Abstract

All the essays contained herein, with the exception of the last two—"On Suicide" and "On the Immortality of the Soul"—have appeared in the author's Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary ; the others were published posthumously. In this wide-ranging collection Hume addresses himself to aspects of aesthetics and literary criticism, the philosophy of history, philosophical "types", human nature and belief. The volume conveys a side of Hume too often forgotten in our present admiration of his foreshadowing of analytical philosophy: the man of letters. The editor has provided a useful introduction setting Hume's work in its eighteenth century context.—P. J. M.