Page:An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - Hume (1748).djvu/61

 thro' such difficult Paths, without any Guide or Direction. They may even prove useful, by exciting Curiosity, and destroying that implicite Faith and Security, which is the Bane of all Reasoning and free Enquiry. The Discovery of Defects in the common Philosophy, if any such there be, will not, I presume, be a Discouragement, but rather an Incitement, as is usual, to attempt something more full and satisfactory, than has yet been propos'd to the Public.

Reasonings concerning Matter of Fact seem to be founded on the Relation of Cause and Effect. By Means of that Relation alone can we go beyond the Evidence of our Memory and Senses. If you were to ask a Man, why he believes any Matter of Fact, which is absent; for Instance, that his Friend is in the Country, or in France; he would give you a Reason; and this Reason would be some other Fact; as a Letter receiv'd from him, or the Knowledge of his former Resolutions and Promises. A Man, finding a Watch or any other Machine in a desert Island, would conclude, that there had once been Men in that Island. All our Reasonings concerning Fact are of the same Nature. And here 'tis constantly suppos'd, that there is a Connexion betwixt the present Fact and that infer'd from it. Were there nothing to bind them together, the Inference would be altogether precarious. The hearing of an articulate Voice and rational Dis-