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156.: From DAVID HUME - Adam Smith, Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence Vol. 6 Correspondence of Adam Smith [1740]

Edition used:

Correspondence of Adam Smith, ed. E. C. Mossner and I. S. Ross, vol. VI of the Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1987).

Part of: The Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith, 7 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


156.

From DAVID HUME

  • Address: To Adam Smith Esqr at Kirkcaldy

MS., ii. 57; HL ii. 316–17.

London 3d of May 1776

My dear Friend

I send you enclosed an ostensible Letter,1 conformably to your Desire. I think, however, your Scruples groundless.2 Was Mallet any wise hurt by his Publication of Lord Bolingbroke? He received an Office afterwards from the present King and Lord Bute, the most prudish Man in the World; and he always justify’d himself by his sacred Regard to the Will of a dead Friend. At the same time, I own, that your Scruples have a specious Appearance. But my Opinion is, that, if, upon my Death, you determine never to publish these papers, you shoud leave them, seal’d up with my Brother and Family, with some Inscription, that you reserve to Yourself the Power of reclaiming them, whenever you think proper. If I live a few Years longer, I shall publish them myself. I consider an Observation of Rochefoucault, that a Wind, though it extinguishes a Candle, blows up a fire.

You may be surpriz’d to hear me talk of living Years, considering the State you saw me in, and the Sentiments which both I and all my Friends at Edinburgh entertaind on that Subject. But though I cannot come up entirely to the sanguine Notions of our Friend, John,3 I find myself very much recovered on the Road, and I hope Bath Waters, and farther Journeys may effect my Cure.

By the little Company I have seen, I find the Town very full of your Book, which meets with general Approbation. Many People think particular Points disputable; but this you certainly expected: I am glad, that I am one of the Number; as these points will be the Subject of future Conversation between us.

I set out for Bath, I believe on Monday, by Sir John Pringle’s Directions who says that he sees nothing to be apprehended in my Case. If you write to me, hem! hem! I say, if you write to me, send your Letters under Cover to Mr Strahan, who will have my Direction.

I regret much, in leaving Edinburgh, that I shall lose much of your Company, which I shoud have enjoy’d this Summer. I am Dear Smith

Yours sincerely and affectionately

David Hume

[1 ]Letter 157 also dated 3 May 1776.

[2 ]Subsequent letters show that Smith would not take the responsibility of publishing the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion.

[3 ]John Home the dramatist.