er, that though the links are innumerable, that
connect any original fact with the present impression, which is the
foundation of belief; yet they are all of the same kind, and depend on
the fidelity of Printers and Copyists. One edition passes into another,
and that into a third, and so on, till we come to that volume we peruse
at present. There is no variation in the steps. After we know one we
know all of them; and after we have made one, we can have no scruple as
to the rest. This circumstance alone preserves the evidence of history,
and will perpetuate the memory of the present age to the latest
posterity. If all the long chain of causes and effects, which connect
any past event with any volume of history, were composed of parts
different from each other, and which it were necessary for the mind
distinctly to conceive, it is impossible we should preserve to the
end any belief or evidence. But as most of these proofs are perfectly
resembling, the mind runs easily along them, jumps from one part to
another with facility, and forms but a confused and general notion of
each link. By this means a long chain of argument, has as little effect
in diminishing the original vivacity, as a much shorter would have, if
composed of parts, which were different from each other, and of which
each required a distinct consideration.

A fourth unphilosophical species of probability is that derived from
general rules, which we rashly form to ourselves, and which are the
source of what we properly call PREJUDICE. An IRISHMAN cannot have
wit, and a Frenchman cannot have solidity; for which reason, though the
conversation of the former in any instance be visibly very agreeable,
and of the latter very judicious, we have entertained such a prejudice
against them, that they must be dunces or fops in spite of sense and
reason. Human nature is very subject to errors of this kind; and perhaps
this nation as much as any other.

Should it be demanded why men form general rules, and allow them to
influence their judgment, even contrary to present observation and
experience, I should reply, that in my opinion it proceeds from those
very principles, on which all judgments concerning causes and effects
depend. Our judgments concerning cause and effect are derived from
habit and experience; and when we have been accustomed to see one object
united to another, our imagination passes from the first to the second,
by a natural transition, which precedes