Editing David Hume (section)

== Career ==
Despite having noble ancestry, Hume had no source of income and no learned profession by age 25. As was common at his time, he became a [[merchant]]'s assistant, despite having to leave his native Scotland. He travelled via [[Bristol]] to [[La Flèche]] in [[Duchy of Anjou|Anjou]], France. There he had frequent discourse with the [[Jesuits]] of the [[College of La Flèche]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Huxley|first= Thomas Henry|date= 2011 |orig-date=1879|title=Hume|series=[[English Men of Letters]]|volume= 39|location= Cambridge|publisher= [[Cambridge University Press]]|isbn=978-1-108-03477-7|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eH67vOxyjEYC&pg=PA7 |pages = 7–8}}</ref>

Hume was derailed in his attempts to start a university career by protests over his alleged "[[atheism]]",<ref>Hume, David. 2007 [1748]. ''[[An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding]]'', edited by [[Peter Millican|P. Millican]]. Oxford: [[Oxford University Press]]. {{ISBN|978-0-19-152635-0}}. {{OCLC|314220887}}. pp. lxiii–lxiv.</ref><ref name=":5" /> also lamenting that his literary debut, ''[[A Treatise of Human Nature]]'', "fell dead-born from the press."<ref name=":2" /> However, he found literary success in his lifetime as an essayist, and a career as a librarian at the [[University of Edinburgh]]. These successes provided him much needed income at the time. His tenure there, and the access to research materials it provided, resulted in Hume's writing the massive six-volume ''[[The History of England (Hume book)|The History of England]]'', which became a bestseller and the definitive history of England. For over 60 years, Hume was the dominant interpreter of English history.<ref name=":7">{{Cite book|last=Trevor-Roper|first=Hugh|title=History and the Enlightenment|publisher=[[Yale University Press]]|year=2010}}</ref>{{Rp|120}} He described his "love for literary fame" as his "ruling passion"<ref name=":2" /> and judged his two late works, the so-called "first" and "second" enquiries, ''[[An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding]]'' and ''[[An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals]]'', as his greatest literary and philosophical achievements.<ref name=":2" /> He would ask of his contemporaries to judge him on the merits of the later texts alone, rather than on the more radical formulations of his early, youthful work, dismissing his philosophical debut as [[juvenilia]]: "A work which the Author had projected before he left College."<ref>Hume, David. 1777. [https://web.archive.org/web/20150813074441/http://davidhume.org/texts/etv2.html ''Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects'' 2]. London. Archived from the [http://davidhume.org/texts/etv2.html original] on 13 August 2015. Retrieved 18 May 2020.</ref> Despite Hume's protestations, a consensus exists today that his most important arguments and philosophically distinctive doctrines are found in the original form they take in the ''Treatise''. Though he was only 23 years old when starting this work, it is now regarded as one of the most important in the history of [[Western philosophy]].<ref name=":6" />

=== 1730s ===
Hume worked for four years on his first major work, ''A Treatise of Human Nature'', subtitled "Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects", completing it in 1738 at age 28. Although many scholars today consider the ''Treatise'' to be Hume's most important work and one of the most important books in Western philosophy, critics in Great Britain at the time described it as "abstract and unintelligible".{{sfn|Mossner|1950|p=195}} As Hume had spent most of his savings during those four years,{{sfn|Mossner|1950|p=193}} he resolved "to make a very rigid frugality supply [his] deficiency of fortune, to maintain unimpaired [his] independency, and to regard every object as contemptible except the improvements of [his] talents in literature".<ref name=":8">Hume, David. 1993 [1734]. "[[s:A kind of history of my life|A Kind of History of My Life]]." In ''The Cambridge Companion to Hume'', edited by D. F. Norton. Cambridge: [[Cambridge University Press]]. {{ISBN|978-0-521-38710-1}}.</ref>{{Rp|352}}

