Istvan Hont

(University of Cambridge)

Hume's Knaves and the Shadow of Machiavellianism

Pact with the Devil:

the Ethics, Politics, and Economics of Anti-Machiavellian Machiavellism

Brighton, 28-9 May, 2010

First rough draft, partially footnoted.For the use of conference participants only.

Do not cite without permission

In 1741, the thirty years old David Hume published an essay entitled 'Ofthe Study of History'. Itappeared in every subsequent edition ofhis essays until 1760, when itwas dropped at the very pointwhen Hume became fully engrossed in writing his medieval volume ofthe History ofEngland, whilerevising and vociferously defending his Stuart and Tudor volumes. Atthat pointhe wasalsopreoccupied with the reception of Robertson's History ofScotland and advising his friend on futurehistorical projects. Clearly, it mattered greatly, both for his reputation as a historian and for thereception ofhis English history, what his public views on thestudy ofhistory were. There is virtuallynothing is written about this withdrawn essay in the voluminous Hume literature. ^There is a sort ofgeneral assumption that Hume might have withdrawn the essay because it was too Addisonian, notonly in the chatty style, but also in the relatively frivolous content, at least when compared to thebig topics in politics, political economy and moral philosophy that were discussed in Hume's otheressays.^

The accusation of frivolity can only apply to the first half ofthe essay, in which Hume recommendshistory to female readers. When courting a pretty woman, he had senther Plutarch's Parallel Lives,but the book metwith a rejection once the readerreached the chapters on Alexander and Caesarand their politics. In response, Hume argues that reading aboutthe lives of pasthistorical actors is asentertaining and full offascination as reading modern novels and society gossip. The study ofhistory, he continued, was an integral partboth ofoursentimental and cognitve education. 'Whatspectacle can be imagined, so magnificent, sovarious, so interesting', Hume wrote, than

to seethe policy ofgovernment, and the civility ofconversation refining by degrees, andeverything which isornamental to human life advancing towards its perfection. To remark

It is not mentioned in Nicholas Phillipson's Hume (London: Weidenfeid and Nicholson, 1989), or KarenO'Brien, Narratives ofthe Enlightenment: Cosmopolitan Historyfrom Voltaire to Gibbon (Cambridge- CUP1997).

^Mossner, The Life ofDavid Hume (Oxford, OUP, 1970 [1954]), p. 140.

Whether frivolous and self-mockmg or not in style, Humedid not abandon in 1760 hisviewthathistory wasa competitor to novels When privately advising William Robertson of hisfuturehistorical projects, he counselled him againstwriting the Life of Charles V(the book that Robertsondid indeed write) but rather advised him to write a modern equivalentof Plutarch's Lives, intheverysametermsas he had first done it in 'Ofthe Study of Histor/ twenty years earlier." This leaves thesecond halfof the essay as the possibleculprit in the withdrawal. This is an interesting proposition,because it contained one of the most important, and possibly the most interesting, philosophical

defence of Machiavelli from the charge of Machiavellianism written in the entire eighteenth century.

Hume signalled to his readers thatthesecond half ofhis essay was entirely serious.® In itHumeadded two further reasons why history was very important, beside being supremely pleasurable andeducative to read, namely that it improved our chance to acquire both knowledge and virtue.History was magister vitae,and studying the historyof one's own country, over and beyond thehistory of antiquity, was absolutely necessary part of one's patriotic functioning in society. Humepresented history as the laboratory of the science of man, which 'extends our experience to all pastages, and to the most distant nations; making them contribute as much to our improvement in

wisdom, as if they had actually lain under our observation'. The third argument concerned the moral

character of the 'science of man'. History was not simply a storehouse of additional fact about past

human experience. Rather, history added an entire new dimension to it.

Hume distinguished four modes of moral discourse, poetical, philosophical, practical and historical,

each being built on a different sentimental approach to virtue.

1./ Poets focused entirely on the passions. This approach lacked balance and moderation. Poets,

Hume wrote, 'can paint virtue in the most charming colours; but,... they often become advocates for

vice'.®

2./ Philosophers as moralists, Hume pointed out, suffer from two kind of professional

malformations. First, they over-analyse things and may lose the sense that morality is real and does

exist. They are 'are apt to bewilder themselves in the subtilty of their speculations; and we haveseen some go so far as to deny the reality of all moral distinctions'. Second, philosophers operate in

artificial conceptual isolation, abstracting from all sentiments, including basic moral feelings:

When a philosopher contemplates characters and manners in his closet, the general abstract

view of the objects leaves the mind so cold and unmoved, that the sentiments of nature

have no room to play, and hescarce feels the difference between vice and virtue.^

3./ Practical men, men of business, who lived real lives and actions, needed to consider the

character of those whom they interacted with, but only in relation to their own interests in the

" Humeto William Robertson, summer of 1759, Hume,Letters, ed.J.Y.T. Greig(Oxford, OUR, 1969 [1932]), vol.1, p. 314.5 ,

6 ,

®'Ofthe Study of History', p. 565.'Of the Study of History', p. 567.

' 'Ofthe Study of History', p. 567.2 I P

matter, rather than in a rounded and fair fashion. The practical man's judgment, Hume wrote, was

'warped on every occasion by the violence ofhis passion'.®

4./ History was largely free from the inbuilt distortions of the other three approaches to virtue and

vice. Historian were impartial, unlike the men of action they had no 'particular interest or concern

to pervert their judgment'. At the same time, unlike philosophers, historians did not lose agency

from their sight. A historian is 'sufficiently interested in the characters and events, to have a lively

sentiment of blame or praise'. Of course, historians could err 'in their judgments of particular

persons'., but they were unlikely to lose their grip on the moral dimensions of life altogether. They,

Hume emphasized, 'have been, almost without exception, the true friends of virtue, and have always

represented it in its proper colours'.

Importantly, Hume's example here is Machiavelli, the strongest possible example of a man who

allegedly was without a sense of morality as a political writer:

MACHIAVEL himself discovers a true sentiment of virtue in his history of FLORENCE. When

he talks as a Politician, in his general reasonings, he considers poisoning, assassination and

perjury, as lawful arts of power; but when he speaks as an Historian, in his particular

narrations, he shows so keen an indignation against vice, and so warm an approbation of

virtue, in many passages, that I could not forbear applying to him that remark of HORACE,

That if you chace away nature, tho' with ever so great indignity, she will always return upon

you.®

This statement was no mere accident, obiter dicta, but goes to the heart of Hume's political

philosophy. The distinctions that Hume that deployed in his defence of Machiavelli was a central

tenet of his thought and one. As we shall see, that he also applied to himself.

In his statement Hume drove a wedge between Machiavelli and Machiavellism. Anti-machiavellian

machiavellism is not a term with a historical provenance. Machiavellism, however, certainly is.

Montesquieu, an older contemporary of Hume, used it describe a species of aggressive monarchical

politics in which princes rule by violent 'grands coups d'autorite'. He contrasted it with the politics of

moderation, with a sort of procedural constitutionalism. Hume, however, used a more traditional

image: 'poisoning, assassination and perjury, as lawful arts of power'. This was closer to the

description of'Machiavelisme' which appeared in the Encyciopedie, authored by the editor, Denis

Diderot. He supplied a basic description in a single sentence:

Machiavellianism, an abhorrent type of politics that can be described in two words - the artof tyranny - whose principles were propagated in the works of the Florentine, Machiavelli.^®

Bydubbing Machiavellism as the art of tyranny, Diderot signed up to the tradition first inaugurated

by the late sixteenth-century Huguenot writer Innocent Gentile, who in his famous Contre-Machiavei

®'Ofthe Study of History', p.567.®'Ofthe Study ofHistory', p. 567. Hume's quoteisfrom Horace's Epistles 1.10. 24-25.

