272 Human Understanding, 



Lastly, Of Reason. 



Reason is the pre-eminent faculty of 

 the human mind, and is necessary and 

 assisting to all our other intellectual fa- 

 culties. By it we enlarge our know- 

 ledge and regulate our assent ; for it hath 

 to do both in knowledge and opinion, 

 and is the faculty which finds out the 

 means, and rightly applies them, to dis- 

 cover certainty in the one, and probabil- 

 ity in the other. It is Reason which 

 perceives the necessary and indubitable 

 connexion of all the ideas and proofs one 

 to another, in each step of any demon- 

 stration that produces knowledge ; it like- 

 wise perceives the probable connexion 

 of all the ideas or proofs one to another, 

 in every step of a discourse to which it 

 will think assent due ; and where the 

 mind does not perceive this probable 

 connexion or no ; there men's opinions 

 are not the product of Judgment, or the 

 consequence of Reason, but the effects 

 of chance, and of a mind floating at all 

 adventures, without choice, and without 

 direction* 



FINIS. 



