Skeptical Solution to these Doubts

The passion for philosophy, like that for religion, aims at:

• the correction of our manners and
• extirpation of our vices.

But imprudence can push the mind towards that side which already draws too much.

We aspire to the magnanimous firmness of the philosophic sage and try to confine our pleasures within our own minds.

But in the end, we might render our philosophy like that of Epictetus and other Stoics. We might only:

• create a more refined system of selfishness, and
• reason ourselves out of all virtue and social enjoyment.

We study the vanity of human life and think of the empty and transitory nature of riches and honours.

But we merely might be embracing our natural indolence which hates:

• the bustle of the world and
• drudgery of business.

This gives our indolence a reason to give itself a full and uncontrolled indulgence.

The Academic or Sceptical philosophy

The Academic or Sceptical philosophy does not have this inconvenience so much.

It does not strikes the mind with any disorderly passion nor can mingle itself with any natural affection or propensity.

The Academics always talk of:

• doubt and suspense of judgement
• danger in hasty determinations
• confining to very narrow bounds the enquiries of the understanding
• renouncing all speculations which lie not within the limits of common life and practice.

It is therefore the opposite of the mind’s:

• supine indolence of the mind
• rash arrogance
• lofty pretensions
• superstitious credulity

Every passion is mortified by it, except the love of truth. That passion never is, nor can be, carried to too high a degree.

It is surprising, therefore, that this philosophy, which, in almost every instance, must be harmless and innocent, should be the subject of so much groundless reproach and obloquy.

But, perhaps, the very circumstance which renders it so innocent is what chiefly exposes it to the public hatred and resentment.

• By flattering no irregular passion, it gains few partizans:
• By opposing so many vices and follies, it raises to itself abundance of enemies, who stigmatize it as libertine profane, and irreligious.

This Academic philosophy endeavours to limit our enquiries to common life.

We should not fear that it would ever:

• undermine the reasonings of common life
• carry its doubts so far as to destroy all action and speculation

Nature will always:

• maintain her rights, and
• prevail in the end over any abstract reasoning

In all reasonings from experience, there is a step taken by the mind which is not supported by any argument or process of the understanding.

There is no danger that these reasonings, on which almost all knowledge depends, will ever be affected by such a discovery.

If the mind be not engaged by argument to make this step, it must be induced by some other principle of equal weight and authority.

That principle will preserve its influence as long as human nature remains the same.

What is that principle?

Custom and Habit

Suppose a person with the strongest faculties of reason and reflection was suddenly brought into this world.

He would observe one event following another.

• But he would not be able to discover anything farther.

At first, he would not be able to reach the idea of cause and effect by any reasoning.

This is because the powers which perform all natural operations never appear to the senses.

The sequence of events does not reveal cause and effect immediately.

• Their conjunction might be arbitrary and casual.
• There might be no reason to infer the existence of one from the appearance of the other.

Such a person, without more experience, could never:

• employ his reasoning on fact.
• be assured of anything beyond what was immediately present to his memory and senses.

Suppose that he has acquired more experience.

• He has lived so long in the world as to have observed familiar objects or events to be constantly conjoined together.

He immediately infers the existence of one object from the appearance of the other.

Yet he has not, despite all his experience, acquired any knowledge of the secret power by which the one object produces the other.

He forms conclusions that lead to cause and effect from the principle of Custom or Habit.

Custom is whenever the repetition of any operation produces a propensity to renew the same operation without being impelled by any reasoning.

Custom does not give the ultimate reason of such a propensity.

We only point out a principle of human nature.

Perhaps we can push our enquiries no farther, or pretend to give the cause of this cause.

But must rest contented with it as the ultimate principle, which we can assign, of all our conclusions from experience.*

After the constant conjunction of 2 objects such as heat and flame, weight and solidity, customs makes us expect the one from the appearance of the other.

This hypothesis seems even the only one which explains the difficulty, why we draw, from a thousand instances, an inference which we are not able to draw from one instance, that is, in no respect, different from them. Reason is incapable of any such variation.

The conclusions which it draws from considering one circle are the same which it would form upon surveying all the circles in the universe. But no man, having seen only one body move after being impelled by another, could infer that every other body will move after a like impulse. All inferences from experience, therefore, are effects of custom, not of reasoning