On Social Distancing, David Hume, The Plague

There was one Wishart, a gentleman by birth, who employed himself with great zeal in preaching against the ancient superstitions, and began to give alarm to the clergy, who were justly terrified with the danger of some fatal revolution in religion. This man was celebrated for the purity of his morals, and for his extensive learning: But these praises cannot be much depended on; because, we know, that, among the reformers, severity of manners supplied the place of many virtues; and the age was in general so ignorant, that most of the priests in Scotland imagined the New Testament to be a composition of Luther's, and asserted that the Old alone was the word of God. But however the case may have stood with regard to those estimable qualities ascribed to Wishart, he was strongly possessed with the desire of innovation; and he enjoyed those talents, which qualified him for becoming a popular preacher, and for seizing the attention and affections of the multitude. The magistrates of Dundee, where he exercised his mission, were alarmed with his progress; and being unable or unwilling to treat him with rigour, they contented themselves with denying him the liberty of preaching, and with dismissing him the bounds of their jurisdiction. Wishart, moved with indignation, that they had dared to reject him, together with the word of God, menaced them, in imitation of the ancient prophets, with some imminent calamity; and he withdrew to the west country, where he daily encreased the number of his proselytes. Meanwhile, a plague broke out in Dundee; and all men exclaimed, that the town had drawn down the vengeance of Heaven by banishing the pious preacher, and that the pestilence would never cease, till they had made him atonement for their offence against him. No sooner did Wishart hear of this change in their disposition, than he returned to them, and made them a new tender of his doctrine: But lest he should spread the contagion by bringing multitudes together, he erected his pulpit on the top of a gate: The infected stood within; the others without. And the preacher failed not, in such a situation, to take advantage of the immediate terrors of the people, and to enforce his evangelical mission.--David Hume History of England, Vol. 3, ch 34.

After writing about (recall) Hume's use of Thucydides' analysis of the effects of the plague  in his rhetorically complicated essay, The Skeptic, I became curious about Hume's treatment of the plague more generally. The first thing to notice is that plagues recur regularly in the History of England (hereafter: the History). So, for example while commenting on the events of 1604, Hume writes, "The parliament was now ready to assemble, being so long delayed on account of the plague, which had broken out in London, and raged to such a degree, that above 30,000 persons are computed to have died of it in a year; though the city contained at that time little more than 150,000 inhabitants." (I return to this mortality rate below.)

In fact, plagues and the threat of plagues seems to have routinely delayed (see 1625), sometimes opportunistically (later in 1625 ),  or caused prorogation of parliament. In addition, plagues also routinely interfere in warmaking or tipping the balance to one side or another, especially when soldiers are not well fed/supplied (1563). And Hume has no doubt that this, in turn, can cause outbreaks in towns: "the infected army brought the plague with them into England, where it swept off great multitudes, particularly in the city of London. Above twenty thousand persons, there, died of it in one year."

A mortality rate of 20% seems high to us. But it's clear higher mortality rates were known to Hume. For example, the plague of 1665 "with such violence as to cut off, in a year, near 90,000 inhabitants." (And the "king was obliged to summon the parliament at Oxford.")  Hume clearly thought a mortality rate of a third was the average upper bound (this is on the great plague of 1349):

But a sudden damp was thrown over this festivity and triumph of the court of England, by a destructive pestilence, which invaded that kingdom as well as the rest of Europe; and is computed to have swept away near a third of the inhabitants in every country, which it attacked. It was probably more fatal in great cities than in the country; and above fifty thousand souls are said to have perished by it in London alone.e This malady first discovered itself in the north of Asia, was spread over all that country, made its progress from one end of Europe to the other, and sensibly depopulated every state through which it passed. So grievous a calamity, more than the pacific disposition of the princes, served to maintain and prolong the truce between France and England.

It's notable that Hume thinks that in densely packed urban areas, the mortality rates of plagues can be well above a third. Hume wryly implies that depopulation is not all bad because it reduces the warmaking capacity of feudal kings. 

Okay, let's turn to the vignette on George Wishart (burned at the stake in 1546 at St. Andrews) quoted above. Hume makes three very striking points: first, that in order to prevent the spread of infectious disease, social distancing was practiced even at an event that was subject of political and religious turmoil. (Dundee being a port city this should not surprise.) Second, Wishart's cause benefitted from successful prophecy. Third, the people treated the pest as a sign of bad policy and requiring collective atonement and a change of policy. (It's not impossible, of course, that Wishart's prophecy influenced them.)

It is tempting to treat the vignette as an instance of superstitious politics in which religious entrepreneurs exploit fear for innovative religious (and politically salient) ends. And undoubtedly this is one of Hume's (Epicurean) points. But he is also calling attention to another element. The men of Dundee clearly tacitly assume, at least in times of turbulence, a theory of political legitimacy in which both heaven and the citizenry evaluate rulership and, if they find it wanting or incompetent, can withhold consent. And while there are many sources for Hume's thought, this also echoes elements of the theory of the heavenly mandate of the Chinese (recall this post on Mencius and this one on Master Mo). As I noted before (here and here), Hume was almost certainly familiar with Mencius (but not Master Mo).

Okay, I could end here. But some of the tropes discussed in this post are combined in one more vignette. For, the plague was not eradicated by medicine, but by the way social distancing was made structural by architectural social planning:

The fire of London, though at that time a great calamity, has proved in the issue beneficial both to the city and the kingdom. The city was rebuilt in a very little time; and care was taken to make the streets wider and more regular than before. A discretionary power was assumed by the king to regulate the distribution of the buildings, and to forbid the use of lath and timber, the materials, of which the houses were formerly composed. The necessity was so urgent, and the occasion so extraordinary, that no exceptions were taken at an exercise of authority, which otherwise might have been deemed illegal. Had the king been enabled to carry his power still farther, and made the houses be rebuilt with perfect regularity, and entirely upon one plan; he had much contributed to the convenience, as well as embellishment of the city. Great advantages, however, have resulted from the alterations; though not carried to the full length. London became much more healthy after the fire. The plague, which used to break out with great fury twice or thrice every century, and indeed was always lurking in some corner or other of the city, has scarcely ever appeared since that calamity

The passage is notable for a number of reasons in addition to Hume's taste for regular, top-down city-planning (of the sort later associated with Paris and New York city's grid [and maybe he liked in then contemporary Edinburgh]). First, it connects to his theory of the state of exception: urgent necessity allows concentration of authority that is otherwise dangerous and illegal (see this treatment of Johan de Witt in the History and the parallel passage in "An Idea of Perfect Commonwealth").* Second, it shows that it is a mistake to treat Hume as a one-sided (proto Burkean/Hayekian) advocate of spontaneous, bottom up order. Third, he recognizes that centralizing authority has a positive role to play in facilitating not just public safety, but also (anticipating Smith) public health. Fourth, it can do so by what we would call regulating planning and zoning.

One may wonder whether the effect on eliminating the plague was the intention of the changes in city planning. It's not impossible Hume thinks it was an unintended effect. But as we have seen, given the significance Hume puts on widespread familiarity with the effectiveness social distancing, Hume thought it could if not intended, at least have been foreseeable. 

 

*Or the scholarly version here.

Comments

[John Protevi]

Very interesting indeed, Eric. On the question of anti-plague intentions by city planners, Foucault cites a 1932 study of 18th century construction in Nantes, which definitely took "circulation" as anti-plague precaution into account. (STP, English translation, 17-23). Now that's quite a bit later than the 17th century reconstruction of post-fire London. But still, I wonder what contemporary urban historians would say about that reconstruction.

By the way, this looks like a fun resource: https://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item103694.html