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Hume's Early Life
Hume was born in Edinburgh,
Scotland, into comfortable circumstances. However his father Joseph
died when he was two and he was raised in his mother Catherine's family--a
family of lawyers (her father was president of the Scottish court of Sessions),
but ones also devoutly Calvinist (an uncle was a Presbyterian pastor).
His very intelligent and independent-minded mother carefully cultivated
these same traits in her sons, of whom David was the younger.
At age 12 he entered Edinburgh
University, staying until he was 14 or 15 (not an unusual procedure for
those times) and then returned home to continue his studies there.
His family urged him to follow the family tradition (his father's as well
as his mother's) of the law. But further formal study revealed that
his love was basically for broader philosophical matters--and he turned
wholeheartedly to this pursuit. But his intensity was so great that
in 1729 he suffered a nervous breakdown which took him several years to
come back from.
His Early Philosophical Works
(1734-1742)
But his love of philosophy was
not to be denied. For a while he worked as a clerk in Bristol.
Then in 1734 he traveled to France where for the next several years he
simply studied and composed notes on philosophy. In 1739 he returned
to England where he then turned his studies into a major philosophical
work, A Treatise of Human Nature. This came out in three sections
in 1739 and 1740. To his great disappointment there was little notice
of his work. As he put it, his work "fell dead-born from the press."
Nonetheless he pressed on.
His next writing effort, Essays, Moral and Political (two volumes
in 1741 and 1742) met with a small amount of success--in part because his
language and style were aimed at a more popular level. On the basis
of the acceptance of this work, in 1744 he candidated for the chair of
moral philosophy at Edinburgh. But he was rejected by the Calvinist
authorities with accusations of heresy--if not outright atheism because
of the contents of his Treatise.
The Wandering Years (1744-1752)
From this point forward for
the next seven to eight years years he wandered from job to job as tutor,
secretary, minor diplomat. Nonetheless during this time he continued
with his studies, producing in 1748, Three Essays, Moral and Political
and Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding. Philosophical
Essays was essentially a popular rewriting of book one of the Treatise
(he had learned the lesson with his Essays of the importance of
lowering the language level to make his ideas more widely accessible) and
focused on the issue of human understanding. Because of a title change
Hume himself made in a later edition of this work, Philosophical Essays
came to be known as the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. This
publication also included his essay "Of Miracles," and drew upon himself
widespread wrath. Three years later (1751) Hume published
Enquiry
Concerning Principles of Morals--which was a rewrite of book three
of the original Treatise.
Hume the Historian (1752-1762)
In 1752, after having again
been rejected for a professorial position (at Glasgow) because of his reputation
for atheism, he was appointed librarian of the law library in Edinburgh.
Here among all these volumes he was to take up a new love--history--and
began to put together a History of England. This came out
in 6 volumes between 1754 and 1762--and were very well received because
of its elegant style, its unprecedented objectivity and its coverage of
the broader socio-economic aspects of English life over the centuries.
Indeed, so well was it received that in 1760 a French and in 1762 a German
translation of the History was written. (Indeed, his History
was to undergo 50 editions over the next century and be considered the
standard for history writing during that period).
Recognition
as a Major Philosopher
He not surprisingly continued
during this same time with his first love--philosophy. In 1752 he
published Political Discourses--which within two years was given
two French translations, so well was it received there. He also turned
to the task of rewriting book two of the Treatise, which came out
in 1757 as Four Dissertations. This latter work included also
a study of the "natural history" of religion--a major contributor to the
decision of the Vatican in 1761 to place all his works on the Index
of banned books!
Diplomatic Life in Paris (1763-1766)
In 1763 he journeyed to Paris
with the Earl of Hertford to become secretary to the British embassy there.
His fame now was well established in intellectual circles and he found
easy entry into Paris society. Though Hume had no sophisticated polish
to recommend himself, he was of such a gentle and joyous nature that he
charmed Paris.
The Rousseau Episode (1766)
In 1766 he returned to England,
bringing with him Jean-Jacques Rousseau--to help him establish a new life
after his political banishment from his home in Berne Switzerland.
But Rousseau was in a darkened mood at this point and soon began to suspect
some kind of conspiracy by Hume against him. Stealing back to France,
Rousseau there denounced Hume publicly for treachery. To clear the
record, Hume was constrained to publish (with commentaries) their mutual
correspondence: A Concise and Genuine Account of the Dispute between
Mr. Hume and M. Rousseau.
His Last Years (1769-1776)
In 1769--tired of life in the
faster lane in England--Hume returned again to Edinburgh and to the company
of numerous friends. At this point his major work was issuing subsequent
editions of his History of England and several editions of a collection
of some his earlier writings entitled
Essays and Treatises.
Very shortly before his death
in August of 1776, he finished an autobiography--quite detached in its
handling of his own life--entitled The Life of David Hume, written by
Himself. This finally reached publication the following year--thanks
in part to his good friend, Adam Smith.
It was not until after his
death that a work that he had held back since the mid 1750s was finally
published (in 1779), Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, because
of the furor it was expected to stir up. Three years later in 1782,
two other long-delayed essays were published: one on suicide and
one on immortality. The reaction was appreciably hostile.
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Hume:
An Overview
His
Life and Works
His
Major Ideas
Hume's Writings
Hume's
major works or writings:
Miles
H. Hodges
