Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Natural History of Religion
    The Natural History of Religion
    The Natural History of Religion
    Ebook77 pages1 hour

    The Natural History of Religion

    By David Hume

    3/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Hume's Natural History of Religion may, with his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion be held to mark the beginning of the Philosophy of Religion. Not so clearly a text illustrating modern technology—indeed in its own day it was regarded as skeptical and subversive—the Natural History is remarkably illustrative of the development of religious thought and is a brilliant philosophical contribution to the interpretation of religion.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAegitas
    Release dateApr 20, 2017
    ISBN9781773137858
    The Natural History of Religion
    Author

    David Hume

    David Hume was an eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher, historian, and essayist, and the author of A Treatise of Human Nature, considered by many to be one of the most important philosophical works ever published. Hume attended the University of Edinburgh at an early age and considered a career in law before deciding that the pursuit of knowledge was his true calling. Hume’s writings on rationalism and empiricism, free will, determinism, and the existence of God would be enormously influential on contemporaries such as Adam Smith, as well as the philosophers like Schopenhauer, John Stuart Mill, and Karl Popper, who succeeded him. Hume died in 1776.

    Read more from David Hume

    Related to The Natural History of Religion

    Related ebooks

    Philosophy For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      All Change

      Mar 27, 2018

      How many people would affirm their lives in joy and gratitude and, with a feeling of relief, set their volition conscientiously only to what is good, were they able to find the paths thereto and survey these in clarity and simplicity? In our troubled

      2 min read

    • Article

      ‘What Seek Ye?’

      Jul 31, 2020

      ‘What Seek Ye?’
      8 min read

    • Article

      Absolute CERTAINTY

      Jun 6, 2022

      Absolute CERTAINTY
      5 min read

    • Article

      This Essentially Meaningless Conflict

      Sep 22, 2017

      MARILYNNE ROBINSON’S accomplishments are impressive by any standard: she has won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and the National Humanities Medal, among other honors. But perhaps a better measure o

      8 min read

    • Article

      It’s Only Human Nature

      Feb 23, 2023

      ‘‘PEOPLE LIKE COLDPLAY and voted for the Nazis. You can’t trust people, Jeremy.” Super Hans, the crack-addicted dispenser of violence and wisdom in the noughties sitcom Peep Show and the Tory cleric, Jonathan Swift, might not be obvious bedfellows. T

      3 min read

    • Article

      Our Most Effective Weapon Is Imagination

      Apr 28, 2021

      In his Theaetetus, Plato remarks to Socrates: “This pathos is proper to the philosopher: It is the thaumazein. And philosophy has no other point of departure than this.” The word, which contains the root thauma, the same that appears in thaumaturgy,

      9 min read

    • Article

      It’s Only Human Nature

      Feb 23, 2023

      ‘‘PEOPLE LIKE COLDPLAY and voted for the Nazis. You can’t trust people, Jeremy.” Super Hans, the crack-addicted dispenser of violence and wisdom in the noughties sitcom Peep Show and the Tory cleric, Jonathan Swift, might not be obvious bedfellows. T

      3 min read

    • Article

      Is Knowledge Power?

      Jul 30, 2018

      Is Knowledge Power?
      4 min read

    • Article

      Change

      Oct 28, 2019

      Why should a change of paradigm be called a revolution? In the face of the vast and essential differences between political and scientific development, what parallelism can justify the metaphor that finds revolutions in both? One aspect of the parall

      3 min read

    • Article

      Uncertainty

      Jun 6, 2022

      Until philosophers are Kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to

      2 min read

    • Article

      Let’s Be Rational

      Oct 3, 2021

      Let’s Be Rational
      8 min read

    • Article

      In Praise Of Uncertainty

      Jun 6, 2022

      In Praise Of Uncertainty
      5 min read

    • Article

      Think Yourself Better: 10 Rules Of Philosophy To Live By

      Feb 4, 2023

      The thing that separates human beings from other animals is our extraordinary capacity for complex, abstract thought. This is what has given rise to our diverse cultures, our scientific achievements, our ability to envisage the future and, hopefully,

      9 min read

    • Article

      Currents Of Life

      Nov 30, 2021

      Currents Of Life
      10 min read

    • Article

      Creation Myths

      Apr 10, 2023

      Creation Myths
      4 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Jul 14, 2022

      CONTACT US BY POST: PO BOX 1200, WHITSTABLE CT1 9RH, OR E-MAIL SIEVEKING@FORTEANTIMES.COM PLEASE PROVIDE US WITH YOUR POSTAL ADDRESS Simon Young’s account of the Wollaton Gnomes [FT417:29] brought to mind an account of “The Fairies of The Burn of Eat

      14 min read

    • Article

      The Myth of Rationality

      Mar 17, 2021

      Many years ago, I worked as a counsellor on a program that provided support to the families of sex offenders. In practice, that usually meant working with the wives of men convicted of child sexual offences. You might expect that my job would have co

