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Hume has been criticized by many [[theist]]s for his atheistic approach, and [[Charles Darwin]] declared Hume to have been his central influence, and "Darwin's bulldog" [[Thomas Henry Huxley]] admired him so much that he wrote a book about him called ''Hume''.  Furthermore, Hume was denied several academic positions - such as the coveted chair of [[moral]] philosophy at the University of Edinburgh - possibly because he was so commonly assumed to be irreligious and much of [[morality]] was considered to come from [[God]]. One admirer of Hume was [[Adam Smith]] who, upon Hume's [[death]] in 1776, wrote the following to his friend William Strahan:

Hume has been criticized by many [[theist]]s for his atheistic approach, and [[Charles Darwin]] declared Hume to have been his central influence, and "Darwin's bulldog" [[Thomas Henry Huxley]] admired him so much that he wrote a book about him called ''Hume''.  Furthermore, Hume was denied several academic positions - such as the coveted chair of [[moral]] philosophy at the University of Edinburgh - possibly because he was so commonly assumed to be irreligious and much of [[morality]] was considered to come from [[God]]. One admirer of Hume was [[Adam Smith]] who, upon Hume's [[death]] in 1776, wrote the following to his friend William Strahan:

"Upon the whole, I have always considered him [Hume] both in his lifetime and since his death, as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly [[wise]] and [[virtuous]] man, as perhaps the nature of human frailty will permit."

"Upon the whole, I have always considered him [Hume] both in his lifetime and since his death, as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and [[Virtue|virtuous]] man, as perhaps the nature of human frailty will permit."

The Catholic philosopher Etienne Gilson noted that Hume's empiricism and skepticism that "the influence of Hume was mainly destructive [because] his skepticism, the ultimate conclusion of a movement initiated by Descartes, ended in a sort of desperate nihilism." Indeed, it was also speculated by George J. Marlin that Hume's empiricism, which attempted to go farther in purity to the subject than either [[John Locke]] or [[George Berkeley]], had reduced everything to pure animal emotions, and had arguably rendered science, mathematics, and history meaningless as a result.<ref>https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2012/05/16/david-hume-anti-christian/</ref> In addition, Reginald Firehammer claimed that Hume's empiricism was the precursor to postmodernism.<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20080411131301/http://theautonomist.com/aaphp/articles/article379.php</ref><ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20080411132333/http://theautonomist.com/aaphp/articles/article381.php</ref><ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20080411131811/http://theautonomist.com/aaphp/articles/article383.php</ref><ref>https://www.usabig.com/iindv/articles_stand/revo_west/revolution7_4.html</ref>

The Catholic philosopher Etienne Gilson noted that Hume's empiricism and skepticism that "the influence of Hume was mainly destructive [because] his skepticism, the ultimate conclusion of a movement initiated by Descartes, ended in a sort of desperate nihilism." Indeed, it was also speculated by George J. Marlin that Hume's empiricism, which attempted to go farther in purity to the subject than either [[John Locke]] or [[George Berkeley]], had reduced everything to pure animal emotions, and had arguably rendered science, mathematics, and history meaningless as a result.<ref>https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2012/05/16/david-hume-anti-christian/</ref> In addition, Reginald Firehammer claimed that Hume's empiricism was the precursor to postmodernism.<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20080411131301/http://theautonomist.com/aaphp/articles/article379.php</ref><ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20080411132333/http://theautonomist.com/aaphp/articles/article381.php</ref><ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20080411131811/http://theautonomist.com/aaphp/articles/article383.php</ref><ref>https://www.usabig.com/iindv/articles_stand/revo_west/revolution7_4.html</ref>