Librarian of the day

David Hume (1711-1776)

Described by no less an authority than the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy as the “most important philosopher ever to write in English” served as librarian to the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh between 1752 and 1757, where he found the time to write his History of England.

Born in Edinburgh, the young David was something of a child prodigy, attending the University of Edinburgh before his 12th birthday. Rejecting a career in law, Hume spent time in England, and then France, where after many discussions with the Jesuits of La Fléche College, he wrote A Treatise of Human Nature. Although recognised today as a widely and deeply influential work, Hume himself had no illusions concerning its reception at the time stating "It fell dead-born from the press, without reaching such distinction as even to excite a murmur among the zealots". It did however attract sufficient notice to mark him as a sceptic and an atheist in a time and a place that looked unfavourably upon such attitudes. As recently as 15 years before his birth, an 18 year old Edinburgh university student named Thomas Aitkenhead was hanged for charging that Christianity, and indeed theology in general was a load of “nonsense”. Thankfully Hume was not subjected to the same fate, but his atheism denied him a number of academic positions. Instead of settling into academia, Hume accompanied his diplomat cousin on trips to France and Italy, where in 1748, Philosophical Essays concerning Human Understanding (later published as An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding) was written. After returning to Edinburgh in 1752, in his own words "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." Hume’s time as a librarian was controversial, and after pressure from “zealots” he resigned in 1757. In 1763 he moved to Paris as private secretary to the British Ambassador, where he befriended the likes of Diderot and Rousseau. The latter accompanied Hume back to England in 1766, before the friendship ended with a paranoid Rousseau accusing Hume of masterminding an international anti-Rousseau conspiracy. Hume moved back to Edinburgh in 1769 and died in 1776, not before arranging the posthumous publication of the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, his most controversial work.

In his writings Hume questioned ideas of personal identity arguing that there is no enduring "self". He dismissed standard accounts of causality asserting that our ideas of cause and effect (falsely) come from our experience and not though reasoning. Hume argued against accepting the testimonies of seemingly miraculous events, unless the possibility of falsehood of those testimonies are even more miraculous and as a consequence, suggests the rejection of religions that are founded on such testimonies. Hume provided powerful criticisms of the standard theistic proofs for the existence of God, including the argument from design. Reinforcing his atheistic reputation, he also advocated purely secular moral theories, basing morality in the pleasing and useful consequences that result from our actions

Hume’s influence on modern philosophy cannot be understated. Among the many thinkers who acknowledge debts to Hume are Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant (another librarian!) Jeremy Bentham and Charles Darwin.

To sum up his genius here is a quote from the man himself...

“The plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), `That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish; and even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force, which remains, after deducting the inferior.' When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.”