cannot find, I cannot imagine any such reasoning. But I keep my mind
still open to instruction, if any one will vouchsafe to bestow it on me.

32. Should it be said that, from a number of uniform experiments, we
_infer_ a connexion between the sensible qualities and the secret
powers; this, I must confess, seems the same difficulty, couched in
different terms. The question still recurs, on what process of argument
this _inference_ is founded? Where is the medium, the interposing ideas,
which join propositions so very wide of each other? It is confessed that
the colour, consistence, and other sensible qualities of bread appear
not, of themselves, to have any connexion with the secret powers of
nourishment and support. For otherwise we could infer these secret
powers from the first appearance of these sensible qualities, without
the aid of experience; contrary to the sentiment of all philosophers,
and contrary to plain matter of fact. Here, then, is our natural state
of ignorance with regard to the powers and influence of all objects. How
is this remedied by experience? It only shows us a number of uniform
effects, resulting from certain objects, and teaches us that those
particular objects, at that particular time, were endowed with such
powers and forces. When a new object, endowed with similar sensible
qualities, is produced, we expect similar powers and forces, and look
for a like effect. From a body of like colour and consistence with bread
we expect like nourishment and support. But this surely is a step or
progress of the mind, which wants to be explained. When a man says, _I
have found, in all past instances, such sensible qualities conjoined
with such secret powers_: And when he says, _Similar sensible qualities
will always be conjoined with similar secret powers_, he is not guilty
of a tautology, nor are these propositions in any respect the same. You
say that the one proposition is an inference from the other. But you
must confess that the inference is not intuitive; neither is it