title: Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary
author:  David Hume 
description: <i>We have Hume's own word that the definitive statement of his philosophy is not to be found in the youthful Treatise of Human Nature but in the 1777 posthumous edition of his collected works entitled Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects. Yet a major part of this definitive collection, the <b>Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary</b> (a volume of near 600 pages, covering three decades of Hume's career as a philosopher) has been largely ignored. The volume has rarely been in print, and the last critical edition was published in 1874-75. With this splendid, but inexpensive, new critical edition by Eugene Miller, the door is open to a richer notion of Hume's conception of philosophy.</i>
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  # ESSAYS ON SUICIDE AND THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### David Hume
  
  
  This page copyright © 2001 Munsey's.
  
  
  http://www.munseys.com
  
  PREFACE
  
  
  ESSAY I. ON SUICIDE.
  
  
  ESSAY II. ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
  
  
  
  
  
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  ###
  
  
  PREFACE
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  THESE two Essays on Suicide and the Immortality of the Soul,
  
  
  though not published in any edition of his works, are generally
  
  
  attributed to the late ingenious Mr. Hume.
  
  
    
  The well-known contempt of this eminent philosopher for the common
  
  
  convictions of mankind, raised an apprehension of the contents from
  
  
  the very title of these pieces. But the celebrity of the author's
  
  
  name, renders them, notwithstanding, in some degree objects of great
  
  
  curiosity.
  
  
    
  Owing to this circumstance, a few copies have been clandestinely
  
  
  circulated, at a large price, for some time, but without any comment.
  
  
  The very mystery attending this mode of selling them, made them more
  
  
  an obje