the world, than they become impelled, as strongly
as the necessarian in the question of the liberty of human actions, not
only to act like other men, but even to feel just in the same manner as
if they had never been acquainted with these abstractions. A table then
becomes absolutely a table, and a chair a chair: they are "fed with the
same food, hurt by the same weapons, and warmed and cooled by the same
summer and winter," as other men: and they make use of the refreshments
which nature requires, with as true an orthodoxy, and as credulous a
temper, as he who was never assailed with such refinements. Nature is
too strong, to be prevailed on to retire, and give way to the authority
of definitions and syllogistical deduction.

But, when we have granted all this, it is however a mistake to say, that
these "subtleties of human intellect are of little further use, than
to afford an amusement to persons of curious speculation(79)." We have
seen, in the case of the doctrine of philosophical necessity(80), that,
though it can never form a rule for the intercourse between man and man,
it may nevertheless be turned to no mean advantage. It is calculated
to inspire us with temperance and toleration. It tends impressively to
evince to us, that this scene of things is but like the shadows which
pass before us in a magic lanthorn, and that, after all, men are but
the tools, not the masters, of their fate. It corrects the illusions of
life, much after the same manner as the spectator of a puppet-shew is
enlightened, who should be taken within the curtain, and shewn how the
wires are pulled by the master, which produce all the turmoil and strife
that before riveted our attention. It is good for him who would arrive
at all the improvement of which our nature is capable, at one time to
take his place among the literal beholders of the drama, and at another
to go behind the scenes, and remark the deceptions in their original
elements, and the actors in their proper and natural costume.

(79) See above, Essay XXII.

(80) See above, Essay XII.

And, as in the question of the liberty of human actions, so in that
of the reality of the material universe, it is a privilege not to be
despised, that we are so formed as to be able to dissect the subject
that is submitted to our examination, and to strip the elements of which
this sublunary scene is composed, of the disguise in which they present
themselves to the vulgar spectator