DAVID HUME VERSUS THE NEGRO AS AN INFERIOR HUMAN RACE
David Hume (1752)
I am apt to suspect the Negroes to be naturally inferior to the Whites. There never was a civilized nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation. No ingenious manufacturer amongst them, no arts, no sciences. On the other hand, the most rude and barbarous of the Whites, such as the ancient German, the present Tartars, still have something eminent about them, in their valor, form of government, or some other particular. Such a uniform and constant difference could not happen in so many countries and ages, if nature had not made an original distinction betwixt these breeds of men. Not to mention our colonies, there are Negro slaves dispersed all over Europe, of whom none ever discovered any symptoms of ingenuity; though low people, without education, will [229] start up amongst us, and distinguish themselves in every profession. In Jamaica, indeed, they talk of one Negro as a man of parts and learning; but it is likely he is admired for slender accomplishments, like a parrot who speaks a few words plainly.¹
ENDNOTES
1. David Hume, “Part I, Essay XXI: Of National Characters,” The Philosophical Works of David Hume, Including all the Essays, and Exhibiting the More Important Alterations and Corrections in the Successive Editions Published by the Author: Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary, vol. 3, Edinburgh/Boston, Adam and Charles Black/Little, Brown and Company, 1854, 217–236; 228–229. [1752]
Is David Hume a Western philosopher like Cartesius, or a modern European sophist like Locke?
See: “Locke was heavily involved in the slave trade, both through his investments and through his administrative supervision of England’s burgeoning colonial activities … The attempt to reconcile Locke’s involvement in the slave trade with his reputation as a philosopher of liberal freedom has a long history, beginning shortly after the abolition of the slave trade … Locke’s readers are faced with the problem of how he could have been so intimately involved in promoting an activity that he apparently knew to be unjustified … We are disturbed by the ease with which some commentators excuse Locke of racism or minimize its significance … to advocate, administer, and profit from a specifically racialized form of slavery is clear evidence of [Locke’s] racism, if the word is to have any meaning at all.”
Robert Bernasconi & Anika Maaza Mann, “The Contradictions of Racism: Locke, Slavery, and the Two Treatises,” Race and Racism in Modern Philosophy, Andrew Valls, editor, Ithaca/London, 2005, 89–89–90–91–91.
