The Online Library of Liberty

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• The Life of David Hume , Esq.
• Letter From Adam Smith , Ll.d. to William Strahan , E Sq. 2.
• A Brief Account of William Strahan.
• Letters of Hume
• Letter I.: The History of England Under the Stuarts.
• Letter II.: On the Reception of Vol. Ii of the History.
• Letter III.: Bargaining With Millar the Bookseller.
• Letter IV.: The Quarto Edition of the Essays.
• Letter V.: The Bargain With Millar Concluded.
• Letter VI.: Dr. Hurd's Artifices.
• Letter VII.: Errata In the Essays.
• Letter VIII.: Millar Suspected of Extortion.
• Letter IX.: Second Edition of the History of England Under the Stuarts.
• Letter X.: The New Method of Spelling.
• Letter XI.: The History of England Under the Tudors Completed.
• Letter XII.: Dr. Robertson's History of Scotland.
• Letter XIII.: The Early History, and the Accession of George III.
• Letter XIV.: James Macpherson Introduced to Mr. Strahan.
• Letter XV.: On‘accommodating’ the Different Parts of the History.
• Letter XVI.: Hume's Departure For France.
• Letter XVII: French Works For Translation Into English.
• Letter XVIII.: Madame Riccoboni's Novel.
• Letter XIX.: The Printing-presses In London: Medicine For the Dutch Ambassador.
• Letter XX.: Madame Riccoboni's Novel.
• Letter XXI.: Session of 1765: Rage Against the Scots.
• Letter XXII.: The King's Birth-day Kept In Paris.
• Letter XXIII.: Faction In England.
• Letter XXIV.: The Arrival of Hume and Rousseau In London.
• Letter XXV.: Hume's Quarrel With Rousseau.
• Letter XXV.: Hume's Quarrel With Rousseau.
• Letter XXVI.: Hume's Account of His Quarrel With Rousseau.
• Letter XXVII.: Further Directions About Printing the Pamphlet.
• Letter XXVIII.: Millar's Complaint of Neglect.
• Letter XXIX.: Further Directions About Printing the Pamphlet.
• Letter XXX.: Complaints of Strahan's Negligence.
• Letter XXXI.: Hume's Occupations As Under Secretary.
• Letter XXXII.: An Appointment Sought For Strahan.
• Letter XXXIII.: An Application to Lord Hertford.
• Letter XXXIV.: Applications to Lord Hertford and General Conway.
• Letter XXXV.: An Apology For Not Keeping an Engagement.
• Letter XXXVI.: Hume In Edinburgh: Tempests Brewing In Public Affairs.
• Letter XXXVII.: The Opening of the Session of 1770.
• Letter XXXVIII.: The City Address: the ‘detestable’ Edition of the History.
• Letter XXXIX.: Lord Home: End of the Session: Lady Grant.
• Letter Xl.: Cadell Disbelieved: Sir Archibald Grant's Plantations.
• Letter Xli.: Complaints of the 1763 Edition of the History.
• Letter Xlii.: the Historical Age: Dr. Henry's History.
• Letter Xliii.: Dr. Henry's Introduction to Strahan.
• Letter Xliv.: a New Edition of the Philosophical Pieces.
• Letter Xlv.: the Ohio Scheme: Threat of War With Spain.
• Letter Xlvi.: the ‘detested Edition’: Lord North: the National Debt: Dalrymple's History.
• Letter Xlvii.: the Art of Printing: Revised Editions: Dr. Johnson's Pamphlet: the Earl of Chatham: Sir John Dalrymple.
• Letter Xlviii.: Correcting Books: Warburton and His Gang: Lord North's Timidity: Powers of Government Lost.
• Letter Xlix.: New Edition of the History.
• Letter L.: the Principles of Penal Law: Landholders Versus Stockholders.
• Letter Li.: Miscarriage of Presentation Copies of the History.
