Page:An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - Hume (1748).djvu/266

 ceivable and intelligible, than that which affirms it to be. The Case is different with the Sciences, properly so call'd. Every false Proposition is there confus'd and unintelligible. That the Cube Root of 64 is equal to the half of 10, is a false Proposition, and can never be distinctly conceiv'd. But that Cæsar, or the Angel Gabriel, or any Being never existed, may be a false Proposition, but still is perfectly conceivable, and implies no Contradiction.

Existence, therefore, of any Being can only be prov'd by Arguments from its Cause or its Effect; and these Arguments are founded entirely on Experience. If we reason a priori, any Thing may appear able to produce any Thing. The Falling of a Peeble may, for aught we know, extinguish the Sun; or the Wish of a Man controul the Planets in their Orbits. 'Tis only Experience, that teaches us the Nature and Bounds of Cause and Effect, and enables us to infer the Existence of one Object from that of another. Such is the Foundation of moral Reasoning, which forms the greatest Part of human Know-