 David Hume’s philosophy, especially the positive project of his “science of man”, is often thought to be modeled on Newton’s successes in natural philosophy. Hume’s self-described “experimental method” (see the subtitle to Treatise) and the resemblance of his “rules of reasoning” (THN  1.3.15)[1]  with Newton’s are said to be evidence for this position (Noxon 1973; Stroud 1977; de Pierris 2002; Penelhum 2000; Bennett 2001; Beebee 2006; Hazony 2014; Demeter 2016 etc.). Hume encourages this view of his project by employing Newtonian metaphors: he talks of an “attraction” in the “mental world” on a par with that in the “natural world” (THN 1.1.4.6). Hume infers the existence of “habits” as a kind of mental “force” (EHU 5.22) analogous to gravity; the discovery of the “the principles of association”, which in the Abstract he calls his most important achievement (see the  section on association in the entry on Hume),  are, then, analogous to the laws of motion. Hume certainly appears to want his readers to feel that he is modeling his project on the successes of natural philosophy, exemplified by Newton. In the “Introduction” to the Treatise and even more explicitly in the opening pages of Enquiry (EHU 1.15), Hume suggests that his “science of man” can parallel recent achievements in natural philosophy (with rather obvious nods to Newton’s successes in planetary astronomy). And at the start of EPM (1.10), he echoes Newton’s rejection of “hypotheses”, and restates his allegiance to the experimental method in contrast with its speculative alternative (on the contrast see Anstey 2005). There is, thus, no doubt that Hume wants his readers to believe that Newton forms a kind of model.