MODERN EUROPEAN RIGHT: DAVID HUME AND THE NEGRO AS AN INFERIOR HUMAN RACE

27 min readOct 3, 2018

Christopher Richard Wade Dettling (2018)

I am apt to suspect the Negroes to be naturally inferior to the Whites. David Hume¹

The sophistical mind of David Hume, his inveterate mental weakness and conceptual perversity, is the victim of modern European political and economic irrationalism: For this reason Hume espouses the modern European sophism of superior and inferior human races. The Scottish Enlightenment is also inscribed within the world historical collapse of European modernity and the rise of Globalism, as evidenced by the contagion of pseudo–Hegelianism and anti–Hegelianism in Scotland, Great Britain and the British Empire. Modern right is not Global freedom: The disintegrating hordes of modernity, the flabby minds of the earth, in the name of inexact historiography, follow the one–way road of Locke, Leibniz, Hume and Kant into oblivion, and therefore cannot perceive that their self–destruction is the result of their own decadence, under the hammer blows of Americanism.

“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.”²

Some will exculpate David Hume from the charge of racism, undoubtedly in order to salvage the last remnants of Kantianism and Kantio–Hegelianism in the world of today (some, in their sophistical annals of modern European unreason, — Henry Louis Gates Jr., — even make Kant and Hegel equivalent with regards to modern racialism and racism, by referring to texts from the latter’s discredited editors):

“It is entirely fair to think poorly of Hume for the view that he does express. Though ‘le bon David’ no doubt had many virtues, ability to rise above the racial prejudices of his day was not one of them. But in condemning him in this regard, as I think we should, we ought not to make the mistake of believing that Hume’s philosophy itself is somehow racially coded. There is no reason to believe with Eze, that when Hume spoke of human nature he “meant only a white ‘we.’” Indeed, Hume’s philosophy — especially his emphasis on the universality of human nature — is incompatible with the racialism he expresses … Hume, it is true, was a racialist, and perhaps a racist, but Humeanism is neither.”³

Hume, it is true, was a racialist, and perhaps a racist, but Humeanism is neither?

“In 1753 Hume wrote ‘I am apt to suspect the negroes and in general all other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to the whites.’ The history of this footnote displays the special contempt Hume reserved for blacks. Under criticism challenging his general claim that all non–white races — including blacks — were inferior to whites, he dropped the general claim but continued to insist on the specific claim that negroes were inferior. The revised footnote reads, ‘I am apt to suspect the negroes to be naturally inferior to the whites.’”⁴

David Hume reserved special contempt for blacks. Whatever it is that Andrew Valls views as “Humeanism,” is perhaps not racialist and racist, otherwise perhaps it is racialist and racist: “[David] Hume, it is true, was a racialist.” We eagerly await the magnum opus of Andrew Valls, perhaps entitled, “Humeanism: The True Philosophy of David Hume, — From a Kantian Perspective.” Until the day Andrew Valls advances a rational argument, the conclusion of which is, therefore the Vallsian interpretation of Humeanism is the true philosophy of David Hume (and therefore Hume is not a sophist), we hold our breath in the greatest of anticipation. We do not separate the historical David Hume from his sophistical Humean philosophy, but attach both together in the rational Hegelian conception of exact historiography and world history, in the collapse of European modernity and rise of Globalism: David Hume, in the same tradition as John Locke and his sophistical philosophy, propagates racialism precisely because Humean sophistry is modern European political and economic irrationalism in the English–speaking world. Wherefore? David Hume (the racialist) in his writings on the modern sophistical category of human nature, propagates the abominable sophism that Negroes are “naturally inferior to the Whites.” Of course, it goes without saying, pace Andrew Valls, that David Hume does not really prove that Negroes are “naturally inferior to the Whites”: In the same vein as his philosophical sophistry, David Hume’s category of universality is itself sophistical. Indeed, the world historical proof that flows from Hume’s modern European unreason, is his demonstration of the mental degeneration of the English inferior ruling classes, especially in Scotland.

