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From such matters as these, one readily turns with interest to the most trifling notices connected with his literary history. On 4th March, 1740, we find him thus writing to Hutcheson.
"My bookseller has sent to Mr. Smith a copy of my book, which I hope he has received, as well as your letter. I have not yet heard what he has done with the abstract; perhaps you have. I have got it printed in London, but not in The Works of the Learned, there having been an article with regard to my book, somewhat abusive, printed in that work, before I sent up the abstract."[116:2]
The "Smith" here mentioned as receiving a copy of the Treatise, we may fairly conclude, notwithstanding the universality of the name, to be Adam Smith, who was then a student in the university of Glasgow, [117]and not quite seventeen years old.[117:1] It may be inferred from Hume's letter, that Hutcheson had mentioned Smith as a person on whom it would serve some good purpose to bestow a copy of the Treatise: and we have here, evidently, the first introduction to each other's notice, of two friends, of whom it can be said, that there was no third person writing the English language during the same period, who has had so much influence upon the opinions of mankind as either of these two men.
The correspondence with Hutcheson is continued as follows:
Hume to Francis Hutcheson.
"16th March,1740.
"Dear Sir,—I must trouble you to write that letter you was so kind as to offer to Longman the bookseller. I concluded somewhat of a hasty bargain with my bookseller, from indolence and an aversion to bargaining: as also because I was told that few or no bookseller would engage for one edition with a new author. I was also determined to keep my name a secret for some time, though I find I have failed in that point. I sold one edition of these two volumes for fifty guineas, and also engaged myself heedlessly in a clause, which may prove troublesome, viz. that upon printing a second edition I shall take all the copies remaining upon hand at the bookseller's price at the time. 'Tis in order to have some check upon my bookseller, that I would willingly engage with another: and I doubt not but your recommendation would be very serviceable to me, even though you be not personally acquainted with him.
"I wait with some impatience for a second edition, [118]principally on account of alterations I intend to make in my performance. This is an advantage that we authors possess since the invention of printing, and renders the nonum prematur in annum not so necessary to us as to the ancients. Without it I should have been guilty of a very great temerity, to publish at my years so many novelties in so delicate a part of philosophy; and at any rate, I am afraid that I must plead as my excuse that very circumstance of youth which may be urged against me. I assure you, that without running any of the heights of scepticism, I am apt in a cool hour to suspect, in general, that most of my reasonings will be more useful by furnishing hints and exciting people's curiosity, than as containing any principles that will augment the stock of knowledge, that must pass to future ages.[118:1] I wish I could discover more fully the particulars wherein I have failed. I admire so much the candour I have observed in Mr. Locke, yourself, and a very few more, that I would be extremely ambitious of imitating it, by frankly confessing my errors. If I do not imitate it, it must proceed neither from my being free from errors nor want of inclination, but from my real unaffected ignorance. I shall consider more carefully all the particulars you mention to me: though with regard to abstract ideas, 'tis with difficulty I can entertain a doubt on that head, notwithstanding your authority. Our conversation together has furnished me a hint, with which I shall augment the second edition. 'Tis this—the word simple idea is an abstract term, comprehending different individuals that are similar. Yet the point of their similarity, from the very nature of such ideas, is not distinct nor separable from the rest. Is not this a proof, among many others, that [119]there may be a similarity without any possible separation even in thought.
"I must consult you in a point of prudence. I have concluded a reasoning with these two sentences: 'When you pronounce any action or character to be vicious, you mean nothing but that, from the particular constitution of your nature, you have a feeling or sentiment of blame from the contemplation of it. Vice and virtue, therefore, may be compared to sounds, colours, heat, and cold, which, according to modern philosophy, are not qualities in objects, but perceptions in the mind. And this discovery in morals, like that other in physics, is to be regarded as a mighty advancement of the speculative sciences, though like that too it has little or no influence on practice.'[119:1]
"Is not this laid a little too strong? I desire your opinion of it, though I cannot entirely promise to conform myself to it. I wish from my heart I could avoid concluding, that since morality, according to your opinion, as well as mine, is determined merely by sentiment, it regards only human nature and human life. This has been often urged against you, and the consequences are very momentous. If you make any alterations in your performances, I can assure you, there are many who desire you would more fully consider this point, if you think that the truth lies on the popular side. Otherwise common prudence, your character, and situation, forbid you [to] touch upon it. If morality were determined by reason, that is the same to all rational beings; but [120]nothing but experience can assure us that the sentiments are the same. What experience have we with regard to superior beings? How can we ascribe to them any sentiments at all? They have implanted those sentiments in us for the conduct of life like our bodily sensations, which they possess not themselves. I expect no answer to these difficulties in the compass of a letter. 'Tis enough if you have patience to read so long a letter as this.—I am." &c.
The third volume of the "Treatise of Human Nature" being the part relating to morals, was published by Thomas Longman in 1740. It is not so original as the metaphysical part of the work, nor are its principles so clearly and decidedly laid down. Its author's metaphysical theories were rather modified than confirmed in his subsequent works. But his opinions on ethical subjects, only indistinctly shadowed forth in his early work, were afterwards reduced to a more compact system, and were more clearly and fully set forth.
The metaphysical department of the Treatise is a system with a great leading principle throughout, of which its author intended that all the details should be but the individual applications. If his reasoning in that department of his work be accurate, he sweeps away all other systems of the foundation of knowledge, and substitutes another in their stead. But the third book, "on Morals," like the second, on "the Passions," has no such pretension. The leading principles of the metaphysical department are certainly kept in view, but the details are not necessarily parts of it. They have a separate existence of their own: they are an analysis of phenomena which we witness in our daily life; and the reader assents or dissents as the several [121]opinions expressed correspond with or diverge from his own observation of what he sees passing in the world around him, without, in that mental operation, either receiving or rejecting any general theory. In short, it is to a considerable extent a series of observations of human conduct and character; and as such they are admitted or denied, are sympathized with or contemned, according to the previous feelings and opinions of the reader. Among the prominent features of the theoretical part of this book, is the admission of a moral sense,[121:1] but the negation of an abstract code of morality, separately existing, and independent of the position of the persons who are applying this sense. The work in some measure foreshadows the systems which have been respectively called the utilitarian and the selfish; the former applying as the scale of moral excellence the extent to which an action is beneficial or hurtful to the human race; the latter referring the actions of mankind, whether good or bad, interested or disinterested, to self, and to impulses which are always connected with the individual in whom they act, and his passions or desires.
