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

38 IPISTORY OF TIIE EDITlONS. IIIS'L'OK Y OF TIIE E1)lTIONS. 3!)had projected before he left College, and which he wrote andpublished not long after. But not finding it successful, hewas sensible of his error in going to the press too early, andhe cast the whole anew in the following pieces, where somenegligences in his former reasoning and more in the expression,are, he hopes, corrected. Yet several writers, who havehonoured the Author's Philosophy wi5h answers, have takencare to direct all their batteries against that juvenile work,which the Author never acknowledged, and have affected totriumph in any advantages, which, they imagined, they hadobtained over it: A practice very contrary to all rules ofcandour and fair-dealing, and a strsng instance of thosepolemical artifices, which a bigotted zeal thinks itself authorisedto employ. Henceforth, the Author desires, that thefollowing Pieces may alone be regarded as containirlg hisphilosophical sentiments and principles.'This Advertisement was first printed by way of preface tothe posthumous and authoritat'ive edition of 1777. Oneblunder has already been examined. Another occurs in theassertion, that the whole had been cast anew in the 111-quiries. Without going into details, cve may nientioil thatVol. i., Part II., Of the Ideas of Space and Time, wasindeed re-written, but the monograph never appeared ; andthat Part IV. of the same volume, in many respects Lhe mostinteresting portioil of the Treatise, was never resumed.In the Life of Hume Mr. Burton appears, if not to havemade a mistake about this Advertisement, at least to havewritten what is calculated to mislead. Speaking of the- publication of the Inquiry concerning the Human Understandingin 1748, he says : ' He now desired that the "Treatiseof Human Nature " should be treated as a work blotted outof literature, and that the " Inquiry" should be substitluted inits place. In the subsequent editions of the latter work, hecomplained that this had not been complied with; that theworld still looked at those forbidden volumes of which he haddictated the suppression.' The only reference to the Treatisein Hu~ne's writings is that in the Advertisement to the posthumousedition, which has just been quoted.But we quite agree with Mr. Burton, that it is impossible' to detach this book from general literature.' In deferenceto Hume's wishes, an author should always remind hisLife. Vol. i., p. 273.andicl.llce, if they require the warning, that the Treatise doesnot represent Humc's later sentiments ; and to those whoitre interested in the biographies of philosophers, this episodeis interesting. But it would be ridiculous to consign such abook to oblivion out of respect to its author's change offeeling. By so doing, we should wilfully ignore some of theacutest speculations of one of our acutest thinkers ; andthose, too, on points which are not discussed in any of hissubsequent writings. We should miss the instructive lessonwhich is gained by observing how closely the course of hisspeculations was determined for him by Locl e and Berkeley.We should lose the key to much philosophy, both Scotch andGerman.It would not appear requisite to say much on this head,but that, men of mark, like Professor Fowler and Mr. Hunt,appear to pride themselves on ignorance of the Treatise.The former says (' Inductive Logic,' p. 24) : ' In quotingor referring to Hume, I have employed only his Essays.Many writers persist in making references to his Treatise ofHz~rnan Nature, a work whi:h he himself repudiated, ascontaining an inlmat~x~e expression of his opinions. In theAdvertisement to his Essays, he desires that " the followingpieces may alone be regarded as containing the author'ssentiments and principles." ' Mr. Hunt is more violent(' Conternporarly Review,' May 1869 ; p. 79) : ' Hume's firstpublication was the " Treatise of Human Nature." As thiswork was afterwards disowned by its author, we need notdo more than mention it. Its place was supplied by the" Essays," in which the chief questions were treated withmore accuracy and clearness, while many of the more intricateand ingenious but less important reasonings wereomitted.' After this one is prepared to learn that ProfessorFowler never quotes the Bneid as Virgil's, and that Mr. Huntnever quotes it at all.It might, perhaps, have been expected that Hume's residencein France would have exercised a perceptible irifluenceupon the reasonings of the Treatise. Yet it is not tc:) muchto say, that, with a few unimportant exceptions, the: e is notlSace of it. The writer was little acquainted with, and is' From Mia. Hunt's cstinlate of tile hint that thr. atlvcrti*emel~- was therclrLtirc: III~I-I~ 5 of I he Trccltlw .t.lld tlie pok~ IILIIIIUU~ I I ~~'~.LIICL~ uf .I -plenet~cFTL-JY~ n ca ~~~Y~~IIIIIC tl, d ; f i b 1 . r7r fofo i11v~111cll't-~Jf~h~l!r l7O\, 1, r ,.cx,lcl< 1% Lt< ttlv,s I,"