CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FROM THE INCOME OF A BEQUEST MADE BY BENNO LOEWY I854-I9I9 Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028937526 ON THE RELATION CAUSE AND EFFECT, INQUIRY THE RELATION CAUSE AND EFFECT. BY THOMAS BROWN, M, D. F. R. S. Edin. etc. PROFESSOR OP MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH- •/ ANDOVER: PUBLISHED AND FOR SALE BY MARK NEWMAN. FLAGG AND GOULD PRINTERS. 1822. PREFACE THIRD EDITION. The Essay which foUovvs is now presented to the lovers of Metaphysical Disquisition, in a form so much enlarged and alter- ed, as to constitute almost a New Work. When originally writ- ten, with the view of giving some satisfaction to the public mind, on a subject of obscure and di£5cult controversy, to which pecu- liar circumstances had attracted, a very general interest, it was limited, as much as possible, to an examination of the theory on which the controversy had taken place. In the Second Edition, I ventured to take a wider range, and to add such reasonings and reflections, as seemed necessary to elucidate some of the ques- tions of greatest difficulty, in the Philosophy of Cause and Effect. At the same time, however, many questions relating to that most comprehensive of subjects, were left wholly unexamined, and some others only briefly noticed, which deserved a much fuller discus- sion, both from their own importance, and from the light which they throw on Physical Inquiry in general. In the present Edition, I have endeavoured to supply these de- ficiencies; and, with the hope .of rendering more easily intelligi- VI ble what has appeared intricate, as I conceive, chiefly because it has been long perplexed in the Schools, by a mysterious phraseol- ogy and the verbal inconsistencies of Contending theorists, I have separated the view of the Philosophy of Causation,- as a state- ment of simple philosophic truth, from the critical ' view of the doctrine of that bold and original Thinker, to whose ingenuity the abstract science of the connexion of the sequences of events has been principally indebted ; and to the examination of whose opin- ions on the subject, as partly, just and partly erroneous, the expo- sition of the abstract philosophy itself, which was treated before with constant reference to those opinions, might seem, in the former editions^ to have been considered as subordinate. If, in that last portion of my Work, which is now devoted to the review of Mr Hume^s theory of our notion of Power, the 'crit- icism on his metaphysical style be less favourable, than the gene- ral opinion with respect to it, that h^s stamped it .with a charac- ter of excellence, the justness of which it may now seem almost presumptuous in a sing'le individual to question, I trust it will not be supposed to have arisen from any wish of detracting from the reputation of that eminent philosopher. The talents, which be undoubtedly possessed, were* of so high a rank, that he- may well bear to be estimated according to his real merit ; and it would be as absurd to deny his acuteness and subtlety, and often too, the easy graces of his composition, as it is unnecessary for his fame, to as- sert, that he is ^physically and logically faultless, in his mode of inquiring into the abstract truths of science, or of exhibiting to others with exactness the resillts of his inquiry. It is, indeed, scarcely- possible to imagine a more convincing proof of that want of precision, which I have ventured to censure, in his method of analysis and in his metaphysical language, than the fact, — if, on examination, it be found to be a fact, — that from the first appear- ance of his Inquiries on this subject till now^ he has been univer- sally believed to maintain a negative theory of Power, which is PREFACE. VU not merely altogether different from the real doctriae of his work, but is in direct contradiction to the great argument which per- vades it. In the theory of our notion of the relation of Cause and Effect, which the following pages are intended to develope, I am aware, that to minds unaccustomed to philosophical analysis, and partic- ularly to those- who have been in this habit of attaching impor- tance to some mysterious but insignificant phrases, the simple doctrine itself, and. its equally simple phraseolog}', may appear an unwarrantable innovation on the received opinions and language. But I flatter myself, that, after reflecting on what is truly meant, in those received opinions, and in the general language on the subject, they will discover, that the innovations are rather On what has been unintelligible before, than on what has been truly understood ; and that every thing which has been of any real val- ue, in the ancient and well-accredited phrases, is retained in the few simple terms of the doctrine which is now submitted to their attentive review. The very simplification of the language itself, in which we are accustomed to think of the abstract relations of things, is as it ap- pears to me, one of the most important contributions which meta- physical analysis is occasionally able to make to the Philosophy of Physical Inquiry, — that highest and noblest logic, which, compre- hending at once our intellectual nature and every thing which is known to exist, considers the mind in all its possible relations to the species of truths which it is capable of discovering. To re- move a number of cumbrous words is, in many cases, all that is necessary to render distinctly visible", as it were to our very glance, truths which they, and they only, have been for ages hiding from our view. The distipction of Efficient and Physical Causes, for example, is one which has confused the notions of philosophers of every Age : and, if I succeed in making intelligible the illusion on which this distincti9n has been founded, though I should succeed Viii PKEFACE. in nothing more, I may still venture to flatter myself, that my Work will not be without influence on the progress of future in- quiry. It is no small part of science, to be well acquainted with its real boundaries ; but it is necessary also to know, what it is which truly exists within these boundaries, and what it is which is only fabled to exist. As long as any mysterious connection is supposed between. the phenomena, that are taking place at every- moment before us, the mind must, from its very nature, be curious to in- vestigate that ever-present though mysterious tie ; nor will the simple assurance, that the discovery is impossible, be sufficient to destroy the curiosity, and thus to prevent the investigation that would vainly seek to gratify it. It is most satisfactory, therefore to know, that the invariableness of antecedence and consequence, which is represented as only the sign of causation, is itself the on- ly essential circumstance of causation ; that in the sequences of events, we are not merely ignorant of any thing intermediate, but have in truth no reason to suppose it as really existing, or, if any thing intermediate exist, no reason to consider it but as itself an- other physical antecedent of the consequent which we knew be- fore ; and that this simple theory, far from being in opposition to the sublime doctrines of Religion, tends, on the contrary, to make those great doctrines at once more intelligible and more sublime, by simplifying the analogies of human order and volition, from which alone we have been able to rise to the conception of any higher Power, and by destroying that supposed connecting link be- tween the antecedent will of the Deity and the consequent rise of the World, which, if it be not greater than the Creating Will, must at least seem to divide with it the grandeur and the glory of the Magnificent Effect. CONTENTS. Introduction, ; Page 13 » PART FIRST. ' - • on the real import of the relation of cause and effect. Section 1 17 2 26 3 30 4 45 5. . . ; 53 PART SECOND. on the sources of illusion with respect to the relation. ' Section 1 67 2 73 3. 78 4 88 2 • COHTENTS. PART THIRD. ON THE CIRCUMSTANCES IN WHICH THE BELIEF OF THE KELATION ARISES. Section 1. , . . 96 2 97 3 104. 4 109 5 138 PART FOURTH. ON MR home's theory OP OUR BELIEF OF THE RELATION. Section 1 145 2 152 3, 157 4 172 5. . * 184 6 193 7 • 204 Notes 215 INQUIRY INTO THE RELA'TlON CAUSE AND EFFECT. INQUIRY, &c. INTRODUCTION. In every inquiry into the successions of phenomena, wheth- er of matter or of mind, there is one relation, on the truth of which the inquirer always proceeds, and which he must believe, therefore, to be as extensive as the appearances of the material world that come beneath his* view, and the feelings of which he is conscious. This universal relation is that according to which events are classed in a certain order, as reciprocally causes and eflfects ; and since the sole object of every physical investigation of the chan- ges which nature exhibits, is the ascertainment of the particular phenomena w'hich admit of being thus ranked together, it is sure- ly of the" utmost consequence, for precision of inquiry, that he who is to prosecute it should have clear notions of the relation it- self which it is to be his labour to trace, and accurate definitions of the import of the terms which he is to employ for expressing it, in every stage of his continued search. It has happened, however, unfortunately, in this case, that the notions which should have been clearest, and the terms of whicfe it was most important to fix the meaning, have been allowed to remain peculiarly vague and obscure. There are scarcely any words connected with his inquiries, of which a philosopher would be more perplexed, if he were to endeavour to state accurately 14 INTRODUCTION. the meaning, than the very words, that express a relation, which he is yet at every moment endeavouring to detect and evolve. To remove, in some degree, this darkness, is the object of the following pages ; in which I shall endeavour, in the first place, to fix, what it is which truly constitutes the relation of cause and ef- fect ; — in the second place, to examine the sources of various illu- sions, which have led philosophers to consider it as something more mysterious ;- — and, in the third place to ascertain the circum- stances, in which the belief of this relation arises in the mind. In these views, the whole philosophy of power or causation appears to me to b^ comprised ; but, in consequence of the very important lights which some of Mr Hume's speculations have thrown on it, and, still more, on account of the misconceptions which have universally prevailed with respect to the extent of his scepticism on this subject, I have thought it necessary to add, in a fourth part, some remarks on the errors of his doctrine itself, and on the errors of those who have ascribed to him a very diffe- rent doctrine. PART FIRST. OF THE REAL IMPORT OP THE RELATION OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. PART FIRST. SECTION I. X HE philosophy, which regards phenomena, as they are suc- cessive in a certain order, is the philosophy of every thing that exists in the universe. The world is one mighty system of changes. The great mas- ses, — the atoms which compose them, — whatever is destitute of organization, as much as the organized beings, that are vegetating, or living, or dying, — all are the subjects and exhibiters of unceas- ing variety.' What seems to our eyes to be rest is continued mo- tion. There is not a particle of the planet on ivhich we dwell, that continues in the same point of space, during the instant in which we strive most rapidly to think of it. Lif(^ and death, as far as the same identical mass is concerned, are dissolution alike ; or rather in the same space of .time, there is a more varied de- composition, while we live, than when we die. In the internal world, though the phenomena are of a different order, there is a variation of them as perpetual. At every moment of our con- sciousness, some sensation, or thought, or emotion, is beginning in the mind, or ceasing, or growing more 6^ less intense ; and if the bodily functions of life continue only while the particles of the frame are quitting one place to exist in another, the functions of the spirit, which animates it, may be said as truly to subsist only by the succession of feeling after feehng. The great character of all these changes, however, is the reg- 3 18 ON THE RELATION ularity which they exhibit ; a regularity, that enables us to ac- commodate our plans, with perfect foresight, to circumstances which may not yet have begun to exist. We observe the varying phenomena, as they are continually taking place, around us, and witliin us ; and the observation may seem to be, and truly is, of a sin- gle moment : but the knowledge which itgives us is far more exten- sive. It is, virtually, information of the past and of the future, as well as of the present. The change which we know, in the actual circum- stances observed, we believe to have taken place, as often as the circumstances before were similar ; and we believe also, that it will continue to take place, as often as future circumstances shall in this respect have an exact resemblance to the present. What we thus believe is always verified by subsequent observation. The future, when it arrives, we find to be only the past under another form ; or, if it seem to present to us new phenomena, we do not consider these as resulting from any altered tendencies of succes- sion in the substances which thus appear -to be varied, but only from the new circumstances in which the substances themselves have been brought together ; — circumstances, in which if they had existed before, we have no doubt that they would have exibited phenomena precisely the same. We are truly, then, prophets of the future, while we may seem to be only observing what is before us, or remembering what has been formerly observed ; and in whatever Way this pro- phetic gift may have been conferred on us, it must be regarded as the most valuable of all gifts, since, without it, every other gift would have been profitless. In vain might Nature, at every mo- ment, pour around us the riches of her bounty, if we were to re- main in perpetual ignorance of the uses of the wealth which was thus profusely lavished on us ; and, to know its uses, we must know what it is capable of affording for our accommodation, at a time that is as yet nnexisting. The world is not a resting place of a moment ; it is the home of many generations for the many long years of their mortal life ; and for the purposes of that life it is fitted, in magnificent abundance, with what is necessary for suste- nance, for shelter, for the prevention of many pains, and the en- joyment of innumerable pleasures : but if, when ease or pleasure at any moment followed the casual introduction of a new 9bject, we bad no other impression of relation than of a -priority and sub- OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 191 sequence that were limited to that particular moment, and had no belief, therefore, that the ease or delight would be renewed, as often as in similar circumstances, we should avail ourselves of the presence of the object which had before been attended with the gratifying result, it is evident, that, in the midst of a thousand means of luxury or alleviation, we might lose as much enjoyment, and suffer as much pain, as if the present means themselves, which required only a little voluntary adaptation on our part, had been wholly withheld. It- is our faith itself, which in a great measure, makes the surrounding objects what they truly are to us, by rendering permanent, in our voluntary use of them, what oth- erwise might have seemed to pass away, in the moment in which we. had chanced to be under their influence. It/is not to science only, then, but to all the practical arts of life, and consequently to the preservation of life itself, that the faith is essential, which converts the passing sequences of phenom- ena into signs of future corresponding sequences. In whatever manner it may arise, and whatever circumstances may or may not be necessary for giving birth to it, the belief itself is a fact in the histoty of the mind, which it is impossible to deny, and a fact as universal as the life which depends on it. It is this mere relation of uniform antecedence, so important and so universally believed, which appears to me to constitute all that can be philosophically meant, in the words power or causation, to whatever objects, material or spiritual, the words may be ap- plied. If events had succeeded each Other in perfect irregularity, such,terms never would have been invented ; but, when the suc- cessions are believed to be in regular order, the importance of this regularity to all our wishes, and plans and actions, has of course led to the employment of terms significant of the most val- uable distinctions which we are physically able to make. We give the name o{ cause to the object which we believe to be the invari- able antecedent of a particular change ; we giVe the name of e/j fed, reciprocally to that invariable consequerit ; and the relatioif itself when considered abstractly, we denominate poie.er in the ob- ject that is the invariable aatecedent,—susceptibiliiy in the objece that exhibits, in its change, the invariable consequent. We say o^ fire, that it has the power of melting metals, and of metals that they are susceptible of fusion by fire,— that fire is the c««se of the 20 ON THE RELATION fusion, and the fusion the effect of the application of fire ; but, in all this variety of words, we mean nothing more than our belief, that when a solid metal is subjected for a certain time to the appli- cation of strong heat, it will begin afterwards to exist in that diffe- rent state which is termed liquidity, — that, in all past time, in the same circumstances, it would have exhibited the same change, — and that it will continue to do so in the same 'circumstances in all future time. We speak of two appearances which metals present, one before the application of fire, and the other after it ; and a ■ simple but universal relation of heat and the metalic substances, with respect to these two appearances, is all that is expressed. A cause, therefore, in the fullest definition which it philosoph- ically admits, may be said to be,* that ■which immediately precedes any change, and which, existing at any time in similar circumstances, has been always, and will be always, immediately followed by a simi- lar changet. Priority in the sequence observed, and ijivariable- ness of antecedence in the past and future sequences supposed, are the elements, and the only elements, combined in the notion of a cause. By a conversion of terms, we obtain a definition of the correlative effect; and power, as I have before said, is only an- other word for expressing abstractly and briefly the antecedence itself, and the invariableness of the relation.' The words property and quality admit of exactly the same de- finition ; expressing on|y a certain relation of invariable antece- dence and consequence, in changes, that take place, on the pres- ence of the substance to which they are ascribed. They are strictly synonymous with power ; or, at least, the only difference is, that property and quality, as commonly used, comprehend both the powers and susceptibilities of substances,^he powers of producing charfges, and the susceptibilities of being changed. We say equally, that it is a property or quality of water, to melt salt, and that it is one of its qualities or properties to freeze or become solid, on the subtraction of a certain quantity of heat ; but we do not commonly use the word power, in the latter of these cases, and say that water has the power of being frozen: This is, in- deed, what Locke, and many other writers, before and after him, have expressed by the phrase passive power, in contradistinction ■ '*NoteA. i-NoteB. or CAUSE AND EITECT. 21 from what they term active power ; but, since Power, in general language, is confined to the pi;oducer of change, it appears to me less awkward, and more accurate, to limit the application of it, in philosophy also, to substances the existence of which in certain circumstances is immediately antecedent to a change in another substance, and to employ the word Susceptibility, with reference to tbe consequent change, in speaking of the substance itself in which the change takes place. With this difference, which may or may not be admitted, and with this difference . only^ power, property and quality, are, in the physical use of these terms, exactly synonymous. Water has the power of melting salt ; — it is a property of water to melt salt; — it is a quality of water to melt salt-: — all these varieties of expres- sion signify precisely the same thing, — that, when water is pour- ed upon salt, the solid will take the form of a liquid, and its parti- cles be diffused in continued combination through the mass. Two parts of a sequence of physical events are before our mind; the addition of water to salt, and the consequent liquefaction of what was before a crystalline solid. When we speak of all the powers of a body, we consider it as existing in a variety of circumstances, and consider, at the same time, all the changes that are, or may be, in these circumstances, its immediate effects. When we speak of all the qualities of a body, or all its properties, we mean no- thing more, and we mean nothing less. Certain substances are conceived by us, and certain changes that take place in them, which, we believe, will be uniformly the same, as often as the substances of which we speak. exist in 9ircurastances that are ex- actly the same. The powers, properties, or qualities of a substance, are not to be regarded, then, as any thing superadded to the substance, or distinct from it. They are only the substance itself, considered in relation, to various changes that take place, when it exists in peculiar circumstances. An abstract general term of this sort is of great use; because without it, it would be necessary to enumerate all the substances, in which changes take place on the introduc- tion of the particular substance of which we speak. But it is of use only as other general terms are of use, — such as Man, Quad- ruped, Animal ; — not because it denotes any new substance, or new quality, distinct from the 'particular substances or qualities at 22 ON THE RELATION ready known and named, which it comprehends and briefly ex- presses, but because it does thus comprehend .and briefly express them. We might convey the same information, by enumerating all the individual objects comprehended in a general term, and stating the circumstances of resemblance, which have led us to class them together. But this enumeration, which would not be very easy in any case, would be insupportably tedious in all ; and the abstract term, which, even though it had no other advantage, must at least save us from a great deal of trouble, is therefore to be valued very highly, for the convenience which it afibrds. There is, however, onfe great inconvenience, which attends the use of all abstract terms, — that, when they have become very familiar, we are apt to forget that they are mere abstractions, and to regard them as significant of some actual reality. The history of the errors, not of the unreflecting multitude only, but of philos- ophers themselves, is in a great measure the history of this very species of error, as diversified in a thousand forms of prejudice and superstition. But there is perhaps no form of the error, which has had so universal and so fatal an influence, in misdirect- ing inquiry, even where sages have been the inquirers, as that which relates to power and its various synonymes. The powers c)f a substance, — which, as 1 have said, are significant of nothing distinct from the substance itself, and the other substances, in which its presence, in certain circumstances, is the antece- dent of some change, but are only a shorter mode of ex- pressing all these substances, whatever they may be, and all the changes, whatever they may be, — have been supposed to be something very different, and most mysterious ; at once a part of the antecedent, and yet not a part of it, — an intermediate link in a chain of physical sequences, that is yet itself no part of the chain, of which it is notwithstanding said to be a link. Such is the confused image, with which hot the vulgar only, but philosophers, have been content, as often as they have thought of Power.' It is an error exactly similar to that which long pre- vailed with respect to Form, as something distinrt from Matter it- self; of the co-existence of whose parts, in seeming continuity, it is merely the verbal expression. Nobody now supposes, that the forms of bodies are anything but the bodies themselves, considered in the relation which their parts bear to each other in space. But for OP CAUSE AND EFFECT. 23 many ages, a sort of mystery was supposed to hang over the phrase, as if it were significant of some wonderful property of matter, that might account for all its other properties. What substantial formi once were in general misconception, powers, properties, qualities, now are. In the one case, as much as in the other, a mere ab- atfaction has been converted into a reality; and an impenetrable gloom has been supposed to hang over Nature, which is only in, the clouds and darkness of our own verbal reasoning. The substances,* thai exist in Nature, are surely every thing that has a real existence in Nature ; for they comprehend the Omnipotent himself, and all his living and inanimate creatures. In the wide variety of these, there may be a susceptibility of va- rious changed in particular circumstances, presenting sequences of phenomena, regular or irregular; but in the sequences them- selves, whether regular or irregular, there cannot be any thing more than the substances that exist in them ; unless, by a mon- strous species of realism, we believe the words, which we have invented to express a mere feeling of relation in our own mind, to have a sort of physical existence that is at once independent of us, and of the objects which, on account of that feeling of relation, we have classed together. A is immediately followed by B, which is immediately followed by C ; — the three phenomena are observed by us in this prder of succession ; and in whatever man- ner the belief may arise, which in the present stage of inquiry I am not examining, we believe that A, in the same circumstances, will be always followed immediately by B, and B, as immediately, by C. There is a train in short, — and a train which, in its sepa- rate parts is believed to be uniform, — of antecedents and conse- quents. But, whatever substances may constitute A, B, and C, in the successive phenomena, these substances are all of which the successive phenomena themselves are composed. The power of A to produce B, and the power of B to produce C, are words which we use to express our belief that A will always. have B for its invariable consequent, and B for its consequent as invariably the third phenomenon in the sequence ; but they express nothing more than this belief, and, with the exception of our own mind, in which the belief has arisen, certainly do not express the exis- tence, of any thing which is not itself either A. B, Or C. The qualities of substances, however we may seem verbally to regard 24 ON THE RELATION thetn as separate' or separable, are truly the substances them- selves, considered by us together with other substances, in which a change of some sort is consequent on the introduction of them. There are not substances, therefore, and also powers or qualities,* but Substances, alone. We do bot add greenness to the emerald, or yellowness to gold, or blueness to the bright vault of the sky, or darkness to the vapoury masses that octasionally overshadow it ; but the emerald, the gold, the sky, the clouds, affect our vis- ion in a certain manner. They arp antecedents of sensations that arise in us ; and' we believe that in similar circumstances they will always continue to be antecedents of similar feelings. If no sen- sations of this sort were excited in us, all which we term Colour in , the objects would instantly cease. The sensible qualities, therefore, whatever they may be, and with whatever names we may distinguish them, denote nothing more than the uniform rela- tion of antecedence of certain external objects to certain feelings which are their consequents. It is on account of this relation with which we are impressed, and of this relation alone, that we term the emerald green, gold yellow, the firmament blue, and the vapours that sweep along it in the tempest lurid or gloomy. If it be said, that A, B, C, — the substances, which, as antece- dents and consequents, I formerly supposed to be present in a se- quence of phenomena, — are not themselves all that exist, in these sequences, but that there is also the power of A to produce a change in B, which must be distinguished from A and B, and the power of B to produce a change in C, which must in like manner be distinguished from both B and C ; is it not evi- dent, that what is not A, nor B, nor C, must be itself a new por- tion of the sequence ? X, for example, may have a place between A and B ; and Y a place between B and C. But by this supposed interposition of something which is not A, B, nor C, we have only inlarged the number of sequences, and have not produced any thing different from parts 'of a sequence, antecedent and conse- quent in a certain uniform order. The substances that exist in a train of phenomena, are still, and must always be, the whole con- stituents of the train. But B is, by supposition, no longer the im- mediate consequent of A ; it is the consequent of X, anew ante- * Note C. OP CAUSE AND ErFECT. 25 cedent iaterposed, which is itself a consequent of the presence of A. Instead of the order A, B, C, there is now the wider order A, X) B, Y, C ; but there is still only a Series of existing things ; whether the number of these, and the consequent order of changes that take place, be greater or less. We may striwe to think of the phenomena of nature in every possible light ;" but when we re- gard them as successive to each, other, we caft think of nothing more than the multitude of substances,, which constitute what we term Nature, — presenting indeed, in different circumstances, dif- ferent appearances, in an order which we bielieve to be regular, but in all that variety of appearances, existing as one great whole, without addition or diminution. • 2g ON THE BELATIOK SECTION 11. In the view which has now been taken of the successions of phenomena, it is of the utmost importance, on account pf the universal misconception of philosophers on the subject, to have constantly in mind, that the sort of antecedence, which is neces- sary to be understood in our notion of power or causation, is not mere priority, hut invariable priority. We do not give the name of cause to that which we suppose to have once preceded a par- ticular event, but to that- which we believe to have been in all' past time, as much* as in the present, and to be equally in all fu-' ture time, followed, uniformly and immediately, by a particular change,' which we therefore denominate its effect. In the unbounded field of nature, so many co-existing series of phenomena are constantly takin'g place, that the presence of one object, in the particular circumstances in which it would of itself give rise to one phenomenon, may be the casual antecedent of in- numerable phenomena, the effects of the presence of other co- existing objects. Each series of phenomena may be .perfectly regular, if we consider its parts alone ; but it does not there- fore follow, that all the series must' themselves have a mutu- al connexion that is Invariable. It is of the separate series, ac- cordingly, that we think, when we speak of causes and effects ; and we constantly understand, in these terms, a priority and sub- sequence, that are not limited to the particular moment of any single' observation. Power is this uniform relation, and nothing more. Phenome- or CAUSE AND ErPECT. 27 non after phenomenon is constantly passing befpre us ; but all which is presented to us, and all which truly exists, in the sequen- ces of phenomena, is the series of antecedents and .consequents that form the train, — series, which we observe only at particular moments, but which we believe to' 'have a regularity, to which it is impossible for our imagination to fix any limit in time. That Power is not any thing distinguishable from the -objects themselves, which exhibit in succession those diversities of appear- ance that are termed by us the phenomena of nature,- — but is on- ly a word expressive of their order in the sequences of phenome- na, as uniformly antecedent and consequent, — is a doctrine which, I am aware, can scarcely fail to appear, when first stated, an un- warrantable simplification : for, though an inquirer, under the in- fluence of fornaer hab^s of thought, or rather of former abuse of language, may never have clearly conceived in power any thing more, than the immediate sequence of a certain change or event as its uniform attendant ; it would indeed be wonderful, if the very habit of attaching to it many (phrases of mystery, should not have led him to believe, that in the relation itself, independently of those phrases, there must be something peculiarly mysterious. But the longer he attends to it, and the more nicely and minutely he endeavours to analyse it, the more clearly will he perceive, that all which he has ever understood, in the notion, which he has been accustomed to express with so much pomp of language, was the mere sequence of a certain change, that might be expected to follow again, as immediately, every recurrence of the «ame ante- cedent, in the same circumstances. When a spark falls upon gun- powder, and kindles it into explosion, every one ascribes to the spark the power of kindling the inflammable mass. But when such a power is ascribed, let any one ask himself, what it is which Jie means to denote by that term, and without contenting himself with a few phrases that signify nothing, reflect before he give his answer ; and he will find, that he means nothing more than this very simple belief, — that in all similar circumstances, the explc sioh of gunpowder will be the immediate and uniform consequence of the application of a spark. The application of the spark is one eyent ; the explosion of the gunpowder is anojlher ; .and there is nothing in the sequence, but these two events, or rather, nothing but the objects themselves, that constitute what we are in the 28 ON THE RELATION habit of terming- Events, by the changfes of appearance which they exhibit. 'When we say to any one, that if a lighted match fall on a heap of gunpowder, the explosion of the heap will be sure to. follow, our meaning is sufficiently obvious ; and if we have perfect certainty that it is understood by him, do w'e think that he wonld receive the slightest additional information, in being told,, that the fall of a match, in such circumstances, would not only be invaria- bly followed by the explosion of the gunpowder, but that the lighted matth itself, would also, ia such circumstances, be found uniformly to have the power of exploding gunpowder ? What we might consider in this case, as new information, would verbally in- deed be different ; but it would truly be the old information, and the old information only, with no other difference, than of the words in which it was conveyed. « This test of identity appears to me to be a most accurate one. When a proposition is true and yet communicates no additional in- formation, it must be of exactly the same import, as some other proposition, formerly understood and admitted. Let us suppose ourselves, then, to know all the antecedents and consequents in na- ture, and to believe, not merely that -they have once or repeat- edly existed in succession, but that they have uniformly done so, and will be found uniformly to recur in similar sequence ; so that, but for the intervention of the Divine Will, which would be itself in that case atiew antecedent, the same consequents maybe al- ways expected, after the same antecedents, whenever the future, in any of the circumstances that constitute a sequence of events, exactly resembles the present. If an effect be something more, than what invariably follows a particular antecedent, we might on that supposition, know every invariable consequent of every ante- cedent so as to be able to predict, in their minutest circumstan- ce3, what events would forever follow other events ; and yet have no conception of power or causation. We might know, that the~ flame of a candle; if we held our hand over it, would be instantly followed by the pain and burning of the hand,— that, if we ate and drank a certain quantity, our hunger and thirst would cease : — we might even build houses for shelter, sow and plant for sustenance, form legislative enactments for the prevention and punishment of vice, and bestow rewards for the encourage- ment of virtue; in short, we might do, as individuals and OP CAUSE AND EFFECT. 29 citizens, whatever we do at this moment, and with exactly the same views ; -and yet, 6n the supposition that power is something different from that invariable antecedence which alone we are supposed to know, we might, with all this unerring knowledge of the future, and undoubting confidence in the results which it was to continue to present, have no knowledge of a single p&wer in the universe, or of a single cause or effect. To him who had pre- viously kindled a fire, and placed on it a vessel full of water, ■with the certainty that the water, in that situation, would speedily become hot, what ligjit into any supposed mystery of nature would be given, by telling him, that the fire had the power of boiling wa- ter, — that it was the cause of the boiling, and the boiling its effect ? And, if no additional information would in that case be communicated then, according to the test of identity of propositions before stated, to Jsnow events as invariably antecedent and consequent is to know them as causes and effects j and to know all the powers of every substance, therefore, would be; only to know what changes or events, would In a.ll possible circumstances, ensue, when preceded ' by certain other changes or events. It is only from a confusi.oD of casual with uniform antecedence, that power can be conceived'to- be something different from that invariable r.el&tion ; for it' is im- possible to form any conception of it whatever, except merely as that which has been, and is, and mill be constantly followed by a certain change. This belief of past, present, and future similarity of se- quence; we may express in many varieties of phrase ; but it is our language only which we can vary, and not the conception or no- tion which we wish it to communicate. 