Editing David Hume (section)

=== Death ===
[[File:Old Calton David Hume.jpg|thumb|David Hume's mausoleum by [[Robert Adam]] in the [[Old Calton Burial Ground]], Edinburgh]]

Diarist and biographer [[James Boswell]] saw Hume a few weeks before his death from a form of [[Stomach cancer|abdominal cancer]]. Hume told him that he sincerely believed it a "most unreasonable fancy" that there might be life after death.<ref>Weis, Charles M., and Frederick A. Pottle, eds. 1970. {{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/boswellinextreme00bosw|title=Boswell in Extremes, 1776–1778|year=1970|publisher=New York, McGraw-Hill|url-access=limited}} New York: McGraw Hill. {{OL|5217786M}}. {{LCCN|75102461}}.</ref>{{sfn|Bassett|2012|loc=[https://archive.org/details/intwomindsbiogra0000bass/page/272/mode/1up p. 272]: this meeting was dramatised in semi-fictional form for the [[BBC]] by [[Michael Ignatieff]] as ''Dialogue in the Dark''}} Hume asked that his body be interred in a "simple Roman tomb", requesting in his [[Will and testament|will]] that it be inscribed only with his name and the year of his birth and death, "leaving it to Posterity to add the Rest".{{sfn|Mossner|1980|p=591}}

David Hume died at the southwest corner of St. Andrew's Square in Edinburgh's [[New Town, Edinburgh|New Town]], at what is now 21 Saint David Street.{{sfn|Burton|1846|loc=[https://archive.org/details/lifeandcorrespo02burtgoog/page/n410 <!-- quote=hume 1767. --> pp. 384–385]}} A popular story, consistent with some historical evidence and with the help of coincidence, suggests that the street was named after Hume.{{sfn|Burton|1846|loc=[https://archive.org/details/lifeandcorrespo02burtgoog/page/n410 <!-- pg=384 quote="david street". --> p. 436, footnote 1]}}

His tomb stands, as he wished it, on the southwestern slope of [[Calton Hill]], in the [[Old Calton Cemetery]]. [[Adam Smith]] later recounted Hume's amusing speculation that he might ask [[Charon]], [[Hades]]' ferryman, to allow him a few more years of life in order to see "the downfall of some of the prevailing systems of superstition". The ferryman replied, "You loitering rogue, that will not happen these many hundred years.… Get into the boat this instant."<ref>Smith, Adam. 1789 [1776]. "[https://archive.org/stream/historyenglandf00humegoog#page/n21/mode/2up Letter from Adam Smith, LL.D. to William Strathan, Esq.]" pp. xix–xxiv in ''The History of England, from the Invasion of Julius Cæsar to the Revolution in 1688'' 1. London: [[Thomas Cadell (publisher)|Thomas Cadell]] and [[Longman]]. p. xxi.</ref>