This greatness and elevation of soul is to be found only in study and contemplation.

This alone can teach us to look down on human accidents.

You must allow [me] to talk thus like a philosopher: 'tis a subject I think much on, and could talk all day long of." If David talked in this strain to his mother her tongue probably gave utterance to "Bless the bairn!" and, in her private soul, the epithet "wake-minded" may then have recorded itself.

But, though few lonely, thoughtful, studious boys of sixteen give vent to their thoughts in such stately periods, it is probable that the brooding over an ideal is commoner at this age, than fathers and mothers, busy with the cares of practical life, are apt to imagine.
About a year later, Hume's family tried to launch him into the profession of the law; but, as he tells us, "while they fancied I was poring upon Voet and Vinnius, Cicero and Virgil were the authors which I was secretly devouring," and the attempt seems to have come to an abrupt termination.

Nevertheless, as a very competent authority[2] wisely remarks:-- "There appear to have been in Hume all the elements of which a good lawyer is made: clearness of judgment, power of rapidly acquiring knowledge, untiring industry, and dialectic skill: and if his mind had not been preoccupied, he might have fallen into the gulf in which many of the world's greatest geniuses lie buried--professional eminence; and might have left behind him a reputation limited to the traditional recollections of the Parliament house, or associated with important decisions.