Diderot, Denis (ascribed by Jacques Proust). "Machiavellianism" [1765], The Encyclopedia of Diderot &d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project., trans. Timothy Cleary. (Ann Arbor, Ml; Scholarly PublishingOffice of the University of Michigan Library, 2004), web.

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of 1576,described Machiavelli's ideas as 'not a Politicke, but a Tyrannical Science'.^^ This wasfamously repeated by Pierre Bayle, who in his Dictionary wrote that Machiavelli's doctrines in the

Prince were so pernicious that for public opinion 'Machiavelism, and the art of reigning tyrannically,

are terms of the same import'/^ This tyrannical science of The Prince, Diderot elaborated,

teaches sovereigns to spurn religion, the rules of justice, the inviolability of pacts and all that

is sacred, when it in one's interest to do so. The fifteenth and twenty-fifth chapters could be

entitled 'circumstances where it is suitable for the prince to be a villain.

However, Diderot, like Hume, followed this up with a forceful defence of Machiavelli's character and

purposes. 'Machiavellism' in the Prince was a warning to the citizens of Florence., Diderot wrote.

Machiavelli's readers misunderstood him and took 'satire for praise'. Following Bayle, Diderot

remarked that attentive readers always caught Machiavelli's sense well:

LordChancellor Bacon made no mistake when he said: this man teaches tyrants nothing;they are well aware of what they have to do, but he informs the common people of whatthey have to fear. ... Be that as it may, one can hardly doubt that at least Machiavelli hadsensed that sooner or later there would be a general outcry against his work, and that hisopponents would never manage to demonstrate that his prince was an unfaithful portrayalof the majorityof those who have been the most impressive rulers over men."

Hume's defence of Machiavelli had the same drift as Bacon's remark. For him there was no questionof Machiavelli having written a satire or a direct warning. Machiavelli might have erred in his

particular judgments, but he produced no tyrannical science, for he described facts, including the

facts of tyranny, as a politicalscientist. Political science, Hume implied, was inherently not aboutmoral judgment. Machiavelli's moral sense was on display in his histories, where, as Hume claimed,

the Florentine secretary had shown as 'keen an indignation against vice' as a 'warm approbation of

virtue'. Those who could not accept the gap between the political and historical works displayed a

lack of methodological sophistication.

Innocent Gentillet, A Discourse upon the meones of wel-governing and maintaining in good peace, akingdom or other principalitie. Divided into three parts, nameiy The Counsel!, the Religion, and the Poiicie,which a Prince ought to hold andfollow. Against Nicholas Machiavell the Florentine, trans. Simon Patericke(London : Adam Islip, 1602); sig. A2.Gentillet indicated that 'PolitickeArt' was written on by Plato, Aristotleand other philosophers. Bypolitical science he meant maxims and general rules applicable to the 'publicestate', which were nonetheless 'not bee so certaine as the Maximesof the Mathematicians', (sig. Al).

Pierre Bayle, Thedictionary historical and critical of Mr Peter Bayle. Thesecond edition. Carefullycollatedwith the several Editions of the Original; in which many Passages are restored, and the whole greatlyaugmented, particularly with a Translation of the Quotations from eminent Writers in various Languages. Towhich is prefixed, the life of the author, revised, corrected, and enlarged, by Mr Des Maizeaux, Fellow of theRoyal Society, vol. 4 (London : D. Midwinter and others, 1734), p.l2 note E." Bayle cites this thought ofBacon (De Augmentis Scientiarum, Bk Vii. Ch. 2), via thecontemporary Dutchauthor Abraham de Wicquefort, whose treatise on diplomacy was translated into English as The embassadorand his functions. ByMonsieur De Wicquefort, counsellor in the councils ofstate, and privy-counsellor to theDuke of Brunswick and Lunenburg, Zell, &c. To which is added, an historical discourse, concerning the electionof the emperor, and the electors. By the same author. Translated into English by Mr. Digby (London, BernardLintott, 1716).

4 I "

Based on this argument Hume could clearly be thought as a Machiavellian (an admirer of

Machiavelli) but not as a Machiavellist in the pejorative sense of the word. This might have been a

reason for dropping the essay at the height of the Seven Years War. By1760 Hume became 'Hume,

the historian', as he appeared in the catalogue index of the Library of the British Museum for the

next two centuries. His defence of Machiavelli in an essay entitled 'Of the Study of Histor/ could

open him to the charge that his hotly debated Historyof England was Machiavellian. The citation of

Machiavelli in this essay was of a different kind than Hume's other citations of his name in other

important essays from the original 1741 volume. Reading those essays superficially a reader could

easily form the opinion that Hume was a critic of Machiavelli. Also, morality and the status of moral

discourse was not an issue in those essays. Later in this essay I will attempt to show that those

references to Machiavelli, including two of the most important ones, in the essays 'Of Liberty and

Despotism' and ITiat Politics may be reduced to a Science', are fundamentally also affirmative,

suggesting that for the Hume Machiavelli was, at least at the time of writing those essays, a positive

model of political science. Criticising Machiavelli individual statements within political science did

not necessarily make Hume an anti-Machiavellian. Instead, Hume can be plausibly seen as a post-

Machiavellian who adapted the principles, but not necessary the content, of Machiavelli's political

science to the circumstances and issues of his own country and century.

Hume never condoned poisoning, assassination and perjury, as lawful arts of power, even if he

acknowledged their presencein past historical practice." To my knowledge he was not at the timedenounced as a Machiavellist (or even a Machiavellian). Nonetheless, his methodological defence of

the Florentine could redound on him, because he himself was open to attack on the very issues

which he raised in 'Of the Study of Histor/ in relation to Machiavelli. Hume identified the root

reason of the apparently unpalatable morals of Machiavelli Realpolitik in an indifference to agency

and the moral qualities of actions in political science, putting Machiavelli in the company of the kind

of philosophical scepticism that questioned the validity of fundamental moral distinctions and even

their very existence as objective phenomena. Machiavelli, Hume claimed, was a good moral

historian, even if he had demonstrated insufficient warmth in the cause of virtue in his political

discourse. A very similar accusation was often levelled against Hume's philosophy. These criticisms

cost him dearly, particularly in his early career. It cost him his reputation with Scottish moralists and

theologians and it cost him the chance of becoming Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University

of Edinburgh. The charge of moral scepticism was levelled against him by no less a critic than Francis

Hutcheson, Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Glasgow, Scotland's leading academic

philosopher at the time and an author of European reputation.

Hume's entire life was under the shadow of the unfavourable reception of his youthful work of

genius, A Treatise of Human Nature. James Moore has unearthed a great deal of evidence that

Francis Hutcheson was behind the unsymphhatetic reviews of the Treatise in the Bibiiotheque

raisonneedes ouvragesdes savans de TEurope in1740and 1741.^^ Preceding the reviews.

" See the detailed account ofHume's description ofpast English and European kingly and princely practicediscussed in detail in Frederick G. Whelan, Hume and Machiavelli: Political Realism and Liberal Thought(Lanham, MD, Lexington Books, 2004), Ch. 5 @Hume's Princes', pp. 249-288.

See James Moore and M.A. Stewart, 'A Scots-Irish Bookseller in Holland: William Smith of Amsterdam (1698-1741)', Eighteenth-Century Scotland, no. 7,1993, pp. 8-11, and M.A. Stewart and James Moore, 'William Smith(1698-1741) and the Dissenters' Book Trade' in The Bulletin of the Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland no.

