Selected Essays

by David Hume, Stephen Copley (Editor), Andrew Edgar (Editor)

In his writings, David Hume set out to bridge the gap between the learned world of the academy and the marketplace of polite society. This collection, drawing largely on his Essays Moral, Political, and Literary (1776 edition), which was even more popular than his famous Treatise of Human Nature, comprehensively shows how far he succeeded.

From Of Essay Writing to Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences Hume embraces a staggering range of social, cultural, political, demographic, and historical concerns. With the scope typical of the Scottish Enlightenment, he charts the state of civil society, manners, morals, and taste, and the development of political economy in the mid-eighteenth century. These essays represent not only those areas where Hume's arguments are revealingly typical of his day, but also where he is strikingly innovative in a period already famous for its great thinkers.

Genres: Philosophy, Essays, Nonfiction, Politics, Classics, Science, History

410 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1776

About the author

David 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".

Reviews

[شمس · Rating 4 out of 5]

Assist yourself by a frequent persual of the entertaining moralists: have recourse to the learning of Plutarch, the imagination of Lucian, the eloquence of Cicero, the wit of Seneca, the gaiety of Montaigne, the sublimity of Shaftesbury.

Moral precepts, so couched, strike deep, and fortify the mind against the illusions of passion. But trust not altogether to external aid: by habit and study acquire that philosophical temper which both gives force to reflection, and by rendering a great part of your happiness independent, takes off the edge from all disorderly passions, and tranquilizes the mind. Despise not these helps; but confide not too much in them neither; unless nature has been favourable in the temper with which she has endowed you. —Note/Variant to The Sceptic

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reread. Not the entire "Essays, Moral and Political," but most of them. Always struck by how contemporary Hume sounds, even, or maybe especially, when he's wrong. We're living in his world, not Kant's.

[Illiterate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hume deploys skeptical reason and historical evidence to assess conventional wisdom. I most enjoy: Human Nature, Epicurean etc, Contract, Suicide, Immortality.

[Alex Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Hume was one of those late bloomers. His mum thought him daft until he started to become famous because of his writing. In reading this collection, you can see how plodding he is in his thinking. Perhaps he seemed daft because of how he questioned. While this collection is just a loose set of essays, you can detect in him a critical ruthlessness in examining what the basis for anything is. Hume seems to have found, even before Foucault, a human assumption that what works for us should also serve as justification for our behavior and reasoning... that is to say, how things appear based on what we want determines the conventions of what we assume to be factual in the world. That is, we see not only what we want to see, but we also see what we look for. In particular his examination of civil liberties, his examination of political parties... finds at its root the particular interests of each of the players. From that interest, Hume is able to draw a line to developing the conceptual boundaries of where each actor resides, and how those boundaries always-already serve the interests of that actor in a self-justification that isn't seemingly gradual but rather, spontaneous.

What Hume lacks in these essays is a coherent system of analysis. Perhaps he is able to draw that up later on, but I am reminded very heavily of how Foucault examines discourse diachronically in order to show how our current divisions were created through the discourse via power or its corollary, resistance. Hume doesn't seem to have this same kind of genealogical examination of discourse at his disposal, but he does involve in a diachronic tracing of trends and party lines as they evolve into groups that spontaneously self-justify just as they separate from each other in fierce opposition.

One of the reasons Hume might have taken so long to bloom is that he was too busy learning and confronting the assumptions that others have of the world. If you question too much and don't understand what's going on, I suppose you would appear daft to anyone else. Most likely, to come onto his own in his analysis, Hume needed to defer answering what he was looking at, until he finally came to the understanding that there is no universal. If he believed in a kind of universal ground to base everything from, he certainly didn't rely on it in any of these essays.

[Evan Dewangga · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this is one hell of a ride. My first experience on reading "true" philosophy book, and it only takes one push, one essay, to fall in the abyss of Hume's thinking. It was Of the Standard of Taste, the essay that I am searching for in my entire adult life.

Of the Standard of Taste and Why My Friends Couldn't See Greatness in Cinema
Wait I can't believe you couldn't see the beauty in this movie. Boring, you said. I mean this movie is legit, a cannon. How could you say something bad about Hitchcock and Kubrick. Of course is not always action, great movies are not always action. See, Scorsese, don't consider Marvel film a cinema. You just don't see it.