30 ON THE RELATION SECTION III. With respect to the phenomena of matter, it may perhaps be allowed, that the_ reasoning of the. former Sections is just; — that we perceive only a number of masses,.in which changes take 'place in succession ; — and that when we speak of the powers of those masses, therefore, we speak only of a certain invariable reg- ularity of sequence, in the changes which they exhibit. When, for example, in. any sequence of phenomena of the external world, we say that A is the cause of B, it may be allowed, that we mean only that A is followed by B, has always been followed by B, and as we believe, willbe always followed by B. ' We speak not of mere priority, in a single case, but of invariable priority ; -and be- lieving that A never will be found without the instant sequence of B,we can iinagine nothing more, in all the verbal distinctions,, that are employed by us to denote that uniform relation. We may say, that B is not merely the invariable consequent of A, bjjt also its effect, — that A is not merely the invariable ai^tefeedent of B, but also its cause, — and that there is not merely a relation of in- variable antecedence and consequence of one to the other, but al- so a relation that is to be termed Power. We may use all these words, -indeed, and we may alter and multiply them in various ways ; but, if we say simply, that A will invariably have B for its immediate consequent, we say exactly the same thing. This sameness of meaning, in -the various phrases that appear to me to be significant only of uniformity of order of succession, may be allowed to be just, with respect to matter ; and yet it may or CAUSE AND EFFECT. 31 perhaps be maintained, that there is a difiference, in the case of the mental phenomena, which renders these more than a train of antecedents and. consequents, and power, therefore, something more than mere antecedence, however uniform. The arguments, already urged, to shew that, in » sequence of causes and effects, there cannot be any thing more than the ante- cedents and consequents themselve^^ seem to me, indeed, to be equally applicable to phenomena of every class ; but, to obviate the supposed objection, let- us consider more particularly the pljenomena of "that world from which it is drawn. , i It will be admitted, that, in mind as much as in maiter, power must always -be relative .to a change of some 'sort. In every case, in which it is ascribed, whatever more may or, may not be impli- ed in the reference, it is always supposed 'that in certain circum- stances a change will take place, which Would not taie place but for the power of which we speak, or some other co-existing influence as immediate. The changes, that are indicative of power in the mind, must ■be either in the body which is connected with it^Or in the mind itself. Let us .consider, then, in the first place, the changes which take place in the bodily frame, in consequence of certain feelings of the mind. That many of these changes imply nothing different, in the relation of power, froip what we have traced in the, phenomena of the material world, when the antecedents and consequents were alike corporeal, will probably be admitted, without hesitation, by all who g.dmit the justness of the view which- has been given of those external phenomena. When we blush from shame^ or sigh in languid dejection, or weep under the influence of sudden grief, or lasting misery ; and when many of the internal bodily functions are quickened, or retarded, or variously modified, by prevailing passions ; it will be allowed, that the connexion of mental and bodily changes is of a kind very similar to the relation of antecedence, that is supposed in phenomena purely material. But there are other bodily changes dependent on states of the mind. We have mus- cles that are obedient to our will-. W'e wish to move our limbs ; and they move at our bidding. In this case, it will perhaps be said, we are conscious of a different species of power ; and it is ne.cessa- 32 ON THE EELATIOJS rjt that the diversity, if there be any, should be explained, before so simple a theory of power can deserve to be admitted. We are indeed coascious of a difference of po.wer, or,- to speak more accurately, we are conscious, of a different antecedent, when we move ou« limbs spontaneously, aud when we merely blush or weep. But the difference is in the nature of the prior -feeling it- self, and in this alone ; not in the relatiop which it bears .to its consequent. The antecedent is qertainly different ; for we blush and weep when there is no. desire of blushing or weeping ; and, except in some few cases, in which nature seems to have endow- ed individuals with a more than ordinary, power of exquisite simu- lation, the mere desire of exhibiting those graceful signs of mod- esty or pity, would be of little avail,4f there ivere- no real shame, nor real grief,.- of which feelings alone the Husb and the tears are consequents. They arisej when. we have had no foreknowledge that they were in the instant about to arise. But when we volun- tarily move our hand, the antecedent is our will or desire to move it ; and we have perfect foreknowledge, that the motion is imme- diately to take' place. If we analyse, however, with sufficient ac- curacy, the voluntary movement, as a compound phenomenon of mind, and matter, what do we discover ? A sequence, as in the other case, and nothing more. There is, in the first place, a de- sire to move the hand. This is one phenomenon. There is then the motion of the hand, — ;that is to say, the contraction of certain muscles,.— which is another phenomenon ; and we believe, that, in similar circumstances of health and freedom from constraint, the motion of the hand will always be the consequent of the an- t-ecedent will to move it. We have got, as before, a sequence of One event after another event, and a sequence which we believe to be uniform ; but the^ sequence itself, and the belief of its uni- formity, are all which our analysis of the compound phenomenon presents. It is true, that one of the parts of the sequence is a feeling of the mind, and another part of the sequence a motion of our bod- ily frame. But we are not examining in what manner the Divine Author of our being has united substances that may seem in them- selves to be little congruous : we are considering only the phe- nomena that result from this union, as they are capable of afford- ing us a notion of power; and when we consider them in this re- spect, in all their reciprocal antecedences and sequences, we dis- OP CAUSE AND EFFECT. 33 coyer nothing that differs from the relation of uniform proximity. in time, which we have traced, or felt in the changes of the ma- terial world. When I say that I have mentally the power of moving my hand, I mean nothing more, than that when my body is, in a sound state, and no foreign force is imposed on me, the motion of my hand will always follow my desire to move it. I speak of a cer- tain state of the mind, as invariably antecedent, and a certain state ofthebody, as invariably consequent. If power.be more than this ihvariableness, let the test be repeated which I used in a for- mer case.. Let us suppose pur only knowledge Snd belief with respect to the muscular contraction, to be, that the motion of the hand has followed, does follow, and will uniformly follow, the will •to move it. In these circumstances, would out knowledge of this particular phenomenon be less perfect than now ; and should we learn any thing new, by being tpld, that the will would not mere- ly be invariably followed by the motion of the hand, but that the will would 8,150 have the power of nioving the hand ; — or would not the power of moving the hand be precisely the same thing, as the invariable sequence of the motion of the hand, when the will had been immediately antecedent ? A distinction which has been made of will and desirei implying in what is termed Volition, a sort of compound influence of desire, andof something more mysteriously indefinable, has probably aided in some measure the misconception, by which, in our mental com- mand over our bodily organs, we are supposed to exercise a power, that is different, not in species only, but in kind, from the antecedencies which we trace in the external universe. The number of desiresof which the mind is susceptible, are as various as the objects of supposed good unpossessed. Of these, however, only a small number relate to immediate motions of the body, which are performed, sometimes as being directly agreea- ble in themselves, but much more commoply as being instrumen- tal to the attainment of some other good, the object of some wish of a different species, which admits of being gratified only by the intervention of these bodily movements. We move our hands, our fe«t,^n 'various exercises, soraetimea for the pleasure. of moving them ; but we move them chiefly, because, in the whole wide variety of our wishes, there is not one to which their motion tnay 34 ON THE RELATION nbt, in some way or other, be rendered subrervient. There is an agreeableness, in many cases, in the motion itself; and there is a.secondary, but far more important, and more general agreea- bleness, which, in the greater number of cases, it derives from its tendency to further the attainment of some other agreeable ob- ject. The motion then is directly, or indirectly, and often in both these ways, a source of pleasure, and like every thing else that is pleasing, may become the object pf a wish; though, of course, if the motion itsglf be . instantly cgnsequent, the wish must be as brief as the interval, of less than a moment, and may scarcely, therefore, when we strive to look back on it, seem worthy of the name. These brief feelings, which the body immediately obeys,— that is to say, on which certain bodily movements are immediately con- sequent, — are commonly termed Volitions ; while the more last- ing wishes, which haye no such direct termination, are simply de- nominated Desires. Thus we are said to desire wealth, and to will the motion of our hand ; but if the motion of our hand had not followed our desire of moving it, we should then have been said, not to will but to desire its motion. The distance, or the immediate attainableness, of the good, is thus the sole difference : but, as the words are at present use'd, they have served to pro- duce a belief, that of the same immediate good, in the case of any simple bodily movement, there are both a desire and a volition ; that the will which moves the hand, for example, is something different from the desire of moving it, — the one particular motion being preceded by two feelings, & volition and a desire. Of this complex mental process, however, we have no consciousness ; — the desire of moving a limb, in the usual circumstances of health and freedom, being always directly followed by its motion, what- ever interval of opposition there may have been, in the motives, or desires of more distant good, which preceded the desire of the particular muscular motions, as means-^of obtaining that distant good. It is indeed only in such desires, as have no direct termination in the motions which are under our command, that the equilibri- um or pause ofmotives is conceivable. The voluptuary may Sfel- ancehis love pf pleasure with his love of health, and the ambi- tious man his love of power with his love of ease and security, -be- OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 35 cause the desises of pleasure, and of health, and of power, and of ease, may exist long, separately, or together,/haying no immedi- ate and invariable effect to terminate them, and suggesting, there- fore, occasionally, while they contihue, different objects of thought, according to the casual associations of ideas : but, in the free and healthy state of the body, where there can be no lastingness of the desire of moving any part, to desire the motion of our hand is effectively to move it. The' will to move a single finger, consid- ered without reference to the subject muscles, as a feeling of the mind alone, differs not more from the desire of any trifling, object of distant enjoyment, than our other desires relatively .differ, — the desire of ease, for example, from the desire of power; — and if the finger, whicdx We wished to move, had not been formed actually to move at our will, the ineffectual feeling itself would have been classed togpether with our other insignificant desiries. It is not in any quality of our desires, therefore, but in that arrangement of the order of nature, by. which certain corporeal changes follow certain desires, and follow them- instantly, that the distinction of volitions and desires is founded: — as far at least as relates to our bodily movements ; and.the particular ,volition, whatever place it may-deserve in the classification of our feelings, precedes its par- ticular muscular -motion, in no other manner^ than any other change, material or mental, precedes the change which is second to it in the order of sequence. But, though it is thus apparent, that the volitions, on which our bodily movements are consequent, are oiily short feelings of desirableness, which necessarily are not lasting, because they arc immediately followed by the attainment of their object, there are circumstances, which it is not difficult to trace, that have led phi- losophers to consider the two affections of mind, as essentially dis- tinct ; — and some of these it may be of importance to point out. One of the chief circumstances is the confidence of instant-se- quence, which, in the case of voluntary motion, is combinefd with the desire. We desire wealth, but we do not on that account be- lieve that it will follow j and the desire without the behef, may continue .angratified, for years,, and perhaps for all our life. . We , 'desire the motion of our hand, and know that the motion will fol- low ; — and the motion does instantly follow. The volition, there- fpre, may be said to be a complex feeling, inasmuch as it is desire 36 ON THE RELATION combined with belief of immediate sequence of the. object of the desire : yet the belief does not arise from any peculiar circum-. stance in the desire itself, but merely from the experience of the order of sequence, by which th'e desire has always been found to terminate in the particular motion ; and in the case of sudden pal- sy, in which no motion- follows this compound of desire and belief, the compound itself is exactly the same. The terai will^'ia its application to a process that is partly mental and partly organic, is not denied to be a convenient term, for expressing those desires which have instant termination in a muscular motion that is- their object, to distinguish them from desires, which relate to objects not directly and immediately attainable, and therefore .not accom- panied with the belief of direct and immediate attainment : 'but still it must not be forgotten, that the mental part of the sequence, the momentary feeling, which exists in pur consciousness alone, ■ and ceases almost as soon as it arises, is a desire, that differs not from our other desires, more than those others iButually differ. The brief continuance of such wishes, as are terminated al- niosfin the very instant by the motion that is willed, of course prevents that combination of other, feelings, which seems to give a different character to pur other desires. There is no deliberat- ing pause, wh^n as. soon as the wish "or feeling of the. desirable^ ness of a certain motion arises,, the desired motiorl is the immedi- ate result, — no choice of means/where no means whatever are re- quisite.- Our desires, which are more lasting^ because legs speedi- ly gratified, are complicated with innumerable images, that are in- cessantly mingling in them : but our will to move our hand is sim- ple, because it is rapid ; and the very simplicity and rapidity, in which it has little resemblance to our other wishes, make it ap- pear to us as if it were scarcely of the same class of feelings. Another circumstance, which has contributed in a very impor- tant degree to the mistake, is the universal, habit, of confounding the desire which immediately precedes muscular motion, with those other desires, by which it may have been itself preceded, and of considering the will in the process of comparison, as co-ex- isting with the opposite desires, no.t sipiplyas- that desire,, which follows the comparison and the consequent perceptron. or belief of the greater good. We are hence often said, inaccurately, to will in opposition to'our desire, as if in the process- there were only or CAUSE AND EFFECT. ' 37 two feeling's of the mind, a desire and a volition, so essentially different in their nature, that the will was the choice of what.was not desirable. Thus, if any one' be connpelled- to support a weight in his outstretched arm, under fear'of a more painful punishmejlit if he should draw it back, and experience, as in that situation he must soon expedience, a degreeof fatigue, which is almost insup- portable ; if he still continue to keep his arm extended, he will be said, in the common language of philosophers, to will the vety painj which he cannot be supposod to desire. But the direct ob- ject of his desire is Yiot the motion of his arm ; it is simply relief from pain : and the direct object of his continue.d' will is not the continuance of pain ; it is simply the" extension of his. arm. He knows, indeed, that relief from pain will be ' immediately procur- ed, by drawing back his arm ; but he knows also, that a severer punishment will follow that motion: and. therefore, preferring, the less pain to the greater, he directly desires or wills the continued extension of his arm, as what -alone can preserve him from- great- er suffering, • If the direct object of his desire were not re.lief from pain, but .the actual muscular motion w'hich would bting down his weary arnj, there "can be no doubt, that the motion of his arm would immediately ensue. • • The chief error of philosophers who have' made, this distinc-.- tion, evidently consjsts, then, in not analysing^ with suflBcient accu- racy, the separate sequences of events, in a complicated process, and not considering, therefore, what are the feelings which art; truly opposed to each other. " With regard to our actions,-" — says Dr Rf.id,* — ^' we may desire what we' do not will,- and will what we do not desire ;■. nay, what we have a great aversion to. A man a-thirst has a strong desire to drink, but, for some parr ticular reason, he determines not to gratify his desire. .A Judge, from a regard to justice, and to the duty of his- office, dooms a criminal to die, while, from hufnanity or particular affection, he desi'res that be should live. • A matt for health may take a nause- ous draught, fof wljich he has no desire*^ but a great aversion. De- sire,, therefore, even when its object is some action of our own, is- ■ Only an incitement to will, but it is not volition. The determina- tion of the mind may be not to do what we desire tq do." * EssATS ON THif Active Powers of Man,. Essay 2d, Ch. I. ■38 ON THE RELATION In all these instances adduced by Dr Reid, his mistake c6n- gi«t^ in neglecting or forgetting that part of the process, in which there is a real opposition of desires, and supposing- an opposition, in another part of the process,in which there really is none ; for, in notone of the inst&nces, is there the smallest opposition in that particular desire, on which the action ' immediately depends, and M^hich must therefore, according to his own system, he denomi- nated by him the Will. The •determination of the mind never is, and never can be, to do what, in the particular circumstances of the moment, we do not desire to do. When we take a .nauseous draught, there iS a. dislike, indeed, of the sensation which follows the motion, but there is no dislike of the motion itself, which alone depends upon our will, and which is desired by us, not from any love of the disagreeable sensation which follows it, — for a love of what is disagreeable would be an absurd contradiction of • terms, — but from our greater dislike of tljat continuance of bad healthy which we suppose to be the probable consequence of omitting the motion. . The desire of moving the hand and the muscles of deglutition,: — or' to use, a word .which Dr Keid would have preferred, the will to move them, — is a state of mind as dif- ferent and as distinguishable from -'the dislike of . bad health, as ■.from the dislike of the draught. • It is a new feeling, to which a ■ wide view of many circumstanQe^ has given birth, — a desire., not of -pleasure in the draught, but of less evil,- in one of two unavoid- able evils. In like manner, a Judge, who condemns a. criminal to death, when, if he yielded; to his'humanity alone, he would spare, him, does not- will a single aetien, wlaich he. is not desirous of perform- ing, whatever oppositioh there may have been in those primary desires, of which his secondary desij-e or will is not a part, but only the consequence. He hss a desire of saving from death an unfortunate individual; be has a desire of .the public good, lind of acting in a manner worthy of his high station : both'these desires exist previously to those that are termed his volitions, by which •alone in the muscular motions that follow them, he dooms the crim- inal to death ; the final will to utter the awftrl words of punishment, arising only from the .belief of a greater good upon the whole, in the same manner, -as the desire of fame arises from the contem- or CAUSE AND ZWF&CT. 39 plation of fame, or -any other desire from the contemplation of its object. That what ia termed the will, in this case, is a desire follow- ing directly another desire, is true ; but it has this circumstance in common with many other desires^ which rise one from the other, and are not considered as involving on that account any pe- culiar quality. .The indolent sensualist, for example, who knows the extent of command over the various objects of luxurious ac- commodation which wealth confers, may have wishes as various ' as the luxuries of which he thinks;, and the desire, of any one of these may be instantly followed by the desire of that which he knows to be ttecessary for. the gratification of it, — as instantly, as, tvhen th'e Very delicacy which his appetite has soughs, is placed before him, his will to extend his arm to it seems itself, in its quick_ subsequence, to be almost a part of the earlier desire of enjoying what is within his reach so as to require only the rapid intermediate effort. Nor is it of the slightest consequence to the distinction, that when we' will to move our limbsf the muscular contractions, in which our volitions terminate, are objects of tri- fling good ip themselves, and afe desired chiefly, or only, as means of obtaining a more distant, but greater good : for this circum- stance, also of relation to a good that is not comprised in the di- rect objept,- our volitions have in common with many of our other desires. He is indeed a miser of no vulgar proficiency in ava- rice, who loves gold for its own sake alone : and, though the love of fame be not that sole and universal passion, which it has been described by the satirist, we may be assured, that at least the greater number of the objects of our apparently selfish and luxu- rious wishes, which have no reference to the- happiness of our fellow creatures, and which are sought by Us, in all the restless business of our lives, and changed and renewed, with an ever-va- rying desire of elegance and comfort, as if for our own personal en- joyment merely, are valued by us, not so much for the little di- rect enjoyment, which we are to receive from them, as for the means, which they seem to offer, of gratifying a prouder wish, by increasing, at-however dear a cost, our estimation in the respect and regard of the society in which we hve. When we will certain motions, we will them surely, because it is directlji or indirectly agreeable to us, that the motions should 40' ON THE REL'ATION take place. We have a certain pleasing object in view ; and ow will, which, as I conceive, is only the desire of that pleasing ob- ject, resembles in this respfect all our other desires, however much it may differ from them, in the rapidity of its instant grati- ficatioi^ But though, antecedently to the motion of the hand, there Were not simply that feeling of the desirableness of the mo- tion, which I suppose to be .all that precedes it, but two distinct feelings, a desire to move it, and a will to move it,, still, whatev- er the ultimate feeling may be, and whatever name we may think necessary to give. to it, we must remember that it is only anoth- er feeling in a train of feelings, and that, when we arrive at the bodily motion which is its immediate consequent, we have s se- quence and nothing mor.e, precisely as if the desire and the will themselves were one. A certain feeling has arisen in the mind ; a certain bodily change is the consequence. We have a pair of phenomena, which we may believe to be uniform in their or- der of succession ; but we discover nothing in the regularity, thafmarks it as more uniform, or in ariy respect different from the invariafcleness of the sequences of the phenomena in the mate- rial world. The theory of Power, then, seems to receive no additional light from a consideration of mental energy, as exhibited in ^he bodily movements that depend upon the will ; for vie find, as be- fore, only a sequence of two phenomena^ th^t are believed to be, in the same circumstances, uniformly antecedent and consequent. But the feelings of the mind are followed, not by bodily move- ments only ; they are followed, also, by other feelings of the mind. We have antecedents and consequents, where the whole train is mental ; and thes6, perhaps, may evolve a relation, that is closer, and more effective, tliaii mere antecedence, however uniform. When thoughts succeed thoughts, without any feeling of desire, to modify thein in accordance with, it, no peculiarity of power is supposed in the sequence. It is supposed, only in changes that are dependent on the will, — that is to say, in changes, which are subsequent to a certain wish and determination of the mind. It is not to a simple desire, that, in such a case, we give the name of Will, but to a desire combined with a deliberate prefer- ence, and often, too, with expectation of a particular result. We' have previously considei'ed different form% of good or«wh Some OP. CAUSE AND EFFECT. 41 good appears to us greater upon the whole than others, or some evil less. We desire, therefore, the greater good, with the opin- ion that it is the greater good, or the less evil, with the opinion that it is the less evil ; and' having so weighed or preferred, we are said to will the greater good, when the Attainment of it seems to depend upon our choice, or the less evil, when by sub- mitting to it, we think that we can escape an evil that is greater. But, whatever may be the combioatidn of judgment and desire and^ expectation, to which, in such a case, we give the name of Will, it is when the will already has existed, as one simple or complex state of mind, and some other state of mind is following it, that we are to consider the connexion which is supposed to be peculiarly effective. It is effective indeed, in the only intelligible sense of that word, because a certain change is its consecpient, which would not have taken place if the antecedent had been dif- ferent ; but, far from discovering any peculiar efficacy, we per- ceive nothing more than two phenomena, antecedent and conse- quent, in an ordet, that may be equally uniform, but certainly is not more uniform, than the sequences before considered. So peculiarly mysterious, however, has this connexion been supposed to be, of the state of mind that is termed the Will, with the other states or affections of the mind, that in the inability to con- ceive it distinctly, a sort of shadowy and indefinable empire has been assigned to our volition, as if the whole train of thought were, in some greater or less degree, directly under its coiitroul. A full examination of the errors of philosophers in this respect would lead me into tpo wide a field, comprehending, indeed, an analysis of all the intellectual functions ; which I reserve as the subject of other Works. In the mean time, however, a few re- marks on some of the simpler forifts of this mistake, may serve to illustrate the principle on which the general mistake is founded. It is very evident, that, if the will had the power which it is supposed to exercise over the course of thought, it must consist either in causing the rise of certain conceptions, which otherwise would not have arisen, or in preventing the rise of certain con- ceptions, which otherwise would have ,arisen. To will directly the conception of any particular object is, surely, to have already the conception of that object ; for, if -we do not know what we will, we truly will nothing; and if nothing be willed, the images 6 42 ON THE RELATION that arise after so strange a state of the mind as is supposed, may start up before us indeed, but they do not come at our bidding. As little do they come at our bidding, if, in willing them, we know what we will ; for, in that case they are already before us, at the very moment at which »ve order them to come before us. To wiir directly any idea, then, — as if it at once existed while we willed it, and yet did not begin to exist till after we had willed it, — is a contradiction in thought, and almost in terms j and not less absurd is it, to suppose that we can directly will the non-existence of any idea ; that is to say, can will the state bf mind to ceasej which constitutes the conception of any particular object. The longer such a supposed volition continues, the longer must the idea continue, which is involved in the very wish or will to ban- ish it. That such a desire is felt, implies, that the image, which we wish to banish, is one that is giving us lively uneasiness ; and the effect of the desire, like that of every other species of emo- tion, is certainly not to render less but more' viyid whatever im- ages it comprehends. The more intensely, therefore, we may wish to get rid of a disagreeable idea, the more lively, we may be sure, and therefore the more permanent, must it become. It is admitted, indeed, by many philosophers, that we have no such direct influence', as is supposed, over our trains of thought ; but they maintain, that the conceptions or ideas, which we cannot will directly, we can yet will indirectly, bj- calling up other ideas, which we know to be connected with them. Thus, if I wish to remember a piece of news, which was com- municated to me by a friend, it is admitted, that I cannot call up directly that particular piiece of news ; ■ but I am said to have the power of calling up ideas which I know to have been associated with it in place aiid time, — the idea of the person, of the spot, of many little events that may have happened while we were stand- ing together, and of other circumstances which were the subjects of conversation. Yet it is evident, that to will the renewal of any one of those ideas is to will that particular idea directly ; and if I can effectively will the idea of the personj or of the spot, without any idea of the person, or of the spot, implied in my vo- lition, I may as readily will at once the unknown idea, which is the object of my search. Indirect volition, then, is exactly the same thing, as direct volition ; or rather it is a series of direct OF CAUSE AND EPFECT. 43 volitions, and cannot therefore be adduced with the view of get- ting rid pf any inconsistencies, which may be implied in the di- rect volition of a particular idea unknown to us. The true and simple theory of the voluntary recollection is to be found in the permanence of the desire, and the natural or- der of the associate ideas. I do not call up, — for it is not in my power so to produce, — the ideas of the person,, of the spot, of the events that took place at the time, and of the various circum- stances more or less loosely connected, on which we conversed ; but I have a continued desire of remembering something which was told me by my friend, at a certain time ; and, during the con- tinuance of this desire, the spot, the events, and other circumstan- ces, rise according to the usual order of our spontaneous trains of thought. The conception of these can scarcely fail, at every mo- ment, to suggest something which was said at the time. If it sug- gest that particular part of the conversation, of which I remem- ber only that it was something which interested me, and which I wished therefore to be brought to my mind again, the desire of course" ceases with the gratification of it, when I recognise what is thus suggested, as that which was the object of my obscure desire. If it suggest any other part of it, the desire, continuing, keeps be- fore me the images of the person and the place, which may al- most be said to be involved in the desire itself, and allows other images, associated with these, to arise ; ,till I either remember what I wish, or the wish'itself die away, in the hopelessness of gratification, or in the occurrence of new and more interesting objects. In like manner, when we are supposed voluntarily to banish disagreeable reflections, we do not banish them directly by our will; for that, as I have shewn, is impossible : but, knowing that one idea suggests, without any will on our part, other ideas asso- ciated with it, we may voluntarily take up a book, with the hope of being led by it into a new order of thoughts, or give ourselves to any other occupation or pastime, which may induce trains of its own. In all this there is nothing but the first step, which can be considered as voluntary ; for, when the new train has begun, it has already relieved us, without our will : and that we are capa- ble of this first step, in the will or effective desire, which pre- cedes the muscular actions necessary for taking up a book and fix- 44 ON THE RELATION ing our eyes on its pages, or any other muscular actions which any other serious occupation or pastime requires, is not denied. . Such are the simplest instances of the supposed voluntary com- mand over the train of thought ; and, if the examination were ex- tended to the more complex instances, the analysis of what is termed the Will would afford a similar result. In all, we should discover a desire, which, since every desire must be the de- sire of something, involves of course some conception more or less shadowy or clear; and, during the continuance of this desire, a series of associate conceptions, that rise, as any other ideas in our spontaneous trains of thought arise, in consequence of the mere pre-'existence of other relative ideas. The lasting desire, and the primary conception involved in it, are thus sufficient" to induce by suggestion many accordant images ; and may be accom- panied, as they usually are accompanied, with the belief, or hope, that, in the course of the varied suggestion, such images may arise, as will be most suitable for the object that wgs primarily apd lastingly in view. In the empire of the will over our trains of thought, when the complex feeling which we term the wifll is thus analysed, there does not seem to be any thing peculiarly mysterious. But, even though all the mystery that is supposed were really to hang about it, still it must be remembered, that whether ideas be willed di- rectly, or indirectly, or produced in any other manner, for which it is possible to invent words ; when the state of mind, that is sup- posed to be wilkd, does truly arise, there is in the process of vo- lition only a sequence of feeling after feeling. There is one feel- ing that is consequent, and there was another feeling that was an- tecedent. In the sequence of these, we may imagine the closest and most invariable proximity ; but, assuredly, we do not discov- er a proximity that is closer or more invariable, than what is be- lieved by us in the phenomena of the world of matter. OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 45 SECTION IV. In our examination of the phenomena of the mind as suc- cessive, we have considered its feelings, both as they are antece- dent to motions of our bodily organs, and as, in trains more pure- ly mental, tjiey are the immediate antecedents of other feelings. In both cases, we have found only phenomena which occur in a certain order, and which are believed to have to each other a re- lation of proximity, that is not confined to the moment of any sin- gle sequence. If the relation of uniform antecedence and conse- quence, which we found to impress us universally in the phenom- ena of the external world, be, as I conceive, all that is meant in the words power or causation, we have found this to extend to the mind, biit notto be more peculiarly applicable to it than to ob- jects without ; — and if power be something more than this, we have not been able, in our examination of the mental phenomena, to discover what it is. ~ So different, however, has the nature of succession been consid- ered, in the phenomena of mind and of mattery that on this differ- ence has been founded a theory of power, which has met with very general acceptance. It has been asserted, that from mind alone we derive our notion of power ; and that the notion which we thus acquire by the consciousness of our own exertion, is af- terwards transferred to the apparent changes of matter. If, indeed, the phenomena of matter had appeared to us as simple sequences, that did not impress us with belief of any future uniformity; or, if, in the changes that take place in the mind it- - 46 ON THE RELATION self, we were able to detect something- more than the antecer dence of certain feelings, and the subsequence of certain other feelings, as in matter we perceive the antecedence of one motion, and the subsequence of another motion ; this theory might be al- lowed to have at least some ground of possible truth. But, since we do not remember a time, itr which the phenomena of matter did not impress us with belief of an order of succession, as close and invariable as any proximity which we can imagine in our trains of thought and desire, and since this proximity is all which we can discover in the order of the . mental sequences, the doc- trine, even though there were no difficulty in the supposed trans- fer itself, would be without tie slightest ground in our expe- rience. Is the total want of a foundation in our experience, however, the only objection that can be made to such a doctrine ? Let us consider, also, the nature of the transfer that is supposed. It must be remembered, that what we call exertion, in our bodily operations, is nothing more, as we have seen, than the sub- sequence of muscular motion to the feeling which we denominate desire or will ; as magnetic action, in a process purely material, is the subsequence