Despite the disappointment, Hume later wrote: "Being naturally of a cheerful and [[Humorism|sanguine]] temper, I soon recovered from the blow and prosecuted with great ardour my studies in the country."<ref name=":8" />{{Rp|352}} There, in an attempt to make his larger work better known and more intelligible, he published the ''[[A Treatise of Human Nature (Abstract)|An Abstract of a Book lately Published]]'' as a summary of the main doctrines of the ''Treatise'', without revealing its authorship.{{sfn|Hume|1740}} This work contained the same ideas, but with a shorter and clearer explanation. Although there has been some academic speculation as to the pamphlet's true author,{{sfn|Norton|1993|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=vv5ERpFQBCoC&dq=hume+abstract+author&pg=PA31 p. 31]}} it is generally regarded as Hume's creation.{{sfn|Redman|1997|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=1faeMedY8k8C&dq=An+Abstract+of+a+Book+lately+Published%3B+Entitled&pg=PA175 p. 175, footnote 19]}}

=== 1740s ===
After the publication of ''Essays Moral and Political'' in 1741{{mdash}}included in the later edition as ''[[Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary]]''{{mdash}}Hume applied for the Chair of Pneumatics and Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. However, the position was given to [[William Cleghorn]]<ref>Nobbs, Douglas. 1965. "The Political Ideas of William Cleghorn, Hume's Academic Rival." ''[[Journal of the History of Ideas]]'' 26(4):575–586. {{doi|10.2307/2708501}}. {{JSTOR|2708501}}. p. 575.</ref> after Edinburgh ministers petitioned the town council not to appoint Hume because he was seen as an atheist.<ref>Lorkowski, C. M. "[https://web.archive.org/web/20170517005711/http://www.iep.utm.edu/hume-rel/ David Hume: Religion]." ''[[Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]''.</ref>
[[File:David Hume 1754.jpeg|thumb|left|An engraving of Hume from the first volume of his ''The History of England'', 1754]]
In 1745, during the [[Jacobite rising of 1745|Jacobite risings]], Hume tutored the [[George Vanden-Bempde, 3rd Marquess of Annandale|Marquess of Annandale]], an engagement that ended in disarray after about a year. The Marquess could not follow with Hume's lectures, his father saw little need for philosophy, and on a personal level, the Marquess found Hume's dietary tendencies to be bizarre.{{sfn|Mossner|1950|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=7HXJAqqNl4QC&dq=annandale+lunatic+hume&pg=PA378 p. 172]}} Hume then started his great historical work, ''The History of England'', which took fifteen years and ran to over a million words. During this time, he was also involved with the Canongate Theatre through his friend [[John Home]], a preacher.{{sfn|Fieser|2005|loc=[https://www.google.co.uk/search?tbm=bks&hl=en&q=canongate+theatre&gws_rd=ssl#hl=en&tbm=bks&q=canongate+theatre+hume+fieser p. xxii]}}

In this context, he associated with [[James Burnett, Lord Monboddo|Lord Monboddo]] and other thinkers of the [[Scottish Enlightenment]] in Edinburgh. From 1746, Hume served for three years as secretary to General [[James St Clair]], who was envoy to the courts of [[Turin]] and [[Vienna]]. At that time Hume wrote ''Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding'', later published as ''An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding''. Often called the ''First Enquiry'', it proved little more successful than the ''Treatise'', perhaps because of the publication of his short autobiography ''My Own Life'', which "made friends difficult for the first Enquiry".<ref name = buckle>Buckle, Stephen. 1999. "Hume's biography and Hume's philosophy."  ''[[Australasian Journal of Philosophy]]'' 77:1–25. {{doi|10.1080/00048409912348781}}.</ref> By the end of this period Hume had attained his well-known corpulent stature; "the good table of the General and the prolonged inactive life had done their work", leaving him "a man of tremendous bulk".{{sfn|Mossner|1980|p=[[iarchive:lifeofdavidhume0000moss/page/204|204]]}}

In 1749 he went to live with his brother in the countryside, although he continued to associate with the aforementioned Scottish Enlightenment figures.

