Yet the influence of that temper still lay a generation ahead; and the
next piece of import comes from a mind which, though perhaps the most
powerful of all which have applied themselves to political philosophy in
England, was, from its very scepticism, incapable of constructive
effort. David Hume was thirty-one years of age when he published (1742)
the first series of his essays; and his _Treatise of Human Nature_ which
had fallen "dead-born from the press" was in some sort compensated by
the success of the new work. The second part, entitled _Political
Discourses_, was published in 1752, almost simultaneously with the
"_Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals_." As in the case of
Hume's metaphysical studies, they constitute the most powerful
dissolvent the century was to see. Yet nowhere was so clearly to be
demonstrated the euthanasia into which English politics had fallen.

Hume, of course, is always critical and suggestive, and even if he had
no distinctive contribution to make, he gave a new turn to speculation.
There is something almost of magic in the ease with which he demolishes
divine right and the social contract. The one is an inevitable deduction
from theism, but it protects an usurper not less than an hereditary
king, and gives a "divine commission" as well to a constable as to the
most majestic prince. The proponents of the social contract are in no
better case. "Were you to preach," he remarks, "in most parts of the
world that political connections are founded altogether on voluntary
consent, or on a mutual promise, the magistrate would soon imprison you
as seditious for loosening the ties of obedience; if your friends did
not before shut you up as delirious for advancing such absurdities." The
original contract could not be produced, and, even if it were, it would
suppose the "consent of the fathers to bind the children even to the
most remote generations." The real truth, as he remarks, is that "almost