I wanted to read Hume because he is considered to be a precursor to secular humanism, and unafraid to wade into the debate over the balance of power between crown and parliament. I was a bit underwhelmed by his political and economic arguments, just because we are the products of this Enlightenment thinking that basically defines liberal democracy. What feels obvious today was pretty radical in Hume's time. And some of his theories come off as half baked, as if he was combining deep knowledge of the ancient world with a specious understanding of how governments formed in his contemporary society.

There are a couple of heretical essays at the end that were published posthumously, defending suicide and arguing against an afterlife. If you read though some of Hume's notes at the end, you will also find that he is virulent racist . I don't know how influential Hume was with the founders, who were steeped in Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, etc. But his secularism easily coexists with the advance of science during the period.

There was an interminable essay in the middle about the population of the ancient world, wherein Hume expostulates at length about the number of slaves people had and how they were "bred". He admits at one point that they didn't have any real idea of populations during HIS time - gathering that data was too complicated in a pre-industrial world.

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Assist yourself by a frequent persual of the entertaining moralists: have recourse to the learning of Plutarch, the imagination of Lucian, the eloquence of Cicero, the wit of Seneca, the gaiety of Montaigne, the sublimity of Shaftesbury.

Moral precepts, so couched, strike deep, and fortify the mind against the illusions of passion. But trust not altogether to external aid: by habit and study acquire that philosophical temper which both gives force to reflection, and by rendering a great part of your happiness independent, takes off the edge from all disorderly passions, and tranquilizes the mind. Despise not these helps; but confide not too much in them neither; unless nature has been favourable in the temper with which she has endowed you. —Note/Variant to The Sceptic ( )