5 I P a g e

presumed to have been written by William Smith on Hutcheson's advice, there was an important

exchange of views between Hutcheson and Hume, which alerted the latter that serious criticism was

forthcoming against him as a moral thinker. Hutcheson's letter is lost, but Hume's response survived

and reveals to us hisdefence in 1739.^® Thisexchange is important in the present context, becauseHume's self-justification followed the same line as his subsequent defence of Machiavelli from the

accusation of Machiavellism in the essay 'Of the Study of History', written in 1740. The defence of

Machiavelli, Icontend, was a direct continuation of Hume's of the arguments presented in Hume's

letter to Hutcheson the previous year. It was part of his rebuttal of Hutcheson's charge that in

Hume's thinking 'there wants a certain Warmth in the Cause of Virtue, which, you think, all good

Men wou'd relish, &cou'd not displease amidst abstractEnquirys'."

Hume's answer was dignified, but also defiant. The alleged moral deficit in his work, he claimed

resolutely, was not due to an oversight. Rather, it was a necessary consequence of the discursive

posture he was adopting:

I must own, this has not happen'd by Chance, but is the Effect of a Reasoning either good or

bad. There are different ways of examining the Mind as well as the Body. One may consider

it either as an Anatomist or as a Painter; either to discover its most secret Springs &

Principles or to describe the Grace & Beauty of its Actions. I imagine it impossible to conjoin

these two Views. Where you pull off the Skin, & display all the minute Parts, there appears

something trivial, even in the noblest Attitudes & most vigorous Actions: Nor can you ever

render the Object graceful or engaging but by cloathing the Parts again with Skin & Flesh, &

presenting only their bare Outside.

Hume knew that he was skating on thin ice. His language and metaphors could easily reveal his true

colours as a moral theorist. Moral anatomy was a favourite phrase of Bernard Mandeville, a thinker

whom Hutcheson hated and persecuted as a writer throughout his early career as a philosopher and

moral teacher in Ireland. The image of the anatomist peeling back the skin on the face of a beautiful

virtuous man, discovering the ugly truth of the muscles, sinews and other bodily parts, entirely

lacking in beauty, was a well known topos in iconography that was often associated with the work of

the late seventeenth-century sceptical French moralist La Rouchefoucauld, appearing as a

frontispiece illustration to some editions of his famous Maxims. To cover his flanks, Hume

introduced the same methodological argument that he later made public in the 'Of the Study of

History'. The two kinds of moral genres, moral painting and moral anatomy, he claimed, could be

developed in parallel. Cross-fertilisation was possible; undoubtedly moral anatomy, the morally cool

discourse that Hutcheson objected to, could easily be pressed into the service of moral painting.

Sculptors were bound to benefit from anatomical knowledge. However, to mix these things directly

22,1993, pp. 20-27. The argument is summarized magisterially In James Moore, 'The Eclectic Stole, theMitigated Sceptic', In Emillo Mazza and Emmanuele RonchettI (eds.). New Essays on David Hume (Mllano,FrancoAngell, 2007), pp. 133-170, In response to David Norton. The first review, dealing with Books 1 and 2 ofThe first review of the Treatise Is translated by D.F. and M.j. Norton In James Fieser (ed.). Early Responses toHume's Metaphysical and Epistemological Writings, 2nd rev. ed. (Bristol, Thoemmes, 2005), vol. 1., 44-63.

Hume to Francis Hutcheson, 17 September, 1739, In Letters, vol. 1, pp. 32-35." Hume to Hutcheson, p. 32

6 I P a g e

was ineffectual, Hume argued, because it was offence against good literary taste. As Hume

explained:

Icannot easily conceive these two Characters united in the same Work. Anywarm

Sentiment of Morals, Iam afraid, wou'd have the Airof Declamation amidst abstract

Reasonings, & wou'd be esteem'd contrary to good Taste. And tho' Iam much more

ambitious of being esteem'd a Friend to Virtue, than a Writer of Taste; yet I must always

carry thelatter in my Eye, otherwise Imust despair ofever being servicable to Virtue.^^

Hume and Hutcheson had their differences in technical moral philosophy and their correspondence

rehearsed these points in some detail. Hume promised to make some amends in the detail of his

moral anatomy. He pleaded that his apparent lack in moral warmth in the Treatise would only

matter if the book would have been designed for the use of ministers of the Church or educators of

youth. To his misfortune, when he applied to a teaching job (Scottish universities the students, or

rather pupils, belonged to the 12 to 16 age group) he was taken at his word, and the application, on

Hutcheson's behest, was denied.

Seeing the obstacles in his way, after the Treatise, Hume resolved to change his writing style. The

result was the Essay s Moral and Political of 1741. It was here; in the 'Of Study of History' that Hume

gives a more positive answer to Hutcheson, although not one which the Glasgow philosopher could

necessarily accept. In the essay Hume presented the new thought that the mixing of moral anatomy

and moral painting is possible without mixing genres and breaching the rules of good taste. The two

could go together in history, because it necessarily involved the reconstruction of individual actions

and character, thereby providing moral painting with a non-declamatory and analytically informed

material. His insight, Hume appeared to suggest, was so powerful, that it could even solve the

notorious problem with Machiavelli's amoralism. However obnoxious the political theory of the

Florentine might have looked like in isolation, Hume claimed, Machiavelli's character could be

absolved by reading his excellent histories.

This philosophical connection between the apology for Machiavelli and Hume's self-defence against

Hutcheson's accusation of moral indifference in the Treatise suggests another plausible reason why

the essay 'Of the Study of Histor/ might have been withdrawn in 1760. In this essay Hume

suggested that history was not only a part of good political science, but a bridge between moral

anatomy and moral painting. This suggestion could easily place Hume's History of England in an

unwanted light. Clearly, The History revealed more openly some of Hume's moral predilections, and

proved his capacity for moral feeling (although his tears for Charles I landed Hume in trouble with

the Whigs and earned him the long-lasting and crudely misleading epithet of a Tory). However, it

was simply not the case that to achieve a moral reputation would have been Hume's reason for

embarking on his historical enterprise. His History was clearly a major work in political science. It

was a very grand attempt, possibly the grandest at the time, to understand the nature and character

of English politics, through dissecting its origins and long-term developmental path. Hume could

have hardly wanted readers to read the History for moral lessons (although many precisely did just

that). He regarded England, or Britain, as the most successful modern nation and his History was

designed directly as superior new foundation for modern political theory. Although it was

Hume to Hutcheson, p. 32.

7 I Pag

constructed as a narrative, and not as a theoretical history, its intentions were not in the direction of

moral painting, but towards creating a historical version of hard core political science.

Hume's eventual answer to Hutcheson that moral anatomy and moral painting could be blended in

history was important, but it did not lay the original problem entirely at rest. The generic moral

blindness of sceptical philosophy and political theory was not a phenomenon that could be wished

away. At the bottom, Machiavelli's handling of poisoning, treachery, etc. revealed not that hecondoned these practices, but that he believed in politics being governed by personal, group and

national interests, not by morality. On this more abstract level, Hume encountered the same

problem. He himself acquired notoriety as a theorist of interest driven political behaviour. In

another of his 1741 essays, entitled 'Of the Independency of Parliament' Hume tackled the issue of

interest and dissimulation head on. In this essay he brazenly declared, that it was a 'just political

maxim, that every man must be supposed a knave'. Hisopponents accused him with Hobbism, but

equally, they could describe him as a Machiavellian at the same token. Hume did not claim

originality for his position:

Political writers have established it as a maxim, that, in contriving any system of

government, and fixing the several checks and controuls of the constitution, every man

ought to be supposed a knave, and to have no other end, in all his actions, than private

interest."