David Hume is a racialist (a theoretical racist), but he is not a philosophical racist (Andrew Valls), and therefore he does not practice racism (Hume is not a racist): Hume’s philosophy — especially his emphasis on the universality of human nature — is incompatible with the racialism he expresses. David Hume maintains that he possesses the mental power (the aptitude) to affirm that there actually exists a “natural” (philosophical) distinction between superior and inferior human races: “I am apt to suspect the Negroes to be naturally inferior to the Whites.” That Hume’s affirmation of the racial inferiority of Negroes, as opposed to the racial superiority of Europeans, takes the form of a suspicion means that he possesses no rational proof to support his allegation, only the mental aptitude, — his subjective psychological state (subjectivity). That David Hume maintains he possesses no rational proof to support his allegation of racialism is not evidence that he denies (does not really affirm) that there actually exists a “natural” (Humean) distinction between superior and inferior human races, or that he suspends his judgement on the matter. Wherefore? In David Hume’s own estimation of himself, his “suspicion” is more than a mere opinion or hypothesis because bolstered by his self–proclaimed mental aptitude (subjectivism) as a great philosopher and master thinker.

David Hume is therefore a practical racist: He practiced racism by propounding that Negroes are “naturally inferior to the Whites.” David Hume’s racialist dogma, doctrine, teaching that Negroes are “naturally inferior to the Whites” is sophistry: Whether Hume propounds his racialist sophistry once, rather than emphasize it a thousand times, does not diminish its sophistical nature. David Hume does not advance a rational argument, the conclusion of which is, therefore Negroes are “naturally inferior to the Whites”: Therefore Hume’s racialism is not part of his Humean philosophy? Whether Hume advances a thousand bad arguments, or none at all, or repeats (emphasizes) his claim of universality a hundred times, like a broken record, — this is not philosophy, but sophistry: Andrew Valls’s sophistical distinction between racism and Hume’s racialism is sophistry, because like the latter, he himself ignores rational philosophical argument. Andrew Valls is not a philosopher, but a sophist because he advances no rational argument in support of his distinction between philosophy and sophistry, — nevertheless he asserts that David Hume is a philosopher, and that Humeanism is philosophy (which is the basis of his allegation that Hume is a racialist and not a racist). That David Hume emphasizes the “universality” of human nature is no rational proof that Humeanism is philosophy, and not sophistry: A fortiori, Hume’s emphasis on what he views as “universality” is no proof that he is a racialist, and not a racist. Wherefore? The sophism that there actually exists a rational distinction between superior and inferior human races is racialism and racism, regardless whether it is imagined, believed, propounded, uttered, written, broadcast, claimed, hypothesized, even suspected, — this at least is the verdict of exact historiography and world history in the 20th century.

Adolf Hitler and his murderous regime slaughtered millions of human beings in the name of the so–called “master race,” while David Hume merely preached the sophism of racial superiority and inferiority in his “philosophy”: The former was a very big racialist and racist, while the latter was a smaller one.

Those who affirm (especially in the guise of a “claim”) that the primitive civilizations of Africa and elsewhere are examples of inferior ruling classes, when compared to the advanced technological civilization of today, they ignore or neglect the rational distinction between mere corruption and decadence (mortal corruption). Views, standpoints, perspectives and outlooks of racial inferiority (sophisms), as propagated in the self–destructive movements of modern European unreason, in the Machiavellianism inherited from the Oriental despotism of Asiatic barbarism (“despotisme Asiatique,” Montesquieu) after the fall of Constantinople, and opposed to the Western humanist traditions of Jerusalem, Athens and Rome, are inseparable from the popularization of Eurocentric political and economic irrationalism in the 20th century world: This at least is the verdict of exact historiography and world history, following in the footsteps of rational Hegelianism.

Western philosophy is mortally opposed to modern European sophistry.

