Page:An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - Hume (1748).djvu/141



might reasonably be expected, that, in Questions, which have been canvass'd and disputed with great Eagerness since the first Origin of Science and Philosophy, the Meaning of all the Terms, at least, should have been agreed upon among the Disputants; and our Enquiries, in the Course of two thousand Years, been able to pass from Words to the true and real Subject of the Controversy. For how easy may it seem to give exact Definitions of the Terms employ'd in Reasoning, and make these Definitions, not the mere Sound of Words, the Object of future Scrutiny and Examination! But if we consider the Matter more narrowly, we shall be apt to draw a quite opposite Conclusion. From that Circumstance alone, that a Controversy has been long kept afoot,