The Bibliothèque raisonnée Review of Volume 3 of the Treatise: Authorship, Text, and Translation

The review of volume 3 of Hume's Treatise, a review that appeared in the Bibliothèque raisonnée in the spring of 1741, was the first published response to Hume's ethical theory. This review is also of interest because of questions that have arisen about its authorship and that of the earlier review of volume 1 of the Treatise in the same journal. In Part 1 of this paper we attribute to Pierre Des Maizeaux the notice of vols. 1 and 2 of the Treatise published in the spring 1739 issue of the Bibliothèque raisonnée. We then focus on the question of the authorship of the review of vol. 3. In Part 2 of our paper we provide a transcription of the French text of this review. Part 3 is a new English translation of the review. Part 4 provides comparisons between passages from the text of the Treatise, the French translations of these passages in the Bibliothèque raisonnée review, and our back-translations of these same passages. We also provide brief comparisons between our translation of passages from this review and an earlier translation of these passages.