Principles of Political Economy (J. Lalor’s trans. of 13th ed., New York,
1878); F. A. Walker’s Money (New York, 1877) gives an account of
Hume’s views on interest and money; H. H. Gibbs (Lord Aldenham),
Colloquy on the Currency; for Hume’s relation to Adam Smith, John
Rae’s Life of Adam Smith (London, 1895). See also M. Teisseire, Les
Essais économiques de David Hume (1902; a critical study); A. Schatz,
L’Œuvre économique de David Hume (1902). (R. Ad.; J. M. M.)
HUME, JOSEPH (1777–1855), British politician, was born on
the 22nd of January 1777, of humble parents, at Montrose,
Scotland. After completing his course of medical study at the
university of Edinburgh he sailed in 1797 for India, where he
was attached as surgeon to a regiment; and his knowledge of the
native tongues and his capacity for business threw open to him
the lucrative offices of interpreter and commissary-general.
In 1802, on the eve of Lord Lake’s Mahratta war, his chemical
knowledge enabled him to render a signal service to the administration
by making available a large quantity of gunpowder
which damp had spoiled. In 1808, on the restoration of peace,
he resigned all his civil appointments, and returned home in
the possession of a fortune of £40,000. Between 1808 and 1811
he travelled much both in England and the south of Europe,
and in 1812 published a blank verse translation of the Inferno.
In 1812 he purchased a seat in parliament for Weymouth and
voted as a Tory. When upon the dissolution of parliament
the patron refused to return him he brought an action and recovered
part of his money. Six years elapsed before he again
entered the House, and during that interval he had made the
acquaintance and imbibed the doctrines of James Mill and the
philosophical reformers of the school of Bentham. He had
joined his efforts to those of Francis Place, of Westminster,
and other philanthropists, to relieve and improve the condition
of the working classes, labouring especially to establish schools
for them on the Lancasterian system, and promoting the formation
of savings banks. In 1818, soon after his marriage with
Miss Burnley, the daughter of an East India director, he was
returned to parliament as member for the Border burghs. He
was afterwards successively elected for Middlesex (1830), Kilkenny
(1837) and for the Montrose burghs (1842), in the service
of which constituency he died. From the date of his re-entering
the House Hume became the self-elected guardian of the public
purse, by challenging and bringing to a direct vote every single
item of public expenditure. In 1820 he secured the appointment
of a committee to report on the expense of collecting the revenue.
He was incessantly on his legs in committee, and became a name
for an opposition bandog who gave chancellors of the exchequer
no peace. He undoubtedly exercised a check on extravagance,
and he did real service by helping to abolish the sinking fund. It
was he who caused the word “retrenchment” to be added to the
Radical programme “peace and reform.” He carried on a successful
warfare against the old combination laws that hampered
workmen and favoured masters; he brought about the repeal
of the laws prohibiting the export of machinery and of the act
preventing workmen from going abroad. He constantly protested
against flogging in the army, the impressment of sailors
and imprisonment for debt. He took up the question of lighthouses
and harbours; in the former he secured greater efficiency,
in the latter he prevented useless expenditure. Apart from his
pertinacious fight for economy Hume was not always fortunate
in his political activity. He was conspicuous in the agitation
raised by the so-called Orange plot to set aside King William
IV. in favour of the duke of Cumberland (1835 and 1836). His
action as trustee for the notorious Greek Loan in 1824 was at
least not delicate, and was the ground of charges of downright
dishonesty. He died on the 20th of February 1855.
A Memorial of Hume was published by his son Joseph Burnley Hume (London, 1855).
