THE ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY OF MIND. DAVID HUME’S VITALISTIC ACCOUNT Tamás Demeter Summary* This paper challenges the widely held view which associates Hume’s philosophy with mechanical philosophies of nature and particularly with Newton. This view presents Hume’s account of the human mind as passive receiver of impressions that bring into motion, from the outside, a mental machinery whose functioning is described in terms of mechanical causal principles. Instead, I propose an inter- pretation which suggests that, for Hume, the human mind is composed of non- modular faculties that can be characterised by their active contribution, which frequently results in qualitative change. This anatomy of the mind is explored from a physiological perspective focused on the study of the normal functioning and interaction ascribed to the mind’s various organs. While pursuing this enter- prise, Hume’s outlook is closer to Scottish ‘philosophical chemistry’ and vitalistic physiology than to the mechanical heritage of the seventeenth century. Introduction Hume’s project, as developed in his Treatise of Human Nature (1739/1740), is frequently labelled as a Newtonian exercise sans phrase.1 And while it is worthwhile to read Hume’s project of exploring human nature in the con- text of eighteenth-century Newtonianism, using merely this label falls short of saying something substantive about Hume’s work. The reason is two- fold. On the one hand, there are several distinctive Newtonian traditions in the eighteenth century,2 so to use the label without further clarification * I am indebted for helpful comments and discussion to David Bloor, John Christie, Brad Hume, Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Henning Schmidgen, Ursula Klein, Jeffrey Schweg- man, Kelly Wilder and Gábor Zemplén. My research has been supported by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (OTKA 79193), and forms part of the research project SROP- 4.2.1.B-10/2KONV-2010-0002. 1 See e.g. Stroud B., Hume (London: 1977) 8. Some more recent examples: Mounce H.O., Hume’s Naturalism (London: 1999) 15–18, Dicker G., Hume’s Metaphysics and Epistemology (London: 1998) 2–5, Pitson A.E., Hume’s Philosophy of the Self (London: 2002) 6, 14, 152., Beebee H., Hume on Causation (London: 2006) 5, 183–185. 2 Schofield R.E., “Evolutionary Taxonomy of Eighteenth-Century Newtonianisms”, Stud- ies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 7 (1978) 175–192. See also Shapiro A.E., Fits, Passions, and