It is not entirely clear who these political writers Hume referred to obliquely were. However, his

pourpose in drawing on this tradition is clearly expressed in the text. He did not pushed the knavish

hypothesis in the service of crude monarchical or princely politics, or indeed of any kind of

absolutism. He rather argued for the opposite purpose, to develop a version of the 'passions and

the interests' argument applicable to the British constituition. Although humans display 'insatiable

avarice and ambition', Hume claimed,they could nonetheless be made governable through their

private interests and even goaded voluntary to 'co-operate to public good'. Hume argued not for

blind reliance on an 'invisible hand' or a recipe of conflict driven politics. Rather, he pleaded for a

blueprint for highly visible constitutional design:

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 public, we may pronounce that government to be wise and happy. If, on the

contrary, separate interest be not checked, and be not directed to the public, we ought to

look for nothing but faction, disorder, and tyranny from such a government. In this opinion I

am Justified by experience, as well as by the authority of all philosophers and politicians,

both antient and modern.^"

Hume was arguing about a strange anomaly of the British mixed constitution. The balance of the

British constitution was shaky. Over time parliament, the Commons, became far too powerful to be

" Hume, 'Ofthe Independency of Parliament, p. 42.Hume, 'Of the Independency of Parliament, p. 43.

8 I Pag

balanced even by the Crown and the Lords together and Britain was in danger to become an elective

dictatorship or parliamentary absolutism. Nonetheless, Hume observed, in practice the Crown did

manage to act as a constitutional balancer, despite its insufficient weight. Hume here operated

within the same idiom as Montesquieu's theory of modern monarchy. The issue here, of course, was

not the balancing effect of intermediary powers. This was clearly missing in Britain. Rather, Hume

had a version of Montesquieu's later quasi-Mandevillian, as well as quasi-Jansenist, theory of false

honour in mind. Pure selfishness could be mitigated by men's desire for recognition or honour,

whether deserved or not. Undeserved honour, false honour that can be bought, Montesquieu

claimed, could dampen the selfish rapacity of the newly ascendant commercial class. Hume

developed a similar, albeit partial, model as applied to British parliamentary politics. Members of the

Commons, as individuals, were craving honour. It was the Crown, the monarchy, that was the best

positioned to operate this manipulative system, since the honours system was a princely rather than

a republican institution. Not willing to give up its craving for honour, the British political class had a

knavish self-interest in keeping the monarchy in place as the purveyor it this kind of symbolic good.

In this capacity the monarchy was enabled for a balancing role in the British constitution.

This actual detailed resolution of the statement that in politics everyone should be assumed a knave,

as developed in the essay 'Of the Independency of Parliament' seem to deflate the radicalism of the

general theory announced at the beginning of Hume's essay. However, the general statement was

shrill and calculated to provoke the reader. Hume clearly proposed it as a truth in political science.

The knavish hypothesis, he insisted, was a foundational assumption of modern constitutional design.

But it was not a general truth about the human condition. Generally speaking not everybody was a

knave, or at least not all the time. Hume again reminded his readers that politics and morals were

bifurcated. 'It appears somewhat strange', he wrote, 'that a maxim should be true in politics, which

is false in fact'. Clearly, the answer given in 'Of the Study of History' that the solution is history,

mitigated the issue but obviously did not resolve the paradox. Hutcheson in 1739 warned Hume that

his problems with the tenor of his moral theory reflected fundamental problems with his underlying

theoretical position. He singled out the Humean theorem of justice as an artificial virtue as a

possible root cause. Indeed, the theory caused Hume serious problems. Hischickens came home to

roost in his second attempt to formulate his moral philosophy, in the 1751 recast of Book III of the

Treatise, entitled Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals. Here we encounter the knave problem

yet again, accompanied with another discussion of its relationship to, or reconcilability with, the

declamatory discourse of 'moral painting'.

In the 'Conclusion' of this work, having relegated the original explanatory machinery of the thesis

that Justice was an artificial virtue to an 'Appendix', Hume announced it was utility that was the

foundation of justice. In this particularly important context he revoked the image of the knave. This

instance, generally known as Hume's 'sensible knave' theorem, seemed to some readers as

particularly damaging and potentially punching a hole in the entire edifice of Hume's moral

discourse. The entire section was Hume's attempt to protect his reputation as a moral theorist

against the accusation of moral scepticism. He defended the position that every person is capable to

take the general point of view of humanity, with its attendant sentimental apparatus of sympathy, in

judging the behaviour of others by the standards of social and individual utility. This, he explained,

transcends the judgments of individuals one knows, or known by, or even one's own epoch:

9 j; •

if you represent a tyrannical, insolent, or barbarous behaviour, in any country or in any age

of the world; Isoon carry my eye to the pernicious tendency of such a conduct, and feel the

sentiment of repugnance and displeasure towards it. No character can be so remote as to

be, in this light, wholly indifferent to me. What is beneficial to society or to the person

himself must still be preferred. And every quality or action, of every human being, must, by

this means, be ranked under some class or denomination, expressive of general censure or

applause.

The general rules embedded in this discourse led to the rise of a language of morals, distinguishing

between two opposite classes of moral behaviour: virtue and vice. This moral language, informing

our culturally acquired moral sense, he claimed, acted as a potential control over our selfishness, our

pursuit of untrammelled self-interest. Hume described the working of our sentimental moral regime

in great complexity and explained that free calculations of genuine human contentment and

reputation would always come down in favour of virtue as against vice. There was however, one

obvious exception, in a domain of human experience where calculation and rule obeying, rather

than sentimental self-management dominated. This, unfortunately, was the case of justice. In a true

light of morality and knowing one's self, Hume explained, 'there is not, in any instance, the smallest

pretext for giving it the preference above virtue, with a view to self-interest; except, perhaps, in the

case of Justice, where a man, taking things in a certain light, may often seem to be a loser by his

integrity. Justice was a supreme utility and without it society was bound to be in constant crisis. Its

rules had to be inflexible and enforceable and on reflection everybody was bound to acknowledge

the binding force of this argument. Why and how individuals behave justly in society has been an

ancient puzzle. Plato's tale of the ring of Gyges demonstrated how individuals would evade the rules

of justice and equity if they could become invisible, free from the constraints of being disciplined

when cleariy observed by other members of society, who all equally obliged to follow social rules in

the common interest. Hume does not follow this particular Platonic route of moral demonstration.,

but puts forward a broadly similar argument. He assumes something like, but not quite, a free rider

situation. If the system of justice is solidly maintained by the majority, the disutility of occasional

breaking of the rules might not undermine the social utility. A rational calculator of self-interest

could exploit this situation:

though it is allowed, that, without a regard to property, no society could subsist; yet,

according to the imperfect way in which human affairs are conducted, a sensible knave, in

particular incidents, may think, that an act of iniquity or infidelity will make a considerable

addition to his fortune, without causing any considerable breach in the social union and

confederacy.

The mechanism behind this case was the tension between rule and exception. The rational

calculator could reasonably assume that 'honesty is the best policy, may be a good general rule; but

is liable to many exceptions'. Hence he could assume that he acted well and wisely, if generally he

kept the rule, while taking advantage of all the exceptions. For a person of this disposition, Hume

added, the policy seems to undefeatable:

I must confess, that, if a man think, that this reasoning much requires an answer, it will be a

little difficult to find any, which will to him appear satisfactory and convincing. If his heart

10 I P a g e

rebel not against such perniciousmaxims, if he feel no reluctance to the thoughts of villainyor baseness, he has indeed lost a considerable motive to virtue; and we may expect, that hispractice will be answerable to his speculation.

