Textual Variants

SECTION I [Section I, paragraph 14 originally ended with this note, which appeared only in the 1748 and 1750 editions. Hume’s footnotes are indicated with numbers rather than the original symbols.] That Faculty, by which we discern Truth and Falshood, and that by which we...

Hume’s Endnotes

[For the editorial principles applied here, please see the Note on the Text, above.] Endnote [A] to 2.9, p. 151 IT is probable that no more was meant by those, who denied innate ideas, than that all ideas were copies of our impressions;...

Of the Reason of Animals

A Ll our reasonings concerning matter of fact are founded on a species of Analogy,* which leads us to expect from any cause the same events, which we have observed to result from similar causes. Where the causes are entirely...

Sceptical Doubts concerning the Operations of the Understanding

PART I A Ll the objects of human reason or enquiry may naturally be divided into two kinds, to wit, Relations of Ideas, and Matters of Fact.* Of the first kind are the sciences of Geometry, Algebra, and...

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M Ost of the principles, and reasonings, contained in this volume, were published in a work in three volumes, called A Treatise of Human Nature: A work which the Author had projected before he left College, and which he wrote and published...

Of Probability

T Hough there be no such thing as Chance in the world;* our ignorance of the real cause of any event has the same influence on the understanding, and begets a like species of belief or opinion. 56 [2] There is certainly a probability,...

Of the Different Species of Philosophy

M Oral philosophy,* or the science of human nature, may be treated after two different manners;* each of which has its peculiar merit, and may contribute to the entertainment, instruction, and reformation of mankind. The one considers man chiefly as...

Of the Academical or Sceptical Philosophy

PART I There is not a greater number of philosophical reasonings, displayed upon any subject, than those, which prove the existence of a Deity, and refute the fallacies of Atheists;* and yet the most religious philosophers still dispute whether any man...

Of Miracles

PART I T Here is, in Dr. Tillotson’s writings,* an argument against the real presence, which is as concise, and elegant, and strong as any argument can possibly be supposed against a doctrine, so little worthy of a...

Of Liberty and Necessity

PART I IT might reasonably be expected, in questions, which have been canvassed and disputed with great eagerness, since the first origin of science and philosophy, that the meaning of all the terms, at least, should have been agreed upon among the disputants; and...