DAVID HUME, OR THE ANTI-PRIEST (A NOTE ON A FOOTNOTE)

Of National Characters was first published in the third edition of the Essays, Moral and Political, and in the Three Essays, on the 18th November 1748 Old Style (29th of November 1748). It contains a long footnote, which is a kind of short essay, and could be entitled Of the Priestly Character or Priest, his Character, according to the Index partly composed by Hume for the 1758 edition of the Essays. In 1753, with the fourth edition of the Essays, Hume gives to Of National Characters its definitive form, and adds two paragraphs to the footnote, which will never be altered, notwithstanding the criticism advanced in Robert Wallace’s Letter from a Moderate Freethinker (1752), John Bonar’s Analysis of The Moral and Religious Sentiments (1755), Robert Trail’s Qualifications and Decorum of a Teacher of Christianity (1755), and Alexander Gerard’s View to Hume’s representation of the spirit of the Pastoral Office (1760). Scholars define the footnote an “incongruous footnote”, an “outburst of spleen”, something “abusive, in a way uncharacteristic of Hume”, a “vituperative” attack, “laden with rancour, though under the guise of scientific language”. It has been observed that the footnote is “a diatribe against the clerical profession, out of all proportion to the needs of [the] essay”; that “it is difficult not to see Hume’s own experience” behind his complaints against the clergy; that “not all clergy are subjected to the same degree of censure” and that Hume is “partly targeting priestcraft, and thus the practices of episcopalian cultures”; finally, that he “may still have been provoked by the publication in 1741 of William Leechman’s sermon on The Temper, Character and Duty of a Minister of the Gospel”. Yet, several circumstances remain obscure, and the analysis raises more questions than answers: when, where and why did Hume compose the footnote, where he shows himself such an Anti-Priest?