Hume, David (1711-1776)

Letter to Francis Hutcheson (September 17, 1739)

September 17, 1739

"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."

What affected me most in your Remarks is your observing, that there wants a certain Warmth in the Cause of Virtue, which, you think, all good Men wou'd relish, & cou'd not displease amidst abstract Enquirys. 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. An Anatomist, however, can give very good Advice to a Painter or Statuary: And in like manner, I am perswaded, that a Metaphysician may be very helpful to a Moralist; tho' I cannot easily conceive these two Characters united in the same Work. Any warm Sentiment of Morals, I am afraid, wou'd have the Air of Declamation amidst abstract Reasonings, & wou'd be esteem'd contrary to good Taste. And tho' I am much more ambitious of being esteem'd a Friend to Virtue, than a Writer of Taste; yet I must always carry the latter in my Eye, otherwise I must despair of ever being servicable to Virtue. I hope these Reasons will satisfy you; tho at the same time, I intend to make a new Tryal, if it be possible to make the Moralist & Metaphysician agree a little better.
(Vol. I, p. 32)

Body::Anatomy Visual Arts::Painting Uncategorized::Springs

Reading Cynthia Wall's The Prose of Things. (Chicago and London: U. of C. Press, 2006): 228. See also Donald T. Siebert's "'Ardor of Youth': The Manner of Hume's Treatise," in The Philosopher as writer: the Eighteenth Century. Robert Ginsberg, ed. (Cranbury, NJ: Associated UP, 1987): 190-1. See also John Richetti's Philosophical Writing: Locke, Berkeley, Hume. (Cambridge, MA; London, England: Harvard University Press, 1983): 190.

Hume, David. The Letters of David Hume. Ed. J. Y. T. Greig, 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932. From Pastmasters, The Complete Works and Correspondence of David Hume. Electronic edition. InteLex Corporation, 1995.

03/30/2010