The Infidel and the Professor: David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship That Shaped Modern Thought

"I love Hume as a writer. He had a fascinating life that is pretty well documented considering he lived in the 18th century—probably because he was a prolific letter writer and many of his letters have survived. The odd thing about this book is that it’s about the friendship between Hume and Adam Smith of which there isn’t that much surviving evidence, in terms of letters. Smith was keen to destroy lots of personal writing, unfinished drafts and all kinds of manuscripts—and it was done pretty efficiently. So this book is largely a speculative reconstruction based on published books and the little that is known about their friendship, which lasted for 25 years. Hume was 12 years older than Adam Smith, and something of a hero of his. Apparently, Smith first read David Hume’s Treatise when he was a student at Balliol in Oxford. The authorities confiscated it, because it was too seditious. The reason was Hume’s ‘irreligion,’ his antipathy towards religion—what we would probably now call his atheism. Some people claim that Hume was merely an agnostic, to be consistent with his philosophy: he was a mitigated sceptic. He didn’t think that there was absolute proof that God didn’t exist, though the balance of evidence was clearly against it. But, actually, in his posthumously published Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion , he tears apart most of the classic arguments for God’s existence, so it’s pretty clear that Hume, if he wasn’t an atheist, was so close to it that we would probably call him one. Interestingly Adam Smith, as he emerges from this book, probably shared many of Hume’s anti-religious beliefs, but kept much, much quieter about it. As a result, he was able to become a professor at Glasgow University—a professor of logic. Hume survived much of his life as a professional writer—of essays and history as well as philosophy, although he did have some ambassadorial posts too. He couldn’t get an academic position because of his known antipathy to religion. This book is a really interesting, highly readable discussion of the friendship between the two. They met from time to time and read each other’s work. Glasgow and Edinburgh seem close together now, but it was a 13-hour journey in the 18th century. One of the places they met was at the Select Society in Edinburgh, which was a discussion group that attracted many of the great figures of the Scottish Enlightenment. “Adam Smith, as he emerges from this book, probably shared many of Hume’s anti-religious beliefs, but kept much, much quieter about it” One period that was particularly significant in their friendship was the period when Hume was obviously dying. There was a lot of interest in how Hume would exit. James Boswell visited him on his deathbed as well—and tried to convert him to Christianity. Apparently Hume, although in pain, was not worried at all about his own death, not fearing damnation or anything like that, and even cracked jokes about it. Adam Smith wrote a letter in which he said, “Poor David Hume is dying very fast, but with great cheerfulness and good humour, and with more real resignation to the necessary course of things than any whining Christian ever died with pretended resignation to the will of God.” Hume actually wrote a very short autobiography, quite a big puff for his own life, called My Own Life , which is also reprinted in the book. That was printed and circulated, and it was accompanied by a short letter from Smith, which ends with: “Upon the whole, I have always considered him [David Hume], both in his lifetime and since his death, as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man, as perhaps the nature of human frailty will permit.” Adam Smith coming out publicly and very strongly in defence of Hume’s virtuous character was a very provocative act in the context of the religious orthodoxy of the day. The other thing that’s really important to realise is that although today Hume is thought of as a philosopher and Smith as an economist, Hume’s economical thinking had a big influence on Adam Smith, and Adam Smith’s first book— The Theory of the Moral Sentiments —is largely what we would consider moral and political philosophy. Hume also became very well known as a historian. The categories weren’t as clearly delineated. There wasn’t a concept of an economist, and so they were really in the same business, these two. Who were also an influence on Hume through Locke, particularly, but also through Robert Boyle. As a philosopher, Hume was an empiricist—so he’s very sympathetic to the idea that the way to find out about things is to do the experiments, and the way to understand things is through observation and the senses. In the 18th century, that was certainly true. But there is a parallel broadening out of intellectual activity in the 21st century. These days you can’t be a serious philosopher of mind without knowing quite a lot about contemporary neuroscience. There is also a big blur between philosophy, economics and psychology in the area of behavioural economics. And there are many other areas where there are overlaps. The lines aren’t so clearly drawn anymore. The second of my choices is a book about religion. There’s a theological interest in religion and arguments for the existence of God that’s traditionally been part of philosophy, but anthropology and psychology also come into it. You can’t be too protectionist about a subject like philosophy. It thrives on interesting input from science, from literature, from the arts, from sociology and anthropology, from neuroscience. It’s not a pure subject."