Many years after Hume’s death, his close friend John Home wrote a sketch of Hume’s character, in the course of which he observed: “His Essays are at once popular and philosophical, and contain a rare and happy union of profound Science and fine writing.”17 This observation indicates why Hume’s essays were held in such high esteem by his contemporaries and why they continue to deserve our attention today. The essays are elegant and entertaining in style, but thoroughly philosophical in temper and content. They elaborate those sciences—morals, politics, and criticism—for which the Treatise of Human Nature lays a foundation. It was not simply a desire for fame that led Hume to abandon the Treatise and seek a wider audience for his thought. He acted in the belief that commerce between men of letters and men of the world worked to the benefit of both. Hume thought that philosophy itself was a great loser when it remained shut up in colleges and cells and secluded from the world and good company. Hume’s essays do not mark an abandonment of philosophy, as some have maintained,18 but rather an attempt to improve it by having it address the concerns of common life.
Eugene F. Miller
1 October 1984
Eugene F. Miller is Professor of Political Science at the University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia
THIS NEW EDITION of Hume’s Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary is based on the edition of 1777. The 1777 edition is the copy-text of choice, for, while it appeared posthumously, it contains Hume’s latest corrections. It was the text used by T. H. Green and T. H. Grose for the version of the Essays that is included in their edition of The Philosophical Works of David Hume. Because of initial difficulties in obtaining a photocopy of the 1777 edition, Green and Grose’s text was used as editor’s copy for the current project. Both the editor’s copy and the compositor’s reading proofs were then corrected against a photocopy of the 1777 edition obtained from the Huntington Library, San Marino, California. The present edition contains material that was not in the 1777 edition of the Essays: Hume’s My own Life, Adam Smith’s Letter to William Strahan, and the essays that were either withdrawn by Hume prior to the 1777 edition or suppressed by him during his lifetime. Unless otherwise noted, these materials are reprinted here as they appear in Green and Grose and, unlike the Essays proper, have not been corrected against the appropriate earlier editions.
Green and Grose’s edition of the Essays has generally been regarded as the most accurate one available,1 and it has thus become a standard source for scholars. A close comparison of their edition with that of 1777 shows, however, that it falls far short of the standards of accuracy that are adopted today in critical-text editing.2 There are hundreds of instances in which it departs, either intentionally or unintentionally, from the text of the 1777 edition. Comparing Green and Grose’s “New Edition,” in the 1889 printing, with the 1777 text, we find at least 100 instances of incorrect wording (words dropped, added, or changed), 175 instances of incorrect punctuation, and 75 errors in capitalization. Probably intentional are over 100 changes in Hume’s spelling, symbols, joining of words, formatting of quotation marks, and such. At least 25 typographical errors in the 1777 edition are corrected silently by Green and Grose, who also corrected some of the Greek passages. The most massive departures from the 1777 edition come in Hume’s footnotes, where his own citations are freely changed or augmented. Only near the end of their volume, in a final footnote to Hume’s essay “Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations,” do Green and Grose inform the reader that such changes have been made. Hume’s essays have many long footnotes, and there are at least 7 instances where Green and Grose, without warning or explanation, print not the 1777 version of the footnote but a different version from an earlier edition, producing substantial variations in wording, punctuation, and spelling besides those tabulated above.
In preparing this new edition of Hume’s Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary, fidelity to the text of the 1777 edition has been a paramount aim. Hume’s peculiarities of spelling, punctuation, and capitalization have been retained, because these often bear on the meaning of the text.3 The reader should know, however, that there are some minor departures in the present edition from that of 1777: (1) typographical errors in the 1777 edition have been corrected silently; (2) Greek passages are reprinted as they appear in Green and Grose, with corrections and accents; (3) footnotes are designated by arabic numerals rather than by Hume’s symbols (in cases where these designations are adjacent to the punctuation mark, they have been relocated so that they follow, rather than precede, the mark); (4) whereas Hume’s longer footnotes are lettered and collected at the end of the volume in the 1777 edition, the present edition puts them at the bottom of the appropriate page, as was the practice in editions of the Essays up to 1770 (with the change in location, it was no longer appropriate to capitalize the first word of these footnotes); (5) whereas two sizes of capitals as well as lowercase letters are used in essay titles in the 1777 edition, titles here are in level capitals; (6) the “long s” has been eliminated throughout; and (7) the running quotation marks in the left margin have been omitted, and the use of quotation marks has been made to conform to modern practice.
Textual Notations
Three types of notational symbols appear in the present text.
A. Superscript Numerals. A superscript arabic numeral indicates a footnote. The editor’s notes are enclosed in brackets to distinguish them from Hume’s own notes. Information that I have added to Hume’s footnotes is also bracketed.
A reader of the Essays cannot fail to be impressed by the breadth of Hume’s learning. In the Essays, Hume ranges far beyond the great works of philosophy into every area of scholarship. One finds abundant evidence of his reading in the Greek and Latin classics as well as of his familiarity with the literary works of the important English, French, Italian, and Spanish authors. The essays reflect Hume’s intimate knowledge not only of the history of Great Britain but also of the entire sweep of European history. He knew the important treatises on natural science, and he investigated the modern writings on political economy.
Hume intended for his essays to have a wide audience, but since he presupposed that his readers would have a broad knowledge of literature, history, and contemporary affairs, his footnotes are quite sparse and sketchy by today’s standards. He often refers to persons or events without explaining who or what they are. He frequently quotes in languages other than English, and often he fails to identify an author or the work from which he is quoting. He sometimes misquotes his sources or gives misleading citations. No doubt the informed eighteenth-century reader could have filled in many of these lacunae, but such background knowledge can no longer be presupposed.
My footnotes and supplements are meant to provide some of the information that today’s reader may need to understand Hume’s Essays. Since it is hoped that this edition will be useful to beginning students and general readers, I have tended to prefer fullness in these annotations, even though much is included that will be known to specialists in one area or another of eighteenth-century studies. First, I have identified persons, places, and events to which Hume refers. Second, I have provided translations of foreign-language passages in those instances where Hume himself fails to translate them