It may seem surprising to hear that DAVID HUME is the most influential philosopher England has produced, as he is not commonly thought of as the most popular. The philosophic writings of Francis Bacon, John Locke, or John Stuart Mill might ordinarily be thought of as more influential, for they have had a greater impact on intellectual and social life independent of strictly philosophic concerns. But Hume's influence has been very much deeper and broader within the history of philosophy proper.  The period of his life—from 1711 to 1776 — parallels the heyday of rationalist enlightenment on the Continent; but the vigor, the depth, and the importance of his thinking were directed against the intellectual optimism of the rationalists.  His critical works have subsequently stimulated a notable variety of thinkers: from his personal friend Adam Smith to writers and movements as diverse as Immanuel Kant, the nineteenth-century romanticists, the American pragmatists, George Santayana, British analysts of language, and the logical-empiricists of our century.  This is the most comprehensive single-volume selection of his writings.