CHAPTER II 



LATER YEARS: THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND 



IN 1744, Hume's friends had endeavoured to 

 procure his nomination to the Chair of " Ethics 

 and pneumatic philosophy" 1 in the University 

 of Edinburgh. About this matter he writes to his 

 friend William Mure : 



"The accusation of heresy, deism, scepticism, atheism, &c., 

 &c., &c. was started against me ; but never took, being bore 

 down by the contrary authority of all the good company in 

 town." 



If the " good company in town " bore down the 

 first three of these charges, it is to be hoped, for 

 the sake of their veracity, that they knew their 

 candidate chiefly as the very good company that 

 he always was ; and had paid as little attention, 

 as good company usually does, to so solid a work 

 as the "Treatise." Hume expresses a naive 



1 " Pneumatic philosophy" must not be confounded with the 

 theory of elastic fluids ; though, as Scottish chairs have, before 

 now, combined natural with civil history, the mistake would be 

 pardonable. 



