Sect. 6. ↩
Part IV, sect. 5. ↩
Part I, sect. 5. ↩
Part II, sect. 6. ↩
Sect. 5. ↩
Part II, sect. 4. ↩
Part II, sect. 5. ↩
Part II, sect. 5. ↩
This reasoning, it must be confessed, is somewhat abstruse, and difficult to be comprehended; but it is remarkable, that this very difficulty may be converted into a proof of the reasoning. We may observe, that there are two relations, and both of them resemblances, which contribute to our mistaking the succession of our interrupted perceptions for an identical object. The first is, the resemblance of the perceptions: The second is the resemblance, which the act of the mind in surveying a succession of resembling objects bears to that in surveying an identical object. Now these resemblances we are apt to confound with each other; and it is natural we should, according to this very reasoning. But let us keep them distinct, and we shall find no difficulty in conceiving the precedent argument. ↩
Sect. 6. ↩
Sect. 5. ↩
Part II, sect. 4. ↩
Part I, sect. 5. ↩
Sect. 2, towards the end. ↩
Part II, sect. 6. ↩
Such as that of sect. 2, from the coherence of our perceptions. ↩
See Bayle’s dictionary, article of “Spinoza.” ↩
Part III, sect. 15. ↩
As father Malebranche and other Cartesians. ↩
If the reader is desirous to see how a great genius may be influenced by these seemingly trivial principles of the imagination, as well as the mere vulgar, let him read my Lord Shaftsbury’s reasonings concerning the uniting principle of the universe, and the identity of plants and animals. See his Moralists: or, Philosophical Rhapsody. ↩
Sect.4. ↩
Part III, sect.14. ↩
Sect.1. ↩
Book I, Part I, sect.2. ↩
Addison, Spectator 412, final paragraph. ↩
Part II, sect. 4. ↩
Part II, sect., 2. ↩
Part III, sect. 2. ↩
Part II, sect. 4. ↩
Book I, Part III, sect. 10. ↩
Second and Third Experiments. ↩
Fourth Experiment. ↩
Sixth Experiment. ↩
Seventh and Eighth Experiments. ↩
First Experiment. ↩
To prevent all ambiguity, I must observe, that where I oppose the imagination to the memory, I mean in general the faculty that presents our fainter ideas. In all other places, and particularly when it is opposed to the understanding, I understand the same faculty, excluding only our demonstrative and probable reasonings. ↩
Book I, Part III, sect. 15. ↩
Mons. Rollin. [Charles Rollin, Histoire Ancienne (Paris –) —Ed.]. ↩
“Spurns the dank soil in winged flight.” —Ed. ↩
“As a bird, watching over her fledglings, is more afraid of their being attacked by snakes if she were to leave them even though, were she to stay, she would not be any more capable of helping them, when they were with her.” —Ed. ↩
Book II, Part III, sect. 3. ↩
One might think it were entirely superfluous to prove this, if a late author [William Wollaston, The Religion of Nature Delineated (London )], who has had the good fortune to obtain some reputation, had not seriously affirmed, that such a falsehood is the foundation of all guilt and moral deformity. That we may discover the fallacy of his hypothesis, we need only consider, that a false conclusion is drawn from an action, only by means of an obscurity of natural principles, which makes a cause be secretly interrupted in its operation, by contrary causes, and renders the connection betwixt two objects uncertain and variable. Now, as a like uncertainty and variety of causes take place, even in natural objects, and produce a like error in our judgment, if that tendency to produce error were the very essence of vice and immorality, it should follow, that even inanimate objects might be vicious and immoral.
It is in vain to urge, that inanimate objects act without liberty and choice. For as liberty and choice are not necessary to make an action produce in us an erroneous conclusion, they can be, in no respect, essential to morality; and I do not readily perceive, upon this system, how they can ever come to be regarded by it. If the tendency to cause error be the origin of immorality, that tendency and immorality would in every case be inseparable.
Add to this, that if I had used the precaution of shutting the windows, while I indulged myself in those liberties with my neighbour’s wife, I should have been guilty of no immorality; and that because my action, being perfectly concealed, would have had no tendency to produce any false conclusion.
For the same reason, a thief, who steals in by a ladder at a window, and takes all imaginable care to cause no disturbance, is in no respect criminal. For either he will not be perceived, or if he be, it is impossible he can produce any error, nor will anyone, from these circumstances, take him to be other than what he really is.
It is well known, that those who are squint-sighted, do very readily cause mistakes in others, and that we imagine they salute or are talking to one person, while they address themselves to another. Are they therefore,
