The first volume of this performance treats of the Understanding, and the fecond of the Paffions. From a diffidence in his own abilities, or from a wish to hear the opinion of the public before he acknowledged himself to be the author of the work, it was published without his name. The third volume, which comprises the subject of Morals, did not appear until the year 1740. It was fold by a different bookfeller; a circumftance owing probably to the difcouraging reception of the two first. Annexed to the laft volume is AN APPENDIX, wherein fome paffages of the foregoing volumes are illuftrated and explained.

Mr. Hume, it has been stated, formed the plan of his Treatife, while he was at college; and although, from the very imperfect manner in which it was executed, a fevere critic might be inclined to condemn the prefumption of a stripling in thus venturing to enter the lifts with a formidable body of metaphyficians, whofe elaborate works were the matured productions of advanced life, it must be confeffed, that the boldness of the undertaking was worthy of the future reputation of the author. That a lad of only twenty-feven years of age fhould fail in accomplishing a task, which had baffled the labours of fo many philofophers, eminent for their erudition and fagacity, cannot excite furprise. It

down the enfuing year in the title-pages of all books ready for fale in or after the month of November. Hence a work actually printed during that month in the year 1738, will bear, in the imprint, the date of 1739.

would

would indeed have been a rare inftance of early precocity, if he had fucceeded in a branch of fcience in which even the primary rules of investi gation have not yet been fatisfactorily fettled.

On the fate of this performance our author is extremely candid. "Never literary attempt," fays he, was more unfortunate than my Treatise on "Human Nature. It fell dead-born (still-born) "from the prefs, without reaching fuch distinction, as even to excite a murmur among the zealots."

In reviewing this firft effay of Mr. Hume's talents, and inquiring whether the neglect it expe rienced was warrantable on the part of those literati who interest themselves in metaphyfical difcuffions, it is neceffary to premife, that he afterwards melted down his Treatife into two other tracts, which he fucceffively published. To a new edition of these he prefixed an advertisement, in which, after alluding to the early period of life when he wrote and published his Treatife on Human Nature, he informs us, that, not finding his work fuccefsful, he was fenfible of his error in going too foon to prefs. Under this impreffion he thought proper to newmodel the whole, and in doing so to correct some negligences into which he had fallen in his former reasoning, and particularly the inaccuracies in his language. He complains, that feveral writers, who had honoured his philofophical tenets with anfwers, had directed all their efforts against his juvenile and anonymous production, and affected to tri

umph

umph in their imaginary advantages. This conduct he condemns as inconfiftent with candour and fair-dealing, and as a ftriking inftance of the polemical artifices, which a bigoted zeal thinks itself warranted to employ. He concludes with defiring, that his two laft tracts only fhall hereafter be regarded as containing his philofophical fentiments and principles.

Thefe expreffions are obvioufly dictated by peevishness; for as ten years elapfed between the publication of his unfortunate Treatise on Human Nature, and the Enquiry concerning the Human Understanding; and as the Enquiry concerning Morals did not appear until three years afterwards, how was it poffible for writers, who animadverted on his doctrines, to notice, during the intervening period, any other than thofe in the Treatife, which was the only performance in exiftence?-And did not Mr. Hume himself, by re-cafting that work, and fo amply curtailing it, virtually acknowledge that the metaphyfical opinions it contained were untenable? In his Enquiries, he did not even allude to any former work by him on the fubject: he did not intimate an adherence to, or retraction of former fentiments; but left every one, acquainted with his first performance, to conclude, that the two last productions were merely fupplementary to it. The reprehenfion, therefore, which he bestowed on his opponents, was unjust; and the vagueness of his language does not authorife us to fuppofe, that his cenfure was intended to apply to authors whofe

8

whose writings were pofterior to the appearance of his two last mentioned tracts, but who difregarded the amendments they contained, and recurred to the first incorrect and defective treatise. In fine, until Mr. Hume announced the wifh expreffed in the concluding fentence of the advertisement, blame was not imputable to a controverfialist, who was left at liberty to refer to any of our author's works indifcriminately, for opinions which he had not publickly contradicted.

It must alfo be confeffed, that fomething like uncandid obftinacy appears in the language of this advertisement by Mr. Hume. The faults in his treatise, as will afterwards be fhewn, were numerous and grofs; and his fubfequent corrections of them were important, or rather confifted in a prudent and very general abandonment or omiffion of his prior opinions. Yet, inftead of applying to these the term errors, he employs the foftened expreffion of fome negligences; and thus betrays a ftubborn refufal to acknowledge the very mistakes which he has endeavoured to rectify.

Not to interrupt the narrative of events by a prolonged criticism on Mr. Hume's philosophical doctrines, our remarks on them are poftponed to the latter part of this work; and in these it will be fedulously avoided to represent any tenets in the Treatife as his final and approved sentiments, unless they have been retained by him in his two fubfequent publications. And here we will be pardoned

doned for obferving, that a diftinguished philofopher and biographer has quoted liberally from Mr. Hume's Treatife on Human Nature, without putting the reader on his guard as to our author's general dereliction of the doctrines maintained in that work; but this is to be afcribed to inadvertency, and not to the remoteft view of injuring Mr. Hume, for whom the erudite metaphyfician alluded to uniformly fhews a more ardent esteem, than we can coincide with him in expreffing.

In estimating the qualifications necessary for an undertaking like that of Mr. Hume, a fuccinct enumeration of his more eminent predeceffors, whofe labours have illuftrated this important branch of general science, will not, it is hoped, be reckoned either a tiresome or an unprofitable digreffion.

At an early period in the hiftory of mankind, the philofophy of the human mind began to engage the attention of the learned, or, to fpeak in a ftyle more appropriate to a rude age, the attention of thofe men who were more intelligent than their contemporaries. Among the various branches of the fectarian philofophy of the Greeks, the Socratic was the most eminent; and from it originated the Academic and Peripatetic fects. Plato and Ariftotle, the founders of these two schools, are the only ancient authors, whofe writings on the abftrufe fubject of metaphyfics have reached modern times; and from the puerile fancies with which they are replete, and the unintelligible language in which

they