The Hume–Rousseau Affair
A philosopher's hospitality, paranoia, and the slow public collapse of a friendship
Venue: England (Hume's house at Wootton in Derbyshire); subsequent public correspondence including Hume's *Concise and Genuine Account* (1766).
Hume offered refuge to Rousseau; Rousseau accused Hume of plotting against him; both published.
David Hume, in Paris as embassy secretary in 1763–1765, became close to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, then a fugitive after the publication of *Émile* (1762) had brought condemnation from both French Catholic and Genevan Protestant authorities. Hume offered Rousseau refuge in England, eventually finding him a country house at Wootton. Within months, Rousseau's characteristic paranoia turned on Hume: he became convinced Hume was orchestrating a continental conspiracy against him. A vitriolic exchange of letters culminated in Hume's 1766 publication *A Concise and Genuine Account of the Dispute*, defending his character against Rousseau's accusations. The affair was a major European cultural-intellectual scandal of the 1760s and damaged both men's reputations, though it did not in the end destroy either. Philosophically, it dramatised the gulf between the temperaments and philosophical commitments of the Scottish Enlightenment and the proto-Romantic French.
Historical Context
Hume was 55, secure in his philosophical and historical reputation; Rousseau was 54, in genuine danger from authorities but in his characteristic state of suspicion. Their personal disagreement is inseparable from the broader Enlightenment-Romantic divide: Hume's urbane scepticism vs Rousseau's impassioned sentimentalism, philosophical-historical writing vs autobiographical confession.
Parties
Genuine hospitality was offered in good faith; Rousseau's suspicion is a symptom of his pathological temperament. Public defence of one's character against unjust accusation is a duty.
Key arguments
- The chronology of correspondence and material support refutes Rousseau's conspiracy claims.
- Multiple witnesses (D'Alembert, Walpole) attest to Hume's good faith and Rousseau's deteriorating mental state.
- Publication of the *Concise and Genuine Account* is justified by the public nature of Rousseau's accusations.
- The affair illustrates the limits of philosophical-intellectual friendship when one party's temperament makes ordinary social trust impossible.
Allied schools
Hume was complicit in a continental conspiracy of philosophes and political authorities to destroy my reputation; the proffered hospitality was a calculated humiliation, and the publication of correspondence is the cap on a betrayal.
Key arguments
- Specific incidents (Hume's private letters, suspicious behaviour at Wootton, complicity with Walpole's satirical letter) confirm the conspiracy.
- The philosophes' shared hostility to my work makes coordinated action overwhelmingly probable.
- My subsequent *Confessions* (1782, posthumous) document the broader pattern of betrayal of which the Hume affair is a particular instance.
- (Modern note: Rousseau's persecution-complex psychology was widely commented on by his contemporaries and is documented in his own *Reveries*.)
Allied schools
Dimensions Engaged
Observer
Observer · Agency in interpersonal and biographical mode: how does intellectual friendship survive temperamental incompatibility?
Verdict in retrospect
Hume's account is broadly vindicated; Rousseau's accusations are not. The affair has been read as illustrating the broader Enlightenment-Romantic cultural divide, but it also illustrates the fragility of intellectual friendship when one party's biographical situation is genuinely difficult and the other's patience is finite. Modern biographers of both men treat the affair with sympathy for each, recognising Rousseau's real persecution and Hume's real generosity.
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Further reading
- Hume, *A Concise and Genuine Account of the Dispute between Mr. Hume and Mr. Rousseau* (1766)
- Edmonds & Eidinow, *Rousseau's Dog: Two Great Thinkers at War in the Age of Enlightenment* (2006)