spite of Hume's failure to admit mistakes and the pervasive
self-assurance, My own Life is not an insufferably vain work ... My own Life
is unquestionably a short history, shorter indeed than most of Hume's admirers
and even his enemies might wish for ... a man's works and his works are inextricably
connected ... here we have Hume putting the finishing touches on his own life's
work. What kind of man was he? Though Hume's Life is brief, let no one doubt
that Hume has taken pains to indicate precisely how that question ought to
be answered. The impression must be as favourable as possible. (Siebert, 1995:
388, 389, 390) Siebert's account sees My own Life as a flawed but revealing
autobiogra- phy, concluding that `It is surely the man, as much as we would
say those other famous memoirs [by Rousseau, Franklin, Gibbon] embody their
subjects' (Siebert, 1995: 400). And Shlomit Schuster, in overviewing auto-
biographies by philosophers and theorizing a specifically `philosophical autobiography'
sub-genre, struggles to fit My own Life within her defini- tion of what philosophical
autobiography is: `My Own Life' provides a precise account of how A Treatise
of Human Nature came about ... He appears here regretful and apologetic for
its too early publication. This is not the only apology made in `My Own Life':
Hume's final paragraph is an apology for autobiography ... He ... concludes
the last page `historically'... portrays himself as self-controlled and of
a mild disposition ... However, Hume remains uneasy about the moral excellence
he ascribes to himself. The last paragraph of `My Own Life' is as apologetic
as the first. (Schuster, 2003, ebook: 34–35) Schuster accomplishes
this fit by interpreting My own Life as `a precise account of how A Treatise
of Human Nature came about, why a recast was needed, and in which books its
mature content can be found' (Schuster, 2003, ebook: 34). Indeed, she sees
this as the reason it was written, with the apology she perceives in its final
paragraph being matched by another apology about `vanity' at its start. However,
My own Life is not valedictory in the sense of being just `a leave taking'; as the later discussion of Hume's writing process here
323
will
indicate, it is far more artful and purposeful than this. Nor is it an autobiography
in the now usual sense of the term, providing neither an account of the interiority
of the writer nor of the social networks of the writer's life. To treat a
few lines mentioning the social position of Hume's family as a rationale for
reading the whole text as concerning family pride is to take the word `vanity'
both too literally and also ahistorically. That is, this removes `vanity'
from its eighteenth-century meaning of `that which has no value' and considers
it only in the personal sense of being vain, as an attribute of self and identity,
both concepts which Hume inter- rogated and drew some distance from. Also,
to see it as a `philosophical autobiography', in the form of an extended apology,
involves largely ignoring what happens between its first and last paragraphs.
And while it bears some resemblance to ideas about `self-biography' current
at mid- century, it has a considerably closer relationship with Hume's (1740; 1748) earlier thinking about identity matters. However, ideas about `the persona
of the philosopher',4 which explore a person's philosophical oeuvre through
their cultivation of a particular kind of self and way of life, are much more
helpful in thinking about My own Life and will be returned to later (see Gaukroger,
2004; Green and Broad, 2004; Haakonssen, 2004; Hunter, 2004; see also Mullan,
1988; Secomb, 1999; Siebert, 1990; Spencer, 2000). HUME WRITING ABOUT MY OWN
LIFE Is any light thrown on such interpretational differences by examining
what Hume himself wrote about My own Life, as well as by what he wrote in
it? There are two relevant sources regarding what Hume wrote about it: Hume's
will and the codicils he made to it mentioning My own Life and his other then-unpublished
writings; and Hume's letters in which My own Life is discussed or mentioned.
Hume's extant will was made on 4 January 1776 (Mossner, 1980: 591–93).
