Humeaneyes (“one particular shade of blue”)

Grey-blue eyes and a fixed look: Is he a philosopher or a dumb ox? Hume’s eyes and face are trifle which can lead us into some curiosities connected with his life and writings. Looking through Hume’s eyes, we can outline the scholars’ propensity to describe the (painted) face of their favourite philosopher and spread upon it their reading of his work. We can ask questions about portraits and resemblance as a standard of beauty. We can survey the eighteenth-century sentiments on physiognomy, and the paradox of the “fat philosopher”, at once, both clumsy and refined. We can inquire into Hume’s use of physiognomic descriptions, his account of corpulence and his own vacant look. We can observe how far Ramsay’s theory of a just graceful resemblance was put into practice in the dispute between Rousseau and Hume, and how the portraits were part of it. We can outline the role the eyes play in the body of Hume’s work. Finally, we can recall his aversion to “the prefixing a Print of the Author” and remember that the picture which he deemed “the likest”, as well as “the best Likeness”, has now disappeared. Yet, there remains something which is still engraved. Subjects: Hume; Modern Philosophy (16th Century-18th Century); Painting


ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Angela Coventry is an associate professor of Philosophy at Portland State University. She has written two books on Hume in addition to several articles and reviews in early modern philosophy. She is currently preparing an edition of Hume's Treatise of Human Nature for Broadview Press. She is the former executive vice-presidenttreasurer of The Hume Society and current co-editor of Hume Studies. This article is part of a larger project with Emilio Mazza on Hume's portraits.
Emilio Mazza is a ricercatore at the Libera Università di Lingue e Comunicazione IULM in Milan. He has published a book and several articles on Hume and modern philosophy. He has edited and translated into Italian Hume's Dialogues and Descartes' Discourse. He is the co-editor (with Emanele Ronchetti) of New Essays on David Hume (FrancoAngeli, 2007).

PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT
Why do Humean eyes matter? The subject of David Hume's eyes and face leads us into some unexpected curiosities connected with events in his life and written works. We outline the scholars' propensity to describe the face of their favourite philosopher and spread upon it their personal reading of his life and writings. We ask questions about portraits, their resemblance to the original as a standard of beauty. We survey the eighteenthcentury physiognomy, and the humorous paradox of the "fat philosopher", both clumsy and refined. We inquire into Hume's use of physiognomy, his views on corpulence and his own vacant look. We observe the role of Ramsay's portraits in the 1766 dispute between Rousseau and Hume. We outline the role the eyes play in the body of his written work. We finally recall that the picture which he deemed the "best likeness" has now disappeared. Yet, there remains something still engraved.
Blue-eyed boy: a boy, some blue, and some eyes -assembling. And… And… And, stammering. Empiricism is nothing but this (G. Deleuze and C. Parnet, Dialogues, 1976) 1. Faithfulness: picture and original "A picture naturally leads our thoughts to the original": by the association of resemblance (EHU 3.3;SBN 24). Our mind, Hume observes, "is displeased to find a picture, which bears no resemblance to any original" 192). The only original Hume we know is his writings and life, at least our reading of them; and we are inclined to suppose some resemblance and spread our reading upon his portraits. This inclination is so strong that sometimes we can even account for his portraits by a description of his works: Hume's prose is "rounded and expansive" (like his face) (Blackburn, 2008, p. 3) and his writings "radiate the same calm, clear-sighted benevolence for which he was celebrated in his own life" (like his features and eyes) (Blackburn, 2008, p. 1). At the beginning and at the end of his literary life, Hume composes two physiognomic self-portraits, which reveal his character by the body of his works (HL I,7,16).
Likeness is important in a portrait. According to Hume, when "flattering", a portrait can even determine a King to conclude a marriage, and, when "very unlike", the same king to dissolve the same marriage (HOE III,(271)(272). "The likeness ought to be very exact, or very agreeable", Addison says. "We love to see a Picture where the Resemblance is just, or the Posture and Air graceful" (Spectator, 1712(Spectator, /1965). Yet, Ramsay protests, Addison is "as unfortunate in his illustration as in his principle": "the agreeable […] cannot be separated from the exact: and a posture, in painting, must be a just resemblance of what is graceful in nature, before it can hope to be esteem'd graceful" (Ramsay, 1753, p. 63 n).