of the motion of iron to the approach of a load- stone. In the nature of the subsequence in the two cases there is no difference. We have in each case two phenomena, recipro- cally antecedent and consequent, but we have no more ; and the one antecedent is as little transferable as the other ; for we have no greater reason to ascribe desire to the loadstone, than to sup- pose the approach of a loadstone to havfe preceded our muscular motion. To say that we ascribe, not desire, but power, to the loadstone, is not merely to beg the question, — by assuming, with- out proof, that .there is in the mental sequence a closeness of proximity, which is difterent from the mere uniformity of ante- cedence that is to be found iu the changing'phenomena of matter, and which admits, therefore, of being transferred to those phe- nomena ; but it is also to say, that more is transferred, than is really felt in the sequence : for power, which has a relation to fu- ture cases, as well as to the present, is something more than the mere sequence of a single desire and a single motion, which is all that constitutes any particular exertion ; and, if from one sequence any inference may be made, as to the recurrence of sequences, it ' OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 47 may be made as ijiuch from the motion of iron, as from the mo- tion of a limb. If what we feel be transferred to the magnetic phenomenon, it is evidently desire which we feel. Till the mus- cular motion have once taken place, it is desire alone ; or, if we suppose, that, even before the first exertion, there is an instinc- tive expectation of the result, it is only desire, combined with be- lief, that the motion will follow : it is afterwards desire, combin- ed with the knowledge that a muscular motion has been its con- sequence, and with belief that it will again -be followed by the mo- tion : but neither is the combination of belief and desire transfer- red to the loadstone, so as to endow it in our conception with life and conscious agency, nor, after magnetism has been observed, is there less knowledge of it too, as a past event, nor less expecta- tion of it as a future consequence. We do not believe jyith great- er certainty, that our volition will be followed by motion, than we believe that the approach of a magnet to iron will be followed by motion : — and what is there then, which we can suppose to be extended from the one of these cases to the other? In both cas- es, indeed, the inference as to future similarity of event, is made from one general principle : but it is a principle, which is com- mon to all sequences, material as well as mental, and which, we have every reason to believe, would operate in the same manner, though man were wholly incapable of muscular exertion ;— if, with that incapacity, he could have the same power as now, of distinguishing all the varying changes of the universe without. It is, perhaps, even too much authority, which Mr Hume gives to this error, when he allows, that the anitnal nisus, which we ex- perience, enters* very much into the' vulgar idea of power. It seems to me at least equally probable, that the feeling of this an- imal nisus, though derived from cases in which the exertion may have eventually succeeded, enters largely into the vulgar idea of restraint, or difficulty, or want of power. But that the great and general error should have been adopted by philosophers, is pe- culiarly unaccountable ; as it is impossible to attend to the com- * " It must, however, be confessed', that the aDimal nisus, which we experience, though it can afford no accurate precise idea of power, enters very much into the vulgar inaccurate idea which is formed of it," Essays, vol. ii. note C. 48 on THE RELATIOil mon language of the science of mind, without perceiving its inna- merable derivations from the analogies of power in the mutual agencies of material substances. The phenomena of mind suc- ceed each other in a certain order ; the phenomena of matter al- so have their peculiar order : but, were we to judge, by the lan- guage of each, from which of the two sequences our notion of power is derived, the probability would seem on the side of the latter. It is only in poetry, that wishes, and joys and sorrows are ascribed to inanimate objects ; while even in common conversa- tion, we never speak of the faculties and passions of the soul, without a series of>metaphors, borrowed from changes that take place in the objects around us. And, indeed, when we consider, not the langiiage only, but the very abstractions and imaginations, of which theories are made, we discover innumerable attempts to materialise every operation of the mind, but very few attempts to spiritualise the operations of matter. How many hypotheses are there, that profess to be explanatory of sensation and thought, • in which we hear of images, and impulses, and traces in the sen- soriurtj, of vibrations and vibratiuncles, of currents of animal spir- its, electricity, galvanism ! There is scarcely a single new gene- ralization of phenomena of matter which have been long famil- iar to us, or a single power in matter inferred from the observa- tion of new phenomenn, which, has not been immediately seized by philosophers, and applied to mind ; as if it were the great busi- ness of metaphysical science, to systematise the slight analogies which can be drawn from the material world, and thus to convert the metaphors, that might adorn our poetry,, into grave exposi- tions of philosophic truth. That there is; this tendency in the nature of man to animate and personify, every object around him,— a tendency, to which we owe so much of the grace and delight of poetic language,— has indeed been sometimes adduced, as if it were a proof of gene- ral. belief of the immediate agency of mind, in all the changes of the external universe. There have been mythological systems of the Heavens, in which the great orbs, that are incessantly rolling through space, were supposed to be under the continued guidance of regent Spirits; and Oreads, Dryads^ and Naiads, under these or other names, have, in many countries, formed a part of more popular mythology. In sJch cases, however, the faith that is im- or. CAUSE AND EFFECT. 49 agined is often nothing but the delight of a pleasing figure of .rhetoric, or a gay pomp of worship, itself almost rhetorical, which may be consecrated, indeed, with priests and altars and sacrifices, yet, in these very solemnities, is to be considered as little more than a lively prosopopoeia. But, even in those cases, in which the personification is more than mere allegory and poetic embel- lishment, and involves real belief . of the operation of Mind, it is easy to trace the source of the supposed mental agency, in cir- cumstances, that, in a rude state of philosophy, might well seem to mark the interposition of an extraordinary Spiritual agent. In illustration of this principle, it must ,be remembered, that the local Divinities of classical superstition, Jike the Elves and other shadowy beings of our own mythology, are usually repre- sented, rather as inhabitants of certain districts, over which they preside, or in which they occasionally appear, wjien any great part is to be performed, than as connecting and carrying on all the regular and uniform natural processes, which are exhibited to our daily view. It is only where great 'and unusual phenomena oc- cur, and no visible cause is discerned, that the immediate agency of Spirits is supposed. It is a dignus vindice ^ nodus, {ind a God is therefore introduced ; because mind,^ which is the only power that is itself altogether invisible, furnishes the only analogy t.o which recourse can be had. When sounds, iherefbre, are heard from the mouTjtain,"the grove, or the stream, while around the hearer no blast is stirring ; when a voice of many thunders cries aloud, and fire flashes from clouds, which, the very moment before, were one gloomy stillness, it is not wonderful, that the heart and knee of man should fall prostrate, as in the presence of a mighty Spirit. But this belief is the natural result of an analogical rea- soning, which, in a certain rude state of physical science, is irre- sistible, and differs not, in the slightest degree; from a thousand other reasonings of analogy in physics, in which the cause suppos- ed is not spiritual but material. It is confined to certain cases, in which the analogy of life is more striking than any other analogy, and is very different from that general theory,whiGh would as- oribe a living power to the production of every^change. The Roman, who heard Jupiter thundering in the sky, and acknowl- 7 50 ON THE RELATION edged that he reigned, saw and recognised an endless succession of material causes, in the more common spontaneous changes of nature, and in the daily arts of life ; and while in the public field of exercise he drove the ball, or watched it, as it fell and re- bounded, from the earth, he never once imagined, that a God was at all concerned in the operation. The most probable source of the error, as relating, not merely to cases of inferred analogy,- but to every instance of change in matter, is the continuance of apparent rest in bodies, when not under the influence of a manifest external force ; in distinction from the seemingly spontaneous operations of life, when, after long rest new motions seem to start upon, us, with- out any influence from without, which our senses are capable of detecting. The rock, which, many ages ago, was swept from the mountain's side, remalins still in the same spot of the valley that received ,it, and is scarcely distinguishable from the frag- ments, which the desolation of yesterday has spread around it: while the locomotive power of aninjals, as exerted by fits of longer or shorter duration,- renders visible to us the begin- nings of motion from absolute rest; the w,hole train of vital changes being composed, partly of motions, which are visible, and partly of feelings, which are invisible, and the invisible feeling.? being neglected by us, in our consideration of the via- ble motions, which appear at .intervals only, though, in reali- ty, they are parts of one continuous sequence. It has thus been usual for philosophers, by a very false distinction, to which their imperfect analysis has led, to term matter inert, as if ca- pable only of coiUinuing changes, and to distinguish, mind as alone active, and capable of beginning changes. , But the as- sumption of this quality is founded on the difference to which I have alluded, of the continued visibility of the train of ch'anges in matter, while there is only a partial and indirect , exhibition to our senses, of the train'that is continued in mind. If the whole train could io both cases become visible to us, we should find, that no created mind is capable of beginning spontaneously a se- ries of changes, more than any mass of created matter. All is on- ly a contiriuanGe of changes, and often of mutual changes. If^ vvithout the intervention of matter, thought arise after thought. OF CAUSE AND EFrCCT. 51 and passion after passion'; as often, without the interventioti of mind, does the motion of a few small particles of matter produce Iq other masses a long series of elemental motions. If mind oftan act upon matter, as often does matter act upon mind ; and though matteif cannot begin a change, of' itself, when all the prec^d* ing circumstances have continued the same, as little, when all the preceditig circumstances continue the same, is such a change , possible in mind. It does not perceive without the occurrence of an object to be perceived, nor will, without the suggestion of some objects of d^sii'e. The truth is, that certain changes l)f mind invariably precede certain other changes of mind, and certain changes of matter certain other Changes of matter, and also that certain changes of mind invariably precede certain changes of matter, and cerlsiin cbangfes of matter invariably precede certain changes of mind. To sayi that mind produces motion in- matter, while matter catiiiot produce motion in mind, is but an abuse of language.: for motion as an object of our per- • ception, must be a state of some material thing. It might in like manner, be said, that matter only "is active, and tha^ mind is inert, because it cannot produce, in itself, or in other minds, that painful sensation of h6at, which is immediately produced by the contact, of a burning mass; or that many of. the most powerful chemical solyents are inert; while another solvent alone is active, beaause from the use of that one solvent alone a particular product can be derived. Thoiigh matter cannot produce motion ih mind, it can prBduce sensation in it; and, though mind cannot produce sensation in, matter, it can produce in it motion. The changes, produced .by mind in matter, are indeed more obvious to the perception of others, and more di- rectly measurable, than the changes, produced by matter in mind : but it is, the simple production of a change', not the nature of the change produced, which is essential to the argument ; and of the ever- varying phenomena of the material universe, there is truly as little cessation, as of those which are most rapidly successive in mind. Even the apparent rest of matter, it must be remembered, is a sort of action, rather than repose. The particles of the seemingly quiescent mass are all attracting, and attracted, repelling, and repelled; and even the smalle&t 62 ON THE RELATION indistinguishable element is modifying, by its joint instrumental- Ity^ the planetary motions of our system, and ' is performing a ■part, which is perhaps essential to the harmony' of the- whole \ Universe of Worlds. OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 53 SECTION V. 'The successions of phenomena, whether spiritual or materi- al, that have been as yet considered by us, are those which are exhibited by created beings, that have derived from a Mightier Energy all the qualities which they display. That original Ener- gy itself, which, in our ignorapce how to offer it a dueiiomage of admiration, ^e can designate only by a title which expresses our ignorance of any limits to its sway, — The Omnipotent, who has made every thing around us what it is, and has given us a spirit susceptible not merely of the influences of external things, that render the soul itself a bright and ever-varying mirror of the uni- verse in which it is "placed, but of feelings of a nobler order, which reflect on that outward world a beauty, and glory, and sanctity, . which no masses of earthly mould can possess, — the Power, to which every secondary power is far less than a single ray to that orb which has never ceased to pour. forth its dazzling flood, since the moment at which it wal fixed in the heavens, to gladden nature, and be an emblem of ' more divine magnificence, -^the Cause of causes, and Author of every thing which has been, and is, and is to be,— ^has not yet been considered by us, as dis- tinguished from the works that image his invisible sovereignty. The definition which has been given of power, then, it will , perhaps be urged,. however applicable it may seem to the phe- nomena of the subordinate universe, may yet be inapplicable to that mighty agency, from which the phenomena of the.subordinate universe received their origin ; and if there be any species of 54 ON THE RELATION agency, which it is inadequate to express, it cannot justly be re- ceived, as a general definition. Since every conception, which we .are physically capable of forming, of the nature of the Deity, is drawn from the phenome- na, which are more immediately present to our observation, and chiefly from the analogy of our own mind,— his goodness, as con- ceived by us, being only a transcendent degree of that goodness- of which we are mternaliy conscious: and the notion of his de- signing power, as manifested in the beautiful order of the universe, being the result only of an influence from that order which our- selves produce,— it seems scarcely possible, that our conception of power, as applied to the Supreme Being, should be altogether different from our conception of it, as applied to his creatures, by the contemplation of whose successive changes alone, we are ca- pable of rising to the contemplation o{ that mightier chknge, in which every thing that is not eternal had its origin. The inquiry, however, still remains ; and it is the most impor- tant on which we can enter, with respect to the nature of Power. I do not say this, with a view to its religious and moral dignity, as relating to a Being, who is not more truly the source of all pow- er, than he is the source of all happiness ; and whose unceasing bounty it is impossible' to trace as it is every where' around us, without a feeling of ardent admiration, v^hicb becomes devotion befope we think of offering it in worship, arid makes virtue more dear to us, at the very moment, at which we feel, in the compar- ison, how faint is all to which we can give the Name of Virtue. It is not with a view to this best relation, that we are at present to enter ou the inquiry. It is only physically, that we are to con- sider the Divine Power; and, even in this respect, as it relates to all our other physical fnvestig^tions, thel-e is none which can be regarded as of equal interest. Indeed, all the errors of philos- ophers with respect to the general nature of power,— or, at least, their principal errors on this subject, — seem, to me, to have been fostered, in a very high, degree, by misconceptions of the divine Omnipotence ; as if there were danger of lessening, in our devout admiration, the dignity of the Creator, by th.e admission of any powers, however subordinate tb his primary will, in the things which' he created. It is of so much importance, for the strengthening of human OP CAUSE AND EfrECT. 55 weaknsess, and the consolation of human suffering, that we should have a full .conviction of the dependence of all events on the Great Source of. Being; that a doctrine would indeed he perilous, which might seem to loosen, however slightly, that tie of univer- sal nature. But we may err, and in this case, as I conceive, have very generally erred, in our notion of the sort of-dependence, which seems at once best accordant with the phenomena, and most suitable to the Divine Majesty. The power of the Omnipo- tent is indeed so transcendent in itself, that the loftiest imagery and language, which' we can borrow from a few passing events in the boundlessness of nature, must be feeble to express its force and universality. When we attempt, therefore, to add to it in our conception, we run some risk of degrading the Excellence, which, as it is far above every earthly glory, it must always be impossible for us to elevate by expressions of earthly praise, that are the only homage which we can offer to it, from the dust on on which we worship. Whajt the holiest views of God and the universe require of us to believe, is, that all things are what they are, in consequence of that Divine Vyill, to the fulfillment of- whose gracious design it was necessary, that every thing should be what it is ; and that He, whose will was the source of all the qualities which created things display, may, if it seem good to Him, suspend. Or variously modi- fy, the qualities which Himself had given, or be, in any other way, the direct operator of extraordinary changes. We know God, as a Creator, in the things which are really existing, that Mark, in the harmony of their mutual agencies, however varied they may seem to be, a general purpose, and therefore a contriver; — -and we believe in God^ as the Providential Governor of the world'; — that is to say, we believe that the world, which he has so richly endowed, and the living beings, for whose use he seem^ so richly to have endowed it, cannot be indifferent to Him who made that magnificent provision, but must, on the contrary, be a continued object of his benevolent contemplation; and therefore, since all things are subject to his will, and no greater power seems neces- sary to suspend any tendency of nature than what originally pro- duced it, — if there should be circumstances in which it would be of greater advantage, upon the Whole, that the ordinary tendency should not continue, wef see no reason, a priori, for disbelieving, 56 ON THE RELATION that a difference of event may be directly produced by Him, eren without our knowledge, in those rare cases, in which the tempo- rary deviation would be for the same gracious end, as that which fixed the general regularity. -^ But God the Creator, and God the Providential Governor of the world, are not, necessarily, God the immediate producer of every change. In that great system which we call the Universe, all things are what they are, in consequence of his primary will ; but, if they were whotly incapable of affecting any thing, they would, virtually, themselves be as nothing. • When we speak of the Laws of Nature, indeed, we only use a general phrase, ex- pressive of the accustomed order of the sequences of the phenom- ena of Nature. But, though, in this application, the word Law is not explanatory of any thing, and expresses merely an order of succession which takes place before us, there is such a regular order of sequences, and what we call the qualities, powers, or properties of things, are only their relations to this very order. An object, therefore, which is not formed to be the antecedent of any change, and on the presence Of which, accordingly, in all im- aginable circumstances, no change can be expected as its immedi- ate consequent, more than if it were not existing, is an object that has no power, property, or quality whatever. That substance has the quality of heat which excites in us, or occasions in us as a sub- sequent change, the sensation of warmth ; that has the quality of greenness, the presence of which is the antecedent of a peculiar visual sensation in our mind ; that has the quality of heaviness which presses down a scale of a balance that was before in equi- librium ; that has the quality of felasticity, of which the parts, af- ter being pressed closer together, return, when the pressure is withdrawn, in a direction opposite to the force which compressed them. If matter be incapable of acting upon matter, or upon mind, it has no qualities, by which its existence can become known ; and, if it have no qualities by which its existence can be- come known, what is it, of which, in such circumstances, we are entitled to speak, under the name of Matter ? The objects around us, then, if they can be known to us at all as Objects, do truly act on us, and on each other, in the only sense in which the word action can be understood ; that is to say, they are truly, in certain circumstances, the reciprocal and immediate or CAUSE AND EPJPECT. fi? antecedents and consequents, in a series of changes : for, if this were not the case,, the world, even though there were myriads of substances existing, never could be known to exist, and, as wholly ineffective,. could not have been worthy of en.tering into the gra- cious plan of Him who has surrounded us every where with/the countless multitude of living and inanimate influences, which it is delightful to feel and to behoWj and still more delightful to trace to that primary Beneficence, in which they all had their common origin. ' ■• ■ ; , : Eren while. materia^ objects are themselves reciprocally pro- ductiye as well «s. sjasceptible of change, it may be said, there- fore, and in one sense .of the word said justly, that God is the Au- thor of, all the changes which take place C for-jt was in order that they might be the antecedents of the very changes which are con- sequent on their presence, that he formed them- with the powers or qualities, which those changes are believed by. us to exhibit. But it is in this sense only, that Gop is the Author of them ; and to suppose, that he is-.him^elf the real operator, and the only op-' eraior, of £ very change,. is to suppose, that the universe which he has made exists for no purpose. Philosophers, however,' not perceiving, that the universal ex- clusive operation, which they ascribe to the Deity, would have made the very act of creation itself superfluous, as far at least as regards the inanimate universe, have.considered the Divine Being as what they term the Efficient Cause of every change that takes place ; and have yet asserted the existence, of a system of materi- al things, of which, in that case, it would be impossible to discov^ er the slightest evidence, or the slighlesj utility. This error, however, will require A little fuller elucidation. In the system of Occasional Canses, which formed a pjart of the Cartesian philosophy, and which was founded on the difficulty of imagining any mutual agency of substances so little congruous as mind and matter, this direct agency was denied in -every case ; and the changes that seem to.be reciprocally produced by each in the other, were ascribed to the direct operation of God. Accord- ing to this doctrine, it is He, and He. alone, who» when light is present, affects our mind with vision ; it is He, and He alone, who, when we will to raise our arm, produces the necessary contrac- tion of the muscles. The presence of light, in the one case, and 8 58 ON THE RELATION our desire, in the other case, are the occasioDS, indeed, on which the Omnipresent Power becomes thus active ;,but they are instru- mental only as occasions : and, hut for the direct interposition of the Almighty liimself, in both cases, there would be no Visioi), though light w«re forever, present in the healthy eye,- and no contraction of the soundest muscles, though our min^ were-wiol- ly occupied, from morning till night', in willing a single motion of our arm. . ■ When this doctrine ceased to be admitted, under the name of the System of Occasional Causes, it was fat from, losing its influ- ence ; for it only changed its denominatioq,- and, under another title, continued to prevail still more extensively. It was* con- vert-ed into the system pi pkydcal and efficient causes; and this doctrine, which scarcely cari be said , to differ from the^ other in any thing but in name, may at present b^ regarded as the unlver- ~ sal faith of philosophei^s. The occasipnal ca.use of .the one sys- tem, i.s the physical cause of the other; for what is termed a Physical. Cause, is truly, in this doctrine, the mere ocmsion, on the occurrence of which, a mightier agency is«x«rted, — that alone is the producer of the subsequent change, jind alone, therefore, de- serves to be denominated efficient. According, to this doctrine of efficient and physical causes,, we are to beli,eve, that there is in the phenomena of nature a regu- lar, series of antecedents, and consequents,— a series so regular, that, from the ppesence of the accustomed antecedent, we may, if the circumstances be the same, anticipate with confidence the change which was its former attendant. But all the antecedents of all the changes, however regular, are antecedents only. They are, as mere antecedents, the physical causes of all the changes that take place ; but they are thus antecedents of particular phe- nomena, only because there is an efficient cause, that, in every case, is different from them, and necessary for the production of the effect, — an invisible something,> which connects each particu- lar consequent .with its particular antecedent, or rather is, in every case, the sola efficietit of it. Such is the doctrine. Let us consider, then, what the doctrine ipaplies. •.. * Note D. OP CAUSE AND ErFECT. • 69 In a former Section, I endeavoured to shew-, that we have no other notion of power, than as that which is ipstantly and' con- •/ stantly followed by a certain change. That, which has been al- ways followed by a certain change, is immediately followed by it, and, as we believe, is to be in all future time immediately follow- ed by it, is the cause of that change, in the only sense in which the word cause seems to have any meaning. The physical Cause, then, which has been, is, and always will be, followed hy a •cer- tain change, is the efficient cause of that change ; or, if it be not the efficient cause of it, it is necessary that a deiinition of e^cien- cy should be given us, which involves more than the certainty of a particular change, as consequent in instant sequence. Causa- tion is efficiency ; and a cause,' which is not efficient, is truly no cause whatever. It is possible, indeed, that what we may have before consideredas the physical or efficient cause of a particular phenomenon, — that is to say, its immediate and constant antece- dentj — may prove not to have been so ; for it is possible, that a better analysis of a complex phenomenon may shew a se- ries of changes, where we had. supposed only one. We before considered A as the immediate antecedent'of D^ but we find af- terwards, that B and C* are interposed : and we cease, therefore, to regard A as the cause of D ; and give that name, first perhaps to B, and afterwards, on a still nicer analysis, to C. But we do not, on account of our minuter discoveries, call A or B the physi- cal cause of D, and C its efficient cause. We consider physical and efficient antecedence as exactly of the same meaning', or, rather, as both superfluous, when coupled with the word Cause, that, of itself, expresses every thing which they can be employed to signify.' C is the cause of D : for it has D as its invariable con- sequent : and, whatever verbal distinctions may be made, this is all which we can understand by the term; since no other import is assigned to it, even by those vfrho make verbally the distinc- tions, to which we strive in vain to attach some accurate notion. If, indeed, the assefters of the. difference of Physical and Effi- cient causes had explained what they meant by the difference as- serted, and proved that there is something morej involved in the notion of Power, than the invariableness of a particular conse- quent, which may be expected instantly, as often as the antece- dent itself recurs, their doctrine inight have had some claim to be 60 ON THE nEL'AtlON admitted. But they have contented themselves with asset-ting the distinction, without arty very great effort, or rather, 1 may say without any effort whatever, to explain to us, in what the as- sertsd difference consists. If the distinction relate to a supposed difference of Matter and Mind; and if the meaning be, that'matt^r is, in all circumstances, by its very nature, essentially incapable of being the direct ante- cedetjf of any changes, in other masses of matter, or in mind, and that these changes must, in every case, be produced by a spiritu- al being, as the sole imaginable EtBcient,-^they, in the first place, take for granted, without the slightest proof, that matter is thus destitute of qualities of every species, since .qualities are only an- other name for efficiency of change ; — and, in the second place, by introducing a .spiritual operator in every change, they only lengthen a sequence of physical phenomena, anii do not produce any thing different from a sequence of regular antecedents and consequents. We before, supposed, that the approach of a load- stone to a piece of iron was the immediate antecedent of the mo- tion of the iron. We have now, according to' this view of it, a more complex phenomenon ; — in the first place, the approach of ihS loadstone, in whatever manner that may have been produced ; ■^-in the second place, the volition of the Deity, or of some subor- dinate spirit ; — and, in the third place, the approach o'f the iron to the loadstone; But it is'quite evident, that in this lengthened se- ries, we have only. obtained a new antecedent; and instead of supposing, that the introduction of a loadstone is followed, has al- ways been followed, and will always be followed, by the motioa of all the iron that may be within a certain degree- of vicinity to it, we must now suppose, that it is, has been, and always will be, followed by some spiritual volition, and that of this volition, or spiritual energy, whatever it may be, the motion of the iron, with- in a certain degree of vicinity to the loadstone, is,' has been, and always will be, the consequent. The asserters of the doctrinej.then, even when they suppose that they are contending for a cause of a different species, under the name of efficient, are iti truth introducing into the' sequence observed by us. a new physical cause ; and they are introducing it, ae I have before said, without any proof; for, the causes, or CAUSE. AND EFFECT. 61 which they term physical, they admit to be the only causes that come under our observation. They not merely introduce it with- out proof, however, but they introduce what, if proved to exist, would prove also the useiess'ness of almost every thing which exists. ■ . That the changes which take place, whether in mind or in mattter, are ail ultimately resolvable into the will of the Deity, who formed alike the spiritual and material system of the uni- verse, — making the earth a- habitation worthy of its noble inhabi- tant, and Man an inhabitant almost worthy of that scene of divine i»agnificence in which he is placed, — I have already frequently repeated. That in this sense, as the Creator of the world, and Wilier of those great ends, which the laws of the universe accom- plishj G6d is himself the Author of the physical changes which take place in It, is, then, most true ; asit is most true, that the same Power, which gave the universe its laws, can, for particular pur- poses of his provident- goodness and wisdom,* suspend, if it be his pleasure, any effect that would flow from these laws, and produce, by his own immediate volition, k different result. But, how- ever deeply we may be impressed with these truths, we cannot find in them any reason for stipposing, that the objects swithout us, which he has made surely for some end, have, as made by him, no efficacy, no power of being instrumental to his own great pur- pose, merely because whatever power they can be supposed to possess must have been derived from the fountain of all power. We have seen, indexed, that it is only as possessing this power, that they are conceived by us to exist ; and their powers, there- fore, or efficiencies, are, relatively to us, their wht)1e existence. It is by affecting us, that they are known to us ; and, if they were incapable of affecting us, or,— >which is the same thing, — if we were unsusceptible of any change on their presence, it would be in vain, that the gracious benevolence which has surrounded us with them, provided and decorated for us tRe splendid home in which it has called us to dwell, — a home, that may be splendid indeed, as planned by the Omnipotent who made , it, but which must forever be invisible, , and unknown to the very beings for ■ whomit was made. Such reciprocally, is the nature of our mind, * Not«s E and F. ^2 ON THE RELATION arid of light, that light cannot be present, or at least the sensorial organ cannot exist iri a certain state in consequence of its pres- ence, without that instant sensation which constitutes vision. If light have not this power of affecting us, it is with; respect to us nothing ; for we know it only as the cause of the. visual sensation. That which excites in us all the feelings, which we ascribe to certain qualities of matter, is matter ; and to suppose that there is nothing without us, which excites these feelings, is to suppose that there is no matter without, as far as we are capable of form- ing any conception of matter. The doctrine of universal spiritu- al efficiency, then, in the sequences of physical causes, seems ffi be only an awkward and coraplicated modificationof the system of Behkeley I for as, in this view of physical causes that are ineffi- cient, the E(eify,-by his own immediate volition, or that of some delegated spirit, is the Author of every effect which we ascribe to the presence of matter; the only conceivable use of the inani- mate masses, which cannot affect us more than if thfey were not in existence, must be as remembrancers,* to him who is Omniscience itself, at what particular moment he is to excite a feeling in the mind of some one of his sensitive creatures, and of what particur lar species that feeling is to be : — as iflhe Omnisci^nticould stand in need of any memorial, to excite in our mind any feeling which it is his wish to excite, and which is to be traced to his own spir- itual agency. Matter, if we must still continue to use that name, has no relations to m ; all its relations are to the presiding and operating Spirit alone. The asserters of the doctrine, indeed, sfeem to consider it as representing in a more s.ublime light the Divine Omnipotence, by exhibiting it to our conception, as the only power in nature : l{ut they might in like manner affirm, that the creation of the infinity of worlds, with all the life and happi- ness, that are diffused over them, rendered less, instead of more sublime, the existence of Him who till then was the sole Existence : for power that is derived derogates as little from . the primary power, as derived existence derogates from the being from whom it fiows. Yet the believers of inefficient physical causes,, who fconceive that light is powerless in vision, are perfectly willing to admit that light exists, or, rather, they are strenuous affirmers of * Note G. OP CAUSE AND EFFECT. 