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For information on how to proceed, first see the FAQ for blocked users and the guideline on block appeals. The guide to appealing blocks may also be helpful. Other useful links: Blocking policy · Help:I have been blocked You can view and copy the source of this page: ===Career=== Although having noble ancestry at 25 years of age, Hume had no source of income and no learned profession. As was common at his time, he became a [[merchant]]'s assistant, despite having to leave his native Scotland. He travelled via [[Bristol]] to [[La Flèche]] in [[Anjou]], France. There he had frequent discourse with the [[Jesuits]] of the [[College of La Flèche]].Huxley, Thomas Henry. 2011 [1879]. ''Hume'', (''[[English Men of Letters]]'' 39). Cambridge: [[Cambridge University Press]]. {{ISBN|9781108034777}}. [https://books.google.ca/books?id=eH67vOxyjEYC&pg=PA7 pp. 7–8]. Hume was derailed in his attempts to start a university career by protests over his alleged "[[atheism]]",Hume, David. 2007 [1748]. ''[[An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding]]'', edited by [[Peter Millican|P. Millican]]. Oxford: [[Oxford University Press]]. {{ISBN|978-0191526350}}. {{OCLC|314220887}}. pp. lxiii–lxiv. also lamenting that his literary debut, ''[[A Treatise of Human Nature]]'', "fell dead-born from the press." However, he found literary success in his lifetime as an essayist, and a career as a librarian at the [[University of Edinburgh]]. His tenure there, and the access to research materials it provided, resulted in Hume's writing the massive six-volume ''[[The History of England (Hume)|The History of England]]'', which became a bestseller and the standard history of England in its day. For over 60 years, Hume was the dominant interpreter of English history.{{Cite book|last=Trevor-Roper|first=Hugh|title=History and the Enlightenment|publisher=[[Yale University Press]]|year=2010}}{{Rp|120}} He described his "love for literary fame" as his "ruling passion" and judged his two late works, the so-called "first" and "second" enquiries, ''[[An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding]]'' and ''[[An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals]]'', as his greatest literary and philosophical achievements. He would ask of his contemporaries to judge him on the merits of the later texts alone, rather than on the more radical formulations of his early, youthful work, dismissing his philosophical debut as [[juvenilia]]: "A work which the Author had projected before he left College."Hume, David. 1777. [https://web.archive.org/web/20150813074441/http://davidhume.org/texts/etv2.html ''Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects'' 2]. London. Archived from the [http://davidhume.org/texts/etv2.html original] on 13 August 2015. Retrieved 18 May 2020. Despite Hume's protestations, a consensus exists today that his most important arguments and philosophically distinctive doctrines are found in the original form they take in the ''Treatise''. Though he was only 23 years old when starting this work, it is now regarded as one of the most important in the history of [[Western philosophy]]. ==== 1730s ==== Hume worked for four years on his first major work, ''[[A Treatise of Human Nature]]'', subtitled "Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects", completing it in 1738 at the age of 28. Although many scholars today consider the ''Treatise'' to be Hume's most important work and one of the most important books in Western philosophy, critics in [[Kingdom of Great Britain|Great Britain]] at the time described it as "abstract and unintelligible".{{sfn|Mossner|1950|p=195}} As Hume had spent most of his savings during those four years,{{sfn|Mossner|1950|p=193}} he resolved "to make a very rigid frugality supply [his] deficiency of fortune, to maintain unimpaired my independency, and to regard every object as contemptible except the improvements of my talents in literature".Hume, David. 1993 [1734]. "[[wikisource:A kind of history of my life|A Kind of History of My Life]]." In ''The Cambridge Companion to Hume'', edited by D. F. Norton. Cambridge: [[Cambridge University Press]]. {{ISBN|9780521387101}}.{{Rp|352}} Despite the disappointment, Hume later wrote: "Being naturally of a cheerful and [[Humorism|sanguine]] temper, I soon recovered from the blow and prosecuted with great ardour my studies in the country."{{Rp|352}} There, in an attempt to make his larger work better known and more intelligible, he published the ''[[A Treatise of Human Nature (Abstract)|An Abstract of a Book lately Published]]'' as a summary of the main doctrines of the ''Treatise'', without revealing its authorship.{{sfn|Hume|1740}} Although there has been some academic speculation as to who actually wrote this pamphlet,{{sfn|Norton|1993|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=vv5ERpFQBCoC&pg=PA31&dq=hume+abstract+author&hl=en&sa=X&ei=70ODVLXoM4r_UIDpgNgP&ved=0CEIQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=hume%20abstract%20author&f=false p. 31]}} it is generally regarded as Hume's creation.{{sfn|Redman|1997|loc= [https://books.google.com/books?id=1faeMedY8k8C&pg=PA175&dq=An+Abstract+of+a+Book+lately+Published;+Entitled&hl=en&sa=X&ei=XRryVP6yCYX6ygPViYDABg&ved=0CEYQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=An%20Abstract%20of%20a%20Book%20lately%20Published%3B%20Entitled&f=false p. 175, footnote 19]}} ==== 1740s ==== After the publication of ''Essays Moral and Political'' in 1741{{mdash}}included in the later edition as ''[[Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary]]''{{mdash}}Hume applied for the Chair of Pneumatics and Moral Philosophy at the [[University of Edinburgh]]. However, the position was given to [[William Cleghorn]]Nobbs, Douglas. 