How can we satisfy ourselves without going on in infinitum? And, after all, what satisfaction is there in that infinite progression? Let us remember the story of the Indian philosopher and his elephant. It was never more applicable than to the present subject. If the material world rests upon a similar ideal world, this ideal world must rest upon some other; and so on, without end. It were better, therefore, never to look beyond the present material world.

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.