'Tis impossible to tell what changes and improvements we
might make in these sciences were we thoroughly acquainted with the
extent and force of human understanding, and could explain the
nature of the ideas we employ and of the operations we perform in
our reasonings.... To me it seems evident that the essence of mind
being equally unknown to us with that of external bodies, it must
be equally impossible to form any notion of its powers and
qualities otherwise than from careful and exact experiments, and
the observation of those particular effects which result from its
different circumstances and situations. And though we must
endeavour to render all our principles as universal as possible, by
tracing up our experiments to the utmost, and explaining all
effects from the simplest and fewest causes, 'tis still certain we
cannot go beyond experience; and any hypothesis that pretends to
discover the ultimate original qualities of human nature, ought at
first to be rejected as presumptuous and chimerical....
"But if this impossibility of explaining ultimate principles should
be esteemed a defect in the science of man, I will venture to
affirm, that it is a defect common to it with all the sciences, and
all the arts, in which we can employ ourselves, whether they be
such as are cultivated in the schools of the philosophers, or
practised in the shops of the meanest artisans.
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