Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary - Faculty of Social Sciences

18 HISTORY OF TIIE EDITIONS, HISTORY OF THE EDITIONS. 19*Thus he was occupied for four years: devouring books,cross-examining the English metaphysicians, and jottingdown his desultory doubts and criticisms. So he describeshimself in a letter of a later date :' 'Tis not long ago that I burned an old manuscript book,wrote before I was twenty, which contained, page after page,the gradual progress of my thoughts on that head. It beganwith an anxious search after arguments, to confirm the cornmonopinion ; doubts stole in, dissipzted, returned ; wereagain dissipated, returned again ; and it was a, perpetualstruggle of a restless imagination against inclination, perhapsagainst reason.'At last his healt'h wa.s a little broken. He appears t,o havesuffered from torpidity of liver, caused by sedentary occupationsand poor-food. In a letter2 to a physician, neverdespatched, but found by Mr. Burton among the papers inthe possession of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Humedescribes minutely his manner of life, his hopes and his fears.The letter appears to have been written in 1734, when hewas twenty-three years of age : and, with the exception ofthe medical details, it is here printed in full.' SIR,-Not being acquainted with this handwriting, youwill probably look to the bsttonl to find the subscription, andnot finding any; will certainly wonder at this strange methodof addressing you. I must here in tlie beginning beg youto excuss it, and, to persuade you to read what follovrrswith some attention, must tell you, that this gives youan opportunity to do a very good-natured action, which Ibelieve is the most powerful argument I can use. I need nottell you, that I am )-our countryman, a Scotsman ; for withontany such tie, I dare rely upon your humanity even to aperfect stranger, such as I am. The favour I beg of yon isyour advice, and the reason why I address myself in particularto you, need not be told,-as one must be a skilfnl physician,a n~an of letters, of wit, of good sense, and of great humanity,to give me a satisfying answer. I wish fame had pointed olltto nie illore persons, in whom these qualities are united, inorder to have kept me some time in suspense. This I sa,yin the sincerity of my heart, and without any intention ofMarch 10. 1751. Life. Vol. i., p. 332. The immediate reference is to theargnment of Clcanthes. in tlie ' Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.'Life. Vol. i., p. 30.making a compliment ; for though it may seem necessary,that, in the beginning of so unusual a letter, I should saysome fine things, to bespeak your good opinion, and removeany prejudices you may conceive at it, yet such an endeavourto be witty, would ill suit with the present condition of mymind ; which, I must confess, is not without anxiety concerningthe judgment you will form of me. Trusting, however,to your candour and generosity, I shall, without furtherpreface, proceed to open up to you the present condition ofIUY health, and to do that the more effectually, shall give youa kind of history of my life, after which you will easily learnwhy I keep my name a secret.You must know then that, from my earliest infancy, Ifound always n strong inclination to books and letters. Asour college education in Scotland, extending little furtherthan the languages, ends coinnionly when we are about fourteenor fifteen years of age, I was after that left to my ownchoice in my reading, and found it incline me almost equallyto books of reasoning and philosophy, and to poetry and thepolite authors. Every one who is acquain~ted either with thephilosophers or critics, knows that there is nothing yet establishedin either of these two sciences, and that they containlittle more than endless disputes, even in the most fundamentalarticles. Upon examination of these, I found acertain boldness of temper growing iii me, which was notinclined to submit to any authority in these subjects, but lednze to seek out some new medium, by which truth might beestablished. After much study and reflection on this, atlast, when I mas about eighteen years of age, there seemedto be opened up to me a new scene of thought, which transportedme beyond measure, and made me, with an ardournatural to young men, throw up every other pleasure orbusiness to apply entirely to it. The law, which was thebusiness I designed to follow, appeared nauseous to me, andI could think of no other way of pushing my fortune in theworld, but that of a scholar and philosopher. I was infinitelyhappy in this course of life for some months; till at last,about; the beginning of September, 1729, all my ardourseemed in a moment to be extinguished, and 1 could no longerraise my mind to that pitch, which formerly gave me suchexcessive pleasure. I felt no uneasiness or want of spirits,when I laid aside my book; and therefore never imagined