Hume gavea twofold answer to this dilemma. His more important response focused on character.Rational calculation,cold philosophyalone was incapable to deal with the case of the opportunisticrule breaker. Only a cultivation of sentiments, both naturaland acquired, could form a sentimentalbarrieragainst this modeof behaviour. His imagery invoked the problem of luxury as a key example,in a manner which is reminiscent of the denunciation of the pursuit of baubles and trinkets in the

work of hisfriend and philosophical disciple, Adam Smith. Were the 'sensible knaves'

ever so secret and successful, the honest man, if he has any tincture of philosophy, or even

common observation and reflection, will discover that they themselves are, in the end, the

greatest dupes, and havesacrificed the invaluable enjoymentof a character, withthemselves at least, for the acquisition of worthless toys and gewgaws. How little is requisite

to supply the necessities of nature? And ina view to pieasure, what comparison between theunbought satisfactionof conversation,society, study, even health and the common beautiesof nature, but above all the peaceful reflection on one's own conduct: What comparison, I

say, between these, and the feverish, empty amusements of luxury and expense?

Theother wayof blocking the free riding and rule-breaking behaviour of 'sensibleknaves' was moreutilitarian. Aspectator could follow their activities not only through one exceptional case, but overthe long-run. Pushing his luck, the sensible knave was likely to become lax and make a habit ofevading morality andJustice, before eventually ruined. The honest man, Hume wrote, then will havethe

satisfaction of seeing knaves, with all their pretended cunning and abilities, betrayed bytheir own maxims; and while they purpose to cheat with moderation and secrecy, atempting incident occurs, nature isfrail, and they give into the snare; whence they can neverextricate themselves, without a total lossof reputation, and the forfeiture of all future trust

and confidence with mankind.

Quite appropriately, there is no reference, or even anallusion to Machiavelli at the endoftheInquiry concerning thePrinciples ofMorais.^^ Nonetheless, thestory how a longer term observercould show how the rule-breaker knaves who create exceptions finallycome to grief and loss of

reputation (in fact a very conventional storyf^ is actually a succinct summary ofthe backbone ofmost of Machiavelli's odious case histories in The Prince. The purpose of citing these passages was to

argue 1./ that there isa substantial similarity ofHume defending his own moral and political

" Although Machiavelli did get a citation inthe Enquiry, anda quite an appropriate one,oneffective agencyand the fit between situations and character: 'Fabius, says MACHIAVEL, was cautious; Scipioenterprising: Andboth succeeded, because the situationof the ROMAN affairs, during the command of each,was peculiarlyadapted to his genius; but both would have failed, had thesesituations been reversed. He is happy, whosecircumstances suit his temper; but he ismoreexcellent, whocansuit his temper to anycircumstances'." In anearly article Marcia Baron was tempted (incorrectly) to attribute to Hume a 'noble lie' mythology toundergird 'artificial justice', see 'Hume's Noble Lie: An Account ofHis Artificial Virtues', Canadian Journal ofPhilosophy 12 (1982): 539-555.

11 I M-J V,

philosophy and his defence of Machiavelli, which implies that there is a substantial overlap between

their approach to the issue of morals and politics 2./ that the defence of this position, and hence the

philosophical defeat of Machiavellism, is difficult on the basis of a naturalistic and empiricalmoraltheory, without defaulting into a theological or other kindof strongly normative politicaldiscourse

(Platonism, or later Kantianism).

Book III of the Treatise, which Hutchesoncriticised in manuscript, issometimes seen today ascontaining the foundations of Hume's politics. Infact it was moral philosophyand naturaljurisprudence, both reconceived in a sceptical key. Political theory topics, suchas the origin ofgovernment, the source of political obligation and the law of nations were subsumed under the

heading 'OfJustice and Injustice'. Hume's political science, his accountof the forms of governmentand related topic, waspossibly planned as Book IV of the Treatise (Book III wasalready publishedseparately and later than Books l-ll). What thought Hume had on the politics part of the 'science ofman' at the time, a year laterhe poured them into the political essays of his first collection ofEssaysMoral and Political. In Book III he quietly took his model as Hobbes, whom he critically modified,often drastically. In the politics essays one name looms large, and in thiscase openly, and this isMachiavelli. Today it is a commonplace that Machiavelli was more important for the development ofseventeenth and early eighteenth-century political theory and political ideology than virtually in anyotherearly-modern national political culture. Hume clearly modelled his first political essays not somuch on Addison's andSteele'sSpectator, but on Bolingbroke's Craftsman, and in the latterMachiavelli's name loomed large. However, 'Of the Study ofHistor/ was a typical early Hume essayin the way it handled Machiavelli. Hume did not argue that The Prince represented monarchicalpolitics, while the Discourses on Livy andthe History of Florence were republican works, each bitdisplaying anappropriately different moral sensibility and rhetoric. Rather, aswe have seen, hedistinguished between the genres ofpolitics and history. The same is true about his other essays.Machiavelli is not represented asa great republican, and hence a great virtue theorist, but a modelfor how political science can be done.

Although the essay that bearsthe title 'That Politics may be reduced to a Science' seemsthe mostpromising to catch Hume's vision ofsuch a science, theessay 'Of Liberty and Despotism' is moreimportant. These essays are interlocking, cut from the same cloth, but arranged rather strangelyfrom the point ofview ofa theorist. In fact, in each case the pursue adebate in British politicalcontroversy. In 'Politics reduced to Science' Hume made clearthat what such a science looks for isregularities in certain configurations in politics, in which consequences can be predictedindependently of the personnel and characters that are in charge ofthe political structure atanygiven time. Hume disputes Pope's famous statement in the Essay on Man, that not the form ofgovernment, but the quality of the administration of the government that was the decisive factor.Hume accepts this astheobvious difference between thesame government well or badlyadministered. Fundamentally, however, he counter posesthe famous distinction betweengovernment oflaws and government ofmen, understood asa distinction between free states,republics and absolute monarchies. Republic heremeans a respublica forhim, and he allows arepublic either a monarchy, an aristocracy ora democracy. In effect he argues that only reipublicaecan be subject to political science, not absolute ordespotic monarchies. Political science can operate

12 I F

independently of 'the humour or education either of subject or sovereign' in those kind of

states.

This could be an impeccably Machiavellian statement, but Hume involved Machiavelli in the

subsidiary argument only, in the demonstration of how an argument in political science looks like.

Hisaim at this point is to show that his preference for free governments, as the only proper subjects

lear of political science involves no unqualified statement of praise about all their qualities and

properties. His chief example is the generalisation that republics are oppressive as conquering

powers. Hume refers to Machiavelli and his discourse on conquest in Chapter 5 of The Prince. The

example is here the success of Alexander in conquering Persia, and the further success of his

successors to hold the territory. The inverse of the statement is the observation that the Persian did

not rebel even when Greece was internally destabilised. The lesson is supposed to be about the

nature of despotism. Asa despotism, Persia did not have a nobility, and this lackof intermediary

powers made rebellion against the Greeks practically impossible once the leadership of Persia was

eliminated in the first strike. Clearly, what Hume liked is Machiavelli's argument about the

consequences of a country lacking a nobilityas an intermediate power, because when it was broughtto his attention that the Florentine was mistaken about the non-existence or otherwise of the

Persian nobility, he conceded the historical case, but still argued, in a footnote, that even if the facts

were wrong, 'it must be owned that MACHIAVEL'S reasoning is, in itself, just, however doubtful its

application to the present case'. This was just a historical mistake about a particular case in an

otherwise 'solid and conclusive' argument.