In a 15 April 1776 codicil, Hume's brother – and after his brother's
death, Hume's nephew David – was named as his heir and executor.5 Following
this, in a 3 May 1776 codicil, Hume's friend Adam Smith was given full discretionary
power over Hume's manuscripts. Then in a letter to his publisher William Strahan
in London of 12 June 1776, Hume stated he had made a codicil making Strahan
`entirely Master' of his manuscripts. Then on 7 August 1776, a final codicil
was made, that My own Life and Hume's two Dialogues concerning natural religion6
were to revoke to Hume's nephew David if not published by Smith, acting with
Strahan, within three years. From Hume's letters,7 it appears that, from trusting
Adam Smith to see his remaining manuscripts – and specifically the
Dialogues – into publication,
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Hume
became aware that Smith's worries about a negative public response damaging
Hume's reputation might lead to them being in effect suppressed, albeit for
what Smith deemed good reason. Thus on 3 May 1776 Hume wrote to Smith from
London, commenting that `I send you enclosed an ostensible Letter, conformably
to your Desire' (Greig, 1932, Vol. II: 316–17), with Smith's desire
here being that publication should be left entirely to his discretion. Hume
wrote in this `ostensible letter' that `You will find among my Papers a very
inoffensive Piece, called My own Life, which I composed a few days before
I left Edinburgh, when I thought, as did all my friends, that my Life was
despaired of. There can be no Objection, that this small piece should be sent
to Messrs Strahan and Cadell and the Proprietors of my other Works to be prefixed
to any future Edition of them' (Greig, 1932, Vol. II: 317–18). The
to-ing and fro-ing of letters between Hume and Smith eventuated in Hume adding
the final 7 August 1776 codicil to his will already mentioned, that the manuscripts
of the Dialogues and My own Life would revoke to his nephew if not published
within three years. Then in response to a letter from Smith dated 22 August
1776, Hume wrote to Smith on 23 August 1776 that `There is no Man in whom
I have a greater Confidence than Mr Strahan, yet have I left the property
of that Manuscript [the Dialogues] to my Nephew David in case by any accident
it should not be published within three years of my decease', adding also
that `You are too good in thinking any trifles that concern me are so much
worth your atten- tion, but I give you entire liberty to make what Additions
you please to the account of my Life' (Greig, 1932, Vol. II: 335–36).
This statement from Hume came in direct response to a suggestion in Smith's
22 August 1776 letter, in which Smith had written `If you will give me leave
I will add a few lines to your account of your own life, giving some account,
in my own name, of your behaviour in this last illness' (see Greig, 1932,
Vol. II: 336). The particular examples of Hume's stoicism in the face of terminal
illness provided in this letter make it abundantly clear that Smith's well-
known letter of 9 November 1776 to William Strahan, published at the end of
The Life of David Hume, is in fact itself an ostensible letter, one writ-
ten for a specific public purpose, publication, with its contents almost exactly
the same as this August letter to Hume. William Strahan was Hume's main publisher
in London. Concerning Strahan's role in relation to My own Life, on 8 June
1776 Hume had writ- ten to him from Bath concerning his own further decline
in health. Hume made detailed comments in this letter's second paragraph about
the pro- posed new edition of his collected works then being prepared by Strahan,
in its third paragraph about who to send copies of this to, in its fourth
para- graph about My own Life, and in its fifth paragraph about his other
work and especially the Dialogues, attempting to persuade Strahan that he
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should
publish these forthwith. The fourth paragraph concerning My own Life states
that: If this Event [his death] shall happen, as is Probable, before the Publication
of this Edition, there is one Request I have to make to you: before I left
Edinburgh, I wrote a small piece (you may believe it would be but a small
one) which I call the History of my own Life: I desire it may be prefixed
to this Edition: It will be thought curious and entertaining. My brother or
Dr Adam Smith will send it to you, and I shall give them Directions to that
Purpose. (8 June 1776, David Hume to William Strahan; Greig, 1932, Vol. II:
322–24) The codicils to Hume's will show that publication of My own
Life as well as the Dialogues was important enough for him to ensure that
it would see the light of published day, by his nephew or through him by an
even- tual posterity, if not by Smith and Strahan. Hume's comments about My
own Life across his letters to Smith and Strahan add emphasis to this in a
number of respects. His 8 June 1776 letter to Strahan states that My own Life
could only be a `small piece', with it remaining ambiguous whether this was
because of his health, or because of factors connected with his pur- poses
in writing it, something returned to later. This letter also refers to it
very precisely as `the History of my own Life', not as a self-biography, the
term then used, nor even as `a life written by himself', which is how Smith
and Strahan represented it in March 1777 on the title page of the book they
published.8 Hume also proposed in his letter of 3 May 1776 to Smith that neither
Smith himself nor Strahan could object to anything in My own Life, that it
was `inoffensive', and so should be published without delay. This is contra
it being seen as `objectionable' in the way the Dialogues might be, though
Hume does his best to persuade Smith and Strahan in his letters to them that
the Dialogues would not occasion any great negative reactions (and in the
event, Hume was correct). The purpose Hume envisaged for My own Life was to
act as the prefix – a precise word, as preface was in use at this time
as well, with prefix indi- cating adding to the meaning of a text which follows – to the new edition of Hume's collected works then in progress, and concerning
which he was sending corrections and amendments to Strahan even a few short
weeks before his death. There was no suggestion from Hume that it should be
published separately, that it might stand alone and separate from his col-
lected works. In this context, Hume had agreed that Smith could make some
additions to it, and in Hume's understanding this meant Smith would make additions
to My own Life as a prefix to the new edition of his collected works. Also
Hume had commented that, when published in this way, it would be thought `curious
and entertaining'. Again, these are precise words. `Curious' here bears a
number of meanings, in particular as
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in bestowing
care or being studious, the sense used by Johnson among others in the 1780s; and also in the sense of being particular about details, as in use in the
1750s and 60s. And the word `entertaining' was used most likely because, as
John Sturrock (1993) has commented and later discus- sion here will confirm,
there are various passages in My own Life that are obliquely directed to an
in-group of readers, familiars to Hume. Some crucial points here to be returned
to are that My own Life was written as a prefix to Hume's collected works
as a whole; it is the history of some of his writings rather than a self-biography; it is a studied, partic- ular and careful piece of writing, the fate of which
Hume took some trou- ble over; and Hume thought some readers, probably his
close friends, would find it entertaining. What now follows traces out those
aspects of Hume's writing process that are marked on the manuscript of My
own Life, before returning to a consideration of the wider issues arising.
