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Brief Lives

David Hume (1711-1776)

Alistair MacFarlane treats of the life of a great Scot.

Hume, a Scot, was the greatest philosopher to write in English. At the age of eighteen he had a sudden deep insight, asking himself whether the moral philosophy of human behaviour could be assimilated into the natural philosophy of the physical world developed famously by Isaac Newton (1643-1727). This is a question still at the cutting edge of philosophy. All Hume’s major contributions to philosophy were made before he reached thirty. After their indifferent reception, he shrugged off his disappointment to become a famous essayist and historian.

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