'All these [spontaneous feelings] are a species of natural instincts, which no reasoning _or process of the thought and understanding_ is able either to produce or to prevent' (_Ib._ par. 6). But Hume, be it noted, would in his earlier life have recoiled from Mr. Balfour's religious Irrationalism, for in his deistic period he wrote that the belief in Deity is 'conformable to sound reason.' And, what is more important, he in effect cancelled his own remarks on reason, above cited, by writing as follows in Note B on the _Inquiry_ cited:-- 'Nothing is more usual than for writers, even on moral, political, or physical subjects, to distinguish between reason and experience, and to suppose that these species of argumentation (_sic_) are entirely different from each other. The former are taken for the mere result of our intellectual faculties, which, by considering _a priori_ the nature of things, and examining the effects that must follow from their operation, establish particular principles of science and philosophy. The latter are supposed to be derived entirely from sense and observation, by which we know what has actually happened from the operation of particular objects, and are thence able to infer what will for the future result from them.... But notwithstanding that this distinction be thus universally received, both in the active and speculative scenes of life, I shall not scruple to pronounce that it is at bottom erroneous, or at least superficial.'