In my year of high school, I found new hobbies in watching and editing movies. I found this website called IMDb that has list of Top 250 movies of all time. Keenly I watched movies based on that list, if I can't understand the beauty of it, I keep wondering by reading the review, read the social context of that movie, and even make sense of the technological ingenuity in which those movies try to achieve. Still, back then I don't have vocabulary to communicate about their artistic merits. I simply watch, learn, and watch again. And I feel those movies are thought-provoking, brilliant, and somewhat life-changing, it is not merely a movie, I mean it is some kinds of mirror to our life or our universe of emotion. And I can't comprehend, why most of my friends did not see it that way, they see it as boring, dry, and old film. I mean what beauty of art has something to do with time, beauty is eternal I say, those Chaplin's comedies still resonate until this day, even I cried when watching Gone with The Wind, 1939 movies, 4 hours in duration, my eyes still can't believe what ethereal beauty I've just watched. And my friends can't seem to stand even 5 minutes of that movies. I can't make sense of it, those looming questions haunting my life of this past five-six years.

Then came Hume, the philosopher with very sentimental eloquence, and came this very essay, he brought up art, not only in the same position as science, but as more than science itself (I might also say, this thinking of Hume is in line with his argument that human is merely an animal, that can't comprehend the world, not a rational being that we always presumed).

Theories of abstract philosophy, systems of profound theology, have prevailed during one age: in a successive period these have been universally exploded: their absurdity has been detected: other theories and systems have supplied their place, which again gave place to their successors: and nothing has been experienced more liable to the revolutions of chance and fashion than these pretended decisions of science. The case is not the same with the beauties of eloquence and poetry. Just expressions of passion and nature are sure, after a little time, to gain public applause, which they maintain for ever.
page 148-149

The same HOMER who pleased at ATHENS and ROME two thousand years ago, is still admired at PARIS and at LONDON. All the changes of climate, government, religion, and language, have not been able to obscure his glory. Authority or prejudice may give a temporary vogue to a bad
poet or orator; but his reputation will never be durable or general.
page 139

I couldn't agree more with those statements, and this essay is the sum up answer of all my uneasiness about why one can't seem to understand and enjoy art. Along with other essays, such as Of Tragedy and Of Refinement in the Arts, Hume's arguments in terms on aesthetics is well delivered. His language feels so contemporary, though it's written more than 200 years in the past.

Of the Balance of Trade and Economics before Capitalism
Other things that make Hume such a fascinating philosopher for me is his contribution in early economics thinking, as Hume is also the older contemporary of Adam Smith. It is mind-blowing what Hume attempt to argue about inflation as well as interest that later give birth to capitalism. Some essays deal with this topic, and for the highlights are these:

Suppose four fifths of all the money in GREAT BRITAIN to be annihilated in one night, and the nation reduced to the same condition, with regard to specie, as in the reigns of the HARRYS and EDWARDS,* what would be the consequence? Must not the price of all labour and commodities sink in proportion, and every thing be sold as cheap as they were in those ages?
page 190-191

All water, wherever it communicates, remains always at a level. Ask naturalists the reason; they tell you, that, were it to be raised in any one place, the superior gravity of that part not being balanced, must depress it, till it meets a counterpoise; and that the same cause, which redresses the inequality when it happens, must forever prevent it, without some violent external operation.
page 191

Moreover, Hume also already inspected the birth of the new class of people, the landowner, as also later adopted in Marx's writing. I mean I'm mesmerized with Hume's reflection to have conclusion such as this:

In this unnatural state of society, the only persons who possess any revenue beyond the immediate effects of their industry, are the stockholders, who draw almost all the rent of the land and houses, besides the produce of all the customs and excises. These are men who have no connections with the state, who can enjoy their revenue in any part of the globe in which they choose to reside, who will naturally bury themselves in the capital, or in great cities, and who will sink into the lethargy of a stupid and pampered luxury, without spirit, ambition, or enjoyment. Adieu to all ideas of nobility, gentry, and family.
page 209

From this, Hume failed to "predict" the oligarchy that might arise from the nasty cooperation between landowners and state, but still Hume's notion has great deal of novelty of that era. Hume's economic thoughts give the backbone of Smith, Marx, and even Keynes, as Hume also remarks the notion of international trade, foreign exchange, and interest rate.

