We are apt to imagine that we could discover these
effects by the mere operation of our reason, without experience. We
fancy, that were we brought on a sudden into this world, we could at
first have inferred that one billiard-ball would communicate motion to
another upon impulse; and that we needed not to have waited for the
event, in order to pronounce with certainty concerning it. Such is the
influence of custom, that, where it is strongest, it not only covers
our natural ignorance, but even conceals itself, and seems not to take
place, merely because it is found in the highest degree.
25. But to convince us that all the laws of nature, and all the
operations of bodies without exception, are known only by
experience, the following reflections may, perhaps, suffice. Were
any object presented to us, and were we required to pronounce
concerning the effect, which will result from it, without consulting
past observation; after what manner, I beseech you, must the mind
proceed in this operation? It must invent or imagine some event, which
it ascribes to the object as its effect; and it is plain that this
invention must be entirely arbitrary. The mind can never possibly find
the effect in the supposed cause, by the most accurate scrutiny and
examination.
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