nses; and that this inference
is altogether founded on past experience, while the creature
expects from the present object the same consequences which it has
always found in its observation to result from similar objects.

"_Secondly_, it is impossible that this inference of the animal can
be founded on any process of argument or reasoning, by which he
concludes that like events must follow like objects, and that the
course of nature will always be regular in its operations. For if
there be in reality any arguments of this nature they surely lie
too abstruse for the observation of such imperfect understandings;
since it may well employ the utmost care and attention of a
philosophic genius to discover and observe them. Animals therefore
are not guided in these inferences by reasoning; neither are
children; neither are the generality of mankind in their ordinary
actions and conclusions; neither are philosophers themselves, who,
in all the active parts of life, are in the main the same as the
vulgar, and are governed by the same maxims. Nature must have
provided some other principle, of more ready and more general use
and application; nor can an operation of such immense consequence
in life as that of inferring effects from causes, be trusted to the
uncertain process of reasoning and argumentation. Were this
doubtful with regard to men, it seems to admit of no question with
regard to the brute creation; and the conclusion being once firmly
established in the one, we have a strong presumption, from all the
rules of analogy, that it ought to be universally admitted, without
any exception or reserve. It is custom alone which engages animals,
from every object that strikes their senses, to infer its usual
attendant, and carries their imagination from the appearance of the
one to conceive the other, in that particular manner which we
denominate _belief_. No other explication can be given of this
operation in all the higher as well as lower classes of sensitive
beings which fall under our notice and observation."--(IV. pp.
122-4.)

It will be observed that Hume appears to contrast the "inference of the
animal" with the "process of argument or reasoning in man." But it would
be a complete misapprehension of his intention, if we were to suppose,
that he thereby means to im