An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~62,300 words · 296 passages
Cite this work
- APADavid Hume. (n.d.). An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/david-hume/an-enquiry-concerning-human-understanding
- MLADavid Hume. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/david-hume/an-enquiry-concerning-human-understanding.
- ChicagoDavid Hume. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/david-hume/an-enquiry-concerning-human-understanding.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
Where the mind gets its ideas and by what right it connects causes and effects: Hume's answer — custom, not reason — and his call to commit to the flames any metaphysics that cannot bear it.
Context and history
Published in 1748, it is the mature, concise rewriting of the 'Treatise of Human Nature', which in his mid-twenties had 'fallen dead-born from the press', as he put it himself. Its analysis of causation and its critique of miracles made it scandalous; its prose, a classic. And it found the most consequential reader imaginable: Kant wrote that Hume had woken him from his 'dogmatic slumber' — without this book, the 'Critique of Pure Reason' would not exist as we know it.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
abstract, and even unintelligible to common readers, they aim at the approbation of the learned and the wise; and think themselves sufficiently compensated for the labour of their whole lives, if they can discover some hidden truths, which may contribute to the instruction of posterity. 3. It is certain that the easy and obvious philosophy will always, with the generality of mankind, have the preference above the accurate and abstruse; and by many will be recommended, not only as more agreeable, but more useful than the other. It enters more into common life; moulds the heart and affections; and, by touching those principles which actuate men, reforms their conduct, and brings them nearer to that model of perfection which it describes. On the contrary, the abstruse philosophy, being founded on a turn of mind, which cannot enter into business and action, vanishes when the philosopher leaves the shade, and comes into open day; nor can its principles easily retain any influence over our conduct and behaviour. The feelings of our heart, the agitation of our passions, the vehemence of our affections, dissipate all its conclusions, and reduce the profound philosopher to a mere plebeian. 4. This also must be confessed, that the most durable, as well as justest fame, has been acquired by the easy philosophy, and that abstract reasoners seem hitherto to have enjoyed only a momentary reputation, from the caprice or ignorance of their own age, but have not been able to support their renown with more equitable posterity. It is easy for a profound philosopher to commit a mistake in his subtile reasonings; and one mistake is the necessary parent of another, while he pushes on his consequences, and is not deterred from embracing any conclusion, by its unusual appearance, or its contradiction to popular opinion.…