that, when he carries his goods to market, and offers them at a
reasonable price, he shall find purchasers, and shall be able, by the
money he acquires, to engage others to supply him with those commodities
which are requisite for his subsistence. In proportion as men extend
their dealings, and render their intercourse with others more
complicated, they always comprehend, in their schemes of life, a greater
variety of voluntary actions, which they expect, from the proper
motives, to co-operate with their own. In all these conclusions they
take their measures from past experience, in the same manner as in their
reasonings concerning external objects; and firmly believe that men, as
well as all the elements, are to continue, in their operations, the same
that they have ever found them. A manufacturer reckons upon the labour
of his servants for the execution of any work as much as upon the tools
which he employs, and would be equally surprised were his expectations
disappointed. In short, this experimental inference and reasoning
concerning the actions of others enters so much into human life that no
man, while awake, is ever a moment without employing it. Have we not
reason, therefore, to affirm that all mankind have always agreed in the
doctrine of necessity according to the foregoing definition and
explication of it?

70. Nor have philosophers ever entertained a different opinion from the
people in this particular. For, not to mention that almost every action
of their life supposes that opinion, there are even few of the
speculative parts of learning to which it is not essential. What would
become of _history,_ had we not a dependence on the veracity of the
historian according to the experience which we have had of mankind? How
could _politics_ be a science, if laws and forms of goverment had not a
uniform influence upon society? Where would be the foundation of
_morals,_ if particular characters had no certain or determinate power