David Hume

Edinburgh again today for an appointment this morning Once done, I ventured into the Old Calton Cemetery where all the city's past great and mighty seem to be laid to rest.

These silk flowers soon caught my eye as they adorned the padlocked entrance gate to a huge tomb (or rather mausoleum) belonging to a David Hume.

Some later research reveals that David Hume (1711 - 1766) was a historian and philosopher and a household name across Europe at the time of his death. Being a strong influence on many other thinkers and public figures during that era it seems he was rather unpopular and when he died there was strong public hostility towards him, apparently due to his professed atheism. As a result, this tomb had to be guarded for eight days after David Hume's burial.

In his will Hume requested that a "Monument be built over my body ... with an Inscription containing only my Name and the Year of my Birth and Death, leaving it to Posterity to add the Rest."

It would be interesting to know who, more recently, left the flowers on the padlocked gate - obviously someone with a little more respect and understanding of David Hume's thinking than those in the past.