David Hume

David Hume (1711–1776) was a Scottish philosopher, historian and essayist, the central figure of the Scottish Enlightenment. His Treatise of Human Nature, written in France before he was thirty, argued that our beliefs about cause, the self and the world rest on custom rather than reason, and his later Enquiries and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion carried the skeptical argument into religion. Twice refused university chairs for his opinions, he earned fame and a fortune with his six-volume History of England. Hume was famous for his good nature, his bulk and his dinners, and he died in Edinburgh cheerfully and without faith, to the fascination of his friends.