Table Of ContentTHE CLARENDON EDITION OF THE
WORKS OF DAVID HUME
A Treatise of Human Nature
An Abstract of...A Treatise ofHuman Nature
A Letter from a Gentleman to his Friend in Edinburgh
THE CLARENDON EDITION OF THE
WORKS OF DAVID HUME
General Editors ofthe Philosophical Works
Tom L. Beauchamp David Fate Norton M. A. Stewart
DAVID HUME
A Treatise of Human Nature
A CRITICAL EDITION
EDITED BY
DAVID FATE NORTON
MARY J. NORTON
Volume 1: Texts
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Historical Account and other editorial material
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Preface
A Treatise ofHuman Nature, David Hume’s earliest and most comprehensive
philosophical work, was first published, anonymously, in January 1739
(Volume 1 and Volume 2) and late October 1740 (Volume 3). The first volume
included a brief Advertisement, an Introduction, and Book 1, ‘Of the
Understanding’; the second volume contained Book 2, ‘Ofthe Passions’; the
third volume included a second brief Advertisement, Book 3, ‘Of Morals’,
and an Appendix, ‘Wherein some Passages of the foregoing Volumes are
illustrated and explain’d’. Between these two instalments of the Treatise,
Hume published, in March 1740, a pamphlet, An Abstract of a Book lately
Published; Entituled, A Treatise of Human Nature, a work he hoped would
make the Treatise more readily understood. In 1745, when the Treatise
was under attack from certain Church of Scotland ministers who wished
to prevent Hume from becoming Professor of Moral Philosophy in the
University of Edinburgh, Hume wrote a letter defending it. His friend
Henry Home (later Lord Kames) combined this letter with the statement of
charges made against the Treatise, and published both items underthe title
A Letter from a Gentleman to his Friend in Edinburgh. None ofthese works was
republished in Hume’s lifetime.
Critical texts of the Treatise, the Abstract, and the Letter make up this
volume. The accompanying second volume begins with a ‘Historical Account’
of the Treatise, an account that runs from the beginnings of the work to the
period immediately following Hume’s death in 1776. The second volume
also includes ‘Editing the Texts’, a discussion ofour editorial procedures and
policies and a record of the differences between the first-edition text of the
Treatise and the critical text; an extensive set of ‘Editors’ Annotations’
intended to illuminate, but not interpret, Hume’s texts; a four-part bibliog-
raphy of materials cited in both volumes; and indexes.
v
Acknowledgements
In the nearly twenty years since we began working on the several parts ofthis
critical edition ofHume’s Treatise, we have had the assistance and support of
many individuals and several institutions. We acknowledge the value of this
help in the preparation of the volumes that follow, and offer our warm and
sincere thanks to all who have given it to us.
First, we wish to mention Tom Beauchamp and M. A. Stewart. As friends,
colleagues, and General Editors of the Clarendon Edition of the Works
of David Hume, each has read and reread earlier drafts of much of what
follows in Volume 2, and provided indispensable assistance, criticism,
encouragement, and information. We are especially indebted to Prof.
Stewart for guidance regarding the text and context of the Letter from a
Gentleman.
We have also received assistance and advice from many other members of
what Hume called the ‘Republic of Letters’. Louis Loeb, Isabel Rivers, and
John Stephens served as readers for the Press and provided us with many
valuable comments and suggestions. Donald Baxter, Phillip Cummins,
Deborah Danowski, Roland Hall, and F. L. van Holthoon have corresponded
with us about textual matters. Randall McLeod showed us how to use his
visual collator to identify textual variants. Lady Mary Hyde allowed us to
collate the copy of the Treatisepresented by Hume to Alexander Pope. The
Earl and Countess of Rosebery made archival research a memorable occa-
sion. Michael Crump took David Norton behind the scenes of ESTC in its
early days, thus enabling him, with further help from James Mosley of the
StBride Library, to identify the printer of the three volumes of the Treatise.
David Raynor commented on an early draft of the ‘Historical Account’,
while Manfred Kuehn and Dario Perinetti generously assisted with parts
of that account. Others who have advised us on matters discussed in the
‘Historical Account’ include Lawrence Bongie, Roger Emerson, James Fieser,
Heiner Klemme, Bruno Lagarrigue, Michel Malherbe, Richard Sher,
Piet Steenbakkers and John Wright. Those who have given us help with the
editorial annotations include Michael Barfoot, Mark Box, Alexander Broadie,
Lorraine Daston, George di Giovanni, Roger Emerson, Lorne Falkenstein,
James Franklin, Knud Haakonssen, Thomas Holden, Alison Laywine,
Thomas Lennon, Stephen Menn, Eric Schliesser, Graham Solomon, and Paul
Wood. Michael Silverthorne has provided both guidance about things classical
and translations of the Latin texts quoted by Hume. Research assistance has
vi
Acknowledgements
been provided by Michael Anderson, Christopher Hillyard, Jane Roscoe, and
Daniella Shippey, while Salim Hirji, Angela Norton, and Roger Norton have
kept our computers in good order. Norman Swartz helped us take maximum
advantage ofthe software used in preparing the indexes to these volumes.