We now turn our attention to another defender of David Hume’s sophistry: ✝Duncan Forbes and company downplay Hume’s modern unreason, in order to justify as natural their own degenerate British imperialist masters’ mortal corruption (“Europe’s Machiavellian relativism and selfishness,” Henry Kissinger), especially at Whitehall, but also at Cambridge, and to a lesser degree at Oxford. In the name of Humean science (and the infamous Transzendentalphilosophie which was greatly influenced by the sophistical philosophies of Hume, Leibniz and Locke), Duncan Forbes and the modern British sophists follow in the footsteps of Immanuel Kant, the Great Sophister of European modernity:

“Hume’s science of politics included economics.”⁵

David Hume is a philosopher and scientist? Modern sophists thus obscure the rational distinction between mere corruption and decadence (appearance and reality versus appearance and delusion) in world history: As the victims of their own self–estrangement, the inferior ruling classes of the earth are therefore the flesh and blood that greases the cogwheels of world history:

“[Hegel’s dialectical] conclusions cannot be proved or disproved … [Hegel’s philosophy] is in danger of being destroyed or distorted if it is written down … The present edition of the introductory lectures on the philosophy of history has the advantage of bringing home the fact that so much of Hegel’s philosophy was talked.”⁶

So much of Hegel’s philosophy was talked?

“After Hegel’s death, his former students came together with the rather noble thought of assembling various transcripts of the lecture series he gave and to which they had access, hoping to bring to the light of a general public the ‘system’ that [they] were convinced was completed for years and presented orally in the lecture hall. However, the methodologies through which they assembled these transcripts into standalone monographs, with the aid of Hegel’s own manuscripts for his lectures, is [are] dubious at best. They paid little to no attention to changes between different lecture courses, combining them as they saw fit to guarantee the logical progression of the dialectical movement as they interpreted it. But without the original source material, it was impossible to test the suspicion that they may have falsified Hegel’s own views. Indeed, it was all we had to go on to have any understanding of his views. Now, however, many manuscripts and transcripts — even ones not available to his students — have been found. When one compares these manuscripts and transcripts with the lectures published by his students, the differences between them are in no case simply philological niceties … this information may drastically challenge our historical picture of Hegel.”⁷

The methodologies through which the editors of the Berlin edition assembled the transcriptions of Hegel’s lectures into standalone monographs, with the aid of Hegel’s own manuscripts for his lectures, are dubious at best?

“Hegel’s own course notes and those of his students should be used with caution to clarify and illustrate the meaning of the texts he published during his lifetime … In general, the student notes written during or after Hegel’s classes should be used with caution … What has been said about the student notes must also be applied to the so–called Zusatze (additions), added by ‘the friends’ to the third edition of the Encyclopedia (1830) and the book on Rechtsphilosophie … Some commentators, however, seem to prefer the Zusatze over Hegel’s own writings; additions are sometimes even quoted as the only textual evidence for the interpretation of highly controversial issues. For scholarly use, however, we should use them only as applications, confirmations, or concretizations of Hegel’s theory. Only in cases where authentic texts are unavailable may they be accepted as indications of Hegel’s answers to questions that are not treated in his handwritten or published work. If they contradict the explicit theory of the authorized texts, we can presume that the student is wrong, unless we can show that it is plausible that they express a change in the evolution of Hegel’s thought … According to Leopold von Henning’s preface (pp. vi–vii) in his edition (1839) of the Encyclopädie of 1830, the editors of the Encyclopedia sometimes changed or completed the sentences in which the students had rendered Hegel’s classes.”⁸

Hegel’s editors sometimes changed or completed the sentences in which the students had rendered his classes?

“The transcripts known today for all the Berlin lecture series are consistently, even surprisingly, reliable testimonies … It may indeed be disconcerting that only today do we doubt — and not everyone does — that Hegel’s lectures … are actually reproduced authentically in the published [Berlin] edition … that did not become full–blown for more than a hundred and fifty years. We can hardly examine here all the reasons for this circumstance.”⁹

Modern British sophists such as Duncan Forbes and Hugh Barr Nisbet corrupt exact historiography and world history in order to mask the rôle of their erstwhile élites in the collapse of the British Empire and European modernity:

“You can lay down all these general principles, but this is not a policy. Surely, if you are to have a policy you must take the particular situations and consider what action or inaction is suitable for those particular situations. That is what I myself mean by a policy, and it is quite clear that as the situations and conditions in foreign affairs continually change from day to day, your policy cannot be stated for once and for all, if it is to be applicable to every situation that arises.”¹⁰

The pseudo–Hegelianism and anti–Hegelianism of Duncan Forbes and Hugh Barr Nisbet, and their entourage at Cambridge and other British universities, is the mask of modern European political and economic irrationalism in the world historical collapse of modernity and rise of Globalism in the 20th century world:

“The intellectual superiority of the Left is seldom in doubt. The Left alone thinks out principles of political action and evolves ideas for statesmen to aim at … morality can only be relative, and not universal … ethics must be interpreted in terms of politics; and the search for an ethical norm outside politics is doomed to frustration.”¹¹

The intellectual superiority of the Left is seldom in doubt?

