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Voltaire and Hume as Historians: A Comparative Study of the Essai sur les Moeurs and the History of England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Paul H. Meyer
Paul H. Meyer*
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut, Storrs
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Extract

Seventeen years ago, in a highly provocative article in this journal, E. C. Mossner rose to the defense of David Hume's historical writings, which had been treated with considerable severity by scholars such as J. B. Black, who, in his Art of History, had compared them unfavorably with those of his contemporaries, in particular Voltaire. Mossner, however, in trying to bring out the qualities of Hume's History of England, confronted it almost exclusively with Voltaire's Siècle de Louis XIV, and in this instance it must be admitted that Hume labored under a grave disadvantage, since his far more comprehensive subject was harder to master from the artistic as well as the scientific point of view than Voltaire's. In the present article we shall transfer the comparison from the Siècle to Voltaire's longest and most mature historical effort, the Essai sur les moeurs et l'esprit des nations, and this considerably changes our perspective, for here Voltaire is dealing with a similar and, if anything, more difficult theme. In this way a parallel may prove highly instructive in bringing out the excellences and weaknesses of the two historians respectively in their approach to comparable subjects and in the formulation of their philosophy of history. What makes comparisons particularly inviting is the circumstance that Voltaire's topic also includes Hume's, so that in numerous instances it is possible to examine the reaction of both writers to the same events and personalities. While our investigation of the resemblances and differences in the thought of these two outstanding representatives of the Enlightenment will stress some of the traits shared by most historians of their age, we shall also attempt to underline the more individual elements that emerge from their works.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 73 , Issue 1 , March 1958 , pp. 51 - 68
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1958

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References

1 “An Apology for David Hume, Historian,” PMLA, lvi (Sept. 1941), 657–690.

2 E.g., Friedrich Meinecke, Die Entstehung des Historismus (Munich, 1936), i, 101–102, 209–210,223–225; R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of Eistory (Oxford, 1946), pp. 75–76, 80–81; R. N. Stromberg, “History in the Eighteenth Century,” JEI, xii (April 1951), 300–303.

3 Essay sur l'histoire générale, et sur les moeurs et l'esprit des nations, depuis Charlemagne jusqu'à nos jours, 7 vols. (Geneva).

4 The Letters of David Eume, ed. J. Y. T. Greig (Oxford, 1932), i, 325–326.

5 Œuvres complètes de Voltaire (Paris, 1877-83), xi, iii—hereafter cited in the text as Œuvres.

6 The Letters of David Hume, i, 226.

7 The Letters of Horace Walpole, Fourth Earl of Orford, ed. Mrs. Paget Toynbee (Oxford, 1903-005), iii, 294.

8 Essay sur l'histoire générale, et sur les moeurs et l'esprit des nations, depuis Charlemagne jusqu'à nos jours. Nouvelle édition, revue, corrigée, et considérablement augmentée, 8 vols. (Geneva).

9 “Voltaire's Books: A Selected List,” MP, xxvii (Aug 1929), 1–22.

10 The History of England, from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688 (London, 1818), iii, 407—herafter cited in the text as Hist.

11 Œuvres, xii, 316. This passage is not found in the edition of 17S6, and if Hume's History has been Voltaire's source, the difference in treatment is particularly revealing.

12 The Art of History (New York, 1926), pp. 101–103.

13 Die Entstehung des Historismus, i, 213–214. The passage referred to is found in Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals by David Hume, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1902), pp. 83–84.

14 The Idea of History, pp. 82–83.

15 Trans. F. C. A. Koelln and J. P. Pettegrove (Princeton Univ. Press, 1951), p. 226.

16 See Stromberg, “History in the Eighteenth Century,” pp. 300–301.

17 Sally Daiches, Über das Verhältnis der Geschichts-schreibung D. Humes zu seiner praktischen Philosophie (Leipzig, 1903), p. 21, and Jules Delvaille, Essai sur l'histoire de l'idée de progrès jusqu'à la fin du XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1910), pp. 457–458.

18 E. L. Leroy, David Hume (Paris, 1953), p. 290, and Mossner, “An Apology,” pp. 667–668.

19 Essays Moral, Political, and Literary by David Hume (London, 1889), i, 109–113.

20 Meinecke (i, 116) notes that Hume's use of the idea preceded Voltaire's, but does not draw any conclusion with regard to influence.

21 J.-R. Carré, Consistance de Voltaire: Le philosophe (Paris, 1938), pp. 88–89.

22 Jerome Rosenthal, “Voltaire's Philosophy of History,” JHI, xvi (April 1955), 169.

23 An analogous difference between Voltaire and Montesquieu has been pointed out by G. R. Havens in The Age of Ideas (New York, 1955), p. 134.

24 See The Letters of David Hume, i, 194.

25 Œuvres, xii, 70. See also the indignant chapter (xii, 134–141) where Voltaire castigates the absurd prerequisites for social and political prominence still prevailing in his own day in France and Germany.

26 Mossner, The Life of David Hume (Austin, 1954), pp. 304 ff.

27 Black, The Art of History, pp. 71–72.

28 Ibid., pp. 90–91.

29 Leroy, David Hume, pp. 282–284.