1965. "The Political Ideas of William Cleghorn, Hume's Academic Rival." ''[[Journal of the History of Ideas]]'' 26(4):575–86. {{Doi|10.2307/2708501}}. {{JSTOR|2708501}}. p. 575. after Edinburgh ministers petitioned the town council not to appoint Hume because he was seen as an [[atheism|atheist]].Lorkowski, C. M. "[https://web.archive.org/web/20170517005711/http://www.iep.utm.edu/hume-rel/ David Hume: Religion]." ''[[Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]''. [[File:David Hume 1754.jpeg|thumb|left|An engraving of Hume from the first volume of his ''The History of England'', 1754]] In 1745, during the [[Jacobite risings]], Hume tutored the [[George Vanden-Bempde, 3rd Marquess of Annandale|Marquess of Annandale]] (1720–92), an engagement that ended in disarray after about a year.{{sfn|Mossner|1950|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=7HXJAqqNl4QC&pg=PA378&dq=annandale+lunatic+hume&hl=en&sa=X&ei=bxWIVPykIYHtUtevgvAI&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=annandale%20lunatic%20hume&f=false p. 172]}} Hume then started his great historical work, ''[[The History of England (Hume)|The History of England]]'', taking fifteen years and running to over a million words. During this time he was also involved with the Canongate Theatre through his friend [[John Home]], a preacher.{{sfn|Fieser|2005|loc=[https://www.google.co.uk/search?tbm=bks&hl=en&q=canongate+theatre&gws_rd=ssl#hl=en&tbm=bks&q=canongate+theatre+hume+fieser p. xxii]}} In this context, he associated with [[James Burnett, Lord Monboddo|Lord Monboddo]] and other [[Scottish Enlightenment]] luminaries in Edinburgh. From 1746, Hume served for three years as secretary to General [[James St Clair]], who was envoy to the courts of [[Turin]] and [[Vienna]]. At that time Hume also wrote ''Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding'', later published as ''[[An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding]]''. Often called the ''First Enquiry'', it proved little more successful than the ''Treatise'', perhaps because of the publication of his short autobiography ''My Own Life'', which "made friends difficult for the first Enquiry".Buckle, Stephen. 1999. "Hume's biography and Hume's philosophy." ''[[Australasian Journal of Philosophy]]'' 77:1–25. {{Doi|10.1080/00048409912348781}}. In 1749 he went to live with his brother in the countryside, although he associated with [[James Burnett, Lord Monboddo|Lord Monboddo]] and other [[Scottish Enlightenment]] luminaries in Edinburgh. ==== 1750s-mid 1760s ==== Hume's religious views were often suspect and, in the 1750s, it was necessary for his friends to avert a trial against him on the charge of [[heresy in Christianity|heresy]], specifically in an ecclesiastical court. However, he "would not have come and could not be forced to attend if he said he was not a member of the Established Church".{{sfn|Emerson|2009|p=244}} Hume failed to gain the [[Professor of Moral Philosophy (Glasgow)|chair of philosophy]] at the [[University of Glasgow]] due to his religious views. By this time, he had published the ''Philosophical Essays'', which were decidedly anti-religious. Even [[Adam Smith]], his personal friend who had vacated the Glasgow philosophy chair, was against his appointment out of concern that public opinion would be against it.Rivers, Isabel. 2000. ''[https://books.google.ca/books/about/Reason_Grace_and_Sentiment_Volume_2_Shaf.html?id=VSqj2pyBN3sC&redir_esc=y Reason, Grace, and Sentiment: A Study of the Language of Religion and Ethics in England, 1660–1780]'' '''2'''. Cambridge: [[Cambridge University Press]]. {{ISBN|9780511484476}}. {{Doi|10.1017/CBO9780511484476}}. p. 255. Hume returned to Edinburgh in 1751. In the following year, the [[Faculty of Advocates]] hired him to be their Librarian, a job in which he would receive little to no pay, but which nonetheless gave him "the command of a large library"."The Faculty of Advocates chose me their Librarian, an office from which I received little or no emolument, but which gave me the command of a large library." ([[David Hume#CITEREFHume1778|Hume 1776]]:11).{{Rp|11}} This resource enabled him to continue historical research for ''The History of England''. Hume's volume of ''Political Discourses'', written in 1749 and published by [[Alexander Donaldson (bookseller)|Kincaid & Donaldson]] in 1752,Sher, Richard B. 2008. [https://books.google.com/books?id=gB9liJb5o7UC ''The Enlightenment and the Book: Scottish Authors and Their Publishers in Eighteenth-Century Britain, Ireland, and Americ''a], (''Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology'' ''Series''). Chicago: [[University of Chicago Press]]. {{ISBN|9780226752549}}. p. 312. was the only work he considered successful on first publication.{{Rp|10}} Eventually, with the publication of his six-volume ''The History of England'' between 1754 and 1762, Hume achieved the fame that he coveted.{{sfn|Emerson|2009|p=98}} The volumes traced events from the [[Roman conquest of Britain|Invasion of Julius Caesar]] to the [[Glorious Revolution|Revolution of 1688]], and was a bestseller in its day. Hume was also a longtime friend of bookseller [[Andrew Millar]], who sold Hume's ''History'' (after acquiring the rights from Scottish bookseller Gavin Hamilton{{cite web|url=http://www.millar-project.ed.ac.uk/manuscripts/html_output/2.html|title=The manuscripts, Letter from David Hume to Andrew Millar, 12 April, 1755.|website=millar-project.ed.ac.uk|access-date=2016-06-01|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160115092006/http://www.millar-project.ed.ac.uk/manuscripts/html_output/2.html|archive-date=15 January 2016|url-status=dead}}), although the relationship was sometimes complicated. Letters between them illuminate both men's interest in the success of the ''History''. In 1762 Hume moved from Jack's Land on the [[Canongate]] to James Court on the [[Lawnmarket]]. He sold the house to [[James Boswell]] in 1766.Grants Old and New Edinburgh vol 1, p. 97 Return to David Hume. 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