Page:An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - Hume (1748).djvu/73

 if indeed it be drawn by Reasoning and Argument. What that Medium is, I must confess, passes my Comprehension; and 'tis incumbent on those to produce it, who assert, that it really exists, and is the Origin of all our Conclusions concerning Matter of Fact.

negative Argument must certainly, in Process of Time, become altogether convincing, if many penetrating and able Philosophers shall turn their Enquiries this Way; and no one be ever able to discover any connecting Proposition or intermediate Step, which supports the Understanding in this Conclusion. But as the Question is yet new, every Reader may not trust so far to his own Penetration, as to conclude, because an Argument escapes his Research and Enquiry, that therefore it does not really exist. For this Reason it may be requisite to venture upon a more difficult Task; and enumerating all the Branches of human Knowledge, endeavour to show, that none of them can afford such an Argument.

Reasonings may be divided into two Kinds, viz. demonstrative Reasonings, or those concerning Relations of Ideas, and moral or probable Reasonings, or those concerning Matter of Fact and Existence. That there are no demonstrative Arguments in the Case, seems evident; since it implies no Contradiction, that the Course of Nature may change, and