David Hume

In philosophy he was a skeptic. In his multi-volume History of England he showed how the rule of law and the creation of an independent judiciary created the foundation for liberty in England. Hume also wrote on economics, was a personal friend of Adam Smith,and was a proponent of free trade. His works highlighted the neutrality of money and the errors of the mercantilists (whose flawed theories in favor of increased exports in order to build up a stock of gold remain the foundations of many public policies even today).

See the Liberty Matters online discussions on Smith, Hume, and Burke as Policy Liberals and Polity Conservatives and The Place of Liberty in David Hume’s Project