Texts by David Hume
Here are links to electronic versions of some of Hume's works, in the best public-domain editions that I currently know of. Regrettably it seems that many of the commonly linked texts previously on the Web have now been removed due to licensing restrictions, and most other catalogues of texts are seriously out of date (UPenn's Online Books Page being the most notable exception). All of the links below have been personally checked, in late September 2006. Suggestions for improving the list will be greatly appreciated:
- A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40)
Treatise (text version), from Project Gutenberg
Treatise (HTML version) at McMaster - Essays, Moral, Political and Literary (1741-, 1777)
Essays in the standard Miller edition, from EconLib - An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748, 1777)
First Enquiry, at Leeds - An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals (1751, 1777)
Second Enquiry, from Project Gutenberg - The Natural History of Religion (1757, 1777)
Natural History of Religion, from Idaho - The History of England
- My Own Life (1776)
"My Own Life", at McMaster - Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779)
Dialogues, from Project Gutenberg
"Translations" into Modern English
The eminent philosopher and scholar Jonathan Bennett - at his excellent site earlymoderntexts.com - has undertaken the translation of several of Hume's texts into modern English. These translations preserve much of the style of the originals, and their argumentative structure, but replace the eighteenth century words and phrases that can cause serious difficulty for non-specialist readers. The complete files are downloadable as PDFs:
- A Treatise of Human Nature Book I
Book I of JB's Treatise - An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
JB's Enquiry - Four Essays ("Of Tragedy", "Of the Standard of Taste", "Of Suicide", "Of the Immortality of the Soul")
JB's Four Essays - Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
JB's Dialogues