Hume was a typical child of one aspect of the eighteenth century in his hatred of enthusiasm, and the form in which he most abominates it is religious.
Why people's religious opinions should lead to antagonism he could no more understand than why people should refuse to pass one another on a road.

Wars of religion thus seemed to him based upon a merely frivolous principle; and in his ideal commonwealth he made the Church a department of the State lest it should get out of hand.

He was, moreover, a static philosopher, disturbed by signs of political restlessness; and this led to the purgation of Whig doctrines from his writings, and their consistent replacement by a cynical conservatism.

He was always afraid that popular government would mean mob-rule; and absolute government is accordingly recommended as the euthanasia of the British constitution.
Not even the example of Sweden convinced him that a standing army might exist without civil liberty being endangered; and he has all the noxious fallacies of his time upon the balance of power.

Above all, it is striking to see his helplessness before the problem of national character.