Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 5.djvu/50

110 hitherto been imprinted, and is interesting as containing an illustration of his arguments on belief: "Allow me to tell you that I never asserted so absurd a proposition, as that any thing might arise without a cause. I only maintained that our certainty of the falsehood of that proposition proceeded neither from intuition nor demonstration, but from another source. That Cesar existed, that there is such an island as Sicily ; for these propositions, I affirm, we have no demonstration nor intuitive proof. Would you infer that I deny their truth, or even their certainty? and some of them as satisfactory to the mind, though, perhaps, not so regular as the demonstrative kind. Where a man of sense mistakes my meaning, I own I am angry, but it is only with myself, for having expressed my meaning so ill as to have given occasion lo the mistake. That you may see I would no way scruple of owning my mistakes in argument, I shall acknowledge (what is infinitely more material) a very great mistake in conduct; viz. my publishing at all the Treatise of Human Nature, a book which pretended to innovate in all the sublimest parts of philosophy, and which I composed before I was five and twenty. Above all, the positive air which pervades that book, and which may be imputed to the ardour of youth, so much displeases me, that I have not patience to review it. I am willing to be unheeded by the public, though human life is so short that I despair of ever seeing the decision. I wish I had always confined myself to the more easy paths of erudition; but you will excuse me from submitting to proverbial decision, let it even be in Greek."

The effect produced on the literary world by the appearance of the Treatise on Human Nature, was not flattering to a young author. " Never literary attempt," says Mr Hume, " was more unfortunate than my Treatise on Human Nature. It fell dead-born from the press, without reaching such distinction, as even to excite a murmur among the zealots. But being naturally of a cheerful and sanguine temper, I very soon recovered the blow, and prosecuted with great ardour my studies in the country." The equanimity, and contempt for public opinion which Hume has here arrogated to himself, seems to have been considered ns somewhat doubtful, on the ground of the following curious statement in Dr Kenrick's London Review: "His disappointment at the public reception of his Essay on Human Nature, had indeed a violent effect on his passions in a particular instance; it not having dropped so dead-born from the press but that it was severely handled by the reviewers of those times, in a publication entitled, The Works of the Learned; a circumstance which so highly provoked our young philosopher, that he flew in a violent rage to demand satisfaction of Jacob Robinson, the publisher, whom he kept, during the paroxysm of his anger, at his sword's point, trembling behind the counter, lest a period should be put to the life of a sober critic by a raving philosopher." Mr John Hill Burton, in his life of Hume, observes "There is nothing in the story to make it in itself incredible; for Hume was far from being that docile mass of imperturbability which so large a portion of the world have taken him for. But the anecdote requires authentication, and has it not. Moreover, there are circumstances strongly against its truth. Hume was in Scotland at the time when the criticism on his work was published; he did not visit London for some years afterwards; and to believe the story, we must look upon it not as a momentary ebullition of passion, but as a manifestation of long-treasured resentment; a circumstance inconsistent with his character, inconsistent with human nature in general, and not in keeping with the modified tone of dissatisfaction with the criticism, evinced in his correspondence." We have perused with much interest the article in "The Works of the Learned" above alluded to, and it was certainly not likely to engender calm feelings in the mind of the author reviewed. It is of some length, attempting no philosophical confutation, but from the in-