Page:An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - Hume (1748).djvu/174

 incompatible with them? Or why should not the Acknowledgment of a real Distinction betwixt Vice and Virtue be reconcileable to all speculative Systems of Philosophy, as well as that of a real Distinction betwixt personal Beauty and Deformity? Both these Distinctions are founded on the natural Sentiments of the human Mind: And these Sentiments are not to be controul'd or alter'd by any philosophical Theory or Speculation whatsoever.

second Objection admits not of so easy and satisfactory an Answer; nor is it possible to explain distinctly, how the Deity can be the mediate Cause of all the Actions of Men, without being the Author of Sin and moral Turpitude. These are Mysteries, which mere natural and unassisted Reason is very unfit to handle; and whatever System it embraces, it must find itself involv'd in inextricable Difficulties, and even Contradictions, at every Step it takes with regard to such Subjects. To reconcile the Indifference and Contingency of human Actions with Prescience; or to defend absolute Decrees, and yet free the Deity from being the Author of Sin, has been found hitherto to exceed all the Skill of Philosophy. Happy, if she be thence sensible of her Temerity when she pries into these sublime Mysteries; and leaving a Scene so full of Ob-