“Even at this day, and in Europe,” he writes in his “Natural History of Religion,” “ask any of the vulgar, why he believes in an omnipotent creator of the world; he will never mention the beauty of final causes, of which he is wholly ignorant. He will not hold out his hand, and bid you contemplate the suppleness and variety of the joints in his fingers, their bending all one way, the counterpoise which they receive from the thumb, the softness and fleshy parts of the inside of his hand, with all other circumstances which render that member fit for the use to which it is destined. To these he has been long accustomed, and he beholds them with listlessness and unconcern. He will tell you of the sudden and unexpected death of such a one; the fall and bruise of such another; the excessive drought of this season; the cold and rains of another. These he ascribes to the immediate operations of providence; and such events as with good reasoners are the chief difficulties in admitting a supreme intelligence, are with him the sole arguments for it.” But, he adds on this occasion, “many theists, even the most zealous and refined, have denied a _particular_ providence, and have asserted that the Sovereign mind or first principle of all things, having fixed general laws, by which nature is governed, gives free and uninterrupted course to these laws, and disturbs not, at every turn, the settled order of events by particular volitions. From the beautiful connection, say they, and rigid observance of established rules, we draw the chief argument for theism; and from the same principles are enabled to answer the principal objections against it.” It is in this “refined” variety that we shall expect to find Hume in the end, if among theists at all. Meanwhile it will be interesting to follow up this reference to a particular providence, belief in which Hume associates so closely with the acceptance of miracles. * * * * *