10 HUME I 



being tall, lean, and raw-boned, Hume says he 

 became sturdy and robust, with & ruddy com- 

 plexion and a cheerful countenance eating, 

 sleeping, and feeling well, except that the capacity 

 for intense mental application seemed to be gone. 

 He, therefore, determined to seek out a more 

 active life ; and, though he could not and would 

 not " quit his pretensions to learning, but with his 

 last breath," he resolved "to lay them aside for 

 some time, in order the more effectually to resume 

 them." 



The careers open to a poor Scottish gentleman 

 in those days were very few ; and, as Hume's 

 option lay between a travelling tutorship and a 

 stool in a merchant's office, he chose the latter. 



"And having got recommendation to a considerable trader 

 in Bristol, I am just now hastening thither, with a resolution 

 to forget myself, and everything that is past, to engage myself, 

 as far as is possible, in that course of life, and to toss about 

 the world from one pole to the other, till I leave this distemper 

 behind me." l 



But it was all of no use Nature would have 

 her way and in the middle of 1736, David 

 Hume, aged twenty-three, without a profession or 

 any assured means of earning a guinea; and 

 having doubtless, by his apparent vacillation, but 

 real tenacity of purpose, once more earned the 



1 One cannot but be reminded of young Descartes' renunciation 

 of study for soldiering. 