Faulty generalisation from facts, however, were judged differently. Machiavelli mixed 'falsehood

with truth', Hume claimed angrily, when he suggested that despotic countries were difficult to

conquer, because the ordinary subjects were powerless and hence could not resist. Here Hume

objected to the notion that internally despotic countries were quiet and subdued. On the contrary,

he claimed, delegated authority in a despotic regime was itself despotic. The local population,

accustomed to blind loyalty, could thus be exploited in turf struggles with central government,

making despotic system subject to 'the most dangerous and fatal revolutions'. Hume here objects to

Machiavelli, because he claims that he gave a poor or even mistaken analysis of experience. This is

important to note, because in 'Of Liberty and Despotism' he argues that Machiavelli is often not

relevant for the eighteenth century because he did not, or perhaps could not possess the relevant

experience to produce the requisite generalisations in political science.

'Of Liberty and Despotism' opened with the sort of argument that one would have expected in the

outset of 'That Politics may be reduced to a Science'. Here he defines political science as an impartial

body of knowledge which aims at establishing 'general truths in politics, which will remain true to

the latest posterity'. He immediately hastens to inject a sceptical tone into his discourse. Expecting

such a political science is premature. Methodology was still imperfect. Even more importantly, the

empirical base is to slender. Europe had not yet three thousand year of history to look at. The moral

potential of humans was as yet difficult to judge and it was not yet clear' what may be expected of

mankind from any great revolution in their education, customs, or principles'. As Hume put it in

relation to himself and his own contemporaries:

13 I P age

I began to entertain a suspicion, that no man in this age was sufficiently qualified for such an

undertaking; and that whatever any one should advance on that head would, in all

probability, be refuted by further experience, and be rejected by posterity. Such mighty

revolutions have happened in human affairs, and so many events have arisen contrary to the

expectation of the ancients, that they are sufficient to beget the suspicion of still further

changes.

Clearly, Hume cast doubt about the value of studying ancient political theory for present purposes.

Machiavelli came under the shadow of the same doubt. Hume qualified the praise he heaped on

Machiavelli in the previous essay as a pioneer political scientist.

The leitmotiv of 'Of Liberty and Despotism' was the argument

that all kinds of government, free and absolute, seem to have undergone, in modern times,

a great change for the better, with regard both to foreign and domestic management. The

balance of power is a secret in politics, fully known only to the present age; and I must add,

that the internal POLICE of states has also received great improvements within the last

century.... But though all kinds of government be improved in modern times, yet

monarchical government seems to have made the greatest advances towards perfection. It

may now be affirmed of civilized monarchies, what was formerly said in praise of republics

alone, that they are a government of Laws, not of Men. They are found susceptible of order,

method, and constancy, to a surprizing degree. Property is there secure; industry

encouraged; the arts flourish; and the prince lives secure among his subjects, like a father

among his children.

It was this development that Machiavelli failed to foresee. As Hume explained

MACHIAVEL was certainly a great genius; but having confined his study to the furious and

tyrannical governments of ancient times, or to the little disorderly principalities of ITALY, his

reasonings especially upon monarchical government, have been found extremely defective;

and there scarcely is any maxim in his prince, which subsequent experience has not entirelyrefuted.

The ancients would have regarded a modern European monarch a tyrant. This usage was unhelpful.The last two hundred year in Europe saw two hundred absolute princes, Hume reckoned, but not

one of them was comparable to a truly tyrannical Roman emperor. Clearly, it was not appropriate toproject the experience of the Roman empire directly unto modern Europe. But Machiavelli did

precisely that when he railed against princes using special advisers or appointing powerful ministers.The conclusions Machiavelli reached through studying the Roman emperors would be absurd, Hume

suggested, if applied to the government of modern France:

A weak prince, says he, is incapable of receiving good counsel; for if he consult with several,

he will not be able to choose among their different counsels. If he abandon himself to one,

that minister may, perhaps, have capacity, but he will not long be a minister: He will be sure

to dispossess his master, and place himself and his family upon the throne. I mention this,

among many instances of the errors of that politician, proceeding, in a great measure, from

14 M ,•

his having lived in too early an age of the world, to be a good judge of political truth. Almost

all the princes of EUROPE are at present governed by their ministers; and have been so fornear two centuries; and yet no such event has ever happened, or can possibly happen.

SEJANUS might project dethroning the CAESARS; but FLEURY, though ever so vicious, could

not, while in his senses, entertain the least hopes of dispossessing the BOURBONS.

Interestingly, Hume in these essays said next to nothing about Machiavelli's analysis of republics. He

saw him as producing indeed a 'tyrannical science', not in the dismissive sense as Gentillet and

Diderot used it, but simply indicating that Machiavelli's political science mostly contained empirical

generalisations based on the study of tyrannies and despotisms. Histexts, therefore, were of limited

value for a post-tyrannical and post-absolutist age.

One of the central theses 'Of Liberty and Despotism' was that modern European monarchies,

particularly France, became civilised. Hume argued that this was chiefly due to changes in the

modern economy. The modern European monarchy acquired a new civil-liberties-based legal

culture, because commerce required it. Commerce presupposed freedom and Hume clearly

recognised that modern European trade first flexed its wings in the earliest of modern European free

states, the Italian city republics. Once Europe's monarchies imitated this commerce and made it a

part of their own power games, European politics also had to change. Hume's argument about

commerce was another way to present his assertion that Machiavelli had no understanding of the

modern monarchies of Europe because substantial changes happened after his time. This second

version of the thesis focusing on commercial change served as the real backbone 'Of Liberty and

Despotism', the watershed after Machiavelli was not in changes of statecraft or the form of

government. What changed European politics was the mutation in the political relevance of

commerce. As Hume put it:

Trade was never esteemed an affair of state till the last century; and there scarcely is any

ancient writer on politics, who has made mention of it. Even the ITALIANS have kept a

profound silence with regard to it, though it has now engaged the chief attention, as well of

ministers of state, as of speculative reasoners. The great opulence, grandeur, and military

atchievements of the two maritime powers seem first to have instructed mankind in the

importance of an extensive commerce.

By Italians Hume actually meant Machiavelli. We know this because we have the original

commonplace book entry from Hume's early notebooks that gave rise to this particular sentence. It

originated in a late seventeenth-century English pamphlet, entitled A Discourse of Trade, published

semi-anonymously by Nicholas Barbon in 1690. In this early notebook Hume's jotted down the

following sentence:

There is not a Word of Trade in all Matchiavel, which is strange considering that Florence roseonly by Trade.

This was an abbreviated account of what Barbon actually wrote. Interestingly the paragraph in 'OfLiberty and Despotism' also contained expressions that only appeared in Barbon's original, such asthe key phrase that for Machiavellitrade as yet was not an 'Affairof State'. As Barbon himself putit in The Discourse of Trade:

Livy, and those Antient Writers, whose elevated Genius set them upon the Inquiries into

15 I P a g e

the Causes of the Rise and Fall of governments, have been very exact in describing theseveral Forms of Military Discipline, but take no Notice of Trade; and Machiavel a ModernWriter, and the best, though he lived in a Government, where the Family of Medicis hadadvanced themselves to the Sovereignty by their riches, acquired by Merchandizing, dothnot mention Trade, as any way interested in the Affairs of State.

Hume's view that Machiavelli's political science was obsolete because it was based on an outdatedview of pre-commercial politics is interesting for the modern reader. For this reason, the realisationthat it was a mere regurgitation of a view first expressed fifty years earlier upset Hume'sinterpreters. The lack of originality which Hume displayed clearly diminishes the novelty, and hencethe importance of his idea.

