[12] "You must know that Lord Hertford has so high a character for
piety, that his taking me by the hand is a kind of regeneration to me,
and all past offences are now wiped off. But all these views are
trifling to one of my age and temper."--_Hume to Edmonstone_, 9th
January, 1764. Lord Hertford had procured him a pension of L200 a year
for life from the King, and the secretaryship was worth L1000 a year.

[13] Madame d'Epinay gives a ludicrous account of Hume's performance
when pressed into a _tableau_, as a Sultan between two slaves,
personated for the occasion by two of the prettiest women in Paris:--

"Il les regarde attentivement, _il se frappe le ventre_ et les genoux a
plusieurs reprises et ne trouve jamais autre chose a leur dire que _Eh
bien! mes demoiselles.--Eh bien! vous voila donc.... Eh bien! vous voila
... vous voila ici?_ Cette phrase dura un quart d'heure sans qu'il put
en sortir. Une d'elles se leva d'impatience: Ah, dit-elle, je m'en etois
bien doutee, cet homme n'est bon qu'a manger du veau!"--Burton's _Life
of Hume_, vol. ii. p. 224.

PART II.

_HUME'S PHILOSOPHY._

CHAPTER I.

THE OBJECT AND SCOPE OF PHILOSOPHY.

Kant has said that the business of philosophy is to answer three
questions: What can I know? What ought I to do? and For what may I hope?
But it is pretty plain that these three resolve themselves, in the long
run, into the first. For rational expectation and moral action are alike
based upon beliefs; and a belief is void of justification, unless its
subject-matter lies within the boundaries of possible knowledge, and
unless its evidence satisfies the conditions which experience imposes as
the guarantee of credibility.

Fundamentally, then, philosophy is the answer to the question, What can
I know? and it is by applying itself to this problem, that philosophy is
properly distinguished as a special department of scientific research.
What is commonly called science, whether mathematical, physical, or
biological, consists of the answers which mankind have been able to
give to the inquiry, What do I know? They furnish us with the results of
the mental operations which constitute thinking; while philosophy, in
the stricter sense of the term, inquires into the foundation of the
first principles which those operations assume or imply.

But though, by reason of the special purpose of philosophy, its
distinctness from other branches of scientific investigation may be
prop