Page:An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - Hume (1748).djvu/253

 trary to Reason; at least, if it be a Principle of Reason, that all sensible Qualities are in the Mind, not in the Object.

may seem a very extravagant Attempt of the Sceptics to destroy Reason by Argument and Ratiocination; yet this is the grand Scope of all their Enquiries and Disputes. They endeavour to find Objections, both to our abstract Reasonings, and to those which regard Matter of Fact and Existence.

chief Objection against all abstract Reasonings is deriv'd from the Nature of Space and Time, which, in common Life and to a careless View, seem very clear and intelligible, but when they pass thro' the Scrutiny of the profound Sciences (and they are the chief Object of these Sciences) afford Principles and Notions full of Absurdity and Contradiction. No priestly Dogmas, invented on purpose to tame and subdue the rebellious Reason of Mankind, ever shock'd common Sense more than the Doctrine of the infinite Divisibility of Extension, with all its Consequences; as they are pompously display'd by all Geometricians and Metaphysicians, with a kind of Triumph and Exultation. A real Quantity, infinitely less than any finite