feel on this occasion, is a longing desire and expectation
that Heaven would be pleased to dissipate, at least alleviate, this
profound ignorance, by affording some more particular revelation to
mankind, and making discoveries of the nature, attributes, and
operations of the Divine object of our faith."[29]--(II. pp.
547-8.)

Such being the sum total of Hume's conclusions, it cannot be said that
his theological burden is a heavy one. But, if we turn from the _Natural
History of Religion_, to the _Treatise_, the _Inquiry_, and the
_Dialogues_, the story of what happened to the ass laden with salt, who
took to the water, irresistibly suggests itself. Hume's theism, such as
it is, dissolves away in the dialectic river, until nothing is left but
the verbal sack in which it was contained.

Of the two theistic propositions to which Hume is committed, the first
is the affirmation of the existence of a God, supported by the argument
from the nature of causation. In the _Dialogues_, Philo, while pushing
scepticism to its utmost limit, is nevertheless made to say that--

" ... where reasonable men treat these subjects, the question can
never be concerning the _Being_, but only the _Nature_, of the
Deity. The former truth, as you will observe, is unquestionable and
self-evident. Nothing exists without a cause, and the original
cause of this universe (whatever it be) we call God, and piously
ascribe to him every species of perfection."--(II. p. 439.)

The expositor of Hume, who wishes to do his work thoroughly, as far as
it goes, cannot but fall into perplexity[30] when he contrasts this
language with that of the sections of the third part of the _Treatise_,
entitled, _Why a Cause is Always Necessary_, and _Of the Idea of
Necessary Connexion_.

It is there shown, at large, that "every demonstration which has been
produced for the necessity of a cause is fallacious and sophistical" (I.
p. 111); it is affirmed, that "there is no absolute nor metaphysical
necessity that every beginning of existence should be attended with such
an object" [as a cause] (I. p. 227); and it is roundly asserted, that it
is "easy for us to conceive any object to be non-existent this moment
and existent the next, without conjoining to it the distinct idea of a
cause or productive principle" (I. p. 111). So far from the axiom, that
whatever begins to exist must have a cause of existence, being
"self-