434 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book V. 



certain rules, have a6ted in fuch and fuch a manner, and have been 

 fortunate or unfortunate in certain circumftances and fituations, we 

 infer, that a ftate of the fame kind, and in the fame circumftances, 

 will have the like fortune. In accurate reafoning of this kind, 

 con(\i\. prudence and political ivifdom : And from much experience 

 in human affairs, no doubt, many general rules may be formed con- 

 cerning both the conduct of private life, and the government of na- 

 tions ; yet fuch prudential and political rules are not near fo certain 

 as the laws of nature above mentioned ; for, though there be a fyftem 

 in the affairs of men, as well as in Nature, it is far from being fo 

 conftant, regular, and uniform, as the fyflem of nature ; the one being 

 formed and carried on by infinite wifdom and power, the other an ar- 

 tificial fyftem, framed and adminiftrated by an animal of weak intelli- 

 gence and ftrong paffions, and which, therefore, is liable to many dif- 

 orders from within, as well as from without. 



But how far are we to carry this notional fyftem In the natural 3ind 

 the moral world ? In the natural world, are we to believe that the 

 fame frame and conftitution of things has always been, and will al- 

 ways continue to be ? and, in the jnoral world, that men always have 

 been^ and always will be fuch, as we know from experience they are, 

 and fuch as we are informed by hiftory they have been for fome 

 thoufands of years. Are we to believe that they will ftill continue 

 to go on with the fame vicllTitude of charaders and manners, virtues 

 and vices, arts and fciences, happinefs and mifery ; in fhort, with all 

 the variety and uncertainty in their fortune and condition that has been 

 for fo many ages paft ? Thefe are queftions which no doubt belong to 

 Xhefrji philofophy, but not to this part of it of which I am now treating, 

 concerning the nature of evidence, and the foundation of human 

 knowledge. I will therefore here conclude what 1 have to fay upon 

 the fubjed of proof by induction, after obferving, that there is no 

 proof of this kind, nor any evidence of fads, but upon the fuppofi- 



tion 



