Hume and Newton

         When reading Hume’s An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, what immediately jumped out at me was the way in which Hume used Isaac Newton to introduce his argument. I enjoyed reading about the origin of his reasoning. I refer specifically to the section where Hume writes, “Astronomers had long contented themselves with proving, from the phenomena, the true motions, order, and magnitude of the heavenly bodies: Till a philosopher, at last, arose, who seems, from the happiest reasoning, to have also determined the laws and forces, by which the revolutions of the planets are governed and directed. The like has been performed with regard to other parts of nature. And there is no reason to despair of equal success in our enquiries concerning the mental powers and economy, if prosecuted with equal capacity and caution” (Hume 8).

         Hume’s belief that the scientific method can be used for the mind in the same way that Newton utilized it is fascinating. Most of the other philosophers we have studied do not specify their inspiration for writing their texts. I also found it interesting how Hume believed that there might be a correlation between progresses made in sciences to progress made with human understanding. Keeping this inspiration in mind made reading Hume’s text all the more interesting.