Page:An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - Hume (1748).djvu/225

 Flattery to supply the Defects of Argument and Reasoning. So far as the Traces of any Attributes, at present, appear, so far may we conclude these Attributes to exist. The Supposition of farther Attributes is mere Hypothesis; much more, the Supposition, that, in distant Periods of Place and Time, there has been, or will be a more magnificent Display of these Attributes, and a Scheme or Order of Administration more suitable to such imaginary Virtues. We can never be allow'd to mount up from the Universe, the Effect, to Jupiter, the Cause; and then descend downwards, to infer any new Effect from that Cause; as if the present Effects alone were not entirely worthy of the glorious Attributes we ascribe to that Deity. The Knowledge of the Cause being deriv'd solely from the Effect, they must be exactly adjusted to each other, and the one can never point towards any thing farther, or be the Foundation of any new Inference and Conclusion.

find certain Phænomena in Nature. You seek a Cause or Author. You imagine you have found him. You afterwards become so enamour'd of this Offspring of your Brain, that you imagine it impossible but he must produce something greater and more perfect than the present Scene of Things, which is so full of Ill and Disorder. You forget, that this superlative Intelligence and Benevolence is entirely ima-