Hume's Scepticism and the Weight of History

David Hume said he was a Whig, but a very sceptical one, and the sceptical Whiggishness of his historical and political writings corresponded to the scepticism of his philosophical treatises. In his revolutionary Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding , Hume put forward in 1748 the shocking idea that there was no logical security in the modern European's faith in cause and effect. The moderns were extremely proud of looking at the world in the light of science and reason but they only believed that the same cause would always have the same effect because so far it always had done so, and there was absolutely no guarantee that it always would. 'Our conclusions from that experience are not focussed on reason or any process of the understanding', warned Hume. We believe solely because our day-to-day experience confirms us in a certain habit of belief. 'After the constant conjunction of two objects... we are determined by custom alone to expect the one from the appearance of' the other.' Hume did not say this was absurd, but he did say it was not certain, and it was not the result of inherent laws of thought.