We may observe the same effect of poetry in a lesser degree; and this is common both to poetry and madness, that the vivacity they bestow on the ideas is not deriv'd from the particular situations or connexions of the objects of these ideas, but from the present temper and disposition of the person. But how great soever the pitch may be, to which this vivacity rises, 'tis evident, that in poetry it never has the same feeling with that which arises in the mind, when we reason, tho' even upon the lowest species of probability. The mind can easily distinguish betwixt the one and the other; and whatever emotion the poetical enthusiasm may give to the spirits, 'tis still the mere phantom of belief or persuasion.--David Hume, Treatise 1.3.10.10.*
I have noted before that Hume's relationship to poetry is rather complicated (recall here and a bit here). I even even claimed (at the time now four years ago) that according to Hume we need to read poetry for what it reveals about us and its discerning the limits of mortal possibility. One may worry, however, that the quoted passage above suggests a rather deflationary attitude toward poets. Hume makes two claims here: first, that while all of us can be moved by poetry equally, the cognitive or epistemic effects of poetry are due to the character and disposition of the person impacted by it. Second, that regardless of its (shall we say) emotional impact, poetry cannot make us really believe what is not.
One may well wonder who would think otherwise. Before I get to that, I want to pause at Hume's use of 'poetical enthusiasm.' Today, ‘enthusiasm’ means something like ardor—an energetic interest in a topic. Enthusiasm is derived (via Latin and French) from the Greek enthousiasmos "divine inspiration, enthusiasm (produced by certain kinds of music, etc.)," and enthousiazein "be inspired or possessed by a god, be rapt, be in ecstasy," from entheos "divinely inspired, possessed by a god."
Of course, Hume primarily uses ‘enthusiasm’ to describe species of religious fervor (see his famous essay, “Of Superstition and Enthusiasm”). While Hume stance is, in general derogatory toward enthusiasm (a form of religious zeal), he recognizes that enthusiasm is grounded in at least some dispositions worth having: “hope, pride, presumption, a warm imagination, together with ignorance, are, therefore, the true sources of enthusiasm.” Moreover, he thinks that while in the short run enthusiasm generates fanaticism, in the long run it can have good political effects in the service of liberty.
Okay, let's return to Treatise, 1.3.3.10. It's worth asking who the target of Hume's remarks are. I suspect they were prompted by Shaftesbury's (1707) "Letter Concerning Enthusiasm," (included in the Characteristics of Men). For in historicizing fashion, Shaftesbury thinks the poets among the ancients (but not the moderns),+ were capable of inspiring belief in what is not (just as modern false religious enthusiasts are also so capable according to him).** The ultimate target here is, of course, Plato or somebody inspired by Plato:
Indeed, Socrates uses one such connate (of enthusiasm) to describe poetic frenzy. To be sure, it’s not used to capture the frenzied mania of divine inspiration, but rather to represent the phenomenal experience – the what it’s like – of a poet’s loss of self or identity, in presentating or performing her poem. (Greek poetry is meant to be performed.) In context (Ion 235b-c), the poetic-performance ecstasy entails that the poet leaves her own body at a particular space and time, and mentally transports himself to the represented reality (somewhere else in time),++ the scenes described. Plato has the poet, Ion, affirm the experience: "I will tell you without reserve: when I relate a tale of woe, my eyes are filled with tears; and when it is of fear or awe, my hair stands on end with terror, and my heart leaps." (Ion 535)
The described effect is politically important because (sophistic) rhetoric produces, in Socrates’s reported experience, an analogous effect on its audience (see Menexenus 235a-c): "they bewitch our souls...when thus praised by them feel mightily ennobled, and every time I listen fascinated I am exalted and imagine myself to have become all at once taller and nobler and more handsome," (etc.). As I noted before (recall here, here, and here), De Grouchy, who lived through the French revolution, was very concerned about the effect of enthusiastic modern, demagogues who may well appear to believe their own rhetoric.
Let's close with Hume. It's possible he was convinced by, say, Shaftesbury that poetic enthusiasm was no political danger at all anymore; that the dangers could be contained by increased freedom of speech, especially the freedom of raillery "for against serious Extravagances and splenetick Humours there is no other Remedy than this." But the way Hume argues in the Treatise he seems to think that given human nature, there is simply little danger that we can be made to believe something just by beautiful words alone. As he put it, "there is something weak and imperfect amidst all that seeming vehemence of thought and sentiment, which attends the fictions of poetry." (1.3.10.10) While Plato may be thought to take the problem too seriously, and to ignore the downside risks of banishing the poets, one may even be tempted to accuse Hume of some complacency in the other direction (if we didn't have Hume's later writings ).
But there is a more interesting point lurking in Hume's position. There is no doubt Hume thinks that enthusiasm can produce strong emotions that make us behave as if we believe its fictions; spirits are excited and our attention is roused. But Hume suggests that if one looks closely there is no firm conviction. People want to believe pleasing poets and demagogues -- as Nietzsche noted "man would rather will nothingness than not will," -- and will express behavior that makes it seem they do. (And the art of demagogues is to make his audience hear what it wants.) But Hume tells us to look more closely, and what one finds is not melancholy, as Shaftesbury thought, but a fragile weakness ("something weak and imperfect"). This entails, I think, that the responsible, political response to enthusiasm should be directed at finding ways of acknowledging this fragility and redirecting it to less harmful ends.
*This post was prompted by a correspondence with with the mathematical economics, M.A. Khan, over the nature of enthusiasm after this post on the purported secularization of enthusiasm De Grouchy.
+By which he means post-Christian revelation; the ancients worshiped the muses in a way the moderns can't.
**Shaftesbury's solution to the excesses produced by religious speech/freedom is to promote another species of freedom of speech--letting mockery and satire undermine religious enthusiasm. (In fact, he thinks if it is capable of withstanding such mocking scrutiny, it's a sign of truth.) There are hints of Machiavelli and Spinoza here, using an evil to combat that very evil.
++I ignore here how Socrates and his interlocutors think about the historical status of myth.
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