Hume of the Inquiry, and the Inquiry alone, is essentially misleading. This probably explains why the expositions of Hume generally given in the histories of philosophy are superficial and inadequate. For while Hume's true significance for the history of philosophy is contained in the Hume of the Treatise, the Hume that is generally presented in the histories of philosophy, and the Hume that is best known, is the Hume of the Inquiry.[1] As I have said, these two books, if taken quite separately, are somewhat different from each other. But if they are taken together, if the Inquiry is read in the light of the Treatise, as it manifestly ought to be so far as the principles of the Treatise are not rejected, or at least so far as they are openly assumed, they are essentially the same. Hume himself says that the philosophical principles are the same in both. And on another occasion, his own judgment expressed with regard to his philosophical writings is significant and characteristic. "I assure you," he writes to Hutcheson,[2] "that without running any of the heights of skepticism, I am apt in a cool hour to suspect, in general, that most of my reasonings will be more useful by furnishing hints and exciting people's curiosity, than as containing any principles that will augment the stock of knowledge, that must pass to future ages." This seems a fairly candid expression of opinion, and is just such a statement as we might naturally expect from a man like Hume on reviewing such a system of philosophy as his.[3]
| W. B. Elkin. |
