 First, Hume treats Newton’s account as a refutation of the mechanical philosophy. Yet, while as we have seen  (section 3),  Hume certainly saw it as part of the road to “true philosophy”, he does not view Newton’s achievement as a decisive advance in knowledge of nature but, instead, as decisive evidence for the claim that nature will remain unknowable in principle. Hume understands Newton’s success as a double-edged sword: even if Newton removed a source of error and/or enlarged our knowledge, he did so at the cost of undermining any hope of establishing what we might call a “final theory” (see the  entry on physicalism).  Moreover, it is by no means clear whether Hume is willing to accept Newtonian natural philosophy as a form of knowledge. A natural reading of the passage is to conclude that Hume views Newton as successfully (to use an anachronistic term) falsifying the mechanists’ program, while Hume hedges his bets on offering any evaluation of the positive side of Newton’s system (notice also the grudging use of “seemed”).