HUME WRITING MY OWN LIFE What is under scrutiny here is Hume's original manuscript.
The focus is not on the text of the 1777 first edition of The Life of David
Hume, nor on Mossner's (1980: 611–15) transcription of the manuscript,
the version that perhaps most present-day readers come across. It is instead
on my own detailed transcription of the original manuscript, which includes
all of Hume's excisions, insertions and other amendments, so as to produce
a much busier and more active text than most readers of Hume's work are accustomed
to. In the discussion of this which follows, the emphasis is not the content
of My own Life, but specifically the traces left of Hume's actual writing
of it, the amendments that mark the progress of his pen on that day in April
1776 when the manuscript was written. There are some 17 significant marks
of this kind, as well as less signif- icant changes to correct simple mistakes.
For word-count reasons, 10 of the more significant changes will be discussed,
selected because they pro- vide interesting insight into Hume's writing process.
Following this, what these marks of writing My own Life add up to, together
with what they suggest about the `persona of the philosopher', will be discussed
in the conclusion. From where and to whom 18 of April 1776 My own Life It
is difficult for a man to speak long of himself without Vanity : Therefore
I shall be short. It may be thought an Instance of Vanity, that I pretend
at all
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to write
my Life : But this Narrative shall contain little more than the History of
my Writings ; as indeed, almost all my Life has been spent in literary Pursuits
and Occupations. The first Success of most of ^my^ writings was not such as
to be an Object of Vanity. The first example does not in fact concern any
change made by Hume, but rather how he marked the opening page of the manuscript
to `this Narrative' that will be the `History of my Writings'. No addressee
is named, although Hume commences My own Life in a textual sense by speaking
(`It is difficult for a man to speak long of himself'), then writing (`that
I pretend at all to write my Life'), so there is the strong sense of an implicit
addressee who is being spoken and written to. That is, this is a kind of letter,
or perhaps an epistle, addressed to an unknown audience, perhaps a particular
person or perhaps the general one of `the future' when the letter might finally
`arrive', in the sense of a more positive audience for Hume's writings as
an oeuvre having been gained. The layout of the opening of My own Life is
exactly that of many of Hume's letters, which by the 1770s start with a date
and an address as well as an addressee (in earlier letters, the date was often
at the end). Consequently its epistolary flavour is even more pronounced when
consid- ering its layout, which is reproduced in the extract above.9 Its `date
and address' form is a feature that has, however, vanished from the printed
first edition, because the date has been moved from the start to the end of
the manuscript, with `My own Life' centred as though a title, rather than
as Hume positions it, which is as a kind of place that he was writing the
man- uscript from. Also interesting here is that the manuscript text appears
under a date, `18 of April 1776', and not above it as in the first edition,
so there is actually no guarantee in the manuscript that it was in fact necessarily
all written on the same day, as many commentators have taken for granted.10
From `it' to `them' Never literary Attempt was more unsuccessful ^unfortunate^
than my Treatise of human Nature. It fell dead-born from the Press ; without
reaching that ^such^ distinction as even to excite a Murmur among the Zealots.
But being naturally of a cheerful and sanguine Temper, I very soon recovered
that ^the^ Blow, and prosecuted with great Ardour my Studies in the Country.
