Page:An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - Hume (1748).djvu/112

 employ'd, the Object itself may be presented to the Senses, and by that Means be steadily and clearly apprehended. But the finer Sentiments of the Mind, the Operations of the Understanding, the various Agitations of the Passions, tho' really in themselves distinct, easily escape us, when survey'd by Reflection; nor is it in our Power to recall the original Object, as often as we have occasion to contemplate it. Ambiguity, by this Means, is gradually introduc'd into our Reasonings: Similar Objects are readily taken to be the same: And the Conclusion becomes, at last, very wide of the Premises.

may safely, however, affirm, that if we consider these Sciences in a proper Light, their Advantages and Disadvantages do very nearly compensate each other, and reduce both of them to a State of Equality. If the Mind with greater Facility retains the Ideas of Geometry clear and determinate, it must carry on a much longer and more intricate Chain of Reasoning, and compare Ideas much wider of each other, in order to reach the abstruser Truths of that Science. And if more Ideas are apt, without extreme Care, to fall into Obscurity and Confusion, the Inferences are always much shorter in these Disquisitions, and the intermediate Steps, that lead to the Conclusion, much fewer than in the Sciences, which treat of Quantity and Number. In reality, there is scarce a Proposition of Euclid so