Hume | Page 4

the same inconvenience that has been found in their
natural philosophy, of being entirely hypothetical, and depending more

upon invention than experience: every one consulted his fancy in
erecting schemes of virtue and happiness, without regarding human
nature, upon which every moral conclusion must depend."
This is the key-note of the Treatise; of which Hume himself says
apologetically, in one of his letters, that it was planned before he was
twenty-one and composed before he had reached the age of
twenty-five.[5]
Under these circumstances, it is probably the most remarkable
philosophical work, both intrinsically and in its effects upon the course
of thought, that has ever been written. Berkeley, indeed, published the
Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision, the Treatise Concerning the
Principles of Human Knowledge, and the Three Dialogues, between the
ages of twenty-four and twenty-eight; and thus comes very near to
Hume, both in precocity and in influence; but his investigations are
more limited in their scope than those of his Scottish contemporary.
The first and second volumes of the Treatise, containing Book I., "Of
the Understanding," and Book II., "Of the Passions," were published in
January, 1739.[6] The publisher gave fifty pounds for the copyright;
which is probably more than an unknown writer of twenty-seven years
of age would get for a similar work, at the present time. But, in other
respects, its success fell far short of Hume's expectations. In a letter
dated the 1st of June, 1739, he writes,--
"I am not much in the humour of such compositions at present, having
received news from London of the success of my Philosophy, which is
but indifferent, if I may judge by the sale of the book, and if I may
believe my bookseller."
This, however, indicates a very different reception from that which
Hume, looking through the inverted telescope of old age, ascribes to
the Treatise in My Own Life.
"Never literary attempt was more unfortunate than my Treatise of
Human Nature. It fell deadborn from the press without reaching such a
distinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots."

As a matter of fact, it was fully, and, on the whole, respectfully and
appreciatively, reviewed in the History of the Works of the Learned for
November, 1739.[7] Whoever the reviewer may have been, he was a
man of discernment, for he says that the work bears "incontestable
marks of a great capacity, of a soaring genius, but young, and not yet
thoroughly practised;" and he adds, that we shall probably have reason
to consider "this, compared with the later productions, in the same light
as we view the juvenile works of a Milton, or the first manner of a
Raphael or other celebrated painter." In a letter to Hutcheson, Hume
merely speaks of this article as "somewhat abusive;" so that his vanity,
being young and callow, seems to have been correspondingly
wide-mouthed and hard to satiate.
It must be confessed that, on this occasion, no less than on that of his
other publications, Hume exhibits no small share of the craving after
mere notoriety and vulgar success, as distinct from the pardonable, if
not honourable, ambition for solid and enduring fame, which would
have harmonised better with his philosophy. Indeed, it appears to be by
no means improbable that this peculiarity of Hume's moral constitution
was the cause of his gradually forsaking philosophical studies, after the
publication of the third part (On Morals) of the Treatise, in 1740, and
turning to those political and historical topics which were likely to
yield, and did in fact yield, a much better return of that sort of success
which his soul loved. The Philosophical Essays Concerning the Human
Understanding, which afterwards became the Inquiry, is not much
more than an abridgment and recast, for popular use, of parts of the
Treatise, with the addition of the essays on Miracles and on Necessity.
In style, it exhibits a great improvement on the Treatise; but the
substance, if not deteriorated, is certainly not improved. Hume does not
really bring his mature powers to bear upon his early speculations, in
the later work. The crude fruits have not been ripened, but they have
been ruthlessly pruned away, along with the branches which bore them.
The result is a pretty shrub enough; but not the tree of knowledge, with
its roots firmly fixed in fact, its branches perennially budding forth into
new truths, which Hume might have reared. Perhaps, after all, worthy
Mrs. Hume was, in the highest sense, right. Davie was "wake-minded,"
not to see that the world of philosophy was his to overrun and subdue,

if he would but persevere in the work he had begun. But no--he must
needs turn aside for "success": and verily he had his reward; but not the
crown he might have won.
In