Some Hume MS Alterations on a Copy of the 'Abstract'

NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 353 Cartesianism without any reliance on skeptical arguments. The validation of reason for a coherent circle of ideas is less than Descartes promises. I think Frankfurt is wrong not to take the demon seriously, and I think he should have gone on to consider Descartes ' proofs for the existence of God. But if I am fight about the overall architectonic of the book, one reason Frankfurt does not consider the demon and the proofs for God's existence is that they have to do with the truth of correspondence. Finally, although I agree with a very general principle of adhering to the order of presentation in interpreting a text, Frankfurt's adherence to strict sentence-by-sentence interpretation to make points is sometimes downright absurd~fun, but way out in left field. It seems to me that Frankfurt comes close to having composed a play rifled: The Exorcist Squares the Cartesian Circle and Finds the Godfather. However, Frankfurt is of the twentieth century, and so in the end does admit the possibility of the demon. Descartes without the demon would, after all, be very weak tea. And they say Descartes did always wear a sword. RICHARD A. WATSON Washington University SOME HUME MS ALTERATIONS ON A COPY OF THE 'ABSTRACT' Another copy of the anonymously published Abstract of a Treatise of Human Nature1 has just come to light in the British Library. The copy is bound in with the recently discovered annotated copy of the third volume of the Treatise2 and, like it, also contains MS alterations in Hume's hand. Although the question of the authorship of the Abstract is no longer a subject for serious dispute, ~ the appearance of Hume's alterations on this 1 [David Hume] AN / ABSTRACT / OF / A BOOK lately PUBLISHED; / ENTITULED, / A / TREATISE / OF / Human Nature, &c. / WHEREIN / The CHIEF ARGUMENT of that / BOOK is farther ILLUSTRATED and / EXPLAINED. / [rule] / [ornament] / [two rules] / LONDON: / Printed for C. BORBET, at AddiSon's Head, / over-againSt St. Dun ftan's Church, in Fleet- / Street. 1740. / (Price Six Pence.) This copy, which is bound in at the end of a copy of vol. 3 of the Treatise, is in 8* and collates A-D 4. Both copies (i.e., of the Abstract and of vol. 3 of the Treatise) have uncut leaves. It is clear from an entry in his ledger book that William Strahan (1715-1785) printed the Abstract. The ledger entry, which is dated "Febry 9" [1740], also suggests that the Abstract may not have been printed for C. Borbet (as indicated in the imprint quoted above) but, rather, for Mr. John Noon, Hume's publisher for the first two volumes of the Treatise. The entry (recording printing costs for 500 copies of the Abstract) appears under the heading "Dr Account of Mr John Noon" (British Museum Add. MSS 48,800, fol. 16). z For more information concerning this copy and a complete list of the MS alterations see R. W. Connon, "Some MS Corrections by Hume in the third Volume of his Treatise o] Human Nature," Long Room, XI (1975), 14-22. All references to the "third volume" are to be understood as referring to this copy (British Library C. 175. e. 8). a A convincing case for Hume's authorship of the Abstract was first made in 1938 by J. M. Keynes and P. Sraffa in their introduction to the facsimile edition (An Abstract o] a Treatise o] Human Nature, 1740: A Pamphlet hitherto unknown by David Hume. Reprinted with an Introduction by J. M. Keynes and P. Sraffa [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1938]). Their conclusion, viz., that the pamphlet could only have been written by Hume, has been confirmed in a more recent discussion of this question by Didier Deleule in the introduction to his excellent French language parallel text edition, Abrdg~ du "Traitd de la nature humaine.'" 354 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY copy affords a further presumption that it was his own work. The provenance of the copies is not known; however on the basis of what we already know about the third volume, it seems likely that the Abstract 4 passed through some of the same hands. 5 It...