Page:An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - Hume (1748).djvu/74

 that Objects seemingly like those we have experienc'd may be attended with different or contrary Effects. May I not clearly and distinctly conceive, that a Body falling from the Clouds, and which, in all other respects, resembles Snow, has yet the Taste of Salt or Feeling of Fire? Is there any more intelligible Proposition than to affirm, that all the Trees flourish in December and January, and decay in May and June? Now whatever is intelligible, and can be distinctly conceiv'd, implies no Contradiction, and can never be prov'd false by any demonstrative Arguments or abstract Reasonings a priori.

we be, therefore, engag'd by Arguments to put trust in past Experience, and make it the Standard of our future Judgment, these Arguments must be probable only, or such as regard Matter of Fact and real Existence, according to the Division above mention'd. But that there are no Arguments of this Kind, must appear, if our Explication of that Species of Reasoning be admitted as solid and satisfactory. We have said, that all Arguments concerning Existence are founded on the Relation of Cause and Effect; that our Knowledge of that Relation is deriv'd entirely from Experience; and that all our experimental Conclusions proceed upon the Supposition, that the future will be conformable to the past. To endeavour, therefore, the Proof of this last Supposition by pro-