On July 7, 1776, James Boswell, now known to the world as author of The Life of Johnson, paid a visit to David Hume, who was dying of cancer at his lodgings in Edinburgh. According to the editor of Boswell's Journal, Hume was "the most famous sceptic philosopher of the age," and the judgment of posterity is that he was also the greatest philosopher to have written in English. Hume's atheism made him repugnant to Boswell's great friend, the orthodox and pious Johnson, and this, together with his eminence, made him an object of Boswell's fascination. In his account of the interview Boswell, who knew that Hume was gravely ill, reveals that he had entertained the notion that, faced with the prospect of imminent death, the philosopher would have relented somewhat in his dim view of beliefs Boswell held sacred. In this he was disappointed. Herewith an extract from "An Account of My Last Interview with David Hume, Esq., Partly recorded in my Journal, partly enlarged from my memory, 3 March 1777." (I am relying on The Journals of James Boswell, 1762-1795, selected and introduced by John Wain.)
On Sunday forenoon the 7 of July 1776, being too late for church, I went to see Mr David Hume, who was returned from London and Bath, just a-dying. I found him alone, in a reclining posture in his drawing-room. He was lean, ghastly and quite of an earthy appearance. He was dressed in a suit of grey cloth with white metal buttons, and a kind of scratch wig. He was quite different from the plump figure which he used to present. He had before him Dr Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric. He seemed to be placid and even cheerful. He said he was just approaching to his end. I think these were his words. I know not how I contrived to get the subject of immortality introduced. He said he never had entertained any belief in religion since he began to read Locke and Clarke. . . . He then said flatly that the morality of every religion was bad, and, I really thought, was not jocular when he said that when he heard a man was religious, he concluded he was a rascal, though he had known some instances of very good men being religious. This was just an extravagant reverse of the common remark as to infidels.
I had a strong curiosity to be satisfied if he persisted in disbelieving a future state even when he had death before his eyes. I was persuaded from what he now said, and from his manner of saying it, that he did persist. I asked him if it was not possible that there might be a future state. He answered it was possible that a piece of coal put upon the fire would not burn. . . .
I asked him if the thought of annihilitation never gave him any uneasiness. He said not the least; no more than the thought that he had not been, as Lucretius observes. 'Well,' said I, 'Mr Hume, I hope to triumph over you when I meet you in a future state; and remember you are not to pretend that you was joking with all this infidelity.' 'No, no,' said he. 'But I shall have been so long there before you come that it will be nothing new.' In this style of good humour and levity did I conduct the conversation. . . . I however felt a degree of horror, mixed with a sort of wild, strange, hurrying recollection of my excellent mother's pious instructions, of Dr Johnson's noble lessons, and of my religious sentiments and affections during the course of my life. I was like a man in sudden danger eagerly seeking his defensive arms; and I could not but be assailed by momentary doubts while I had actually before me a man of such strong abilities and extensive enquiry dying in the persuasion of being annihilated. But I maintained my faith. . . . I mentioned Soame Jenyn's little book in defence of Christianity, which was just published but which I had not yet read. Mr Hume said, 'I am told there is nothing of his usual spirit in it.'
I somehow or other brought Dr Johnson's name into our conversation. I had often heard him speak of that great man in a very illiberal manner. He said upon this occasion, 'Johnson should be pleased with my History.' Nettled by Hume's frequent attacks upon my revered friend in former conversations, I told him now that Dr Johnson did not allow him much credit; for he said, 'Sir, the fellow is a Tory by chance.' I am sorry that I mentioned this at such a time. I was off my guard; for the truth is that Mr Hume's pleasantry was such that there was no solemnity in the scene; and death for the time did not seem dismal. It surprised me to find him talking of different matters with a tranquility of mind and a clearness of head which few men possess at any time. . . .
It was amazing to find him so keen in such a state. I must add one other circumstance which is material, as it shows he perhaps was not without some hope of a future state, and that his spirits were supported by a consciousness (or at least a notion) that his conduct had been virtuous. He said, 'If there were a future state, Mr Boswell, I think I could give as good an account of my life as most people.'
This remarkable document has sometimes been called the journalistic scoop of the 18th century. Though commentary is superfluous, I cannot help appending a few scattered notes.
I love, in the first sentence, the subordinate phrase "being too late for church." Thank God! I trust Boswell thought he was well compensated for his failure to honor this one Sabbath. More than 230 years later, I feel that I am the beneficiary of his absence from church that day.
At the end of the first paragraph, Boswell did not really need to gloss Hume's barb concerning religious rascals by explaining, "This was just an extravagant reverse of the common remark as to infidels." Maybe he did so because the sentence captures the effect of the entire interview. Boswell's expectation regarding Hume's demeanor is overturned. The picture of the devoted believer, sure of his reward, going to the grave with composure is undercut by the example of the atheistic Hume cheerfully confronting his end with The Philosophy of Rhetoric, not the Bible, in hand. The document, as it were against the impulse and intention of the devout author, but thanks to his honesty, elevates the character of Hume over those of the people who would consign him to hell. All the usual pious conventions are extravagantly reversed.
The work by Soame Jenyns that Boswell rather feebly refers to is View of the Internal Evidence of the Christian Religion. It had been preceded, in 1756, by Jenyns's Free Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil. Boswell would have known that the earlier work, an effort at theodicy, had been famously, savagely panned by Dr. Johnson, who in a memorable passage from his review dismissed Jenyns's argument that the nurturing wisdom of providence had made the poor more able to enjoy simple pleasures and less quick to take offense at small slights. "The poor, indeed, are insensible of many little vexations, which sometimes imbitter the possessions, and pollute the enjoyments, of the rich," wrote Johnson, in his inimitable style. "They are not pained by casual incivility, or mortified by the mutiliation of a compliment; but this happiness is like that of the malefactor, who ceases to feel the cords that bind him, when the pincers are tearing his flesh." Earlier, he had observed, with undisguised contempt for the author of the work under review, "Life must be seen, before it can be known." It is impossible that Hume could have been swayed by Jenyns, and Boswell very likely knew it.
Boswell's account of Hume's comportment in his final days is corroborated by a letter Adam Smith wrote William Strachan describing the behavior of their mutual friend during his last illness.
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