Customer Reviews

The Life of David Hume

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What is there not to like about this beautifully written account of the admirable David Hume? It conveys the time (American Independence, the flowering of Scottish genius, the major development of sceptical inquiry), the places (Scotland, England, France), the people: Rousseau, the French Court but most of all Hume himself whose good humour, decency and genius can only inspire others who have the courage to question. I think the full quality of this book is portrayed by the fact that twenty years after I gave a copy to my father he quotes Humes's comments on facing death in a letter to me. A book you could never give away without keeping a copy yourself.

This is only modern biography of Hume. Very well written and researched, it concentrates on Hume's personal life and career as a man of letters. Hume is a wonderful subject for a biography; an important figure who is simultaneously a warm and attractive personality. Mossner does an excellent job of detailing Hume's personal life, friendships, and literary career. For individuals really interested in Hume, this book is a treasure trove of information. It is also a very valuable work on the intellectual culture of 18th century Scotland and the Enlightenment in general. Mossner describes very well the intellectual atmosphere of lowland Scotland, which produced not only Hume, but Adam Smith, the great chemist Joseph Black (though Mossner mentions him only as a physician), and numerous other important intellectuals. Mossner shows also the international quality of the Enlightenment. Within months of publication, Hume's Treatise on Human Nature was mentioned in German publications, and his later, more popular works were known across Europe. Hume had an international, even intercontinental (Benjamin Franklin), set of correspondents and friends. This books is a valuable companion to reading Hume's work.
What this book is not, however, is a full scale critical work. Actual discussion and analysis of Hume's important philosophical work is relatively brief. Nor is there much explicit discussion of the origins of Hume's thought in the work of prior 18th and 17th century thinkers. This biography was last revised in the late 1970s and apparently not greatly changed from the original version published in 1954. Over the course of the 20th century, Hume came to be regarded as one of the real titans of Western thought, with a corresponding increase in the secondary literature on Hume. We also know much more about the 18th century and the Enlightenment than Mossner. There is definitely a need for a major critical biography of Hume, though producing such a work could easily consume a scholar's career.

Given the price of this book - some 40% overpriced for a book of this type and lenghth - you'd think that at least the print job should be done properly. After all, this is the Oxford U Press. Well, in my copy, the ink quantity fluctuates, so that some paragraphs are dark while others light. This is a little annoying when the random contrasts have nothing to do with emphasis! Also, the back breaks so easily, that this book is effectively a pulp print. Then why the high price, pray tell me ?

Anyway, these are trivial matters. The book itself is very good. I consider it complementary to Norman Kemp Smith's study of Hume's philosophy, as it focuses on Hume the man rather than his philosophy. As Sir James Jeans said, the biography of a philosopher is not irrelevant to his thought, and Hume is no exception. (This is less true of natural scientists.) Mossner's book is particularly helpful in answering my own questions about Hume's religious views - a topic of the most controversial sort even in his own day.

I'm very impressed that Mossner pointed out the fact that Hume had inspired Einstein on his road to relativity. This little known fact was always very important in my own estimate of the great philosopher.

Here's the irony. Hume wrote his masterpiece in France, which remained the only place where he was really appreciated. Back in Scotland, he could not even find a proper job. And now, the best 20th century biography (there are good 19th century biographies) of Hume was written not by a Scotsman or even an Englishman, but by a Texan (probably) of Jewish descent. What have all these Edinburgh professors (excepting Smith, of course) been doing all these years? Given the primary sources at their disposal, why didn't they just pick up the pen to reconstruct the life of Scotland's - even Britain's - greatest non-scientific thinker? One suspects that to this day Hume is still under-appreciated in Scotland.

Mossner's biography of Hume is a labor of love.

Ernest Campbell Mossner was an English professor at the University of Texas at Austin. His biography of the Scottish empiricist and skeptical philosopher David Hume is perhaps the best and most detailed available.

Mossner notes that "Hume was the first distinguished man of letters in Britain to make a fortune from literature alone," and adds that "The young Boswell in 1762 had no hesitation in naming Hume as 'the greatest Writer in Britain.'" (Later in life, Boswell wrote, "Were it not for his infidel writings, every body would love him. He is a plain, obliging, kindhearted man.")

Concerning Hume's reputation as an infidel, "The religous beliefs of David Hume were probably lost while he was at college or shortly thereafter." Mossner notes that "it is also clear that those religious beliefs were relinquished under philosophical pressure---that Hume reasoned himself out of religion." Nevertheless, he was no polemical writer. In his own brief autobiography, Hume noted, "I had fixed a Resolution, which I inflexibly maintained, never to reply to any body; and not being very irascible in my Temper, I have easily kept myself clear of all literary Squabbles."

About Hume's famous The History of England (1826), Mossner writes, "What Hume had given the world in his 'History of England' was a broad, sweeping narrative of the national developments, philosophically coherent, artistically ordered, and pre-eminently readable. He made no pretense of 'research' scholarship but anticipated the modern synthetic historian in uniting and enlivening the sometimes ponderous research of others."

Mossner covers the famous dispute between Hume and Rousseau, after which Hume sighed, "my affair with Rousseau is now finally and totally at an end, at least on my part: for I never surely shall publish another line on that subject." Mossner notes that "In general, the world agreed that Hume had acted the part of a benevolent and virtuous friend..."

Mossner observes that "David Hume in later life, in Italy, and France, and Scotland, was to prove himself a man of normal sexual desires." Late in life, "He continued to enjoy ... the company of attractive adn vivacious women, and in his autobiography was to write with studied understatement that, 'as I took a particular Pleasure in the company of modest women, I had no reason to be displeased with the Reception I met with from them."

Hume was a well-loved person. "Hume's jests with intimate friends are legion and his letters are replete with wit and with witticisms. The topic of his own obesity ... became a perennial favorite," and "the French found Hume to be truly le bon David: and their original admiration for his intellect was consequently augmented by affection for his person."

Mossner concludes by saying that "There can, likewise, be no doubt that in his life he followed admirably his own caution: 'Be a philosopher, but amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.'"

This book is ESSENTIAL READING for anyone interested in Hume, philosophy, or the lives of philosophers.