In 1742, I ?gave printed at Edinburgh the first part of my Essays : The work
was favourably received, and soon made me entirely forget my former Disappointment.
On my return to London, ^from Italy^ I had the Mortification to find all England
in a Ferment on account
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of (5)
of Dr. Middleton's Free Enquiry ; while my Performance was entirely overlooked
and neglected. A new Edition, which had been published at London of my Essays,
moral and political, was not much more successful. ^met not with a much better
reception^. In these extracts from paragraphs 6 and 8 of Hume's manuscript,
words are excised from both which might imply that Hume's writings were in
themselves unsuccessful. The changes made place the emphasis instead, through
Hume's excisions and insertions, onto the reception of the Treatise and his
Essays, rather than their ideas, arguments or conceptual structure. In the
first extract from paragraph 6, `unfortunate' replaces `unsuccessful', while
the longer excision and insertion at the end of the extract from paragraph
8 emphasizes that Hume's concern was to put across that it was the public
response to, rather than the intrinsic qualities of, his Treatise and Essays
that was at issue. The paragraph 8 extract concerns Middleton having raised
questions about the facticity of some biblical miracles, while Hume had rejected
their occurrence altogether; there had been considerable excitement and debate
around Middleton's book, but with the neglect of Hume's more challenging work.
This provides an ironic comment on the unpredictable oddities of circumstance,
something that Hume's philosophical ideas about identities and circumstances
insist upon. Answering to versus replying to . . . my former Publications
(all but the unfortunate Treatise) were beginning to be the Subject of Conversation,
that the Sale of them was gradually encreasing, and that new Editions were
demanded. Answers, by Reverends and Right Reverends, came out two or three
in a Year : And I found by Dr Warburton's Railing that the Books were beginning
to be esteemed in good Company. However, I had fixed a Resolution, which I
inflexibly maintained, never to answer ^reply to^ any body ; and not being
very irascible in my Temper, I have easily kept myself ^?well^ clear of all
literary Squabbles. There is another wry or ironic comment in this extract
from paragraph 9, which concerns the unintended effects of Dr Warburton's
`railing' in giving publicity to, and gaining a greater readership for, Hume's
work. More importantly, the excision of `answer' and the insertion of `reply
to' removes the possibility that readers might suppose that Hume would `answer'
the `Reverends and Right Reverends' in the sense of `answering to' someone
in authority or superior, with `reply' being a more dialogical
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and
reciprocal term. Hume's amendment here, as with the extracts earlier from
paragraphs 6 and 8, involves him emphasizing the untoward recep- tion of his
work rather than its intrinsic qualities, and also ensuring that his equality
with his critics is conveyed. The ruling passion In the same Year was published
at London my Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, which, in my ^own^
opinion (who ought not to judge on that subject) is of all my writings, historical
? or philosophical, and ^or^ literary, incomparably the best : It came unnoticed
and unobserved into the World. The list of the types of Hume's writing in
this extract from paragraph 10 was initially `historical or philosophical',
with Hume then starting to move on to the next part of the sentence, but stopping,
excising `and' and then inserting `or', to enable him to finish the list with
`literary'. In the third paragraph of My own Life, Hume had been careful to
state that he was `seized very early with a passion for Literature, which
has been the ruling Passion of my Life' and, notably, he does not present
himself any- where in My own Life as `a philosopher'. However, the excision
here seems to indicate that Hume was making a mindful choice to present himself
in a `literary' rather than `philosophical' way. Hume is consequently being
very precise about representing himself as a man of letters, of writing generally.
And in a narrow sense he avoids, even if he does not disavow, describing himself
as a philosopher. It is certainly correct that Hume throughout distances himself
from A Treatise of Human Nature but not his other work, and his explanation
for this is that he published it before its ideas were properly worked out,
thereby inadvertently occasioning the critical response it did. However, he
then has the same job to perform concerning the negative reception to other
books, which he ascribes to `Zealots' as well as critics. However, he does
not explain anywhere in My own Life the basis of such criticisms (which to
a large extent came from religious bigotry against Hume as a non-believer).
From `it was' to `I was assailed by' I then formed the Plan of writing the
History of England ... I began ^commenced^ with the Accession of the House
of Stuart ... as the Subject was ?proper suited to every Capacity, I expected
proportional Applause : But miserable was my Disappointment : It was ^I was
assailed by^ one Cry of Reproach, Disapprobation, and even Detestation.
