Page:Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion - Hume (1779).djvu/16

 have, as yet, been the result of our most accurate researches.

This I had lately occasion to observe, while I passed, as usual, part of the summer-season with CLEANTHES, and was present at those conversations of his with PHILO and DEMEA, of which I gave you lately some imperfect account. Your curiosity, you then told me, was so excited, that I must of necessity enter into a more exact detail of their reasonings, and display those various systems, which they advanced with regard to so delicate a subject as that of Natural Religion. The remarkable contrast in their characters still farther raised your expectations; while you opposed the accurate philosophical turn of to the careless scepticism of, or compared either of their dispositions with the rigid inflexible orthodoxy of. My youth rendered me a mere auditor of their dis-