Other Essays Which I Do or Don't Understand
When it comes to suicide and history of philosophy thoughts, I still can comprehend what Hume wrote. Even laughing in one or two parts because of his comedic and cynic takes. But most of his essays on political history are unbearable for me. Yet I still read all of them. I merely read, but just can extract probably less than 40% of its content. It is densely referenced and I still have little knowledge about Greek, Roman, as well as British history. I already expected this difficulties of reading Hume, because previously Ayer in Hume: A Very Short Introduction noted that Hume used to classified as historian, not philosopher. Still, I'm amazed with Hume's vast and deep insight of history. Probably I'll read his essays again, after I've got enough exposure in the history of western civilization.

Last, this is my stepping stones for another journey in philosophy reading, I can't believe that I finally finished reading this gargantuan tome. It gives me belief that everything is achievable if I grind through it, always try and try again to keep reading, even though it is "torturing" to read, so does to comprehend. But the joy, oh the joy of understanding and reflecting upon it, is worth the journey.

[Dan Graser · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading the essays of Hume is to read a rarely used art form in the hands of perhaps its finest practitioner, with the possible only exception being Hitchens. Many of these are drawn from Hume's own published collection of essays but there are several more from throughout his life. Though obviously written in 18th century prose, the entire point of these type of works is to communicate profound philosophical notions in language that is readable and conversational for the layman/curious student, as Hume himself notes:
"I cannot but consider myself as a kind of resident or ambassador from the dominions of learning to those of conversation, and shall think it my constant duty to promote a good correspondence betwixt these two states, which have so great a dependence on each other."

For me the most interesting are the trio of governmental works:
That Politics may be Reduced to a Science
Of the First Principles of Government
Of the Origin of Government

and the coupling of the religious essays:
On Suicide
On the Immortality of the Soul

For those with an interest in Hume, this is a collection that you could easily keep as an anthology and read on subject areas that interest you as they occur to you, or as I did, read it right through. Either way you will live in the mind of perhaps the finest thinker of the English language and certainly one of its most elegant prose stylists while exploring a variety of subjects.

[Pablo Paniagua Prieto · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most essential texts of the Scottish Enlightenment, these essays greatly influenced later philosophers and economists such as Adam Smith. Hume's writing is clear, profound, and witty; this is one of PPE's earliest and best representations: work between the humanities and the social sciences at the intersection of Politics, Philosophy, and Economics. It should be essential reading for every student doing philosophy and economics. I think this collection of essays is far superior to anything that Rosseau wrote combined; it is a shame that Hume is so little studied in politics and philosophy courses. Just for his three essays "That politics may be reduced to a science", "Of the original contract", and "On Commerce", this book is worth every penny.

His skeptic essays "On suicide" and "On the immortality of the soul" are little gems.

Read Hume, and forget about Rosseau

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Relevance to today

Hume wrote about England and Europe and monarchies and republics and revolution and the will of the people. Though he t was a different time and different forms of government his essays are still relevant today. Dictators,kings,religious leaders and all who would like to retain power once they have it.

[Grady · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are at least two ways to read this short collection of political essays by the Scottish philosopher David Hume: as an historical document, reflecting the views of a leading thinker of the Scottish Enlightenment of the mid- to late-1700s; or as essays that speak across two and a half centuries with an improbable clarity and freshness, as though one were reading a letter about politics from a friend, or a particularly thoughtful essay in Mother Jones.

The topics Hume focuses on reflect his time: not just concerns about liberty and the best kinds of 'constitution', meaning the structure of power in government; but also the central importance of taste in the cultivation of personal and civic virtue. But there's an impressive currency to an author who can begin an essay with the comment, "I am apt, however, to entertain a suspicion, that the world is still too young to fix many general truths in politics, which will remain true to the last posterity. We have not as yet had experience of three thousand years; so that not only the art of reasoning is still imperfect in this science, as in all others, but we even want sufficient materials upon which we can reason." That kind of vision over a long time-scale, and sense of how little we know, feels very modern. It's also true that Hume's formulation implicitly also applies to his contemporaries, such as Henry Home, Lord Kames (an eminent jurist); or slightly later intellectuals, such as Adam Ferguson (an early sociologist) and John Millar (a law professor who wrote about political sociology). So it isn't necessarily humble in its historical context.

