Publication of the "Inquiry concerning Human Understanding"—Nature of that Work—Doctrine of Necessity—Observations on Miracles—New Edition of the "Essays, Moral and Political"—Reception of the new Publications—Return Home—His Mother's Death—Her Talents and Character—Correspondence with Dr. Clephane—Earthquakes—Correspondence with Montesquieu—Practical jokes in connexion with the Westminster Election—John Home—The Bellman's Petition.
Early in the year 1748, and while he was on his way to Turin, Hume's "Philosophical Essays
concerning Human Understanding,"[272:1] which he afterwards styled "Inquiry concerning Human Understanding," were published anonymously in London. The preparation of this work had probably afforded him a much larger share of genuine pleasure, than either the excitement of travelling, or the observation of the natural scenery, the works of art, and the men and manners among which he moved. In the tone of a true philosophical enthusiast, he says in the first section of the work, "Were there no advantage to be reaped from these studies beyond the gratification of an innocent curiosity, yet ought not even this to be despised, as being an accession to those few safe and harmless pleasures which are bestowed on the human race. The sweetest and most inoffensive path of life leads through the avenues of science and learning; and whoever can either remove any obstructions in this way, or open up any new prospect, ought so far to be esteemed a benefactor to mankind. And though these researches may appear painful and fatiguing, it is with some minds as with some bodies, which being endowed with vigorous and florid health, require
severe exercise, and reap a pleasure from what, to the generality of mankind, may seem burdensome and laborious."
On the publication of this work, he says in his "own life,"—"I had always entertained a notion, that my want of success in publishing the 'Treatise of Human Nature,' had proceeded more from the manner than the matter, and that I had been guilty of a very usual indiscretion, in going to the press too early. I, therefore, cast the first part of that work anew in the 'Inquiry concerning Human Understanding,' which was published while I was at Turin. But this piece was at first little more successful than the 'Treatise of Human Nature.' On my return from Italy, I had the mortification to find all England in a ferment, on account of Dr. Middleton's 'Free Inquiry,'[273:1] while my performance was entirely overlooked and neglected."
He now desired that the "Treatise of Human Nature" should be treated as a work blotted out of literature, and that the "Inquiry" should be substituted in its place. In the subsequent editions of the latter work, he complained that this had not been complied with; that the world still looked at those forbidden volumes of which he had dictated the suppression. "Henceforth," he says, "the author desires that the following pieces may alone be regarded as containing his philosophical principles and sentiments;" and he became eloquent on the uncandidness of bringing before the
world as the sentiments of any author, a work written almost in boyhood, and printed at the threshold of manhood. But it was all in vain: he had to learn that the world takes possession of all that has passed through the gates of the printing press, and that neither the command of despotic authority, nor the solicitations of repentant authorship can reclaim it, if it be matter of sterling value. The bold and original speculations of the "Treatise" have been, and to all appearance ever will be, part of the intellectual property of man; great theories have been built upon them, which must be thrown down before we can raze the foundation. That he repented of having published the work, and desired to retract its extreme doctrines, is part of the mental biography of Hume; but it is impossible, at his command, to detach this book from general literature, or to read it without remembering who was its author.
But, indeed, there were pretty cogent reasons why the philosophical world, and Hume's opponents in particular, should not lose sight of his early work. In the Inquiry, he did not revoke the fundamental doctrines of his first work. The elements of all thought and knowledge he still found to be in impressions and ideas. But he did not on this occasion carry out his principles with the same reckless hardihood that had distinguished the Treatise; and thus he neither on the one side gave so distinct and striking a view of his system, nor on the other afforded so strong a hold to his adversaries. This hold they were resolved not to lose; and therefore they retained the original bond, and would not accept of the offered substitute.
Of those views which are more fully developed in the Inquiry than in the early work, one of the most important is the attempt to establish the doctrine of
necessity, and to refute that of free will in relation to the springs of human action. To those who adopted the vulgar notion of Hume's theory of cause and effect, that it left the phenomena of nature without a ruling principle, the attempt to show that the human mind was bound by necessary laws appeared to be a startling inconsistency—a sort of reversal of the poet's idea,