Hume | Page 4

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 1740, Hume seems to have made an acquaintance which rapidly ripened into a life long friendship. Adam Smith was, at that time, a boy student of seventeen at the University of Glasgow; and Hume sends a copy of the Treatise to "Mr. Smith," apparently on the recommendation of the well-known Hutcheson, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the university. It is a remarkable evidence of Adam Smith's early intellectual development, that a youth of his age should be thought worthy of such a present.
In 1741 Hume published anonymously, at Edinburgh, the first volume of Essays Moral