On Hume on toleration, and explanation.
When in the 1990s I first read Hume’s (1757) The Natural History of Religion it was not much studied. It lacks the argumentative fireworks and liveliness of the more famous, posthumously published Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. It was not unusual to encounter the Dialogues even in the class-room.
Since, I suspect the Natural History has gained some attention because of the growth of cognitive science of religion of which it can (with some permissiveness) be thought an anticipation. But as conceived from that perspective it is not more penetrating than, say, part 1 of Leviathan, or much of Locke’s Essay, or even Book 1 of Hume’s Treatise (of which it may be thought an ‘application.’) The Natural History really shines as a kind of social theory of religion (as the chapter headings reveal), and Hume’s erudition and skill as an essayist is in full display as he comments on the follies of mankind.
As an aside, the more widely read I have become in subsequent decades the more I recognize that nearly all the arguments of the Dialogues were quite heavily worked through not just in Cicero, but also in the two centuries preceding Hume. This helps explain why the book barely caused a stir when it was published, but it does raise an interesting question why it caused so much anxiety to Adam Smith (the intended original literary executor) and Hume himself. My sense is that there are, in fact, one or two new arguments that are far-reaching in their implications. But that’s for another time.
In Natural History, Hume claims that pagans are intrinsically more tolerant than monotheists because “by limiting the powers and functions of its deities, it naturally admits the gods of other sects and nations to a share of divinity, and renders all the various deities, as well as rites, ceremonies, or traditions, compatible with each other.” By contrast monotheism (which he calls ‘theism”) “supposes one sole deity, the perfection of reason and goodness, it should, if justly prosecuted, banish every thing frivolous, unreasonable, or inhuman from religious worship, and set before men the most illustrious example, as well as the most commanding motives, of justice and benevolence.”
To these generalizations, he notes an important exception to paganism and monotheism each. First, the main exception to his generalization about the (religious) tolerating nature of paganism is (while citing Xenophon, Plutarch, and Herodotus) derived from Egyptian experience:
When the oracle of Delphi was asked, what rites or worship was most acceptable to the gods? Those which are legally established in each city, replied the oracle…The religious wars and persecutions of the Egyptian idolaters are indeed an exception to this rule; but are accounted for by ancient authors from reasons singular and remarkable. Different species of animals were the deities of the different sects among the Egyptians; and the deities being in continual war, engaged their votaries in the same contention. The worshippers of dogs could not long remain in peace with the adorers of cats or wolves.
I offer two further observations on this example: first, Hume here takes as a kind of fact a Heraclitan philosophy of nature (‘all is strife’) and uses that to explain the projection of it on the Egyptian animal-deities, who are thus, of course, ‘being in continual war.’ Because he immediately also satirizes the case with the cats and dog example, his own, as it were first order, embrace of the Heraclitan philosophy of nature may go unnoticed. That this is Hume’s own position is only fully transparent in the posthumous Dialogues where he revives Empedocles’ natural selection arguments for the evolution of species (and in which a version of the Heraclitan philosophy of nature is made more fine-grained and plausible.)
Second, as presented (the source is Xenophon), the Delphic claim basically is the Hobbesian, Spinozist, and Humean position on religion—that is, that secular authority decides which religion is authorized in its territory (and, also, maintain some political control over the Church).* Of course, in a context where paganism is not a live option, it is somewhat amusing that the Delphic oracular spokesperson for the Gods themselves are presented as endorsing the primacy of civic authority.
This also nicely sets up the exception to the generalization of monotheist intolerance that Hume is willing to mention and discuss. Amazingly (and perhaps somewhat unfairly given Muslim practices of tolerating the people of the Book), and this reinforces the generalization, this is entirely unconnected to the nature of monotheist religion itself. As he puts it:
And if, among Christians, the English and Dutch have embraced the principles of toleration, this singularity has proceeded from the steady resolution of the civil magistrate, in opposition to the continued efforts of priests and bigots.
Again, I offer two observations. First, thus, Hume argues, in part based on his (again rather selective) treatment of the empirical data, that monotheism only becomes tolerant where the state is both powerful and determined enough to enforce tolerance. That is, Hume does not see a possibility for an enlightenment (or pacific) monotheist religion to sustain itself absent legal sanctions to enforce such lovingkindness.