Ramsay, remarks Rouquet, has brought back from Italy "a reasonable taste for faithfulness' and 'does not recognize any other guide but nature" (Rouquet, 1755, p. 58). The Encyclopédie recalls Rouquet's Arts in England, and asserts that the "chief merit" of portraiture is that "exact resemblance, which chiefly consists in expressing the character and the air of the physiognomy of the persons which are represented": resemblance is the "essential perfection" of a portrait (de Jaucourt, 1769a, pp. 124b-125a). Diderot has a different opinion. The man of the world is pleased to find on canvas the "true" images of the originals he knows. The "chief merit of a portrait is to be well painted", the artist replies. And Diderot asks: between a "badly painted, though resembling" portrait and a "miraculously painted" one, which one will you choose? A portrait, he concludes, "must be resembling for me and well painted for posterity" (Diderot, 1939, "7. Le portrait de l'auteur", p. 171). Rousseau, who is personally concerned with the problem, allows that a good portrait is a "very resembling" one. 4 In March 1766, Ramsay is a "good" painter and his portrait "so well done that it will be engraved". 5 Yet, after the engravings and the dispute with Hume, the same portrait-which is announced and touted "as a masterpiece […] above all of likeness"- (Rousseau, 1791;vol. III, II, p. 11) appears to him (especially its engraving, more "terrible and black" than the painting) as "terrible" as Hume's looks (Rousseau, 1791, II, pp. 10-11, 15). Artists, Rousseau laments, "as they paint our souls so they paint our faces, with the same faithfulness". 6 In 1751, Hume claims that "balancing the Figures" is the "indispensible" rule in painting: a figure that is "not justly balanc'd is ugly" (EPM 6.28; SBN 245). Ten years afterwards, he openly allows: "I have no manner of Skill myself in designing" (HL I, 359) and confesses, "with great Shame and Regreat", his "ignorance" of music and painting. 7 In 1754, Ramsay reads and corrects the first volume of Hume's History of Britain, 8 paints a portrait of its author and writes a dialogue On taste: that "sort of common measure" which painters find in the "antique" actually "falls mightily in its value": "it is only of a negative kind, from which no striking grace can be expected" (Ramsay, 1755, p. 26). Talking about a portrait of Franklin (but possibly thinking of Hume), the artist Joseph Moser remarks: "Ramsey, as he once justly observed, painted the philosopher, in which light he only viewed the subject of it; but leaving its graphic merit to the connoisseurs, its higher praise was, that 'It seemed to think'". 9 Hume can also be seen like a faceless thinker. In Reynolds' "Triumph of Truth" (1773), he is a sceptic seraphim with no wings, unworthy of the Beatteian revelation. Hume, the painter tells us, heard from somebody that he is "introduced in the picture, not much to his credit". There is only one figure, covering his face with his hands, "which they may call Hume, or any body else"; "it is true -Reynolds acknowledges -it has a tolerable broad back". 10 Why can't we resist talking about Hume's face? We are always "anxious to see anyone who has made himself famous as the author of some extraordinary work", at least "to hear at any rate from others what he looks like", Schopenhauer remarks (Schopenhauer, 2007, p. 51) This anxiety proves that the outer man is a "picture" of the inner, and the face an "expression and revelation" of his whole (intellectual) being: Hegel had a "beerhouse-keeper physiognomy" (Schopenhauer, 2007, pp. 51, 58). According to Buffon, "we are so accustomed to see things only by their external appearance that we are no more able to recognize how far this external appearance has an influence upon our judgements" (Buffon, 1774, p. 283).
In 1645, Samuel Sorbière explains his bold request for a "radiating" portrait of Hobbes: "I am moved and impelled to be virtuous not only by the writings but also by the faces of great men". 11 In 2009, a Humean philosopher echoes: "however distinctive their communicated thoughts, if they are to me the thoughts of faceless thinkers, they lack reality. It is not for no reason that we want representations of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes" (Baier, 2009, p. 247).
If we take the resemblance for granted and look at Ramsay's 1766 portrait, without knowing the identity of the sitter, we will probably be inclined to call Hume a "dumb ox" (like Aquinas) rather than a refined philosopher. Yet, we know the sitter. In the nineteenth-century physiognomic literature, Hume commonly appears as a standard example: the forehead, the wrinkles, the mouth and the nose. A "first-class specimen of the philosophic nose". 12 Here, he ain't got no eyes.
But why should we concern ourselves with Hume's eyes and face? If we do so, and we are not addicted to the so-called "thrilling examination of the physiognomy of thought" (Danto, 2010(Danto, /2011. 4a), we can be either indifferent to philosophy or devotees of Hume's philosophy. If we are indifferent to philosophy, we can be looking for something that might attract our attention without too much pain; if we are devotees of Hume's philosophy, we can be seeking for the relic of an infidel patron saint to "enliven" our devotion and acquire a "more strong" conception of his "exemplary" life and thought (T 1. 3.8.6;SBN 101). In both cases, we reduce the distance that separates us from his texts. By portraits, we can render the texts "more present" to us than by a mere intellectual view. Images have a great influence on the imagination and they "readily convey" this influence to those ideas to which they are "related" (T 1.3.8.4; SBN 100).
Hume's eyes and face, in reality and painting. The subject is a trifle. Yet, it can lead us into some unexpected curiosities, which are deeply connected with his life and writings.

