David Hume

On 28 May 1756 a committee of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland moved that the Assembly look into "one person styling himself David Hume, Esq. who hath arrived at such a degree of boldness as publicly to avow himself the author of books containing the most rude and open attacks upon the glorious gospel of Christ, and principles evidently subversive even of natural religion, and the foundations of morality, if not establishing direct atheism."¹² The Assembly threw the motion out by fifty votes to seventeen, and Hume, his biographer says, was "very little" disturbed; he asked a friend only whether it would matter if he were excommunicated.³

He was forty-five, and the librarian of the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh. He had been called an atheist for twelve years, and he never once called himself one. His own word was "sceptic." He had lost the faith he was raised in before he was twenty, and he spent the rest of his life deciding how much of his doubt to print, cutting and withdrawing and holding back his boldest work until he was dead. This chapter follows that long negotiation between a sceptic and his country, and asks why a man so calm about his unbelief was so careful about publishing it.

Ninewells

He was born in Edinburgh on 26 April 1711, the second son of Joseph Home of Ninewells, a small estate in the parish of Chirnside in Berwickshire.⁴ His father died when he was a baby, and his mother, "a woman of singular merit," brought up the three children.⁵ She was devout; one contemporary called her "the best of mothers but the most pious of Christians."⁶ A story told years later by an American traveller, that Hume destroyed her faith and ignored her dying letter, is false: the dates do not fit, and a memoir of the time has him in tears in London when he heard she had died.⁷

A David Home enrolled at the college of Edinburgh in February 1723, not yet twelve, in the Greek class.⁸ His earliest surviving letter, written at sixteen, says nothing at all about religion. Its ideal is classical: Cicero's wise man and Virgil's farmer, "peace of mind" and independence from fortune.⁹

A manuscript burned

What happened to his faith we know almost entirely from one letter, written when he was nearly forty to a friend who was a believer. Any leaning he had toward "the other side," he told Gilbert Elliot in 1751, "crept in upon me against my will; and 'tis not long ago that I burned an old manuscript book, wrote before I was twenty, which contained, page after page, the gradual progress of my thoughts on that head. It began with an anxious search after arguments, to confirm the common opinion; doubts stole in, dissipated, returned; were again dissipated, returned again; and it was a perpetual struggle of a restless imagination against inclination, perhaps against reason."¹⁰¹¹

So the doubt began before he was twenty, about 1731, and it began as an attempt to prove what he had been taught. The letter names no book, no teacher and no event that set it off.¹² A story often repeated, that he lost his faith reading Locke and Clarke, appears in none of the lawful early sources; this chapter leaves it out.¹³

He did describe the temper that went with it. Writing in 1734 to a physician, in a letter he never sent, he said that reading the philosophers he found "a certain boldness of temper growing in me, which was not inclined to submit to any authority in these subjects, but led me to seek out some new medium, by which truth might be established."¹⁴¹⁵ At about eighteen "a new scene of thought" opened to him; in September 1729 his enthusiasm suddenly failed and he fell ill. He blamed it partly on the effort to toughen his mind with Cicero, Seneca and Plutarch against "death, and poverty, and shame, and pain."¹⁶ He compared his low spirits to the "coldness and desertion of the spirit" described by the French mystics, a religious comparison, not a loss of faith.¹⁷

La Flèche

In 1734 he spent a few months as a merchant's clerk in Bristol, found it "totally unsuitable," and went to France, "first at Reims, but chiefly at La Flèche, in Anjou," where he wrote his first book.¹⁸ La Flèche had a Jesuit college. Nearly thirty years later he told a clergyman how his argument against miracles was born there: "I was walking in the Cloisters of the Jesuits' College of La Fleche, (a town in which I passed two years of my youth), and was engaged in conversation with a Jesuit of some parts and learning, who was relating to me, and urging some nonsensical miracle performed lately in their Convent — when I was tempted to dispute against him; and as my head was full of the topics of my Treatise of Human Nature, which I was at that time composing, this argument immediately occurred to me, and I thought it very much gravelled my companion." The Jesuit answered that the argument would work just as well against the miracles of the Gospels, "which observation I thought proper to admit as a sufficient answer."¹⁹²⁰ (His autobiography says three years in France, the letter two; accounts differ.)²¹