“[Duncan Forbes] is perhaps best remembered by his students for the exhilarating lectures on Hegel and Marx which he gave at the University of Cambridge during the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s … [Forbes] perhaps played down rather too much the importance to Hegel of logical strictness and rigour … Forbes was deeply committed to [the impure] Hegel’s vision of political and social life.”¹²

Duncan Forbes is perhaps best remembered by his students for the exhilarating lectures on Hegel and Marx which he gave at the University of Cambridge?

“Hegel wants as much liberty as possible, and so does Marx. Hegel wants as little authority as is absolutely necessary, and so does Marx. And both want the maximum development of the individual. Marx’s tragedy, and the tragedy of not only Marx, was his failure to realize this.”¹³

Hegel and Marx both want as much “liberty” as is possible?

“[Hegel] was a thoroughly anti–critical, anti–revolutionary philosopher … Hegel’s teaching had been taken up by the Left in a one–sided and abstract way; and the great majority of people always prefer what one can become fanatical about, and this is never anything but what is abstract.”¹⁴

Hegel was a thoroughly anti–critical, anti–revolutionary philosopher: Global freedom is not modern European right. By leading their flocks into the wilderness of modern European unreason, 20th century irrationalists such as Duncan Forbes and Hugh Barr Nisbet have cleared the political and economic ground of modernity in universal history, — for the supremacy of American Liberty in the Western world: American Idealism is the fountainhead of Global civilization. The teaching of the concept is the inescapable lesson of history (Hegel): As the historical unfolding of the conceptual rationality of the notion of universal freedom, Americanism is rising upwards in the world of today.

ENDNOTES

1. David Hume (1777) in Christopher J. Berry, Hume, Hegel and Human Nature, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1982, 108. [Italics added]

2. 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, 1854, 217–236; 228–229. [1752]

See: “I am apt to suspect the negroes and in general all the other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds) 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 GERMANS, the present TARTARS, still have something eminent about them, in their valour, 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.”

David Hume (1752) in Richard H. Popkin, “The Philosophical Basis of Eighteenth–Century Racism,” Racism in the Eighteenth–Century, Harold E. Pagliaro, editor, Cleveland/London, Case Western Reserve University Press, 1973, 245–262; 245.

See: David Hume, “Of National Characters,” Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects, London, T. Cadell, 1777, 208.

See also: “In the Political Discourses, Hume described the slavery of antiquity in horrific detail; he questioned the simile of arbitrary power as being like slavery; he added a homily to the equity of modern times (‘a bad servant finds not easily a good master, nor a bad master a good servant; and the checks are mutual, suitably to the inviolable and eternal laws of reason and equity’). But in a later passage — a footnote which he added in 1754 to his essay ‘Of National Characters’ — he expressed a view [92] of the natural inferiority of Africans which became one of the founding texts, even within his own lifetime, of the defense of slavery. Hume’s footnote was very far from being insouciant, or unintended. ‘I am apt to suspect the negroes, and in general all the other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to the whites,’ he wrote in 1754; in a version of the essay prepared not long before his death, and published in 1777, the capricious assertion of white superiority was reduced to the assertion of black inferiority. ‘I am apt to suspect the Negroes to be naturally inferior to the Whites’ Hume wrote in 1776; he likened the ‘one negroe’ in Jamaica (Francis Williams, the Latin poet) who was supposed to be ‘a man of parts and learning,’ to ‘a parrot, who speaks a few words plainly.’ Hume’s sentiments in respect of African slavery have been considered, rightly, as one of the most disturbing evils of enlightenment thought, and they are difficult to understand. Even in his own lifetime, the footnote was the subject of intense interest, of which he must to at least some extent have been aware. He was undoubtedly aware of the devastating criticism of his views by James Beattie in his Essay on Truth of 1777.”