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The
significant change in this extract from paragraph 11 is the excision of `it
was' and the replacement insertion of `I was assailed by'. This has the effect
of shifting the meaning away from happenstance concerning the public reaction
to his Stuart history, to there having been an assail, an attack, on `I',
on him as a person, and is consonant with the changes already referred to
regarding paragraphs 6, 8, 9 and 10. Moreover, the litany of the `assails'
in this passage as involving reproach, disapprobation and `even Detestation'
emphasize their extraordinary nature, that they resulted from orchestration
(and which had adversely affected his candi- dature for a number of academic
positions). Removing `ana' Those who have not seen the strange Effect of Modes
will never imagine the Reception I met with at Paris, from Men and Women
of all Ranks and Stations. The more I recoiled from their excessive Civilities,
the more I was loaded with them. Dr Sterne told me, that he [?about fifteen
unreadable worlds] But he added, that ?his ?Vogue ?Lasted ?Only ?One ?Winter
There is, however, a real Satisfaction in living at Paris from the great Number
of sensible, knowing, and polite Company with which the City abounds. The
lengthy excision in this extract from paragraph 18 removes what could be read
as tittle-tattle from Lawrence Sterne and also tones down the criticism Hume
is making of the effects of `modes' in Paris on how people behaved. But more
importantly, it involves Hume removing traces of `ana', that is, removing
the sayings and conversation of people he knew. My own Life contains no signs
of the interiority of Hume as an individual self; there are also few traces
in it of the social groups and friendship net- works he was part of either,
apart from this `absent/present' excision in the manuscript. Indeed, more
strongly, although various of the men that Hume worked for are mentioned,
together with some of the key events occurring during the time he did so,
his many friends are entirely absent from the text, although the names of
some critics appear. A supplementary reading of this passage is that Hume
wanted specifically to remove this sign of his acquaintance with Sterne, because
he was at the time considered a lightweight, and also because retaining the
reference to Sterne would have meant Johnson entering My own Life by the back
door. That is, Johnson's strong disapproval of the `ungodly' Hume was well
known in the circles both moved in, while Sterne was closely connected with
Johnson, and also gossip had (erroneously) claimed that Hume and Sterne had
quarrelled in Paris on the subject of religion (see Mossner, 1980: 501–503).
331
`A
life' as external events and temporal succession In ^the beginning of^ 1766,
I left Paris, and the same year, ^and next summer^ went to Edinburgh, with
^the^ same View ^as formerly^ of burying myself in a philosophical Retreat
... But in 1767, I received ^from Mr Conway^ an invitation to be Under-Secretary
... I returned ^to Edinburgh^A in 1769, very opulent. Throughout the manuscript
of My own Life, there are many insertions and omissions which make dates,
places and the succession of events con- siderably more precise. There are
five such in even this short extract from paragraph 19, with others in various
of the extracts discussed earlier, emphasizing the temporal junctures and
specific locations of these events and occurrences that Hume is writing about.
It is notable that the manu- script of My own Life is organized around temporal
succession and not implied causation. That is, events simply follow earlier
events, with Hume writing no `explanation' of the how and why of these. And
apart from writing about his feeling for literature and not law or commerce
near the start, Hume assigns no agentic role to the various things he did,
but rather by implication presents these as him responding to externalities.
Also the terms he uses to describe his character as an equable and mild one
are ones that present him in a non-agentic way. I, it, his person and his
spirits In spring 1775, I was struck with a Disorder in my Bowels, which at
first gave me no alarm, but has since, as I apprehend ^it,^ become mortal
and incurable. I now reckon upon a speedy Dissolution. I have suffered very
little pain from it ; ^my Disorder^ and what is ^more^ strange, have, notwithstanding
the great Decline of my Person, never suffered a Moment's Abatement of my
Abatement Spirits : Insomuch, that were I to choose ^name^ the Period of my
Life which I shoud ^most^ choose to pass over again I might be tempted to
name ^point to^ this later Period. In this extract from paragraph 20, the
penultimate paragraph of My own Life, Hume's writing carefully distinguishes
between `I', the `it' that is the `Disorder', his `Person' and his `Spirits'.
In making these excisions and insertions, Hume was very specific about `it',
the `Disorder in his bowels'. The `Decline of his Person' follows, but it
is not causally linked. Then his `Spirits' are treated as distinct from his
`Person' and its decline. Also the changes to the last sentence here, starting
`Insomuch', have the effect of emphasizing the dominance of `Spirits', because
Hume then writes that if required he would `most choose' the period in which
this has happened as the one he would like to `pass over again'.
