750 DAVIDHUME
the gods, at present, exerts itself in part, but not in its full extent; I answer, that you have no
reason to give it any particular extent, but only so far as you see it,at present,exert itself.
Thus I bring the dispute, O Athenians, to a short issue with my antagonists. The
course of nature lies open to my contemplation as well as to theirs. The experienced
train of events is the great standard, by which we all regulate our conduct. Nothing
else can be appealed to in the field, or in the senate. Nothing else ought ever to be
heard of in the schools, or in the closet. In vain would our limited understanding
break through those boundaries, which are too narrow for our fond imagination.
While we argue from the course of nature, and infer a particular intelligent cause,
which first bestowed, and still preserves order in the universe, we embrace a principle,
which is both uncertain and useless. It is uncertain; because the subject lies entirely
beyond the reach of human experience. It is useless; because our knowledge of this
cause being derived entirely from the course of nature, we can never, according to the
rules of just reasoning, return back from the cause with any new inference, or making
additions to the common and experienced course of nature, establish any new principles
of conduct and behaviour.
I observe (said I, finding he had finished his harangue) that you neglect not the arti-
fice of the demagogues of old; and as you were pleased to make me stand for the people,
you insinuate yourself into my favour by embracing those principles, to which, you
know, I have always expressed a particular attachment. But allowing you to make expe-
rience (as indeed I think you ought) the only standard of our judgement concerning this,
and all other questions of fact; I doubt not but, from the very same experience, to which
you appeal, it may be possible to refute this reasoning, which you have put into the
mouth of Epicurus. If you saw, for instance, a half-finished building, surrounded with
heaps of brick and stone and mortar, and all the instruments of masonry; could you not
inferfrom the effect, that it was a work of design and contrivance? And could you not
return again, from this inferred cause, to infer new additions to the effect, and conclude,
that the building would soon be finished, and receive all the further improvements, which
art could bestow upon it? If you saw upon the sea-shore the print of one human foot, you
would conclude, that a man had passed that way, and that he had also left the traces of the
other foot, though effaced by the rolling of the sands or inundation of the waters. Why
then do you refuse to admit the same method of reasoning with regard to the order of
nature? Consider the world and the present life only as an imperfect building, from
which you can infer a superior intelligence; and arguing from that superior intelligence,
which can leave nothing imperfect; why may you not infer a more finished scheme or
plan, which will receive its completion in some distant point of space or time? Are not
these methods of reasoning exactly similar? And under what pretence can you embrace
the one, while you reject the other?
The infinite difference of the subjects, replied he, is a sufficient foundation for
this difference in my conclusions. In works of humanart and contrivance, it is allowable
to advance from the effect to the cause, and returning back from the cause, to form new
inferences concerning the effect, and examine the alterations, which it has probably
undergone, or may still undergo. But what is the foundation of this method of reasoning?
Plainly this: that man is a being, whom we know by experience, whose motives and
designs we are acquainted with, and whose projects and inclinations have a certain
connexion and coherence, according to the laws which nature has established for the
government of such a creature. When, therefore, we find, that any work has proceeded
from the skill and industry of man; as we are otherwise acquainted with the nature of
the animal, we can draw a hundred inferences concerning what may be expected from