ABSTRACT
Scholarship on David Hume’s political economy generally positions him in
the broader context of his European and English predecessors. Hume’s essays themselves give little indication that he wrote as a Scot with Scotland
in mind. His political-economic essays, excluding the essay on population,
contain explicit references to 30 ancient authors, at least a dozen English writers,
and nearly as many from the continent. Hume cited only two Scots-John
Law and Dr. John Arbuthnot.1 Hume preferred to make general statements
unrelated to specific social contexts and often cited an ancient example in
preference to a modern one. He seldom mentioned a contemporary case if
he could find an older one. This approach facilitated understanding of his works abroad, but also made them look far less rooted in Scottish discus-
sion than I believe they were. There is a very Scottish orientation to much of
the practical and theoretical material he wrote, but it was masked by the
generality with which Hume thought and the discretion with which he
wrote.2 The evidence for this claim is largely circumstantial but nevertheless
abundant. There was of course much in the essays that did not pertain to
Scotland, but there is enough material to support the view that Hume
had Scots in mind for significant portions of his theoretical analyses and policy recommendations.