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This
directly links to Hume's ideas about identity in his earlier overtly philosophical
writings in a number of ways. Not only is there no fixed principle assigned
to identity, but also being separated out here into almost unrelated dimensions.
Events and their succession are treated as impact- ing on his `person', but
not his spirits; and the decline of his bodily person is presented as occuring
almost of its own accord. And although his person might be experiencing a
`speedy dissolution', his spirits the text insists are such that if he could
choose a period of time to live over again, it would be this very time in
which he, or rather his person, was dying. Character and matters of fact To
conclude historically with my ^own^ Character. I am, or rather was (for that
is the Style I must now use ?with ?any in speaking of myself ; which emboldens
me the more to speak my Sentiments)[.] I was, I say, a man of mild Dispositions,
of Command of Temper, of an open, social, and cheerful Humour, ^capable of
Attachment, but little susceptible of Enmity^ and of great Moderation in all
my Passions. Even my Love of literary Fame, my ruling Passion, never soured
my humour, notwithstanding my frequent Disappointments. My Company was not
unacceptable to the young and careless, as well as to the Studious and literary
: And as I took a particular Pleasure in the Company of modest women, I had
no Reason to be displeased with the Reception I met with from them. In a word,
though most men, any wise eminent, have found reason to complain of Calumny,
I never was touched, or even attacked by her baleful Tooth : And though I
wantonly exposed myself to the Rage of both civil and religious Factions,
they seemed to be disarmed in my behalf of their wonted Fury : My Friends
never had occasion to vindicate any one Circumstance of my Character and Conduct:
Not but that the Zealots ^we may well suppose^ wou'd have been glad to invent
^and propagate^ any Story to my Disadvantage, but they coud never find (13)
find any which, they thought, woud wear the Face of Probability. I cannot
say, there is no Vanity in making this funeral Oration of myself; but ^I h
ope^A it is not a misplac'd one ; and this is a Matter of Fact which is easily
clear'd and ascertained. This is the entirety of the last paragraph of My
own Life. It starts, rather unnervingly for present-day readers, with Hume
commenting that he must now `speak' of himself in the past tense of `I was'
rather than `I am'. He then does this throughout this paragraph without mistake – `I was ... a man', `my Company was not', `I had no Reason', `I never was touched' – until the
333
end
of its final sentence on page 13, when Hume actively `is' again, with `I cannot
say' and `I hope it is'. The manuscript of My own Life consists of three sheets
of paper, 9 inches by 14 inches, which are folded together in their middle,
giving six double-sided sheets and 12 sides of paper; and there is another
similar sheet, folded in the same way, and attached, but written on only the
first four lines of its first side, the page numbered 13 by Hume. Hume, then,
clearly set out to write something short, of around 12 of these folded pages
in length. Equally clearly, the entirety of the last sentence of My own Life
was important, important enough for Hume to take another sheet, fold it, and
write only the last few lines of the sentence on its first page, page 13,
leaving the rest blank. This last sentence comments that, whatever vanity
is involved in writing such a thing, he hopes it is not misplaced. Does Hume
here intend `vanity' as the word is generally understood now and as many of
his present-day readers, including Siebert and Schuster, as noted earlier,
have presupposed? Against this, the context suggests that the word means,
to quote Hume's opening paragraph, `that I pretend at all to write my Life'.