The nobler parts

He came back to London in 1737 with the Treatise in manuscript and a hope of showing it to Joseph Butler, the author of The Analogy of Religion (1736). On 2 December he sent his kinsman Henry Home the essay on miracles, "which I once thought of publishing with the rest, but which I am afraid will give too much offence."²²²³ "I am at present castrating my work," he wrote, "that is, cutting off its nobler parts; that is, endeavouring it shall give as little offence as possible, before which, I could not pretend to put it into the Doctor's hands. This is a piece of cowardice, for which I blame myself, though I believe none of my friends will blame me."²⁴²⁵

The Treatise came out in 1739 and 1740 and, he said, "fell dead-born from the press, without reaching such distinction, as even to excite a murmur among the zealots."²⁶ It still held one line that became famous: "Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous."²⁷²⁸ When Francis Hutcheson, the Glasgow moralist, warned him that parts were imprudent, Hume promised to soften them, and explained why he cared: "Except a man be in orders, or be immediately concerned in the instruction of youth, I do not think his character depends upon his philosophical speculations, as the world is now modelled."²⁹³⁰ He also told Hutcheson that he took his catalogue of virtues "from 'Cicero's Offices,' not from 'The Whole Duty of Man.'"³¹

The cost

But he did want to instruct youth. In 1744 he stood for the Edinburgh chair of ethics and pneumatic philosophy, and the old charge came out against him. "The accusation of heresy, deism, scepticism, atheism, &c. &c. &c, was started against me; but never took, being bore down by the contrary authority of all the good company in town."³²³³ It took enough. He heard that Hutcheson himself and the clergyman William Leechman opposed him, and in June 1745 the town council gave the chair to someone else; Hume's name is not even in the minutes.³²³⁴ In 1752 he failed again, for the chair of logic at Glasgow.³⁵ Later that year he was elected keeper of the Advocates' Library, over "the violent cry of deism, atheism, and scepticism," with help, he said, from the ladies.³⁶

Of Miracles

In between he went abroad as a secretary and aide-de-camp to General St Clair, to the coast of France and then to Vienna and Turin.³⁷ While he was in Turin in 1748 his Philosophical Essays concerning Human Understanding appeared, with the essay he had cut from the Treatise.³⁸ "A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature," it argued, "and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined." The rule that followed was simple: "no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish."³⁹⁴⁰ The essay ended with a sentence that could be read two ways: "Our most holy religion is founded on Faith, not on reason," and whoever believes "is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding."⁴¹⁴²

The answer came from Aberdeen. George Campbell, a minister and later Principal of Marischal College, wrote in 1762: "The Essay on Miracles deserves to be considered as one of the most dangerous attacks that have been made on our religion. The danger results not solely from the merit of the piece; it results much more from that of the author."⁴³ Hume answered him courteously, and it was in that reply that he told the story of the Jesuit.¹⁹

A sceptic's creed

To Gilbert Elliot in 1751 he gave the nearest thing to a statement of his own position. Thinking about the old quarrel between Catholics and Protestants, he said no sensible man could hold any religion except on the principle "that as the truth in these subjects is beyond human capacity, and that as for one's own ease he must adopt some tenets, there is most satisfaction and convenience in holding to the Catholicism we have been first taught. Now this I have nothing to say against." It was, he added, "the most universal and determined scepticism, joined to a little indolence; for more curiosity and research gives a direct opposite turn from the same principles."⁴⁴⁴⁵ In the same letter he wrote: "The worst speculative sceptic ever I knew, was a much better man than the best superstitious devotee and bigot."¹⁰⁴⁶

In 1757 he published The Natural History of Religion, which asked not whether religion is true but where it comes from in human nature. The first religions, he argued, arose "not from a contemplation of the works of nature, but from a concern with regard to the events of life, and from the incessant hopes and fears which actuate the human mind."⁴⁷⁴⁸ He opened the book by granting that "the whole frame of nature bespeaks an intelligent author," and closed it by saying that "the whole is a riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery. Doubt, uncertainty, suspense of judgment appear the only result of our most accurate scrutiny, concerning this subject."^49505152 He used the word "atheist" himself only of others, calling the polytheists "a kind of superstitious Atheists."⁵³⁵⁴ William Warburton, later Bishop of Gloucester, read the book before it came out and wrote to its publisher that its design was "to establish naturalism, a species of atheism, instead of religion."⁵⁵⁵⁶