63 hs existence, as essential to 'the Vfsry distinction oh which their doctrine is founded ; and are anxious only to prove, in their zeal for the glory of Him who inade it, awcl who makes nothing in vain, that this, and allj or the greater number of his-works,>exist for no purpose. Light, they contend, has no influence whatever : it is as little capable of exciting sensations of colour, as of exciting a sensation of ipelody or fragrance ; but still it exists. The pro- duction of so simple a state as hat of vision, or any other of the modes of perception, with. an a]^ara,tus which is not mferply com- pUcated, biit, in all its complication, absolutely without eflScacy o any sort, is so far from adding any sublimity to 'the Divine nature in our conception, that it can scarcely be conceived by the mind, without lessening in some degree the sublimity of the Authoi' of the universe, by lessening,^ or rather destroying, all "the sublimity of the universe which ihe has njade. What is that- idle mass -of Matter, which- cannot affect -us, or be known to us, or to any oth- er created being, more than if it were not ? If the Deity produc- es, in every caSe, by his own immediate ojperation, all thoste feel- ings which we term Sensations or Perceptions, he does but first create a multitude of inier.t#ind cumbrous worlds, invisible, and incapable of affecting any thing whatever, that He may know- when to operate, in the same manner ds he would have operated^ though they- did not pxist. This strange process may indeed have some resemblance to the ignorance and .feebleness of human pow- er: but it is not the awful simplicity of that Omnipotence, " Whose word leaps forth at once to its effect ; . " Who qallB for things that are aot, — ajid they cQoie." . In those cases, however, in which the direct agency of the Supreme'Being is indubitably to. be. believed, — as ia that greatest 'of all events, when the Universe arose at his will, — what notion are we capable of forming of such a change, and are we to consid- er, that Highest Energy as different in -nature, as well as in de- gree, from the humble delegated energies, which are operating around us ? The Omnipotence of God, it must indeed be allowed, bears to every created power the same relation.of awful superiority, which his infinite wisdom and goodness bear to the humble knowledge 64 ON THE RELATION and virtue of his creatures. But, as we know bis wisdom and goodness, only by knowing- what that human wisdom and got)dness are, which, with all their imperfection, he. has yet permitted to know aud adore him ; so, it is only by knowing crea:ted power, weak and limited as it is, that we can risp to our feeble concep- tion of His Omnipotence. In contemplating it, we consider only His will, as the direct antecedent of those glorious effects, which the Universe displays. The power of Gop is not any thing diffe- rent from God, but is the Alroiglity himself,- willing whatever seems to him good, and creating, or altering, by his very wiM to create or alter. It is enough for our devotion, to trace every where the characters of the Divinity. — of provident arrangement, prior to this system of things, — rand to knowj^ therefore, that, with- out that Divine will as •antecedent^ nothing could have been,* Wherever we turn our eyes,— to the Earth, to the Heavens, to the myriads of beings, that live and move around as,- or. t« those more than myriads of worlds, which seem themselves almost like animated inhabitants of the infinity through which they range, — above us, beneath us, on every side,. we discover, with a certain- ty that admits not of doubt, Intelligence and Design, that must have preceded the existence of every thing which exists. Yet, when we analyze those great but obscure conceptions, which rise in our mind while we attempt to think of the oreation of things, we feel that it is. still 'only a sequence of events which we are considering, though of events the magnitude of which allows us no comparison, because it has nothing in common with thBse earthly changes, which fall beneath our view, We do not imag- ine any thing existing intermediately, and binding as it were the will of the Omnipotent Creator to the things which are bursting upon our gaze: we conceive only the Divine Will itself, as if made visible to Qur4magination, and all nature at the very mo- ment rising around. It is evident, that, in the ca«e of the divine agency, as in evei'y other species of causation, the introduction of any circumstance of supposed efficiency, as furnishing .a closer bond of connexiofi, would, in truth, furnish only a new antecedent, to be itself con- nected. But, even thqugh it were possible to conceive the'closer * Note H. OF CAUSE AND EFPEeT. 66 connexion of such an additional circumstance, as might be suppos- ed to intervene, between the will of the Creator, as antecedent, and the rise of the Universe, as consequent, — it would diminish indeed, but it certainly, could not be supposed to elevate the majesty of the person and of the scene. Our feeling of his Omnipotence is not rendered stronger by the slowness of the complicated process. It is, on the contrary, the immediate succession of the object to thie desire, — of an object so vast and so magnificent, to a simple volition^ — which impresses the force of the Omnipotence on our mind ; and it is to the divine agency, therefore, that the repre- sentation of instant sequence seems peculiarly suited, as if it were more emphatically powerful. In the works of man, if we consider only the progressive chan- ges, as they rise after each other, each effect is equally the im- mediate consequent of its particular antecedent. But the change, first produced, may not be that which was primary in the mind of the operator, — the finished result which he contemplated at a dis- tance, in his plan. Before this can arise, a multitude of gradual changes may be necessary ; and quick, therefore, as each se- quence may be, there is an appearance of slowness when we con- sider the Tvhole successive parts of the train ; because we have constantly in our mind one great sequence, of the desire itself, and the object of the desire, which a process, that is, complicated with so many instrumental changes, seems tardy to present. Man is not omnipotent. What he wills does not arise, merely because he has willed it ; and often, therefore, to gratify a single wish, he must toil to produce sequence after sequence, and, in many, cases, toil to produce them in vain. But there is a Being who is Omnip- otent ; and His boundlessness of power, as distinctively opposed to human feebleness, seems best marked by a rapidity in which there is nothing that intervenes between the will itself, and its perfect fulfilment. In the liveliness of the impression produced by a change so rapid, is to be found the chief sublimity of the celebrated passage in Genesis, descriptive of the creation of light ; whatever charm additional it may receive, from the ethereal purity of the very object that' is imaged to us, — which seems itself of a nature so heavenly, as to have been worthy of being the first material ema- nation of the divine glory, to connect it afterwards with the gross- 9 66 ON THE RELATION er forms of earth. It is by stating nothing more than the antece- dent and consequent, that the description is majestically simple. God speaks, and it is done. We imagine nothing intermediate. In our highest contemplation of his power, we believe only, that, when he willed creation, a world arose, and that, in all future time, a similar volition will be followed by the rise of whatever he may will to exist, — thttt his 'will to destroy any of his works, will be in like manner followed by its non-existence, — and his will to vary the course of thing?, by miraculous appearances. The will is the only necessary previous change ; and that Being has almighty power, whose euery will is immediately and invariably followed by the existence of Hs object. OF CAUSE AND EFFECT, 6-7 PART SECOND. OF THE SOURCES OF ILLUSION WITH RESPECT TO THE RELATION. SECTION I. If, in the preceding analysis of the notion of power, I have been successful in shewing' the real import of the relation, accord- ing to which certain phenomena, are classed by us as the causes of certain other phenomena, in a regular order of sequence, I may consider a great part of the mystery to be dissipated,, which has been supposed to envelope in peculiar obscurity, the physical successions of events; We have seen, that in our notion of power there are only two elements, — immediate priority in a sequence, and the supposed invariableness of a similar consequent, on every past and future recurrence of the same antecedent, in the same circumstances. When we say of any thing, that it has been followed, is followed, and will always be followed, by a particular change, and say at another time, that it has the power of producing that change, we do not make the slightest difference of affirmation ; we only alter the words in which one unaltered meaning is conveyed. This simple view of the import of causation, as we have seen in a successive review of all the generic varieties of events, is g8 ON THE RELATION true of the changes that take place, in .the phenomena of the ma- terial world,— is true of the reciprocalinfluences of mind and the bodily organs, — is true of the changes more purely mental, when feeling succeeds. feeling,— and, as far as we can humbly presume to speak of the Omnipotence of Gob, it is true also of those migh- ty events, in which the Creator and Ruler of the World has deigned to reveal himself in those high characters of Power. The adoption of this simple definition of Creative, as well as created, power, relieves us from much of that confusion, in which the philosophy' of cause and effect has been involved by scholas- tic phraseology. The verbal distinctions which are made on this subject are either fallacious or of little value. There is, in strict- ness of language, but one cause, the proximate event, or the prox- imate combination of circumstances, in the order of priority-: though, as the proximate event has other circumstances, which invariably precede it, the term remote cause may be allowed for those remote circumstances, when a single order of events is con- sidered abstractly, without regard to any coexisting series. A, being the cause of B, which is the cause of C, majr itself be term- ed a remote cause of C; and might, in every case, be so termed, with perfect certainty as to the future subsequence of C, if the phenomena of nature, instead of being complicated by many co- existing series of events, were all comprised in a single unlimited progression of change after change. , Itmustbe remembered, how- ever, that the term is allowed, not as expressing any new and dif- ferent species of relation, — for the onl}' real causation is still that of B by A, and of C by B ; but merely for the sake of concise- ness, to prevent the necessity of naming every intermediate event in a train of phenomena ; and that, as there is a perpetual inter- ference of such orders of events, in the variety of simultaneous changes which nature exhibits, — by which the parts of one train modify the parts of other co-existing trains, — the uncertainty of any practical confidence in the results of causes that are remote, must increase, in a very high proportion, with their distance of antecedence. The terms predisposing and occasional cav^e may be allowed, in like manner, for the convenient expression of those circum- stances of longer continmance and of immediate occurrence, the com- bination of whichis, in certain cases, necessary for the production OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 69 of a particular effect : but still it must be remembered, that these are not separate causes, distinct in naiure. They are only parts of one complex antecedent ; the real cause, — the proximate event, of which alone the relation of invariable priority can be asserted, ^being the whole aggregate of circumstances, thus combined, at the moment before the commencement of the change of which we speak. The distinction of physical and efficient causes, however, we have seen, is not thus allowable. It serves no purpose of useful abbreviation ; and it has tended, more than any other circum- stance, to keep alive the belief of some mysterious intermediate existence between all the pairs of events, distinct from the ante- cedents and consequents that compose the sequence. It is not necessary, as we found, to the purity of theism, that we should suppose something diviiie and incomprehensible to be interposed, amid all those obvious and regular changes which'we observe : it is sufficient, that we be fully impressed with the necessity of a Creator, and trace the Universe, with all its regularity, and beau- ty, as one great eflfect, to the Almighty source of Being. That some Spiritual will, Divine or subordinate, modifies immediately all the successions of events, has certainly never been proved ; and the supposition is only another shape of that erroneous theo- ry, which supposes the very notion of power to be acquirable only from the changes produced by the operations of mind; but, even though this unproved gratuitous supposition were admitted to be just, it would not be necessary, on that account, to add any new term to our language. The spiritual efficient, whatever it may be, being the immediate antecedent, would then be itself the true physical cause of every event, of which the circumstances that at present' appear to us to be the physical or proximate cause, would be only the remote cause, being thrown one step back, in the se- ries of causation ; or, if we should suppose, that these circum- stances have any direct influence, that co-exists with the will of the presiding Spirit, in the production of the effect, the whole would then form one aggregate of Causation ; and the physical and efficient cause would still be the same, — being nothing^more than that combination of circumstances, whatever it may be, which immediately and uniformly precedes an event. The proper ex- pression of doubt, therefore, for those who, without any warrant 70 ON THE RELATION from ohservation or reason, imagine that there may be a spiritual interposition in every production of change, is not, that they are acquainted with the physical, and ignorant of the efficient cause, but merely, that they are not certain, as to the nature of that di- rect antecedent >vhich is the real phj^sical cause, or as to the exact nature and number of the circumstances, which may per- haps combine in it. The powers of substances are only the substances themselves ; and hence, whatever mystery may be supposed to attend the in- variableness of the changes that are consequent on their pres- ence, is the mystery of their very existence as substances, and nothing more. A substance without qualities, if conceived to ' be an object of knowledge, seems a contradiction in terms : and the qualities of substances, as we have found, are only another name for their power of affecting other substances. Whatever definition we may give of matter, must • always be the enume- ration of those properties or qualities which it exhibits;, and, if there were no powers, therfi would truly be nothing to de- fine. If, then, we suppose, in the first place, that we can know matter as having certain qualities ; and, afterwards, find some- thing very wonderful, in the regularity of the changes that are consequent on its existence in certain circumstances ; we have begun to wonder in the wrong place : for- if we know matter as having qualities,--that is to say, if we know matter at all, — we have already taken for granted, that, in certain circum- stances, it is to be the antecedent of certain changes, without which subsequent changes, the qualities of which we speak would be words without meaning. It would indeed be most wonderful, if matter had any qualities, and if there were, at the same time no regularity of the train of antecedents and con- sequents ; for this would be to have certain qualities, and yet to be at the same time destitute of every quality. All this regularity of successionj then, is assumed in our very notion of substances, as existing; and there is-no power, dif- ferent and separate or distinguishable from them. Innumera- ble changes may be taking place in them at every moment ; and in all time, past and future, these changes may have suc- ceeded each other, and may continue to succeed each other. OP CAUSE AND ErPECT. 71 with a complication apd variety to which our imagination can- not fix any limit ; yet, however varied, and unceasing, and com- plicated they may be, the phenomena, in all their changes, pre- sent us a series of antecedents and consequents, but present us no- thing more. So obvious indeed, does it appear to me, but for the strange misconceptions which have prevailed on the subject, that the sxibstances which exist in nature, — the world of matter, its liv- ing inhabitants, and the adorable Being who created them, — are all the real existences in nature, and that, in the various changes which occur, there can as little, therefore, be any pow- ers or susceptibilities, different from the -antecedents and con- sequents themselves, as there can be form, different from the co-existing particles which constitute it ; that the labour to ren- der this truth more apparent, by argument, seems to me almost like an attempt to -demonstrate a self-evident proposition. An illusion, however, so universal, as that which supposes the pow- ers of nature to be something more than the mere antecedents and consequents themselves, is not what we are entitled, with- out the fullest examination, to consider as an illusion. In the minute discussion to which it has now been subjected, it has been made, I trust, sufficiently apparent, tha^; the doctrine is founded on error. But how has it happened, that there should be such universality of error, with respect to. a relation, which every philosopher, who has ventured on any physical inquiry, may be supposed to have had constantly present to his mind, and which may be considered even as equally familiar to the ignorant as to the wise ; since the ignorant as well as the wise, are every moment adapting their conduct to it, in some one or other of its innumerable forms ? In the case of a mistake, so prevalent, and so important in its consequences, it cannot be uninteresting, to inquire into the circumstances, which appear most probably to have led to it. Indeed, the more false, and the more obviously false, the illusion is, the more must it de- serve our inquiry, what those circumstances have been, which have so long obtained for it the assent, not of common under- standings merely, but of the quicksighted and the subtile. A truth is but half revealed, when it makes us know only, that we have been in the wrong : ihe chief revelation is that which 72 ON THE RELATION tells us of some principle within us, that rendered the fallacy to us for the time a relative truth. We avoid only one error, in knowing that we have been deceived ; but we may avoid many errors^ in knowing how that one has deceived us. OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 73 SECTION II. 1 HE belief, that something more than mere invariableness of precession, however regular in the certainty and exact similari- ty of a particular consequent, is implied in power, and in all the synonymous expressions of agency, has arisen from the joint in- fluence of varioqs circumstances, some of which are to be found in the nature of things, and others in the arbitrary forms of lan- guage, which- to all mankind in some measure, and to the far greater number of mankind in every respect, are themselves, in the influence which they exercise over thought, like a portion of that very nature. The sources of fallacy, in the present in- stance, are chiefly of the former kind. But, before considering these, some influences of mere language, though less importantj are yet of suflicient consequence to deserve to be pointed out. When I speak of these verbal influences, however, as less im- portant, I must be understood as speaking of the principles of er- ror, which are primarily and essentially in the forms of language. In one sense of the word, all our prejudices, that pass from mind to mind, may be said to be in a great measure verbal ; as origin- ally communicated, and perpetuated, by conversation or writing. The more frequently, for example, we may have been accustom- ed to hear of power as something distinct from the antecedents and consequents in a train of events, that mysteriously connects these events with each other, the more deeply of course, by the repetition of these verbal associations, is the error impressed on our minds. But the influence of language, in Such cases, is se- 10 74 ON THE RELATION condary only, not primary ; and it is to its primary influence alone that my present remarks are confined. Of these sources of primary error in language, 1 may remark, in the first place, the effect produced by the various metaphori- cal phrases which have Ifeen employed to express the regularity of the antecedence and consequence of certain phenomena. We speak of events as connected or conjoined ; and we speak of their bond of connection, as if there were something truly intermediate. If we examine, indeed, with a very nice analysis, all that can be justly understood in these phrases, it will be found that the meta- phor does not really express the existence of any thing interpos- ed ; since the very supposition of any such link would only trans- fer an imaginary difficulty, from one observed object to another object unobserved, and leave between the new hypothetical ante- cedent and its consequent, an invariablenfiss of sequence as inex- plicable as before. It is in truth, not as expressing more than in- variableuess of sequence, but merely as being the strongest figura- tive expression of invarlableness of sequence, that bond, and its various synonymes, are pt all significant in the philosophy of cause and effect. The metaphor, considered as a mere metaphor, is a very appropriate one. The principal circumstance, in which two bodies, bound together, differ from two similar bodies which are not bound together, is, that in the former case, the appearance of one of the bodies is a mark of the appearance of the other, in fu- ture time as well as in the present; while in the latter case, any casual vicinity, that is at one moment perceived by us, may be broken by the slightest accident of the next moment. It is not wonderful, therefore, that a circumstance, so strongly indicative of the sort of prophecy which we ai-e disposed constantly tp make within ourselves, as to future proximities of the events that have once appeared to us to proximate, should have been borrowed from the ties and links of material things, to express this regular- ity of order, in which one object appears as closely and constantly after another, as if it were mechanically bound to it ; and, when once introduced and generally employed, it is not wonderful, that this particular metaphor should do, what all metaphors in philos- ophy are very apt to do. It expresses, indeed, and, if the metaphor be even rhetorically just, must always express, at least one resemblance : but other circumstances are soon added, and OP CAUSE AND EFFECT. 73 gradually extended, which, though true of the object from which the figure was taken, may not be true of the object, to which, oa account perhaps of that single resemblance, it was originally ap- plied. A bond is a sign of proximity ; and it is in this respect it resembles causation : but it is more than a mere sign ; it is itself something intermediate, which has an existence as distinct and in- dependent, as that of either of the substances which it connects ; and in this separability and self-existence it does not resemble causation. But still, however simply and justly the metaphor may have been employed originally, to express the mere regular- ity of sequence of one event after another event, it is a very nat- ural consequence of the frequent use of the figurative phrase, that we should learn, by a wider extension of this partial and limited resemblance, to consider the bond which connects events, as some- thing which is itself intermediate : and- when it thus becomes the expression to us of something intermediate, our very ignorance of any thing really intervenirtg, will only render more mysterious what, obscure as it may be in our conception, we yet believe not the less to exist. Another way, in which our language tends to deceive us in this respect, is by the difference of meaning, which we have been accustomed to assign to the words cause and effect, and to the oth- er words that signify priority and succession, when used without the qualifying adjectives, which are necessary to identify them in import with those single words. I have already explained, in what manner, in the phenomena of nature, there are sequences which are casual, as well as se- quences which are invariable. There are innumerable substan- ces, capable of existing in various states ; and, in these changes of state, they exhibit to us phenomena in co-existing series. At the same moment, B may be succeeding A, S succeeding R, and Y succeeding X. Between the parts of these pairs, reciprocally, there is a relation of invariable priority and subsequence. But it does not follow, that there should be a similar relation of the parts of the co-existing trains to the antecedents and consequents of the other trains. From the circumstance of the mere co-ex- istence of the series, however, A is in this case the antecedent of S and Y, as much as of B. B, S, and Y equally follow it, at one particular moment; but it is the coiwe of B alone, which follows 76 OS THE RELATION it, not at that moment' only, but uniformly. It is necessary, there- fore, that we should have terms to express changes, which are casually subsequent to other changes, as well as those which are invariably subsequent. In the single word cause, we have united, with the fact of mere priority, our belief of the uniformity of the same consequent, in past and future time. We are accustomed, therefore, for the sake of conciseness, to employ that single word, or some other single word that is synonymous, when the great circumstance of in variableness is meant to be strongly ex- pressed, and to apply the terms of mere succession, only to those events, in which we have no regard to uniformity of order, and in which the successions, therefore, may have been altogether casual. Cause and sequence thus assume to our mind an appear- ance of opposition, rather than of similarity. When, however, in our speculations on the order of events, we reduce cause, by ana- lytic definition, to its two elements of immediate priority and in- variableness, we are obliged, as we cannot use any of the single v^ords which are exactly tautologous, to revert to the use of the term Sequence, and to qualify it by some appropriate adjective. Yet the influence of the former habit of opposition still remains; and therefore, on the first enunciation of the proposition, that cause and effect are but a species of sequence, we feel a sort of discrepa,ncy in the words Cause and Sequence, which the mere addition of the important qualifying adjective invariable is not able wholly to remove. All which we understand, indeed, in causation, is mere invariableness of sequence ; but we still think, that there must be something more, which of course, being wholly unknown to us, must be something that is very dark and very wonderful, — being invisible at every moment, though at every moment before our very eyes, and producing every change which we perceive ; but never producing that one by which it might itself become an object of our perception. There is yet another form of verbal influence, in some of the most common unavoidable modes of grammE(tical construction, which I conceive to have greatly favoured the mistake. All lan- guages, however much they may differ in the minuteness of their analysis, must, to a certain extent, he analytical; evolving in many successive words the complex feeling of a single moment. When the analysis and distribution are once made, the same terms OP CAHSE AND EFFECT. 77 are afterwards extended to innumerable objects, and innumerable relations of objects ; to express what may be analogous, indeed, in all, but may yet differ in many important respects. The most abstract terms of relation may thus, in their widely extended use, carry with them the same sort of error, which I stated to arise from the use of metaphors. They may lead us to extend to the analogous object' more than the analogous circumstance which alone justifies the use of them. Thus, when, in compliance with the analytical forms of grammar, we speak continually of the powers of a substance, or of substances that have certain powers, — of the figure of a body, or of bodies that have a certain figure, in the same manner as we are accustomed to speak of the birds of the air, of th* fish of a river, of a park that has a large stock of deer, or of a town that has amultitude of inhabitants'; we grad- ually learn to consider the power of a substance, or the power which a substance possesses, as something different from the sub- stance itself, inherent in it, indeedj but inherent as something that may y^t subsist separately. In the ancient philosophy, this error extended to the notions both of form and power. In the case of form, however, though the illusion lasted for many ages, it did at length cease ; and no one now regards the figftre of a body as any thing but the body itself. It is probable, that the similar illusion with respect to power, as something different from the substances that are said to possess it, would in like mantier have ceased, and given place to juster views ; if there had not been in the very na- ture of things, many circumstances of still more powerful influ- ence, to favour the illusion in its origin, and foster and perpetu- ate it. These circumstances, therefore, will next deserve our consid- eratioii. 78 ON THE RBLATJON SECTION III. We have already seen, in tlie forms of language, many cir- cumstances, that tend to produce or aid the fallacy which we are examining ; and we have now to consider other causes of it, that are to be found in the changihg phenomena themselves, or, at least, in the view of them which it is scarcely possible not to take, till a more minute analysis have corrected the error. Of this kind is tne' mistake as to the seeming latency of power, at times when it is said to be unexerted, — a mistake, which phi- losophers have partaken with the vulgar, because, like the vul- gar, they have been content, in the process of causation, to ad- mit as raystesrious, what a more analytical view of the process would have proved to be very simple. If I have rendered sufficiently clear the doctrine of the pre- ceding Sections, I have shewn, that Power is nothing latent in sub- stances, but is only a name for the substance itself, in which it is said to be latent, — a name, that, as uniformly expressive of a re- lation to some consequent change, is fairly applicable to the sub- stance as often a.s it exists in the circumstances, in which some ef- fect takes place, but only when it exists in those circumstances. In all other circumstances, but those in which the presence of the. particular substance is the immediate antecedent of some change, the relation, to which we give the name of Power, does not ex- ist ; and, when we speak of the power as remainin^even in these circumstances in which no change is conseijuent, it is allowable merely for brevity of expression, and means onlv that the sub- QF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 79 st£lnce of which we speak, however inefficient it may seem, while every thing is remaining unaUered, is one which, in certain cir- cumstances different from the present, is always attended with a certain change, in itself, or in some other substance. , If this pop- ular and convenient language were to be examined very rigidly, it would be necessary, indeed, to limit the reference of power, to the particular circumstances in which the presence of the sub- stance is productive pf change; since, in all other circumstances, as there is no tendency to any change, there is no relative ante- cedence or power, of which to speak. But, without insisting on such rigid accuracy, we may be allowed to avail ourselves of a wider use of the phrase, if, as often as we use it in our philoso- phic analyses, the precise limitation be mentally made. There is a difference, in this case, — -of power, as conceived, and power, as really existing, — 'which it may be necessary to point out. What is permanent, in our imagination of objects, may be very far from being" permanent, in the objects themselves which are imagined by us. In the intervals of what is termed Exertion, there is truly, as I have said, no power, if the meaning of that word be«accurately considered ; for, in these particular circum- stances, there is no change, nor tendency to change, in any thing, and therefore no relation of antecedence to change, which is all that is meant by the word power ; the circumstances have not oc- curred, which are necessary to constitute the state of efficiency, or aptness to be followed bya certain change ; and, if these never were to occur, the substance of which we speak would" remain forever powerless. The power, in short, is wholly contingent on certain circumstances, beginning with them, continuing with them, ceasing with them. In the intervals of recurrence of these cir- cumstances, however, — or, to use the ordinary popular language, in the intervals of exertion of the supposed latent power of a sub- stance, — we may think of the circumstances in which its presence is productive of change; and knowing that, as often as these cir- • cumstances recur, the change, too, will recur, we may transfer to the substance, as if permanent in it, what is truly permanent only in our thought, which, in the absence of the circumstances of effi- ciency, imagines them present. But a very slight attention, sure- ly, ought to be enough to convince us, that it is by our imagina- 80 ON THE RELATION tion only, we thus it»Test the substance with a character of coa- tinued power, which does not belong to it; — that what we know of the effective relation of the substance to the particular change of which we speak, is not its universality in all circumstances, but its contingence on certain circumstances ; since in these circumstan- ces, and only in these, the presence of the substance is the direct antecedent pf the change ; — and that, as all which truly exists in a sequence of changes is only the antecedent itself, and the conse- quent itself, without any thing separate and intermediate, which can be denominated Power, we might as well speak of a latent consequent, as of a latent antecedent, when there is truly no la- tencj'of one orof the other,but both are completely presentand vis- ible. Even if antecedence and consequence did mean something distin- guishable from the particular antecedent and particular consequent^ we might as well suppose one of these states to be latent as the other, if a latent state could have any meaning; and believe that there is in cold solid steel a latent liquidity, as much as in cold unkindled fuel a latent power of liquefying it. Let the fuel be kindled, so as to produce a certain heat, and the steel be immers- ed in it, for a certain time ; the change to which we give the name of Fusion will then, indeed, take place. But a blade of steel, and the largest mass of fuel, might remain forever in the closest proximity, without such a change : because the relation of antecedence and consequence, in the fusion, is not a mutual rela- tion -of steel and fuel, in all circumstances, but of steel and fuel in certain circumstances. A very high temperature is necessary for the liquefaction ; and, where that temperature is not, the fusion itself, and the power of fusion, are in reference to the substances in that particular situation, equally words without meaning. Since a great part of the error, however, in this case, arises from inattention to the difTerence of the circumstances, in which substances exist, when they are productive of change, and when they are not productive of it ; a little fuller elucidation of this dif- ference will tend to show more clearly the principle of the mis- take, which leads to the reference that is falsely made of power, as something which is constantly present,— not co-extensive only with the circumstances in which certain changes are consequent, but with all the circumstances in which the subitance that is said OP CAUSE AND ErrECT. 