BOOK I PART III
necessarily acknowledge, that experience may
produce a belief and a judgment of causes and
effects by a secret operation, and without be-
ing once thought of. This removes all pretext,
if there yet remains any, for asserting that the
mind is convinced by reasoning of that prin-
ciple, that instances of which we have no ex-
perience, must necessarily resemble those, of
which we have. For we here find, that the
understanding or imagination can draw infer-
ences from past experience, without reflecting
on it; much more without forming any princi-
ple concerning it, or reasoning upon that prin-
ciple.
In general we may observe, that in all the
most established and uniform conjunctions of
causes and effects, such as those of gravity, im-
pulse, solidity, &c. the mind never carries its