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699 Rules.

§ 1. Rules to judge of cause and effect. 173 f. (cf. 149, 631) (v. Cause, § 11); of demonstrative science certain and infallible but in the application of them our faculties are liable to err, 180.

§ 2.—General, 141; a source of unphilosophic probability or prejudice, 146; influence judgment even contrary to present observation and experience, 147; used by judgment to distinguish between essential and accidental circumstances, 149 (cf. 173); set in opposition to one another, for it is only by following general rules that we correct the prejudice resulting from them, 149; illustrated by satire, 150; and law of honour, 153; correct appearances of the senses and make the difference between serious conviction and poetical enthusiasm, 631-2; their influence on pride, 293, 598; require a certain uniformity of experience and a superiority of positive over negative instances, 362; their influence on imagination in sympathy, 371; able to impose on the very senses, 374, cf. 147; all ordinary general rules admit of exceptions, but those of justice are inflexible and therefore highly artificial, 532; preserve moral obligation long after the natural obligation has ceased, 551; settle title to government, 555; largely extend duty of modesty, 573.

§ 3. Correct the variations in our sympathies and so give steadiness to our sentiments of morals, 581 f. (cf. 602); cause us to find beauty and virtue in things and acts which are not actually any good to any one, 584 f.; create a species of probability which always influences the imagination, 585, and so remove the contradiction between the extensive sympathy on which our sentiments of virtue depend and that limited generosity which is natural to man and the source of justice, 586.

Salic law, 561.

Satire, 150.

Scepticism.

§ 1. With regard to the reason (q.v.), 180 f.; consideration of the fallibility of our faculties reduces all knowledge to probability and ultimately produces a total extinction of belief and evidence, 180-3; but such total scepticism impossible; 'nature by an absolute and uncontrollable necessity has determined us to judge as well as to breathe and feel,' 185; it only shows us that all reasonings are founded on custom and that belief is not a simple act of thought but a kind of sensation, 'which 'tis impossible for mere ideas and reflections to destroy,' 184; we always retain a certain degree of belief, because effort to understand sceptical subtleties weakens their power, 185; and so the force of all sceptical arguments is broken by nature, 187, 268; the expeditious way which some take with the sceptics, saying that they employ reason to destroy reason, is not the best answer to them, 186; does not justify dogmatism, but they are mutually