ABSTRACT
It is well known that David Hume's fortunes as a philosopher have fluctuated dramatically since the first edition of A Treatise of Human Nature fell 'dead-born from the Press' in 1739. For the century or so after his death, the philosophical reputation of Britain's greatest philosopher was in partial eclipse. Philosophers of various backgrounds, with varying, often conflicting, interests, have found in Hume intimations of their own philosophies. The difficulty of reconciling Hume's endorsement of sceptical arguments with his positive Newtonian project of founding a science of human nature is the central interpretive puzzle of A Treatise of Human Nature. Hume described himself as a man of mild Dispositions, of the Command of Temper, of an open, social, and cheerful Humour, capable of Attachment, but little susceptible of the Enmity, and of the great Moderation in all the author's Passions.
