Classic Works for Readers TodayrnTHE PURSUIT OF CERTAINTYrnDavid Hume, Jeremy Bentham,rnJohn Stuart Mill, Beatrice WebbrnBy Shirley Robin LetwinrnBy examining the thought of four seminal thinkers, Shirley RobinrnLetwin in The Pursuit of Certainly provides a brilliant recordrnof the gradual change in the English-speaking peoples’ understandingrnof “what sort of activity politics is.” As Letwin writes, “therndistinctive political issue since the eighteenth century has beenrnwhether government should do more or less.” Nor, as many historiansrnargue, did this issue arise because of the Industrial Revolutionrnor “new social conditions [that] aggravated the problem of poverty”rnbut, Letwin believes, because of the “profoundly personal reflection”rnof major thinkers, including Hume, Bentham, Mill, and Webb.rnDavid Hume, for example, believed that to “reach for perfection, tornseek an ideal, is noble, but dangerous, and is therefore an activityrnthat individuals or voluntary groups may pursue, but governmentsrncertainly should not.” By the end of the nineteenth century, asrnLetwin observes, Beatrice Webb came to “equate the triumph of reason over passion with the rule ofrnscience over human life.” Thus did the “pursuit of certainty” displace the traditional English understandingrnof the limitations of human nature—hence the necessity of limits to governmental power andrnprograms. Consequently, in our time, “Politics was no longer one of several human activities and at thatrnnot a very noble one; it encompassed all of human life” in quest of philosophical “certainty” and socialrnperfection. The Liberty Fund edition is a reprint of the original work published by Oxford in 1965.rnShirley Robin Letwin (1924-1993) was a Professor of Political and Legal Philosophy at Harvard, Cambridge,rnand the London School of Economics.rn434 + XX pages.rnHardcover $18.50 0-86597-194-3rnPaperback $ 9.50 0-86597-195-1rn(Indiana residents add 5% sales tax)rnCall 800-955-8335rnFax 317-579-6060rnor write:rnLiberty Fund We payrnUPS shipping onrnprepaid orders.rn8335 Allison Pointe Trail, Suite #300, Dept. S12F, Indianapolis, IN 46250rnExplore Liberty Fund’s catalogue on the World Wide Webrnat www.libertyfund.orgrnrnrn