Hume and the Historiography of Science

Abstract

The period in which the people of Christendom were the lowest sunk in ignorance, and consequently in disorders of every kind, may justly be fixed at the eleventh century, about the age of William the Conqueror; and from that era, the sun of science beginning to reascend, threw out many gleams of light, which preceded the full morning when letters were revived in the fifteenth century. (David Hume, History of England, II, 508) In this essay I shall examine David Hume's historiographical category of (whenever I refer to this concept with the word, it shall be capitalized) and its application to important figures and institutions in the history of science that appear in his History of England. This aspect of Hume's thought has not been given much attention, at least not in reference to Hume' s History. Its six volumes were published between 1754 and 1762, a time when we first see the emergence of the history of science, and Hume played a part in narrating that beginning even though it has gone largely unnoticed. From the over forty Characters in the History we find ones such as Francis Bacon, the Royal Society, the French Academy of Science, Robert Boyle, William Harvey, and Isaac Newton. Hume evidently intended his Characters to be adopted by future historians.' By Character Hume means an account of eminent persons or groups which he reduces to types associated with their profession or contribution (in this case science), their station in life, and their relation to the government or reign. Characters form an integral part of his historical narrative