David Hume (1711-1776) came from a family of small landowners in Berwickshire and was Educated at Edinburgh University and the Jesuit College of La Fleche, Descartes' alma mater. He began philosophical speculation at an early age and published his Treatise of Human Nature in 1739, before his thirtieth birthday. A stream of books, including Essays, Moral and Politcal (1741-42), Philosophical Essays concerning Human Understanding and An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, established his reputation as an empiricist sceptic. This reputation prevented his appointment to the Chairs of Ethics at Edinburgh on March, 1745, and of Logic at Glasgow in 1751-52. In 1752 he saw the publication of his Political Discourses, an immediate success which was translated and published in France, where his reputation was soon very high. This year also saw his appointment as Librarian of the Advocates' Library in Edinburgh, then the most important in Scotland. It enabled him to change his intellectual career. He embarked upon a History of England. The first of six volumes (on the reigns of James I and Charles I) came out in 1754, and the last two (on the House of Tudor) in 1761. It became a standard work, was well-regarded for its literary merit and remains in print.

Hume was also a diplomat, although his first foray into the field was somewhat unlikely - in 1748, he accompanied General St. Clair on a military embassy to Vienna and Turin. Lord Charlemont, upon seeing the philosopher in uniform, cruelly remarked that he resembled "a grocer of the train-bands." His second post was more exalted, being that of Secretary to the Earl of Hertford, appointed Ambassador to the French Court in 1763. He was lionized from the moment of his arrival in October, at first for his reputation but later for his simple good nature. When Lord Hertford left in July, 1765, Hume was left as chargé d'affaires, which office he executed with great competence.

Hume was also interested in politics. Not only did he write on this subject, and on economics (he was a friend of Adam Smith, who became his literary executor), but he served as an under-secretary from 1767 to 1768. His attitudes are "invariably to the Tory side," he said.
With a pension from King George and the huge sum of #1,000 a year from the sale of his books, he spent his last years in Edinburgh, where he worked on his autobiography. It was completed in April 1776; he died, probably from liver cancer, on 25th August.