Second, even in Hume’s own age the principles of toleration were quite attenuated. A generation later, Richard Price noted in a famous sermon commemorating the 101st anniversary of the revolution of 1688 (and inspired by the start of the French revolution), “A Discourse on the Love of Our Country,” [toleration] has “been since extended, but not sufficiently; for there still exist penal laws on account of religious opinions, which (were they carried into execution) would shut up many of our places of worship, and silence and imprison some of our ablest and best men.—The test laws are also still in force; and deprive of eligibility to civil and military offices, all who cannot conform to the established worship.”[1] (This is the very sermon that enraged Burke, although not this part; Burke agreed that toleration was quite limited still in England.) Hume himself surely would have agreed with Price since religious bigots prevented his own appointment at Edinburgh (and more indirectly, Glasgow).
So, lurking in Hume’s argument of the Natural History, is a political argument for the significance of state capacity (and willingness) to create the legal conditions of religious tolerance. Of course, why it would want to do so is left unstated in the Natural History.
I could stop here. But it is worth noting that from a Christian and Jewish perspective, it is a bit odd to treat the Romans as tolerant. Hume addresses this objection, but not in the Natural History.
He does, however, de facto anticipate or offer the answer to the objection in a footnote added, I think, to the second (1742) ed. version “Of Parties in General.” That footnote also complicates the larger argument I have ascribed to Hume:
an instance of the usual caution and moderation of the Romans in such cases; and very different from their violent and sanguinary method of treating the Christians. Hence we may entertain a suspicion, that those furious persecutions of Christianity were in some measure owing to the imprudent zeal and bigotry of the first propagators of that sect; and Ecclesiastical history affords us many reasons to confirm this suspicion.
Again, I offer two observations: first, in response to the objection I posited, Hume here clearly blames the Christian martyrs for their own persecution.
Second, the footnote as a whole complicates, even undermines, the stylized history he is relying on to offer his generalizations and exceptions about the nature of polytheism and monotheism in the Natural History. We learn here that he knows that ancient tolerance was not as tolerant as he claims. And that in fact, modern tolerance (again ascribed to the English and Dutch) is the historical exception (if that is true). Since we know that Hume repeatedly edited his works throughout his life (and the nature of religious toleration remained a pre-occupation even up to his famous death-bed scene in which he imagines a dialogue with Charon), it is incredibly unlikely that this discrepancy would have escaped his notice. He also starts the Natural History with the claim that “every enquiry, which regards religion, is of the utmost importance.”
A certain kind of reader I am sure is tempted here to ascribe a kind of dishonesty to Hume. She might well argue that his treatment of monotheism in Natural History is slanted against Christianity (and other monotheists).
But I think we can block that move, in part, by reminding ourselves that Hume’s treatment of the genre of natural history is rather specific. It’s not meant to be a complete history of actual religions. Rather it is a kind of reconstruction of some of the fundamental ‘principles’ — by which Hume means general causes — in human nature of religion.
By religion Hume here means (rather narrowly) “the belief of invisible, intelligent power.” And while widespread, he claims (on the basis of travel and historical testimony) it is not universal and so not an original principle of human nature. He then concludes:
The first religious principles must be secondary; such as may easily be perverted by various accidents and causes, and whose operation too, in some cases, may, by an extraordinary concurrence of circumstances, be altogether prevented. What those principles are, which give rise to the original belief, and what those accidents and causes are, which direct its operation, is the subject of our present enquiry.
That is to say, that the treatment of the generalizations about the tolerating (or not) nature of paganism and monotheism, and their exceptions, fall under the ‘accidents and causes’ that direct the operation of religion once locally established. And in human affairs, for Hume such accidents and causes are themselves (in general) at best robust generalizations with exceptions expected.
[1] Price, Richard. A Discourse on the Love of Our Country. T. Cadell, 1789.
*It’s worth looking at Xenophon’s treatment of the Delphic claim and compare it to Plato’s presentation of Socrates’ suggestions on the role of Delphi in the founding of the kallipolis in the Republic.