Page:An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - Hume (1748).djvu/255

 comes still less, even in infinitum, and that the Angle of Contact betwixt other Curves and their Tangents may be infinitely less than those betwixt any Circle and its Tangent, and so on, in infinitum? The Demonstration of these Principles seems as unexceptionable as that which proves the three Angles of a Triangle to be equal to two right ones; tho' the latter Opinion be natural and easy, and the former big with Contradiction and Absurdity. Reason here seems to be thrown into a kind of Amazement and Suspence, which, without the Suggestions of any Sceptic, gives her a Diffidence of herself, and of the Ground she treads on. She sees a full Light, which illuminates certain Places; but that Light borders upon the most profound Darkness. And betwixt these she is so dazzled and confounded, that she scarce can pronounce with Certainty and Assurance concerning any one Object.

Absurdity of these bold Determinations of the abstract Sciences becomes, if possible, still more palpable with regard to Time than Extension. An infinite Number of real Parts of Time, passing in Succession, and exhausted one after another, is so evident a Contradiction, that no Man, one should think, whose Judgment is not corrupted, instead of being improv'd, by the Sciences, would ever be able to admit of it.