Though de Wit’s intelligence in foreign courts was not equal to the vigilance of his domestic administration, he had, long before, received many surmises of this fatal confederacy; but he prepared not for defence, so early or with such industry, as the danger required. A union of England with France was evidently, he saw, destructive to the interests of the former kingdom; and therefore, overlooking or ignorant of the humours and secret views of Charles, he concluded it impossible, that such pernicious projects could ever really be carried into execution. Secure in this fallacious reasoning, he allowed the republic to remain too long in that defenceless situation, into which many concurring accidents had conspired to throw her.--David Hume The History of England, Vol. 6, 257-8; [Emphasis added.]
I have discussed the passage before (recall here; below I explain why I return to it). In particular, De Witt’s response to the threat posed by England and France is treated as an instance of rational over-confidence. De Witt, who elsewhere in the History is treated as a magnanimous, philosopher-king by Hume, treats his country's (likely) enemies as rational, calculating agents--ones that understand their national self-interests properly and that will act accordingly (in the context of a balance of power). In the grip of a model of reality, De Witt treats something as impossible that he ought to prepare for. De Witt is, thus, an exemplar of an intellectual that mistakes his own view of the world for reality.
I use the language of ‘model’ here for two reasons: first, because Hume attributes De Witt’s mistake in his evaluation of Charles not to a lack of access to relevant data (he “received many surmises”), but to a systematic way of seeing the world based on agents’ objective interests from which actions can be inferred (“reasoning”). Second, the (implicit) causal model governs what is taken to be possible or not.
Of course, the reasoning is not fallacious within the model-universe, but it is objectively fallacious. In earlier work, I treated Hume's critical representation of De Witt as a reductio, and instance, of the limitations of mathematical, Cartesian political philosophy. For, first, we know that Hume was rather critical of applications of mathematics (see, especially, Treatise 1.4.1-2; and this piece for scholarship or this video for larger context.) Second, De Witt was one of the leading mathematicians of his day, trained in the Cartesian milieu of Van Schooten in Leiden (which included Huygens and Hudde). And Hume explicitly calls attention to De Witt's practical skill in applied or mixed mathematics: "even made improvements in some parts of pilotage [sic] and sailing, beyond what men expert in those arts had ever been able to attain." (Piloting is traditionally a mathematical topic.)
By contrast, Hume explains that De Witt falls short in his knowledge "of the humours and secret views of" Charles II. That is, De Witt failed to understand the character or physico-psychological make up the British King; De Witt lacks (Humean) knowledge of human nature. For, it is a core tenet of Hume's theory of political science, that in domestic affairs, in the aggregate, people become predictable (in the manner of, say, public choice theory) due to the (primarily) institutional incentives and constraints they face: "soo great is the force of laws, and of particular forms of government, and so little dependence have they on the humours° and tempers of men, that consequences almost as general and certain may sometimes be deduced from them as any which the mathematical sciences afford ." (That Politics May be Reduced to a Science.) [The last point is an echo of Spinoza's Political Treatise.] By contrast, international relations are less predictable because they are influenced by the individual whims and characters ("humours and tempers") of rulers.
Before I explain why I started to change my mind about the nature of Hume's target here, first an aside: when I first started blogging and presenting on Hume's (and Spinoza's) treatment of the fall of the De Witt brothers, the great Dutch scholar, Wiep van Bunge , asked me if I had any idea who the source of Hume's treatment of De Witt might be. For, while it's clear that Hume carefully read Temple, his analysis of De Witt clearly draws on material not in Temple. I had not done my home-work; so finding this source was put on my (rather long) scholarly-to-do-list.
Now a while ago a sagacious, anonymous referee had questioned my treatment of this passage. In particular, the referee found the connection with Cartesianism far-fetched. (Admittedly, in the earlier version of the paper, I had not linked the passage to Hume's anti-mathematicism and I had not made explicit that piloting is mathematical.)* But in looking at Hume's treatment again, it's clear that what he is attacking is one-sided and overzealous application of what we would rational choice theory [RTC] by an agent in conditions of uncertainty. For, in Hume's hands De Witt treats others as rationally and correctly following their national self-interests. But this is, of course, not a doctrine especially associated with Descartes (if anything contemporary rational choice theorists tend to treat Hobbes and Hume as the great early modern RCT heroes).**
Rather, the idea that agents, including international agents, follow their own interest is associated with De La Court brothers themselves often coupled with De Witt. (For a nice accessible treatment of De La Courts, see this book by Arthur Weststeijn.) So, yesterday I started to look for English (and French) translations of De La Court's Interest of Holland that may be known to Hume. In the age of Google this is easy, and I learned that there is a 1746 translation which has -- you can imagine my joy -- a biographical sketch of the De Witt brothers attached to it in the prefatory material. There we find the famous anecdote about De Witt's pilotage (and mathematical) skills:
It was the received doctrine of the seamen, that there were but ten points of the compass from which, if the wind blew, ships could go out, and that twenty-two were against them; but the pensionary de Witt, as he was a great mathematician, soon discovered the falsity of this notion, and that there were in reality no less than twenty eight points in their favour, and but four that could hinder them from going out, viz. W. NW. by W. NW. NW. by N. The pilots however perceiving that he reckoned upon all the passages, declared positively that in the Spaniards-gat there was not above ten or twelve feet water, and that therefore it was...impossible to carry out large ships by that passage. Their assertion did not satisfy the pensionary, he went through it in a long-boat in person at low water, and without trusting the lead out of his hand, found it at least twenty foot deep every where, and free from those incumbrances which the pilots had hitherto talked of. The pensionary therefore engaged that himself and M. van Haaren would carry out the two greatest ships in the fleet through the Spaniards-gat with the wind at SSW, which he performed on the 16th of August 1665, and the greatest part of the fleet followed him without the least accident, since which that passage has been called, and very deservedly, Witts-diepc. "MEMOIRS OF Cornelius de Witt and John de Witt," prefaced to Pieter de la Court, The True Interest and Political Maxims, of the Republic of Holland [1662] translated (London: John Campbell, Esq, 1746).
