64 HUME ! 



powers and qualities otherwise than from careful and exact 

 experiments, and the observation of those particular effects 

 which result from its different circumstances and situations. 

 And though we must endeavour to render all our principles as 

 universal as possible, by tracing up our experiments to the 

 utmost, and explaining all effects from the simplest and fewest 

 causes, 'tis still certain we cannot go beyond experience : and 

 any hypothesis that pretends to discover the ultimate original 

 qualities of human nature, ought at first to be rejected as pre- 

 sumptuous and chimerical 



" But if this impossibility of explaining ultimate principles 

 should be esteemed a defect in the science of man, I will ven- 

 ture to affirm, that it is a defect common to it with all the 

 sciences, and all the arts, in which we can employ ourselves, 

 whether they be such as are cultivated in the schools of the 

 philosophers, or practised in the shops of the meanest artizans. 

 None of them can go beyond experience, or establish any 

 principles which are not founded on that authority. Moral 

 philosophy has, indeed, this peculiar disadvantage, which is not 

 found in natural, that in collecting its experiments, it cannot 

 make them purposely, with premeditation, and after such a 

 manner as to satisfy itself concerning every particular diffi- 

 culty which may arise. When I am at a loss to know the 

 effects of one body upon another in any situation I need 

 only put them in that situation, and observe what results from 

 it. But should I endeavour to clear up in the same manner 

 any 1 doubt in moral philosophy, by placing myself in the 

 same case with that which I consider, 'tis evident this reflection 

 and premeditation would so disturb the operation of iny natural 

 principles, as must render it impossible to form any just con- 

 clusion from the phenomenon. "We must, therefore, glean up our 

 experiments in this science from a cautious observation of human 

 life, and take them as they appear in the common course of the 



1 The manner in which Hume constantly refers to the results 

 of the observation of the contents and the processes of his own 

 mind clearly shows that he has here inadvertently overstated the 



