The philosophical opinions of Mr Hume subjected him to many controversial attacks. To these he never published any formal reply, but satisfied himself with making occasional private observations, and availing him self of public criticism for amending his works in subse quent editions.
In the manner in which he expressed himself towards those who wrote against him, he spewed himself extreme ly sensible to the pleasing influence of civility, and the galling effects of disrespect or rudeness. He was pleased with Dr Campbell's Essay on Miracles, with an anonymous tract, entitled A Delineation of Morality, written by Mr Balfour, an advocate and professor of moral philosophy. But such severities as those of Hurd, Warburton, and Beattie, teeming with petulance and abuse, produced in his mind the strongest feelings of alienation and contempt. His good humour probably too much depended on the cultivation of that radical hauteur which sometimes forms the man of fashion, and was too little cherished by that steady forbearance, and that system of universal allowances, which would have better suited the character of a philo sopher.
The progress of his bodily disorder was rapid. In April 1776, he set out for London at the intreaty of his friends, who hoped that a long journey might improve his health. At Morpeth he met with Dr Adam Smith, and Mr Home, the author of the tragedy of Douglas. The latter remain ed with hint in England, while Dr Smith returned to the north. Mr Hume finding himself seemingly improved when he arrived in London, went next to Bath to drink the waters, which contributed still farther to a temporary re covery. But his complaint relapsed with additional vio lence, and he returned to Edinburgh under a deliberate ex pectation of soon finishing his days. He employed him self in correcting his works, reading books of amusement, and conversing with his friends. He encouraged his friends to speak to him in the frankest manner as to a dying man. It is evident that he did not entertain a belief in any future state. Yet the constant expressions of a hope of this sort which a man is accustomed to hear in the course of early education, and in the common intercourse of life, render the mind familiar with an imagery founded on that hope to which the most sceptical occasionally recur for amuse ment, even while they reject a belief which appears to them incongruous. Some of them playfully indulge in suppos ing themselves to have been imbued with the belief of a mythology belonging to a different age or country, and thus balance the influence of present systems against that of others. Mr Flume had too much respect for society to indulge in any open scurrility directed exclusively against the religious sentiments of the age : but he playfully re tailed the conversations which were likely to take place between himself and Charon, the ferryman of the river Styx, at the moment of his transit from the present to the unknown world. He did not affect any great wish to speak on the subject for the purpose of displaying his indiffer ence or his courage, and only touched on it occasionally in reply to the enquiries of his friends. His strength very gradually declined. When no longer able to converse, he continued to read in a state of composure ; and after four or five days passed under this degree of debility, he died on the 25th of August 1776.
In stature Mr Hume was above the ordinary size. His countenance was open and free, a just picture of his bene volent and cheerful temper. His features were large, and were exempt from that trifling smartness and habitual in tensity of expression which characterise a bustling fashion able ambition. Lord Charlemont, on this account, consi dered them as blank and unmeaning, and wondered that the ladies at the court of Turin valued so much his com pany and conversation. His attractions seem to have con sisted in the liberality of his mind exhibited in the jolly openness of his countenance. See Hardy's Memoirs of Lard Charlemont, and the critique on them given in the Edin burgh Review.
The manner in which he died has sometimes been made the theme of injudicious comment, for the purpose of elu cidating the merits of particular views of philosophy or re ligion. The equanimity displayed in his last moments has been boastfully represented as a triumph to infidelity, and a proof that a philosopher may die in tranquillity. Such were the sentiments inculcated in a tract, entitled An Apo logy for the Life and Writings of David Hume. But the eagerness with which a single instance of this kind is grasped at might be plausibly construed into a presump tion of the general fallacy of the remark. On the other hand, it is equally unfavourable to candour to embrace, with exclusive keenness, those anecdotes, whether well or ill supported, which represent persons of these sentiments as doomed to the agonies of remorse in the hour of death. This spirit has given rise to some misrepresentations of fact, which fall under the character of pious frauds. We are told, that though a man may lead the life of a fool, by advocating the cause of Deism, yet a fool he cannot die ; and then an anecdote is told of some noted infidel, which bears the marks of evident fabrication. That this direc tion of zeal is wholly superfluous and insufficient in the support of religion, we may be satisfied, when we reflect, that such anecdotes are only circulated concerning those who are infidels by profession. It is maintained that many who, from motives of policy, apparently acquiesce in the religion of the age, do not believe it in their hearts. Such persons might be supposed to labour under the double weight of infidelity and hyprocisy ; yet we hear nothing of their death-bed agonies. Allowing, therefore, facts of that kind to which we have alluded to be as general as they have been sometimes represented, they must be otherwise accounted for than by being considered as the unmingled effects of the power of truth on the human conscience. They will be explained in a more satisfactory manner, if ascribed to the influence of that contrariety which an indi vidual of solitary professions feels between himself and the rest of society, oppressing a mind bereft of its energy by the decay of nature. Weak man, even in his most vigor ous moments, needs company to support him in the enjoy ment of his opinions ; and the influence. of this principle enters much deeper into the private comfort of individuals than most men are willing to allow. 'We should always be ware of resting questions of so grave moment on data thus precarious.