Perhaps the most consistent element in all these essays is Hume's very empirical approach to his themes. He argues about underlying principles; but he makes his case by offering examples from classical literature and from contemporary politics. Few or none of his assertions are buttressed by a priori arguments - that things are a certain way because they must logically be. Empiricism is Hume's signature approach to such non-political questions as how we know what we know, in his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, published in the same decade, so it's hardly surprising to find it in these essays. But it also helps make them feel fresh, and underpins Hume's sense that political theorizing could become more compelling as history unfolded, providing a larger dataset for analysis.

[ozzwoy]

Goodreads does not allow to write long reviews as intermediate logs, so I will have to log the whole book in order to review a single essay.

On the Standard of Taste… or An Apology for Snobbism

The most famous of Hume’s essays is an attempt to answer the eternal question: Are some tastes better than others? Hume rightfully argues that people well-versed in specific domains of art have greater sensitivity to nuances. However, does this observation make their judgment more “objective”? And works of art more “objectively” good or bad? Hume endeavors to prove this—to no avail.

Hume’s main argument is that some works of art seem to stand the test of time, e.g., Greek tragedies. This must imply that there exist certain elements in those art pieces that human nature responds to at the most basic level. But whom are these elements to be determined by? And here Hume falls prey to the same kind of conclusions that misled his predecessors and merely reiterates the old question.

In order to distinguish between tastes, Hume introduces the notion of delicacy. Some tastes, he maintains, are more delicate than others, that is, more refined and sophisticated. The privilege of judgment, therefore, must be granted only to the most delicate of men. What this solution leads to is pretty clear: if hitherto humans have fought each other for one-upmanship in taste, henceforth they shall fight each other for one-upmanship in delicacy. La guerre n’est pas finie!

However objective David Hume tries to be, his own subjectivity shines through some of his paragraphs. In order to properly experience a work of art produced in a different age/country, he rightly observes, we must forget our own upbringing and place ourselves in the same cultural milieu as the inhabitants of that age/country. Unless this milieu is so utterly wrong and inhuman that the art piece must be rejected—and here’s Hume to determine the rightness and humanness. All rules he advances are all too predictably liable to amendments to reflect his own worldview. Then maybe the entire essay could be simplified to one sentence:

There is a standard of taste; his name is David Hume.

[John Yelverton · Rating 1 out of 5]

David Hume makes some goods points in his essays concerning the need for checks and balances in his essays concerning government; however, whatever good points he makes are completely drowned out by his ramblings on society and his utter and complete contempt for all things religion. I do not recommend this book.

[Jack Goldman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I am harsh with my 3 stars but I will try to fight my case the first 1/3 of this book is amazing captivating and fun. Humes political Philosophy is really fascinating mixing Ideas of Machiavelli and his dear John Locke it’s plastered all over it.
We are first met with a quite Eudomonic Ethical writing in the middle station of life which I think starts us of greatly. One thing I think you can not through the Whole of this book is Hume really is a beautiful writer he has a way with his words. After the eudomonic part we see the delicacy of taste and passion which again is a rather beautiful part and we see Humes affection for the Liberal arts something he stresses very much, for him the sign of a free society which I would say has aged well. Then we get onto the politcal writings where he brings good takes on federalism and the like with the early formation of Government which is a tremendous writing.
After the Politics we are confronted with 4 writings The Epicrucian, The stoic, the Platonist and the Skeptic. The first 3 are written in beautiful poetic language which again make you appreciate Hume as a writer, the skeptic takes a more regular approach in writing with the more present tone of the previous and latter writings. All of these I’d say are beautiful love letters to Philosophies he has adapted and thus appreciated, though I think they can get abstract meaning you can get lost in the language a bit.
Then afterwards we get into more historical commentary and commentary of the time, which I found less entertaining, I came here to read philosophy dammit! Though when it clicks you can enjoy it. The whole of these essays Hume has added historical commentary and analogies have been well and good all enjoyable and what it has done is made me realise Hume was probably the most well read person at least that I know of, of his time first of all he was a kind of Philosophic Virtuoso but also a historic one, he truly head a great depth in his knowledge but what I have to say about his more historical writings featured he is I prefer them in small doses scattered in Philosopic writings. Also I must mention that his writing on Supersition and Enthusiasm is incredibly fun and easy to read.
But what dragged the book down for me and made me not want to read it was the Economic writings I just couldn’t without getting board they just didn’t click with me, not that I could even disagree it’s just the enjoyability wasn’t there for me and made me skip to the last couple essays, though I do plan on reading more of essays I have already ready and those I got too disillusioned to touch.
In conclusion for me Hume was quite possibly the greatest intellectual of his time, I just wish the book maybe was just things I was very interested in though this take is incredibly selfish and unrealistic, but when this book is Good it is almost 5 star good.

