Convulsions In Nature, Disorders, Prodigies, Miracles, Though

Nothing Is More Dangerous To Reason Than The Flights Of The Imagination And Nothing Has Been The Occasion Of More Mistakes Among Philosophers.

To Consider The Matter Aright, Reason Is Nothing But A Wonderful And Unintelligible Instinct In Our Souls, Which Carries Us Along A Certain Train Of Ideas, And Endows Them With Particular Qualities, According To Their Particular Situations And Relations. This Instinct, 'tis True, Arises From Past Observation And Experience; But Can Anyone Give The Ultimate Reason, Why Past Experience And Observation Produces Such An Effect, Any More Than Why Nature Alone Should Produce It?

The More Instances We Examine, And The More Care We Employ, The More Assurance Shall We Acquire, That The Enumeration, Which We Form From The Whole, Is Complete And Entire.

When Anyone Tells Me That He Saw A Dead Man Restored To Life, I Immediately Consider With Myself Whether It Be More Probable That This Person Should Either Deceive Or Be Deceived Or That The Fact Which He Relates Should Really Have Happened. I Weigh The One Miracle Against The Other And According To The Superiority Which I Discover, I Pronounce My Decision. Always I Reject The Greater Miracle. If The Falsehood Of His Testimony Would Be More Miraculous Than The Event Which He Relates, Then And Not Till Then, Can He Pretend To Command My Belief Or Opinion.

No Man Ever Threw Away Life While It Was Worth Keeping.