81 to possess it, can exist,— as much when there is no resulting change whatever, as when changes occur in instant sequence. In considering the physical changes which come under our view, it is impossible for us, in many cases, not to give a sort of unity, in our conception, to phenomena which are in their nature complex. We consider them, as in some measure one: because, however complex they may truly be, they exhibit to us one great general character. Wind, Rain, Frost, Thaw, Vegetation, Life, Death, are single words ; but many changes of many elementary atoms are expressed by them. In like manner, when we have given a single name to any substance, however numerous and va- rious the elements may be of which it is composed, we regard it as one in all the changes of circumstances, that leave in it a sem- blance of continuity, or do not alter in any remarkable degree, the physical qualities with which it directly affects our senses : for, if the sensible qualities be greatly changed, the difference be- comes too striking, to be consistent with belief of that continued unity of which I, speak. When water^ for example, is so much altered in appearance, as to present to us a solid mass, in congela- tion, or when it is, attenuated and dispersed in the form of steam, we scarcely think of it as water ; but in all the slight variations that take place, in tlie degrees of temperature which interv^^ between these remarkable changes, we regard it as the same identical substance, — ;not perhaps in strict philosophy, but in that popular view, which'is never wholly absent from the philosophic mind, even when it strives to consider objects most exactly as they are. If this illusion, as to a sort of continued unity and sameness, hold in some degree, even when there are slight apparent chang- es of sensible qualities, it may be supposed to be still more re- markably the case, when there is in substances no manifestation of any change whatever, that is capable of directly impressing our senses. A laying, human being, for instance, seems to our eyes the same in every respect, at the very moment vvhen he is about to elevate his arm, as he was for many minutes before, when his arm continued at rest. We believe that he has the power of moving his arm, whenever he chooses to move it ; and, as there is no difference to strike the senses, at the instant of beginning motion, so as to mark to us-the particular antecedent of the par- n 82 ON THE RELATION ticular consequent, we are very naturally led to consider the qual- ity, on which the n)otion depends, as a general property of the human heing to whom we ascribe it. Man, we say, has in health, the power of moving his arm; and, since the arm is not constantly in motion, we consider the power, which is thus ascribed as a general property, to be something that may lie latent as it were in the living frame. That active energy, which may, or may not be, at different times, when all that appears is similar, is hence conceived to be distfngaishable from the mere existence of the seemingly unaltered mass, — ^something which rather resid'es in it, than is a part of it. The same living body is before us, at diffe- rent moments. In some of those moments, a particular change is observed to take place in it ; in other moments, there is no such change. Its presence, indeed, in one state observed by us,, must precede the new state observed ; since, without this continued presence, the change itself, which the voluntary motion exhibits, could not be remarked ; but, since the only antecedent observed by us, is the body in its state of previous repose, and since we know that the change does not depend on the presence of this mere antecedent, — if that name, is to be given to the substance that was present equally, and exhibited the . same appearance, v^ien the change was in the very instant about to follow, and wl^en it was not produced at all,— it is regarded as a proof of something more, — of a power that is now exerted, an(J that was la- tent therefore in the antecedent itself, till thus called into ex- ercise. Such is the vague sort of reasoning, with respect to the con- tinued existence of power in circumstances in wWch it is not ex- ercised, that appears just, to all who are not in the habit of mak- ing any very nice analyses, either of their thoughts or of the com- plex things before them, and who think, that what they have long been accustomed to regard as one, has therefore a real uni- ty, of which all that is true at one moment must be equally true at every other moment. We have only to subject the supposed unity to analysis : and all the mystery which led to the notion of power as something latent and inherent in substances, capable of being exercised or not exercised at different times, will be found to disappear. The living body is not one siibstance, because the surface OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 83 which it presents to us is seemingly continuous. Every organ i? ■itself a Hiultitude of elements, that have no other unity, than as co-existing in immediate vicinity, and are truly the agents or sub- jects of innumerable changes, many of which our senses are inca- pable of perceiving;, while others, which we are capable of per- ceiving, withogt being able to distinguish the immediate circum- stances on which they depend, we ascribe with a sort of vague reference, to the body, as if it were a single substance. At the moment before the arm is moved, there is a change of some sort, in the nerves that are instrumental to the contraction of the mus-. cles; a change which takes place on. our volition, but requires that volition to precede it. It is not strictly true, then, that man, as man, has the power pf moving his hand, if it be meant, that he has this power, in all circumstances, in which no outward re- straint is imposed ; for certain circumstances, that are more than mere freedom from any foreign force, are necessary for the pow- er. It is not man who has the power ; it Is man willing ; and, till the volition and the consequent nervous change, whatever it may be, it may be said, with the air of a i)aradox perhaps, but with perfect truth, that a man has as little power of moving his own arm, as of putting in instant motion the arm of another per- son at a mile's distance. The real antecedent of the muscular contraction, as far as we are yet capable of judging physiological- ly, is a certain invisible and indistinguishable state of the nerves of the part. When the nerves are in this state, motion of the arm follows ; when they are not in this state, no motion of the arm follows. The power, therefore, as always relative to that particular state of the nerves, is when the antecedent is, and only when the antecedent is. It is not something that exists and is la- tent during the time of rest ; it is a relation of the will, or of the nervous affection that follows the will, to the muscular contrac- tion; and, when there are no relative and correlative nervous and muscular states, the power in those circumstances is not latent, — it is nothing. I must remark, however, once more, to prevent the risk of misconception, thatthough, in a philosophic discussion of the na- ture of Power, it is necessary to make this strict analysis, and lim- it and determine the circumstances, in which alone it can be said with physical truth, that the relation subsists between a particular 84 ON THE RELATION antecedent and a particular consequent, I am far from wishing- that the more extensive popalar use of the phrase, which speaks of the powers of substances as permanently existing in them, should be given vp. Such technical and strictly logical nicety, in ordinary cases, would be as inconvenient as absurd. There are many forms of expression, which it is of great advantage to re- tain on account of their brevity, though they may not be perfect- ly accurate, if strictly interpreted ; and all whicb is necessary is that we should^ be on our guard as to the real meaning, that we may not lose or confound it iQ the freer application. In the pres- ent instance, for example, we may be perfectly certain, that it is not man, simply as existing, who has the power of moving his arm, but man willing, or, to pursue the analysis still more minute- ly, man in a particular state of affection of certain nerves ; since it is then only that the consequent motion of the arm ensues: but still as this nervous affection is in health always consequent on his \yill, and as it is this very obedience to the will, which alone renders the arm so important to us as a piece of living machinery, it is very convenient, that we should be able to state the relation in .ordinary discourse, without so many words, as would be neces- sary, if we were to attempt to convey accurately, at all times, the restricted meaning, that limits the power to the particular circum- stances, in which alone the particular antecedence and conse- quence take place. It is not the less useful, however, for the physical inquirer, to have constantly in mind the precise re- striction, though not expressed in, the words, which, in compli- ance with popular use, he may often find it convenient to em- ploy. Power, then, is not something latent in substances, that exists, whether exercised or not. There is, strictly, no power that is not exerted ; for, as it is- a word of no meaning, unless as expres- sive of the instant sequence of some change, and as changes take place only in certain circumstances^ it is only in those circumstan- ces in which they do take place, that there can be antecedents and consequents to impress us with the relation to which we give the name of Power. -What' is termed the Exercise of Power, is only another name for the presence of the circumstances, in which, and in which alone,' there is the power of which we speak ; as OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 85 power unexerted is the absence of the very circumstances which are necessary to constitute power. There is scarcely any analysis of the complex processes of thought, with which philosophy is conversant, that appears to me to give so much light into nature, as this one ; and with which I consider it, thei'efore, as so important to familiarize the mind. If it be clearly understood, a great part of what might otherwise have seemed very profound and subtile, in the works of many em- inent metaphysicians, will appear, what it truly is, a tissue of dis- tinctions merely verbalj as frivolous as any of those which, in a darker age, were the subjects of tumultuous and never-ceasing contention, ia the technical disputations of the schoolmen. If, for example, we know that power is always a relative 'term, applicable to a substance, only in the particular circumstances in which a change of some sort is uniformly consequent, how little more than , a number of mere words can we .find, in the- cautious distinctions, with which Dr Reid would guard his definition of it ! " The name of a cause and of an agent" he says, " is properly given to that being only, which by its active power, produces some change in itself, or in- some other being. The change, whether it ,be of thought, of will, or of motion, is the effect. Ac- tive power, therefore, is a quality in the cause, which enables it to produce the effect ; and the exertion of that active power in producing the effect, is called action, agency, efficiency. ■ " In order to the production of any effect there must be in the cause, not only power, but the exertion of that power : For pow- er that is not exerted produces np effect. " All that is necessary to the production of any effect, is pow- er in an efficient cause to produce the effect, and the exertion of that power : For it is a contradiction to say, that the cause has power to produce the' effect, and exerts that power, and yet the effect is not produced. The effect cannot be in his power, unless all the means necessary to its production be in his power. " It is no less a contradiction to say, that a cause has power to produce a certain effect, but that he cannot exert that power: For power which cannot be exerted is no power, and is a contra- diction in terms."* * Essays on the active Powers of Man, Essay iv. ch. 2. 86 ON THE RELATION How many pages are there of such combinations of worda, with the mere semblance of reasoning, in the works of this philos- opher, and of many other philosophers, the labour of reading which, and the labour of writing which, would have been saved by a little more attention to the real meaning of the- wbrd Exer« tion, as not distinguishable in any way from the power itself, which is said to be exerted, hut significant only of that very ante- cedence to some consequent change, which power denotes,-^sig- nificant of the existence of the circumstances, in which alone there is any consequent change, and in which alone, therefore, is to be found the power, that is co-extensive with them ? The analysis, however, which this distinction involves, is one which, as it has not been made by philosophers of the greatest emi- nence, cannot be supposed to be made by the unreflecting multi- tude. They know only, that, when they will to move their arm, their arm moves accordingly. But they think thatthey are them- selves exactly the same, when they do not will to move it, as when they are willing it ; and they suppose, therefore, that pow- er is something which is ^ always possessed by them, — something, which at all times, and in all circumstances alike^ whether exert- ed or unexerted, is still present with them, like the pen or the pencil, which has as real existence, and is as much theirs, when it is lying on the table before themj as when it "becomes in their hands, at once the instrument and interpreter of their most secret thoughts. In the nature of things, there is so much complication, that a perpetual analysis is necessary, for distinguishing the elementary properties that appear in one great compound result ; and, after the remarks now made, it is not difficult to see, how the imper- fect analysis, which leads to the belief of Power, not as the relar tion of an order of change in substances that are in certain cir- cumstances, but as something which, exerted and unexerted^ ex- ists in them in all circumstances, and therefore, when no chan- ges are taking place, as much as when there is the most rapid OP CAUSE AND BFrECT. 87 form the whole progressive series 5 — which, therefore, even though we could be supposed to know all the substances that ex- ist before us, would still be necessary to be added to them ; as if, in the number of existing things, there could be more than the whole number of things that exist. A belief so very strange can scarcely fail to be founded in illusion ; and one cause of such illu- sion, the remarks now made on what is termed the Exercise of power, as distinguishable from power itself, have, I trust, success- fully pointed out. ON THE RELATION SECTION IV. In the preceding Section, We have seen one cause of error with respect to the nature of power, in the unity and sameness of physical character, which we falsely ascribed to substances, in all the changes of circumstances in which they can be placed, and the consequent erroneous belief, that what is just- ly referable to them, in certain circumstances, must be equal- ly referable to them in all circumstances. The powers, there- fore, which they exhibit to us^ in the changes that follow their presence in some situations only, we believe, as they must be- long to them at all times, to be latent, in the other situations, in which they are present without any consequent change : and hence believing that a word, which is expressive only of the relation of antecedence to some instant change, must yet have some other meaning, with which it may be supposed to continue appli- cable in all circumstances, even when there is no subsequent change whatever", ,we are necessarily led to distinguish the power itself, which is not the antecedent of any change, from the exer- cise of power, when there is sucTi actual antecedence: and the process of causation, therefore, appears to us very mysterious ; since it is regarded as the developeraent of something which is forever existihg before us, latent and invisible, and which, even at the instant in which it is supposed to be evolved, hais already become latent and,invisible again, before our eye, in its quickest glance, can catch even a gleam of its rapid evanescence. Such is one of the great causes of fallacy with respect to OF CAUSE AND EITECT. 89 the nature of power.. But there is a source of illusion which we are next to examiae, that appears to. me of much ■ stronger and more extensive and lasting, influence. This cause of erria^ is to . be traced- ultimately to the imper- fection of our senses. . A^our sen^s are at- presenfc constituted, we know that fhty are too limite4 ^^ their -range and- acuteness, and too .feeble even within their narrow- boundary,. to- enable ps to distinguish all the elements that QO^xist in.-bodies ; andof elements, which are them- selves unknown, to us, the minute cTianges which take place in them must ofco.urse be unknown. We ai;e hence from our inca- pacity bf, distinguishing th^se elements bj' pur .imperfect senses, after the minutest analysis which it is in our power to make, in- capable of observing the whole series of internal changes that oc- cur in them., — the whole progressive series df antecedents and cons.equents in a phenomenon that appears to ouf senses simple ; and since it. is only be{ween immediate aqtecedenls and conse- quents, that -we suppose aqy permauent relation, we are, there- fore, constantly on the watch, to detect, in the more obvious chan- ges that appear to us in nature,. some of those minuter elementa- ry changes which we suspect tO inter.verie.^ These minute ihvisi- b)e changes, when actually intervening, are truly what connect the obvious antecedents with the o.bvious consequents ; and the inniimerable discoveries which we are constantly making of these, when some finer analysis evolves and presents them to our search, lead us habitually to suppose, that- amid -all the visible changes perceived by us, there is something latent, which links them to- gether, and, though concealed from our view at present, may be discovered, perhaps, by some analytic process, that has not yet been employed. He who, foi: the first time, hears a bell rung, if he be igno- rant of the theory of sound-, will very naturally suppose, that the stroke of the clapper on the bell is the cause of the sound which he hears. He learns, however, that this stroke would be of little effect,, were it not for the vibrations excited by it in the particles of the bell itself; and another discovery, still more important, shows him that the vibration of the bell would be of no effect, if it were not for the elastic medium interposed between it and his ear. It is no longer to the bell, therefore, that he looks, as the 12 90 ON THE RELATION . direct. cause of. the sensation of sound, but to the vibrating air j nor will even this be long considered by him as the cause, if he turn his attention to the structure of the organ of hearing. He will then trace effect after effect, through a long, series of com- plex and-very wonderful parts, till he arrive at the auditory. nerve; and the whole mass of the brain, in some gnknown'state. of which he is at length forced to rest, as the cause or immediate antece- dent of that altered state of mind which, constitutes the particular sensation. . All these phenomena were constantly taking place, aroimd him and within him, in regular series, at every repetition of the ringing of the bell ; but, as his senses could not distinguish the elementary motions, they were taking place before him unob- served. He learns, however, that they do take piace ; and ex- tending his inquiry to .other phenomena, learns perhaps that in these, too, there ?re sequences of changes before unknown to him,. the lateint Causes, progressively,' of ultimate changes which before appea'red.to him simple and immediate. He suspects, therefore, that in phenomena the most .familiar to him, there may be in like manner, other changes tha| take place" before him un- observed, the discovery of which is to be the discovery of a new order of causes. , ' It is quite impossible, that the constant search, and frequent detection, of causes biefor6*unknown, thus found to intervene be- tween the more manifest sequences of phenomena,. should not, by the influence of some of the rnost common principles of the mind, at length associate almost indissolubly with the very notion .of change, as perceived by us, the no.tion ofsomething intermediate;^ . that as yet lies hid from our search, and connects the parts of the series which we at present perceive. This latent something, that is supposed to inte'rvene between the observed antecedent and the observed consequent, being the more immediate antecedent of the change which we observe, is, of course, regarded by us*, as the true cause of the change : while the antecedent, actually observed by us and known, ceases for the same reason to be. regarded as the cause ; and a ca,use is hence supposed by us to be something ve^y mysterious ; since we give the name, in our imagin^ition,. to something of the nature of which we must be absolutely ignorant, as we are, by supposition, igno- rant of its very existence. The parts of a series of changes, OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 91 which we truly observe; are- regarded by us as little more than signs of other intervening changes, as yet undetected ; and our thought is thus constantly turned from the known to the unknowdj as often as we think of discovering a cause. The expectation of discovering something intermediate and uiiknown,- between all known events, it thus appears, is very read- ily convertible into the common notion of power as a secret and invisible tie. " Why does it do this ?" or, " How does it produce this effect?'.' is the question which we are constantly disposed to put, when we are told of any change which one substance occa- sions in another ; and the common answer, in all such cases, is no- thing more fhan fl^e statement of some^ihtervening.objector event, supposed to be unknown to the isker, but as truly a mere ante- ce'dent in the sequence, as the more obvious antecetlent which he is siipposed to know. How is it that we see objects at a distance"? ■ — Because rays of light are emitted or reflected from the object to the eye. The hew anfe(iedent appears -to us a. very intelligi- gible reason. And why do .'rays of light, that fall in confusion from so many bodies within our sphere of vjsipn', on every point of the stfrface pf the eye, give us distinct impressions of all these different bpdies ? . Because the eye is formed of such refracting power, that the rays of'light, which fall confusedly on its surface, converge within it, and form distinct images of the objects from which they o'ame, on that part of the eye'. which is an ,e;spansion of the nerve af sight. Agaiti, we are told only of intervening events, before unknown, to us ; and. again we-'consider the mere . knowledge -of these new antecedents, asia very -inteHigible expla- nation of the event, which We knew before. ' This constantstate- ment of something intermediate, that is supposed to be unknown to us, as the cause of the phenomena which we perceive, when- ever wedsk, how or wHy they take Jilace, cotitinually strengthens the illusion, ^Vhieh leads us (p regard the poWei-S of objects as something different from thfe perceiYcd objects themselves. And yet it is evident, that to statfe intervening changes i§ only to state other antecedents. Hot any. thing. different from mere antecedence; and that, whatever npmber oftheSe intervening changes we may discover, between the antecedent and consequent whibh we at present know, we must a"t length come • to some ultimate change, which is- truly and immediately antecedent' to- 1 the known' effect. 92 ON THE RELATION We may say, that a gun, when firsed, excites the sensation af sound, because it excites vibrations in the intervening air,— that these vibrations of air are the cause of sound, by communicating vibration to. parts of the ear,-^and^thal. the vibrations of these parts of the ear are the cause of the sound, by affecting, ina cer- tain manner the nprve of liearing, and the brain in general, but, when we come to the ultimate affection of the sensorial organ, which immediately precedes the sensation, it is evident, that we cannot say of it, tliat it is the cause of the sound, ii/ exciting any thing intermediate, since it then could not itself be that ultimclte affection, by. which the sound was immediately preceded. It is the cause, however, exactly in the same' manner, as all the other parts of the sequence were causes; merely -by beingthe immedi- ate and invariable antecedent of the particular effect. If, in our inability of assigning any thing intermediate, we were to say, that this last-affection of th-e sensorial organ occasioned the sound, be- cause it had the power of occasioning sound, we should say no- thing more, than if we said at once, that it occasioned the sound, — or, in other words, was that which could not exist in the same cir- cumstances, without the sound as its instant attendant. , What is thus indisputably true, of the. last pair of changes, in which causation is evidently nothing more than direct antecedence, is not less true of all- the other changes in the- sequence ; and would have been equally manifest, if their immediate proxifiiity had been 'as evident as that which we are obliged to admit in the antecedent dtid consequent which are by supposition- tlie last, — when, after imagining the longest series of intervening' changes, we feel that vve must come to some; ultimate change, in' which the antecedent and consequent have nothing to divide them. We see only parts of the great sequences that-are takiqgplace in nature ; arid, it is on this account we seek for the causes of what we know, in the parts of the sequences that are unknown. If. our senses bad originally enabled us to discriminate every element of bodies, and, consequently, all the minute changes 'which take place in these, as clearly as the more obvious changes- at present perceived ^y us,— in short, if, between two known events, we had never discovered any thing intermediate and unknown, forming a new antecedent of the consequent. observed by us-.: — o caiwe, in our notion of it, would have been very different from that mysterious OP CAUSE AND EPFECT. 93 unintelligible something, between entity and nonentity, which we now conceive it to be,, or rafhel*, of which we vainly strive to form a conception-: — and we should then, probably, have found as little difficulty, in admitting it to. be, what it simply and -truly is, only another namrf for the immediate invariable antecedent of an ev6nt, as we now find, in admitting the form of a \}oAy. to be only anoth- er name for.the relative position of the parts that constitute if. PART THIRD. OP THE CIRCUMSTANCES, IN WHICH THE BELIEF OF THE RELATION ARISES. SECTION I. The inquiries, in the preceding parts of the work, have been confined to two objects,-— the real import of the relation of cause and eifect, and the sources of the general misconception with re- spect to it. If I have stated with accuracy the results of the former of these inquiries, we h^ve seen that power j in every train of events, material or spiritual, is nothing distinguishable from the antece- dents and consequents theinselves, of which, and of which alone, every sequence must be composed. It is only a brief rtiode of ex- pressing the antecedent itself and its consequent, as appearing, in a certain order, and expected to appear uniformly in the same order. That which is, has been, and always will be followed by a particular change^ is the cause of that change ; and when we endesivour to imagine, in a cause, more than this ' uniformity of a certain consequent change, we labour in vain, or we content our- selves with repeating, in new forms of words, that have no other diiference than what is purely verbal, the same unvaried propo-. sition, That a cause is that which has had, has, and will always 9)6 . ON THE RELATION hare for its immediate consequent some particular change of which we speak. Of this uniformity of order in sequence we hav'e a clear con- ception, and of more than this we have no conception whatever ; yet, from the influence of various causes of error, we strive to persuade ourselves, that we do conceive more, and that, beside all the antecedents and all the consequents in tiature, there is some- thing to be distinguished from Ihem, in every sequence, which connects these antecedents and consequents in mysterious union: as if, at the moment of creation, there "had been thrown over na- ture, as it rose, some tissue of indissoluble bondage, invisible to mortal eye, and known only to that Almighty Being, who fixed its secret links, and can loose them at his pleasure. Such a bondage, w6 have seen, if really existing, instead of presenting to us more than antecedents and consequents, would be only a comphcation. and lengthening of the sequences of events, by new antecedents interposed. To trace the circumstances which seem most probably to- have led to this illusive belief was the object of the second inquiry,- and in the habitual influence of some of the forms of language, and still more in the inadequacy of our feeble' perc'eptive organs for discovering the complicated ele- ments in the system of things, and the imperfection, on that ac- count, of the analyses which we are able to make, of phenomena that are truly compound, while they appear to us to be simple, I flatter myself, that I have pointed out such principles of error, as maybe suflBcient for explaining satisfactorily the prevalent illusion. It is not enough, however, to have a clear notion of the im- port of power, as the relation of immediate and uniform antece-^ "dence, in the past and the future as well as the present. It is ne- cessary, also, that we should know, in what circumstances this be- lief, which virtually extends through remotest time the observa- tion of a moment, arises in the mind. To the consideration of these circumstances, accordingly, we have next to proceed. OP CAUSE AND EFFECT. 07 SECTION 11. ^ Power, as we have seen, is the relation of a particular an- tecedent to a change which we believe to be its uniform atten- dant. It involves, therefore, necessarily, the expectation of "a future change of some sort, that ^g to be exactly similar, as often as the preceding circumstances are exactly similar. Is this expectation the result of experience only ? Does it imply always, that the consequent has been known to us, as well as the antecedent ; — or is there, in the appearance of the antece- dent itself, before the attendant change has even once been ob- served, what might enable us to anticipate that change, as about to take place in instant succession ? If, for example, we were wholly unacquainted with the phe- nomena of magneti|Sto, could we, from the mere appearance of a loadstone and a piece of iron, anticipate their subsequent motion towards each other : — or, if equally unacquainted with any other phenomena, could we, from the mere appearance of any two sub- stances, anticipate the changes that are to ensue in them, when they are placed in certain circumstances ? If the mere appearance of any two substances be supposed ca- pable of leading to this anticipation, let us consider, in the first place, what is meant by this very word appearance. It signifies certain qualities observed by us. But what are these qualities themselves? — We have before us, for instance, a 13 98 ON THE RELATION hard mass of a dusky colour ; and we are told that it is a loadstone. When we say, that it is hard, we mean that is has been found to re- sist with great force our effort to compress it ; when we say that it is of a certain colour, we mean that we have found a certain visual af- fection to be attendant on its presence. We speak of it as the antece- dent of consequents that are known to us ; and what We term the appearance of the body, is therefore itself only a short term for ex- pressing certain changes observed. The qualities of which we speak, being only flames expressive of effects that are known to us, are exactly co-extensive, then, with those effects which, as relative terms, they were invented to designate ; and it would truly, therefore, be very strange, if these names of qualities, that, as verbal inventions of our own, are expressive only of effects ob- served, should necessarily be significant also of different effects, that never have been observed, and' never were intended to be in- cluded in the terms which we invented. If, indeed, what we term Qualities were themselves known to us a priori, and were more, therefore, than the expression of the relation of a certain known antecedent, to certain known consequents, the point in question might be assumed as true ; Tor the knowledge of these very qualities would be the knowledge of effects as yet unobserved; and if one qual- ity could thus be known, other qualities, that is to say, the relation of the same antecedent to other consequent effects, might in like man- ner become known to us, without experience. But, if the reference of the qualities, which constitute what we term the appearance of a substance, be itself subsequent to observation of the effects which those qualities denote, the extent of the observation must be the limit of the qualities. The appearance tells us of rela- tions to our senses, which are and have been ; but it does not tell us of any thing more than is or has been. It is to our senses only that it still continues to speak, and when it has spoken to them, the chatige of which it speaks must already have taken place. This negative argument, from the real meaning of what we term the appearance or manifest physical character of substances, as always limited to the expression of effects already known, pow- erful as it seems to me, if full3' understood, may yet be too subtile to be readily comprehended, and too obscure, therefore, to pro- duce general conviction. OP CAUSE AND EFFECT. 99 Let US consider the question, then in a more popular view of it. We see a loadstone, and a piece of iron, held before us. We are acquainted with their colour, specific gravity, and all their qualities with the exception of their magnetic tendency. Could we, from the appearance of the substances, or, in other words, from the qualities or changes consequent on their presence that are known to us, anticipate. the unknown effect, which is to take place, as soon as the two substances are left in perfect freedom ? Of what we term their appearance, the colour may be suppos- ed to form a principal part. The colour of a loadstone, and of iron, is relative to certain visual sensations, which are consequent on the presence of those substances. That they should affect our eyes in a certain manner, is surely no reason for anticipating their motion toward each other, niore than their motion toward any other mass of any other colour. Even now, with all our knowl- edge of this particular fact, we could not venture to assign any col- our, as necessarily indicative of magnetic influence, in every sub-- stancc that is of similar hue ; and what we cannot do now, with all our knowledge of this very singular tendency, it surely cannot be supposed that we could do more accurately, before we had any knowledge of it whatever. ■ Is it from their hardness, that we are supposed to be capable of anticipating the change ? Even now, we are incapable of dis- covering any such relation of specific gravities, the most exactly corresponding ; and equally incapable are we of discovering it in any one of the other sensible quahties, or in all the other sensible qualities, of the two masses. Till the happy chance, which con- verted the loadstone into more than a dense and dusky clod, we might have gazed on it forever, without being able to discover that it was the wonderful thing, which we now believe it to be. Is there any thing, in the colour, weight, and other sensible qualities of grains of mustard-seed and grains of gunpowder, which, could enable us to predict, that a spark which falls and is quench- ed on a heap of the one, would, if it had fallen on a heap of the other, have raised it into rapid and destructive conflagration? The youngest boy, that ever fired off a squib or cracker, and knew what it was, which was whizzing and sparkling about his ears, has ever after known more of this property of gunpowder, 100 ON THE RELATION I than the most profound philosopher could have learned from which they exhibit in the distances that are meas- urable by our senses. The same change of tendency, in a slight differenceof circumstances, is marked in a still more striking man- ner, in the phenomena of elasticity, and in every re-action of bo- dies at the moment of impulse. When, in a case of this sort, a ball rebounds from the ground which.it has struck, we have truly as little reason to doubt of the repulsion of matter in certain cir- cumstances, as to doubt of the reciprocal attraction of matter, in certain other circumstances, when the ball was dropped from our hand, arid when the points of closeness to the earth, at which it it still continued to tend downward, and at which it afterwards, rose in the opposite direction, important as they were in the changes which they exhibited, would, to our eyes, if our judg- ment were to be determined by these alone, have appeared to be the same. The difference of circumstances, in such a case, it must be al- lowed, — where there is no new substance introduced, and no sen- sible change of relation of the existing substances, and where the resulting effect is yet completely reversed, — is certainly -not greater than in the co-existence of three instead of two bodies : and if tendencies to motion exactly opposite can be produced. by a 134 ON THE RELATION sin^e line of distance, it is surely not more wonderful, o priori, that they should be produced by the presence of a new body. Experience, indeed, tells us, that it is in the former case only, not in the latter, that the change of tendency is produced : but still, we must confess, that it is experience alone, which gives us this information ; and that, if the ch'^ge of tendency had been produced in both cases, the only circumstance, from which the di- agonal motion is supposed to be deducible, would have been de- stroyed. When two bodies meet, at a third, in directions exactly oppo- site, we are not to consider the state of the third alone, then, but the whole phenomenon, of which the third is a part : for, the presence of a third body may, perhaps, in such circumstances, sus- pend, or variously change the repulsioii, on which the impulse depended, that was observed in the two alone. All the bodies may remain -at rest ; or the two external bodies may return, with va- rious degrees of velocity ; or, if any other species of result can be imagined, that result may equally take place. To give the name of xiomposition of forces, to such cases, is in truth to beg the question ; since it takes for granted, that the forces remain, though the situ- ation of the bodies be different. The real inquipy is, whether we can have absolute certainty, a priori, that^ in such cases of new combinations of circumstances, there are any remaining forces to be composed. There may no longer be a single force in existence. All which our supposition can assume with ciertainty, is, that there is a meeting of bodies, which, in other circumstances of combination, possessed certain forces. But a meeting of bodies is a very different thing from the assumed composition of fortes ; since it still sends us to experience, to deterniine, whether, in the new circumstances of union, any forces exist. It is unnecessary to repeat the argument, in its applicatioii to the phenomena of statics, which, as implying the joint influence of opposite forces that are said to be in equilibrium, are liable to an objection exactly of the same kind, as that which I have now stated in relation to the general doctrine of the Composition of Porces. It is indeed evident, that, in- all cases of the supposed infer- ence of phenomena a priori, whatever those cases may be, the very supposition of inference implies, that the circumstances, in OP CATJSE AND EPrECT. 135 which the hodies are imagined, are new ; and, in new circumstan- ces, we cannot have absolute certainty, that the qualities, before observed in different circumstances, remain unaltered. There is always, however, a t^icit supposition, made by those who assert the possibility of such inferences, that the bodies in the new cir- cumstances in which they are imagined, are not to have any ten- dencies, which were not observed in the prior circumstances ; but this is surely to assume a licence of supposition, beyond that which strict philosophy or general analogy justifies. That a very slight difference ^of the circumstances of bodies often produces, or, which is to us the same thing, renders apparent to our senses, tenden- cies altogether unlike those which they exhibited in other circum- stances, is the very peculiarity of physics, which renders experi- ence of such essential necessity : and, therefore to take for grantr ed, in our enunciation of the physical doctripe, that bodies in new circumstances are not to have any new qualities, and afterwards to attempt, on the mere assumption, to establish the possibility of in- ferring, a priori, the phenomena, which those bodies would ex- hibit, in the new circumstances supposed, is an error with respect to the general principle? of physics, as gross as would be the- op- posite error in mathematics, if it were asserted, that the actual measurement of the angles of triangles of various kinds, is neces- sary for our belief, that the three angles of any rectilinear > trian- gle whatever are together equal to two right angles. It thus appears, that the -very false opinion, which asserts the absolute independent certainty of some physical inferences, as to phenomena which have never been observed, derives whatever semblance of probability it may have, from the assumption, of the very circumstsince, which in physics, before experience of the particular case, is the great object of our doubt. -There are many situations, in which bodies appear to possess the same quali- ties : — there are many other situations, in which, they seem no longer to possess the same qualities, and seem even to possess qualities, as they pertainly exhibit tendencies, which are opposite to the past. To discriminate these situations is the work of ob- servation and experiment ; and, where the circumstances of posi- tion or combination are new, we are not entitled to infer the per- manence of any tendency, observed in different positions, or in dif- ferent combinations. 