It is not easy to formulate Hume's ultimate position regarding the many-sided and complex activities usually lumped together under the rubric of religion. That these activities are hardly amenable to a single inclusive definition he was well aware and his attitude toward religion as well as his beliefs about it are accordingly varied and on occasion ambiguous. It would there fore be a great injustice to Hume whatever may be the limitations of his philosophy of religion to regard him as some have done simply as a glorified village atheist and anticleric. The manifold aspects of man's religious life and the effects of these upon his ultimate well-being remained for Hume a life-long interest. He was not only as well-informed as anyone of his time in the history of religion but also one the closet critics of philosophical theology in the history of modern thought. His writings on religion represent in fact the most mature reflections of a mind which was at once learned judicious and acute and as free from cant as one is likely to find anywhere.