Hume thus set
the project aside, and took it up again in 1776 when he found
himself terminally ill. To secure its publication, Hume included
in his Will the following request to Adam Smith:
To my friend Dr Adam Smith, late Professor of Moral
Philosophy in Glasgow, I leave all my manuscripts without
exception, desiring him to publish my Dialogues concerning
Natural Religion, which are comprehended in this present
bequest; but to publish no other papers which he suspects
not to have been written within these five years, but to
destroy them all at his leisure. And I even leave him full
power over all my papers, except the Dialogues above
mentioned; and though I can trust to that intimate and
sincere friendship, which has ever subsisted between us, for
his faithful execution of this part of my will, yet, as a
small recompense of his pains in correcting and publishing
this work, I leave him two hundred pounds, to be paid
immediately after the publication of it. [January 1776]
In spite of Smith's assigned task, Smith felt that the Dialogues
should remain unpublished even after Hume's death. Smith himself
was a closet religious skeptic, and his hesitation was motivated
more by practical concern rather than religious piety. Smith
communicated his reluctance to Hume and, accordingly, in the
following letter to Smith, Hume relinquished Smith of the
immediate responsibility of publishing them:
After reflecting more maturely on that Article of my Will by
which I left you the Disposal of all my Papers, with a
Request that you shou'd publish my Dialogues concerning
natural Religion, I have become sensible, that, both on
account of the Nature of the Work, and of your Situation, it
may be improper to hurry on that Publication.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25