      8 min read

    • Article

      Grappling With Evil

      Oct 28, 2021

      Grappling With Evil
      6 min read

    • Article

      Truth In A Confused World

      Sep 4, 2020

      I remember the day that Kevin Rudd apologised to the Stolen Generations. It was a sunny afternoon and everyone at work had gathered around the radio. I recall looking out through the plate glass windows to the cloudless sky with tears in my eyes. It 

      5 min read

    • Article

      A Turn In Time

      Jan 31, 2020

      A Turn In Time
      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Natural History of Religion

    3/5

    1 rating0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Natural History of Religion - David Hume

      Introduction

      As every enquiry, which regards religion, is of the utmost importance, there are two questions in particular, which challenge our attention, to wit, that concerning its foundation in reason, and that concerning its origin in human nature. Happily, the first question, which is the most important, admits of the most obvious, at least, the clearest solution. The whole frame of nature bespeaks an intelligent author; and no rational enquirer can, after serious reflection, suspend his belief a moment with regard to the primary principles of genuine Theism and Religion. But the other question, concerning the origin of religion in human nature, is exposed to some more difficulty. The belief of invisible, intelligent power has been very generally diffused over the human race, in all places and in all ages; but it has neither perhaps been so universal as to admit of no exception, nor has it been, in any degree, uniform in the ideas, which it has suggested. Some nations have been discovered, who entertained no sentiments of Religion, if travellers and historians may be credited; and no two nations, and scarce any two men, have ever agreed precisely in the same sentiments. It would appear, therefore, that this preconception springs not from an original instinct or primary impression of nature, such as gives rise to self-love, affection between the sexes, love of progeny, gratitude, resentment; since every instinct of this kind has been found absolutely universal in all nations and ages, and has always a precise determinate object, which it inflexibly pursues. The first religious principles must be secondary; such as may easily be perverted by various accidents and causes, and whose operation too, in some cases, may, by an extraordinary concurrence of circumstances, be altogether prevented. What those principles are, which give rise to the original belief, and what those accidents and causes are, which direct its operation, is the subject of our present enquiry.

      Section I - That Polytheism Was The Primary Religion Of Men

      It appears to me, that, if we consider the improvement of human society, from rude beginnings to a state of greater perfection, polytheism or idolatry was, and necessarily must have been, the first and most ancient religion of mankind. This opinion I shall endeavour to confirm by the following arguments.

      It is a matter of fact incontestable, that about 1700 years ago all mankind were polytheists. The doubtful and sceptical principles of a few philosophers, or the theism, and that too not entirely pure, of one or two nations, form no objection worth regarding. Behold then the clear testimony of history. The farther we mount up into antiquity, the more do we find mankind plunged into polytheism. No marks, no symptoms of any more perfect religion. The most ancient records of human race still present us with that system as the popular and established creed. The north, the south, the east, the west, give their unanimous testimony to the same fact. What can be opposed to so full an evidence?

      As far as writing or history reaches, mankind, in ancient times, appear universally to have been polytheists. Shall we assert, that, in more ancient times, before the knowledge of letters, or the discovery of any art or science, men entertained the principles of pure theism? That is, while they were ignorant and barbarous, they discovered truth: But fell into error, as soon as they acquired learning and politeness.

      But in this assertion you not only contradict all appearance of probability, but also our present experience concerning the principles and opinions of barbarous nations. The savage tribes of America, Africa, and Asia are all idolaters. Not a single exception to this rule. Insomuch, that, were a traveller to transport himself into any unknown region; if he found inhabitants cultivated with arts and science, though even upon that supposition there are odds against their being theists, yet could he not safely, till farther inquiry, pronounce any thing on that head: But if he found them ignorant and barbarous, he might beforehand declare them idolaters; and there scarcely is a possibility of his being mistaken.

      It seems certain, that, according to the natural progress of human thought, the ignorant multitude must first entertain some groveling and familiar notion of superior powers, before they stretch their conception to that perfect Being, who bestowed order on the whole frame of nature. We may as reasonably imagine, that men inhabited palaces before huts and cottages, or studied geometry before agriculture; as assert that the Deity appeared to them a pure spirit, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, before he was apprehended to be a powerful, though limited being, with human passions and appetites, limbs and organs. The mind rises gradually, from inferior to superior: By abstracting from what is imperfect, it forms an idea of perfection: And slowly distinguishing the nobler parts of its own frame from the grosser, it learns to transfer only the former, much elevated and refined, to its divinity. Nothing could disturb this natural progress of thought, but some obvious and invincible argument, which might immediately lead the mind into the pure principles of theism, and make it overleap, at one bound, the vast interval which is interposed between the human and the divine nature. But though I allow, that the order and frame of the universe, when accurately examined, affords such an argument; yet I can never think, that this consideration could have an influence on mankind, when they formed their first rude notions of religion.

      The causes of such objects, as are quite familiar to us, never strike our attention or curiosity; and however extraordinary or surprising these objects in themselves, they are passed over, by the raw and ignorant multitude, without much examination or enquiry. Adam, rising at once,

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1