# Quote — David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

> When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

- Author: [David Hume](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-hume.md)
- Book: [An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-hume/an-enquiry-concerning-human-understanding.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Hume#An_Enquiry_Concerning_Human_Understanding_(1748)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-hume/an-enquiry-concerning-human-understanding/when-we-run

## More from this book

> Eloquence, when at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection; but addressing itself entirely to the fancy or the affections, captivates the willing hearers, and subdues their understanding. Happily, this pitch it seldom attains. But what a Tully or a Demosthenes could scarcely effect over a Roman or Athenian audience, every Capuchin, every itinerant or stationary teacher can perform over the generality of mankind, and in a higher degree, by touching such gross and vulgar passions.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-hume/an-enquiry-concerning-human-understanding/eloquence-when-at-its.md)

> The most perfect philosophy of the natural kind only staves off our ignorance a little longer: as perhaps the most perfect philosophy of the moral or metaphysical kind serves only to discover larger portions of it. Thus the observation of human blindness and weakness is the result of all philosophy, and meets us at every turn, in spite of our endeavours to elude or avoid it.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-hume/an-enquiry-concerning-human-understanding/the-most-perfect.md)

> The Christian Religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one. Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity: and whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/david-hume/an-enquiry-concerning-human-understanding/the-christian-religion.md)