It's not impossible that this biography of the De Witt brothers was Hume's source. Because it, too (recall), emphasizes Johan De Witt's magnanimity (and his modesty about his great skill in mathematics):
Even so, Hume did not follow this biography slavishly. Because the English biography does not treat de Witt as in the grip of RTC. Rather according to the English biography, De Witt was simply mistaken about because misled by his enemies: "though he was not entirely blinded by the delusive representations of France and England, yet it is certain that it was a long time before he perceived in how great danger the republic stood." So, on this biography's account the source of De Witt's delusion is not RTC, but his mistaken reliance on his friendship with Temple: "The regard he had for Sir William Temple; and his confidence in the declarations made by him, kept this statesman long in suspence, and the great consideration he had for the French embassador contributed not a little to the keeping him fixed in these sentiments, notwithstanding the strong appearance there was of foul dealing." [Of course, it would be peculiar if the preface to De La Court's Interest would undermine reliance on interest.]
Okay, so much for history of (political) philosophy and political economy. What about my study question? The biography of brothers De Witt attached to De la Court's Interest is unsigned. However, we know De la Court's Interest was translated by John Campbell {HT Mikko Tolonen (see also Weststeijn, p. 361)}. So, it would be likely that Campbell is also the translator of the sketch De Witt's life.
Now the standard treatment of De Witt's life is (as Aaron Garrett suggested to me) Emanuel Van der Hoeven's (1705) Leeven en dood der doorlugtige heeren gebroeders Cornelis de Witt en Johannes de Witt, which was also translated in French (a language Hume read).*** So, one may expect Campbell translated it into English and added it as a preface to his translation.
There are two problems with this hypothesis: first, the English biographical sketch is much shorter than Van der Hoeven's Leeven. And so, at best we're dealing with an excerpted text. However, when I checked the passages I quoted above in the original Dutch, it is clear that the English is by no means a straight translation. Rather, if it is based on Van der Hoeven's Life at all, it is a serious re-interpretation. However, Van der Hoeven's Life provides a clue for the more likely source. When Van der Hoeven recounts the story about De Witt's piloting skills in Texel he quotes and cites a French historian at length, De la Neuville. Neuville wrote a History of Holland.
Yet, when I looked at a different edition of Campbell's translation of De la Court's Interest on Google, I noticed that some scribe had decided the biography of De Witt was written by Campbell. As noted above, there is internal evidence for this suggestion (which Tolonen also suggested). The account of De Witt has an English perspective. In addition, there is an illuminating note (which is not in the other edition reproduced in the liberty fund website): "the reader will perceive, that not only the general histories of Holland, have been consulted for this work, but also all the private memoirs and other pieces which contain contain any authentic account of the transactions mentioned therein." Among the sources he cites is not just De la Neuville, but also Van der Hoeven (in French translation). So, we can infer that John Campbell not merely translated but created an English life of De Witt (and his brother). And for now I think it is this Life that helped shape non-trivial details of Hume's political philosophy (for whom the Dutch republic is very important model in his Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth).
Now, the question is, who was this John Campbell? But that's for another day.
*I thank an excellent audience in Prague for helpful comments.
**See, for example, Hardin's book, which treats Hume as a sophisticated heir to Hobbes's version of RTC. Recall also my recent analysis of Andrew Sabl's fascinating treatment of Hume as a theorist of coordination problems.
***To the best of my knowledge this Van der Hoeven is probably no relation of Pieter de la Court (whose Dutch/Flemish name is Pieter van den Hove). Emanuel Van der Hoeven was a merchant and playwright (in the circle of Spinoza's friend, Lodewijk Meyer.)
Comments