David Hume_x0019_ s An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding was a simplification of an earlier effort Hume was disappointed with the reception of the Treatise of Human Nature He felt that if x001C fell dead-born from the press x001D as he put it and so tried again to disseminate his ideas to the public by writing a shorter and more polemical work. The Enquiry dispensed with much of the material from the Treatise in favor of clarifying and emphasizing its most important aspects. This book was highly influential Immanuel Kant points to it as the book which woke him from his x001C dogmatic slumber.x001D The Enquiry is widely regarded as a classic in modern philosophical literature.