Colour and expression: pretty vacant
A "Turtle-eating Alderman", a "well-fed Bernardine monk", the "Word made Flesh". Here is the plump Hume, according to Charlemont, 13 Diderot 14 and d'Alembert (HL II,496): But, what about his eyes?
According to Mossner, the face is not unhandsome: a high forehead, long straight nose, heavy dark brown eyebrows, grey-blue eyes, generous but sensitive and essentially diffident mouth. The musing and courageous regard of the eyes is evident, but the face is enlivened with the suspicion of a smile (Mossner, 1980, p. 280).
Mossner is looking at Ramsay's 1754 "revealing" portrait and repeating a former description of it. 15 An eighteenth-century eye (possibly looking at Ramsay, 1766), provides us with a different view: his countenance was not very promising, being upon the whole rather heavy; tho' when he was engaged in conversation, it lightened up considerably and it became very agreeable. He was of a Swarthy complexion, with grey eys, very little collour[e]d, and his features, upon the whole, rather flat than otherwise. 16 The colour is uncertain. Is it that "particular shade of blue, which it never has been our fortune to meet with" (T 1.1.1.10; SBN 6; EHU 2.8; SBN 21)? 17 Grimm's portrait of Hume can also account for the colour of his eyes: "a clear and limpid rivulet which always flows evenly and calmly". 18 Hume's Whiteadder eyes.
Other eighteenth-century voices disagree with our contemporary scholars. In 1748, the "most sensible Sea-Officer" (HL I, 114) John Forbes nicknames Hume the "sleeping philosopher": 19 not even the pretty women in Turin are able to "keep his eyes open". 20 Charlemont is more precise: "His Face was broad and fat. His Mouth wide, and without any other Expression than that of Imbecility. -His Eyes vacant and spiritless". 21 Adam Smith is always a good follower of Hume. He would have believed "almost anything" he said, even that the moon "sometimes disappeared in a clear sky without the interposition of a cloud", as Marx recalls of one of Smith's college friends. 22 . According to the Gentleman's Magazine, "his frequent absence of mind gave him an air of vacancy, and even of stupidity". 23 He "frequently exhibited instances of absence", remarks Dugald Stewart (Stewart, 1793(Stewart, /1858cf. p. 79); he "was frequently absent", repeats William Smellie (Smellie, 1800b, p. 296;cf. pp. 212, 292, 295). On the contrary, Hume's adversaries have nothing vacant or absent in their eyes. In accounting for Henry Raeburn's 1796 portrait of Thomas Reid, a scholar of today remarks: "he was a thinker, perhaps the greatest philosopher of the Scottish Enlightenment.
Hardly promising: heavy and flat, broad and fat, large and wide, vacant and spiritless, unmeaning and sleeping. The expression of imbecility. "Not only the peasant -Kant remarks -[…] finds it very strange […] when the delicate and soft Hume is presented to him as a husky man" (Kant, 2006, Part I, Book I, § 30, 173, p. 66). Madame du Deffand calls him "the Peasant from the Danube", 24 which recalls La Fontaine's fable: "Judge not a man by his appearance; long / Have we been told it is very wrong / […] A certain peasant from the Danube […] / A bear; but bear in truth, unkempt unlicked / Uncouth […] / Prostrate the savage lay, finished his mission. / Each one, awed by his eloquent petition". 25 A "Silenus on his knees to one of the Graces, or a Bear making Love to an Italian Greyhound", Charlemont calls Hume in love in Turin. Yet, he adds, "neither Silenus nor the Bear are Philosophers". 26 Hume and Silenus is a curious comparison. In the Symposium, Alcibiades compares Socrates to a Silenus. According to Erasmus, the expression "Sileni of Alcibiades" refers to something which "though on the surface and […] at first appearance looks worthless and ridiculous, is yet admirable on a nearer and less superficial view"; it refers to some man whose "first appearance and face do not display at all what he conceals in his soul". On close inspection, Socrates was very different from what he seemed "at first appearance": he had a "peasant face and a bovine look". 27 Hume's "Health and Strength", Charlemont remarks, "had only the Appearance of heavy Clumsiness and coarse Rusticity". 28 Hume, who acknowledges the common admiration for Socrates in the moral Enquiry (EPM 7.16; SBN 256), thinks Rousseau "in many things very much resembles" him: genius and ecstasies, those embarrassing ecstasies which retain Rousseau "in the same Posture for Hours together" (HL I, 530). According to the Attic Nights, Socrates would stand as a trunk in "a fixed attitude, night and day, without […] any kind of motion […] in deep meditation, his eyes and countenance were directed to one individual spot". 29 Rousseau, Hume adds, "seems only to have more Genius" than Socrates (HL I, 530). And while he calls Rousseau "our modern Socrates" (HL II, 10), in Paris, Hume was called "le Socrate moderne" (Beattie, 2005, p. 258) (which is also the subtitle of the French translation of Addison's Spectator) 30 and George Dempster always considered him "the Socrates of Edinburgh" (Mossner, 1980, p. 391). According to some contemporary readers in the Treatise, Hume would identify himself with Socrates (Livingston, 1998, p. 145;Schliesser, 2014, p. 311 n.19).
