not worth while to give a refutation of the doctrines of immortality and a Personal Providence in a work so sceptical as the Treatise; these dogmas are there excluded without argument. This position, however, is not satisfactory. For Hume states in the Treatise that, although the metaphysical arguments for the immortality of the soul are inconclusive, the moral arguments and those derived from the analogy of nature are strong and convincing. And he concludes one of the chapters as follows: "If my philosophy, therefore, makes no addition to the arguments for religion, I have at least the satisfaction to think that it takes nothing from them, but that everything remains precisely as before." It would be interesting to know what was the nature of those "nobler parts" that Hume removed from the Treatise, before publication, in order that it might give "as little offence as possible," and thus not be objectionable to Dr. Butler.
The most important omissions in the Inquiry are the discussions on space and time, spiritual substance and material substance. According to the author, a fuller discussion of the ideas of space and time is omitted, because it would involve Hume in inextricable difficulties in the application of his axiom: 'Whatever objects are different are distinguishable,' etc., since Hume now substitutes physical points for mathematical points as the ultimate indivisible elements of space. Almost every one who has written on this subject has had his own theory to explain why Part II of the Treatise,—that dealing with space and time,—though evidently rewritten, was never published; but the only reason positively known is that given by Hume himself in a letter to Strahan. "I intended to print four Dissertations," he says, "the natural History of Religion, on the Passions, on Tragedy, and oh the metaphysical Principles of Geometry. I sent them up to Mr. Millar, but, before the last was printed, I happened to meet with Lord Stanhope, who was in this Country, and he convinced me, that either there was some Defect in the Argument or in its perspicuity—I forget which—and I wrote to Mr. Millar, that I would not print that Essay."[1] Although the discussion of self-consciousness, or spiritual substance, is omitted, the author thinks that Hume's view of the self has undergone a fundamental change. Here Dr. Brede presents a very ingenious argument to sustain his opinion, but it does not appear to be convincing. The fact is, we do not know whether Hume abandoned his former view of the self, and probably we never shall. Numerous arguments on each side of the question can be presented, but space does not permit an examination of them here. The author finds that the result of the brief reference in the Inquiry to the subject of external existence, is formally the same as the position of the Treatise,—we have no idea of material substance, and no knowledge of an external world. Yet Hume makes some statements in the Inquiry which imply the existence of an external world more indubitably than did any in the Treatise. Consequently, Hume's view on this question also has undergone some modification. This change in his doctrine of external existence together with that in his doc-
- ↑ G. B. Hill, Letters of David Hume to William Strahan, p. 230.
