David Hume

David Hume (1711–1776) was born in Edinburgh and wrote A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40) in France before he was thirty. The Enquiries concerning Human Understanding (1748) and the Principles of Morals (1751) recast its argument; his History of England (1754–62) made him famous and comfortable. He was librarian of the Advocates’ Library and secretary to the embassy in Paris, and died in Edinburgh, serene, as Adam Smith recorded.