• Letter Lii.: the New Edition of the History.
• Letter Liii.: the Revision of the History a Great Amusement.
• Letter Liv.: Dr. Franklin Hume's Guest.
• Letter Lv.: Variety In Folly: Pitt's Gout: Posterity.
• Letter Lvi.: Hume's Suppressed Essays.
• Letter Lvii.: the Suppressed Essays: a Note to Be Added to the History.
• Letter Lviii.: a Missing Sheet of the History.
• Letter Lix.: Learned Printers: Princess Dowager: George Iii and the East India Company.
• Letter Lx.: Life Tolerable Only By Labour: the Princess Dowager: Bengal.
• Letter Lxi.: the Licentiousness of Patriots.
• Letter Lxii.: the Proposed Continuation of the History.
• Letter Lxiii.: Captain Brydone: Hume's House In St. Andrew's Square.
• Letter Lxiv.: the New Editions of the Essays and History.
• Letter Lxv.: Dr. Percy Offended By a Passage In the History.
• Letter Lxvi.: Brydone's Travels: Hume's Continuators: Tristram Shandy: Andrew Stuart.
• Letter Lxvii.: Proposed Continuation of the History.
• Letter Lxviii.: All Faith Lost In Cadell and Strahan.
• Letter Lxix.: Dalrymple's Memoirs: Memoirs of King James II.
• Letter Lxx.: Strahan's Indignation At Hume's Attack On His Truthfulness.
• Letter Lxxi.: an Apology to Strahan.
• Letter Lxxii.: Colonel Stuart and the India House.
• Letter Lxxiii.: the Law of Copyright.
• Letter Lxxiv.: Dr. Wallace's Manuscript: Lord Kames's Sketches.
• Letter Lxxv.: Bargains Between Authors and Booksellers.
• Letter Lxxvi.: Dr. Wight and Dr. Trail: Folly of the War With the Colonies: Dr. Reid and Dr. Beattie.
• Letter Lxxvii.: the War With the Colonies: the Rousing of the British Lion.
• Letter Lxxviii.: Hume's Anxiety For the Correctness of His Works: the Effects of the Loss of America.
• Letter Lxxix.: Last Corrections of the History: Smith's Wealth of Nations: Gibbon's Decline and Fall.
• Letter Lxxx.: Publication of the Wealth of Nations and of the Decline and Fall: the Armament For America.
• Letter Lxxxi.: Hume's Departure For London.
• Letter Lxxxii.: Hume's Arrival In London.
• Letter Lxxxiii.: the Bath Waters: Journey to Bath: First Lord of the Admiralty At Speen Hill.
• Letter Lxxxiv.: the Bath Waters Injurious: Complaints of Injustice: Hume's Autobiography: Dialogues On Natural Religion.
• Letter Lxxxv.: the Cause of Hume's Illness Discovered.
• Letter Lxxxvi.: Return to Edinburgh: a Dying Man's Corrections.
• Letter Lxxxvii.: a Further Correction: Hume's Physicians Report a Cure.
• Letter Lxxxviii.: the Last Correction: Life a Burthen.
• Letter Lxxxix.: Hume's Will: Disposition About His Unpublished Works.
• Letter XC.: Hume's Life and Dialogues On Natural Religion.
• Letter XCI.: Proposed Publication of a Selection of Hume's Letters.
• Letter XCII.: Hume's Injunction About His Papers.
• Letter XCIII.: Hume's Life to Be Published Separately From the Dialogues.
• Letter XCIV.: Information Asked For About the Proposed Publication of Hume's Manuscripts.
• Letter XCV.: Copies of the History Asked For: the Dialogues: Hume's Sentiments With Regard to Futurity.
• Letter XCVI.: The Separate Publication of Hume's Life.
• Letter XCVII.: David Hume the Nephew: the Publication of the Dialogues.
• Letter XCVIII.: Request to Show Some of Hume's Letters to the King.
• Letter XCIX.: Hume's Letters Shown to the King and Queen.

