Page:An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - Hume (1748).djvu/26

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14
ESSAY I.

Faculties, that these Powers are totally distinct from each other, that what is really distinct to the immediate Perception may be distinguish'd by Reflection; and consequently, that there is a Truth and Falshood in all Propositions on this Subject, and a Truth and Falshood, which lies not beyond the Compass of human Understanding. There are many obvious Distinctions of this kind, such as those betwixt the Will and Understanding, the Imagination and Passions, which fall within the Comprehension of every human Creature; and the finer and more philosophical Distinctions are no less real and certain, tho' more difficult to be comprehended. Some Instances, especially late ones, of Success in these Enquiries, may give us a juster Notion of the Certainty and Solidity of this Branch of Learning. And shall we esteem it worthy the Labour of a Philosopher to give us a true System of the Planets, and adjust the Position and Order of those remote Bodies; while we affect to overlook those, who, with so much Success, delineate and describe the Parts of the Mind, in which we are so intimately concern'd[1]?

But

  1. That Faculty, by which we discern Truth and Falshood, and that by which we perceive Vice and Virtue had long been confounded with each other, and all Morality was suppos'd to be built on eternal and immutable Relations, which to every intelligent Mind were equally invariable as any Proposition con-

cerning