While this is true to some extent, Hume's blatant borrowing from Barbon also opens up excitinginterpretative possibilities. On its own, looking at Barbon's text, Hume's memoranda and the text'Of Liberty and Despotism' one can only see an instance of near plagiary. However, looking at thecontext of the two citations on Machiavelli and trade, both in Barbonand Hume,we receive a keytool for assessing Hume's alleged anti-Machiavellism, or indeed Machiavellism, as the case mightbe. Barbonand Hume might have asserted the same (or nearly the same) thing, but possiblyendowing it with a different meaning, drawing very different conclusionsfrom it. Despite hisborrowing of a key idea, Hume could either endorse or criticise the broader discourse in whichBarbon's remark was originally embedded.

Fifty years elapsed between the utterance of Barbon's and Hume's remarks on Machiavelli andtrade. We know that in the 1690s Machiavelli was as hotly discussed in Britain as in 1741, andarguablythe heat was even more intense. In1690, just after the Glorious Revolution, England hadto choose for itselfa new grand political strategy as a European power. Entering the Dutch allianceagainst the French, the country had to choose the best wayto achieve both national security andnational aggrandizement. Commercial expansionand building a commercialempire of the seas wasone of the most hotly debated topics in English politics in 1690, in fact ever since theCommonwealth and the Restoration. More often than not, this strategy debate was conductedwith frequent references to Machiavelli's political legacy. In thiscontextBarbon's remark mightappear as a partisan statement in debates withinor about seventeenth-century EnglishMachiavellism.

It is possible to read Barbon's dismissal of Machiavelli as anti-Machiavellian. Although Hume'sborrowing the bare essence of the remark might appearas a willingness of thisanti-Machiavellism,there also otherpossibilities of interpretation. It might be equally possible that when Hume picks upthis thread, he is reacting to Barbon's anti-Machiavellianism inan original and creativefashion.Barbon was possibly dismissing Machiavelli in orderto reject lateseventeenth-century English statestrategies which were Machiavellian in a straightforward sense, i.e. having beenextrapolated fromMachiavelli's own politics to contemporary, i.e. late seventeenth-century English circumstances.Fifty years laterHume could pick upeitherline ofargument for his purposes., eitherBarbon's view,or that of his adversaries.

Equally, he could reject both routes to modern politics, neither endorsingthe Machiavellian nor theanti-Machiavellian projection. In this case his dismissal ofMachiavelli takes ona new meaning. Bydismissing Machiavelli's own political options as genuinely obsolete, he effectively separatedMachiavelli's reputation and ideas from anything that has been developed from his politics directlyduring since in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, including both the proandcontraarguments. This move still leftwith the option of being a pro-Machiavellian thinker, endorsing hismethodology as a political scientist but at the same time dismissing the empirical content of muchof his writings as irrelevant to moderncircumstances. This freed Hume to become a critic, andpossibly a savage critic, of Machiavellism and anti-Machiavellism alike, ifthe term is taken to refernot to Machiavelli personally, but to his second order followers and critics. It is this sense that I

16 I . ^

would like to apply to Hume the epithet post-Machiavellian, to indicate that he created his ownpolitical science in a Machiavellian methodological spirit against more direct extrapolations ofMachiavelli's politics into modernity, irrespective of which side of the argument these variousthinkers were taking up. Hume distanced himself from Machiavellian or Machiavellist debates of allhues.

Barbon's Discourse of Trade was a sophisticated and extensively argued pamphlet, and probablyhad far more influence that usually assumed. It is an interesting piece of writing in the presentcontext, since Barbon's dismissal of Machiavelli as an obsolete writer because the Florentine failed

to discuss issues of commerce and trade can be seen as a classic piece of anti-MachiavellianMachiavellism. He dismissed Machiavelli, because in its original form Machiavelli failed to pursuethe sort of extrapolated Machiavellian argument which Barbon thought as genuinely applicable tolate seventeenth-century circumstances, particularly in England. He appears as a critic ofMachiavelli, when in fact he endorses a vision of politics that he had derived from Machiavelli'swritings. Ifwe find that Hume rejects Barbon's commercial politics, then we might best describehim as an enemy of anti-Machiavellian Machiavellism, in short an anti-anti-MachiavellianMachiavellian. While it is true that as a British political thinker (for he was certainly no Englishman)who started to write in the 1730, Hume was in the midst of all sorts of Machiavellian arguments andhence was bound to be interested in judgments on Machiavelli and all varieties of Machiavellism,Hume was aware of the tricky nature of Machiavellian language games and argumentativestrategies in this age. Asan early and militant contextualist, Hume saw through the smokescreen ofMachiavellianism in Bolingbroke and the circlearound him. Hume was a vicious critic of Englishparty ideology and was an expert in teasing apart of the various English political dialects that madeup the texture of English Augustan political rhetoric. Hume argued that in the post-GloriousRevolution period the real meaning of pre-revolutionary party positions was in fact lost or renderedobsolete, although their political languages survived in a very strange configuration and detachedfrom reality. He described the Old Whigs as the continuation of the quasi-revolutionary thought ofthe earlier period. Tory ideology, in response, was dressed in the most efficient garb available tooppose the Old Whigs. Asemblance of a republican and Machiavellian language survived among theTories, who, as Hume described them,

have been so long obliged to talk in the republican stile, that they seem to have madeconverts of themselves by their hypocrisy, and to have embraced the sentiments, as well aslanguageof their adversaries."

Hume was simply not taken in by the pseudo-Machiavellian languages that proliferated in Englishpolitics. Barbon's Discourse of Trade was an intervention into the debate which David Armitagerecently described rather awkwardly as the 'Ideological Origins of the British Empire', arguing thatEngland did not acquire its first empire in a fit of absentmindedness or simply by following the driftof the Age of Discoveries, but rather pursued an aggressive imperial strategy under the protectiveumbrella of the justificatory ideology of Machiavellism. Barbon's purpose was to present the ideathat Britain's future greatness depended on abandoning of the neo-Roman visions of the orthodoxMachiavellians and on embarking, instead, on the aggressive pursuit of a seaborne commercialempire. Barbon's purpose was not to overthrow the Machiavellian projection of grandeur throughexpansion as the best or even only way of ensure one's nation's grandezza.. He merely wished tosubstitute commercial hegemony to military conquest as the best way to achieve the same aim.His dismissal of Machiavelli, as cited by Hume, was clearly pure anti-Machiavellian Machiavellism.

This becomes immediately apparent if one looks at the sentences following the now famous

" Hume 'Ofthe Parties ofGreat Britain' p. 615. The passage was withdrawn by Hume from the 1770 edition ofhis Essays onwards.

17 I P r

phrase 'Machiavel a Modern Writer, and the best ...doth not mention Trade, as any way interestedinthe Affairs ofState'. Barbon did explain why this lack of interestintrade could occur despite thefactthat Machiavelli was living in the midst ofa thriving commercial city whose politics was deeplyinfluenced by commerce and banking too. It was because ofthe militarist features thatundergirded his neo-Roman outlook:

Foruntil Trade became necessary to provide Weapons of War, it was alwaysthoughtPrejudicial to the Growth of Empire, as too much softening the People by Ease and Luxury,which made their Bodies unfit to Endure the Labour and Hardships of War. And therefore

the Romanswho made War, (the only Wayto Raise & Enlarge their Dominion) did in thealmost Infancy of their State, Conquer that Rich and Trading City of Carthage, thoughDefended byHanibal their General, one of the greatest Captains in the World: so that, sinceTradewas not in those days useful to provide Magazines for Wars, an Account of it is not tobe expected from those Writers.

