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The basic goal of the first three of these works is indicated by the subtitle of the ''Treatise''; "an attempt to introduce the experimental method into moral subjects". [[CiteRef::Morris and Brown (2016)|p.7]] An admirer of the Newtonian experimental philosophy, Hume sought to extend it from natural philosophy into what was then called '''moral philosophy''', which he defines as the "science of human nature". [[CiteRef::Morris and Brown (2016)|p.8]] Moral philosophy included topics that a modern scientist might classify as psychology or cognitive science. To Hume, an understanding of the workings of the mind was the key to establishing the foundations of all other knowledge, including "Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and Natural Religion". [[CiteRef:: Norton (2009)|p. 34]] Natural philosophers, like Newton and Boyle, he maintains, had cured themselves of their "passion for hypotheses and systems". [[CiteRef:: Morris and Brown (2016)|p. 8-9]] Hume sought to work the same cure for moral philosophy, which he saw as full of speculative metaphysical theories and constant dispute. [[CiteRef::Morris and Brown (2016)]] He is noted as a skeptic because of his rejection of speculative metaphysical beliefs, and because he argues that we cannot rationally justify many of our beliefs. But he also observes that we have non-rational faculties which compel certain sorts of beliefs, and it is these faculties of which he wishes to give a positive descriptive account. [[CiteRef::Biro (2009)]] Hume sought to found an empirical science of the mind, based on experience and observation. He noted that the application of the experimental method to "moral subjects" necessarily differed from its use in natural philosophy, because it was impossible to conduct experiments "purposely, with premeditation". Instead, knowledge would be gained "from cautious observation of human life...by men's behaviour in company, in affairs, and in pleasures". [[CiteRef::Brio (2009)|p. 42]] Experimental psychology in the modern sense, conducted in the laboratory, would not make its appearance until the late 19th century. [[CiteRef::Leary (1979)]]