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Hume's Treatise

1738-1740 · London (United Kingdom)

David Hume publishes A Treatise of Human Nature in 1739 and 1740, when he is not yet thirty. Its skeptical empiricism, that reason is the slave of the passions and that belief in miracles and design outruns the evidence, sets the terms on which modern agnosticism still argues.

Tagged: Agnosticism Secular and Non-Theistic

The Event

Date
1738-1740 (exact)
Also called
A Treatise of Human Nature
Era
The Enlightenment Settlement; Standard periodization of secular and non-religious history
Location
London; today United Kingdom
Traditions
Secular
Streams
Agnosticism
Key figures
David Hume
Key texts
A Treatise of Human Nature

Primary Sources

  • Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature.

Secondary Sources

  • Gottlieb, Anthony. The Dream of Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Philosophy. New York: Liveright, 2016.
  • Jacoby, Susan. Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004.
  • Taylor, Charles. A Secular Age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007.
  • Zuckerman, Phil, ed. Atheism and Secularity. Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2010.

Provenance: HIST-1307; confidence 0.95; accessed 2026-10-28.

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