LETTER XCV.

Copies of the History asked for: the Dialogues: Hume's sentiments with regard to Futurity.

• Edinburgh,

Feby. 17th, 1777.

Sir

It is a considerable time since Mr. Adam Smith left this, for London, and carryed along with him, the adition he proposed to make, to my brothers account of himself1 , all by his own destination, to be prefixed to the edition of his works in the press, which if it be in the forwardness you intended, may perhaps be now finished, and since you was so obliging, as beside the 6 copys destined to be given to his particular friends by himself you wrote me that I might have as many more, as I choiced, you will please send 3 copys more, along with the 6, by the wagon, directed for me at St Andrews square; one of these copys, was desired by the author verbally, to be given to one he had personal obligations to, a little before his death, the other 2 copys, is at the request of my son and my brothers nameson, to be given to two persons he is under particular tyes to.

The request I am further to make, I am not so well entitled to, which is, that when you do me [the] favour of writeing me, with the above packet you will please let me know your intentions with regard to the printing of the Dialogues concerning natural religion, and if you have comed to a determination, when it may be executed: as you make no difficulty, that they shall be in proper time; the anxiety my brother showed by all his settlements, that it should be published; I hope you will admit of as some apology for intermedleing, with what is left altogether at your disposal from the confidence that was placed in you.

You was desirous to know, if my brother had got your letter immediately before his decease. I can inform you that he did, and it is now in my possession; but tho he possesed his facultys, and understanding and cool head, to the last, he was scarce in condition to answer it, nor the quesion you put to him: but so far as I can judge, his sentiments with regard to futurity were the same, as when he was in perfect health and was never more at ease in his mind, at any one period of his life; and happyly his bodyly uneasyness was not very distressing; and if you will allow me to add from myself, a regard to the estimation of others after we are gone, is implanted in our frame as a great motive for good conduct and I hope will always have an effect on that of

Sir Your most humble Ser^vt

John Home2 .

[John Home to William Strahan.]

[1]Note 1. Adam Smith had sent the account by post (ante, p. 350).

[2]Note 2. Strahan's letter to the dying philosopher is preserved among the Hume Papers at Edinburgh, and is printed in Burton's Hume, ii. 512. It is as follows:—

’My dear Sir,

’Last Friday I received your affectionate farewell, and therefore melancholy letter, which disabled me from sending an immediate answer to it, as I now do, in hopes this may yet find you, not much oppressed with pain, in the land of the living. I need not tell you, that your corrections are all duly attended to, as every particular shall be that you desire or order. Nor shall I now trouble you with a long letter.

Only permit me to ask you a question or two, to which I am prompted, you will believe me, not from a foolish or fruitless curiosity, but from an earnest desire to learn the sentiments of a man, who had spent a long life in philosophic inquiries, and who, upon the extreme verge of it, seems, even in that awful and critical period, to possess all the powers of his mind in their full vigour and in unabated tranquillity.

I am more particularly led to give you this trouble, from a passage in one of your late letters, wherein you say, It is an idle thing in us to be concerned about anything that shall happen after our death; yet this, you added, is natural to all men. Now I would eagerly ask, if it is natural to all men, to be interested in futurity, does not this strongly indicate that our existence will be protracted beyond this life?

Do you now believe, or suspect, that all the powers and faculties of your own mind, which you have cultivated with so much care and success, will cease and be extinguished with your vital breath?

Our soul, or immaterial part of us, some say, is able, when on the brink of dissolution, to take a glimpse of futurity; and for that reason I earnestly wish to have your last thoughts on this important subject.

I know you will kindly excuse this singular application; and believe that I wish you, living or dying, every happiness that our nature is capable of enjoying, either here or hereafter; being, with the most sincere esteem and affection, my dear sir, faithfully yours.

London, August 19, 1776.‘ See ante, note at end of Autobiography for what Johnson said on Boswell's assertion that he ‘had reason to believe that the thought of annihilation gave Hume no pain.’ See also ante, p. 115 n. 1, for Boswell's regret for Hume's ‘unlucky principles.’