The same objection, such as it is, would apply equally to many of the Parables of the New Testament. It might be said, for instance, that as a woman who should decline taking the trouble of searching for her lost "piece of silver," or a merchant who should neglect making an advantageous purchase of a "goodly pearl," would be guilty of no moral wrong, it must follow that there is nothing morally wrong in neglecting to reclaim a lost sinner, or in rejecting the Gospel, &c.
But any man of common sense readily perceives that the force of these parables consists in the circumstance that men do not usually show this carelessness about temporal goods; and, therefore, are guilty of gross and culpable inconsistency, if they are comparatively careless about what is far more important.
So, also, in the present case. If any man's mind were so constituted as to reject the same evidence in all matters alike—if, for instance, he really doubted or disbelieved the existence of Buonaparte, and considered the Egyptian pyramids as fabulous, because, forsooth, he had no "experience" of the erection of such huge structures, and had experience of travellers telling huge lies—he would be regarded, perhaps, as very silly, or as insane, but not as morally culpable. But if (as is intimated in the concluding sentence of this work) a man is influenced in one case by objections which, in another case, he would deride, then he stands convicted of being unfairly biassed by his prejudices.
It is only necessary to add, that as this work first appeared in the year 1819, many things are spoken of in the present tense, to which the past would now be applicable.
Postscripts have been added to successive editions in reference to subsequent occurrences.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] It was observed by some reviewer, that Hume himself, had he been alive, would doubtless have highly enjoyed the joke! But even those who have the greatest delight in ridicule, do not relish jokes at their own expense. Hume may have inwardly laughed, while mystifying his readers with arguments which he himself perceived to be futile. But he did not mean the readers to perceive this. And it is not likely that he would have been amused at seeing his own fallacies exposed and held up to derision.
[2] See Elements of Rhetoric, p. i. ch. 2, § 4.