 Hume tells us that “Of the Standard of Taste” was written in some haste and exists only to permit publication of other essays (HL 2, 253). On the advice of Philip Stanhope, Hume removed “Of the Immortality of the Soul” and “Of Suicide” from a planned volume of new essays. His publisher informed him that the resulting volume was too slim to print, bind, and sell. Hume then brought the book to an acceptable length by penning a new essay, “Of the Standard of Taste.” Hume made nearly two hundred editorial corrections over the subsequent twenty years and multiple editions, the majority of which involve punctuation. He never altered his argument. The essay is his last word on any topic in “criticism.” In addition to its importance as an elaboration of Hume’s views, Kant read the essay in translation and it stands to Kant’s mature aesthetic theory in much the way that Hume’s account of cause and effect stands to the Critique of Pure Reason. Succinct analyses of their contrasting positions are provided by Kulenkampff (1990), Savile (1993, pp. 81–84), and Costelloe (2007, pp. 45–52).