Note 75 — ADDITIONAL NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER II.
Reading edition
No one who reads Hume's account of his own motives on various occasions will think it untrue to say that his judgment was largely influenced by his vanity. Compare for example his well-known letter to Dr. Blair of December 20th, 1765, with another to the same, dated 1st July, 1766;—the first a panegyric on the "celebrated Rousseau," the second a fierce invective against that "blackest and most atrocious villain." Who can help seeing that the motives of the eulogy are derived from a series of self-gratulations;—while the cause of the invective is a sharp wound given to the philosopher's self-love?