Emma Rothschild, “David Hume and the Seagods of the Atlantic,” The Atlantic Enlightenment, Susan Manning & Francis D. Cogliano, editors, Burlington, Vermont, Ashgate Publishing Company, 2008, 81–96; 91–92.

See also: “Hume’s footnote, as Henry Louis Gates has shown, inspired Kant to assert that ‘the Negroes in Africa have by nature no feeling that rises above the trifling,’ and Hegel to abandon the supposed universality of Enlightenment: ‘the peculiarly African character is difficult to comprehend, for the very reason that in reference to it, we must quite give up the principle which naturally accompanies all our ideas — the category of Universality.’ Hume is not to be blamed for Hegel.”

Emma Rothschild, “The Atlantic Worlds of David Hume,” Soundings in Atlantic History: Latent Structures and Intellectual Currents, 1500–1830, Bernard Bailyn & Patricia L. Denault, editors, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2009, 405–448; 423.

See also: “Hume’s rejection of ethical relativism is an important indicator of the tenor of his thought, because it shows the definite limits to his acceptance (and appreciation) of the significance of social differences. In this regard, Duncan Forbes drives too substantial a wedge between Hume’s sociological relativism and his (admitted) abjuration of ethical relativism. In terms of Hume’s intellectual situation the abjuration signals the attenuated character of his sociological relativism. Though Hume’s position (as interpreted by Forbes) is of course defensible, it requires a sophistication in distinguishing the ethical from the social for which Hume himself had no need. As noted above, Hume is able to treat the whole issue of understanding an alien culture as unproblematical for, as this study is aiming to show, it is post–Humean development of a contextualist [Kantio–Hegelian] theory of human nature that makes this issue contentious by rejecting the uniformitarianism that made all human activity explicable (comprehensible) on the same non–societally specific principles.”
Christopher J. Berry, Hume, Hegel and Human Nature, The Hague, 1982, 107.

3. Andrew Valls, editor, “‘A Lousy Empirical Scientist’: Reconsidering Hume’s Racism,” Race and Racism in Modern Philosophy, Ithaca/London, 2005, 129–149; 144.

See: “The ‘I am apt to suspect’ phrasing is used elsewhere by Hume, in his Essay Concerning the Principles of Morals, for endorsing views that he reckons are ‘solid and satisfactory.’ The first version of the footnote was commented on by contemporaries and by modern writers including Richard Popkin.”

Gabrielle D.V. White, Jane Austen in the Context of Abolition: “A Fling at the Slave Trade,” New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, 110.

4. Bernard R. Boxill, “Black Liberation — Yes!” The Liberation Debate: Rights at Issue, Michael Leahy & Dan Cohn–Sherbok, New York/London, Routledge, 1996, 51–64; 62.

5. Duncan Forbes (1922–1994), “Introductory Preface,” Hume’s Philosophical Politics, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1985, vii–xii; vii. [1975] [Italics added]

6. Duncan Forbes, editor, “Introduction,” Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, Introduction: Reason in World History, G.W.F. Hegel & Karl Hegel; Hans Reiss (assistant) & Hugh Barr Nisbet, editor and translator; Johannes Hoffmeister, German editor, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998, vii–xxxv; xiii–xiv–xiv. [1840–1955–1975]

7. Sean J. McGrath & Joseph Carew, editors, “Introduction: What Remains of German Idealism?” Rethinking German Idealism, Joseph Carew, Wes Furlotte, Jean–Christophe Goddard, Adrian Johnston, Cem Kömürcü, Sean J. McGrath, Constantin Rauer, Alexander Schnell, F. Scott Scribner, Devin Zane Shaw, Konrad Utz & Jason M. Wirth, contributors, London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, 1–19; 4.

See: Michael H. Hoffheimer, “Race and Law in Hegel’s Philosophy of Religion,” Race and Racism in Modern Philosophy, Andrew Valls, editor, Ithaca/London, Cornell University Press, 2005, 194–216.

8. Adriaan Theodoor Basilius Peperzak, Modern Freedom: Hegel’s Legal, Moral, and Political Philosophy (Studies in German Idealism), Reinier Munk, series editor, Dordrecht, Springer Science+Business Media, B.V., 2001, xvi–27–28–29–29.

