"Of Essay Writing" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hume David)

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Copyright 1995, Christopher MacLachlan ([email protected]). See
end note for details on copyright and editing conventions.[1]

Editor's note: "Of Essay Writing" appeared in 1742 in Volume two of
Hume's Essays, Moral and Political, but was removed from all
subsequent editions of that text published during Hume's life. The
text file here is based on the 1875 Green and Grose edition. Spelling
and punctuation have been modernized.

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Of Essay Writing

The elegant part of mankind, who are not immersed in the
animal life, but employ themselves in the operations of the
mind, may be divided into the learned and conversible. The
learned are such as have chosen for their portion the higher
and more difficult operations of the mind, which require
leisure and solitude, and cannot be brought to perfection,
without long preparation and severe labour. The conversible
world join to a sociable disposition, and a taste of pleasure,
an inclination to the easier and more gentle exercises of the
understanding, to obvious reflections on human affairs, and
the duties of common life, and to the observation of the
blemishes or perfections of the particular objects, that
surround them. Such subjects of thought furnish not sufficient
employment in solitude, but require the company and
conversation of our fellow-creatures, to render them a proper
exercise for the mind: and this brings mankind together in
society, where every one displays his thoughts and
observations in the best manner he is able, and mutually gives
and receives information, as well as pleasure.

The separation of the learned from the conversible world seems
to have been the great defect of the last age, and must have
had a very bad influence both on books and company: for what
possibility is there of finding topics of conversation fit for
the entertainment of rational creatures, without having
recourse sometimes to history, poetry, politics, and the more
obvious principles, at least, of philosophy? Must our whole
discourse be a continued series of gossipping stories and idle
remarks? Must the mind never rise higher, but be perpetually

Stun'd and worn out with endless chat
Of Will did this, and Nan said that?[2]