Hume’s friendship with Henry Home, later Lord Kames, a man fifteen years his senior, probably dates from his undergraduate days in Edinburgh University, or from the period immediately following, when he was studying law. Through the correspondence arising from this friendship we learn of the title of a hitherto unknown pamphlet by Hume, published without his prior knowledge by Henry Home: A Letter from a Gentleman to his Friend at Edinburgh; containing some Observations on a Specimen of the Principles Concerning Religion and Morality, said to be maintained in a Book lately published intituled, A Treatise of Human Nature &c. The pamphlet is in defence of the religious and moral principles of the Treatise of Human Nature, which had been attacked by Principal Wishart of Edinburgh at the time when Hume was standing as candidate for the professorship of Ethics and Pneumatical Philosophy; it appeared anonymously at Edinburgh on 21 May 1745, and it has not yet come to light. We hope that other scholars may be more fortunate in tracing it, as it may well prove of philosophical significance.

uit de inleiding van.
New Letters of David Hume, [xiii]