Peasant from Danube, bear and Silenus. The eighteenth-century accounts defy our own perception, which nourishes itself on Ramsay's paintings and our projections on them. Consistently, these accounts display some pleased surprise for Hume's unexpected countenance and remark the changes of expression, especially during a conversation.

The word made flesh: philosophy and physiognomy
Hume, Charlemont believes, is an embodied counter-example to physiognomic pretensions: Nature […] never yet formed any Man more unlike his real Character than David Hume.
[…] The Powers of Physiognomy were baffled by his Countenance, neither cou'd the most skillful in that Science pretend to discover the smallest Trace of the Faculties of his Mind in the unmeaning Features of his Visage […] the Corpulence of his whole Person was far better fitted to communicate the Idea of a Turtle-eating Alderman than of a refined Philosopher. 31 In summer 1731 (so he says) the "tall, lean, & rawbon'd" young Hume becomes "on a sudden, the most sturdy, robust, healthful-like Fellow, with a chearful Countenance" (HL I,14). He has "grown, enormously fat", as Virginia Woolf puts it in The Lighthouse (Woolf, 1927(Woolf, /1988. He has become Charlemont's "my old fat Philosopher". 32 In Turin, Admiral Forbes cannot but make some jokes about his "vast parts". 33 Just before meeting him, Hume shows himself well acquainted with all the thousand jests to which "fat People are expos'd". He wonders why "fat People shou'd be so much the Object of Mirth, rather than lean" and he is at a loss "whether to ascribe it to the Cowardice or Benevolence of Mankind": "Perhaps, -he reflects -we are not commonly so witty as you, & consequently Men think they will have an easy Conquest in attacking us. Perhaps, we are better naturd, & Men think they run no Risque of offending us" (HL I,(111)(112). A month later, in Vienna, he makes some jokes about his companions "desperately afraid of my falling on them & crushing them" (HL I, 126).
In 1751, he writes a letter which is also a long dialectical "dissertation on Fatness": As the lean people are the most active, unquiet, & ambitious, they every where govern the world, & may certainly oppress their antagonists whenever they please.
[…] The only comfort is, if they opprest us very much, we shou'd at last change sides with them (HL I, 160).
Hume is not indifferent to our bodily qualities: "Beauty of all kinds gives us a peculiar delight". If it belongs to our own person or face, this pleasure is "converted into pride" (DOP 2.7,10). In 1751 moral Enquiry, he observes: In countries where men's bodies are apt to exceed in corpulency, personal beauty is placed in a much greater degree of slenderness, than in countries where that is the most usual defect. Being so often struck with Instances of one species of deformity, men think they can never keep at too great a distance from it, and wish always to have a leaning to the opposite side (EPM 8.9; SBN 264).
In 1762, in accounting for his decision "to resist any Impulse towards writing", Hume uses corpulence as a metaphor for his own work: "I am really so much ashamd of myself when I see my Bulk on a Shelf, as well as when I see it in a Glass, that I would fain prevent my growing more corpulent either way" (HL I, 369).
Diderot takes him as "a well-fed bulky Bernardine monk", and celebrates his "two large Bernardine monk cheeks". 34 Andrew Stuart remarks: "some of his admirers were at first a good deal surprised with the largeness of his figure. They had generally, in idea, clothed him with a person very little encumbered with matter. Diderot, amongst others, was in this mistake". 35 "All this was indeed delightful to the French. -Lytton Strachey agrees -They loved to watch the awkward affability of the uncouth figure. […] It seemed indeed almost impossible to believe in this combination of the outer and inner man" (Strachey, 1931, p. 150).
When the French "begin to banter", Hume says, he is "beginning to be at home" (NHL,76). The favourite of a company, he knows, is "often the object of their good-natured jests" (E-SH, 565). Upon entering into a Parisian company, he heard D'Alembert exclaim: "Et verbum caro factum est. And the Word was made Flesh". It was a much repeated jest. Someone, unintentionally, puts it in this way: "Et verbum carum factum est. And the Word was made Treasured" (HL I, 496).