This is in part because writing `my life' flouted conventions concerning a
properly civil and `Attic' rectitude about personal matters. But it is in
greater part because writing `a life' of any kind attaches an emphasis to
`I' in a way that Hume was philosophically uncomfortable with and which he
had attempted to reduce earlier in the manuscript by the distinctions carefully
drawn between `I', `Person', `Spirits' and the `it' of disorder, dissolution
and decease. It is interesting in this regard to note the comment made in
the very last sentence of the manuscript, concerning Hume's vanity or otherwise
being `a Matter of Fact'. This could be taken as meaning that it is only the
exter- nals about a person that can be `cleared and ascertained' by others; that is, as a factual history of external events, rather than as a self-biography
with interiority and the ana of social life. However, it would also be consistent
with Hume's views in A Treatise... if this was being applied to externally
verifiable aspects of `character' or identity as well, because for Hume such
externalities were what identity added up to. `TO WRITE MY LIFE' My own Life,
then, inscribes the same conundrum that exercised Hume elsewhere in his writings
on matters of identity, and which he famously felt unable to resolve. This
is that intellectually he evacuates `I' as having any fixed `principle'; and
yet it is `I' that writes, does this and that, and has continuity; and the
writings and the person of `I' are assailed by others, who also ascribe continuity
and fixity to this `I'. And be the `it' of Hume's disorder, the `I' of his
person, and the spirits of his character,
334
never
so teased apart, all of them will cease together on the decease of the `I'
for whom writing My own Life was some kind of `Funeral Oration'. I now want
to consider how this plays out in relation to those traces of Hume's writing
process which are marked on the manuscript of My own Life, to comment on what
these excisions, insertions and amendments add up to, to consider why he saw
My own Life as `entertaining', and also to look at what light, if any, can
be thrown on what kind of an `it' in genre terms My own Life might be. Hume
clearly had a specific purpose in mind concerning how and where My own Life
should appear in print: he presented it to Smith and Strahan as a prefix,
a careful choice of word, to his works as a whole. And by acting as the prefix
to the whole, Hume is using this text inscribing his fractured view of self
as one lacking `fixed principle' and which is composed by successive externalities
in an epigraphic way – that is, as a key to or metaphor for read- ing
and interpreting his collected works as a whole, as suggested by John Sturrock
(1993). It is in this respect that I think Hume commented to Strahan that
readers might find My own Life `entertaining'. People familiar with Hume's
work and/or familiar with Hume himself would have been aware of his views
about identity and his refusal to ascribe `simple and continued prin- ciple'
to a notion of self, as in the quotation used as the epigraph to my dis- cussion.
My own Life both represents this view and, by writing `I', confounds it, precisely
the impasse that Hume had interrogated in The Treatise of Human Nature and
its Appendix and which he appears to have thought unsolvable. And in this
regard, it was perhaps because it was intended as an epigraph prefixing his
collected works that Hume had commented in his 8 June 1776 letter to Strahan
that it would need to be `but a small one'. There is no indication, neither
in the text of My own Life nor in Hume's letters, that he saw himself as producing
a self-biography. Its many exci- sions, insertions and other amendments indicate
that My own Life was written in a precise and careful way – it is indeed
a `curious' production in this sense of the word. The opening of the manuscript
very precisely presents this text as providing a history of Hume's writings,
with literature being his ruling passion. However, later in it Hume presents
his writings as concerned with history and philosophy, but amends this to
add litera- ture to the list, suggesting some reluctance publicly to claim
the category `philosopher' – and perhaps also implying that the insistence
on literature as his ruling passion was a matter of public presentation. And
signs of ana concerning this highly sociable man have been almost entirely
omitted, and when they were included in the manuscript they were then excised.
Relatedly, there is no interiority given to the writing `I' – even
the final paragraph assessment of Hume's `character' provides this in a way
that turns the assessment round to matters of external verifiable fact which
can be ascertained by others. Moreover, the very last point that Hume made
in
335
My
own Life, about his writing a `Funeral Oration' and this having value, was
so important to him that he prepared more paper of the appropriate size and
wrote those extra few lines stating this. So do these excisions, insertions
and amendments on the manuscript of My own Life throw any light on matters
of genre and, more importantly, on how to understand this manuscript? In my
view they do, although per- haps not in an entirely straightforward way. My
own Life is not quite a self-biography; nor is it, as it was titled by Smith
and/or Strahan, `The Life of David Hume Written by himself'. It is a history
of Hume's writings with some, mainly related, externalities of his life, which
would act as a suitable prefix to his collected works as a whole. In evacuating
interiority to `I', it has a clear mirror-writing rela- tionship to the discussions
of identity and self that appear elsewhere in Hume's work, perhaps particularly
in the Appendix to A Treatise of Human Nature. It is also in a marked way
a kind of letter, one written from a life on a particular date to an unnamed
addressee, with its `funeral Oration' character mentioned in the last few
lines on page 13 of the man- uscript implying a similar loose kind of addressee
