One of the biggest intellectual challenges for Hume was to alleviate as far as possible, if not to completely eradicate, the adverse effects produced by religious and political dogmatism. In order to cope with the former, as we saw in the previous chapter, he recommends that magistrates take pragmatic and expedient measures when faced with false religions. Considering the situation of contemporary Europe, for Hume, Erastianism was likely the most feasible option, although organised religions are not necessarily indispensable for sustaining the order and tranquillity of civilised societies. The characteristic element of Hume's politics regarding religious issues lies in proposing the possibility of completely secular morality, while maintaining his agnosticism at a distance from French (self-proclaimed) atheists. Despite their accord in critiquing organised religions, Hume's position also differs from Voltaire's attempts to restore the ‘pure religion’ under the banners of deism or theism.

On the other hand, Hume's attitude toward political conflicts is a quite different story. Despite his intense criticism of factions, he considers that ‘[t]o abolish all distinctions of party may not be practicable, perhaps not desirable, in a free government’ (E ‘Coalition of Parties’ 493; Forbes 1975b: 185–6; Spencer 2002: 880–2). The task for Hume is how to differentiate positive factions from dangerous ones, and how to maintain the former through constitutional mechanisms. Seen from this viewpoint, one of Hume's most enigmatic political essays takes on a particular significance– ‘ Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth’, published in the Political Discourses in 1752. The significance he attached to this essay is beyond doubt; he placed it at the very end of the Political Discourses, and continued to do so after the Political Discourses was integrated into his Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects in 1753. For every contemporary reader of the multi-volume Essays and Treatises, the most convenient and comprehensible collection of Hume's works, this has always been the closing piece of the Essays, Moral, Political and Literary (a compilation of the Essays, Moral and Political and the Political Discourses after 1758). Nevertheless, its utopian settings have often prevented this essay from receiving the consideration it deserves, and with good reason.