Fixed look and fits of thought
In July 1766, Hume receives a letter from Rousseau, which is, he says, "perfect Frenzy" (HL II, [63][64][65]. According to Rousseau, Hume's "hideous" fixed look gives "much uneasiness": I caught his eyes intently fixed on mine […] at that time he gave me a stedfast, piercing look, mixed with a sneer, which greatly disturbed me. To get rid of the embarrassment I lay under, I endeavoured to look full at him in my turn; but, in fixing my eyes against his, I felt the most inexpressible terror, and was obliged soon to turn them away. The speech and physiognomy of the good David is that of an honest man; but where, great God! did this good man borrow those eyes he fixes so sternly and unaccountably on those of his friends! 36 D'Alembert makes some fun of Hume's "fixed look, which is actually very fitted to open the eyes of the less clear-sighted people on his perfidiousness": When you were speaking to me and fixing your eyes on mine, as a friend I advised you to get rid as soon as you could of that kind of look and that it would have done you a very bad turn. […] We should never fix our eyes on those of the people we are speaking to (HL II, 430). 37 Hume replies to Rousseau that his account lacks "common Sense", and offers his own "consistent and rational" version: What! because sometimes, when absent in thought, I have a fixed Look or Stare, you suspect me to be a Traytor! Are not most studious Men (and many of them more than I) subject to like Reveries or Fits of Absence, without being exposed to such Suspicions? (HL II, 68) Hume's answers remind us of the Treatise, where Hume indulges his reveries in a chamber or in a solitary walk, feeling his mind "all collected within itself' (T 1.4.7.12; SBN 270). As George Norvell puts it: when he was walking, Hume often 'fell into reveries, was silent for a time. Was, I suppose, […] turning a period or investigating a problem". 38 Yet, the quarrelling Rousseau also claims that Hume wants the world to look at him in a certain way: he asks Ramsay to paint his portrait only to make him ridiculous. In the Genuine Account of the Dispute, Hume claims: "the design of having Mr. Rousseau's picture drawn did not come from me, nor did it cost me any thing": " Ramsay […] proposed to draw Mr. Rousseau's picture; and when he had begun it, told me he intended to make me a present of it. Thus the design of having Mr. Rousseau's picture drawn did not come from me". 39 Yet, before the dispute and in private correspondence, Hume is quite pleased to tell his brother that Rousseau "sat for his Picture at my Desire" and Ramsay "made me" this "most valuable" portrait (HL II, 25), and to inform Madame de Boufflers that Ramsay "drew for me" this "admirable" portrait (HL II, 45).
At first, Rousseau did not seem to be particularly hurt by the portrait. However, this view was soon affected as his friendship with Hume disintegrated. Rousseau, Hume acknowledges, has a "domineering force of genius" (HL I, 374); yet, he is like a man "stript […] of his Skin". He has an uncommon "sensibility"; yet, in his life, he "has only felt" (HL II, 29), but, Hume observes, "for the purposes of life […] a little good sense is surely better than all this genius, and a little good humour than this extreme sensibility" (HL II,46). "Nobody knows himself less" than him (HL II, 2), Hume writes of Rousseau; "I know one man, however, whom you can not deceive; I mean yourself", 40 Rousseau writes to Hume.
At the end of 1769, Rousseau starts perceiving himself as a "Cyclops", especially in the bad engravings which unveil the equally bad and deep truth of Ramsay's unfaithful portrait, 41 which gives him "a savage air and the countenance of a Cyclops". 42 Rousseau seems to understand something more of the affair. His own portrait is closely connected with Hume's: while he appears like a "monster" and "certainly not a beautiful man" (Rousseau, 1791, II, p. 8), "as a companion to this nice portrait it has been given that of Hume, who has indeed the head of a Cyclops and to whom has been given a charming air". 43 Indeed, Hume hung them together above the mantelpiece in the parlour of his Edinburgh home (Mossner, 1980, p. 537;Smart, 1952, p. 137;1992, p. 208).
According to Rousseau, Hume could be "the blackest of all men" (NHL,149;cf. II,384,420); according to Hume, Rousseau is "the blackest Villain" (HL II, 57) and his suspicions are "black and ridiculous" (HL II, 68): "he sees every thing about me in the blackest Colours" (HL II,75). By the colours of the eyes and clothes, as Rousseau suspects, Ramsay's portraits suggest which of the two is the "blackest".

"The index of the mind"
The eyes, says Hume, are "indeed, the great index of the mind" (HL I, 200; cf. HL I, 110). Some very "subtle labour and movements of the eyes" are the "gate of the mind", says Bacon. 44 There is no passion which is not "declared by some particular action of the eyes", Descartes repeats. 45 The eyebrow is the part where passions "best" make themselves known, adds Le Brun (and Darwin does not dislike him). 46 Physiognomy, Buffon admonishes us, is nothing but "a kind of prejudice": "shall a man be less wise because his eyes are small and his mouth is big?" (Buffon, 1774, pp. 304-305). The Encyclopédie agrees with him (de Jaucourt, 1769b, p. 433b). Yet, Buffon adds, we can "guess the movements of the soul by those of the eyes": (Buffon, 1774, p. 304) they receive and reflect "the light of thought and the warmth of sentiment" (Buffon, 1774, p. 282) The vivacity of their movement is "the chief feature of our physiognomy and their colour contributes to render this feature more strong" (Buffon, 1774, p. 283). Again, a 1769 footnote in the Encyclopédie (which someone ascribes to Diderot) (Getrevi, 1991, p. 113 n. 48.) seems to follow Buffon and appeals to Pernetti's Philosophical Letters Upon Physiognomies: (de Jaucourt, 1769b, p. 433a) big eyes mark an open character; yet, "extremely lively" characters scarcely have big eyes. "Blue" eyes are "indolent by habit" (Pernetti, 1748, p. 299;1751, p. 229). Hume's face, the young American Henry Marchant observes, is "by no Means an Index of the Ingenuity of his Mind, especially of his delicacy & vivacity" (Bennett Nolan, 1956, pp. 176-177).
