Treatise. - ;David and Mary Norton present the definitive scholarly edition of one of the greatest philosophical works ever written. This first volume contains the critical text of David Hume's Treatise of Human Nature (1739/40), followed by the short Abstract (1740) in which Hume set out the key arguments of the larger work; the volume concludes with A Letter from a Gentleman to his Friend in Edinburgh (1745), Hume's defence of the Treatise when it was under

attack from ministers seeking to prevent Hume's appointment as Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. - ;...useful far beyond the small circle of scholarly experts... The Treatise has a fair claim to be the most important and influential philosophical text ever written in English... After more than 250 years, Hume is still at the front line of philosophical inquiry... This edition belongs in any university or college library anywhere in the world, and its publication will certainly excite more than a murmur among philosophers and scholars. - Robert Callerg--aring--;rd, Theoria  less