136 ON THE RELATION But, though the opinion were not liahle to this objection, or to other oWjections of a similar kind, it would still be liable to that primary fundamental objection, which is common to every case of physical causation ; and which is not qonsidered by me as of less irresistible force, because, in the foregoing discussion, I have chosen, in the first placej to consider the secondary arguments, that may he urged in support or confutation of the opinion which I combat. ' Though we should admit, that, from the observation of simple impulse we may be led to suppose the diagonal direction of the motion of a third body, impelled by bodies moving in directions that are at right angles, we certainly cannot be led to suppose it, with greater assurance, than that, with which we believe- a repe- tition of the rectilinear taction to be produced by a repetition of the simple impulse : and our belief ->of this/wtere rectiHnear im- pulse is not an inference from any induction of the ^past,. however frequent our observation of cases ex-actly similar may have been. Unless, in similar circumstances, the falure be exactly similar to the past, there will be neither rectilinear motion, from the im- pulse of one body, nor diagonal motion, from the impulse of two bodies ; and, therefore, if the resemblance of the future to the past be not itself demonstrable, the prediction of either x)f those events must be at least equally beyond our power, as the demon- stration of that uniformity of the order, of nature, which is assum- ed in the prediction. Matter itself, as an object of our knowl- edge, is only what is and has been, — not what is yet to be., • We know that a stone falls to the ground to-day ; and we believe that it will fall to the ground in the same circumstances to-morrow; but the belief is not the result of reasoning ; and vain would be our toil, if we should endeavour to state some argument'that orig- inally convinces us of it. If the Continuance of gravitation, in all future time before us, be not a necessary truth, it surely cannot be said, of any of the future unobserved phenomena of statics, which depend on the continuance of gravitation, that they are not contingent, but of absolute independent certainty : for we might thus infer the certain existence of that which, for any reason that can be given by us, may never have existence. The future course of Nature, as I have already said, is as much beyond, our reasoning as it is beyond our observation. OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 137 There is no phenomenon whatever, of which the prediction is not contingent, even after innumerable instances of it, in past sequen- ces, have been observed by us ; and, before it has been observed by us at all, the uncertaiaty cannot in any instance be less, but must, on the contrary, be much greater; since, even in the cas- es, in which alone the inference is supposed to be possible, the reasoning proceeds on an assumption which is contradicted by our general physical knowledge, — the assumption, that bodies, in new circumstances of combination, always retain their former tendencies, and have no additi\>nal tendencies, similar or different, which can modify thfe phenomenon that results from their joint action. The cases which have now been considered, of imagined in- ference a priori, comparatively simple as they may seem, we may therefore conclude, form no real exception to the justness of the doctrine, which denies the possibility of such an inference, in any case. Experience is, in every case, necessary, for strict undoiibt- ing belief of the future sequences of phenomena; and, even after experience, the relation of cause and effect, as extending beyond the partictilax facts' observed, cannot be discovered by reason. 18 138 ON THE RELATION SECTION V^. The doctrine, of which I have endeavoured, in the preceding Section, to exhibit the fallacy, relates to some of the simplest laws which regulate the production, of motion and rest, and was not meant, in the reasonings of the very eminent philosophers who have maintained it, to be extended beyond those simple primary laws. Even in their own minds, however^ — and, much more in the minds of those who, when they adopt the mistakes of philoso- phers, adopt them without the limitations that were interi^ally given to them by sager understandings, — there can be no doubt, that while the possibility of physical prediction, in any case, was supposed to be wholly independent of experience, this error must have tended, in a considerable degree, to diffuse a false impres- sion of the nature of the co^nnexion of physical events in general. If we thitak tbat^ by njere reasoning^ in the same manner as we evolve in our thought the mathematical relations of forOi and number, we could, in a very large proportion of the events that have come beneath our view, have discovered, a priori, the physical relations of antecedence and consequence, it is not very wonderful, that "we should believe it possible to make the in- ference in other cases, in. which, though the relation may be specifically different, it is still only a relation of the same kind. We may, in stating the doctrine to others, and even specula- or CAUSE AND ErrECT. 139 lively in our own silent thought, confine the possibility of such an inference to the simplest cases of the mechahical affections of matter ; but since, even in the elementary changes of things, there may be affe'ctions of this kind, too minute to be distin- guishable by us, yet similar to the impulses, and reactions, and compositions and balancings of forces, in the masses which we are capable af perceiving, it is not- easy to determine, with ab- solute certainty, that any change which is taldng place before tfS, is not, partly at least, in its principle mechanical ; and we may conceive, therefore, that all which would have been neces- sary, for enabling us to anticipate, before experience, that par- ticular phenomenon, would have been a finer knowledge of the internal mechanism, on which the phenomenon is suppos- ed to have depended. A sort of additional obscurity is thus thrown over the operations of nature, as if there were influ- ences -concerned, which are at once hidden from our view, and yet of a kind which require no observation to reveal them to us ; and while we believe, that we could have predicted some changes," and not others, we are perplexed, when we attempt ■to clifecover, in the two classes of events, a difference of the principle of causation, which renders ' the future visible to us, in one case, and not in the other, — arid perplexed, too, in our vain endeavour to distinguish the shadowy limits, in which, in their nearest approximations, the phenomena of these different classes seem almost to unite, or are separated by a boundary too minute for our feeble vision to discern'. - One of the most general principles of fallacy, in our iateV- lectual nature, is the readiness* with which we are constantly disposed to extend to whole claisses of phenomena,'what is known with certainty, only of sonie of the, particular phenomena com- prehended in them. From the influence of this general illusion there is no reason to believe that our notions with respect to the principle of causation itself should be exempted. The se- quences of events, when we regard them alike as future, have to our mind, in this common relation, a tie of analogy which connects them all ; and, accordingly, it. would not be' very won- derful, if those who believe themselves capEtble of anticipating, *'NoteL. 140 ON THE RELATION before obgervation, a number of these sequences, should have only a vague and obscure belief of the necessity of experir ence, for enabling them to anticipate .in like manner the oth- ers. It can scarcely fail, then, to give greater precision to the general notions on this subject, that the physical inquirer should see distinctly what, 1 flatter myself, the argument of the preced- ing Section, has shewn, that our knovyledge of the future, in all its variety of phenomena, — even in the simplest cases, of inertia, or impulse, or of the composition or equilibrium of forces, — is Uniformly, and vyithout any exception whatever, dependent on experience; — that, as there is nothing in the sensible qualities of objects, which marks a direct relation to any other change than those which the names of the very qualities themselves express, so as to make the future an object of direct per- eeption, there is nothing also ixi-reasoning which can evolve to us any new physical relation. As often as we think of new sub- stances, in any circumstances, or even of substances the most famihar to' us, in circumstances that are new, we lose that pro- phetic power, by which we anticipated with undoubting^ be- lief, the future results of combinations of circumstances with which we were before acquainted. We may still, indeed, form conjectures according to analogy: but, even when there are many concurring artalogies, some doubt is mingled in every con- jecture ; and the very probability, that is felt by us in such a case, is a probability which is contingent on that general regu- larity of nature, which we assume as certain, without attempting to demonstrate it. Perception, Reasoning, Intuition, are the only sources of be- lief; and if, even after experience, — for experience is in every case necessary,— when we believe the similarity of future se- quences to the past which we have observed, it is not from per- ception, nor from reasoning, that our ponfidence is derived, we must ascribe it to the only other remaining source. We cer- tainly da, not perceive power, in the objects around us, or in any of our internal feelings ; for perception, as a momentary feeling, is limited to what is, and does not extend to what is yet to be; and, as certainly, we do not discover it by reasoning; for, in- dependently of our irresistible belief itself, there is no argument OP CAUSE AND EFFECT. 141 that can be urged to shew, why the future should exactly re- semble the past, rather than be different from it in any way. We believe the uniformity, in short, not because we can de- monstrate it to others or to ourselves^, but because it is impos- sible for us to disbelieve it. The belief is in every instance in- tuitive ; and intuition does not stand in need of argument, but is quick and irresistible "as perception itself. It is not more truly, then, in consequence of an original sensi- tive capacity of the mind, that we perceive external things, than it is in consequence of an original mental tendency of a dif- ferent species, that, on the perception of the changes of external things we believe those changes to be invariable in their order of antecedence and consequence. The belief appears to result as directly from the perception, as the perception from the pres- ence of the external object ; and the rise of ' the one feel- ing is not in itself more wonderful, as a phenomenon or state of the mind, than the rise of the other. In both cases, we can say nothing more, than that a certain antecedent is followed by a certain consequent ; and, independently of our experience, it surely cannot seem less wonderful, that the presence of that ma- terial compound, which we term a Rose, should be followed by that mental state, which we term a Sensation of Fragrance, than that the perception of the fragrance, as consequent on the pres- ence of the rose, should be followed, by that different mental state, which constitutes belief of the recurrence of the sensation ' as a future uniform result of the presence of the same body^ As far back as our memory of any physical changes extends, we find our belief of the uniformity itself to extend : we do not re- member a time, when we knew that a change had taken place, and yet had no belief, that, in the same circumstances, the same change would take place again^ When tve think of the origin of any of our feelings, it is to our consciousness, in the record of it which memory preserves, that we must look; and all which it exhibits to us is the obser- vation of a certain antecedent and consequent, and the instant be- lief of invariableness of the same sequence in the same circum- stances. There is nothing which we can discover, as intervening in the process, between the observation and the wider belief; 142 ON THE RELATION and therefore, whatever it may be, which the ingenuity of phi- losophers may strive to insert in it, we may be certain, at least, that it is not in our consciousness the supposed element is to be found. Why, then, since the sequence of phenomena is all which we discover in any case, should the intuition itself, as the immedi- ate result of observation of change, appear to us so pecuharly. wonderful, that it should seem necessary to imagine a little more complication in the process, to reconcile it with probability ? In the phenomena of nature, to a mind that observes them philoso- phically, all changes are wonderful, or none are so: for, in the simplest change, there must always be an antecedent and a conse- quent, and in the parts of the most complicated series, when con- sidered analytically, there is nothing more. The oljservation is one state of the mind ; the intuitive belief is another state of the mind : it is not easy to assign a reason, a priori, why it should seem to us more inexplicable, that the one of these states should succeed the Other, than that, in the whole wide range of the phe- nomena of nature, any other state of any otljer substance should succeed any other state of any other substance. That with a providential view to the circumstances in which we were to be placed,, our Divine Author has endowed us with certain instinctive tendencies, is as true, as that he has endowed us with reason itself. We feel no astonishment in considering these, when we discover the manifest advantage thift arises from them; and, of- all the instincts with which we could be endowed, there is none that seems,-^! will not say, so advantageous merely, — but so indispensable for the very continuance of our being, as that which points out to us the future, if I may venture so to speak, before it has already begun to exist. - It is wonderful in- deed, — for what is. not wonderful ? — that the internal revelation which this belief involves, should be gi,ven to us, like a voice of ceaseless and unerring prophecy. But, when we consider WHO it was tliat formed us, it would, in truth, have been more wonderful, if the mind had been so diflferently constituted, that the belief had not arisen : because, in that case, the phenomena of nature, however regularly arranged, would have been arrang- ed in vain ; and that Almighty Being, who, by enabling us to an- OP CAUSE AND EPrECT. 143 ticipate the physical events that are to ensue, has enabled us to provide for them, .would have left the creatures, for whose hap- piness he has been so bounteously provident, to perish, ignorant and irresolute, amid elements that seemed waiting to obey them, — and victims of confusion, iu the very midst of all the harmonies «f the Universe. PART FOURTH. ON MR Hume's theory of our belief op the relation. SECTION II The inquiries, into the real import of the relation of Cause and EflFect, — into the sources of the various illusions which have led to the consideration of it as of different import, — and into the circumstances in which the belief of the relation arises in the mind, — exhaust, as it appears to me, the questions, which the ab- stract philosophy of causation admits. But there is one eminent philosopher, whose opinions on the subject have had so. powerful an influence on this abstruse but very important part, of physical science, that it would be injustice to his merits, to consider them only with incidental notice, in a work that is chiefly reflective of the lights which he has given. Though hints, more or less ex- panded, of the same doctrine as to the conjunction rather than connexion of events, and the consequent impossibility of discover- ' ing in phenomena more than the uniformity of their sequence, may be found in earlier writers, it is certainly to Mr Hume that we owe the fullest statement of those views with respect to the successions of phenomena, which he has termed, with, perhaps, a little unnecessary reduplication, " Sceptical Doubts ;" — the force of which, not as mere scepticism, but as an exposition of physical 19 146 ON THE RELATION truth,— as far at least as relates to the impossibility of directly perceiving or inferring the powers of nature, — I have endeavour- ed to develope, with a more comprehensive and minute analysis, and, as I flatter myself, with more precision of thought and lan- guage, in the discussions which have occupied the foregoing parts of this volume. But the author of the ' Sceptical Doubts,' is the author also of a " Sceptical Solution of these Doubts ;" and the Solution is far from deserving the praise, which the Doubts themselves may more justly claim : while, at the same time, it shews, as I cannot but think, that, even in the Sceptical part of his theory, the in- genious questioner himself was imperfectly aware of the exact force and limits of the very doubts which he urged.- " That in all reasonings from experience, there is a step taken by the mind, which is not supported by any argument or process of the under- standing," if the opinion is to be termed Scepticism, is at least a scepticism that requires no other Solution, than the certainty of the simple fact, that the step is one which it is impossible for the mind not to take. On this step, and on this alone, the- whole be- ' lief of Power depends ; and it is npt more wonderful that the step should be taken, than that there should be in the mind any other tendency whatever to any other species of intuitive belief In this case, indeed, it seems evident, that the discernment of Mr Hume was in some degree clouded by another theory, which he had formed, v^ith respect to the origin of our ideas in general ; with a clearer view of which he would also have had a clearer view of our notion of causation itself. His general theory laid him un- der the necessity of finding gn " impression," from, which the " idea" of a cause might be derived ; and hence, it is not wonder- ful, that, feeling this necessity, he more readily acquiesced in that very erroneous theory, which he has given us, of our belief of the relation of Cause and Effect, or, to use his own phrase, " of the idea of necessary connexion." Before entering on the examination of the Theory itself, how- ever, I may, perhaps, be indulged in a few remarks, on the char- acter of Mr Hume's mode of writing, on the .abstruse subjects to which some of his Essays on the philosophy of mind relate ; not with a view to the consequences, or the truth or error, of the opinions delivered in those Essays, but simply with regard to their OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 147 degree of clearness and precision, as expository of doctrines wheth- er true or false. That he was an acute thinker, on those subjects to which the vague name of Metaphysics is commonly given, there was, proba- bly, no one, even of his least candid antagonists, who would have ventured to deny. That he was also an exact and perspicuous metaphysical writer, has been generally admitted, but it has been admitted, chiefly as a consequence of the /ormer praise, or from the remembrance of powers of style, which, in many other re- spects, he unquestionably possessed. We think of him, perhaps, as an historian, while we are praising him as a metaphysician ; or, in praising him as a metaphysician, we think of qualities, ne- cessary indeed for the detection of error, but different from those which the developement of the system of truths of an abstruse and complicated science peculiarly requires. In the Philosophy of Mind, where the objects are all dim and fleeting, it is (he more necessary, to remedy as much as possible, by regular progressive intiuiry, and methodical arrangement, and, precision of terms, the uncertainty that otherwise might flow from the shadowy nature of the inquiry itself. The speculations of Mr Hume, however, as 1 conceive, are fai: from being marked with this sort of accuracy. The truths, which his acuteness is quick to find and to present to us, rather flit before our eyes in gleamy corruscation, than fling on the truths which follow them, that har- Bijonizing lustre which makes each in progressive illumination more radiant by the brightness that preceded it, and more fit, therefore to reflect new radiance on the brightness which is to follow. The genius of his metaphysical style, — discursive and rapid, and sometimes in consequence of that very rapidity of transition, slow in its general results, from the necessity of recurring to points of inquiry that had been negligently aban- doned,-^is not of the kind that seems best fitted for close and continuous investigation: and though, in the separate views which he gives us of a subject, we are often struck with the' singular acuteness of his discernment, and as frequently charmed with an ease of language, which, without the levity of conversation, has many of its playful graces, still, when we con- sider him as the expositor of a theory, we are not less frequently sensible of a want of rigid order and precision, for which subtlety 148 ON THE RELATION of thought and ocGasional graces of the happiest diction are not adequate to atone. It is when we wish to unfold a system of truths, that we are most carefully to exhibit -them progressively, in luminous order: for, in the exposure of false opinions, the error, whatever it may be, which we wish to render manifest, may often be exhibited as successfully, by varied views of it in its different aspects, as by the closest analytical investigation. The want of strict continu- ous method, in some of the theoretical parts of Mr Home's Meta- physical Essays, — in which we discover more easily what he wishes us not to believe, than what he wishes us positively to believe, or in which, at least, the limits of the doubtful and the true are not very precisely defined to' our conception, — • may thus, perhaps, in part be traced to the habits of refined scepticism, in. which it seems to have been the early and last- ing passion of Mr Hume's mind to indulge. It was more in the detection of fallacies in th« common systems of belief, than in the discovery of truths, which might be added to them, that he loved to exercise his metaphysical ingenuity ; or, rather, the detection of fallacies was that species of discovery of truth, in which he chiefly delighted. There is, indeed, a calm yet ever-wakeful scepticism of an inquisitive mind, which has nothing in it that is unfavourable, either to closeness of reasoning in the discovery of ti-uth, or to exractness of theoretical arrangement, in the commu- nication of it to others. Such a spirit is even so essential to every sort of intellectual inquiry, that the absence of it in any one may be considered as a sufficient proof, that he has not the genius of a metaphysician : for the science of metaphysics, as it regards the mind. Is, in its most important respects, a science of analysis ; and we carry on our analysis, only when we suspect that what is regarded by others as an ultimate principle, admits of still finer evolution into principles still more elementary. It is not, there- fore, by such doubts as have only further inquiry in view, that the intellectual character is in any danger of being vitiated : but there is a very great difference between the scepticism which ex- amines every principle, only to be sure that inquiry has not ter- minated too soon, and that .which examines them, only to dis- cover and proclaim whatever apparent inconsistencies may be found in them. Astonishment, indeed, is thus produced ; and it OF CAlJSE AND EITECT. 149 must be confessed, that there is a sort of triumphant delight in the production of astonishment, which it is not easy to resist, especial- ly at that early period of life,* ivhen the love of fame is httle more than the love of instant wonder and admiration. But he who indulges in the pleasure, and seeks, with a sportful vanity of acuteness, to dazzle and perplex, rather than to enlighten, will find that though he may have improved his quickness of discern- ment, by exercises of nice and unprofitable subtlety, he has im- proved it at the expense of those powers of patient investigation, which give to dialectic subtlety its chief value. The perpetual consideration of the insufficiency of all inquiry, as deduced from inconsistencies which may seem to be involved in some of our principles of belief, is more encouraging to indo- lence than to perseverance. By representing to us error, as the necessary termination of every speculative pursuit, it seems, at every moment, to warn us not to proceed so far ; and tends, therefore, to seduce the faculties into a luxurious slothfulness of occupation, which prefers a rapid succession of brilliant paradox- es, to truths of more extensive and lasting utility, but of more la- borious search. To shew, that it is not from any logical inference, or direct in- duction, we have derived many of those opinions which, by the very constitution of our nature, it,is impossible for us not to hold, and virhich have been formed without any thought of their origin, requires indeed superior perspicacity, but does not require any process of long continued reasoning. The very habit of ratioci- nation is thus apt to yield to a love of briefer exercises of discur- sive subtlety ; and this tendency, when the scepticism relates to moral and religious subjects, is still increased by theipopular odi- um attached to infidelity, in those great articles of general belief, an odium, which may naturally be supposed to induce the neces- sity, in many, cases, of exhibiting subjects only by glimpses, and of hinting, rather than fully developing and enforcing a proof. ' A mind that has been long habituated to this rapid and lively species of remark, and that has learned to consider all inquiries as of doubtful evidence, and their results therefore as all equally or nearly equally satisfactory or unsatisfactory, does not -readily * We are told by Mr HrMB, tliat his Treatise on Human Nature was projected by him before he had left College. 150 ON 'the relation submit to the regularity of slow disquisition. It may exhibit ex- cellencies, for which we may be led immediately to term it, with the justest commendation, acute, or subtle, or ingenious : but it will not be in many cases that there will be reason to ascribe to it that peculiar quality of intellect,' which sees through a long train of thought a distant conclusion, and, separating at every stage the essential from the accessory circumstances, and gather- ing and combining analogies as it proceeds, arrives at length at a system of harmonious truth. This comprehensive energy is a quality to which acuteness is necessary, but which is not itself ne- cessarily implied in acuteness ; or rather it is a combination of qual- ities, for which we have not yet an exact name, but which forms a peculiar character of genius, and is, in truth, the very guiding spirit of all philosophic investigation. That a long indulgence in the ingenuities of scepticism, though it may improve mere dialectic acuteness', has a tendency to deaden, if I may so term it, the intellectual perception of the objects on jvhich it is wisdom to rest, and, by flinging the same sort of doubt- ful light over truth and error, to make error often appear as worthy of assent as truth, — at least if the error happen to be in any doctrine of the sceptic himself, — is, I think, what our knowl- edge of some of the strongest principles of the mind might natur- ally lead us to expect. That the evil, of which I speak, is truly to be found in the metaphysical speculations of Mr Hume, I may be wrong, indeed, in supposing ; but, if any part of his abstract writings be marked with it, there is none, as I conceive, in which it is so conspicaotis, as in those which relate to the subject that has been now under review. While he appears only as the com- batant of error, in exposing the inadequacy of perception or mere reasoning, to afford us directly any notion of the necessary connex- ion of events, it is impossible not to feel the force of the negative, arguments which he urges, and equally impossible not to admire the acuteness and vigour of intellect which these display ; but when, after these negative arguments, he presents to us opinions on the subject which he wishes us to receive as positive truth, a very slight consideration is all that seems necessary to shew, how strong the self-illusive influence must have been, that could make these opinions unwarranted as they are by the evidence of obser- vation or Consciousness, appear to his own mind worthy of the OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 151 credit which he expects to be given to them. It is fortunate for his intellectual character, that it is not as a dogmatist only, hehais given us opportunities of knowing him. The minor theories, in- volved in his doctrine of the origin of the notion of power, which we are about to consider, would certainly give a very unfavour- able impression of his talents as a metaphysical inquirer ; if his reputation as a metaphysician were to be founded wholly on this or other positive dogtrines maintained by him, and not on the acuteness with which, in many brilliant exercises of sceptical sub- tlety, he has exhibited what he wishes to be considered as errors in the systems of popular and scientific faith. J52 ON THE RELATION SECTION II. The notion of Power, — which I consider as nothing' more, in any reference which we make of it, than our belief of the uni- formity of some consequent change after the particular antece- dent of which we think, — is by Mr Hume termed " The idea of necessary" connexion ;" and, according to his Theory of Ideas, therefore, is supposed by him to be derived from some Impres- sion. ' On the fallacy involved in every practical application of that general theory of Impressions and Ideas, which its author prized so highly, as to consider it sufficient, if a proper use were made of it, to " render every dispute equally intelligible, and banish all that jargon which has so long taken possession of metaphysical reasonings," it is unnecessary, on the present occasion, to dwell with such minuteness, as to exhibit fully the insignificance of the distinction. The truth is, that if used for the purpose for which Mr Hume supposed it to be available, the distinction, on which he would found so much, must begin by taking for granted every thing which he conceived it to be capable of proving. " When we entertain any suspicion," he says, " that a philosophical term is employed without any meaning or idea, we need but inquire, from what impression is that idea derived ?" But may we not err in this very derivation ; and may not the search itself, where the or CAUSE AND EPFECT. 153 feeling is truly primary, and no derivation, therefore, is necessary, be a source of new error? It would be just as reasonable, to ask ourselves at once, whether the word have any meaning at all; for, if we suppose it to be without any meaning, the question of course must be immediately at an end ; and if we suppose it to have a meaning, which we cannot trace to an earlier impression, that meaning will itself appear to us, if we adopt Mr. Hume's distinc- tion,-to be an original impression, beyond which it would be vain for us to inquire. It is not to our external sensations or perceptions only that he would confine the term Impression ; and therefore, while he allows it to be equally inclusive of many inward feelings that result only indirectly from those affections of external sense, he, in truth, leaves the very difficulty which he wished to remove, and only transfers to the word Impression the vagueness which might otherwise be supposed to hang more particularly over the word Idea. If we can err in supposing a meaning where there is none, we may err in supposing an idea or impression where there is none ; for the one error is exactly of the same kind as the oth- er. The doubtful term, concerning which a question is imagined to arise, instead of being significant of an Idea, in his sense of the word, may be significant of an Impression itself; and in this very case of Power, is truly significant of such an impression, — the im- pression of instant belief of in variableness of sequence, which aris- es on our perception of any change. If, therefore, we are con- scious of the belief, — as conscious as we could be of any idea or impression whatever, — we surely have not to seek for any impres- sion still earlier, to convince us that our belief is a genuine feel- ing. It is enough, that the belief itself is felt by us, to justify our employment of words which express that belief; and, if it do not accord with any technical verbal classification that is presented to us, it is not the belief, really felt, which we are to deny to be a phenomenon of the mind, but the imperfect verbal division, which we are to deny to be a faithful classification of the mental phe- nomena. There is no occasion, however, in the present case, to reject this twofold division of our feelings as false : for, though it certain- ly does not seem a very luminous arrangement of the phenomena of the mind, or capable of any practical applications whatever, it is at least a very harmless one, in the only sense in which It can be 20 154. ON THE RELATION understood : since, in that only intelligible sense, in which Impres- sions signify our original feelings of every sort, and Ideas our re- membrances or conceptions of those original feelings of every sort, it seems absolutely impossible to deny, that any feeling, of which we speak or think, must either be, or not be, original. We must either have a certain feeling, 'for the first time, or, if not for the first time, have a copy of a former feeling ; and a denial of a dis- tinction of this sort would be very like an assertiop that the same part of a sequence can be at the same time both first and sec- ond. But of what practical value is this obvious and seemingly insignificant distinction ? It does not follow, that, because all our feelings must either be original or secondary, and the greater number of our original feelings are far more vivid than the great- er number of the secondary, it is therefore a distinguishing char- acter of every original feeling to be more vivid than every secon- dary feeling. The distinction, if just, might then perhaps be of some use : but to be useful, it must be just ; and that it is not just, the slightest retrospect of our reflex feelings sufficiently shews. We may have original feelings that are faint, and remem- brances that are far more lively. Our notions of equality, differ- ence, proportion, for example, are not copies of any former feel- ings: they are new feelings that arise in the mind on the contem- plation of certain forms : but our conceptions of the beautiful forms themselves which we may have been comparing, are, as mere feelings or states of mind, not less, but more lively than the notions of relation, which we cannot regard as copies of former states of mind, and must therefore consider as themselves, in Mr Hume's sense of the word. Impressions. He who has recently suffered a severe scald by the fall of boiling water, may think of the pain which he suffered ; and his remembrance of that painful impression will be what Mr Hume terms an Idea : it is indeed less vivid than the original pain, but, even as a remembrance, it is still a very lively feeling, and is certainly much more lively, than the different state of mind which constitutes the mere belief of the connexion of the one event with the other antecedent event. The belief, however, is not an Idea, or mere faint copy of a former feeling : it is a feeling, in kind as truly original, as any of our oth- er feelings ; and we have as little reason to seek an Impression, to which we may refer it, as to seek an Impression to which we OF CAUSE AND EFPECT. 155 may refer our " love, or hate, or desire, or will," which, though resulting as directly as our belief from certain former feelings, Mr Hume allows to be themselves not Ideas but Impressions. Our intuitive belief of power, which invests every change with the character of an effect does not arise less readily, on our percep- tion of change, than our love or desire, on the contemplation of an agreeable object : and the theory of Impressions and Ideas throws exactly as much light on the origin of the one feeling as on the origin of the other. It leaves us, in short, as I have al- ready said in every controversy or speculative inquiry, exactly as it found us ; because it does not put into our hands any test for discovering what feeling is or is not original, and is or is not there- fore to be traced to some earlier feeling. - If we choose to take for granted, without proof, that our notion of Power must be a copy of some other feeling, we may busy ourselves, indeed, in striving to discover of what feeling it is the copy, and, skilful as we may be in the search of analogies, may busy ourselves in vain : but the unprofitable labour will in that case be the result of an abuse of that very theory of Ideas, which was supposed to simplify inquiryj and to " banish all that jargon which had so long taken possession of metaphysical reasonings." Instead of searching for an Impres- sion, we should first have considered whether it be necessary to seek for one. It matters little, whether, in some technical ar- rangement, we are to give the name of an Impression, or the name of an Idea, to our feeling of power : the great question is, Whether we have such a feeling, and in what circumstances it arises. That we do truly believe an uniformity or sequence in the events of nature, our consciousness tells us, as clearly, as it tells us, that we are capable of perceiving the events themselves ; and, as far back as we are capable of tracing the beUef, we find it to accompany our perception of every change of every species. Here, then, in sound philosophy, inquiry ' should end; and the further very profitless inquiries, on which, in consequence of his theory, Mr Hume thought it necessary to enter, — inquiries, that must be allowed to have a considerable resemblance to the meta- physical scholastip disputations, the jargon of which he so justly reprobated, — are themselves most convincing proofs of the false value attached by him to his Theory of Ideas, as the abridger of 166 ON THE RELATION argument and the determiner of unprofitable speculation and con- troversy. These further inquiries, accordingly, the consideration of which is next to engage us, are all referable to that one mistake with re- spect to our belief of Power, by which, in ranking the feeling as an Idea, he supposed that it must necessarily be derived from some earlier Impression. In our immediate feelings of sense, when any event is perceived by us for the first time, no such cor- responding Impression is discoverable ; and as little is it discover- able, in any inference which our reason makes. But, when the same sequence has been frequently observed by us, there is after- wards a tendency in the mind, to pass readily from one event to the other, and, in consequence of this readiness of transition, so much more vivid a conception of the related object, that the live- liness of the feeling is itself supposed by him to be sufficient to constitute belief. In this altered state or tendency of the mind, after repeated observations of the same order of sequence of phe- nomena, is to be found, according to Mr Hume, the origin of our belief of Power or Causation : it is the Impression from which the ^,iildea of necessary connexion" is derived. ' * In examining this (Joctrine, then, we have to consider, in the first place, on what evidence it is maintained, that the belief of power, or, in other words, of the relation of invariableness of an- tecedence and consequence arises in the mind, not after simple experience of a change, but only after frequent or customary ex- perience of it ; — and, in the second place, what is the peculiar na- ture of that transition of the mind and consequent vividness of conception, which are supposed to be so essential to the belief, or, rather to be all which constitutes the belief itself, — the Impression, and the only Impression, to which we owe our Idea of a Cause. OP CAUSE AND EFFECT. 