As we saw in the previous chapter, the images of Hume as a political philosopher and historian have often been deemed inconsistent and paradoxical. For his contemporaries, the apology for the Stuart monarchs is incompatible with the serious support of the Revolution settlement, both of which the notion of opinion enables Hume to do. Compared with his seemingly ambiguous standpoint in the History, his defence of luxury has been considered to be too optimistic. For example, Duncan Forbes who characterises Hume as a ‘Sceptical Whig’ evaluates him in the essay ‘Of Refinement in the Arts’ to be ‘at his least sceptical: he had none of the doubts and misgivings which Adam Smith and all the other leading thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment had about the all-round benefits of commercial civilization’ (Forbes 1975b: 87–8). Such assessments are not confined to Hume scholars. A contemporary French reviewer of Hume's Political Discourses (1752) commented on his essay of luxury that ‘[t]his formidable sceptic seems at last to have changed his tone. He appears to be moved by the interest of his fellow-citizens: he wants to show them the route to happiness’ (Anon. 1752: 244, quoted in and translated by Malherbe 2005: 54). Certainly Hume is one of the most resolute promoters of luxury (Sekora 1977; Goldsmith 1988; Berry 1994; Shovlin 2008). In the second Enquiry, published just before the Political Discourses, clearly mentioning the issue of luxury, he states:

He regarded himself, no doubt, as one of those who undertook this task of promoting the potential benefits of luxury. However, when we closely re-examine how he attempts to ‘regulate anew our moral and political sentiments’, the answer is not so clear. It becomes still more complex when we take into account Hume's awareness of the negative effects of pernicious luxury in the very essay ‘Of Refinement in the Arts’. If Hume admitted that luxury could produce bad effects in some circumstances, what after all is original in his defence of luxury?