There is no method of reasoning more common, and yet none more blameable, than, in philosophical disputes, to endeavour the refutation of any hypothesis, by a pretence of its dangerous consequences to religion and morality. When any opinion leads to absurdities, it is certainly false; but it is not certain that an opinion is false, because it is of danger-ous consequence. Such topics, therefore, ought entirely to be forborne; as serving nothing to the discovery of truth, but only to make the person of an antagonist odious.

Hume advocated a compatibilist theory of free will that proved extremely influential on subsequent moral philosophy. Of Miracles section X of the Enquiry was often publiDavid Humed separately. Here he reports that at the age of eighteen "there seem'd to be open'd up to me a new Scene of Thought.

Without direct impressions of a metaphysical "self" he concluded that humans have no actual conception of the self only of a bundle of sensations associated with the self. 26 April] 1711 – 25 August 1776) was a Scottish philosopher historian economist and essayist known especially for his philosophical empiricism and scepticism. Hume advocated a compatibilist theory of free will that proved extremely influential on subsequent moral philosophy.