The eyes are "the great index of the mind" (HL I, 200); and Hume follows the common opinion, which recalls Cicero ("the face is the image of the mind and the eyes are its interpreters [indices]") 47 and the proverbs ("In the Forehead and the Eye, The Index of the Mind doth Lye"). 48 Hogarth, who is afraid of being labelled a physiognomist (Hogarth, 1753, p. 126), observes that many instances daily "confirm the common received opinion, that the face is the index of the mind; and this maxim is so rooted in us, we can scarce help […] forming some particular conception of the person's mind whose face we are observing" (Hogarth, 1753, p. 125). Even Addison is "so apt to frame a notion of every man's humour or circumstances by his looks". 49 Yet, in his works, Hume is not accustomed to use this index. While he allows that the "external signs in the countenance" convey an idea of the affections (T 2.1.11. 3; SBN 317), he ascribes limited powers to physiognomy. The only pair of eyes he is ready to account for is those of Henry I: he "possessed all the great qualities both of body and mind […], which could fit him for the high station […]. His person was manly, his countenance engaging, his eyes clear, serene, and penetrating" (HOE I,276). Physical appearances express the ugly crimes of Richard III and the beautiful merits of Alfred the Great. The former "was of a small stature, humpbacked, and had a harsh disagreeable countanance; so that his body was in every particular no less deformed than his mind" (HOE II, 518); the latter seemed indeed to be "the model of that perfect character, which, under the denomination of a sage or wise man, philosophers have been fond of delineating" (HOE I, 74): "Nature also, -Hume remarks -as if desirous that so bright a production of her skill should be set in the fairest light, had bestowed on him all bodily accomplishments and a pleasant, engaging and open countenance" (HOE I,75). Alfred closely resembles Cleanthes, the "model of perfect virtue", according to the moral Enquiry: his remarkable cheerfulness "runs through the whole tenor of his life, and preserves a perpetual serenity on his countenance, and tranquillity in his soul" (EPM 9.2; SBN 269).
Hume betrays a physiognomic gaze in portraying Rousseau. When he still thinks that their "connexion" is an addition to his own "importance", his exam reveals a singular Socratic genius: "Rousseau is of small Stature; and wou'd rather be ugly, had he not the finest Physiognomy in the World, I mean, the most expressive Countenance" (HL I, 530). Expressivity is the standard of a fine face. Rousseau "is a very modest, mild, well-bred, gentle-spirited and warm-hearted Man […] He is also in appearance very sociable" (HL II,8). Then, Hume engages in the most "extraordinary", 50 "critical" (HL II, 54) and "ridiculous" 51 affair, and Rousseau appears to him "the blackest and most atrocious Villain" (HL II, 57).

Humean-eyes.
To human-ise in a Humean manner. Hume does not use the expression "to humanize" very much, even though it is one of the aims of the moral Enquiry. In the Dialogues, Cleanthes traditionally fancies that "the proper office of religion is […] to humanize the conduct" of men (DNR 12.12,221); Humean Philo protests that "the smallest grain of natural honesty and benevolence has more effect" upon it (DNR 12.13,221). With Ovid ("a faithful study of the liberal arts, / softens the characters"), 52 "The Sceptic" thinks it certain that "a serious attention to the sciences and liberal arts softens and humanizes the temper" (E-Sc, 170). And the History repeats that learning "tends so much to humanize the temper" (HOE V, 68), and knowledge is attended by the natural effect of "humanizing the temper, and softening the heart" (HOE II, 477), like those cheerful amusements which "soften or humanize the character" (HOE V, 68).
Yet, Hume-who does not make it "a point of Honour to speak Truth to Children or Madmen" (NHL 83)-fails to humanize his friend Rousseau and his own conduct towards him: Your Virtues but make him your Foe. 53 Hume fails to do it, "even after all is past, when it is easy to correct any Errors" (HL II, 102).

