This study offers an overall interpretation of Hume's Treatise of Human Nature. I have emphasized throughout the dialectic between associationism and a theory of critical judgment - the "combat" of Book I -which con- tinues in Books II and III and with no apparent winner. A theory of critical judgment is fIrst worked out in Book I under what Hume calls "general rules." The theory explains how unreasonable judgments may be made reasonable and is made use of again in Book III to correct partial evalua- tions. Two sorts of general rules compete for prescriptive claims and two sides of human...