Quiz: Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary

15 questions drawn at random. Score 80% for a silver medal.

1. What did Hume send the young lady who asked him for novels and romances? Plutarch’s Lives, telling her they contained no truth Livy’s history of Rome Machiavelli’s History of Florence, as a lesson in politics A volume of the Spectator
2. What image does Hume use for money at the start of “Of Money”? The blood that circulates through the body politic The oil that makes the wheels of trade move smoothly A highway that carries goods to market The ballast that steadies the ship of state
3. Why, according to the Sceptic, does Euclid say nothing about the beauty of the circle? Because the circle is not in fact beautiful Because mathematics forbids any discussion of feelings Because beauty is not in the circle but is its effect on a mind Because beauty can be proved only by geometry
4. In “Of Passive Obedience”, why does Hume allow resistance in extraordinary cases? Because every subject has made an express promise to obey only so long as government is good Because obedience rests only on public utility Because Scripture commands rebellion against unjust rulers Because the king is elected and may be recalled at will
5. When, according to Hume, does an increasing quantity of gold and silver favour industry? Only when the money is lent out by a public bank Permanently, since more money always means more trade Only in the interval before prices have risen in proportion Never, since money is entirely neutral
6. What maxim does Hume call true in politics though false in fact? That power always follows property That kings rule by divine and hereditary right That every man must be supposed a knave That the people are always right
7. Why does Cicero’s speech against Verres show that Fontenelle’s explanation of tragic pleasure is incomplete? The audience knew the events were real, so no fiction softened the sorrow The speech was a fiction the audience mistook for fact, so their pleasure proves nothing The audience took pleasure only in seeing Verres punished, not in the sorrow itself The audience felt no sorrow at all, since Verres’s victims were Sicilian strangers
8. In Hume’s allegory, what does Diffidence become after living with Wisdom and Virtue? Prudence Modesty Confidence Humility
9. What trivial difference does Hume say split the Greek (Byzantine) empire into two factions? The colours of liveries in horse races The rival claims of two imperial families A dispute over the date of Easter The choice of language for the law courts
10. Which evidence does Hume use to argue that Ossian’s hunting peoples could not have raised large armies? The records of the Roman army in Britain The experience of America The population of Lapland Irish annals of the Fenian wars
11. Which poets does Hume place nearest the centre between simplicity and refinement? Pope and Lucretius Corneille and Congreve Virgil and Racine Sophocles and Terence
12. What does Hume conclude about republics and the size of states? Large states must in the end become absolute monarchies, however free the form in which they are first founded Size makes no difference at all: a republic’s stability depends on the virtue and the education of its citizens alone Republics can survive only in cities or small territories, where all the citizens know one another Though harder to found, a republic in a large state is easier to keep steady and free from tumult and faction
13. In “Of the Immortality of the Soul”, which kind of argument does Hume treat as the only properly philosophical one on the question? Physical arguments from the analogy of nature Arguments from universal consent Metaphysical arguments from the immateriality of the soul Moral arguments from the justice of God
14. With what image does Hume answer the claim that staying in one’s country amounts to tacit consent? A tenant who signs a lease without reading it, and is bound by its terms ever after A child who inherits his father’s debts and must pay them before leaving the estate A traveller who pays a toll at a turnpike and so accepts the rules of the road A man carried aboard a ship asleep, who can leave only by leaping into the ocean
15. Which earlier model commonwealth does Hume call the only valuable one, while criticising its defects? Bacon’s New Atlantis Harrington’s Oceana More’s Utopia Plato’s ideal Republic

0 of 15 answered