records of our memory. This part of philosophy, it is observable, has
been little cultivated, either by the ancients or moderns; and therefore
our doubts and errors, in the prosecution of so important an enquiry,
may be the more excusable; while we march through such difficult paths
without any guide or direction. They may even prove useful, by exciting
curiosity, and destroying that implicit faith and security, which is the
bane of all reasoning and free enquiry. The discovery of defects in the
common philosophy, if any such there be, will not, I presume, be a
discouragement, but rather an incitement, as is usual, to attempt
something more full and satisfactory than has yet been proposed to
the public.

22. All reasonings concerning matter of fact seem to be founded on the
relation of _Cause and Effect_. By means of that relation alone we can
go beyond the evidence of our memory and senses. If you were to ask a
man, why he believes any matter of fact, which is absent; for instance,
that his friend is in the country, or in France; he would give you a
reason; and this reason would be some other fact; as a letter received
from him, or the knowledge of his former resolutions and promises. A man
finding a watch or any other machine in a desert island, would conclude
that there had once been men in that island. All our reasonings
concerning fact are of the same nature. And here it is constantly
supposed that there is a connexion between the present fact and that
which is inferred from it. Were there nothing to bind them together, the
inference would be entirely precarious. The hearing of an articulate
voice and rational discourse in the dark assures us of the presence of
some person: Why? because these are the effects of the human make and
fabric, and closely connected with it. If we anatomize all the other
reasonings of this nature, we shall find that they are founded on the
relation of cause and effect, and that this relation is either near or