HUME, DAVID

(1711-1776); Scot. historian and philosopher; 6. Edinburgh; s. of a small landowner in Berwickshire; studied at Edinburgh Univ., and became interested in speculation; in 1739 pub. first two vol’s of Treatise of Human. Nature, but to his bitter disappointment * the work was a failure; tried, unsucce fully, to get chair of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh, 1744; made librarian at Advocate’s Library, Edinburgh, 1751. His Philosophical H ays were pub. in 1748, and Political Discourses, 1751. In 1753 H. set to work to write the history of England. His qualifications and aims in writing were distinctly above those of his day, though by no means equal to those of ours. His Natural History of Religion appeared in 1757. He was much honored during the visit he paid to Paris in 1763: app. Under-Sec. of State to the Home Department, 1766; in London, _ 1767-69; returned to Edinburgh; had a furious quarrel with Rou eau; latterly in “much better financial circumstances than before; d. a much respected man. H’s, hist. work was important, but his _ History of England has long been superseded and does not survive to the extent e9.,.0f Gibbon’s Decline and Fail. In economics he was an opponent of the Mercantilists. He perceived the connection between economics and seciology, ‘and the importance of hist. treatment. He believed firmly in free trade. WEATHER.