See: “The German philosopher Hegel argued that human beings are ‘human’ in part because they have memory. History is written or collective memory. Written history is reliable, repeatable memory, and confers value. Without such texts, civilization cannot exist. ‘At this point we leave Africa,’ he pontificated, ‘not to mention it again. For it is no historical part of the world; it has no movement or development to exhibit.’”

Henry Louis Gates Jr., “Opinion: Henry Louis Gates Jr.: Restoring Black History,” New York Times, 23 September 2016.

See also: “Hegel, echoing Hume and Kant, claimed that Africans had no history, because they had developed no systems of writing and had not mastered the art of writing in European languages.”

Henry Louis Gates Jr., Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Reader, Abby Wolf, editor, New York, Basic Civitas Books, 2012.

See finally: Henry Louis Gates Jr., Figures in Black: Words, Signs, and the “Racial” Self, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1987, 19–25.

9. Annemarie Gethmann–Siefert, “Introduction: The Shape and Influence of Hegel’s Aesthetics,” Lectures on the Philosophy of Art: The Hotho Transcript of the 1823 Berlin Lectures, Robert F. Brown, editor and translator, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014, 7–176; 32–36–36–36.

See: “The year 1992 poses a critical moral and cultural challenge for the more privileged sectors of the world–dominant societies. The challenge is heightened by the fact that within these societies, notably the first European colony liberated from imperial rule, popular struggle over many centuries has achieved a large measure of freedom, opening many opportunities for independent thought and committed action. How this challenge is addressed in the years to come will have fateful consequences. October 11, 1992 brings to an end the 500th year of the Old World Order, sometimes called the Colombian era of world history, or the Vasco da Gama era, depending on which adventurers bent on plunder got there first. Or ‘the 500–year Reich,’ to borrow the title of a commemorative volume that compares the methods and ideology of the Nazis with those of the European invaders who subjugated most of the world. The major theme of this Old World Order was a confrontation between the conquerors and the conquered on a global scale. It has taken various forms, and been given different names: Imperialism, neocolonialism, the North–South conflict, core versus periphery, G–7 (the 7 leading state capitalist industrial societies) and their satellites versus the rest. Or, more simply, Europe’s conquest of the world … ‘Hegel discoursed authoritatively on the same topics in his lectures on philosophy of history, brimming with confidence as we approach the final ‘phase of World–History,’ when Spirit reaches ‘its full maturity and strength’ in ‘the German world.’ Speaking from that lofty peak, he relates that native America was ‘physically and psychically powerless,’ its culture so limited that it ‘must expire as soon as Spirit approached it.’ Hence ‘the aborigines …gradually vanished at the breath of European activity.’ ‘A mild and passionless disposition, want of spirit, and a crouching submissiveness … are the chief characteristics of the native Americans,’ so ‘slothful’ that, under the kind ‘authority of the Friars,’ ‘at midnight a bell had to remind them even of their matrimonial duties.’ They were inferior even to the Negro, ‘the natural man in his completely wild and untamed state,’ who is beyond any ‘thought of reverence and morality — all that we call feeling’; there is ‘nothing harmonious with humanity … in this type of character.’ ‘Among the Negroes moral sentiments are quite weak, or more strictly speaking non–existent.’ ‘Parents sell their children, and conversely children their parents, as either has the opportunity,’ and ‘The polygamy of the Negroes has frequently for its object the having many children, to be sold, every one of them, into slavery.’ Creatures at the level of ‘a mere Thing — an object of no value,’ they treat ‘as enemies’ those who seek to abolish slavery, which has ‘been the occasion of the increase of human feeling among the Negroes,’ enabling them to become ‘participant in a higher morality and the culture connected with it’ … Hegel, Philosophy, 108–9, 81–2, 93–6; ‘the German world’ presumably takes in Northwest Europe … Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. The Philosophy of History (Dover, 1956; Lectures of 1830–31).”

Noam Chomsky, Year 501: The Conquest Continues, Montréal/New York, Black Rose Books, 1993, 3–4–5–291–313.