Much of the pamphletwas debunking arguments against luxury and the inherent limits of marketexpansion. Thechiefargument, however, concerned the relationship between nationalgreatnessand trade, leadingto discussionsof military developments, national security and the European statesystem. In a manner reminiscent the later discussion of Adam Smith of the same topic, Barbonexplainedthat trade entered politics through the military-technological revolution. Romanarmament was possibly to manufacturedomestically. Thegunpowder revolution, which led to thedevelopment of artillery had quite different resourcingrequirements. Without trade there was noaccess to modern military technology:

Ammunition and Artillery, whose Materials are made of Minerals, that are not to be found in

all Countries; such as Iron, Brass, Lead, Salt-petre, and Brimstone; and therefore where they

are wanting, must be procured by Traffick. Trade is now become as necessary to Preserve

Governments, as it is useful to make them Rich.

Machiavelli was obsolete, because he wrote before the new military technology became the

dominant force in European affairs. The task now was to adapt Machiavelli's neo-Romanism to the

new circumstances. Through sketching out a conjectural history of mankind, the Ancient period and

early modern Europe Barbon developed a social and political history of militarism and concluded, in

a way reminiscent of Montesquieu's 1734 Essay on Universal Monarchy, that the entire conquest

based strategy of European state aggrandisement was doomed. State growth by warfare, when

based on land-based armies, became obsolete. French-style projects of developing large European

landed empires, the so called universal empire project, became vain dreams. Europe became morepopulous and prosperous. Increased communication and commerce slowlymade the new military

technology availableto everyone. Discipline and military training improved. Therefore for a numberof centuries already all major conquest-based strategies failed. It was hence time to leave this entire

old fashioned vision of politics, based on the idea of Rome and enshrined in the older Italian and

French political literature behind and declared it chimerical and dead.

Hume's essay 'Of Liberty and Despotism' argued that these changes changed the nature of modernmonarchical government. Barbon emphasized that social life indeed changed drastically as aconsequence of modern commerce and economic well-being. He also pressed forth the political

18 I P a g e

argument that Gothic liberty became so embedded in the European way of life that conquest waslikely to be resisted politically as well, and modern Europeanstates had culturalas wellas politicalresources for resistance. Europe was not like the despotic Asian states, which had fallen victim to

Alexanders armieswithsuch ease, and whose lack of energyalso made the holding of their landsbythe Macedonians so lasting (this example shows that Hume's choice of Machiavellian idioms to

condemn or praise inthese essayswere not chosen by random). The Roman model of freeingprovinces was no goodsolution either. Although Rome did practice this cleverpolitics of conquestunder the republic, not much of this policy remained under the Empire. Modern Europe wasfullwith people, Barbon remarked, there was no space left for expansion.

But Barbon did not letgo of the notion that states flourished by'enlarging their empire'.The cuttingedge of the pamphlet was in fact in its blatant promotion of England's ambitions to grandeurthrough a blue-water strategy, bydeveloping a seaborne commercial empire, which was free fromall the snags that made neo-Roman landed strategies of conquest impossible:

the Difficulties of inlarging Dominion at Land, but are not Impedimentsto its Rise at Sea: Forthose Thingsthat Obstruct the Growth of Empireat Land, do rather Promote its Growth atSea.That the World is more Populous, is no Prejudice, there is Room enough upon the Sea;the many Fortified Towns mayhinderthe March ofan Army, but not the Sailing of Ships: TheArtsof Navigation being discover'd, hath added an Unlimited Compass to the Naval Power.

Barbondescribed the idea of a sea empire inglowing colours. Itwas not oppressive,could be builtquite quickly, was free of the usualexpenses of defending it from powerful continental neighbours.For an island nation thiswas all achievable rather easily, even ifdifficult for landed nations. Englandwas a free countryand this couldalso raisethe attractivenessof its hegemony immensely. Barbonclearly saw no political obstacles to this kind of development either. The English were a hardyNorther nation, ready for the sacrifice required bysea conquests. The form of government wassuitable for the enterprise: 'The Monarchy is both fitted for Trade and Empire'. Norwas there a needto change the British constitution. Gothick liberty, he pointed out, was originally borne out of theconquest of Europe, Gothic states were originally set up for expansion.Also, politically 'there needsno Change of the GothickGovernment', he claimed, for popular consent was available, 'for that best

Agreeswith such an Empire'. England, with all its advantages, political, culturaland commercial,Barbon enthused, was destined to become a world empire of prosperityand liberty:

Sincethe People of Englandenjoy the Largest Freedoms, and BestGovernment in the World;and since by Navigation and Letters,there is a great Commerce, and a GeneralAcquaintanceamong Mankind, by which the Laws and the Liberties of all Nations, are known; those that

are oppressed and inslaved, may probably Remove, and become the Subjects of England:And ifthe Subjects increase, the Ships, Excise and Customs, which are the Strength andRevenue of the Kingdom, will in Proportion increase, which may be so Great in a short TIME,not only to preserve its Antient Sovereignty over the Narrow Seas, but to extend its

Dominionover all the Great Ocean: An Empire, not less Glorious, & of a much larger Extent,than either A/exonder's or Caesar's.

To repeat, if this was the outcome of dismissing Machiavelli as obsolete, then arguablythis was anti-

MachiavellianMachiavellism. Barbon did not cite Machiavelli in support for this point. However, his

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pamphlet was inscribed in the context of a lively debate about empire and the desirability of havingstates that were constantly on the increase. All these adversaries referenced the point diligently andaccurately to Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy. It was easy to seethat Barbon was revising, notrejecting, a core Machiavellian idea.

When Hume cited Barbon's dismissal of Machiavelli as a pre-modern and pre-commercial theorist hecould not possibly be understood asmaking thesame political point asBarbon. He opposed everysingle item on this veritable shopping list of English whiggery, nationalism and imperialism, seaborneorotherwise. When heargued, in the same essay, thatthe world has changed since Machiavelli andthe politics oftheFlorentine cannot be mechanically extended tothe new empirical politicalexperience ofthe later period, in effect Hume refused to speculate how Machiavelli would haveargued had he lived to the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. Machiavelli empiricalpolitical science, in this view, was inscribed firmly in a previous age and had to be left in peace there,as a monument to a bygone ageand its turbulent politics. This wasno rejection of Machiavelli as aperson or indeed the style and method ofhis endeavour. Rather, itwas an incitement to creativelycontinue the legacy, understand the changes going on inthe world and change theoryaccordingly.

Aswe have seen, Hume defended Machiavelli's methodology and choice of genre to conductpolitical discourse. However, he knew that as the world changes, the content of political science alsohad to change. Machiavelli ispresent in Hume's entire enterprise inspiritand method,not inthedogma. Conversely, dogmatically pursuing generalisation from past political practice to changedmodern circumstances was an error, or worse, an interest drive political practice. Minor changes or

adjustments inthe argument did not mitigate the force of this criticism, ifanything, they evencompounded it. Seen this way, Hume must be regarded an enemy of anti-MachiavellianMachiavellism. Official English republicanism, in practically any variety of it, was repulsiveto Hume.

He looked at it, analysed it and rejected it. Healso resolutely rejected moralistic criticisms of realistpolitical science, for he realised that such criticism was applicable to hisown workas much as toMachiavelli's. He fought most of hisstruggleswith such moralistic criticson the terrain of moraltheory, and there too, he hadto change the technical terms of the discourse to gain elbowroom forhissceptical arguments. We must find another term to describe Hume than anti-MachiavellianMachiavellism. In the first instance, post-Machiavellian Machiavellism might suffice for the purpose.

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