Abundant prudence

The same volume was meant to carry two more essays, on suicide and on the immortality of the soul. "By the mere light of reason it seems difficult to prove the Immortality of the Soul," the second began.⁵⁷ They were printed; then Hume and his publisher pulled them, and another essay took their place.⁵⁸ He explained it to the printer William Strahan fifteen years later: they were "two Essays of mine, one on Suicide another on the Immortality of the Soul, which were printed by Andrew Millar about seventeen Years ago, and which from my abundant Prudence I suppress'd and woud not now wish to have revivd."⁵⁸⁵⁹ Accounts differ on exactly when the suppression happened, but it was in the mid-1750s, before the volume appeared in 1757.⁶⁰

The boldest book of all was already written. The Dialogues concerning Natural Religion were begun before 1751, and he went on revising them for a quarter of a century.⁶¹ Three friends argue about whether the order of nature proves a designer: Cleanthes, who believes it does, the pious Demea, and the sceptic Philo. Hume told Elliot that he made Cleanthes "the hero," but that if Elliot had lived nearby he would have taken "the character of Philo" himself.⁶¹ It is Philo who repeats "Epicurus's old questions," which "are yet unanswered. Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?"⁶²⁶³

His friends would not let him publish. "Is it not hard and tyrannical in you," he wrote to Elliot in 1763, "more hard and tyrannical than any act of the Stuarts, not to allow me to publish my Dialogues?"⁶⁴ Hugh Blair, the minister, pleaded strongly for their suppression.⁶⁵

Paris

From 1763 to 1766 he lived in Paris, first with the British ambassador, Lord Hertford, then as secretary to the embassy, and was welcomed by "men and women of all ranks and stations."⁶⁶ There, as Diderot told the story in a letter of October 1765, Hume sat down to dinner beside his host and remarked that "he did not believe in atheists," and had never seen one. The host told him to count the company. There were eighteen at table; fifteen, the host said, could be counted at once, and "the other three do not know what to think."⁶⁷⁶⁸ In a later version of the story, Samuel Romilly's, the host was Baron d'Holbach, and Hume was told he was sitting with seventeen.⁶⁹⁷⁰

A speedy dissolution

In the spring of 1775 he fell ill with a disorder of the bowels. On 18 April 1776 he wrote his short autobiography, My Own Life, which says almost nothing about his religion; there he said: "I now reckon upon a speedy dissolution."⁷¹⁷² Now he made sure of the Dialogues. His will left his manuscripts to Adam Smith and asked him to publish them; when Smith hesitated, Hume called his scruples "groundless."⁷³⁷⁴ He offered the book to Strahan, describing it frankly: "I there introduce a Sceptic, who is indeed refuted, and at last gives up the Argument, nay confesses that he was only amusing himself by all his Cavils; yet before he is silenced, he advances several Topics, which will give Umbrage, and will be deemed very bold and free, as well as much out of the common Road."⁷⁵⁷⁶ In the last months of his life he changed his will so that if the book was not published within two years, the manuscript would go to his nephew.⁷⁷

Adam Smith watched him die and wrote it down. Hume said he was "dying as fast as my enemies, if I have any, could wish, and as easily and cheerfully as my best friends could desire." After reading Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead he joked about what excuses he might give Charon, the ferryman of the dead, for a little more time: "Have a little patience, good Charon; I have been endeavouring to open the eyes of the Public. If I live a few years longer, I may have the satisfaction of seeing the downfall of some of the prevailing systems of superstition."⁷⁸⁷⁹ He died in Edinburgh about four in the afternoon of 25 August 1776; his doctor, Joseph Black, wrote that "he died in such a happy composure of mind, that nothing could exceed it."⁸⁰ Smith's verdict was that he had come "as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man, as perhaps the nature of human frailty will permit."⁸¹⁸²

