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Hume was a Scottish author, historian, politician and philosopher who died in 1776. His writings focused on ethics, causality, free will and skirts around atheism (including why we shouldn’t believe in miracles and criticisms of Christianity.) His religious beliefs caused controversies but he dodged harsher consequences from these. The book starts with a brief biography and then delves into his career, as he focused on different topics throughout his life.

Hume was a polymath, as shown by the variety of topics he wrote on, including a massive history of England. He also worked at the British embassy in Paris. There he got into conflict with the French philosopher Rousseau. He wrote a treatise on the fight to preempt Rousseau’s treatise, with the whole ordeal as being what he considered one of the worst things to have ever happened to him.

Radical for his day, most if not all his views would be considered mundane and mainstream today.