[Jamie Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was David Hume who roused Kant from his dogmatic slumber. It wasn’t just their differences on the subject of what we can know and how we know it that were polar opposites. So too were their writing styles. Anyone who has ever slogged their way through Kant knows what a relief it is to read anything by David Hume. He manages to present important and complex ideas with clarity and simplicity. Reading most philosophers is like being verbally bludgeoned by a pedantic and humorless professor, but Hume is like having a conversation with a good friend.

In these essays he primarily examines the political issues of the day, which are interesting from a historical perspective, but as he brings to bear his formidable intellect he ends up making timeless observations on human nature.

He is ruthless, and fearless, as he looks into beliefs and behaviors. He has no time for sentiment, and no patience for metaphysical song-and-dance. Some of his conclusions echo Cicero, “qui bono?”, and show how easily politicians find it to make moral and ethical cases for practices that they themselves benefit from.

In his discussion of kingship he also brilliantly anticipates the corruption of the American political system, fraught with gerrymandering and voter suppression. “Not to mention that a crown is too high a reward ever to be given to merit alone, and will always induce the candidates to employ force, or money, or intrigue, to procure the votes of the electors: so that such an election will give no better chance for superior merit in the prince, than if the state had trusted to birth alone for determining the sovereign.” Only expect integrity from politicians when they know they can’t get away with anything else.

Hume was appalled by ignorance and the violence that always seems to attend it, arguing that punishment should never be meted out in excess of the crime committed. Extending this thought, he then applied it to the idea of damnation, of eternal torment for the sin of not believing whichever of the various sects turned out to be right. He cuts through all the hokum of original sin and cringing repentance and says, in effect, “How dare you? How dare you push this monstrous belief in hell for all time and then claim it comes from a good and loving god?”

This is a short book, and not all of the essays are applicable to modern times, but it is a great introduction to Hume’s thought and style, definitely worth reading.

[Noah Goats · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure how to rate this collection of essays because it's an uneven grab bag of a book. Hume writes well. The stately prose of the 1700's may not be to everyone's taste, but Hume keeps things elegantly clear. I loved some of the essays, including Of the Middle Station of Life, Of Superstition and Enthusiasm, The Sceptic, and On the Immortality of the Soul. It was kind of fun to watch Hume try to distance himself from what he really believed in some of these essays. I chuckled out loud when I got to the end of his essay on the immortality of the soul where he absolutely trashed the idea of the afterlife. He spends the second to last paragraph summing up how philosophy and science prove there is no afterlife, and then in the very last paragraph says this, "Nothing could set in fuller light the infinite obligations which mankind have to Divine revelation, since we find that no other medium could ascertain this great and important truth (the immortality of the soul)." You had to distance yourself from religious skepticism back then, and I guess this tiny fig leaf was enough.

But some of the essays were terribly dull, and I'm not sure how they could be of interest to anyone except Hume's biographers and scholars of the Enlightenment. They were cutting edge thought on important issues of the day when they were written, but now they feel stale. I abandoned essays like Of Public Credit and Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations, without finishing them. The fact is that modern economists and historians are better guides on subjects like these. There's nothing in them that feels important or interesting.

In sum, this book is a mixed bag. If you read it, maybe pick and choose what interests you.

[Jonathan Brammer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to read Hume because he is considered to be a precursor to secular humanism, and unafraid to wade into the debate over the balance of power between crown and parliament. I was a bit underwhelmed by his political and economic arguments, just because we are the products of this Enlightenment thinking that basically defines liberal democracy. What feels obvious today was pretty radical in Hume's time. And some of his theories come off as half baked, as if he was combining deep knowledge of the ancient world with a specious understanding of how governments formed in his contemporary society.

There are a couple of heretical essays at the end that were published posthumously, defending suicide and arguing against an afterlife. If you read though some of Hume's notes at the end, you will also find that he is virulent racist . I don't know how influential Hume was with the founders, who were steeped in Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, etc. But his secularism easily coexists with the advance of science during the period.