The believers' answer

The calm itself became the argument. James Boswell told Samuel Johnson in 1777 that Hume's "persisting in his infidelity" when dying had shocked him. Johnson would have none of it: "Why should it shock you, Sir? Hume owned he had never read the New Testament with attention. Here then was a man, who had been at no pains to inquire into the truth of religion, and had continually turned his mind the other way." Johnson added that Hume "had a vanity in being thought easy."⁸³⁸⁴ George Horne, an Oxford divine, mocked Smith's praise in a pamphlet, imagining the friends of Hume crowning his virtues by publishing "a treatise designed to prove the Soul's Mortality, and another to justify and recommend Self-Murder."⁸⁵⁸⁶

The Dialogues appeared in 1779, published by his nephew.⁸⁷ Their last speech belongs to Philo, who reduces all of natural theology to one modest proposition, "that the cause or causes of order in the universe probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence," and ends with a sentence readers still argue over: "To be a philosophical Sceptic is, in a man of letters, the first and most essential step towards being a sound, believing Christian."⁸⁸⁸⁹⁹⁰

What he left

Hume's unbelief barely changed shape across his life; what changed was how much of it he let out. His doubt came before he was twenty, gradually, against his own wish to believe; he cut it from his first book, put it into his essays one argument at a time, pulled the two most dangerous back from the press, and saved the fullest statement for a book that would appear only after he could no longer be hurt by it. He never called himself an atheist, and in Paris he doubted that atheists existed. A century later Thomas Henry Huxley called him the "protagonist" of the way of thinking that Huxley himself had named "agnosticism," and Leslie Stephen admired that he argued about God "as though he were discussing a metaphysical puzzle."⁹¹ The materialists at d'Holbach's table, who did not share his doubt about atheists, were his opposite. Baron d'Holbach has his own chapter in this book.

Footnotes

1. John Hill Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, 2 vols (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1846), printing letters from the papers left to the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Vol. I, vol. I p. 430 (Scots Magazine 1756, pp. 248, 280). ↩

2. Overture moved in a committee of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, 28 May 1756; rejected in the Assembly by 50 votes to 17: Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I p. 430 (Scots Magazine 1756). ↩

3. Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I pp. 430–32. ↩

4. David Hume, "My Own Life" (dated 18 April 1776; first printed 1777 as *The Life of David Hume, Esq, p. 1; Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I pp. 1–2. ↩

5. Hume, "My Own Life", p. 1; Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I p. 10. ↩

6. Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I pp. 293–94 (Carlyle MS via Quarterly Review xvi. 279); Hume, "My Own Life", p. 3. Reported at second hand; the original has not been seen. ↩

7. Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I pp. 291–94. ↩

8. Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I pp. 10–11; Hume, "My Own Life", p. 1. ↩

9. T. H. Grose, "History of the Editions," in Green and Grose, Essays, vol. I, pp. 15–83 (quotes Hume's letters and Burton at length; cited by the page of that essay), pp. 15–17 (Burton I p. 12). ↩

10. Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I pp. 331–32. ↩ ↩²

11. David Hume to Gilbert Elliot of Minto, Ninewells, 10 March 1751: Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I p. 332 (also quoted in part, Editions p. 18). ↩

12. Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I p. 332; Grose, Essays, p. 18. ↩

13. Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, I; Grose, Essays; G. Birkbeck Hill (ed.), Letters of David Hume to William Strahan (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888), with Hill's notes; searched. Not verified. ↩

14. Grose, Essays, p. 15; Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I p. 31. ↩

15. David Hume (letter to a physician, 1734): Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I p. 31. ↩

16. Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I pp. 31–33. ↩

17. Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I pp. 36–37; Grose, Essays, p. 18. ↩

18. Hume, "My Own Life", p. 2. ↩

19. George Campbell, A Dissertation on Miracles (Edinburgh, 1762; scan used is the 1834 London reprint "with a correspondence on the subject by Mr Hume, Dr Campbell and Dr Blair"), including Hume's letter of 7 June 1762 in the Preface, (1834 ed.), Preface; David Hume, Enquiries concerning the Human Understanding and concerning the Principles of Morals, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford, 1902); Section X, Of Miracles, pp. 109–131 (first printed as Philosophical Essays concerning Human Understanding, 1748), p. 124. ↩ ↩²

