The Chief Benefit, Which Results From Philosophy,

Apart From The Representational Content Of An Idea There Is Another Component: Its Force And Vivacity, Its Impetus.

We Have No Other Notion Of Cause And Effect, But That Of Certain Objects, Which Have Always Conjoin'd Together, And Which In All Past Instances Have Been Found Inseparable. We Cannot Penetrate Into The Reason Of The Conjunction. We Only Observe The Thing Itself, And Always Find That From The Constant Conjunction The Objects Acquire An Union In The Imagination.

When I Think Of God, When I Think Of Him As Existent, And When I Believe Him To Be Existent, My Idea Of Him Neither Increases Nordiminishes. But As It Is Certain There Is A Great Difference Betwixt The Simple Conception Of The Existence Of An Object, And The Belief Of It, And As This Difference Lies Not In The Parts Or Composition Of The Idea Which We Conceive; It Follows, That It Must Lie In The Manner In Which We Conceive It.

The Many Instances Of Forged Miracles, And Prophecies, And Supernatural Events, Which, In All Ages, Have Either Been Detected By Contrary Evidence, Or Which Detect Themselves By Their Absurdity, Prove Sufficiently The Strong Propensity Of Mankind To The Extraordinary And Marvellous, And Ought Reasonably To Begat A Suspicion Against All Relations Of This Kind.

Let Us Become Thoroughly Sensible Of The Weakness, Blindness, And Narrow Limits Of Human Reason: Let Us Duly Consider Its Uncertainty And Endless Contrarieties, Even In Subjects Of Common Life And Practice.... When These Topics Are Displayed In Their Full Light, As They Are By Some Philosophers And Almost All Divines; Who Can Retain Such Confidence In This Frail Faculty Of Reason As To Pay Any Regard To Its Determinations In Points So Sublime, So Abstruse, So Remote From Common Life And Experience?