Dennis C. Rasmussen

“While skepticism is often associated with nihilism and paralysis, Hume suggests that it actually tends to lead to inner tranquility, intellectual humility, and a passion for ever-further inquiry.”
― Dennis C. Rasmussen, The Infidel and the Professor: David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship That Shaped Modern Thought

“Adams drew from the War of 1812 the disconcerting conclusion that occasional wars are indispensable for the inculcation of civic virtue and hence long-term health of republican government.
Adams to Rush, "Wars at times are as necessary for the preservation and perfection, the prosperity, Liberty, happiness, Virtue, & independence of Nations as Gales of wind to the Saluburity of the Atmosphere, or the agitations of the Ocean to prevent its stagnation and putrefaction."
There is a definite echo here of Jefferson's famous claim that "a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical," as well well as Adam's own hope during the Revolution that "the Furnace of Affliction" would help to purify the nation, ridding it of its softness and selfishness."
Adams, "We all regret or affect to regret War...There never was a Republick; no nor any other People, under whatever Government, that could maintain their Independence, much less grow and propser, without it." ...
"What horrid Creatures we Men are," he mused, " that we cannont be virtuous without murdering one another."
Chapter 9, page 139-140”
― Dennis C. Rasmussen, Fears of a Setting Sun: The Disillusionment of America's Founders