We are also grateful for the assistance or encouragement of many others,
including George Allen, Herb Bailey, Nicolas Barker, Hans Boediker,
O. M. Brack, Jack Davidson, Francis Dauer, George Davie, Rolf George, Anil
Gupta, Moheba Hanif, Raymond Klibansky, Gertrud Jaron Lewis, Peter
Lamarque, Emilio Mazza, Jane McIntyre, João Paulo Monteiro, Robin Myers,
David Owen, Terence Penelhum, Ewan David Ross-Hume, Andrea Rotundo,
Tatsyua Sakamoto, Ryu Susuato, Sandy Thatcher, Saul Traiger, James Tully,
Ken Winkler, D.C.Yalden-Thomson, and James Young. Still other acknow-
ledgements are found in our notes and in the editorial annotations. If we have
inadvertently omitted anyone to whom thanks are due, we offer our apologies.
This project could not have been carried out without the continuing
assistance and co-operation ofmany libraries and librarians. We are fortunateto
have been able to draw on the extensive resources ofthe David Hume Collection
of the Rare Books and Special Collections Division of the McGill University
Libraries. We thank Elizabeth Lewis, Bruce Whiteman, and Richard Virr, past
and present overseers of that Collection, for their help. We are especially
indebted to Brian Hillyard, Iain Brown, Patrick Cadell, and Ian Cunningham of
the National Library of Scotland; to Richard Landon of the Thomas Fisher
Rare Book Library, University of Toronto; to Elliot Shore, former librarian at
the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton; to Bridget Molloy and Ross
Scimeca of the Hoose Philosophy Library, University of Southern California.
We also wish to thank the special collections librarians of the Firestone
Library, Princeton University; the University of Edinburgh Library; the
Edinburgh Central Library; the Signet Library, Edinburgh; the Aberdeen
University Library; the Glasgow University Library; the Bodleian Library,
Oxford University; the Pembroke College Library; the British Library; the
Cambridge University Library; Dr William’s Library; and the Australian
National University. We are also indebted to the staffs of the Royal Society of
Edinburgh; the Scottish National Archives; the Huntington Library; and the
William Andrews Clark Library, University of California, Los Angeles. Still
other librarians we wish to thank include Peter Jones (King’s College,
Cambridge), Kendall Wallis (McGill) and Charles Benson (Trinity College,
Dublin), and those dozens who responded to our enquiries in search of the
copies ofVolumes 1 and 2 ofthe Treatisecontaining ‘a Vast ofCorrections and
Additions in thehandwriting of the Author’. In recent years we have benefited
from the assistance ofthe helpful staffofthe University ofVictoria Library.
vii
Acknowledgements
Institutional support for our work began with the Department ofPhilosophy
and the Faculty of Arts, McGill University, and the former Dean of that
Faculty, Michael Maxwell. Sabbatical leaves, combined on one occasion with
a Killam Research Fellowship from The Canada Council for the Arts,
enabled David Norton to concentrate on the project for relatively lengthy
periods. The McGill Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, the Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the American
Council of Learned Societies provided further financial assistance to David
Norton, as did the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. We are grateful
to Morton White for his part in making possible a fruitful academic year at
the Institute. A year at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities,
University of Edinburgh, and a term at the History of Ideas Unit, Research
School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, were equally
valuable. We are grateful to Peter Jones and Knud Haakonnsen for helping to
make these two opportunities possible. Interested staff at the Centre for the
New Oxford English Dictionary, University of Waterloo, generously helped
us take advantage of their resources.
We note that Angela Blackburn was instrumental in steering the critical
edition of Hume to the Clarendon Press, where we have been encouraged
and guided by Tim Barton, Peter Momtchiloff, and Rupert Cousens.
Jenni Craig has patiently smoothed the process of production. Jean van
Altena has provided thoughtful copy-editing, and Andrew Hawkey, meticu-
lous proof reading. We are pleased to have had this opportunity to work with
these and other individuals at the Clarendon Press.
D F N
MJ. N
December 2006
Victoria, British Columbia
viii
Contents
VOLUME 1
A Note on the Texts xi
Contents of A Treatise ofHuman Nature xiv
A Treatise ofHuman Nature 1
An Abstract of...A Treatise ofHuman Nature 403
A Letter from a Gentleman to his Friend in Edinburgh 419
VOLUME 2
Abbreviations and Conventions viii
Historical Account of A Treatise ofHuman Naturefrom its
Beginnings to the Time of Hume’s Death 433
Editing the Texts of the Treatise, the Abstract, and the Letter
from a Gentleman 589
Editorial Appendix 1: Reproductions 663
Editorial Appendix 2: The Appendix to Volume 3 674
Editors’ Annotations 685
Bibliography 980
Index 1: Historical Account and Editing the Texts 1035
Index 2: Hume’s Texts and Editors’ Annotations 1063
ix
