History, the great mistress of wisdom, furnishes examples of all kinds; and every prudential, as well as moral precept, may be authorized by those events, which her enlarged mirror is able to present to us.
David Hume, The History of Great Britain under the House of Stuart, volume I, 2nd edition, p. 461.
It tends to be forgotten today, but a considerable portion of the reason why David Hume was not forgotten as a philosopher has to do not with his philosophical work, which was depreciated in the nineteenth century, but with the quality of his historical work, which helped to keep his name in circulation.
