IJUME, DAVID, an eminent historian, metaphysician, and general literary character, was the younger son of a very respectable Scottish family, and was born at Edin burgh on the 26th of April 1711. He lost his father when an infant, and the care of his education devolved on his mother, whom he describes as a woman of great merit, who performed in a most exemplary manner the duties of au only parent. In his youth he made a creditable ap pearance as a scholar, and acquired a high ardour for lite rature. This did not, as often happens, subside as soon as those more serious occupations to which, in the common calculations of mankind, literature is reckoned preparatory and subservient, were presented to is mind. His fortune being slender, he was destined to the profession of the law. But this pursuit, with all the prospects of honour and wealth which it presents to an aspiring mind, had not for him sufficient charms to eclipse the attractions of clas sical literature and philosophy. Nor was Mr Hume even content to cultivate the two pursuits in conjunction, the one as the means of his future livelihood, and the other as hav ing a more immediate relation to man as a thinking being. The contrast of their intrinsic character had the effect of disgusting him with the study of law, which he wholly ne glected in order to devote himself to literature. He there fore renounced entirely these professional pursuits. Not entertaining the hope, however, of supporting himself com fortably by literary occupations, he was prevailed on, at the age of twenty-three, to make a feeble attempt to enter on a mercantile employment in the city of Bristol. This he soon relinquished, as totally unsuited to his turn of mind ; and at last, combining a regard for his favourite studies with the dictates of prudence, he formed a plan for leading the life of a literary man. He resided for two years in France, first at Rheims, and afterwards at La Fleche in Anjou, where he practised a strict economy, and prosecuted with much industry his literary studies. In this retreat he probably had not access to extensive libra ries, and depended chiefly on a small collection of his own, with such assistance as was furnished by the convents of the country. Here he was chiefly occupied in the compo
sition of that ingenious, but singular and somewhat para doxical work, his Treatise on Human Nature. He ac knowledges that, in the midst of these studies, he was not certain of the utility of his labours, and was in some mea sure puzzled by the interminable problems which his own ingenuity had raised; yet he gave himself up to the bent of an inquisitive mind, regardless of conclusions, trusting that investigation, if free from bias, could not be too keen or persevering, and that all its apparent disadvantages must be accidental and temporary. He studied human nature in a point of view which was in a great measure his own, without consulting the prevailing taste, either in the choice of his subject, or in the style and manner in he chose to handle it. He has been accused of a passion for singularity ; but we find him in this instance regretting, that opinions which he found inevitable were so different from those which prevailed around him. He published his treatise in London in 1738, and then returned to his friends in Scotland. But all the visions of a sanguine author were now severely mortified. He had been pre pared to encounter opposition and outcry. These lie ex pected, and he seems to have pleased himself with con trasting his own unanswerable theorems with the shal low replies which would be zealously and from nume rous quarters elicited. But his work excited no inte rest ; it was neither known nor read, and, as he himself expresses it, "fell dead-boin from the press." He con tinued, however, to value the opinions which it con tained; and endeavoured, by various persevering efforts, to conciliate to them the public attention. The admi rers of his metaphysics reckon it the most profound of his works, and consider his subsequent writings on the same subject as losing in depth what they gained in popu larity of manner.