1-57 SECTION III. In a former Part of this Work, when I inquired into the circumstances in which the belief of the relation of Cause and Ef- fect arises in the mind, I thought it sufficient to appeal to our con- sciousness, as the great source of evidence on the subject ; and I remarked, that, as far back as our memory reaches to the earliest events, that occupied us either actively or passively in childhood, we do not remember a time, in which the belief of some permanent relation of this kind was not immediate on the observation of change. Even before the period which memory is afterwards to comprehend, — as soon as the little sensitive being seems capable of distinct perception, — his actions are indicative of this accompanying belief. There is not the slightest evidence, then, of a single moment in which events are regarded as wholly loose and casual, but, on the contrary, the fullest evidence of every moment which affords any indication whatever, that events are always regarded as signs of future uniformity of sequences, that are to be the same as often as the circumstances which recur are the same. It is, therefore, by a very strange license of gra- tuitous assertion, it ii^ maintained, in opposition to the whole con- tinued evidence of observation and consciousness, that the belief of the relation of Cause and Effect is so far from being co-exten- sive with the changes observed, that there is not a single change. J58 ON THE RELATION which does not require the influence of custom or frequent repe- tition, to invest it with that character of invariable relation, which it seems to us to bear in the moment, or almost in the very mo- ment in which the phenomenon is perceived by us. ', If Mr Hume had been able to adduce a single instance of that belief of casual subsequence, without any accompanying notion of power, which he has asserted to be the belief of all mankind as to every change of every species, before the new feeling of the re- lation of the change as an effect has arisen from customary obser- vation of the same phenomenon in the same circumstances, — his doctrine then, indeed, would not have been founded on a supposi- tion wholly unwarranted, and inconsistent with every fact which it professes to explain. But, till an instance, though it were only a solitary instance, of such belief could be fairly adduced, — howev- er suitable it might be, and even indispensable, for his theory, to suppose a state of the mind on the observation of every change absolutely different from any of which we have had experience, — there could be no reason on that account to consider the suppo- sition as more accordant with the experience which has so uni- formly contradicted it. Even if, by the supposition of a state of mind in every case different from any of which memory or observation affords the slightest evidence, we could be supposed to free ourselves from any peculiar mystery which might appear to hang over the intu- itive belief of causation, the theory might have some claim to easier admission. But even this scanty recommendation is more than it possesses. What is mysterious, if there be any peculiar mystery, before the admission, is equally mysterious after it; and the supposed difficulty, therefore, is exactly what it was, when the influence of custom was not called in to remove it. A single moment of the past, and a thousand moments of the past, or, in other words, a single observation of a phenomenon, and a thou- sand observations of the same phenomenon,^— if we attempt to speculate abstractly from the light of intuition itself, — are, rela- tively to the unexisttng future, equally incapable of affording us any discovery of that unknown course of Nature which is still be- yond us, and independent of our thought. Experience is always of the past ; and the longest custom can tell us only what changes have been, in the phenomena with which we have been familiar; OP CAUSE AND EFFECT. 1S9 while the belief of Power is the belief of changes that are to be, when we may no longer exist to observe them, and of changes that have been, when there was, perhaps, no human observer to witness them. In this indefiniteness of extension the whole diffi- culty consists ; and Custom, which is of the past alone, does not render the extension through futurity less indefinite, nor the fu- ture itself a more distinct object of our knowledge.' It leaves us the past, which we know, and the future, which we do not know ; but it remains with us still, on the side on which we stand, of the great gulf that is between r- while it is Intuition only, that pass- es over the darkness which is impenetrable to our vision, and speaks. to us, as from another world, of the things which are be- yond. If, as Mr Hume himseljf maintains, no experience of the pastj however .long and uniform, entitle us to infer the similarity of the course of nature in future, with any greater evidence to our rea- son, than may be drawn from the first single instance of sequence, there is no presumption, at least, afforded by this equality, that circumstances which are to our reason the same, are not equally fit also to be the medium of intuition ; and, at whatever stage of observation our belief begin, whether at the first or the thou- sandth succession of the same events, the belief itself must still, as I have said, be intuitive ; for the propositions B has once suc- ceeded A, and B will forever succeed A, are not more different, nor less comprehensive the one of the other, than the propositions B has a- thousand times succeeded A, and B will forever succeed A. Why should the future resemble the past ? At every stage of observa- tion, this question may be equally put; and, at every stage, it is equally unanswerable. If we can give any reason for our belief of the similarity, we do not need custom to convince us of it; and, if we cannot give any reason for it, it is surely vain to appeal to custom, which is only a portion of that very past, concerning which there is no difficulty whatever, and not a portion of that unexist- ing future, in the beheved similarity of which is to be found the only difficulty that perplexes us. As far as we have yet seen, then, the assertion of Mr Hume, ! with respect to the necessary influence of custom or frequent ob- j servation of the same change, before any belief of the relation of i Power can arise, is not warranted, in the slightest degree, by the IQQ ' ON THE RELATION evidence of what we remember to have felt in ourselves or ob- served in others; and, even though it were accordant with this evidence, instead of being completely opposed to it, it would not lessen in any degree the mystery of that conversion of the past into the future, which is involved in our belief of the continued uniformity of the order of Nature, and in the varioua terms of Power or Causation, which are used by us to express that be- lief. But if the observation of the sequences of events and the be- lief of Power have been so truly co-extensive, that we do not re- member a single change to have been observed by us, which was not regarded as the effect of something prior, — how, it may very naturally be asked, could the opposite doctrine, so inconsistent with our consciousness, be maintained by any philosopher, and es- pecially by a philosopher of the great talents of him whose opin- ions on the subject we are examining? It is in his defective analysis of experience itself, and of the circumstances in which it operates, that the illusion, as I conceive, is chiefly to be found. There is a compound influence of experi- ence ; or, rather, it has difierent influences on our belief in diffe- rent circumstances of our knowledge : and in the speculations of Mr Hume, these primary and secondary influences were not suffi- ciently distinguished. When we consider the successive phenomena that are con- , stantly taking place around us, in intermingled series, it will be allowed, that repeated observation is necessary, not to give us our belief of the relation of Power itself, — not to lead us to consider the phenomena as effects of some cause or causes, — but to enable us to fix with precision, where there are many antecedents and many consequents, the order in which these are to be reciprocal- ly paired. It is not on a single experiment or observation, there- fore, that we now rely, when we have full confidence that we have discovered a cause ; but our doubt and perplexity result frpm a state of knowledge, very .different from that rude state in which the first trains of events were observed by us. The nature of this difference I have already repeatedly stated. New as any phenomenon which we observe may be to us, we do not hesitate for a single moment in regarding it as the effect of circumstances which preceded it; but we know that these antecedent circum- OP CAUSE AND EFFECT. 161 Stances were of various kinds, some of which might probahly have no permanent relation to the phenomenon, which alone we are considering-: and it is not wonderful, therefore, that the mind, though originally led to believe causation in every sequence, and still believing causation in every sequence, should yet be doubtful of the particular antecedent, which it is to couple in its belief with the particular consequent. There can be no question, that in this confusion of parts of trains, the reference will often be wrongly made, and considerable diss^ppoinfment therefore be felt when the anticipations, made in consequence of such errors of reference, are found not to be fulfilled. In such circumstances, accordingly, the mature mind, often expecting, and often deceived, but deceived always less frequently, as the same succession has been more frequently observed, learns to feel the value of successive trials, and, instead of venturing to determine instantly, in any mixed series of causes and effects, the particular connexions of each, withholds its complete trust or assent, till the important confirmation of experience be given.. It is from experience itself, however, that we learn this very caution ; and with the increase of our years, therefore, which must be continually increasing the number of customary con- nections oftserved by us, there is no corresponding increase of quickness to connect events as invariably antecedent and conse- quent. Do we not rather remember a time, when, if without con- trary experience, we had a tendency to invest with this character of uniformity of sequence whatever was perceived by us in in- stant succession, loose and casual as the succession might truly he ? The effect of greater knowledge is evidently to lessen this ten- dency, by shewing us, th^it many events, which we considered as regularly antecedent of others, have not been followed by them, and warning us, therefore, that, as we have erred before, in sup- posing a permanent connexion where there was none, we, in like manner, may err again, in the rash physical anticipations which we should otherwise be inclined to form. This warning influence of experience, however, as I have be- fore said, relates to the determination of particular causes, not to the belief of causation of some sort, in the very phenomena which we are thus slow to rank in their particular order as effects. When we mix two substances, that have never been combined be- 21 162 ON THE RELATION fore, and a peculiar product appears, what is the state of our mind ? Do we consider the mixture and the product, as two loose phenomena, unconnected as completely, as the appearance of the new chemical substance in our vessel, and the appearance of a friend, who accidentally enters our apartment at the moment? It is this state of mind alone, which can be reconciled with Mr. Hume's supposition ; but it is surely not the state of mind of the chemist. , He believes the product to be the effect of the mixture, or, if he have not absolute assurance of it, the want of conviction arises only from the doubts which are sugg^ested by his past expe- rience. The accidental changes of temperature, the impurity of the substances used, the presence of light or of air, or of other foreign matters in the vessel, and the peculiar affinities of the vessel itself, — by which he has known his experiments to be af- fected before, — occur tp him, as causes which may have modified the result. To these he turns his attention. By some possible variation of these, he believes that the event may possibly be ren- dered different ; hjit, if he were certain, that all these circumstan- ■ ces would for ever be the same, he would have no doubt, that the resulting product also would for ever be the same. The exact similarity of the circumstances being supposed, his conviction, af- ter one experiment, would be, in every respect, as complete, as after a thousand repetitions of it. It is not necessary, to be a practised experimentalist, to have felt this confutation of Mr Hume's theory. The belief of regular- ity of sequence is so much the result of an original principle of the mind, that it arises constantly, on the observation of .change, whatever the observed antecedents and consequents may have been, and requires the whole counteracting influence of our past knowledge, to save us from the mistakes into which we should thus, at every moment, be in danger of falling. In the common circumstances of life, how often have we felt this struggle, be- tween our tendency to conjoin events, as invariably consecutive, and, the past experience, which shews us that they have no per- manent and uniform connexion ! It is a struggle, like that which we feel with another very strong principle of belief, when we look through an optical instrument, on a landscape that is familiar to us. The church, and the lake,, and the wood that overhangs it, appear to us indeed to be near; but we have a stronger con- or CAUSE AND EFFECT. 163 viction, from past experience, that they are far off: and we, therefore, do'not consider the meadows between as less extensive than they are, nor hasten, as if he were before us, to meet the friend, whona we see approaching at the very end of our telescope. jti If one train of phenomena alone were taking place in nature, it is probable that our feeling of the relation of cause and effect would in every case be unmingled with doubt of any kind ; but we learn, from varied disappointment, that innumerable trains are taking place together ; and, with this confusion before us, we feel a want of certainty, — but it is in this only, that we are ignorant, to which of the trains the particular phenomenon of which we may be thinking belongs. The very knowledge that there are separate trains in the mixed phenomena, is itself almost a sort of proof, that the belief of causation is immediate, or at least that, before custom can have influence, the similarity of future sequences is in some degree an- ticipated. There is no sensation, perhaps, which is entirely sim- ple. Various objects at the same moment affect us, and form an aggregate, which is, probably, at no other period exactly the same, but intermingled with other antecedents and consequents, in ceaseless diversity. If, therefore, there were no presumption that Z, which once before succeeded C, would succeed it again, more than X or Y, which we had never before observed to suc- ceed C, it would be impossible, when A, B, C, were, at one mo- ment, producing X, Y, Z, to determine, of which part of the ag- gregate, ,Z, thus renewed, was the regular consecutive effect. The analysis and distribution depend on the belief, or presump- tion, which followed the observation of the first sequence ; and without this, the mixed sequence would still be loose as before. Even with all the doubts, which the experience of many years has given us, we never hesitate, in simple cases, in which we have little reason to suspect the interference of concurring trains, to rank the consequent which we know, with the antecedent which we know. Such is the case in far the greater number of the di- rect affections of our organs of sense, where the circumstances are usually of easy limitation, with httle chance of the admixture of foreign bodies with those which we are particularly consider- ing. When a new fruit is presented to us, and we apply it to our organ of taste, though altogether deprived of the aid of customary 164 ON THE RELATION connection, and therefore, if custom be necessary for our belief of power, incapable of any relative notion but that of casual se- quence, we have no scruple in ascribing the new sensation to the new object, and we say instantly, that it is sweety or acid, or bit- ter. The epicure, who relishes a new ragout, knows well, that the source of his pleasure is in the particular dish before him; and if he wish to enjoy it again, it is to that dish alone he returns, ' though twenty new objects be around it. When, on plucking a flower, which we have never before seen,' we are sensible of a disagreeable odour, we throw away the flower, without the slight- est doubt that it was from it the odour arose. The boy, who for the first time catches a bee, and is astonished to feel its sting, does not wait for a second and third appHcation of the poison, before he learn to fear it in future. Whether his belief be consistent with reason, is not the inquiry. ^ It has been already admitted, that the uniformity of the course of Nature, in the similar returns of future events, is not a conclusion of reason, derived from the perceived agreement of propositions, but is a single intuitive judg- ment, that, in certain circumstances, rises in the mind, inevitably, and with irresistible conviction. Whether true or false, the be- lief is in these cases felt, and it is felt without even the possibility of a perceived customary conjunction of the particular antece- dent and the particular Consequent. Would Mr Hume himself have considered the sequences as purely accidental ? He owns, that, " when a child has felt the sensation of pain from touching the flame of a candle, he will be careful not to put his hand near any candle :" yet the child, even though old enough, to have ac- quired an accurate knowledge of the places of objects, and to be certain that it is the candle which is burning him at that particu- lar moment, should, in such circumstances, if custom were neces- sary for enabling him to extend the past to the future, think no more of removing his finger from the flame, than of shaking off the bandage of his foot. There is another form of the instant original belief, which might of itself almost be considered as decisive of the question. We often see a phenomenon, for the first time, without having at- tended to the particular circumstances which preceded it. If it be the experience of custom alone, then, which can give us that belief of connection, by which we denominate a change aa effect, OP CAUSE AND EFFECT. 163 we are, in this case, as observers, not merely without a customa- ry sequence : we have not even a single case of it; since we know the consequent only, not the antecedent, which was un- marked. Yet there is no one, who does not believe the change to be an effect, as completely as if he had witnessed every pre- ceding circumstance. On this one point he is in no suspense, and waits, only to discover what object, in- the uniform and regular or- der of succession, was its correlative cause. In his earlier work on Human Nature,* the force of the ob- jection, arising from the belief of causation after single sequences, seems to have struck Mr Hume himself. Instead of denying the fact, however, which indeed would have been impossible, he ad-^ mits it, and endeavours to reconcile it with his system. " 'Tis certain," he says, " that not only in philosophy, but even in com- mon life, we may attain the knowledge of a particular cause merely by one " experiment, provided it be made with judgment and after a careful removal of all foreign and superfluous circum- stances.t He does not furnish us, however, with any mode of de- termining what are the foreign and superfiutius circumstances. The truth is, that the superfluous circumstances are merely those, of which we have had contrary experience, having observed them be- fore, without the succession 6f the effect : and, when the com- plex sequence is stripped of these, it becomes exactly of the same kind, as the first sequence observed by us, when we had no experience either of essential or of superfluous circumstances. If by one ohs6rvntion, provided it be made with judgment, we can attain the knowledge of a particular cause, we can attain il, only as being led to believe causation, in the prior of two events, where there is no contrary experience, to require that discrimi- nating aid ; and, if we be led to believe it, in such circumstances, * As this Work was not sanctioned by the Jater judgment of its Author, who, in the Advertisement to his EssAT«, has " desired that they alone should be regarded as containing his philosophical sentiments and principles," I must request my readers to make the same distinction and reservation, as to any quotations which I may venture to introduce from the earlier Treatise, and to consider them rather as illustrative of Mr Hume's sentiments, than as exhibiting a faithful view of the results of his mature reflection. t Treatise on Human Nature, vol. i. p. 156, of the original Edition. 166 ON THE RELATION the observation of sequence must have been originally and imme- diately accompanied with the belief of causation. It is not from the experience of custom, that we form our conclusion ; for all which that experience tells us is not that Jl is the cause ofX, which is the real phenomenon considered, but merely that B and C, which co-exist with A, are not the cause of X, but are foreign and superfluous circumstances, since they have been often observ- ed before, without the succession of X. The mode in which Mr Home in his Treatise, endeavours to reduce this anomaly to order, so as to make it cease to appear an exception, allowable as the argument might be in the loose popu- lar reasonings of ordinary philosophers, is far from being equally allowable in inquiries so minute and rigorous as his, and is certain- ly very little in harmony with the spirit of that nice and subtle scepticism on which his own system is founded. He acknowledg- es, that the connection of the ideas of the &rSt and second objects of a sequence, is not and cannot be felt as habitual, after one ex- periment, but contends, that the connection is comprehended in another, which has been previously acquired by habit. " The difliculty,*' he observes, " will vanish, if we consider, that though we are here supposed to have had only one experiment of a par- ticular effect, yet we have many millions to convince us of this principle, that like objects place'd.in like circumstances, will always produce like effects ; and as this principle has established itself by a sufficient custom, it bestows an evidence and firmness on any opinion, to which it can be applied." The sophistry of this argu- ment, if rigidly examined, consi'sts in the different meanings, which may be attached to the phrase like objects. It may signify the many like objects, of which we have had customary experience, or it may signify ALL like objects, of which we have had no customary expe- rience. In the former sense only, can it be said, that we have millions of experiments to convince us of the truth of the princi- ple asserted ; but in the latter sense only, can it be of any aid to Mr Hume. In that strict logic which he has taught us to apply to the events of Nature, the experience of a million sequences cannot go beyond a million sequences ; and, though we may know that A has been a million times followed by X, and B by Y, we are not entitled, therefore, on his own principles, to infer from these sequences of other phenomena that C, of the priority of OP CAUSE AND EPrECT. 167 which we have had no customary experience, is the cause of Z, a new phenomenon, observed by us for the first time. It surely would be no very great extension of this concession, to suppose that A, which has a million times preceded X, might, if it existed again, be reasonably expected to be again followed by X ; and, if the legitimacy of this inference be admitted, all the force of Mr Hume's scepticism, as to the inadequacy of reasoning to aflford us any notion of the relation of cause and effect, is immediately destroyed. X, Y and Z, have always followed A, B and C ; therefore N will always follow M : a step would here, indeed, be taken by the mind which reason does not warrant ; and it is surely too much to require it of us, as a mode of saving ourselves from the necessity of taking another step, that is acknowledged to be exactly of the same kind. It must never be forgotten in this inquiry, that the supposition ©f the necessity of custom for the belief of power in any case, is a supposition that is wholly without evidence, or rather is one that is contrary to all the evidence which the phenomena, as far as they are capable of being known to us, exhibit. If, indeed, that primary influence of custom, which is supposed by Mr Hume, were itself established by satisfactory proof, we might then be a little more willing to adopt, without very rigid scrutiny, an explanation, that in the cases of immediate belief, after single sequences, might free us from an apparent inconsistency so perplexing. But, when the inconsistency is only with a doctrine that is wholly unsupport- ed by evidence of any kind, the simplest way of getting rid of the supposed difficulty is by getting rid of the previous error,-involv- ed in the gratuitous admission of the doctrine itself. If we do not remember a time, in which we observed a change and believed the antecedent and consequent to be without any re- lation of future uniformity of sequencje : and if, in the earliest ac- tions of infancy, that could be indicative to us of any feelin^Vhat- ' ever, we have not discovered the slightest evidence of such be- lief, there is no need to suppose that custom is necessary, in any case, for giving rise to a belief, that must be intuitive, in whatev- er circumstances it may originate ; and if we have no reason to suppose custom to be necessary in any case, it is idle to have re- course to it, in the circuitous process supposed by Mr Hume, for the 168 ON THE RELATION purpose of explaiaing what does not require to be exi^lained. We do not believe that N will follow M, because X, Y, Z, have fol- lowed A, B, C ; for N is as little involved in X, Y, Z, as M was iavolved in their particular antecedents : but we believe it, be- cause we have observed M to be the immediate antecedent of N, and by a principle of intuitive anticipation, which it is impossible for us to resist, expect a similar order of sequence in future. It was for a reason exactly, similar, that X, Y, Z, themselves were previously regarded by us as the regular consequents, of A, B, C; and we only make in a new case, by irresistible intuition, that ex- tension of the past to .the future, which, by the same irresistible intuition, we had made in the other cases. What, then, is the result of the inquiry, of which conscious- ness and observation, surely, ought to furnish the primary evi- dence ? Have we found in these any reason for the assertion, that all phenomena, before repeated experience of their particular conjunctions, appear to us wholly loose, and that the supposition of their connexion as causes and effects can in no instance arise, till the observed conjunction have been customary ? Do not all the circumstances of our belief rather support the contrary opinion, that a peculiar connexion may be supposed, even, after a single sequence ; that, since innumerable trains of phenomena are taking place together, and mingling in our observation, the primary ef- fect of experience has been, not to increase, but to weaken, our belief of the connexion of particular events, by presenting to us, as a regular train of consequents, irregular portions of different co-existing trains ; that, our expectation of uniformity being thus often disappointed, a habit of doubt has arisen, and the secondary influence of experience begins to operate, which, by shewing us the customary successions of ev.ents, though it gives us not our first notion of the connexion of trains of phenomena, informs us, with greater certainty, to which, of many co-existing trains, a par- ticulaV'phenomenon belongs ; that, hence, in mature life, the be- lief of connexion, which according to Mr Hume, should, in every case, depend on the number of observations, and on nothing more, is more or less strong, in particular cases, according to the nature and' circumstances of the phenomena that are observed by us, as these furnish greater or less room for imagining a number of con- curring trains,— being immediate and undoubting, where the new OF CAUSE AND EFPECT. 169 sequence is apparently simple, and of longer suspense, where the sequence is complex, — but, in every case of doubt, having regard only to the uncertainty of the particular antecedent which is to be coupled with the particular consequent, and not to any uncertainty of the relation itself, by which the event, as soon as we observe it,' is instantly characterised by us as an effect, the invariable consequent of some invariable antecedent. If the preceding reasoning be just, the error of Mr Hume evidently consists, not in affirming too much, but in affirming too little: for, if any succession of events can suggest the ex- pectation of future similarity, there is surely nothing in the fre- quent recurrence of the succession, which can reasonably be supposed to diminish the expectation. It may not be greater, after it has been often confirmed, but it certainly cannot be less ; and the theory is therefore objectionable, only as confining to se- quences that have been often observed, a belief, which is com- mon to them with all other sequences. Yet, by a singular mis- take, Mr Hume has been censured by his opponents, as if his af- firmation had been too large. Thus, it has been maintained by Dr Reid, that there are cases of uniform succession, in which the be- lief of causation is never felt ; since, from the very commence- ment of our existence, day has succeeded night in endless re- turn,* without any supposition arising, that night is the cause of day. But it should be remembered, that day and night are not words which denote two particular phenomena, but are words invented by us to express long series of phenomena. What various appearances of Nature, from the freshness of the first morning beam, to the last soft tint that fades into the twi- light of the evening sky, changing with the progress of the Sea- sons, and dependent on the accidents of temperature, and va- pour, and wind, are included in every day ! These are not one, because the word which expresses them is one ; and it is the be- • "The third argument is, that what we call a cauae, is only something antecedent to, and always conjoined with the effect.— It is sufficient here to observe, that we may learn from it that night is the cause of day ; and day the cause of night : for.no two things have more constantly followed each other since the beginning of the world." Essays on the Intellectual Powers, Essay vi. chap. 6. 22 J 70 ON THE RELATION lieved relation of physical events, not the arhitrary combinations of language, which Mr Hume professes to explain. If, therefore, there be any force in the strange objection of Dr Reid, it must be shewn, that, notwithstanding the customary conjunction, we do not believe the relation of Cause and Effect to exist, between the successive* ^otrs of that multitude of events, which we denominate night and day. What then are the great events included in those terms ? If we consider them philosophi- cally, they are the series of positions in relation to the sun, at which the earth arrives, in the course of its diurnal revolution j and, in this view, there is surely no one who doubts that the mo- tion of the earth immediately before sun-rise, is the cause of the subsequent position, which renders that glorious luminary visible to us. If we consider the phenomena of night^and day in a more vulgar sense, they include various degrees of darkness and light, with some of the chief changes of appearance in the heavenly bod- ies. Even in this sense, there is no one who doubts, that the rising of the sun is the cause of the light which follows it, and that its setting is the cause of the subsequent darkness. That darkness and light mutually produce each other, they do not be- lieve : and if they did believe it, their belief, instead of confirm- ing the truth of Mr Hume's theory, would prove it to be false ; since it would prove the relation of Cause and Effect to be sup- posed, where there has been no 'customary connection. How often, during a long and sleepless night, does the sensation of darkness, — if that phrase may be accurately used, to express a state of mind that is merely exclusive of visual affections of every sort, — exist, without being followed by the sensation of light ! We perceive the gloom, in this negative sense of the term perception ; — we feel our own position in bed, or some bodily or mental un- easiness, which prevents repose ; — innumerable thoughts arise, at intervals, in our mind, and with these the perception of gloom is Occasionally mingled, without being followed by the perception of light. At last hght is perceived, and, as mingled with all our occupations and pleasures, is perceived innumerable times during the day, without having, for its immediate consequence, the sen- sation of darkness. Can we then be said, to have an uniform ex- >■ * Note M. OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 171 perience of the conjunction of the two sensations ; or do they not rather appear to follow each other loosely and variously, like those irregular successions of events, which we denominate Acci- dental ? In the vulgar, therefore, as well as in the philosophic sense of the terms, the regular alternate recurrence of day and night furnishes no valid objection to that theojy, with the truth of which it is said to be inconsistent. But other objections, as we have seen, may be urged against it, — objections founded on the evidence of our consciousness it- self, and of a kind which it seems scarcely possible to I'esist. The general conclusion, accordingly, to which we are led, on this part of Mr Hume's doctrine, is that the experience of customa- ry succession is not, as he contends, necessary to the belief of fu- ture similarity of sequence ; but that where, from a supposed con- currence of many trains of phenomena, any doubt is felt as to the parts of each separate train, the influence of the experience of customary succession is always to diminish the doubt, till, by fre- quent exclusions of foreign circumstances in many varied repeti- tions of the observation, we are at length enabled to determine the particular antecedents and their particular consequents. 172" ON THE RELATION SECTION IV. The examination of Mr Hume's Theory of " the Idea of Ne- cessary Connexion," appeared to us, when we entered on it, to involve two inquiries ; one of which may now be considered as closed. We have seen, that the part of the theory, to which this first inquiry related, is wholly founded on a supposition unwarranted by any phenomena of our belief; since custom, which was assert^ ed to be the only source of the idea, far from being necessary for evolving' the very notion of efficiency, is necessary only for pre- venting our too ready belief of that connexion, where, the antece- dents and consequents have been casually mixed. It is, not that which primarily directs us to consider events as effects of some cause, which we were sufficiently ready to do at any rate ; but, in the mixed sequences of phenomena, it is our director how to rank most accurately each particular consequent with its particular an- tecedent. We are now, then, in the second inquiry that remains, to con- sider the manner in which customary experience, if it were as necessary as Mr. Hume conceived it to be for evolving the intui- tive notion of Power, is supposed by him to influence our heUef, by affording us our knowledge of that most important of all physi- cal relations* OP CABSE AND ErrECT. 