Page:An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - Hume (1748).djvu/230

 Experience of Events. And if you affirm, that, while a divine Providence is allow'd, and a supreme distributive Justice in the Universe, I ought to expect some more particular Favour of the Good, and Punishment of the Bad, beyond the ordinary Course of Events; I here find the same Fallacy, which I have before endeavour'd to detect. You persist in imagining, that, if we grant that divine Existence, for which you so earnestly contend, you may safely infer Consequences from it, and add something to the experienc'd Order of Nature, by arguing from the Attributes, which you ascribe to your Gods. You seem not to remember, that all your Reasonings on this Subject can only be drawn from Effects to Causes; and that every Argument, deduc'd from Causes to Effects, must of Necessity be a gross Sophysm; since it is impossible for you to know any thing of the Cause, but what you have antecedently, not infer'd, but discover'd to the full, in the Effect.

what must a Philosopher judge of those vain Reasoners, who, instead of regarding the present Life and the present Scene of Things, as the sole Object of their Contemplation, so far reverse the whole Course of Nature, as to render it merely a Passage to something farther; a Porch, which leads to a greater, and vastly different Building; a Prologue, which serves merely to introduce the Piece, and give it more