Page:An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - Hume (1748).djvu/67

 therefore, be in vain for us to pretend to determine any single Event, or infer any Cause or Effect, without the Assistance of Observation and Experience.

we may discover the Reason, why no Philosopher, that has been rational and modest, has ever pretended to assign the ultimate Causes of any of the Operations of Nature, or to show distinctly the Actions of that Power, which produces any single Effect in the Universe. 'Tis confess'd, that the utmost Effort of human Reason is, to reduce the Principles, productive of natural Phænomena, to a greater Simplicity, and to resolve the many particular Effects into a few general Causes, by Means of Reasonings from Analogy, Experience, and Observation. But as to the Causes of these general Causes, we should in vain attempt their Discovery; nor shall we ever be able to satisfy ourselves, by any particular Explication of them. These ultimate Springs and Principles are totally shut up from human Curiosity and Enquiry. Elasticity, Gravity, Cohesion of Parts, Communication of Motion by Impulse; these are probably the Principles we shall ever discover in Nature; and we may  happy, if, by accurate Enquiry and Reasoning, we can trace up the particular Phænomena to, or near to, these general Principles. The most perfect Philosophy of the natural Kind does only stave off our Igno-