Eyes in Hume
Like Lucian, according to the Philosophical Essays, Hume's philosophy should open the eyes of the people (EHU 10.23;SBN 121;cf. E,xlvi). Jeremy Bentham said that after reading Hume's Treatise of Human Nature, he "felt as if scales had fallen from his eyes" (Bentham, 1776(Bentham, /1988. In order to properly "set the whole more distinctly before the eyes of the reader", one must summarise "in a few words, all that has been said concerning it", in Hume's philosophy (T 2.3.8.13;SBN 437). That the first principles of philosophy are founded on the faculties of the senses and imagination "may open our eyes a little" (T 1.2.4.32;SBN 52). The foundation of Hume's famed empiricism, the copy principle, connects every idea to some impression in our sensory experience and he describes the process right before our eyes: "Rays of light" strike "on our eyes" (T 1.2.1.4;SBN 27). "The eyes refract the rays of light, and the optic nerves convey the images to the brain" (T 2.2.8.3,. The impression of red "strikes our eyes in sun-shine" and there are "several distinct ideas of colours, which enter by the eyes" (T 1.1.1. 10;SBN 5). "When I shut my eyes and think of my chamber, the ideas I form are exact representations of the impressions" (T 1.1.1.3; SBN 3). The faculty of imagination sets out objects "in a manner, before our eyes in their true colours, just as they might have existed" (T 1. 3.7.8;SBN 97;cf. EHU 5.2.12;SBN 49). I may "paint out the entire object in imagination without believing it" and even "set it, in a manner, before our eyes, with every circumstance of time and place" (A 19, SBN 653).
When "we turn our eyes towards them in broad sunshine", he says that we see "surrounding bodies" (T 1.4.1.8;SBN 183). I acquire the idea of such extended bodies from "opening my eyes, and turning them to the surrounding objects […] and upon shutting them again, and considering the distance betwixt these bodies" (T 1.2.3.2; SBN 33). To account for our natural belief in the continued and distinct existence of external objects, "I survey the furniture of my chamber; I shut my eyes, and afterwards open them" (T 1.4.2.35;SBN 204). "I lose sight" of the mountains, houses and trees "by shutting my eyes" (T 1.4.2.18;SBN 194). We soon discover that a connection between two "kinds of objects" in the past is not "perfectly constant […] since the shutting of our eyes is able to break it" (T 1.4.2.21;SBN 198). When it comes to our own selves, our personal identity, Hume says we are nothing "but a bundle or collection of different perceptions", and that perceptions vary when our eyes "turn in their sockets" (T 1.4.6.4;SBN 252).
The limitations of the system of pride and humility reveal that objects "to which we have been long accustom'd" lose their "value in our eyes" and yet, "all the relicts of antiquity are so precious in our eyes" (T 2.1. 6.4;2.3.8.11;SBN291,436). Our passion of love towards a person "who is considerable in our eyes, fills and possesses the mind" (T 2.2.2.24; SBN 344). We frequently compare ourselves with others. By comparison, "objects appear greater or less by a comparison with others" and when "an object augments or diminishes to the eye or imagination from a comparison with others, the image and idea of the object are still the same" (T 2.2.8.3;. Comparison only happens with "those of the same species": "A mountain neither magnifies nor diminishes a horse in our eyes; but when a Flemish and a Welsh horse are seen together, the one appears greater and the other" (T 2.2.8.16;SBN 378).
The sympathetic feelings that we experience are not restricted to what we see through our own eyes. It is common for us to "consider ourselves as we appear in the eyes of others, and sympathize with the advantageous sentiments they entertain with regard to us" (T 3.3.5.4;SBN 615). We consider "how our own deportment and conduct […] appear in the eyes of those who approach and regard us" (EPM 9.10; SBN 276). We may even at times "be displeas'd with a quality commodious to us, merely because it displeases others, and renders us disagreeable in their eyes" (T 3.3.1.26; SBN 589). A decent critic that evaluates a "work addressed to persons of a different age or nation" must make allowances for "what seemed admirable in the eyes of those for whom alone the discourse was calculated" (E-ST, 239).
The "noble" quality of virtue gives "a new lustre in the eyes of mankind" (T 3.3.6.6; SBN 620). "Credit and reputation in the eyes of mankind" are one of the many things relevant to justly evaluate human testimony for miracles (E 10.15,. Hume even relies on the "eyes of all reasonable people […] as a sufficient refutation" (E 10.27,SBN 125) in his case against miraculous events. We can "sink very much in our own eyes, when in the presence of a great man, or one of a superior genius" (T 3.3.2.6; SBN 595). We can also sink in our own eyes if we are in the presence of a person "of inferior merit" whenever we observe "any extraordinary degree of pride and self-conceit; the firm persuasion he has of his own merit […] diminishes us in our own eyes […] as if he were really possess'd of all the good qualities" (T 3.3.2.6; SBN 595). The "generous friend or disinterested patriot […] alone in the practice of beneficence" serves to enhance their "value in our eyes" (EPM App.3.2; SBN 304).
We praise all passions that partake of love: Hume is "certain" that we are "infinitely touched with a tender sentiment": the "tears naturally start in our eyes at the conception of it" (T 3.3.3.4; SBN 604).

