II.

Life and Writings

From 1734 to 1737 Hume occupied himself intensively with the problems of speculative philosophy and during this period wrote his most important philosophical work, A Treatise of Human Nature (3 volumes, 1739-40), which embodies the essence of his thinking. In spite of its importance, this work was ignored by the public and was, as Hume himself said, “dead-born,” probably because of its abstruse style. Hume's later works were written in the lighter essay or dialogue forms that were popular in his day.

After the publication of the Treatise, Hume returned to his family estate in Berwickshire; there he turned his attention to the problems of ethics and political economy and wrote Essays Moral and Political (2 volumes, 1741-42), which attained immediate success. He failed to obtain an appointment to the faculty of the University of Edinburgh, probably because, even early in his career, he was regarded as a religious skeptic. Hume became, successively, tutor to the insane marquis of Annandale and judge advocate to a British military expedition to France. His Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding (afterward entitled An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding) appeared in 1748. This book, perhaps his best-known work, is in effect a condensation of the Treatise.

Hume took up residence in Edinburgh in 1751. In 1752, his Political Discourses was published, and in the following year, having again failed to obtain a university professorship, he received an appointment as librarian of the Advocates' Library in Edinburgh. During his 12-year stay in Edinburgh, Hume worked chiefly on his six-volume History of England, which appeared at intervals from 1754 to 1762. In the years 1762 to 1765 Hume served as secretary to the British ambassador in Paris. There he was lionized by French literary circles and formed a friendship with the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau. Hume brought Rousseau back with him to England. Rousseau, however, plagued by delusions of persecution, accused Hume of plotting against him, and the friendship dissolved in public denunciations between the two men. After serving as undersecretary of state in London (1767-68), Hume retired to Edinburgh and there spent the rest of his life. He died August 25, 1776. His autobiography was published posthumously (1777), as was his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779). Hume had written the Dialogues in the early 1750s but had withheld the work because of its skepticism. See also Thematic Essay: British Political and Social Thought.