=== 1750s–1760s ===
Hume's religious views were often suspect and, in the 1750s, it was necessary for his friends to avert a trial against him on the charge of [[heresy in Christianity|heresy]], specifically in an ecclesiastical court. However, he "would not have come and could not be forced to attend if he said he was not a member of the Established Church".{{sfn|Emerson|2009|p=244}} Hume failed to gain the [[Professor of Moral Philosophy (Glasgow)|chair of philosophy]] at the [[University of Glasgow]] due to his religious views. By this time, he had published the ''Philosophical Essays'', which were decidedly anti-religious. This represented a turning point in his career and the various opportunities made available to him. Even [[Adam Smith]], his personal friend who had vacated the Glasgow philosophy chair, was against his appointment out of concern that public opinion would be against it.<ref>Rivers, Isabel. 2000. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=VSqj2pyBN3sC Reason, Grace, and Sentiment: A Study of the Language of Religion and Ethics in England, 1660–1780]'' '''2'''. Cambridge: [[Cambridge University Press]]. {{ISBN|978-0-511-48447-6}}. {{doi|10.1017/CBO9780511484476}}. p. 255.</ref> In 1761, all his works were banned on the '''''[[Index Librorum Prohibitorum]]'''''.<ref>{{Cite web|title=BFE – Censored publications – Search result|url=http://search.beaconforfreedom.org/search/censored_publications/result.html?author=Hume&country=8052&Search=Search|access-date=2 December 2021|website=search.beaconforfreedom.org|archive-date=2 December 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211202194920/http://search.beaconforfreedom.org/search/censored_publications/result.html?author=Hume&country=8052&Search=Search|url-status=usurped}}</ref>

Hume returned to Edinburgh in 1751. In the following year, the [[Faculty of Advocates]] hired him to be their Librarian, a job in which he would receive little to no pay, but which nonetheless gave him "the command of a large library".<ref group="lower-roman">"The Faculty of Advocates chose me their Librarian, an office from which I received little or no emolument, but which gave me the command of a large library." ([[#CITEREFHume1778|Hume 1776]]:11).</ref><ref name=":2" />{{Rp|11}} This resource enabled him to continue historical research for ''The History of England''. Hume's volume of ''Political Discourses'', written in 1749 and published by [[Alexander Donaldson (bookseller)|Kincaid & Donaldson]] in 1752,<ref>Sher, Richard B. 2008. [https://books.google.com/books?id=gB9liJb5o7UC ''The Enlightenment and the Book: Scottish Authors and Their Publishers in Eighteenth-Century Britain, Ireland, and Americ''a], (''Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology'' ''Series''). Chicago: [[University of Chicago Press]]. {{ISBN|978-0-226-75254-9}}. p. 312.</ref> was the only work he considered successful on first publication.<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|10}}

In 1753, Hume moved from his house on Riddles Court on the [[Lawnmarket]] to a house on the [[Canongate]] at the other end of the [[Royal Mile]]. Here he lived in a tenement known as Jack's Land, immediately west of the still surviving Shoemakers Land.<ref>grant's Old and New Edinburgh vol.3 p.9</ref>

Eventually, with the publication of his six-volume ''The History of England'' between 1754 and 1762, Hume achieved the fame that he coveted.{{sfn|Emerson|2009|p=98}} The volumes traced events from the [[Roman conquest of Britain|Invasion of Julius Caesar]] to the [[Glorious Revolution|Revolution of 1688]] and was a bestseller in its day. Hume was also a longtime friend of bookseller [[Andrew Millar]], who sold Hume's ''History'' (after acquiring the rights from Scottish bookseller Gavin Hamilton<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.millar-project.ed.ac.uk/manuscripts/html_output/2.html|title=The manuscripts, Letter from David Hume to Andrew Millar, 12 April, 1755.|website=millar-project.ed.ac.uk|access-date=1 June 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160115092006/http://www.millar-project.ed.ac.uk/manuscripts/html_output/2.html|archive-date=15 January 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref>), although the relationship was sometimes complicated. Letters between them illuminate both men's interest in the success of the ''History''. In 1762 Hume moved from Jack's Land on the [[Canongate]] to James Court on the [[Lawnmarket]]. He sold the house to [[James Boswell]] in 1766.<ref>Grants Old and New Edinburgh vol 1, p. 97</ref>