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The Life of David Hume

Ernest C. Mossner

Abstract

This biography of the great thinker and writer, David Hume, was first published in 1954, and updated in 1980. This life story is now reissued in paperback, in response to an overwhelming interest in Hume's ideas. Containing more than a simple biography, this work is also a study of intellectual reaction in the eighteenth century. Included in this new edition are a detailed bibliography, index, and textual supplements.

Keywords: biography, David Hume, intellectual reaction, eighteenth century

Bibliographic Information

Print publication date: 2001 Print ISBN-13: 9780199243365
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2011 DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199243365.001.0001

Authors

Affiliations are at time of print publication.

Ernest C. Mossner, author
University of Texas

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Contents

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Front Matter

Title Pages

Dedication

Preface 1980

Preface 1954

List of Abbreviations and References

PART 1 Student of Humanity 1711–1744

Chapter 1 Man of Letters

Chapter 2 The Humes of Ninewells

Chapter 3 Boyhood at Ninewells

Chapter 4 Student Days at Edinburgh

Chapter 5 Law versus Literature

Chapter 6 Disease of the Learned

Chapter 7 Recovery through Catharsis

Chapter 8 Tranquillity in France

Chapter 9 Fever of Publication

Chapter 10 A Treatise of Human Nature

Chapter 11 Essays Moral and Political

Part II Observer of Human Nature 1744–1749

Chapter 12 Academic Illusion

Chapter 13 The Unfortunate Tutor

Chapter 14 Spectator to a Rebellion

Chapter 15 A Military Campaign

Chapter 16 A Military Embassy

Part III Distinguished Man of Letters 1749–1763

Chapter 17 Achievement of Ambition

Chapter 18 Leisure and Laughter

Chapter 19 Citizen of Edinburgh

Chapter 20 Political Discourses

Chapter 21 Pax Ecclesiastica

Chapter 22 The Opposition Gathers

Chapter 23 The History of England

Chapter 24 Four Dissertations

Chapter 25 Drum Ecclesiastic

Chapter 26 The Bard and the Church

Chapter 27 Scotland’s Augustans

Chapter 28 The Indifference of England

Part IV Citizen of the World 1763–1769

Chapter 29 Scotland for Ever?

Chapter 30 The Call of France

Chapter 31 The Adulation of France

Chapter 32 The Comtesse De Boufflers

Chapter 33 The Philosophes

Chapter 34 Embassy Secretary

Chapter 35 Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Chapter 36 Under-Secretary of State

Part V “Saint David of Scotland” 1769–1776

Chapter 37 Autumnal Serenity

Chapter 38 Disturbers of the Peace

Chapter 39 Death Comes for the Philosopher

Chapter 40 The Dignity of Human Nature

End Matter

Appendix A Hume’s My Own Life1

Appendix B The Humes of Ninewells

Appendix C Rankenian Club

Appendix D William Warburton

Appendix E Cancels in Four Dissertations

Appendix F The Rousseau-Hume Affaire

Appendix G Hume’s Removal from James’s Court

Appendix H Naming of ST David Street

Appendix I Posthumous Controversy over Hume

Textual Supplements

Authorities Cited

Authorities Cited

General Bibliography

Explanatory Note

Index