by fome faint traces or outlines, beyond which we have no authority to ascribe to him any attribute or perfection. What we imagine to be a fuperior perfection may really be a defect. Or were it ever fo much a perfection, the afcribing it to the Supreme Being, where it appears not to have been really exerted, to the full, in his works, favours more of flattery and panegyric, than of just reafoning and found philofophy. All the philofophy, therefore, in the world, and all the religion, which is nothing but a fpecies of philosophy, will never be able to carry us beyond the ufual courfe of experience,. or give us measures of conduct and behaviour different from those which are furnished by reflections on common life. No new fact can ever be inferred from the religious hypothesis; no event forefeen or foretold; no reward or punishment expected or dreaded, beyond what is already known by practice and obfervation. So that my apology for EPICURUS will still appear folid and fatisfactory; nor have the political interefts of society any connexion with the philofophical difputes concerning metaphyfics and religion.

There is ftill one circumftance, replied I, which you feem to have overlooked. Though I fhould allow your premises, I must still deny your conclufion. You conclude, that religious doctrines and reasonings can have no influence on life, becaufe they ought to have no influence; never confidering, that men reason not in the fame manner you do, but draw many confequences from the belief of a divine Exiftence, and fuppofe: that the Deity will inflict punishments on vice, and beftow rewards on virtue, beyond what appear in the ordinary courfe of Whether this reasoning of theirs be juft or not, is no. matter. Its influence on their life and conduct must still be the fame.

nature.

fame. And thofe, who attempt to disabuse them of fuch prejudices, may, for aught I know, be good reafoners, but I cannot allow them to be good citizens and politicians; fince they free men from one restraint upon their paffions, and make the infringement of the laws of fociety, in one respect, more eafy and fecure.

After all, I may, perhaps, agree to your general conclufion in favour of liberty, though upon different premises from those, on which you endeavour to found it. I think that the ftate ought to tolerate every principle of philosophy; nor is there an inftance that any government has fuffered in its political interests by such indulgence. There is no enthusiasm among philofophers; their doctrines are not very alluring to the people; and no restraint can be put upon their reasonings, but what must be of dangerous confequence to the sciences, and even to the state, by paving the way for perfecution and oppreffion in points where the generality of mankind are more deeply interested and concerned.

But there occurs to me (continued I) with regard to your main topic, à difficulty, which I shall just propofe to you, without insisting on it; left it lead into reasonings of too nice and delicate a nature. In a word, I much doubt whether it be poffible for a cause to be known only by its effect (as you have all along supposed) or to be of fo fingular and particular a nature as to have no parallel and no fimilarity with any other cause or object, that has ever fallen under our observation. 'Tis only when two species of objects are found to be conftantly conjoined, that we can infer the one from the other; and were an effect presented, which was intirely fingular, and could not be comprehended under any known fpecies, I do not fee, that

we could form any conjecture or inference at all concerning its caufe. If experience and observation and analogy be, indeed, the only guides which we can reafonably follow in inferences of this nature; both the effect and cause must bear a fimilarity and resemblance to other effects and causes which we know, and which we have found, in many inftances, to be conjoined with each other. I leave it to your own reflections to pursue the confequences of this principle. I fhall juft obferve, that as the antagonists of EPICURUS always fuppose the universe, an effect, quite fingular and unparalleled, to be the proof of a Deity, a caufe no less fingular and unparalleled; your reafonings, upon. that fuppofition, seem, at least, to merit our attention. There is, I own, fome difficulty, how we can ever return from the cause to the effect, and reasoning from our ideas of the former, infer any alteration on the latter, or any addition to it.

SECTION

XII.

OF THE ACADEMICAL OR SCEPTICAL.

PHILOSOPHY.

T

PART. I..

HERE is not a greater number of philofophical reason--ings, difplayed upon any fubject, than thofe, which prove the existence of a Deity, and refute the fallacies of Atheists; and yet the most religious philofophers ftill dispute whether any man can be fo blinded as to be a speculative atheift. How shall we reconcile these contradictions? The knighterrants, who wandered about to clear the world of dragons and of giants, never entertained the least doubt with regard to the existence of these monfters....

The Sceptic is another enemy of religion, who naturally provokes the indignation of all divines and graver philofophers; though 'tis certain, that no man ever met with any fuch abfurd creature, or converfed with a man, who had no opinion or principle concerning any fubject, either of action or fpeculation. This begets a very natural question: What is meant by a sceptic? And how far it is poffible to push these philofophical principles of doubt and uncertainty?

There

There is a species of fcepticism, antecedent to all study and philofophy, which is much inculcated by DES CARTES and others, as a fovereign preservative against error and precipitate judgment. It recommends an univerfal doubt, not only of all our former opinions and principles, but also of our very faculties; of whofe veracity, fay they, we must affure ourselves, by a chain of reasoning, deduced from fome original principle, which cannot poffibly be fallacious or deceitful. But neither is there any fuch original principle, which has a prerogative above others, that are self-evident and convincing: Or if there were, could we advance a ftep beyond it, but by the ufe of those very faculties, of which we were supposed to be already diffident. The CARTESIAN doubt, therefore, were it ever poffible to be attained by any human creature (as it plainly is not) would be entirely incurable; and no reasoning could ever bring us to a state affurance and conviction upon any fubject.

It must, however, be confeffed, that this fpecies of scepticifm, when more moderate, may be underfood in a very reasonable sense, and is a neceffary preparative to the study of philofophy, by preferving a proper impartiality in our judgments, and weaning our mind from all those prejudices, which we may have imbibed from education or rash opinion. To begin with clear and felf-evident principles, to advance by timorous and fure fteps, to review frequently our conclufions, and examine accurately all their confequences; though by this means we shall make both a flow and a short progress in our fyftems; are the only methods, by which we can ever hope to

reach