And indeed, when we consider how aptly natural and moral evidence
link together, and form only one chain of argument, we shall make no
scruple to allow that they are of the same nature, and derived from
the same principles. A prisoner who has neither money nor interest,
discovers the impossibility of his escape, as well when he considers
the obstinacy of the gaoler, as the walls and bars with which he is
surrounded; and, in all attempts for his freedom, chooses rather to
work upon the stone and iron of the one, than upon the inflexible
nature of the other. The same prisoner, when conducted to the
scaffold, foresees his death as certainly from the constancy and
fidelity of his guards, as from the operation of the axe or wheel. His
mind runs along a certain train of ideas: The refusal of the
soldiers to consent to his escape; the action of the executioner;
the separation of the head and body; bleeding, convulsive motions, and
death. Here is a connected chain of natural causes and voluntary
actions; but the mind feels no difference between them in passing from
one link to another: Nor is less certain of the future event than if
it were connected with the objects present to the memory or senses, by
a train of causes, cemented together by what we are pleased to call
a physical necessity.
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