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Notes property, because perfect equality would destroy the ideas of thrift and industry. Perfect equality
would thus lead to impoverishment.
Influence
Attention to Hume’s philosophical works grew after the German philosopher Immanuel Kant
credited Hume with awakening him from “dogmatic slumbers”.
According to Schopenhauer, “there is more to be learned from each page of David Hume than
from the collected philosophical works of Hegel, Herbart and Schleiermacher taken together”.
A. J. Ayer (1936), introducing his classic exposition of logical positivism, claimed: “The views
which are put forward in this treatise derive from the logical outcome of the empiricism of Berkeley
and Hume.”Albert Einstein (1915) wrote that he was inspired by Hume’s positivism when
formulating his Special Theory of Relativity.Hume was called “the prophet of the Wittgensteinian

revolution” by N. Phillipson, referring to his view that mathematics and logic are closed systems,
disguised tautologies, and have no relation to the world of experience. David Fate Norton (1993)
asserted that Hume was “the first post-sceptical philosopher of the early modern period”.
Hume’s Problem of Induction was also of fundamental importance to the philosophy of Karl
Popper. In his autobiography, Unended Quest,he wrote: “‘Knowledge’ ... is objective; and it is
hypothetical or conjectural. This way of looking at the problem made it possible for me to
reformulate Hume’s problem of induction”. This insight resulted in Popper’s major work The Logic
of Scientific Discovery.
“I approached the problem of induction through Hume. Hume, I felt, was perfectly right in pointing
out that induction cannot be logically justified”.

19.5 Text—Of Essay Writing

The legant Part of Mankind, who are not immers’d 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 This wou’d be to
render the Time spent in Company the most unentertaining, as well as the most unprofitable Part
of our Lives.
On the other Hand, Learning has been as great a Loser by being shut up in Colleges and Cells, and
secluded from the World and good Company. By that Means, every Thing of what we call Belles
Lettres° became totally barbarous, being cultivated by Men without any Taste of Life or Manners,
and without that Liberty and Facility of Thought and Expression, which can only be acquir’d by

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