英國(guó)史thehistoryofengland（humedavid）

1、Return to the Introduction to David Hume and the detailed Table of Contents. EDITION USED The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688, Foreword by William B. Todd, 6 vols. (Indiana

2、polis: Liberty Fund 1983). TABLE OF CONTENTS ? FOREWORD ? THE LIFE OF DAVID HUME, ESQ. WRITTEN BY HIMSELF ? MY OWN LIFE ? LETTER FROM ADAM SMITH, LL.D. TO WILLIAM STRAHAN, ESQ. ? I ? THE BRITONS ? THE ROMANS ? TH

3、E BRITONS ? THE SAXONS ? THE HEPTARCHY ? THE KINGDOM OF KENT ? THE KINGDOM OF NORTHUMBERLAND ? THE KINGDOM OF EAST-ANGLIA ? THE KINGDOM OF MERCIA ? THE KINGDOM OF ESSEX ? THE KINGDOM OF SUSSEX ? THE KINGDOM OF W

4、ESSEX ? ENDNOTES ? II ? EGBERT ? ETHELWOLF ? ETHELBALD AND ETHELBERT ? ETHERED ? ALFRED THE ONLINE LIBRARY OF LIBERTY © 2004 Liberty Fund, Inc.CLASSICS IN THE HISTORY OF LIBERTY DAVID HUME, THE HISTORY OF E

5、NGLAND FROM THE INVASION OF JULIUS CAESAR TO THE REVOLUTION IN 1688 (1778) VOLUME I Updated: April 7, 2004 Page 1 of 354 Hume, The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 16...4/7/

6、2004 http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/Hume0129/History/0011-1_Bk.htmlresolve nor as an entirely new enterprise, but as one possibly contemplated thirteen years before, in 1739, probably attempted several times thereafter

7、, and certainly considered, at least as a corollary discipline, in a philosophical discourse published in 1748. Even so, any concerted effort long sustained necessarily awaited appropriate conditions: all happily combini

8、ng for Hume upon his election, January, 1752, as Keeper of the Advocates’ Library in Edinburgh. With this appointment the author finally had “a genteel-office,” ready access to a collection of some thirty thousand volume

9、s, and, no less desirable, leisure indefinitely extended to pursue his research. Heretofore, by mere exertion of his own commanding intellect, philosopher Hume had more than once set forth what he perceived to be the “co

10、nstant and universal principles of human nature.” Now, as a philosophical historian, he could ascertain from dreary chronicles all the aberrations of human behavior as there exhibited in “wars, intrigues, factions, and r

11、evolutions.” These and other vagaries, previously recorded simply as odd phenomena, in Hume’s more coherent view constituted a varied range of “materials” documenting the “science of man.” Once intent upon a history so f

12、ormulated, the immediate question for this author was where to begin. In his own Life (an essay prefixed to the first, 1778, posthumous edition of the History and so reprinted here), Hume ingenuously speaks of being “fri

13、ghtened” away from the very start—that is, from the time of Caesar’s invasion—and so at once passing over seventeen hundred years to “the accession of the House of Stuart [1603], an epoch when, I thought, the misrepresen

14、tations of faction began chiefly to take place.” Indeed this was Hume’s final decision, though he earlier admitted in a letter to Adam Smith, 24 September 1752, some inclination to commence with the preceding Tudor “epoc

15、h” [1485]. I confess, I was once of the same Opinion with you, and the Factions, which then arose, having an Influence on our present Affairs, form the most curious, interesting, & I enter upon it with great Ardour

16、 & Pleasure. You need not doubt of my Perseverance. For a historian tracing, in one period or another, the progress or decline of human welfare, the “influence” twice mentioned in the letter to Smith eventually requi

17、red a “backward” narrative: from present effects to earlier precedents and then to causes earlier yet. Thus over the ensuing years Hume proceeded retrogressively, representing first the Stuart reigns (now volumes V–VI in

18、 this reprint), then the Tudors (III–IV), and finally all the “barbarous” times before Henry VII (I–II). Hence in surveying the development of this history, and the various reactions to its initial publication, we should

19、 remember that what Hume reports of his first two volumes (originally published 1754, 1757) is lastly conveyed here as V–VI (volumes not so designated until issue in 1762 of the “complete” edition). About his early work,

20、 so ebulliently described to Smith, Hume has much else to say, all of it in great confidence as to the rectitude and efficacy of his own procedure. To one friend he observes: Page 3 of 354 Hume, The History of England fr