RELATION OF THE TREATISE OF HUMAN NATURE [BOOK I] TO THE INQUIRY CONCERNING HUMAN UNDERSTANDING.[1]
HUME'S two chief philosophical works are Book I of the Treatise of Human Nature and the Inquiry concerning Human Understanding. The Treatise was "planned" before he was twenty-one years of age, and composed before he was twenty-five.[2] As the work was not much read, however, Hume thought that he had made a mistake in going to the press too early, and so about ten years later he recast and published it in briefer and more popular form.[3] This is the Inquiry. Now the question is, What is the relation of these two works to each other? There seems to be a somewhat general impression, that the standpoint which Hume adopts in the Inquiry is not exactly the same as that which he had previously assumed in the Treatise. It is sometimes said that the Inquiry represents rather the position of the agnostic, while the Treatise represents the position of the skeptic. Consequently, the Inquiry is the more positive, and thus it represents a change of view on the part of Hume, in his maturer years, from the extreme skepticism of his youth.[4] On the other hand, it is maintained by some that the standpoint of both works is essentially the same;[5] although as to what that standpoint is, there are again
- ↑ This is a summary of the more important results of a study of the relation to each other of Hume's two chief philosophical works, undertaken about two years ago for a thesis. The references are to the edition of Hume's works edited by Green and Grose. When speaking of the earlier work as a whole, I use the term Treatise of Human Nature, and when speaking of Book I, "Of the Understanding," I use the term 'Treatise,' in accordance with general custom.
- ↑ Burton, Life, I, pp. 98, 337.
- ↑ My Own Life.
- ↑ Cf. Grimm, Zur Geschichte des Erkenntnisproblems, p. 583; Falckenberg, Geschichtc der neueren Philosophie, p. 185; Hyslop, Hume's Treatise of Morals, p. 17.
- ↑ Cf. Huxley, Hume, p. 11 (Macmillan & Co., London, 1881); Webb, Veil of Isis, p. 71; Green, Preface to Green & Grose ed. of H. works; Seth, Scottish Philosophy, p. 67.
