 The question of how expansive a normative conclusion to attribute to Hume is a complex one. It depends in part on the interpretation of Hume’s own solution to his problem. As we saw in  section 1,  Hume attributes the basis of inductive inference to principles of the imagination in the Treatise, and in the Enquiry to “custom”, “habit”, conceived as a kind of natural instinct. The question is then whether this alternative provides any kind of justification for the inference, even if not one based on reason. On the face of it, it looks as though Hume is suggesting that inductive inferences proceed on an entirely arational basis. He clearly does not think that they do not succeed in producing good outcomes. In fact, Hume even suggests that this operation of the mind may even be less “liable to error and mistake” than if it were entrusted to “the fallacious deductions of our reason, which is slow in its operations” (E. 5.2.22). It is also not clear that he sees the workings of the imagination as completely devoid of rationality. For one thing, Hume talks about the imagination as governed by principles. Later in the Treatise, he even gives “rules” and “logic” for characterizing what should count as a good causal inference (T. 1.3.15). He also clearly sees it as possible to distinguish between better forms of such “reasoning”, as he continues to call it. Thus, there may be grounds to argue that Hume was not trying to argue that inductive inferences have no rational foundation whatsoever, but merely that they do not have the specific type of rational foundation which is rooted in the faculty of Reason.