Abstract

Hume doubted that the immediate experience of order, goodness, or beauty in the world, on which religion depends—“the feeling of design,” as J. C. A. Gaskin put it—is anything other than the product of an overactive imagination. But what were his reasons for doing so? And were they sufficient? Since the _Dialogues_ are the _locus classicus_ of Hume’s critique of religion, I propose to read them carefully, if critically, with both of these questions in mind. I conclude that Hume’s critique of religion, while powerful in its way, does not ultimately succeed.