that such orations typ- ically have. This is people in general, and the future,
the future when Hume's epistle was not only written and, he hoped and planned,
sent out into the world, but would eventually have `arrived', to be read by
a sym- pathetic audience for his collected works. My own Life is certainly
not the `philosophical autobiography' that Schuster tries to fit it within,
thereby ignoring most of its interesting fea- tures. But then, it does not
inscribe `the persona of the philosopher' either, or at least not in any very
straightforward way. That is, it certainly constructs a particular kind of
persona, one that attempts – necessarily contradictorily, in writing
`I' at all – to evacuate `the principle of himself'. And this is a
per- sona in which, among other things, the writing `I' – in public
writing at least – disowns itself as a philosopher and situates itself
more broadly within the framework of literature and writing, while at the
same time being intended as an interpretive epigraph condensing Hume's philosophical
argument about identity to stand at the head of his collected works. And beyond
this, it can also be seen as the inscription of the persona of `le bon David'
(Mossner, 1980: 4, 318, 529), who might not be a philosopher as the world
saw this but nonetheless possessed philosophical tranquillity, which Hume
had characterized as `superior to pain, sorrow, anxiety, and each assault
of adverse fortune... [This attitude carries] a grandeur ... which seizes
the spectator, and strikes him with admiration. And the nearer we can approach
in practice this tranquillity and indifference... the more greatness of mind
shall we discover in the world' (Hume, 1748/1975: 356). As this discussion
has indicated, My own Life is not a failed `proper' autobiography, not a misconceived
self-biography as understood at the time,
336
and
not a duplicitous attempt to hide or misrepresent personal detail. Although
`a life', it is a written life of a kind conceived and worked out for specifically
philosophical purposes. My own Life can best be viewed as a piece of mirror-writing,
as writing which refracts the ideas about selves and identity present in Hume's
earlier and most definitely philosophical works. It can also be seen as the
inscription of the persona of Hume as a writer of literature and a man of
letters generally but more especially as someone who had lived `the good life'
in his own philosophical terms. My own Life in fact inscribes Hume's persona
as a `philosopher manqué', not in the sense of `failed', but rather of eschewing
the title while claiming the practice. This persona is very much that of Hume
dying as he had lived, without religious beliefs and with a tranquil dispassionate
mind. Interestingly, the critical responses to and defences of The Life of
David Hume after its 1777 publi- cation revolved around claims about the referentiality
or otherwise of Hume's written life in relation to Hume's actual death (see
Mossner, 1980: 621–22, for an overview), lending support to this reading
of My own Life as the inscription of `a persona', one involving the life and
the works of David Hume being presented as a philosopher and a philosophy
manqué. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The origin of this article was as a contribution
to the University of Edinburgh's Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities
(IASH) `Life Writing' seminar in February 2006. My thanks for the opportunity
to shape my thoughts and for interesting comments gratefully used in writ-
ing this full version.
NOTES
1 David Hume (1711—76)
is generally regarded as the most significant philosopher to write in English,
a key figure of Enlightenment philosophy, and at the centre of a network
of giants of the Scottish Enlightenment, including Adam Ferguson, William
Robertson and Adam Smith as well as Hume himself. See Morris, 2001.
2 National Library of Scotland,
David Hume Manuscripts, 23159, 23.
3 Some of these responses
are discussed in My own Life. Fuller details are provided in the relevant
parts of Mossner, 1980 in relation to each of Hume's key publications.
4 I am very grateful to
Thomas Ahnert for suggesting I should explore this body of work.
5 National Library of Scotland,
David Hume Manuscripts, 23159, 24.
6 Smith and Strahan were
anticipating an orchestrated violent response to the Dialogues from
certain sections of the religious community. In the event, when published
in 1779 there was praise mixed with less vociferous criticism than they had
feared.
337
7 Hume's letters are in a
number of archive collections. For the published versions, see Greig, 1932; and Klibansky and Mossner, 1954.
8 It is composed by a short
preface, the edited text of My own Life, and a long letter, an `ostensible
letter' written by Smith to Strahan on 9 November 1776, about how Hume had
died, in a moral or existential sense.
9 On epistolary theorization,
see Stanley, 2004.
10 Hume's handwriting on
the manuscript provides few clues in this regard. Certainly the writing differs
at a number of points, as his pen was re-dipped and/or sharpened; however,
this would have happened if the manuscript had been written in one sitting.
I tend to the view it was probably written on this day in its entirety, including
its amendments, excisions and insertions, but still think it worth making
the point that Hume's manuscript style in fact does not `guarantee' this
in the way the published first edition leads readers to presuppose.
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NOTE
ON CONTRIBUTOR
LIZ
STANLEY is Professor of Sociology at the University of Edinburgh, UK. Presently
editing the complete Olive Schreiner letters for publication, and a long-time
writer on auto/biographical matters and coiner of this ana- lytical term,
her most recent book is Mourning Becomes... Post/Memory, Commemoration & the Concentration Camps of the South African War (2006. Manchester: Manchester
University Press; and New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press).