According to Hume, many nonhuman animals (or beings whom he sometimes calls 'sensible creatures') are analogous to human beings in respects of the body and the mind. We are able to sympathise with an animal in similar ways we sympathise with another human being.

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If Descartes is the father of modern philosophy, Hume is the person who gave shape to the contemporary philosophical world. First by querying Descartes' theories about knowledge, and then developing his own modest account of knowledge, and later his theories of ethics and aesthetics.