HUME, David. ~ Philosophical Essays concerning Human Understanding, by the author of the Essays Moral and Political.
First edition. Pp. iv, 256 pp. As usual without the final two leaves of Publisher’s Advertisement (as with the Rothschild copy). 12mo, contemporary calf, red speckled edges, spine label with ‘Hume Essays II’ on it, spine darkened and rather rubbed, front joint cracked, cords intact, covers rubbed and scuffed at edges; slight darkening of text but overall a very good copy. Early ownership signature of ‘Arthur Hood’ on the front free endpaper.
These Philosphical Essays by the great sceptic of the Scottish Enlightenment were intended to update Volume I of his Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40) which, according to Hume, ‘fell dead-born from the Press’ but which in truth awakened Kant and all of Europe from its ‘dogmatic slumber’, and challenged the very origins of received ideas central to Western science (eg time, space and causality).