10. Neville Chamberlain, The Struggle For Peace, Toronto, Allen, 1939, 33. [Italics added]

Remark: In this instance, Chamberlain does not face every situation that arises, — he faces Hitlerite Germany: Neville Chamberlain “reconciles” his ideology with European events, and the result is subjectivism, relativism and irrationalism in the arena of modern British world politics and economics. Neville Chamberlain therefore fails to rationally reconcile the Industrial and French Revolutions in his domestic and foreign political and economic policy precisely because he is the fateful prisoner of 19th century British Kantio–Hegelian nationalism and imperialism.

11. Edward Hallett Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919–1939: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations, 2nd edition, London, Macmillan, 1962, 20–21–21. [1939]

See: “By my definition, a theory of international politics would be a set of generally valid and logically consistent propositions that explain the outcomes of interactions between and among political actors. As such, the theory would contain three kinds of statements: (1) those which identify or take inventory of components and properties of international systems and events, (2) those which identity and describe relationships among the components and properties of the international systems and events, and (3) those which explain or otherwise account for such relationships.”
Donald James Puchala, International Politics Today, New York, Dodd, Mead, 1971, 358.

12. Anonymous, “Obituary: Duncan Forbes, 1922–1994,” Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain, (1994): 112–113; 112.

13. Duncan Forbes, editor, “Introduction,” Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, Introduction: Reason in World History, G.W.F. Hegel & Karl Hegel; Hans Reiss (assistant) & Hugh Barr Nisbet, editor and translator; Johannes Hoffmeister, German editor, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998, vii–xxxv; xxxv. [1840–1955–1975]

14. Johann Eduard Erdmann, A History of Philosophy: German Philosophy Since Hegel, 4th German edition, vol. 3, Williston S. Hough, translator, London, Swann Sonnenschein, 1899, 66–81.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS CITED

Anonymous, “Obituary: Duncan Forbes, 1922–1994,” Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain, (1994): 112–113.

Christopher J. Berry, Hume, Hegel and Human Nature, (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982).

Bernard R. Boxill, “Black Liberation — Yes!” The Liberation Debate: Rights at Issue, Michael Leahy & Dan Cohn–Sherbok, (New York/London: Routledge, 1996), 51–64

Edward Hallett Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919–1939: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations, 2nd edition, (London: Macmillan, 1962). [1939]

Neville Chamberlain, The Struggle For Peace, (Toronto: Allen, 1939).

Noam Chomsky, Year 501: The Conquest Continues, (Montréal/New York: Black Rose Books, 1993).

Johann Eduard Erdmann, A History of Philosophy: German Philosophy Since Hegel, 4th German edition, vol. 3, Williston S. Hough, translator, (London: Swann Sonnenschein, 1899).

Duncan Forbes (1922–1994), “Introductory Preface,” Hume’s Philosophical Politics, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), vii–xii. [1975]

Duncan Forbes, editor, “Introduction,” Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, Introduction: Reason in World History, G.W.F. Hegel & Karl Hegel; Hans Reiss (assistant) & Hugh Barr Nisbet, editor and translator; Johannes Hoffmeister, German editor, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), vii–xxxv.

Henry Louis Gates Jr., “Opinion: Henry Louis Gates Jr.: Restoring Black History,” New York Times, 23 September 2016.

Henry Louis Gates Jr., Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Reader, Abby Wolf, editor, (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2012).

Henry Louis Gates Jr., Figures in Black: Words, Signs, and the “Racial” Self, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).

Annemarie Gethmann–Siefert, “Introduction: The Shape and Influence of Hegel’s Aesthetics,” Lectures on the Philosophy of Art: The Hotho Transcript of the 1823 Berlin Lectures, Robert F. Brown, editor and translator, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 7–176.

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. [1752]

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©2017–2018–2019 Christopher Richard Wade Dettling, Modern European Right: David Hume and the Negro as an Inferior Human Race. All rights reserved. This work is only for the MEDIUM CORPORATION and its users: Users are not permitted to mount this writing on any network servers. No part of this writing may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the author, except for reading and browsing via the World Wide Web.

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MODERN EUROPEAN RIGHT: DAVID HUME AND THE NEGRO AS AN INFERIOR HUMAN RACE

ENDNOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS CITED

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

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