Hume's Dissertation on the Passions

Hume's Dissertation on the Passions JOHN IMMERWAHR IN HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY, "My Own Life," Hume recounted the disappointing reception of his first work, the Treatise of Human Nature. While Hume himself came to accept the public's negative judgment on the Treatise, he always remained convinced that his lack of success "proceeded more from the manner than the matter."' He explained that he tried to revive the thinking of the Treatise by recasting both the first and the third volumes as shorter and better-written works. This rewriting effort resulted in the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748) and the Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals (1751). In his autobiography, Hume does not specifically mention any attempt to revive the second volume of the Treatise, which dealt with the passions. In 1757, however, Hume did publish a short work which draws heavily on Treatise H. This work, A Dissertation on the Passions, probably qualifies as Hume's most neglected philosophical work. The scholarly literature has usually ignored it completely, mentioned it only briefly, or treated it negatively., 1"My Own Life," in David Hume, EssaysMoral, Political, and Litera)y, ed. Eugene F. Miller (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1987), 35" All further references to the Essaysare to this edition. I am grateful to Janice Kamrin and Bradley Davis for help with the preparation of the original manuscript, and to the two anonymous reviewers from theJournal oftht HistoryofPhilosophyfor a number of valuable suggestions. I am also grateful to David Fate Norton for his careful review and correction of an earlier draft. ' The D/sso'tat/on is not mentioned at all in what is probably the most important book-length treatment of Hume's theory of the passions, P:tll Ardars Passion and Valuein Hume's "Treatise," (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1966). Alfred B. Glathe mentions the Dissertationonly in a footnote of Humgs Theoryof the Passions and ofMora~ (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 195o), 33 n.lo. John Passmore writes the Dissertation off as "desultory" and "unsatisfactory" in his Humgs Intentions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952), t 28-3o. John B. Stewart discusses the Dmtrtat/0n in a general discussion of Hume's "recastings," and remarks that the D/s~ertat/onis "much less important [than the Enquiries], and raises no important problems." See TheMoral and PoliticalPhilosophyofDavid Humt (NewYork and London: Columbia University Press, x963), 337. Some recent scholars have commented on the D/~ertat/on. Nicholas Capaidi refers to the D/sso'tat/on in a number of places in his David Hume: TheNaotonian Philosophtr (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1975); see 9~, a47, 173, and 185.Jane McIntyre mentions the D/xsertat/onin "Personal Identity and the Passions," Journal oftht HistoryofPhilosophy~7 (October [2~5} 226 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 32:2 APRIL t994 Kemp Smith, for example, wrote that "'by general consent it is the least satisfactory of all of [Hume's] writings."s The most recent print edition of the Dissertation is still the Green and Grose volumes of 1892 (all of Hume's other philosophical works have been republished since then).~ This article is not an attempt to rehabilitate the Dissertation as an unappreciated masterpiece. Nonetheless, the Dissertation does have significance for the Hume scholar. I will argue that the Dissertation's interest and literary style have been obscured by comparisons between it and the Enquiries. When we look at the Dissertation in its original context, it emerges as a somewhat more interesting and careful work, which sheds interesting light on Hume's aesthetics and on his theory of the origin of religion. 1. THE CASE AGAINST THE DISSERTATION The disappearance of the Dissertation from the Hume canon probably began in the 189os with L. A. Selby-Bigge's decision to omit it from his edition of the Enquiries.5 Selby-Bigge obviously thought that there was a prima facie case for including the Dissertation, and he even went to the trouble of preparing a detailed chart comparing the Dissertation to Treatise II. 6 Ultimately he chose to omit the Dissertation, which he described as "a very uninteresting and unsatisfactory work."7 Selby-Bigge had several main criticisms of the Dissertation. Since his complaints are...