David Hume was a very intelligent man. He was a well-known Scottish philosopher, economist, and historian. He was one of the major intellectual figures of the eighteenth century. Hume was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on the twenty-sixth of April, 1711: .

             .

             [He] was from good family, both by father and mother: [his] father"s family is a branch of the earl of Home"s or Hume"s; and [his] ancestor"s had.

             been proprietors of the estate which [his] brother posses, for several generations. [His] mother was daughter of Sir David Falconer, president of the college of justice. .

             His father, Joseph Hume, and his mother, Katherine Falconer, had grown up together as stepbrother and stepsister on the family estate of Ninewells in Berwickshire. "[His] father died when [he] was an infant, leaving [him] with an elder brother and a si.

             er, under the care of [their] mother, a woman of singular merit, who, though young and handsome, devoted herself entirely to the rearing and educating of her children" (qtd from Freeman v-vi). .

             Hume was raised by his mother and at the age of eighteen, he attended the University of Edinburgh. He was an exceptional student, and his mother, noting his brilliance, hoped he would persue a career in the law, a tradition in his family. Hume, however.

             was interested only in philosophy and "general learning" (Falcone 82).

             Hume most probably choose to study philosophy, not only because of his interest, but because during that period there was a boom in philosophical thinking. Some called it the Age of Enlightenment. During the eighteenth century, the Industrial Revolutio.

             changed economies and resulted in some changes in thinking. The most immediate changes were in the nature of production: what was produced, as well as where and how. Labor was transferred from the production of primary products to the production of m.

             ufactured goods and services. This, of course, had profound effects on economic thinking.