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The History of England #3
The History of England From the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Abdication of James the Second, 1688, Volume 3
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This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
508 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 2014
2 people are currently reading
109 people want to read
About the author
David Hume
3,156 books1,688 followersDavid Hume was a Scottish historian, philosopher, economist, diplomat and essayist known today especially for his radical philosophical empiricism and scepticism.
In light of Hume's central role in the Scottish Enlightenment, and in the history of Western philosophy, Bryan Magee judged him as a philosopher "widely regarded as the greatest who has ever written in the English language." While Hume failed in his attempts to start a university career, he took part in various diplomatic and military missions of the time. He wrote The History of England which became a bestseller, and it became the standard history of England in its day.
His empirical approach places him with John Locke, George Berkeley, and a handful of others at the time as a British Empiricist.
Beginning with his A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), Hume strove to create a total naturalistic "science of man" that examined the psychological basis of human nature. In opposition to the rationalists who preceded him, most notably René Descartes, he concluded that desire rather than reason governed human behaviour. He also argued against the existence of innate ideas, concluding that humans have knowledge only of things they directly experience. He argued that inductive reasoning and therefore causality cannot be justified rationally. Our assumptions in favour of these result from custom and constant conjunction rather than logic. He concluded that humans have no actual conception of the self, only of a bundle of sensations associated with the self.
Hume's compatibilist theory of free will proved extremely influential on subsequent moral philosophy. He was also a sentimentalist who held that ethics are based on feelings rather than abstract moral principles, and expounded the is–ought problem.
Hume has proved extremely influential on subsequent western philosophy, especially on utilitarianism, logical positivism, William James, the philosophy of science, early analytic philosophy, cognitive philosophy, theology and other movements and thinkers. In addition, according to philosopher Jerry Fodor, Hume's Treatise is "the founding document of cognitive science". Hume engaged with contemporary intellectual luminaries such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, James Boswell, and Adam Smith (who acknowledged Hume's influence on his economics and political philosophy). Immanuel Kant credited Hume with awakening him from "dogmatic slumbers".
In light of Hume's central role in the Scottish Enlightenment, and in the history of Western philosophy, Bryan Magee judged him as a philosopher "widely regarded as the greatest who has ever written in the English language." While Hume failed in his attempts to start a university career, he took part in various diplomatic and military missions of the time. He wrote The History of England which became a bestseller, and it became the standard history of England in its day.
His empirical approach places him with John Locke, George Berkeley, and a handful of others at the time as a British Empiricist.
Beginning with his A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), Hume strove to create a total naturalistic "science of man" that examined the psychological basis of human nature. In opposition to the rationalists who preceded him, most notably René Descartes, he concluded that desire rather than reason governed human behaviour. He also argued against the existence of innate ideas, concluding that humans have knowledge only of things they directly experience. He argued that inductive reasoning and therefore causality cannot be justified rationally. Our assumptions in favour of these result from custom and constant conjunction rather than logic. He concluded that humans have no actual conception of the self, only of a bundle of sensations associated with the self.
Hume's compatibilist theory of free will proved extremely influential on subsequent moral philosophy. He was also a sentimentalist who held that ethics are based on feelings rather than abstract moral principles, and expounded the is–ought problem.
Hume has proved extremely influential on subsequent western philosophy, especially on utilitarianism, logical positivism, William James, the philosophy of science, early analytic philosophy, cognitive philosophy, theology and other movements and thinkers. In addition, according to philosopher Jerry Fodor, Hume's Treatise is "the founding document of cognitive science". Hume engaged with contemporary intellectual luminaries such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, James Boswell, and Adam Smith (who acknowledged Hume's influence on his economics and political philosophy). Immanuel Kant credited Hume with awakening him from "dogmatic slumbers".
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 10, 2020
The Roman Catholic Church with all of its superstitions clearly tilts more toward evil than good overall, and even though ‘big-bellied’ women often would hold the shirt of St. Thomas Becket in the highest regard and worthy of adoration the superstitions of the time period (about 1530) needed to be replaced with the rationality of the Anglican Church and moreover those who believed the wafer was the actual body of Christ had wrong-headed beliefs and are anathema to the true reformed faith and their superstitions are not as worthy of those who think otherwise, after all, does not scripture prove the wafer is not the actual body of Christ? Moreover, the Anglicans will not be as reformed minded as those Lutherans who just took things beyond the wafer too far, after all, Henry VIII is the ‘defender of the faith’ for his erudite defense of the true faith even if that faith is no longer the Catholic faith but rather the Anglican faith. Or at least, all of the above is what Hume will try to convince his reader about.
There is really nothing not to like about this volume. There is no such thing as an objective centrist perspective when it comes to understanding one’s place in the universe, and Hume is smart enough not to pretend otherwise. In the first volume Hume makes the indigenous inhabitants of the Isles a people, in the second volume he makes the people into a nation within itself, and in this volume he distinguishes the English as a nation among other nations and worthy of having its own religion and not be part of the Romish or the Popery influences and not part of a reform movement that went too far on the continent, at least according to Hume. I suspect Hume read Hobbes’ Leviathan because echoes of Hobbes’ pro Anglican stance echo within this volume.
Everything in these first three volumes seemed to be laying the foundation for what is to come, in particular, the reign of Elizabeth I. I can hardly wait to find out what happens next. One would be doing themselves a disservice if they didn’t read the first three volumes which laid the foundation, the context, the background and traditions that enabled what is to come. Adam Smith said, that all he needed was the later part of the history, not the early part. His loss.
Overall, this history is as good or better than any other I’ve read covering the same topics.
There is really nothing not to like about this volume. There is no such thing as an objective centrist perspective when it comes to understanding one’s place in the universe, and Hume is smart enough not to pretend otherwise. In the first volume Hume makes the indigenous inhabitants of the Isles a people, in the second volume he makes the people into a nation within itself, and in this volume he distinguishes the English as a nation among other nations and worthy of having its own religion and not be part of the Romish or the Popery influences and not part of a reform movement that went too far on the continent, at least according to Hume. I suspect Hume read Hobbes’ Leviathan because echoes of Hobbes’ pro Anglican stance echo within this volume.
Everything in these first three volumes seemed to be laying the foundation for what is to come, in particular, the reign of Elizabeth I. I can hardly wait to find out what happens next. One would be doing themselves a disservice if they didn’t read the first three volumes which laid the foundation, the context, the background and traditions that enabled what is to come. Adam Smith said, that all he needed was the later part of the history, not the early part. His loss.
Overall, this history is as good or better than any other I’ve read covering the same topics.
September 7, 2020
An intriguing work of history showing humanity at its darkest.
March 10, 2019
I just read the part on reign of Henry VIII. Hume's descriptions of Henry's character and personality fill out what Mantel describes in "Wolf Hall" and "Bring Up the Bodies". He also makes interesting comments about the religious institutions in how they contributed to the nationalization of religion. The writing is lively and there are many insights about the members of the court.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews