Such are a few remarks on the matter of the first part of the "Treatise of Human Nature"--given not by any means as an analysis of the doctrines there taught, but merely as an attempt to characterize them by their prominent features. It will naturally be expected that a similar attempt should be made to characterize the form in which these doctrines were promulgated. As to the style of the Treatise, it possesses the clearness, flexibility, and simplicity that distinguish the maturity of its author's literary career, though not quite in all the perfection in which they afterwards attended his pen. There are occasional Scoticisms--a defect which he took infinite pains to cure, but of which he was never entirely rid. He uses a few obsolete and now harsh sounding forms of expression, from which he afterwards abstained: such as the elliptical combination 'tis, for it is. Here, and in the first editions of his History, he frequently neglects the increment on the perfect tense, as by saying, "I have forgot," instead of, I have forgotten; "I have wrote," instead of I have written. The Treatise has that happy equality of flight, which distinguishes the author's maturer productions. There is no attempt to soar, and none of those ambitious inequalities which often deform the works of young authors. His imagination and language seem indeed to have been kept permanently chained down by the character of his inquiries. His constant aim is to make his meaning clear; and in the subtleties of a new and intricate system of metaphysics, he seems to have felt that there lay upon him so heavy a responsibility to make use on all occasions of the clearest and simplest words, that any flight of imagination or eloquence would be a dangerous experiment.