have prevented the operation. Our reafonings, however, and conclufions concerning the event are the fame as if this principle had no place. Being determin'd by custom to transfer the past to the future, in all our inferences; where the paft has been entirely regular and uniform, we expect the event with the greateft affur. ance, and leave no room for any contrary supposition. But where different effects have been found to follow from caufes, which are to appearance exactly fimilar, these various effects must occur to the mind in tranffering the past to the future, and enter into our conferation, when we determine the probability of the event. The we give the preference to that which has beer jound mok cinal, and believe that this effect will gzik, we muk not overlook the other effects, but muft give each of them a particular weight and authority, ir proportion as we have found it to be more or less Tis more probable, in every place of E , chat there will be froft sometime in January, than chas the weather will continue open throughout that whole month; tho' this probability varies according to the different climates, and approaches to a certainty more northern kingdoms. Here then it seems at when we transfer the paft to the future, determine the effect, which will refult from we transfer all the different events, in the oportion as they have appear'd in the paft, e one to have existed a hundred times, for for inftance, another ten times, and another once. As a great number of views do here concur in one event, they fortify and confirm it to the imagination, beget that sentiment which we call belief, and give it the preference above its antagonist, which is not fupported by an equal number of experiments, and occurs not fo frequently to the thought in transferring the past to the future. Let any one try to account for this operation of the mind upon any of the received fyftems of philofophy, and he will be fenfible of the difficulty. For my part, I fhall think it fufficient, if the prefent hints excite the curiosity of philofophers, and make them fenfible how extremely defective all common theories are, in treating of fuch curious and fuch fublime fubjects. ESSAY [97] ESSAY VII. Of the IDEA of neceffary CONNEXION. T PART I. HE great advantage of the mathematical fciences above the moral confifts in this, that the ideas of the former, being sensible, are always clear and determinate, the smallest distinction betwixt them is immediately perceptible, and the same terms are ftill expreffive of the fame ideas, without ambiguity or variation. An oval is never mistaken for a circle, nor an hyperbola for an ellipfis. The isofceles and scalenum are diftinguish'd by boundaries more exact than vice and virtue, right and wrong. If any term be defin'd in geometry, the mind readily, of itself, substitutes, on all occafions, the definition for the term defin'd: Or even when no definition is VOL. II. employ'd, E er play d, the object itself may be presented to the fenfes, and by that means be fteadily and clearly apprehended. But the finer fentiments of the mind, the operations of the understanding, the various agiestions of the pallions, tho' really in themselves diftind, eahlt elcape us, when furvey'd by reflection; nor is it in our power to recall the original object, as atzar as we have occasion to contemplate it. Ambix. So, bà thô mêerns, is gradually introduc'd into our Similar objects are readily taken to be La agmits. Sowever, zfirm, that if ve 220. was in a proper light, ther vanranges very nearly compensate pa darbas, and reduce both of them to a tre of : the mind with greater facility rains སྨཱ ཀི, ཁཱི།, ༤༥, དྷཱིཀྑཱུཝ nuft on a much longer and more intricate chan of being, and compare ideas much wider of each cher, in order to reach the abftrufer truths of that ence. And if moral ideas are apt, without extreme care, to fall into obfcurity and confufion, the inferences are always much fhorter in thefe difquifitions, and the intermediate fteps, which lead to the conclufion, much fewer than in the sciences, which treat of quantity and number. In reality, there is fcarce a pro |