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Dalton, I really appreciated your comment, it is very insightful. I am curious- have you read anywhere else the suggestion that Hume was not suffering from depression, but rather something like hypothyroidism? I've been studying Hume's life, and it seems to me that your suggestion does indeed fit his case better than depression. And this becomes an interesting observation when one notes that some of the current scholarship on Hume make quite a bit of the claim that he was depressed in his youth- in some cases it clearly colors readings of his philosophical thought and intentions.

I'd love to follow up with you, so I am replying here in hopes to connect. I'm writing a paper in which I am hoping to develop a more nuanced understanding of Hume's 'disease of the learned.' Your comment here is the only place I have come across a well-articulated modern diagnosis that is alternative to depression. Let me know if you are willing to chat with me a little further about this!