effect we are as ignorant of the ultimate principle, which binds them
together, as in the most unusual and extraordinary. But this proceeds
merely from an illusion of the imagination; and the question is, how far
we ought to yield to these illusions. This question is very difficult,
and reduces us to a very dangerous dilemma, whichever way we answer it.
For if we assent to every trivial suggestion of the fancy; beside that
these suggestions are often contrary to each other; they lead us into
such errors, absurdities, and obscurities, that we must at last become
ashamed of our credulity. Nothing is more dangerous to reason than the
flights of the imagination, and nothing has been the occasion of more
mistakes among philosophers. Men of bright fancies may in this respect
be compared to those angels, whom the scripture represents as covering
their eyes with their wings. This has already appeared in so many
instances, that we may spare ourselves the trouble of enlarging upon it
any farther.

But on the other hand, if the consideration of these instances makes us
take a resolution to reject all the trivial suggestions of the fancy,
and adhere to the understanding, that is, to the general and more
established properties of the imagination; even this resolution, if
steadily executed, would be dangerous, and attended with the most
fatal consequences. For I have already shewn [Sect. 1.], that the
understanding, when it acts alone, and according to its most general
principles, entirely subverts itself, and leaves not the lowest degree
of evidence in any proposition, either in philosophy or common life. We
save ourselves from this total scepticism only by means of that singular
and seemingly trivial property of the fancy, by which we enter with
difficulty into remote views of things, and are not able to accompany
them with so sensible an impression, as we do those, which are more easy
and natural. Shall we, then, establish it for a general maxim, that no
refined or elaborate reasoning is ever to be received? Consider well the
consequences of such a principle. By this means you cut off entirely
all science and philosophy: You proceed upon one singular quality of the
imagination, and by a parity of reason must embrace all of them: And
you expressly contradict yourself; since this maxim must be built on the
preceding reasoning, which will be allowed to be sufficiently refined
and metaphysical. What party, then, shall we choose among t