Hume investigates the validity of religious ideas in his Dialogues, which is a very important document in the philosophy of religion of the modern period. He adduces several different viewpoints: that of a speculative Supernaturalist, a rationalistic Deist and a skeptical Naturalist. Although the naturalist finally courteously withdraws, it is neverthless clear that Hume regarded his arguments as the most important and most conclusive. He denies the right to infer the existence of God from the order and teleology of the universe: Why could the teleology (so far as it really exists!) not have arisen from natural causes and gradual adaptation? We explain the particular phenomena of nature by referring them to natural causes, and the whole series is explained in the explanation of its several parts. At any rate it is impossible to infer, from a world which reveals so many imperfections together with its teleology, the existence of an absolutely perfect being. Furthermore, if we should wish to attribute the origin of the universe to a divine idea, we must not forget that this idea is nowhere given in experience except as a phenomenon combined with other phenomena: with what right, therefore can we deduce all the other parts from this single part?— If the naturalist still gets no farther than to discover difficulties in each of the various viewpoints, it is certainly not enough that we regard it merely as a matter of caution, but rather as the expression of Hume's constant effort to state the problems clearly and to keep them open.
6. Hume's clear statement of the problem of knowledge did not call forth any profound reply immediately. England has not even furnished such a reply.—On the contrary the English literature of the latter half of the 18th century consists of a series of philosophic efforts