There was an interminable essay in the middle about the population of the ancient world, wherein Hume expostulates at length about the number of slaves people had and how they were "bred". He admits at one point that they didn't have any real idea of populations during HIS time - gathering that data was too complicated in a pre-industrial world.

[Shelley Diamond · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hume is considered a philosopher but these essays show a broader range to his knowledge. He is also a historian and an economist. Even though these essays were written in the 1700's, I was impressed by the clarity of his language. Most writing from that time period seems so obtuse and old-fashioned that it is sometimes too difficult to decipher its meaning. Hume's essays, in contrast, are fairly easy to read and comprehend.

I was also impressed by his insights on economic topics such as globalization of trade, the balance of trade, and interest rates. His comments are surprisingly relevant in the year 2018.

The essays I particularly enjoyed were: Of Essay Writing, Of the Middle Station of Life, That Politics May Be Reduced to a Science, Of the Dignity or Meanness of Human Nature, Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences, The Sceptic, Of Commerce, Of the Balance of Trade, Of the Original Contract, the Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth, and On Suicide.

[Greg Leatherman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essential reading for people interested in the development of representational governments, the art of conversation, historical cycles, personal responsibility, and critical analysis. It's not a quick or easy read. I read some paragraphs multiple times in order to glean their full meaning, but it was worth it. Some passages, however, sang with such brilliance that I have to place Hume in the highest rank of intellectual companions. I especially enjoyed the chapter on The Original Contract, which had a timeless quality I did not expect in an essay written 250 years ago. I subtract one star because most readers will find some of the essays too dry to finish and certain observations on race, climate, and so forth, to be outdated. Still, as an historical document within an historical context, it's very informative.

[Stefanos Baziotis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm probably one of the few who give this book 5 stars. But, I just _love_ Hume's prose. He's really classy, possibly one of the most elegant non-fiction writers you'll ever read. I love his prose even when I don't agree, even when he says things that we know are flat-out wrong. It's just that he always seems so humble, and he always tries to support his arguments.

Now, some words for the edition. It's standard Oxford Classics quality, which for me is always above average (but less than say Cambridge Texts). I like that Oxford Classics always has a lightweight feel. The selection is good and includes some of his most important essays (e.g., "Of the Original Contract"). Note, however, that it doesn't include the Enquiry, but you probably want to buy that separately anyway (e.g., Hackett).

[Keerthi Vasishta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enlightening from Hume's visionary outlook on the world. His ascription of divine status to the traditional hero of Greco-Roman tradition as well on the emphasis on the elevated sensibility of a small section of men sets Hume apart from many other philosophers because he persuades his readers that government supersedes all. His sharp observation and realistic reasoning (going far as to admitting that he could be wrong and ill-suited to make some remarks) makes his writing immensely tolerable and interesting.

[Lucas Pereira · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's shocking to see how well educated well educated people were hundreds of years ago. How sound their arguments were despite you know, lack of electricity or air conditioning. But women were still seen as inferior beings sadly. The wide range of topics adressed is remarkable. How can a single person write skillfully on finance, personality types, history to name a few topics.

[Andy C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing collection of essays. He wrote much more than I had ever thought and the essays have application to my life and thinking.

[42 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This guy. To him I bow and in front of him I stay in silence.

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essays by David Hume range in their subject matter, but not in their quality, which is always superb.

[Codingcougar · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you want to understand the idea of liberalism, then this is the book for you. Lots of good ideas are explored here.

While this book is not for me, I would say it is a solid 4/5.

[Diana McCutcheon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seminal work on the judgement of taste in aesthetics. And he was Scottish.

[Helias Eikkinen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hume on yksi kaikkien aikojen filosofeista, ehdotonta luettavaa kaikille valioyksilöiksi pyrkiville.

[Thomas Fratkin · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Art may make a suit of clothes, but nature must produce a man.”

Being a major fan of Hume the philosopher, I couldn't help but be disappointed with this selection of his essays.

[Jackson Cyril · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having only read Hume's "History of England" before this, it was quite cool to read his insights on a variety of topics. His easy prose and sharp wit made reading them quite enjoyable.

[Robbe]

Only read 'of essay writing', 'of the standard of taste', 'that politics may be reduced to a science', 'of commerce' and 'of the original contract' for now. I hope to read some more later.

[Filipe Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazingly contemporary, a must-read for those who want to understand basic liberalism.