have prevented the Operation. Our Reasonings, however, and Conclusions concerning the Event are the same as if this Principle had no Place. Being determin'd by Custom to transfer the past to the future, in all our Inferences; where the past has been entirely regular and uniform, we expect the Event with the greatest Assurance, and leave no room for any contrary Supposition. But where different Effects have been sound to follow from Causes, which are to Appearance exactly similar, all these various Effects must occur to the Mind in transferring the past to the future, and enter into our Consideration, when we determine the Probability of the Event. Tho' we give the Preference to that which has been found most usual, and believe that this Effect will exist, we must not overlook the other Effects, but must give each of them a particular Weight and Authority, in Proportion as we have found it to be more or less frequent. 'Tis more probable, in every Place of Europe, that there will be Frost sometime in January, than that the Weather will continue fresh throughout that whole Month; tho' this Probability varies according to the different Climates, and approaches to a Certainty in the more northern Kingdoms. Here then it seems evident that when we transfer the past to the future, in order to determine the Effect that will result from any Cause, we transfer all the different Events, in the same Proportion as they have appear'd in the past, and conceive one to have existed a hundred Times,for
