An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Main ideas

• Causation examined as habit rather than demonstrated connection.
• Belief proportioned to evidence.

Important themes

Reading context

Hume's rewriting of his early Treatise for readers who had ignored it, published in 1748. The argument about cause and effect, and about what experience can license us to expect, is why the book is still read.

How to approach it

Sections 4, 5 and 7 are the core, and section 10 on miracles is the most notorious. It is written for a general reader and needs no preparation.