On that Mythical Story of Hume in a Bog

{UPDATE: Dario Perinetti has called my attention to a paper by Cathryn Campbell (University of Edinburgh), "‘That Virtuous Heathen’ and the Fishwife: A Fable of the Bogs" he heard presented at a conference that presumably reaches similar conclusions as this post. More once I get my hands on that paper.--ES}

This place [for witches]...once nearly swallowed up David Hume the historian, who was a native of Ninewells, in the neighbourhood. Hume missed his footing in the mire, stuck fast, called for assistance, and was at last heard by some people, who ran to give help; but when they saw it was Hume "the unbeliever," though he was in other respects an amiable man, they turned back saying, "Na, na, the deil has him, let the deil keep him." David Hume got out by some means, and wrote his famous history after that time.--The Autobiography of a Working Man  by Alexander Somerville, 1848, p. 4

...a witch-haunted bog, memorable for having nearly swallowed up David Hume the historian, who was a native of Ninewells, in the neighbourhood. Hume missed his footing in the mire, and sticking fast, called for assistance, and was at last heard by some people, who ran to give help. Seeing, however, that it was Hume "the unbeliever," they turned back from the amiable philosopher, remarking, "Na, na, the deil has him, let the deil keep him."  Mr Somerville mentions, that Hume got out of the bog, and wrote his history afterwards, but does not relate the means by which the philosopher and historian escaped an absorption of his body, analogous of the absorption his mind had undergone in metaphysical mier. The "deil" would have had him both ways, the story goes, but for a compassonate milkmaid, who helped him out, after compelling him to say the Lord's prayer, as a proof that he was a true Christian.--From a review of The Autobiography of a Working Man (by Alexander Somerville, pub. 1848) in The Eclectic Review (pub. 1848) by Thomas Price and Edwin Paxton Hood

The story goes that over 1770-71, Hume was living in the Old Town of Edinburgh while supervising the construction of his new house in New Town. The North Bridge was not yet open, so he had to take a short cut across the bog left by Nor' Loch after that foul body of water had been drained away. As you might have already guessed, he slipped and fell into the bog and, try as he might, couldn't get himself out. After flailing about for some time he attracted the attention of a fishwife. She recognized him straightaway as "Hume the Atheist" and on that account was not sure whether to help him. Hume implored, "But my good woman, does not your religion as a Christian teach you to do good, even to your enemies?" "That may well be," she replied. "But ye shallna get out o' that, till ye become a Christian yoursell, and repeat the Lord's Prayer and the Belief!" What did Hume the Atheist do? Did he stand his ground and ridicule the superstitious beliefs of this woman? Of course not. To the surprise of the fishwife, he readily complied, and true to her word she helped him out of the bog. Hume retold this story frequently, always commending the fishwife as the most acute theologian he had ever encountered.--Charlie Huenemann at 3quarksdaily.

The biographer of The Life of David Hume, Mossner, also tells the story (on p. 563) and refers to the Caldwell papers. (In fact, I suspect that Mossner's version is the source for Charlie's retelling; Charlie is himself an important Spinoza and Nietzsche scholar.) And, indeed, one can find Mossner's version of the story there in a discursive footnote added by an editor to a reproduction of the letter from Hume to Baron Mure. But that note does not give a further source. It seems to have been first published in 1854, that is, after Somerville's account. So, there is a good chance that Somerville, or the review of Somerville, is the source of their version of the story.

There is, however, one key difference between the Somerville and Caldwell papers account: in Somerville the witch-infected bog is located near Hume's birth-place; the region of Chirnside. This is why the relatively youthtful Hume, once freed, goes on to write his History. Whereas in the Caldwell papers, the bog is in Edinburgh and the whole story has moved into Hume's retirement.

Somerville, himself was born in 1811 long after Hume's death (1776). Somerville tells the story in the context of talking about his parents's birth-region, but even they were not contemporaries of Hume at the time their version of the story was supposed to have taken place. So, none of the sources are eye-witness reports or even traced back to contemporaries of Hume. So, I am now inclined to think that the whole story is myth. It is primarily useful in revealing something about the aims of the narrator and their preferred vision of Hume and his attitude toward theology, philosophy, or mortality (etc.; nobody being interested in Somerville's parents anymore). Such biogrophical and autobiographical narratives should not be treated as history but as clues to the explicit and tacit presentations and self-presentations of a narrator.

One further reason why I think it is myth -- and why I would think it is a myth even if there are reports by self-proclaimed eyewitness or of Hume retelling the story dating back to Hume's life -- is that it echoes, as I noted yesterday, a famous story recounted by Socrates about Thales to illustrate paradigmatic philosophical pitfalls:

Why, take the case of Thales, Theodorus. While he was studying the stars and looking upwards, he fell into a pit, and a neat, witty Thracian servant girl jeered at him, they say, because he was so eager to know the things in the sky that he could not see what was there before him at his very feet. The same jest applies to all who pass their lives in philosophy. Theaetetus,  [174a]

I conclude with one final twist: the association of Hume with Socrates, and a life of philosophy, was encouraged by Adam Smith, as I have also argued, in his narrative of Hume's dying days (which evoke Plato's description Socrates's last days) in (1776) Letter to Strahan. Smith was not alone in encouraging the identification; George Dempster coined the Meme that Hume is "the Socrates of Edinburgh" in a letter to Adam Ferguson written during Hume's life (as Mossner also notes). In my view, Hume invites the association artfully in the introduction to the Treatise, but I have written about that elsewhere.

Comments

[Justin Vlasits]

There is a recent paper on the Theaetetus passage that you would be interested in: "Thales Down the Well: Perspectives at work in the digression in Plato’s Theaetetus" by Friedemann Buddensiek in Rhizomata II.1. According to him, the story has almost the exact opposite significance that it was traditionally taken to have. (Also cool details about wells in Greece.)

[Nicholas Denyer]

It is fascinating to catch such myths in the process of formation. Another nice example:

http://users.ox.ac.uk/~jrlucas/legend.html

[Eric Schliesser]

Thank you for the interesting piece about the Wilberforce/Huzley exchange.

[Randy Franciose]

This edifies the author's keen, if less than rapier, wit as Mr Ramsey, the character in Virginia Woolf's "To The Lighthouse" refers to this myth. Considerations of a metaphysical mind, the aloof professor doth dwell... Thanks for posting!