THE LIFE
OF
DAVID HUME.
CHAPTER I.
1711-1734. Æt. 0-23.
Birth—Parentage—His own account of his Ancestors—Local associations of Ninewells—Education—Studies—Early Correspondence—The Ramsays—Specimen of his early Writings—Essay on Chivalry—Why he deserted the Law—Early ambition to found a School of Philosophy—Letter to a Physician describing his studies and habits—Criticism on the Letter—Supposition that it was addressed to Dr. Cheyne—Hume goes to Bristol.
David Hume was born at Edinburgh, on the 26th of April,[1:1] 1711. He was the second son of Joseph Hume, or Home, proprietor of the estate of Ninewells, in the parish of Chirnside, in Berwickshire. His mother was a daughter of Sir David Falconer of Newton, who filled the office of Lord President of the Court of Session from 1682 to 1685, and is known to lawyers as the collector of a series of decisions of the Court of Session, published in 1701. His son, the brother of Hume's mother, succeeded to the barony of Halkerton in 1727. Mr. Hume the elder, was a member of the Faculty of Advocates.[1:2] He appears,
however, if he ever intended to follow the legal profession as a means of livelihood, to have early given up that view, and to have lived, as his eldest son John afterwards did, the life of a retired country gentleman.