unavoidable as to feel the Passion of Love, when we receive Benefits, or Hatred, when we meet with Injuries. All these Operations are a Species of natural Instincts, which no Reason or Process of the Thought and Understanding is able, either to produce, or to prevent.
At this Point, 'twould be very allowable for us to stop our philosophical Researches. In most Questions, we can never make a single Step farther; and in all Questions, we must terminate here at last, after our most restless and curious Enquiries. But still our Curiosity will be pardonable, perhaps commendable, if it carry us on to still farther Researches, and make us examine more accurately the Nature of this Belief, and of the customary Conjunction, whence it is deriv'd. By this Means, we may meet with some Explications and Analogies, that will give Satisfaction; at least to such as love the abstract Sciences, and can be entertain'd with Speculations, which, however accurate, may still retain a Degree of Doubt and Uncertainty. As to Readers of a different Taste; the remaining Part of this Essay is not calculated for them, and the following Essays may well be understood, tho' it be neglected.
PART
