  Reid confesses that his philosophy of mind and theory of perception are but a response to the theories of David Hume (Correspondence 210–1). Hume offers one of the most thorough and compelling philosophical indictments of religion penned in English. Yet Reid rarely isolates and discusses Hume's anti-religious arguments. Furthermore, Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion was published in 1779 while Reid was lecturing on natural theology and long before Reid would publish his two sets of Essays. (Note that the Baird notes—the set used to prepare Natural Theology—were taken from lectures dating between February 11, 1780 to March 3rd, 1780.) But this book had little discernible influence upon Reid's thinking. Why did Reid mostly ignore Hume's great challenges to rational belief in God?