 While this is rather terse, Hume calls attention to three important elements in Newton’s natural philosophy: (a) Newton’s commitment to an experimental method; (b) the cautious nature of Newton’s methodology; (c) Newton’s boldness once experiments have established a “principle”. In eighteenth century terminology, a “principle” is akin to what we would call a “law” or a “fundamental/causal explanation”. In order to avoid misunderstanding, Hume equates Newton’s methodology with Boyle’s only on points (a) and (b), not point (c). Moreover, Hume is aware (as will be shown in  section 4.1)  that Newton rightly rejected Boyle’s conception of mechanism. So, Hume admires Newton’s methodology, and sees it as a source of progress.