Abstract

David Hume’s ‘History of England’ is an ambitious work that helps demonstrate how the modern historian can interpret the crucial events that define human communities as continuous in time. This paper is directly concerned with the significance of Hume's historical method, his view of human agency and the role of the English Constitution in appraising the meaning of secularity in his historical work. The more fundamental purpose of the paper will be to show that the study of history was not incidental to his task as a philosopher but, on the contrary, relates to his deeper view of how we experience the world in terms of fundamental categories of time and meaning.