David Hume

In this text, much of the author's work consists of the writings of French readers of David Hume, who were confronted first, by the ideology of human perfection and finally, by the actual terrors of the French Revolution.

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Though Edmund Burke is usually identified as the first to articulate the principles of a modern conservative political tradition, he was actually preceded by a Scotsman who is better known for espousing a brilliant concept of scepticism. David Hume was undoubtedly the eighteenth-century British writer whose works were most widely known and acclaimed on the Continent during the later Enlightenment period. Hume's impact (in France) was of undeniable importance, greater even for a time than the related influence of Burke, although it represents a contribution to French counter-revolutionary thought which, unlike that of Burke, has been almost totally ignored by historians to this day.