equitable a Demand. You cannot say, that the Argument is abstruse, and may possibly escape your Search and Enquiry; since you confess, that it is obvious to the Capacity of a mere Infant. If you hesitate, therefore, a Moment, or if, after Reflection, you produce any intricate and profound Argument, you, in a Manner, give up the Question, and confess, that it is not Reasoning, which engages us to suppose the past resembling the future, and to expect similar Effects from Causes, which are, to Appearance, similar. This is the Proposition, which I intended to enforce by the present Essay. If I be right, I pretend to have made no mighty Discovery. And if I be wrong, I must acknowledge myself to be indeed a very backward Scholar; since I cannot now discover an Argument, which, it seems, was perfectly familiar to me, long before I was out of my Cradle.
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