484 Common Senfe, &V. [Book X. 



are propofitiorls immediately connected with experience, 

 and therefore admitted without he/nation. That the 

 angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, 

 is a truth no kfs certain, but cannot be demonftrated 

 without a confiderable train of reafoning. This re- 

 mark will apply to many difputes in morals, theology, 

 &c. Thofe facts which lie neareil the teftimony of our 

 fenfes will meet the eafieft reception. 



I have called reafoning the arithmetic of words, in 

 which falfe conclufions may be drawn, either from 

 wrong data, or from an error in the operation. It will 

 follow, that- the conclufions of our reafon, and our 

 immediate feelings, may be fometimes at variance. 

 It is common to (ay, " I feel confuted, but not con- 

 vinced i" that is, on fome former occafions, by com- 

 mon experience, you have united certain confequences 

 with certain things or actions j and another perfon, by 

 a certain chain of reafoning, fome one ftep of which 

 may be falfe, but to which you have not attended 

 clofely enough to detect the error, now exhibits a dif- 

 ferent conclufion. ' Pafiion itfelf will often plaj* the 

 part of the fophift, and determine men to act in con- 

 tradiction to a conclufion founded on common ex- 

 perience*: " Video meliora, proboque, deteriora fe- 

 quor." 



Errors moft frequently happen in what is called rea- 

 foning by analogy. Analogical reafoning is grounded 

 on the refembling parts of complex ideas, and as long 



* As bodily pain is an unufual (late, and can never be entirely 

 forgotten, however engaged the perfon may be, but will of courfe 

 awaken the attention frequently to fuch objeb and ideas as are 

 connected with it ; fo a paflion, being an unufual ftatc of mind, 

 fomething analogous to the fuffering of the body, will frequently 

 awake it from other purfuits, and turn it :o thofe ideas which are 

 it. 



as 



