748 DAVIDHUME
that deity. The knowledge of the cause being derived solely from the effect, they must
be exactly adjusted to each other; and the one can never refer to anything farther, or be
the foundation of any new inference and conclusion.
You find certain phenomena in nature. You seek a cause or author. You imagine
that you have found him. You afterwards become so enamoured of this offspring of your
brain, that you imagine it impossible, but he must produce something greater and more
perfect than the present scene of things, which is so full of ill and disorder. You forget,
that this superlative intelligence and benevolence are entirely imaginary, or, at least,
without any foundation in reason; and that you have no ground to ascribe to him any
qualities, but what you see he has actually exerted and displayed in his productions. Let
your gods, therefore, O philosophers, be suited to the present appearances of nature:
and presume not to alter these appearances by arbitrary suppositions, in order to suit
them to the attributes, which you so fondly ascribe to your deities.
When priests and poets, supported by your authority, O Athenians, talk of a
golden or silver age, which preceded the present state of vice and misery, I hear them
with attention and with reverence. But when philosophers, who pretend to neglect
authority, and to cultivate reason, hold the same discourse, I pay them not, I own, the
same obsequious submission and pious deference. I ask, who carried them into the
celestial regions, who admitted them into the councils of the gods, who opened to them
the book of fate, that they thus rashly affirm, that their deities have executed, or will
execute, any purpose beyond what has actually appeared? If they tell me, that they have
mounted on the steps or by the gradual ascent of reason, and by drawing inferences
from effects to causes, I still insist, that they have aided the ascent of reason by the
wings of imagination; otherwise they could not thus change their manner of inference,
and argue from causes to effects; presuming, that a more perfect production than the
present world would be more suitable to such perfect beings as the gods, and forgetting
that they have no reason to ascribe to these celestial beings any perfection or any
attribute, but what can be found in the present world.
Hence all the fruitless industry to account for the ill appearance of nature, and save
the honour of the gods; while we must acknowledge the reality of that evil and disorder,
with which the world so much abounds. The obstinate and intractable qualities of matter,
we are told, or the observance of general laws, or some such reason, is the sole cause,
which controlled the power and benevolence of Jupiter, and obliged him to create mankind
and every sensible creature so imperfect and so unhappy. These attributes then, are, it
seems, beforehand, taken for granted, in their greatest latitude. And upon that supposition,
I own that such conjectures may, perhaps, be admitted as plausible solutions of the ill phe-
nomena. But still I ask, Why take these attributes for granted, or why ascribe to the cause
any qualities but what actually appear in the effect? Why torture your brain to justify the
course of nature upon suppositions, which, for aught you know, may be entirely imaginary,
and of which there are to be found no traces in the course of nature?
The religious hypothesis, therefore, must be considered only as a particular
method of accounting for the visible phenomena of the universe: but no just reasoner
will ever presume to infer from it any single fact, and alter or add to the phenomena, in
any single particular. If you think, that the appearances of things prove such causes, it is
allowable for you to draw an inference concerning the existence of these causes. In such
complicated and sublime subjects, every one should be indulged in the liberty of con-
jecture and argument. But here you ought to rest. If you come backward, and arguing
from your inferred causes, conclude, that any other fact has existed, or will exist, in the
course of nature, which may serve as a fuller display of particular attributes; I must