An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

David Hume’s recasting of his Treatise for general readers, published in 1748, asks what we can know and how — and answers with the account of custom, causation and the limits of reason that Kant said woke him from his dogmatic slumber.

The argument is that every matter of fact we believe beyond what is present to the senses rests on cause and effect; that we never observe a cause, only one thing following another; and that the step from “has always” to “must” is taken by habit and not by reason. Hume does not conclude that we should stop taking it. He concludes that we cannot, and that philosophy had better describe what the mind actually does instead of what it ought to do.

This edition follows L. A. Selby-Bigge’s text and gives the essay complete.