Edgar Andrew - Selected Essays

OXFORD WORLDS CLASSICS

DAVID HUME
SELECTED ESSAYS

DAVID HUME was born in Edinburgh in 1711. He was raised as a Scottish Calvinist and attended the University of Edinburgh between the ages of 13 and 14. A Treatise of Human Nature, his first major work and the basis upon which his modern reputation rests, was completed when he was 26 years of age. It was largely ignored by his contemporaries. He then turned to writing essays on a wide range of subjects. The first edition of his Essays Moral and Political, published in 17411741, was better received, and the essays were republished and expanded throughout his life. In 1745 Hume was unsuccessful in his attempt to gain an academic appointment, standing for the Chair of Ethics and Pneumatic Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. The Treatise was recast as the Enquiries concerning Human Understanding and concerning the Principles of Morals (1748 and 1752), but again Hume was disappointed with their reception. His contemporary fame grew with the publication of his History of Great Britain (17541754), until he was regarded as a man of letters equal in stature to Voltaire and Rousseau. In 1762 Boswell described him as the greatest Writer in Brittain. Hume returned to Edinburgh in 1769 and died seven years later.

STEPHEN COPLEY is a lecturer in English in the School of English Studies, Journalism and Philosophy, University of Wales, Cardiff.

ANDREW EDGAR is a lecturer in Philosophy in the School of English Studies, Journalism and Philosophy, University of Wales, Cardiff.

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OXFORD WORLDS CLASSICS

DAVID HUME

Edited with an Introduction and Notes by
STEPHEN COPLEY
and
ANDREW EDGAR

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Introduction, Note on the Text, Select Bibliography, Chronology, and
Explanatory Notes Stephen Copley and Andrew Edgar 1993

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First published as a Worlds Classics paperback 1996
Reissued as an Oxford Worlds Classics paperback 1998

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Data available

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Hume, David, 17111711.
[Essays. Selections]

Selected essays / David Hume; edited with an introduction by
Stephen Copley and Andrew Edgar,
p. cm.(Oxford worlds classics)
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Philosophy. 2. Political science.
I. Copley, Stephen, 1954
II. Edgar, Andrew. III. Title. IV. Series
B1455.C65 1993 192dc20 9244092

ISBN 0192836218

3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Printed in Great Britain by
Cox & Wyman Ltd.
Reading, Berkshire

THE outline of Humes career is well known from his own short published autobiography. Born in 1711 in Edinburgh, he inherited a small patrimony which provided him with modest financial independence. After half-hearted attempts to begin careers in the law and in trade, he settled for three years in France, where he wrote the Treatise of Human Nature, published in 1739 and 1740. As he writes in his autobiography, the work fell dead-born from the press, provoking little reaction, favourable or unfavourable. In 1741 and 1742 he published the first collection of his essays, under the title Essays Moral and Political. This was better received, as were the subsequent editions published in his lifetime. From 1745 to 1747, he held posts as a tutor and as a secretary on diplomatic missions. Concluding that the failure of the Treatise had proceeded more from the manner than the matter, Hume recast the first part as the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748), and later parts as the Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals (1752), but was once again disappointed by their reception, although he considered the latter of all my writings, historical, philosophical, or literary, incomparably the best. In 1752 he published the collection of essays known as the Political Discourses, which was well received. He also became librarian to the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh, and began work on the History of England under the Tudors and Stuarts, which appeared between 1754 and 1761. The Natural History of Religion appeared in 1757. In the late 1760s he again held diplomatic posts, and saw his reputation increase and financial position strengthen. He completed the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion shortly before he died in 1776.

In the Advertisement to the posthumous 1777 edition of the Essays, which included most of Humes general essays and the Enquiries, Hume presents the work as a reworking of the principles and reasonings of the juvenile Treatise of Human Nature. He disowns the earlier work, and insists that Henceforth, the Author desires that the following Pieces may alone be regarded as containing his philosophical sentiments and principles. To modern philosophers this claim has seemed strange, and they have accordingly disregarded it, first by continuing to regard the Treatise as Humes major philosophical work, at most only complemented by the