Locke vs Hume: What were they like as writers?
Classic List Update
In my latest foray into the classic list,
I read Locke’s Second Treastise on
Government and Hume’s Essays Moral,
Political, Literary*. John Locke and David Hume are revered enlightenment
scholars and their works, particularly these two books, are often cited as the
source of inspiration that the founding fathers of the United States drew from.
A little while ago, I asked the question, “What was Freud like as a writer?” Now
I can ask the question what are enlightenment philosophers like as writers?
David Hume
My favorite part of Hume’s essays is
actually a trifle. I should probably say something about his insight into how
human beings operate or the way his diction in any given sentence makes the
sometimes-plodding subject matter skip, slide and jump its way into my brain
with a strange sort of rhythm. But no, my favorite part from Hume’s essays was
the word ‘enow’. It is the plural form of enough. Throughout his essays, there
are a bunch of little anachronisms such as this that have now fallen out of use
and stick out like a green pine tree in a bare forest in winter.
His Diction
However, the word ‘enow’ is emblematic of
Hume’s skill with diction. Try saying the word, E-now. It has a weird sound to
it doesn’t it? But Hume makes some nice sentences with it. “There are enow of
zealots on both sides who kindle up the passions of their partizans, and under
pretence of public good, pursue the interests and ends of their particular
faction,” (1). In addition to the word ‘enow’, also note the variant spellings
of partisans and pretense. The z in ‘partizans’ keeps the buzz created first by
the word ‘zealots’ and then strengthened by the word ‘passions’ before abruptly
ending on the harsh ‘ct’ in ‘faction’. Part of the difference in spelling can
come down to the Great English vowel shift that was happening in the late 17th
and early 18th century (2). Nevertheless there were no standard
spelling books for English until Hume was in his 50s. Therefore, he could spell
words, almost, as he pleased or at least he could personally make the choice
between variant spellings of the words. Add this to his expansive vocabulary
choices and the results are some very pleasant sentences.
“In such a state of mind, the imagination
swells with great, but confused conceptions, to which no sublunary beauties or
enjoyments can correspond.”
Essay X: Of Superstition and Enthusiasm
“Enormous
monarchies are, probably, destructive to human nature; in their progress, in
their continuance, and even in their downfal which never can be very distant
from their establishment.”
Essay VII: Of the Balance of Power
John Locke
While Hume was also an Empiricist,
Locke was the Empiricist from whom Hume emerged. Hume’s writing follows a
logical sequence, but his diction choice gives it rhythm and movement. Locke’s
writing, on the other hand, is less lively, but it also manages to avoid
plodding drudgingly along. Instead, I heard of gears clicking into place as
steadily as a ticking clock as I was reading his book. Not to say that his
writing is overly rigid and mechanistic, but rather it was like watching an
oddly satisfying video. Each sentence clause slid into the slots left open by
the one preceding it and provided grooves for the following to nestle into.
Let’s take a section from Locke’s Second
Treastise and I’ll demonstrate what I mean. These following sentences all
come from Chapter V. Section 28.
“He that is nourished by the
acorns he picked up under an oak, or the apples he gathered from the trees in
the wood, has certainly appropriated them to himself. No body can deny but the
nourishment is his. I ask then, when did they begin to be his? when he
digested? or when he eat? or when he boiled? or when he brought them home? or
when he picked them up? and it is plain, if the first gathering made them not
his, nothing else could. That labour put a distinction between them and common:
that added something to them more than nature, the common mother of all, had
done; and so they became his private right.”
His Grooves
Locke’s first two sentences say that
anyone who has picked up acorns and eaten them has taken possession of them.
This provides a foundation for the following questions where Locke asks, when
exactly did possession take place? He breaks apart the simple scenario into
different points and asks at which point possession occurred. Having given the
options, he selects the obvious answer of ‘picking them up’. Here Locke makes a
dramatic leap from a simple scenario to broad political principle. But each
sentence preceding this has settled so snugly into the next that we just nod
right along with him. ‘Labour’ (of picking the acorns up) is what made the
difference between possession and ‘nature’.
His Punctuation
Part of what makes this jigsaw logic
possible is the way he forms his sentences. Not only does each clause logically
fit into the ones beside it, but also each clause is punctuated to make it
clear where each piece is and what it connects to. Locke could have let the
first sentence run without putting a comma between “he gathered from the trees
in the wood” and “has certainly appropriated them to himself”. However, with
the comma there, Locke indicates that the previous scenario functions as one
big noun, which makes up the subject of object of the sentence: He that does this
has certainly appropriated them to himself. Similarly, he breaks up each
question two sentences later with a question mark, but while he’s breaking them
up he’s simultaneously connecting them by giving each the same mark and leaving
the first letter lowercase.
What Can We Learn from This?
Hume teaches us that the sound of your
sentences can help convey your meaning or at least not distract from the
meaning you wish to convey. Locke teaches us that our punctuation can separate
as well as link ideas and help you build a coherent argument. The next time you
are writing try to listen to sound of your sentences and pay attention to where
you put your commas, question marks, and period.
What About You?
Let me know how it goes if you try
out their methods! Have you learned things from other authors? Do you think
this attention to detail is specific to philosopher? Have you seen other
authors do this?
Notes:
*Can you tell
the list is alphabetical yet? I’m just going straight down it. J
Sources:
Image credit:
(1) “Essay III:
That Politics May Be Reduced to a Science” by David Hume https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hume-essays-moral-political-literary-lf-ed
Notes:
*Can you tell
the list is alphabetical yet? I’m just going straight down it. J
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