The Natural History of Religion

Context and Aims

David Hume’s The Natural History of Religion (1757) is a key Enlightenment attempt to explain religion in purely naturalistic terms. Rather than asking whether religious beliefs are true, Hume inquires into how such beliefs arise, spread, and change over time, given what he takes to be ordinary features of human psychology and social life.

The work is closely related to, though distinct from, Hume’s more overtly philosophical critique of religious belief in the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. While the Dialogues focus on the rational justification of belief in God, The Natural History of Religion focuses on the genealogy of religion: its psychological sources and historical evolution. Hume announces that his subject is “the origin of religion in human nature,” treating religion as a phenomenon to be investigated empirically rather than defended or condemned in purely theological terms.

Origins of Religion: Polytheism and Monotheism

A central thesis of the work is that polytheism, not monotheism, is the earliest and most “natural” religious form. Hume argues that so-called “vulgar” (ordinary) human minds, faced with unpredictable natural events—storms, droughts, disease, unexpected good fortune—tend to personify these events and attribute them to invisible, intelligent agents. This leads to a multiplicity of limited, anthropomorphic deities associated with particular domains or locations.

Against the theological claim that religion originates in philosophical reflection on the order of the universe (a kind of primitive natural theology), Hume maintains that religion emerges from passion, not reason. He highlights:

• Fear and anxiety about future events and uncontrollable misfortunes
• Hope and desire for protection, success, and prosperity
• Ignorance of natural causes, which encourages appeals to supernatural agencies

According to Hume, polytheism arises when people project human characteristics—intentions, emotions, partial powers—onto imagined beings who can be influenced by worship, sacrifice, and ritual. This yields a highly flexible and localized religious landscape, with deities that can be added, modified, or abandoned with relative ease.

Monotheism, for Hume, is a later, more reflective development. As philosophical reflection and theological speculation advance, religious thinkers tend to “elevate” the idea of divinity toward a single, all-powerful, perfect being. This is often accompanied by criticism of the crude anthropomorphism and moral failings attributed to polytheistic gods. Yet Hume contends that ordinary believers still frequently “relapse” into more anthropomorphic conceptions, imagining the monotheistic God in human-like terms despite official doctrines of transcendence and perfection.

Hume thus proposes a cyclical tension between:

• Popular religion, driven by passions and imagination, often sliding toward polytheism or anthropomorphic views, and
• Philosophical or theological religion, attempting to refine belief into a more abstract, unified, and morally exalted monotheism.

Psychological, Moral, and Social Themes

Hume’s narrative is structured around several interlocking themes that together form his “natural history.”

1. Passions and Superstition

The work emphasizes the dominance of fear, insecurity, and superstition in religious origins. Hume claims that people are especially religious when they feel most vulnerable to chance and misfortune. In relatively stable and prosperous conditions, religious fervor may cool; amid war, disease, or economic uncertainty, it tends to intensify. Religion is thus interpreted as a psychological response to contingency and uncertainty.

2. Anthropomorphism and Projection

Hume identifies a general human tendency to project mental life onto the external world. Just as we interpret other humans in terms of intentions and desires, we come to interpret natural events as the result of intentional agency. This helps explain the persistence of anthropomorphic depictions of the divine, even in traditions that officially condemn them. Hume suggests that abstractions such as an infinite, immutable being are too remote to grip the imagination of most worshipers.

3. Religion, Morality, and Corruption

A significant part of the work addresses the relationship between religion and morality. Hume challenges the view that religion is the primary foundation of moral life. He argues that moral distinctions arise naturally from human sentiments and social interaction, independently of religious doctrine.

Moreover, he contends that certain forms of religion may distort or corrupt morality. Religious zeal can encourage intolerance, cruelty, or servility, especially when doctrines emphasize divine favoritism, the importance of ritual over ethical conduct, or the possibility of winning supernatural favor through flattery and ceremonial observance. Hume is particularly critical of what he regards as “superstitious” practices—rituals and beliefs driven by fear rather than by reflective moral concern.

At the same time, he allows that more philosophically refined monotheisms often try to align religious devotion with virtue, portraying God as a moral governor who demands justice, benevolence, and integrity. Yet even such refined systems, he warns, are vulnerable to degeneration when popular passions or institutional interests take precedence.

4. Priests, Institutions, and Power

Hume describes the role of priests and religious specialists as ambivalent. On one hand, they systematize doctrine, maintain rituals, and foster community practices. On the other hand, they may exploit fear and ignorance to enhance their own authority and social power. This leads Hume to examine the institutionalization of religion: how religious organizations stabilize beliefs, discipline dissent, and sometimes ally with political power.

His analysis suggests that the particular character of a religious tradition—tolerant or intolerant, austere or ritualistic, peaceable or militant—often depends less on abstract doctrine than on concrete social and political conditions.

Reception and Influence

Upon publication, The Natural History of Religion was controversial for its skeptical and reductionist treatment of religion. Many readers in Hume’s time regarded its naturalistic focus on fear, hope, and ignorance as incompatible with the view that religion rests on divine revelation and rational evidence. Combined with the more explicit arguments of the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, the work contributed to Hume’s reputation as a leading critic of religious orthodoxy in the Enlightenment.

Over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the text came to be seen as a founding document for several later disciplines and approaches:

• In anthropology of religion, Hume’s emphasis on polytheism and the social-psychological roots of belief anticipated later work by E. B. Tylor, James Frazer, and others.
• In psychology and sociology, his account of religion as a product of human passions and social conditions foreshadowed theories developed by Freud, Durkheim, and their successors.
• In philosophy of religion, the work is frequently studied alongside Hume’s Dialogues as an early example of a genealogical critique, seeking to explain religious belief by its origins rather than by its truth.

Critics argue that Hume’s model is historically and ethnographically limited, relying heavily on classical and biblical sources and on Enlightenment-era assumptions about “primitive” peoples. Others question whether religion can be adequately explained in largely negative terms—as a compound of fear, ignorance, and projection—without also accounting for its creative, communal, and meaning-giving dimensions.

Despite such criticisms, The Natural History of Religion remains a widely discussed text. It exemplifies an Enlightenment project of understanding religion as a human phenomenon, subject to historical and psychological analysis, and continues to inform debates about the nature, value, and origins of religious belief.