=Influences upon the Thought of Hume.= The writings of Hume show no erudition, and for that reason it is uncertain what were all the sources from which he drew. He does not mention Descartes, for example, although he wrote his _Treatise_ at La Flèche in the shadow of the school where Descartes was educated. It is probable, however, that Hume was influenced at least by the Greek philosophers of the Hellenic-Roman Period, and by Locke. During the years after Hume’s student life at the university, he pored over the writings of the Roman Stoics in the library at Ninewells, and he felt the influence of Cicero, Seneca, and Plutarch. Hume read extensively, and he reacted from his reading. He became so dissatisfied with the past that he put it aside, in the belief that the true philosophy had not yet been written. In this reaction from the past he was influenced along the lines of Locke and Berkeley. He admired the advance that Berkeley had made over Locke, and naturally took a further step in the same direction. Hume was also acquainted with the writings of Hobbes and with the history of the English theories of morals. In 1740 he became acquainted with Adam Smith, the political economist, and Hume’s _Political Discourses_ (1752) anticipated Smith’s classic _Wealth of Nations_. At this time (1752) he turned with all other Englishmen from the discussion of philosophical to political topics. There are many points of resemblance between Smith and Hume, especially in their ethical doctrine. =Dogmatism, Phenomenalism, and Skepticism.= Hume liked to speak of himself as a skeptic, but philosophically speaking he was skeptical only of the dogmatic Rationalism of the Renaissance, which had made unlimited claims for the human reason. Hume maintained in the spirit of the Enlightenment that the human mind deals with ideas and not with reality. Human knowledge has therefore its limits. More consistently than Locke or any one else in the Enlightenment, he tried to show the limits and extent of human knowledge.