Page:An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - Hume (1748).djvu/238

 Men to those of a Being so different, and so much superior. In human Nature, there is a certain experienc'd Consistency and Coherence of Designs and Inclinations; so that when, from any Facts, we have discover'd one Aim or Intention of any Man, it may often be reasonable, from Experience, to infer another, and draw a long Chain of Conclusions concerning his past or future Conduct. But this Method of Reasoning never can take place with regard to a Being, so remote and incomprehensible, who bears less Analogy to any other Being in the Universe than the Sun to a waxen Taper, and who discovers himself only by some faint Traces or Outlines, beyond which we have no Authority to ascribe to him any Attribute or Perfection. What we imagine to be a superior Perfection may really be a Defect. Or were it ever so much a Perfection, the ascribing it to the supreme Being, where it appears not to have been really exerted, to the full, in his Works, savours more of Flattery and Panegyric, than of just Reasoning and sound Philosophy. All the Philosophy, therefore, in the World, and all the Religion, which is nothing but a Species of Philosophy, will never be able to carry us beyond the usual Course of Experience, or give us different Measures of Conduct and Behaviour, from those which are furnish'd by Reflections on common Life. No new Fact can ever be infer'd from the religious Hypothesis; no Event foreseen or foretold; no Reward or Punish-