"The best Likeness": A physiognomic projection
Enemies and friends have reproached Hume with "the love of paradoxes" (Hume, 1757, p. vi). He certainly would have enjoyed the paradox of his own face. As Addison puts it: "nothing can be more glorious than for a man to give the lie to his face". 54 Why shouldn't a very uncommon thinker exhibit a very common countenance? Why shouldn't Hume's face be broad and unmeaning, his eyes vacant and spiritless?
In 1762, Millar asks him about the frontispiece of the History, and Hume calls the engraving of his head only a "superfluous Expence": "would it not be better to throw these Charges on the Paper & Print?" (HL I, 359  (Sher, 2006, p. 168). John Donaldson had made a drawing of him: "in every body's Opinion, as well as my own, [it] is the likest that has been done for me, as well as the best Likeness" (HL II, 169). Hume, who had declared the intention "to attack the Lord's Prayer […] and to recommend Suicide & Adultery" (NHL,43), should have been delighted by Donaldson: a "sort of infidel", 55 Boswell says, who "defended adultery, and […] opposed revealed religion". 56 The engraved portrait, made by Simon-François Ravenet (Hogarth's assistant in the 50s), does appear on the frontispiece for the 1768 edition of the Essays and Treatises and the 1770 edition of the History: 57 here an open volume below Hume's countenance accounts for his complete works: "History and philosophy". According to the Gentleman's Magazine, "[Donaldson's] likenesses, whether in blacklead pencil or in colours, were striking; of which the head of the historian Hume, prefixed to his history, is a sufficient proof". 58 Perhaps, when we are curious about Hume's countenance, we should look at this engraving rather than at Ramsay's 1766 coloured oil, which was to become a piece of what Voltaire calls the querelle between "the beneficent philosopher and the little ungrateful monkey": 59 a dispute between a generous pair of large grey-blue eyes and two small disquieting deep black eyes. In the engraving after Donaldson, Hume's uncoloured eyes are attentive and ready for those "brilliant quick movements" they were accustomed to in conversation, as Smellie says they were. Together with a "forcible mode of expression", they discover his "keenness of temper […] the acuteness of his feelings, and the highest marks of contempt" against those who ignorantly insult him. 60 Eyes and mouth join each other in a smile, where Hume shows himself to be lightly pleased. It is not that "strained", "perpetual" and "unpleasant" kind of smile which, according to the Encyclopédie, easily degenerates into "imbecillity" (de Jaucourt, 1769a, p. 154a). And there is probably some not "misplaced" vanity (HL I, 7) in this countenance. "As a gambol of the season", the "clever people" at Balcarres for Christmas used to "write each his own character". According to Anne Lindsay, Hume's sketch was "full of candour": "vanity was his predominant weakness". 61 It was "love of Fame", says another version of the story. 62 "Fancies he is disinterested, because he substitutes vanity in place of all other passions", Hume is supposed to have declared in his Character. 63 In his Own Life, where "love of literary fame" appears as the "ruling passion" (HL I, 1, 7), Hume describes himself as "naturally of a cheerful" and "social" temper (HL I, 2, 7). 64 Is it Diderot's "round smiling face?" 65 According to Robertson, in his "gaiety there was something which approached to infantine" (oh, the genius!); 66 according to Gray, "he has continued all his days an infant, but one that unhappily has been taught to read and write". 67 Again, the 1768 engraving seems to communicate the "Character of Hume written by himself": "a very good man, the constant purpose of whose life is to do mischief"; "mirthful, though he possesses little wit and still less humour". 68 A "sober, discreet, virtuous, frugal, regular, quiet, good-natured man of a bad character" (HL I, 264), as he accounts for himself in a letter to Clephane, a friend he could be "free with in serious and jocular mood" (HL I, 102), as he declares possibly with Voiture recalling Quintilian and Svetonius. 69 "For innocent mirth and agreeable raillery I never knew his match", Carlyle admits. 70 Hume declares himself a sceptic, at least a true one. The total or extravagant sceptic is "not in earnest" (LG 21,425). And the excessive philosophical sceptic "will be the first to join in the laugh against himself and to confess that all his objections are mere amusement" (EHU 12.23;SBN 160). The sceptic Hume is a thinker proceeding "somewhat between jest and earnest", like the sceptic Philo according to Pamphilus (DNR 2.25,150); 71 someone "you could scarcely ever distinguish, whether he was in jest or earnest' (D 12; SBN 328), like Alcheic, and the 'ironical Socrates" (D 17; SBN 329), according to Palamedes. Socrates, Xenophon says in Memorabilia, talks "half in jest half in earnest"; 72 his Muse, Galen reminds us, was "to mingle seriousness and jest". 73 Somewhat between jest and earnest. Like Hume himself in his letters: "as some parts of this Letter are in Jest & some in Source: Simon-François Ravenet after an untraced drawing by John Donaldson, published as the frontespiece to the 1768 quarto edition of Essays and Treatises (Image courtesy of National Trust).