David Hume

I notice that the University of Edinburgh has changed the name of a building that used to be named after David Hume, one of Britain's greatest philosophers. It has been alleged that he was a racist.

I have read a great deal of Hume's writings without ever encountering any remarks about race. I thought this remark on the BBC website significant.

"Elizabeth Lund, who started the online petition, wrote alongside it that Hume "wrote racist epithets not worth repeating." "

Thus she declines to refer us to the passages to which she objects. Without such a reference I shall treat the objections as frivolous, a case of the intellectually insignificant jealous of a mind superior to their own.