That year Hume returned to Scotland. He was disappointed at the reception his book received, and soon began to think that he could do better at communicating his original and creative ideas, which were not understood. Most readers perceived the Treatise as full of paradoxes, absurdly sceptical, and a threat to established opinions about religion and morals. In 1744 Hume was encouraged to be a candidate for the Chair of Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. Opposition was mounted by some clergy and civic leaders, and pamphlets were written attacking him. Hume had taken a post as tutor to the Marquess of Annandale, who lived near St Albans. From there, he defended himself in A Letter from a Gentleman to his Friend in Edinburgh (1745) in which, writing in the third person, he summarizes his positive doctrines and replies to the charges of publishing wild and dangerous attacks on religion and morality. But his candidature for the university post failed.

Hume continued to write. He reworked some of the material from Book I of the Treatise, incorporated the essay on miracles, and published the result in 1748. Originally differently titled, this work is An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Although the main philosophical ideas are the same in this book and in the Treatise, there are significant differences in style and structure which show a development in Hume’s conception of the nature of philosophical argument. The implications of his epistemology (that is, his theory of the nature of belief and knowledge, reasoning and evidence) for religious belief are more explicit. Not only is there the discussion of the credibility of miracles, but there is a section which anticipates the Dialogues both in content and in literary form.

In 1746 Hume accepted a post as secretary to General James St Clair, who was to command a military expedition to Canada. St Clair’s plans went astray, and his force eventually made an attack on the coast of Brittany. Hume’s legal background led to his appointment as Judge Advocate in courts martial. In the following two years, he accompanied the general in military embassies to Vienna and Turin.

By 1751 Hume was back in Edinburgh. He was appointed librarian to the Faculty of Advocates, which gave him access to an extensive library. He was now at the height of his powers, and in the next dozen years published a succession of works, which at last earned him an international reputation. It was at this time that he first composed the Dialogues, together with a complementary work, The Natural History of Religion. This appeared in 1757, as one of Four Dissertations, which also included ‘Of The Passions’, the topic of Book II of the Treatise. Book III, ‘Of Morals’, was also restructured, appearing in 1751 as Enguiry Concerning the Principles of Morals – Hume believed that this was the best of all his writings. But in his lifetime Hume was probably better known for his political and historical writings than for his philosophy. (Yet it is a mistake to think of these as unconnected.) His Political Discourses, historically important in the development of both the conservative and liberal traditions, were published in 1752, and between 1754 and 1762 there appeared the six volumes of History of England. By the end of this period of his life, Hume was rich, famous, and still, in many minds, notorious.

At the end of the Seven Years War Hume was appointed private secretary to the British ambassador to France, Lord Hertford, and subsequently he was for a short time chargé d’affaires. His literary reputation in France was high. Most of his writings had already been translated, and reviews had been appearing for some years in European journals. As in Britain, Hume was praised for the clarity and elegance of his style, for his erudition, and for his powers of reasoning; but his scepticism and criticisms of religion were often condemned. Yet it is significant that he did not identify himself with the outright atheism of, for example, Baron d’Holbach.2 His position was always sceptical rather than dogmatic.

After a brief further period of public service, this time as Under-Secretary of State, Northern Department, in London, Hume retired in 1769 to Edinburgh. He had a house built for himself in the New Town, in what was as a result jokingly called St David’s Street. Here he lived until his death, devoting some of his time as was noted above to the revision of the manuscript of Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, and making arrangements for its posthumous publication.

E.