20. David Hume to George Campbell, Edinburgh, 7 June 1762: Campbell, Dissertation on Miracles, (1834 ed.), Preface. ↩

21. Campbell, Dissertation on Miracles, (1834 ed.), Preface (Hume's letter of 7 June 1762); Hume, "My Own Life", p. 2. Accounts differ; see the disputed points. ↩

22. Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I pp. 61–64. ↩

23. David Hume to Henry Home, London, 2 December 1737: Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I p. 63. ↩

24. Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I pp. 64–65. ↩

25. David Hume to Henry Home, 2 December 1737: Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I p. 64. ↩

26. Hume, "My Own Life", p. 2 and note; Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I pp. 108–10. ↩

27. David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40), ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford, 1896), pp. 269 and 272. ↩

28. David Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Part IV, Sect. VII: Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, p. 272 (Selby-Bigge 1896). ↩

29. Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I p. 114. ↩

30. David Hume to Francis Hutcheson, September 1739: Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I p. 114. ↩

31. Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I pp. 113–14. ↩

32. Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I pp. 165–68; T. H. Huxley, Hume (English Men of Letters, London: Macmillan, 1879), p. 25. ↩ ↩²

33. David Hume to William Mure of Caldwell, Edinburgh, 4 August 1744: Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I p. 167. ↩

34. Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I pp. 169–70. ↩

35. Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I pp. 350–51. ↩

36. Hume, "My Own Life", p. 4; Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I pp. 370–71; Huxley, Hume, p. 33. ↩

37. Hume, "My Own Life", pp. 2–3. ↩

38. Hume, "My Own Life", p. 3; Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I p. 63 note 1. ↩

39. David Hume, Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, Section X: Hume, Enquiries concerning the Human Understanding…, p. 114 (Selby-Bigge 1902). ↩

40. David Hume, Enquiry, Section X, Part I: Hume, Enquiries concerning the Human Understanding…, pp. 115–16. ↩

41. David Hume, Enquiry, Section X, Part II: Hume, Enquiries concerning the Human Understanding…, p. 130. ↩

42. David Hume, Enquiry, end of Section X: Hume, Enquiries concerning the Human Understanding…, p. 131. ↩

43. George Campbell, minister and Principal of Marischal College, Aberdeen, Dissertation on Miracles (1762), Advertisement: Campbell, Dissertation on Miracles, (1834 ed.), Advertisement; 1762 ed. pp. v–vi. ↩

44. Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I pp. 325–27. ↩

45. David Hume to Gilbert Elliot, Ninewells, 19 February 1751: Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I p. 326. ↩

46. David Hume to Gilbert Elliot, 10 March 1751: Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I p. 332. ↩

47. David Hume, The Natural History of Religion (1757), in the edition with an introduction by John M. Robertson (London: A. and H. Bradlaugh Bonner, 1889), as put online by the Online Library of Liberty, Sect. II. ↩

48. David Hume, Natural History of Religion, Section II: Hume, Natural History of Religion, Sect. II (1889 Bradlaugh Bonner ed.). ↩

49. Hume, Natural History of Religion, Introduction. ↩

50. Hume, Natural History of Religion, Sect. XV. ↩

51. David Hume, Natural History of Religion, Introduction: Hume, Natural History of Religion, Introduction. ↩

52. David Hume, Natural History of Religion, Section XV: Hume, Natural History of Religion, Sect. XV. ↩

53. Hume, Natural History of Religion, Sect. IV; Huxley, Hume, pp. 159–60. ↩

54. David Hume, Natural History of Religion, Section IV: Hume, Natural History of Religion, Sect. IV; discussed Huxley pp. 159–60. ↩

55. Grose, Essays, p. 61 (Warburton's Unpublished Papers p. 309). ↩

56. William Warburton, divine (later Bishop of Gloucester), to the publisher Andrew Millar, 7 February 1757, before the Natural History appeared: Grose, Essays, p. 61 (Warburton's Unpublished Papers p. 309). ↩

57. David Hume, "Of the Immortality of the Soul" and "Of Suicide," suppressed in 1756–57 and first printed 1777 and 1783, in Green and Grose, Essays, vol. II, pp. 399–406 and from p. 406, pp. 399 and 406. ↩

