| Methinks I am like a man, who having struck on many shoals, and having narrowly escaped shipwreck in passing a small frith, has yet the temerity to put out to sea in the same leaky weather-beaten vessel, and even carries his ambition so far as to think of compassing the globe under these disadvantageous circumstances. |
| My memory of past errors and perplexities, makes me diffident for the future. |
| The wretched condition, weakness, and disorder of the faculties, I must employ in my enquiries, encrease my apprehensions. |
| And the impossibility of amending or correcting these faculties, reduces me almost to despair, and makes me resolve to perish on the barren rock, on which I am at present, rather than venture myself upon that boundless ocean, which runs out into immensity. |
| This sudden view of my danger strikes me with melancholy; and as it is usual for that passion, above all others, to indulge itself; I cannot forbear feeding my despair, with all those desponding reflections, which the present subject furnishes me with in such abundance. |
| I am first affrighted and confounded with that forelorn solitude, in which I am placed in my philosophy, and fancy myself some strange uncouth monster, who not being able to mingle and unite in society, has been expelled all human commerce, and left utterly abandoned and disconsolate. |
| Fain would I run into the crowd for shelter and warmth; but cannot prevail with myself to mix with such deformity. |
| I call upon others to join me, in order to make a company apart; but no one will hearken to me. |
| Every one keeps at a distance, and dreads that storm, which beats upon me from every side. |
| I have exposed myself to the enmity of all metaphysicians, logicians, mathematicians, and even theologians; and can I wonder at the insults I must suffer? I have declared my disapprobation of their systems; and can I be surprized, if they should express a hatred of mine and of my person? When I look abroad, I foresee on every side, dispute, contradiction, anger, calumny and detraction. |
| When I turn my eye inward, I find nothing but doubt and ignorance. |
| All the world conspires to oppose and contradict me; though such is my weakness, that I feel all my opinions loosen and fall of themselves, when unsupported by the approbation of others. |
| Every step I take is with hesitation, and every new reflection makes me dread an error and absurdity in my reasoning. |
| For with what confidence can I venture upon such bold enterprises, when beside those numberless infirmities peculiar to myself, I find so many which are common to human nature? Can I be sure, that in leaving all established opinions I am following truth; and by what criterion shall I distinguish her, even if fortune should at last guide me on her foot-steps? After the most accurate and exact of my reasonings, I can give no reason why I should assent to it; and feel nothing but a strong propensity to consider objects strongly in that view, under which they appear to me. |
| Experience is a principle, which instructs me in the several conjunctions of objects for the past. |
| Habit is another principle, which determines me to expect the same for the future; and both of them conspiring to operate upon the imagination, make me form certain ideas in a more intense and lively manner, than others, which are not attended with the same advantages. |
| Without this quality, by which the mind enlivens some ideas beyond others (which seemingly is so trivial, and so little founded on reason) we coued never assent to any argument, nor carry our view beyond those few objects, which are present to our senses. |
| Nay, even to these objects we coued never attribute any existence, but what was dependent on the senses; and must comprehend them entirely in that succession of perceptions, which constitutes our self or person. |
| Nay farther, even with relation to that succession, we coued only admit of those perceptions, which are immediately present to our consciousness, nor coued those lively images, with which the memory presents us, be ever received as true pictures of past perceptions. |
| The memory, senses, and understanding are, therefore, all of them founded on the imagination, or the vivacity of our ideas. |
| No wonder a principle so inconstant and fallacious should lead us into errors, when implicitly followed (as it must be) in all its variations. |