able into experimental conviction; because we have already shewn, that all reasoning from experience is resolvable into intuitive principles, either of certain or of probable evidence and surely it is no less true, as far as our faith in testimony is itself instinctive, and such as cannot be resolved into any higher principle.

Our faith in testimony does often, but not always, amount to absolute certainty. That there is such a city as Constantinople, such a country as Lapland, and such a mountain as the peak of Teneriffe; that there were such men as Hannibal and Julius Cesar; that England was conquered by William the Norman ; that Charles I. was beheaded;-of these, and such like truths, every person acquainted with history and geography accounts himself absolutely certain. When a number of persons, not acting in concert, having no interest to disguise the truth, and sufficient judges of that to which they bear testimony, concur in making the same report, it would be accounted madness not to believe them. Nay, when a number of witnesses, separately examined, and having had no opportunity to concert a plan before-hand, do all agree in their declarations, we make no scruple of yielding full faith to their testimony, even though we have no evidence of their honesty or skill; nay, though they be notorious both for knavery and folly: because the fictions of the human mind being infinite, it is impossible that each of these witnesses should, by mere accident, devise the very same circumstanees; if therefore their declarations concur, this is a certain proof, that there is no fiction in the case, and that they all speak from real experience and knowledge. The inference we form on these occasions is supported by arguments drawn from our ex

perience; and all arguments of this sort are resolvable into the principles of common sense. In general it will be found true of all our reasonings concerning. testimony, that they are founded, either mediately or immediately, upon instinctive conviction or instinctive assent; so that he who has resolved to believe nothing but what he can give a reason for, can never, consistently with this resolution, believe any thing, either as certain or as probable, upon the testimony of other men.

TH

SECT. IX.

Conclusion of this Chapter.

HE conclusion to which we are led by the above induction, would perhaps be admitted by some to be self-evident, or at least, to stand in no great need of illustration; to others it might have been proved a priori in very few words; but to the greater part of readers, a detail of particulars may be necessary, in order to produce that steady and well grounded conviction which it is our ambition to establish.

The argument a priori might be comprehended in the following words. If there be any creatures in human shape, who deny the distinction between truth and falsehood, or who are unconscious of that distinction, they are far beyond the reach, and below the notice of philosophy, and therefore have no concern in this inquiry. Whoever is sensible of that distinction, and is willing to acknowledge it, must confess, that truth is something fixed and determinate, depending not upon man, but the Author of nature. The fundamental principles of truth must therefore rest upon their own evidence, perceived intuitively by the understanding. If they did not, if reasoning

were necessary to enforce them, they must be exposed to perpetual vicissitude, and appear under a different form in every individual, according to the peculiar turn and character of his reasoning powers. Were this the case, no man could know, of any proposition, whether it were true or false, till after he had heard all the arguments that had been urged for and against it; and, even then, he could not know with certainty, whether he had heard all that could be urged: Future disputants might overturn the former arguments, and produce new ones, to continue unanswered for a while, and then submit, in their turn, to their successors. Were this the case, there could be no such thing as an appeal to the common sense of mankind, even as in a state of nature there can be no appeal to the law; every man would be a law unto himself," not in morals only, but in science of every kind.

We sometimes repine at the narrow limits prescribed to human capacity. Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further, seems a hard prohibition, when applied to the operations of mind. But as, in the material world, it is to this prohibition man owes his security and existence; so, in the immaterial system, it is to this we owe our dignity, our virtue, and our happiness. A beacon blazing from a well-known promontory is a welcome object to the bewildered mariner; who is so far from repining that he has not the beneficial light in his own keeping, that he is sensible its utility depends on its being placed on the firm land, and committed to the care of others.

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We have now proved, that " except we believe many things without proof, we never can believe any thing at all; for that all sound reasoning must

"ultimately rest on the principles of common sense, “that is, on principles intuitively certain, or intuitively probable; and, consequently, that common

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sense is the ultimate judge of truth, to which rea"son must continually act in subordination *." To common sense, therefore, all truth must be conformable; this is its fixed and invariable standard. And whatever contradicts common sense, or is inconsistent with that standard, though supported by arguments that are deemed unanswerable, and by names that are celebrated by all the critics, academies, and potentates on earth, is not truth, but falsehood. In a word, the dictates of common sense are, in respect to human knowledge in general, what the axioms of geometry are in respect to mathematics; on the supposition that those axioms are false or dubious, all mathematical reasoning falls to the ground; and on the supposition that the dictates of common sense are erroneous or deceitful, all science, truth, and virtue are vain.

I know not but it may be urged as an objection to this doctrine, that, if we grant common sense to be the ultimate judge in all disputes, a great part of ancient and modern philosophy becomes useless. I admit the objection with all my heart, in its full force, and with all its consequences; and yet I must repeat, that if common sense be supposed fallacious, all knowledge is at an end; and that even a demonstration of the fallacy would itself be fallacious and frivolous. For if the dictates of my nature deceive me in one case, how shall I know that they do not deceive me in another? When a philosopher demonstrates to me, that matter exists not but in my mind,

See part 1. chap. 1, sub. fin.

and independent on me and my faculties, has no existence at all; before I admit his demonstration, I must disbelieve all my senses, and distrust every principle of belief within me: before I admit his demonstration, I must be convinced, that I and all mankind are fools; that our Maker made us such, and from the beginning intended to impose on us; and that it was not till about the six thousandth year of the world when this imposture was discovered; and then discovered, not by a divine revelation, not by any rational investigation of the laws of nature, not by any inference from previous truths of acknowledged authority, but by a pretty play of English and French words, to which the learned have given the name of metaphysical reasoning. Before I admit this pretended demonstration, I must bring myself to believe what I find to be incredible; which seems to me not a whit less difficult than to perform what is impossible. And when all this is done, if it were possible that all this could be done, pray what is science, or truth, or falsehood? Shall I believe nothing? or shall I believe every thing? Or am I capable either of belief, or of disbelief? or do I exist? or is there such a thing as existence?

The end of all science, and indeed of every useful pursuit, is to make men happier, by improving them in wisdom and virtue. I beg leave to ask, whether the present race of men owe any part of their virtue, wisdom, or happiness, to what metaphysicians have written in proof of the non-existence of matter, and the necessity of human actions? If it be answered, That our happiness, wisdom, and virtue, are not at all affected by such controversies, then I must affirm, that all such controversies are useless. And if it be