Thus died our most excellent and never to be forgotten friend; concerning whose philosophical opinions men will, no doubt, judge variously, every one approving or condemning them, according as they happen to coincide or disagree with his own, but concerning whose character and conduct there can scarce be a difference of opinion. His temper, indeed, seemed to be more happily balanced, if I may be allowed such an expression, than that perhaps of any other man I have ever known. Even in the lowest state of his fortune, his great and necessary frugality never hindered him from exercising, upon proper occasions, acts both of charity and generosity. It was a frugality founded not upon avarice, but upon the love of independency. The extreme gentleness of his nature never weakened either the firmness of his mind or the steadiness of his resolutions. His constant pleasantry was the genuine effusion of good nature and good humour, tempered with delicacy and modesty, and without even the slightest tincture of malignity, so frequently the disagreeable source of what is called wit in other men. It never was the meaning of his raillery to mortify; and therefore, far from offending, it seldom failed to please and delight, even those who were frequently the objects of it; there was not perhaps any one of all his great and amiable qualities which contributed more to endear his conversation. And that gayety of temper, so agreeable in society, but which is so often accompanied with frivolous and superficial qualities, was in him certainly attended. with the most severe application, the most extensive learning, the greatest depth of thought, and a capacity in every respect the most comprehensive. Upon the whole, I have always considered him, both in his lifetime and since his death, as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man as perhaps the nature of human frailty will permit. I ever am, dear sir, Most affectionally yours, ADAM SMITH. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding— ป Of the Association of Ideas . Sceptical Doubts Concerning the Operations of the Of a Particular Providence and of a Future State Book I. (Part III iii xvii xxviii 158 Section XIV. Of the Idea of Necessary Connexion Book I. Part D Section VI. Of Modes and Substances 227 Book I. Part II. Section VI. Of the Idea of Existence and of External Existence 229 Book I. Part IV. Section II. Of Scepticism with regard to the Senses Section VI. AUTHOR'S ADVERTISEMENT. Most of the principles, and reasonings, contained in this volume,1 were published in a work in three volumes, called A Treatise of Human Nature: A work which the Author had projected before he left College, and which he wrote and published not long after. But not finding it successful, he was sensible of his error in going to the press too early, and he cast the whole anew in the following pieces, where some negligences in his former reasoning and more in the expression, are, he hopes, corrected. Yet several writers who have honoured the Author's Philosophy with answers, have taken care to direct all their batteries against that juvenile work, which the author never acknowledged, and have affected to triumph in any advantages, which, they imagined, they had obtained over it: A practice very contrary to all rules of candour and fair-dealing, and a strong instance of those polemical artifices which a bigotted zeal thinks itself authorized to employ. Henceforth, the Author desires, that the following Pieces may alone be regarded as containing his philosophical sentiments and principles. 1 Volume II. of the posthumous edition of Hume's works published in 1777 and containing, besides the present Enquiry, A Dissertation on the Pas sions, and An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. A reprint of the latter treatise has already appeared in the Religion of Science Library (No. 46), published by The Open Court Publishing Co.-Editor. |