Page:An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - Hume (1748).djvu/156

 ticular Characters had no certain nor determinate Power to produce particular Sentiments, and if these Sentiments had no constant Operation on Actions? And with what Pretext could we employ our Criticism upon any Poet or polite Author, if we could not pronounce the Conduct and Sentiments of his Actors, either natural or unnatural, to such Characters, and in such Circumstances? It seems almost impossible, therefore, to engage, either in Science or Action of any Kind, without acknowledging the Doctrine of Necessity, and this Inference from Motives to voluntary Actions; from Characters to Conduct.

indeed, when we consider how aptly natural and moral Evidence link together, and form only one Chain of Argument betwixt them, we shall make no Scruple to allow, that they are of the same Nature, and deriv'd from the same Principles. A Prisoner, who has neither Money nor Interest, discovers the Impossibility of his Escape, as well from the Obstinacy of the Goaler, as from the Walls and Bars, with which he is surrounded; and in all Attempts for his Freedom, chuses rather to work upon the Stone and Iron of the one, than upon the inflexible Nature of the other. The same Prisoner, when conducted to the Scaffold, foresees his Death as certainly from the Constancy and Fidelity of his Guards as from the Ope-