Page:An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - Hume (1748).djvu/83

 and Resentment. By flattering no irregular Passion, it gains few Partizans: By opposing so many Vices and Follies, it raises to itself abundance of Enemies, who stigmatize it as libertine, prophane, and irreligious.

need we fear, that this Philosophy, while it endeavours to limit our Enquiries to common Life, should ever undermine the Reasonings of common Life, and carry its Doubts so far as to destroy all Action, as well as Speculation. Nature will always maintain her Rights, and prevail in the End over any abstract Reasoning whatsoever. Tho' we should conclude, for Instance, as in the foregoing Essay, that, in all Reasonings from Experience, there is a Step taken by the Mind, which is not supported by any Argument or Process of the Understanding; there is no Danger, that these Reasonings, on which almost all Knowledge depends, will ever be affected by such a Discovery. If the Mind be not engag'd by Argument to make this Step, it must be induc'd by some other Principle of equal Weight and Authority; and that Principle will preserve its Influence as long as human Nature remains the same. What that Principle is, may well be worth the Pains of Enquiry.

a Person, tho' endow'd with the strongest Faculties of Reason and Reflection, to be brought of