It Is Still Open For Me, As

A Wise Man Proportions His Belief To The Evidence.

And Indeed Nothing But The Most Determined Scepticism, Along With A Great Degree Of Indolence, Can Justify This Aversion To Metaphysics. For If Truth Be At All Within The Reach Of Human Capacity, It Is Certain It Must Lie Very Deep And Abstruse: And To Hope We Shall Arrive At It Without Pains, While The Greatest Geniuses Have Failed With The Utmost Pains, Must Certainly Be Esteemed Sufficiently Vain And Presumptuous. I Pretend To No Such Advantage In The Philosophy I Am Going To Unfold, And Would Esteem It A Strong Presumption Against It, Were It So Very Easy And Obvious.

What Would Become Of History, Had We Not A Dependence On The Veracity Of The Historian, According To The Experience, What We Have Had Of Mankind?

There Has Been A Controversy Started Of Late, Much Better Worth Examination, Concerning The General Foundation Of Morals; Whether They Be Derived From Reason, Or From Sentiment; Whether We Attain The Knowledge Of Them By A Chain Of Argument And Induction, Or By An Immediate Feeling And Finer Internal Sense; Whether, Like All Sound Judgement Of Truth And Falsehood, They Should Be The Same To Every Rational Intelligent Being; Or Whether, Like The Perception Of Beauty And Deformity, They Be Founded Entirely On The Particular Fabric And Constitution Of The Human Species.

We May Conclude, Therefore, That, In Order To Establish Laws For The Regulation Of Property, We Must Be Acquainted With The Nature And Situation Of Man; Must Reject Appearances, Which May Be False, Though Specious; And Must Search For Those Rules, Which Are, On The Whole, Most Useful And Beneficial.