Table Of Content

THE IRONIC HUME \ The Ironic Hume by John Valdimir Price UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS PRESS, AUSTIN Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 65-13513 Copyright © 1965 by John Valdimir Price All Rights Reserved Printed by The University of Texas Printing Division. Austin Bound by L'niversal Bookbindery. Inc.. San Antonio To NH P A KP 31602 PREFACE Of books about irony, or of irony itself, there is no end, nor is there likely to be, so long as men have a sense of humor. Of books about David Hume, no end is yet in sight. Having wondered what impact the ironic mode in England during the eighteenth century had on David Hume, I attended to a close study of his texts, his life, and, most im¬ portant, the intellectual milieu in which he lived. A feeling that many of Hume’s concessions to religion were ironic led me to correlate his writings with his life and his intellectual milieu. Consequently, one of the assumptions of this book is that the text alone is not enough in determining an author’s meaning. With this in mind, I have used Professor Mossner’s biography of Hume as something of a guidebook, and I should like to think that my work supplements our understanding of Hume’s life and thought. Indeed, much of what I say may be puz¬ zling to the reader unfamiliar with The Life of David Hume, but scholarship stands to gain little by the repetition of more than the essential facts. I have resisted, not always successfully, the temptation to correlate Hume’s ironic mode with other examples from the eighteenth cen¬ tury. Such a digression would have been interesting but beyond my in¬ tention in writing this book, as contrasted to a hypothetical book I might have written. As for other excursions the book does not con¬ tain—I have not enumerated every manifestation of Hume’s irony; some of those I have omitted are mentioned in other books and articles on Hume listed in the secondary sources. Hume’s lesser-known works, such as the Account of Stewart, receive disproportionate attention simply because they illuminate the mode and methodology of irony in Hume’s better-known writings, such as the two Enquiries. I have tried in most places to avoid "explicating” the irony of a particular passage, except when it must serve as prologue to an expla- viii The Ironic Hume nation of one of Hume’s ideas or to the intellectual, cultural, and social background against which the irony must be seen. Were lengthy titles in vogue today, I should probably have subtitled this book An Inquiry into the Intellectual Background of Irony as a Developing Mode of Thought in David Hume’s Life and Writings. But lengthy subtitles, like Pinocchio’s nose, can go on forever. One is never quite certain how a study of this kind will turn out until the research and writing have been completed. I was able to find most of the materials I needed in The University of Texas library and the Henry E. Huntington library, whose librarians were courteous and helpful. I am particularly grateful for the aid I received outside of this country from the National Library of Scotland, from Mr. R. Burnet and Miss Margaret Deal of that library; and from Mr. R. O. MacKenna of the University Library, Glasgow. Mr. MacKenna was instrumental in helping me locate copies of the Bellmen’s Petition and the Account of Stewart. While libraries, indispensable for research, are usually accessible to the scholar, financial support for projects in the "humanities” (to ac¬ cept for a moment the artificial distinction between "scientists” and "humanists”) is not so accessible. It is a pleasure to thank the Commit¬ tee on Research of the University of California, Riverside, for a grant that considerably lessened some of the tedious work that would other¬ wise have been necessary. I am indebted to a number of people for their aid in reading the manuscript in its various stages. Professors Thomas M. Cranfill, Daniel Kading, and Gordon H. Mills, all of The University of Texas, were kind enough to read the manuscript in its early stages with great care and to make numerous useful comments, which I very much appreci¬ ate. Professor Ralph Cohen of the University of California, Los An¬ geles, also read the manuscript and made some particularly acute suggestions. My good friend Jack Gilbert of Louisiana State Univer¬ sity, Baton Rouge, has given me much help by reading various drafts of the manuscript, and our numerous conversations about Hume have always been instructive to me. I am indebted to no one so much as Professor Ernest Campbell Mossner, whose scholarship on Hume must be the starting point for anyone writing on Hume. His seemingly un¬ limited knowledge of Hume and Humeana more than once kept me Preface IX from foolish errors. His encouragement and his similar interest in Hume kept my enthusiasm high, and his meticulous reading and subse¬ quent suggestions for improvement of the manuscript were an in¬ valuable aid in writing. Among my colleagues at the University of California, Riverside, I should like to express my appreciation to Frederick J. Hoffman for reading the manuscript and for other kind¬ nesses too numerous to count, and to Stanley Stewart, whose encourage¬ ment, friendship, and example made the writing of the manuscript seem, at the very least, much easier. Finally, it is a commonplace in acknowledgments to thank one’s wife, and I would be more than remiss in my duties did I not so thank my wife, Sylvia, for continual aid in proofreading, in checking footnotes, and in spotting logical inconsis¬ tencies. All this help, of course, does not relieve me of the responsibility for any remaining errors. In accord with convention, then, I add the assertion, not likely to be challenged, that I alone am guilty of any errors of fact or judgment that may be committed in the ensuing pages. J. V. P. Riverside, California CONTENTS Preface . vii Abbreviations. xiii Bibliographical Note . xv Permissions. xv i 1. The Formation of a Literary Mode . 3 2. A Mode of Living and Writing 36 3. The Expansion of a Literary Mode . 74 4. The Culmination of a Literary Mode 121 Appendixes A. Account of Stewart . 153 B. Bellmen s Petition . 173 Authorities Cited. 177 Index 181