The flights of the imagination

In the end, we must become ashamed of our credulity.

The flights of the imagination are most dangerous to reason. This has been the biggest cause of the mistakes among philosophers.

On the other hand, it would be fatal if we rejected all the trivial suggestions of the fancy.

Section 1 showed that the understanding entirely subverts itself when it acts alone to its most general principles.

It does not leave any evidence in any proposition in philosophy or common life.

We only save ourselves from this total skepticism through our fancy.

This property lets us enter with difficulty into the remote views of things.

We are not able to accompany them with so sensible an impression, as we do those, which are more easy and natural.

We then establish as a general maxim, that no refined or elaborate reasoning is ever to be received?

By this, you cut off entirely all science and philosophy.

You:

• proceed on one singular quality of the imagination,
• must embrace all of them by a parity of reason, and
• expressly contradict yourself, since this maxim must be built on the preceding reasoning which is sufficiently refined and metaphysical.

What party then, shall we choose among these difficulties? If we embrace this principle and condemn all refined reasoning, we run into the most manifest absurdities.

If we reject it in favour of these reasonings, we subvert entirely the human understanding.

We therefore have no choice between a false reason and none at all.

I do not know what should be done in this case.

This difficulty is seldom or never thought of.

It is quickly forgotten even when it has been thought of.

It leaves but a small impression behind it.

Very refined reflections have little or no influence on us.

Yet we cannot establish it as a rule that they should not have any influence.

This would imply a manifest contradiction.

This means that very refined and metaphysical reflections have little or no influence on us.

But I cannot resist:

• retracting this opinion, and
• condemning it from my present feeling and experience.

The intense view of these contradictions and imperfections in human reason has so heated my brain.

I am ready to:

• reject all belief and reasoning, and
• look on no opinion even as more probable or likely than another.

Where am I, or what am I?

From what causes do I derive my existence?

To what condition shall I return?

Whose favour shall I court?

Whose anger must I dread?

What beings surround me?

Whom have, I any influence, or who have any influence on me?

I am confounded with all these questions.

I begin to fancy myself:

• in the most deplorable condition imaginable,
• surrounded with the deepest darkness, and
• utterly deprived of the use of every member and faculty.

Reason cannot dispel these clouds.

But fortunately, nature herself comes to my aid.

It cures me of this philosophical sadness and delirium by:

• relaxing this bent of mind, or
• some lively impression of my senses, which obliterate all these chimeras.

I dine, I play backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends.

After three hours’ amusement, I return to these speculations, they appear so cold, strained, and ridiculous.

I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther.

I find myself absolutely and necessarily determined to live, talk, and act like other people.

However, I still feel perplexed because of:

• my natural propensity, and
• my animal spirits and passions.

These reduce me to this indolent belief in the general maxims of the world.

I am ready to:

• throw all my books and papers into the fire
• resolve never to renounce the pleasures of life for the sake of reasoning and philosophy.

That is how I feel now.

I must yield to the current of nature, in submitting to my senses and understanding.

In this blind submission, I show most perfectly my sceptical disposition and principles.

Does it follow that I must:

• strive against the current of nature?
  • It would lead me to indolence and pleasure.
• seclude myself from the commerce and society of men?

These are so agreeable

• or torture my brains with subtilities and sophistries, when:

I cannot be happy on the reasonableness of so painful an application

I cannot arrive at the truth from them?

Why do I have to waste my time?

How can it help me or mankind?

All those who reason or believe anything certainly are fools.

If I must be a fool, at least my follies are natural and agreeable.

Where I strive against my inclination, I have a good reason for my resistance.

I will no longer wander into these dreary solitudes and rough passages.

This is how I feel.

I confess that philosophy cannot oppose them.

Philosophy expects a victory more from the returns of a serious good-humoured disposition, than from the force of reason and conviction.

We should always preserve our skepticism.

We believe that fire warms or water refreshes because it costs us too much pains to think otherwise.

Philosophers should only operate on skeptical principles and only because they are inclined to do so.

Where reason is lively and mixes itself with some propensity, it should be assented to.

Where it does not, it can never operate on us.

When I am tired with amusement and company, and have returned to my room or to a solitary walk by a riverside, I feel my mind all collected within itself.

I am naturally inclined to think of all those subjects which I have had disputes in my reading and conversation.

I am not curious about:

• the principles of moral good and evil
• the nature and foundation of government
• the cause of those several passions and inclinations, which actuate and govern me.

I am uneasy to think that I:

• approve of one object and disapprove of another,
• call one thing beautiful and another deformed, and
• decide on truth and falsehood, reason and folly, without knowing on what principles I proceed.

The learned world is ignorant of all these particulars.

I feel an ambition to:

• teach mankind, and
• make a name by my inventions and discoveries.