ply that there is any real difference between
the two processes. The "inference of the animal" is a potential belief
of expectation; the process of argument, or reasoning, in man is based
upon potential beliefs of expectation, which are formed in the man
exactly in the same way as in the animal. But, in men endowed with
speech, the mental state which constitutes the potential belief is
represented by a verbal proposition, and thus becomes what all the world
recognises as a belief. The fallacy which Hume combats is, that the
proposition, or verbal representative of a belief, has come to be
regarded as a reality, instead of as the mere symbol which it really is;
and that reasoning, or logic, which deals with nothing but propositions,
is supposed to be necessary in order to validate the natural fact
symbolised by those propositions. It is a fallacy similar to that of
supposing that money is the foundation of wealth, whereas it is only the
wholly unessential symbol of property.

In the passage which immediately follows that just quoted, Hume makes
admissions which might be turned to serious account against some of his
own doctrines.

"But though animals learn many parts of their knowledge from
observation, there are also many parts of it which they derive from
the original hand of Nature, which much exceed the share of
capacity they possess on ordinary occasions, and in which they
improve, little or nothing, by the longest practice and experience.
These we denominate INSTINCTS, and are so apt to admire as
something very extraordinary and inexplicable by all the
disquisitions of human understanding. But our wonder will perhaps
cease or diminish when we consider that the experimental reasoning
itself, which we possess in common with beasts, and on which the
whole conduct of life depends, is nothing but a species of instinct
or mechanical power, that acts in us unknown to ourselves, and in
its chief operations is not directed by any such relations or
comparison of ideas as are the proper objects of our intellectual
faculties.

"Though the instinct be different, yet still it is an instinct
which teaches a man to avoid the fire, as much as that which
teaches a bird, with such exactness, the art of incubation and the
whole economy and order of its nursery."--(IV. pp. 125, 126.)

The parallel here drawn between the "avoidance of a fi