Abstract

The article reports that in his essay "Of Qualities Useful to Ourselves" Scottish philosopher David Hume wrote of discretion that the greatest parts without it, as observed by an elegant writer, may be fatal to their owner; as Polyphemus, deprived of his eye, was only the more exposed, on account of his enormous strength and stature. The elegant writer evidently was Joseph Addison, who observed that the best parts, unguided by discretion, only qualify a man to be more sprightly in errors, and active to his own prejudice.