ABSTRACT
In the Treatise Hume agonized over the conflict between the instinctive, popular system and the new, philosophical system, and the difficulties with each. As I mentioned earlier, he thought the former system was based on a gross illusion; he said that the latter system is "the monstrous offspring of two principles, which are contrary to each other"; and he observed that the skeptical doubts arising from the defects of the two systems and their mutual incompatibility is a "malady which can never be radically cured but must return upon us every moment, however we may chase it away." 44 Observing that the malady is increased by "intense reflection," he noted that "carelessness and ill-attention alone can afford us any remedy." 45 This remedy is not really satisfactory, he admitted in his concluding section, for" 'tis almost impossible for the mind of man to rest, like those of beasts, in that narrow circle of objects which are the subject of daily conversation and action." 46 But what is to be done? What course of reasoning is to be followed if no view of the world is satisfactory and experimental inferences (arguments from experience) are not rationally justifiable?
