From Hume's memoranda

Summary

Editor's note: Hume's memoranda are notes he made from his readings during the period after his return from France in 1737 when he was finishing his final editing of the Treatise and possibly continuing into the early 1740s. The following selection is transcribed from the group of notes appearing under the heading “Philosophy.” The memoranda were first published by E. C. Mossner in “Hume's Early Memoranda: The Complete Text,” Journal of the History of Ideas 9 (1948), 492–518. M. A. Stewart corrects Mossner's dating and organization of the notes in “The Dating of Hume's Manuscripts,” in Paul Wood, ed., The Scottish Enlightenment: Essays in Reinterpretation (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2000), 276–288. To facilitate cross-referencing to Mossner's article, the same entry numbering used by Mossner is included.

Philosophy

1 Notwithstanding the cruelty of the gladiatorian spectacles, the Romans show many signs of humanity. It was regarded as a piece of cruelty to burn a slave with a hot iron for stealing table linen. Juv[enal]. Sat[ire]. 14

2 Too careful and elaborate an education prejudicial; because it learns one to trust to others for one's judgement. L'Abbé Dubos.

3 For a young man, who applies himself to the arts and sciences, the slowness with which he forms himself for the world is a good sign. Id.

4 Though the ancients speak often of God in the singular number, that proves not they believed in his unity, since Christians speak in the same manner of the devil. Bayle.