Hume, David

Hume, David (1711–76), born and educated at Edinburgh, developed early in life a passion for philosophy. He spent three years (1734–7) in private study in France, and in 1739 published anonymously his Treatise of Human Nature in two volumes, a third volume and a promotional Abstract appearing in 1740. During his lifetime it was generally received with hostility, but its doctrines had an important impact on H. Home and Adam Smith. Hume's Essays Moral and Political (1741–2) was more successful. His Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (originally entitled Philosophical Essays) appeared in 1748 and his Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals in 1751. In 1752 he published his Political Discourses, which was translated into French and made Hume famous on the Continent. In 1754 appeared the first volume of his History of Great Britain, devoted to the early Stuarts, followed by further volumes in 1757, 1759, and 1762. From 1763 to 1765 Hume was secretary to the embassy in Paris. He brought back Rousseau to England and befriended him, but Rousseau's suspicious nature presently led to a quarrel. Hume was under-secretary of state in 1767–8, and after this finally settled in Edinburgh. After his death, his friend Adam Smith published his autobiography with a eulogy (1777). Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion was published in 1779 by his nephew.

For Hume's philosophical views, see Treatise of Human Nature. His views on religion are contained, (a) in sections X–XI of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding; (b) in the dissertation entitled The Natural History of Religion, in which he investigates its origin in human nature and traces its development from polytheism to monotheism and its inevitable degeneration; (c) in the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, of which the cautious and ambiguous conclusion is ‘that the cause or causes of order in the universe probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence’.

Hume's writings on politics and history show a strong interest in human character and motivation. Though a believer in civil liberties (except freedom of divorce), and an opponent of ‘divine right’, he also defended the characters of the Stuart kings; and he rejected the social contract theory of society and social obligation as historically unrealistic, tracing these instead to custom and convenience. By deliberately steering between the extremes of prevailing Whig and Tory philosophies he incurred the complaints of both sides. As a political economist Hume attacked the mercantile system, and in general anticipated the views of later economists in the tradition of Adam Smith.