The final assessment of Hume raises certain difficulties. In some respects he typified conservatism, in others liberalism, and in still others he belonged to no school but his own. His conclusions in political matters carried strong overtones of conservatism, yet most conservatives of the period felt too uncomfortable with Hume's scepticism to welcome him as one of their own. Nevertheless, his conclusions were conservative for the reason that Hume never probed past a certain point nor carried his scepticism to its ultimate conclusions. He held too much respect for custom and tradition, and for their importance as social cements, to subject them to the kind of devastating critique which Voltaire and his allies were employing in France. With later conservatives he shared a distrust of reform, an hostility toward abstractions, and a scepticism of the claims of reason.
(Sheldon S. Wolin, "Hume and Conservatism," The American Political Science Review 48 [December 1954]: 999-1016, at 1015)
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 