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ESSAY V.
are determin'd by Custom alone to expect the one from the Appearance of the other. This Hypothesis seems even the only one, which explains the Difficulty, why we draw an Inference from a thousand Instances, which we are not able to draw from one Instance, that is, in no respect, different from them. Reason is incapable of any such Variation. The Conclusions it draws from considering one Circle are the same, which it would form upon surveying all the Circles in the Universe. But no Man, having seen only one Body move after being impell'd by another, could infer, that every other Body will move after a like Impulse. All Inferences from Experience, therefore, are Effects of Custom, not of Reasoning[1].
Custom
- ↑ Nothing is more usual than for Writers even on moral, political, or physical Subjects, to distinguish betwixt Reason and Experience, and to suppose, that these Species of Argumentation are entirely different from each other. The former are taken for the mere Result of our intellectual Faculties, which, by considering a priori the Nature of Things, and examining the Effects, that must follow from their Operation, establish particular Principles of Science and Philosophy. The latter are suppos'd to be deriv'd entirely from Sense and Observation, by which we learn what has actually resulted from the Operation of particular Objects, and are thence able to infer what will, for the future, result from them. Thus, for Instance, the Limitations and Restraints of civil Government and a legal Constitution may be defended, either from Reason, which, reflecting on the great Frailty
and