HUMILIATI, the name of an Italian monastic order created in
the 12th century. Its origin is obscure. According to some
chroniclers, certain noblemen of Lombardy, who had offended
the emperor (either Conrad III. or Frederick Barbarossa), were
carried captive into Germany and after suffering the miseries
of exile for some time, “humiliated” themselves before the
emperor. Returning to their own country, they did penance
and took the name of Humiliati. They do not seem to have had
any fixed rule, nor did St Bernard succeed in inducing them to
submit to one. The traditions relating to a reform of this order
by St John of Meda are ill authenticated, his Acta (Acta sanctorum
Boll., Sept., vii. 320) being almost entirely unsupported
by contemporary evidence. The “Chronicon anonymi Laudunensis
canonici” (Mon. Germ. hist. Scriptores, xxvi. 449), at
date 1178, states that a group of Lombards came to Rome with
the intention of obtaining the pope’s approval of the rule of life
which they had spontaneously chosen; while continuing to live
in their houses in the midst of their families, they wished to lead
a more pious existence than of old, to abandon oaths and
litigation, to content themselves with a modest dress, and all in
a spirit of Catholic piety. The pope approved their resolve to
live in humility and purity, but forbade them to hold assemblies
and to preach in public; the chronicler adding that they infringed
the pope’s wish and thus drew upon themselves his
excommunication. Their name, Humiliati (“Humiles” would
have been more appropriate), arose from the fact that the clothes
they wore were very simple and of one colour. This lay fraternity
spread rapidly and soon put forth two new branches, a second
order composed of women, and a third composed of priests.
No sooner, however, had this order of priests been formed, than
it claimed precedence of the others, and, though chronologically
last, was called primus ordo by hierarchical right—propter
tonsuram (see P. Sabatier, “Regula antiqua Fr. et Sor. de
poenitentia” in Opuscules de critique historique, part i. p. 15).
In 1201 Pope Innocent III. granted a rule to this third order.
Sabatier has drawn attention to the resemblances between this
rule and the Regula de poenitentia granted to Franciscanism in
the course of its development; on the other hand, it is incontestable
that Innocent III. wished to reconcile the order with the
Waldenses, and, indeed, its rule reproduces several of the
Waldensian propositions, ingeniously modified in the orthodox
sense, but still very easily recognizable. It forbade useless oaths
and the taking of God’s name in vain; allowed voluntary
poverty and marriage; regulated pious exercises; and approved
the solidarity which already existed among the members of the
association. Finally, by a singular concession, it authorized
them to meet on Sunday to listen to the words of a brother
“of proved faith and prudent piety,” on condition that the
hearers should not discuss among themselves either the articles
of faith or the sacraments of the church. The bishops were
forbidden to oppose any of the utterances of the Humiliati
brethren, “for the spirit must not be stifled.” James of Vitry,
without being unfavourable to their tendencies, represents their
association as one of the peculiarities of the church of his time
(Historia orientalis, Douai, 1597). So broad a discipline must
of necessity have led back some waverers into the pale of the
church, but the Waldenses of Lombardy, in their congregationes
laborantium, preserved the tradition of the independent Humiliati.
Indeed, this tradition is confounded throughout the later 12th
century with the history of the Waldenses. The “Chronicon
Urspergense” (Mon. Germ. hist. Scriptores, xxiii. 376-377)
mentions the Humiliati as one of the two Waldensian sects.
The celebrated decretal promulgated in 1184 by Pope Lucius III.
at the council of Verona against all heretics condemns at the
same time as the “Poor Men of Lyons” “those who attribute to
themselves falsely the name of Humiliati,” at the very time
when this name denoted an order recognized by the papacy.
This order, though orthodox, was always held in tacit and ever-increasing
suspicion, and, in consequence of grave disorders,
Pius V. suppressed the entire congregation in February 1570–71.
See Tiraboschi, Vetera humiliatorum monumenta (Milan, 1766); K. Müller, Die Waldenser (Gotha, 1886); W. Preger, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Waldensier (Munich, 1875). (P. A.)
HUMITE, a group of minerals consisting of basic magnesium
fluo-silicates, with the following formulae:—Chondrodite,
Mg3[Mg(F, OH)]2[SiO4]2; Humite, Mg5[Mg(F, OH)]2[SiO4]3;
Clinohumite, Mg7[Mg(F, OH)]2[SiO4]4. Humite crystallizes in
the orthorhombic and the two others in the monoclinic system,
but between them there is a close crystallographic relation: the
