Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net English Men of Letters EDITED BY JOHN MORLEY HUME [Illustration: Publisher's logo] HUME BY PROFESSOR HUXLEY London MACMILLAN AND CO 1879 _The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved_ LONDON: R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, BREAD STREET HILL. * * * * * CONTENTS. _PART I.--HUME'S LIFE._ CHAPTER I. PAGE EARLY LIFE: LITERARY AND POLITICAL WRITINGS 1 CHAPTER II. LATER YEARS: THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND 26 _PART II.--HUME'S PHILOSOPHY._ CHAPTER I. THE OBJECT AND SCOPE OF PHILOSOPHY 48 CHAPTER II. THE CONTENTS OF THE MIND 60 CHAPTER III. THE ORIGIN OF THE IMPRESSIONS. 74 CHAPTER IV. THE CLASSIFICATION AND THE NOMENCLATURE OF MENTAL OPERATIONS 89 CHAPTER V. THE MENTAL PHENOMENA OF ANIMALS 103 CHAPTER VI. LANGUAGE--PROPOSITIONS CONCERNING NECESSARY TRUTHS 114 CHAPTER VII. THE ORDER OF NATURE: MIRACLES 129 CHAPTER VIII. THEISM: EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY 140 CHAPTER IX. THE SOUL: THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY 165 CHAPTER X. VOLITION: LIBERTY AND NECESSITY 183 CHAPTER XI. THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALS 197 * * * * * HUME. PART I. _HUME'S LIFE._ CHAPTER I. EARLY LIFE: LITERARY AND POLITICAL WRITINGS. David Hume was born, in Edinburgh on the 26th of April (O.S.), 1711. His parents were then residing in the parish of the Tron church, apparently on a visit to the Scottish capital, as the small estate which his father Joseph Hume, or Home, inherited, lay in Berwickshire, on the banks of the Whitadder or Whitewater, a few miles from the border, and within sight of English ground. The paternal mansion was little more than a very modest farmhouse,[1] and the property derived its name of Ninewells from a considerable spring, which breaks out on the slope in front of the house, and falls into the Whitadder.