Page:An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - Hume (1748).djvu/236

 shows a particular Degree of these Perfections, we infer a particular Degree of them, precisely adapted to the Effect we examine. But farther Attributes or farther Degrees of the same Attributes, we can never be authoriz'd to infer or suppose, by any Rules of just Reasoning. Now without some such Licence of Supposition, 'tis impossible for us to argue from the Cause, or infer any Alteration in the Effect, beyond what has immediately fallen under our Observation. Greater Good produc'd by this Being must still prove a greater Degree of Goodness: More impartial Distribution of Rewards and Punishments must proceed from a superior Regard to Justice and Equity. Every suppos'd Addition to the Works of Nature makes an Addition to the Attributes of the Author of Nature; and consequently, being altogether unsupported by any Reason or Argument, can never be admitted but as mere Conjecture and Hypothesis.

general, it may, I think, be establish'd as a Maxim, that where any Cause is known only by its particular Effects, it must be impossible to infer any new Effects from that Cause; since the Qualities, which are requisite to produce these new Effects, along with the former, must either be different, or superior, or of more extensive Operation, than those which simply produc'd the Effect, whence alone the Cause