BOOK I PART III
being more capricious and uncertain.
Thus our general rules are in a manner set in
opposition to each other. When an object ap-
pears, that resembles any cause in very con-
siderable circumstances, the imagination nat-
urally carries us to a lively conception of the
usual effect, Though the object be different in
the most material and most efficacious circum-
stances from that cause. Here is the first in-
fluence of general rules. But when we take a
review of this act of the mind, and compare
it with the more general and authentic oper-
ations of the understanding, we find it to be
of an irregular nature, and destructive of all
the most established principles of reasonings;
which is the cause of our rejecting it. This is a
second influence of general rules, and implies
the condemnation of the former. Sometimes