58. Hill, Letters of David Hume to…, pp. 230–31. ↩ ↩²

59. David Hume to William Strahan, Edinburgh, 25 January 1772: Hill, Letters of David Hume to…, p. 230. ↩

60. Hill, Letters of David Hume to…, pp. 230–31 and p. xlii; Grose, Essays, pp. 65–67. ↩

61. Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, vol. I pp. 327–32. ↩ ↩²

62. David Hume, Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (first published 1779), reprinted with an introduction by Bruce M'Ewen (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1907), pp. 1–191, p. 134. ↩

63. Philo, in Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, Part X: Hume, Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, p. 134 (M'Ewen 1907). ↩

64. Grose, Essays, p. 51. ↩

65. Grose, Essays, p. 77 (Burton II pp. 489 ff.). ↩

66. Hume, "My Own Life", pp. 6–7. ↩

67. Denis Diderot, Lettres à Mademoiselle Volland, in Oeuvres complètes, ed. J. Assézat and M. Tourneux, vol. XVIII (Paris: Garnier, 1876), letter XCIII, 6 October 1765, with the editors' note [170] citing Samuel Romilly's Memoirs. Project Gutenberg #50605,, letter XCIII. ↩

68. Denis Diderot to Sophie Volland, 6 October 1765: Diderot, Lettres à Mademoiselle Volland, Lettres à Mademoiselle Volland, letter XCIII (Assézat-Tourneux, vol. XVIII). ↩

69. Diderot, Lettres à Mademoiselle Volland, letter XCIII, note [170. ↩

70. David Hume, as told by Romilly (French as given by the editors of Diderot): Diderot, Lettres à Mademoiselle Volland, letter XCIII, note [170] (Assézat-Tourneux 1876), citing Samuel Romilly, Memoirs. Not checked against the original (no). ↩

71. Hume, "My Own Life", pp. 7–8; Grose, Essays, p. 80. ↩

72. Hume, "My Own Life", pp. 2, 4, 8. ↩

73. Grose, Essays, p. 77; Hill, Letters of David Hume to…, p. 335 note 14. ↩

74. Grose, Essays, p. 78; Hill, Letters of David Hume to…, pp. 335–36 note 15. ↩

75. Hill, Letters of David Hume to…, pp. 329–30. ↩

76. David Hume to William Strahan, Bath, 8 June 1776: Hill, Letters of David Hume to…, p. 330. ↩

77. Hill, Letters of David Hume to…, p. 337; pp. 335–36. ↩

78. Adam Smith to William Strahan, Kirkcaldy, 9 November 1776, in Green and Grose, Essays, vol. I, pp. 9–14 (first printed with the Life, 1777), pp. 10–11. ↩

79. David Hume, in jest, to Adam Smith (as reported by Smith): Strahan, Essays, p. 11. ↩

80. Strahan, Essays, p. 13 (Black to Smith, 26 August 1776). ↩

81. Strahan, Essays, pp. 13–14. ↩

82. Adam Smith to William Strahan, 9 November 1776: Strahan, Essays, p. 14. ↩

83. James Boswell, Life of Johnson, ed. G. Birkbeck Hill (Oxford, 1887), vol. III, vol. III p. 153 (Hill's edition). ↩

84. Samuel Johnson, to James Boswell, 16 September 1777 (Boswell, a believer troubled by Hume's calm, had said it "shocked me much"): Boswell, Life of Johnson (Hill), vol. III p. 153. ↩

85. Grose, Essays, p. 68; James Beattie, An Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth, in Opposition to Sophistry and Scepticism (Edinburgh; scan dated 1805, Denham and Dick), p. 313 note. ↩

86. George Horne (printed "Dr. Home"), Oxford divine, A Letter to Adam Smith (1777), sarcastic: Grose, Essays, p. 68 (quoted by Grose; original not seen). Not checked against the original (no). ↩

87. Hume, Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, M'Ewen Introduction; 1779 ed. title page; Grose, Essays, pp. 77–78. ↩

88. Hume, Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, pp. 189–91. ↩

89. Philo, Dialogues, Part XII: Hume, Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, pp. 189–90. ↩

90. Philo, Dialogues, Part XII (last speech): Hume, Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, p. 191. ↩

91. Huxley, Hume, p. 60; Leslie Stephen, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1876), vol. I, ch. on Hume, vol. I pp. 311–12. ↩