173 The mode of its developement is stated by him to be the fol- lowing. When two objects have been frequently observed in succes- sion, the mind passes readily from the idea of one to the idea of the other : from this tendency to transition, and from the greater vividness of the idea thus more readily suggested, there arises a belief of the relation of cause and etfect between them; the tran- sition in the mind itself, being the impression, from which the idea of the necessary connexion of the objects, as" cause and eflfect, is derived. ' ' Such is the sum of Mr. Hume's professed Solution, as givein by him in his Fifth and Seventh Sections, a Solution, which, when ex- amined narrowly, appears too absurd to have satisfied even its au- thor, though its author had been of far less distinguished genius ; and which strikes us with double astonishment, when we consider, that the author was Mr Hume. His, undoubtedly, is not a name, of which any philosopher can speak lightly ; yet, though I feel all the reverence which is due to his general acuteness, and to the admirable talents which in many respects he possessed, I must confess, that the Essays, in which, after having given his Scepti- cal Doubts, he proceeds to explain the origin of our belief of Causation, appear to me in the impartial estimate wliich I should form of that part of the theory, if it were to be considered alone, so little worthy of the vigorous intellect from which they pro- ceeded, that I should be disposed to rank them with our least per- fect specimens of metaphysical disquisition. All is perplexity of language, and hypbthesis, which is at variance with almost every fact ; and if, at any time, we imagine that we have discovered the acuteness, which before delighted us in the sceptical part of the theory, it is only in the repetitions of those very doubts, which are necessarily at times brought back to our view, in the less in- genious attempt" to solve them. Before the doctrine of the vivifying influence of the ready transition of the mind from the idea of the antecedent to that of its customary consequent, can be sufficiently understood, it will be necessary to examine another more general doctrine of Mr Hume, as to the feeling of truth itself. " The difference between fiction and beUef," he says, " lies in some sentiment or feeling, which is annexed to the latter, not 174 ON THE RELATION to the former ;" and he then, with some labour of reasoning, de- monstrates, that the sentiment thus annexed to belief, and consti- tuting belief, is — Belief. Belief itself distinguishes belief from fiction; or, in other words, fiction is not belief. This, identical proposition is certainly just -^ but would it not have been better, at Once to own, that the feelings of reality and fiction are by their very nature different, than, even for a. moment, to consider the difference of mere feeling as susceptible of proof; since the proof must be only a repetition of the difference ? Belief he afterwards defines to be " nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an Object, than what the im- agination alone is ever able to attain. This variety of terms," he adds, " which may seem so unphilosophical, is intended only to express that act of the mind, which renders realities, or jvhat is taken for such, more present to us than fictions, causes them to weigh more in the thought, and gives them a superior influence on the passions and imagination. Provided we agree about the thing, it is needless to dispute about the terms. The imagination has the command over all its ideas, and can join and mix and. vary them, in all the ways possible. It may conceive fictitious objects, with all the circumstances of place and time. It may set them in a manner before our eyes, in their true colours, just as they might have existed. But as it is impossible, that this faculty of imagina- tion can ever, of itself, reach belief, it is evident, that belief con- sists not in the peculiar bature or order of ideas, but in the manner of their conception, and in their feeling to the mind. That imagination is sometimes able to attain whatever quali- ties are essential to belief, the phenomena of reverie and of dreaming sufficiently shew. But, omitting this slighter error of definition, can we acquiesce in a statement of the essentials of be- lief, which has reference only to a single class of realities? Mr Hume's doctrine may, with a few exceptions, be perfectly just, when it does not extend beyond the present moment, and is con- fined to the objects which we .believe to be actually present to our senses : for, when sensations and ideas of imagination occur together, we ascribe external and independent reality, only to be more vivid of the two; and in every case, except impassioned reverie, sensations are the more vivid. But belief of reality isnot confined to the objects, that are considered by us as actually pre- OP cadse and effect. 175 sent ; it extends to objects of which we only think, and which, in our thought, can be only what he would himself term Conceptions, or Meas of Imagination. Almost all our knowledge, and there- fore almost every feeling whichfcan be termed Behef, is of this very kind ; the belief itself being, in every such case, the effect of reasoning, or of former conviction, or of testimony, not of any peculiar quality of the present ideas, which, as mere ideas, may not be at all more vivid, when we believe, than when we disbe- **5ieyp. That it implies a peculiar " manner of conception;" and" feel- ing to the mind," must be admitted : for belief is certainly not the same feeling as disbelief But the peculiarity of the feeling is not in dispute. The sole questions are. Whether in every case of beiief, our conceptions of objects, as real, be more " vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady," than when we conceive them, as feigned ; and whether this superior liveliness of the conceptions be all which constitutes the belief itself. Let us make the inquiry, then, and abide by its results. When we believe, after having almost forgotten his exploits, — without being informed of a single feature of his face, or know- ing even whether he was tall or short, — that Arminius, the assert- er of the liberty of Germany, existed ; and, when we acknowl- edge, as wholly feigned the existence of the heroine of a fashion- able Novel, of whose exact stature, and proportions, and graces, and dimples, and whiteness of te^th, and languishing blueness of eyes, a brilliant portraiture is given us, and whose mournful ad- ventures we are able to detail, in the very succession in which their author has represented them ; — when the conviction is so different, do we believe, and disbelieve, because our conception of the modern heroine is less lively, than that of the ancient he- ro ; or is it not from our knowledge of the different species of writing, that our judgment is formed ? . Have we a less firm con- ception of Othello, than of the humble soldiers who fought in the Battle of Agincourt ; and, when the conqueror of that great day is represented in our theatres, is the mimic king, or his real pro- totype, more steadily before us ? How many are there, who dur- ing a long life spent in a foreign country, have lost, in their pic- tures of remembrance, almost every trace of the friends of their youth ! Yet the faint conceptions that arise are dear to them 176 ON THE REIiATION still, not as fictions, but as realities ; and it is not from any fading of memory that they tremble, when they fear that the friends for whom they are anxious exist no more. The information, in such circumstances, of the actual death of any one, and the sad belief with which it is accompanied, do not destroy nor impair a single remembrance, but brighten many fading images, and recall oth- ers which were lost, and seem to restore to us ideally the rery lineaments of the person, in the certainty that he is himself no longer in existence. The remark may be extended to all our passions, that relate either to objects which have ceased to exist, or to those which have not yet begun to exist. Desire implies the present non- existence, or at leat the absence, and relative unreality tons, of the good which is its object : but it surely implies pecu- liar vividness of the idea of the unexisting or absent good; and he who fails in his endeavour to realize it, whatever the object may be, has, in tbe regret and mortification, which fol- low the failure, as fixed a conception of the object, as if his am- bition had been fully gratified. Even in those cases, in which we have no personal concern, but are led along in passive sympathy, our belief has no connection with mere distinctness or indistinct- ness of imagination. The very wildness and wonderfulness of romance, as they excite peculiar emotion, are indeed a cause not of less but of more lively conception : and, when we are inter- ested in our knight, the tower and the giant rise before us in far stronger colours, than the host and his inn on a modern highway ; though all the enchantment, as we kpow, is in the delightful art of the poet who has raised unexisting castles, and multiplied in- credible perils at his will, and all the reality in the plain dwellings, which, without a single thought of their dimensions and appear^ ance, we are perfectly certain of finding at every stage of every well frequented road in our island. How very readily, on the testimony of a friend of known ve- racity, do we assent to the truth of events, which, in the brief mo- ment of description, are so obscurely present to our mind, that it would be vain, for us to endeavour distinctly to image them: and, without a faithl of this sort in many physical changes and lo- cal appearances, how very limited would be our knowledge; since, if images "lively, forcible, firm and steady," were in OP CAtJSK AND EPFEGT. 177 every case necessary for belief, it must be confined, ornearly con- fined to the objects which have come under our senses;, excluding or scarcely comprehending any of the infinity of objects that are dis- tant from us in place or time ! Greece, and Italy, and Pharsalia, and its rival chiefs, — the illustrious of other ages, — the illustrious of our own age, whom we mfiy never have had an opportunity of seeing, — and the greater part of the very Island in which we live, — have but a faint and shadowy existence in our thought. Even the /strongest of all belief, that which is accompanied with conviction ,lof the absurdity of any opposite proposition, is conversant, not with lively iniages of things, but with abstractions, which are the least lively of our feelings. \Yho is there that can, readily pic- ture to himself a polygon of a thousand sides, the properties of which he believes with most undoubting faith ? We understand, indeed, what is meant by maithematical lines and surfaces, or we could not understand the properties of mathematical lines and sur- faces ; but the generalizations themselves are so little vivid, that in mere liveliness of feeling, there is not a wild conception which can be borrowed from all the marvels and monsters of the wildest fairy-tale, that does not correspond more closely with the defi- nition which is given of that great elementary constituent of be- lief " In our conception," says Mr Hitme, " we can join the head of a man to the body of a horse ; but it is not in our power to be- lieve that such an animal has ever really existed." That we have not the power, is true, but it is not equally true, that our conception is less lively, than in innumerable other cases, in which we have a belief that is wholly unmixed with doubt. We picture Bottom the weaver, as readily, after his transmutation of head, as before it ; though we m3y not be enamoured of him, after his met- amorphosis, like the fairy Queen : and the Centaurs of the an- cient fable appear before us as distinctly, in the combat, as the Lapiths who are opposed to them. There are few, indeed, who have not a more accurate i^ea of the body of a horse with the head of a man, than of a hippopotamus, or an oran-outang ; and, scanty as our botanical knowledge may be, it would instantly be reduced within far narrower limits, if it were to exclude the ex- istence of every plant, of which we had not a more distinct con- ception, than of a tree, exactly similar in its foliage and in the 23 178 ON THE RELATION shape of all its parts to the oak or the elm before our door, but with roots of gold or a trunk of silver. By various nations, vari- ous objects are believed to exist ; — in the multitude of these, there is ONE, invisible, but still, however, faintly comprehensible, an ob- ject of universal belief;— it is that Great Being, on whom, even in our adoration of his goodness, we almost tremble to fix our im- agination. Belief, then, arising often from testimony, in events which we fhave never had an opportunity of witnessing, or from the faint hiemory of former conviction, or irom the calm results of abstract reasoning, is something very different from a lively and firm con- ception of an object ] It is a sentiment which is attached rather to the relations of things, than to things themselves, and is, there- fore, as little vivid in any case as the feeling of mere relation in which it is involved. It may be strong, or undoubting, where th^ relative" objects are not of a kind that excite lively conceptions, and may be faint or wholly absent, where the relative objects, as in the fictions of poetry and romance, awake at every moment conceptions and emotions far livelier than result from the ordina- ry combinations of existing things. From his theory of Belief, Mr Hume deduces a theory of Probability, which he holds to depend, not on the abstract knowl' edge of the greater number of chances, but on the separate effect of each chance, in brightening conception. He supposes, that where the number of chances is greater on one side, the mind is carried more frequently to one idea, than to its opposite. " The concurrence of these several views or gliinpses," he says, " im- prints the idea more strongly on the imagination ; gives it superi- or force and vigour ; renders its influence on the passions and af- fections more sensible; and, in a word, begets that reliance or se- curity, which constitutes the nature of belief and opinion." Whatever fallacy is involved in the general theory of belief is certainly not less in this minor theory, that may be considered as its corollary. When, abstractly, we prefer five chances to one, what is the idea to which the mind is five times carried? If it be unity, our choice should be reversed. When we consider a thou- sand chances as having greater probability of success than nine hundred and ninety-nine, is the mind carried one thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine times to the different ideas ? The com- OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 179 parison and the preference are the work of a moment, or of little more than a moment. In his Treatise of Human Nature, indeed, Mr Hume endeav- ours to account for our prieference, in such cases, by the influence of general rules. " We have a parallel instance," he observes, " in the affections. 'Tis evident, that when an object produces any passion in us, which varies according to the different quantity of the object ; I say, 'tis evident, that the passion, properly speak- ing, is not a simple emotion, but a compounded one, of a great number of weaker passions, derived from a view of each part o^ the object. For otherwise 'twere impossible the passion shou'di increase by the increase of these parts. Thus a man, who de- 1 sires a thousand pound, has in reality a thousand or more desires, ; which, uniting together, seem to make only one passion ; tho' the composition evidently betrays itself upon every alteration of the object, by the preference he gives to the larger number, if supe- rior only by an unit. Yet nothing can be more certain, than that so small a difference wou'd not be discernible in the passions, nor cou'd render them distinguishable from each other. The diffe- rence, therefore, of our conduct in preferring the greater, de- pends not upon our passions, but upon custom, and general rules. We have found, in a multitude of instances, that the augmenting the numbers of any sum augments the passion, when the numbers are precise and the difference sensible. The mind can perceive from its immediate feeling, that three guineas produce a greater passion than two ; and this it transfers to larger numbers, because of the resemblance ; and by a general rule assigns to a thousand guineas, a stronger passion than to nine htmdred and ninety- nine."* The very circumstance; which Mr Hume thus adduces in illus- tration of his hypothesis, is itself a m6re supposition, and an erro- neous supposition. When we desire a thousand pounds, we have not a thousand separate desires, btit one desire of that which will obtain us many objects of our wants ; the composition being not in the mere pounds, but in the wants, which a large sum of money will gratify. It might be said, with equal truth, that we have twenty thousand desires, or two hundred and forty thousand de- sires, or nine hundred and sixty thousand desires, because there » Treatise, Vol. i. p. 248. 180 ON THE RELATION are so many shillings, pence and farthings in a thousand pounds j and that, the exchangeable value of the whole sum remain- ing the same, the desire of it would be converted immediate- ly into a different state of mind, ,by a minuter division of our coinage. The truth is, that the desire of a thousand pounds, and the desire of nine hundred and ninety-nine pounds, in one who is in no direct want of a particular sum, are, considered absolute- ly, exactly the same passion, being nothing more than the desire of that which will give him a great deal of accommodation. To those, who for any particular purpose, are in want of a thousand pounds, the desire of nine hundred and ninety-nine pounds would be different, because it would be compounded with the painful feeling of inadequacy. In like manner, when both sums are offer- ed together, to our choice, or to our imagination, the resulting feeling is different; not because the mind in considering both, has more glimpses of one than of the other, or thinks of analogous cases in which it has had more glimpses ; but because the gene- ral desire of the power of accommodation, which is all that is felt when each sum is considered absolutely, is, in the relative consid-, eration, compounded with the notion of greater and less power. The only general rule, which is at all concerned, is the very ob- vious and simple one, that of good we prefer more to less, and of evil less to more. It is enough,, for our preference, in any com- parison, to know, that the objects are good, and that in one case the good is greater : and it might be said, with as much truth, that we have a stronger passion for three guineas than for two, be- cause we have a stronger passion for a thousand guineas than for nine hundred and ninety-nine, as that the passion is stronger, for the greater of these two sums, because it is stronger for three guineas than for two. Each case is a measure to itself, without regard to other analogous cases. It is in the very nature of hu- man passion, impossible for the mind to know, that a thousand guineas will procure as much good as nine hundred and ninety- nine, and will also procure more, without the immediate prefer- ence of the greater sum. The difference of three and two is in- deed an earlier piece of arithmetic, in the same manner as the let- ter A is usually taught before the letter X ; but we never think ■ of saying, that we transfer to X our knowledge of A, or that in the knowledge of A there is any other difference, than that of ar- OP CAUSE AND EFFECT. 181 bitrary priority. Tlie simple preference of more to less good, whatever the good may be, is surely a circumstance that is easily conceivable ; and if it be not easy to be conceived, it cannot be said of the explanation which Mr Hume has given, that it has ren- dered the preference at all more intelligible.. But, though it were conceded to him, that his doctrine of the opposition of desires is just, and that it has the analogy, which he affirms, to the calculation of chances, there would still remain the ^ strongest of all objections to his theory of the influence of general | rules, in the particular case supposed, that it leaves the very diffi- culty, which it professes to remove. The feeling of probabiUty he considers as only greater vividness of conception ; and in those cases, in which the number of chances is on each side very great, it is confessed by him, that the idea of the object, to which we as- sign the greater probability, is not brightened by that concurrence of glimpses, which is the asserted cause of the brightness, in ca- ses, in which the number of chances is on each side less. In the two comparisons, indeed, as far as we can depend on conscious- ness, there is no difference ; the ascent appearing to be equally immediate, and of the same kind, when we prefer a thousand chances to five hundred, and two to one. But, even though it were admitted, that our consciousness deceives us in this apparent similarity, it would still be necessary, if belief were nothing more than vividness of conception, that some circumstance should be pointed out, as supplying, in the greater Comparison, the place of those repeated glimpses, to which, in the less, so miich influence is ascribed. The supposed general rule, which is said to have this effect, is nothing more, however, than the remembered brightness of past conceptions : but the brightness of one idea is not the brightness of another idea ; and since it is with the accession of brightness, as constituting the greater probability, that the .theo- ry is exclusively concerned, a source of this particular acce'ssioh' must be found in every case in which greater probability is sup- posed, or the theory itself be abandoned. The greater number o ' glimpses in one comparison, may have rendered our conoeptiom cf ' one object more vivid than of another : hut it cannot transfer fh< superior liveliness which has resulted from these successive oi concurring views, to dissimilar objects, existing in a situation alto- gether different, andl of which no such repeated glimpses have 182 ON THE RELATION been taken. If the effect were transferable, it might be comma, nicated as much to one object as to another, — to that which has 'nine hundred and ninety-nine, as readily as to that which has a, thousand chances. The only supposable reason, that it should not, is, that the latter number is the greater of the two, and is there- fore already felt as the brighter or more probable, since it is felt to be peculiarly analogous to that which was before felt as the brighter or more probable. But, if the mere circumstance of greater number be sufficient to account for the difference, without any rapid renewal of glimpses, it may as readily account for the preference of three chance'^ to two, in the original comparison sup- posed, as for the subsequent preference of a thousand to nine hund- red and ninety-nine. In every calculation of probabilities, there is indeed nothing more, than the simple preference of more to lesi. The very supposition of more chances .tnjpZiesgreater probability, and implies it, without any relation to the vividness of the ideas compared, and even where the greater vividness of ideas is on the opposite side ; as in many of those calculations of moral chances, in which our lively wishes are on one side, and our unwilling be- lief on the other. At best, Mr Hume's theory of probability serves but to render very complicated what is in itself very simple, and much more ea- sy to be understood before the complication than after it. It should be remembered, too, that it is not merely when they are opposed to each other, in the chances of a result, that objects are comparatively vivid. They aTe infinitely various, in innumerable other respects : and therefore, if probability were nothing but greater vividness, the feeling to which we give that name should accompany as much the remembered liveliness of the whiter or warmer of two objects, as the greater liveliness of any other idea, which has been rendered more vivid by the concurrence of glimp- ses supposed by Mr Hume. -He who suffered severe pain yester- day from an accidental burn, should not merely dread the fire to- morrow, but, in imagining all the possible effects of the fire, should think it far more probable that he was to be again burned, than that he was to have only that mild warmth, the conception of which was faint indeed, in comparison of the remembered suffer- ing. A sunny day is brighter in our memory, as it is brighter in Nature ; but we do not expect such a day the more, on that ac- OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 183 count, in a season of gloom. If a die were to have one of its sides of the most brilliant crimson, and the other sides all of one uniform , duskiness, our conception of the crimson side would be the most lively, but we should be miserable calculators of probabilities, if we were to think the chance of that single side greater than th? united chances of all the others. If, indeed, the feeling of probability, in any case, depended on i the mere repetition or concurrence of glimpses, it should be sus- ' ceptible of perpetual increase or dilninution, though it were known, that all the external circumstances of the comparison remained the same. By frequently suggesting one of the possible results, with- out even attempting to remove any of the circumstances opposed to it, we might reverse the belief of the most accurate calculator. At each new suggestion, that particular result should grow bright- er and brighter. Expectation would thus soon be converted into certainty ; and despair itself would be lost in the continual con- templation and desire of the improbable good which was its object. 184 ) ON THE RELATION SECTION V. The general doctrine of belief, which we have been consid- ering, is introduced by Mr Hume to illustrate the particular in- stance of causation, as an object of belief. After two events have been observed by us often to succeed each other, he supposes that there is an easy transition of the mind, from one to the other ; and that in all such cases of easy transition to an object, " the mind reaches a steadier and stronger conception of it, than what other- wise it would have been able to attain." If his theory of belief, therefore, were just, it is obvious, that, admitting the fact as stated, we should indeed believe the second object to have real existence, but we should believe no more ; since the only effect of the transition is to give us that stronger and steadier concep- tion, on which belief of reality is supposed to depend. But the fact, as stated by Mr Hume, has no meaning : for how, by transi- tion, can the mind attain a steadier and stronger conception of an object, than it otherwise would have been able to attain, when the idea of an objectj to use his own sense of that term, can be attain- ed in no other way, than by such a transition as that described. There is, therefore, no possible ground of compdrison. If it he not absurd to talk of laws * of association, ideas do not rise by chance : and every idea, therefore, if it rise at all, must rise ac- cording to those very principles of association or transition, which all, it is contended, have the power of rendering our ideas more * The cases of transition, or association of ideas, are by Mr Hume divi- ded into three classes, of which one comprehends those which are considered by him as reducible to the relation of Cause and Effect. OP CAUSE AND EPrECT. vivid than they would have been, or, in other v?ords, more vivid than themselves, or more vivid than nonentities. But, even though there were ideas that might be supposed to arise without suggestion, and with which, therefore, suggested ideas might be compared, as of more strong and steady conception, Mr Home's theory of the influence of transition would be scarcely less nuga- tory, and would be equally inconsistent with other parts of his doc- trine. Instead of a single order of associations of causes and ef- fects, all associate ideas would in that case be accompanied with the belief of causation ; because all would " caijry the mind" to the conception of the correlative, and therefore. fix it in the con- ception with greater steadiness and strength. The sight of a per- son who resembles tiur friend, the sight of the place at which we parted from our friend, the sight of the book which our friend wrote, or the landscape which he painted, all agree in this res- pect, that they suggest to'us, by. immediate transition, the idea of our friend : and therefore, if the suggestion, and the consequent vividness of the suggested idea, were all by which an uniform se- quence produces in us i^e belief of causation, we should believe the relation of cause andvcffect to exist, between our friend and the person and the place, as. much as between our friend and the book and the landscape. V^ To suppose that any circumstance, which is not common to all these cases, is necessary to the belief, is to admit the inadequa- cy of the theory which reduces the belief itself to the vivifying in^ueiice of the mere transition ; and to suppose that nothing more is necessary, is to suppose, that all the objects of our thought, in our' endless day-dreams of memory and imagination, appear to us a series of effects, or of causes. Whether they should appear to us eifects or causes is, indeed, on Mr Hume's principles, impossible to be determined. The son suggests the father, and the father the son ; the artist suggests the picture, and the picture the art- ist : so that, if, previously to the supposed increase of liveliness of the ideas of suggestion, the two objects did not appear to us to be related' at all, the father and the artist might seem as much to have the relation of effects, as of causes, to the son and the pic- turfe ; the transition being of the same kind, and the liveliness of suggestion, therefore, being in both, cases the same. That we have no difficulty in either case, in distinguishing the effect from 24 186 ON THE RELATION the cause, is very true ; for the relation is one which is kaown to us as well before the particular suggestion as after it : but it is equally true, that if we were ignorant of the relation before, the influence of suggestion, which is all that Mr Hume points out, be- ing common to both suppositions, could not afford us the slightest aid in making the distinctive refeirence. In the Treatise of Human Nature, the objection that may be drawn from other cases of association is anticipated, and an at^ tempt is made to obviate its force, by reasonings which only as- sume, without e^tabKshing by the slightest evidence, that differ- ence in the mode of transition, which it was necessary to shew in the particular associations of , Cause and Effect, before an influence so peculiar was ascribed to the transition itself. , The preliminary part of the argument, which does nothing more, than repeat, in many words, that there are relations of cause and effect and of re- semblance and contiguity, I omit, and 'quote the only passages which have even the semblance of reasoning, A sort of line of distinction is attempted to be drawn between the relations. " Where, upon the appearance of an impression, we not only feiga another object,' but likewise arbitrarily, and of our mere goodwill and pleasure, give it a particular relation to the impression, this can have but a small effect upon the mind; nor is there any rea- son, why, upon the return of the same impression, we should be determined to place the same object in the same relation to it. There is no manner of necessity for the mind to feign any resem- bling and contiguous objects ; and if, it feigns such, there is as lit- tle necessity for it always to confine itself to the same, without any difference or variation." — " The relation of cause and effect, has all the opposite advantages. The objects it presents are fix- ed and unalterable. The impressions of the memory never change in any considerable degree ; and each impression draws alobg with it a precise idea, which takes its place in the imagination, as some- thing solid and real, certain and invariable. The thought is al- ways determined to pass from the impression to the idea, and from that particular impression to that particular .idea, without any choice or hesitation.*" It is obvious, that the distinction, which is thus attempted to • Vol. i. p. 193. OP CAUSE AND EFFECT. 187 be made, is wholly unwarranted by any difference in the particu- lar suggestions of Cause and Effect : for, in the ideas themselves, there is nothing that is peculiarly precise, and Solid, arid real ; nor can the external objects, if these are to be taken into account, be said to be more fixed and unalterable, when they suggest causa- tion, than when they suggest resemblance. The ideas suggested by resemblance are not less vivid ; nor is the mind, in its associa- tions, less influenced by that relation, than by the relation of cause and effect. There is, therefore, nothing, which can distinguish the cases of transition, unless we have a knowledge of the differ- ence, which is independent of the transition ; and if we have that previous knowledge, the supposed influence of the transition it- self must be allowed to be unnecessary. Mr Hume, indeed, seems to think, that there is a tendency in the mind, to pass uniformly from cause to effect, or from effect to cause, and not uniformly from resembling objects to each other : but there is no such pe- culiar tendency as is supposed ; the sight of an object suggesting sometimes its possible' effects, soihetimes its cause, and, at least as often, .suggesting some similar object, or some event which was once connected with it by m.ere casual nearness of time or place. Even though there were, however, a peculiar tendency to the transitions of cause and effect, it is not a general tendency, which, on Mr Hwme's principles, can have any influence on present belief, but merely the particular transition and the particular existing idea : and, whatever the species of suggestibn may be, there must alike be a transition from one idea to another. When we believe causation, it will be admitted, that we do not "arbitrarily, and of our mere good will and pleasure, give a particular relation to the impression," nor is there any "choice and hesitation" in the mere transition : but there is surely as little choice and hesita- tion, when a picture in our possession suggests to us the friend whom it resembles, as when it suggests to us the artist who paint- ed it. In neither case can we be said to feel a necessity of con- fining ourselves to one object : for the picture might have sug- gested many co-existing circumstances of place and time, as well as the subject or the artist. We believe undoubtedly, that the art- ist alone, not any other person, was the cause of the existence of the painting : but the reason of our beliefi of this causation is not a proof that Mr Hume's theory is true, but a proof that it is false ; 1^8 ON THE RELATION ' / the belief depending only on the known im-mediate sequence of the labour of the artist and the beautiful result, and being alto- gether independent of any subsequent transition and increased viv- idness of those particular ideas. Even if the transition were peculiarly uniform in the case of effects and causes, and in consequence of their uniformity, the " ideas" to which the transition is made were peculiarly steady and bright, they would still, -even when thus vivified, be less bright and steady than our " impressions ;" and therefore, if viv- idness alone were necessary to invest any n^w feeling, and the feeling that preceded it, with the relation of cause and effect, our external impressions, differing from our ideas in nothing but great- er liveliness, should seem, whenever they disturb the course of our trains of thought, in the wildest reverie, to have the relation of efficiency, in one or other of its characters, to that object, the idea of which immediately preceded the sensation or perception of the extlernal object. Mr Hume, indeed, very inconsistently finds in the successions of . ideas -something more than ideas whicii succeed. In considering them, he loses all his unwillingness to discover conraeaicm. The transition itself, frotfi one idea to aoiother^ he supposes to be felt, as if it wers a third thing, and from this felt relatiofi, our idea of power to be derived. '' This connexion, therefore, which we feel in the mind, this customary transition of the imagination from one object to its usual attendant, is the sentiment or impression from which we form the idea of power or necessary connexion, " When many uniform instances appear, and'the same object is al- w^ays followed by the same event, we then begin to entertain the notion of cause and connexion. We then feel a new sentiment or impression, to-wit, a customary connexion in the thought or imag- ination between one object and its usual attendant ; and this senti- ment is the original of that idea which we seek for." But it is ev- ident, that, though A may have suggested B a thousand times> a customary connexion is no moreye/< between these two ideas, than between any two events ; if the word connexion be used to signi- fy more than mere order in time. They are still, to use Mr Hume's language, only conjoined, as proximjtte in a sequence. We know only that B has followed A a thousand times ; and neither A ■| J OP CAUSE AND EFFECT. 18d nor B is " the idea of necessary connexion." B may be suggest- ed by A ; but we are conscious only of A, and afterwards of B, not of the suggestion, nor of any thing intermediate. It is by reflec- tion only, we know that they are proximate in order, as we know that the changes of external things have an order in which they too are proximate : but this is all which we know in either case ; and the proximity is not closer between our ideas than between the changes of external things, nor the belief of their future proximity more strong, or less intuitive. To find in the knowledge of any past sequence, even of that of our own. thoughts, a prototype of the belief of future invariable sequence is impossible. There is an assumption to be found in the belief, but not a copy. That, after the customary sequence of two ob- jects, "the mind upon the appearance of one anticipates the senses, and forms immediately the idea of the other," is of no moment. This, if it be any thing more than mere memory, is, at most, only expectation ; and the idea, or copy, of this impression, is not pow- er, for that is something more, but is only a fainter expectation or a remembrance of expectation. In short, Mr Hume's account of the origin of the idea qf power either proceeds on the existence of the idea of pawer, in our previous belief, or supposes it to be a copy of that from which it is completely different. It is enough for us to know, that the belief of similar antecedence and sequence is intuitive ; — that our idea of power arises from our belief of that future similarity- of events, or rather is involved in the belief, and is only the feeling of invariable antecedence, attached to a par- ticular object, in reference to another object, as its invariable consequent. It thus appears, that, as the circubistances, supposed by Mr Hume to be peculiar to the phenomena which we term Causes and Effects, are, on his own principles, common to them with all the other phenomena of mind, all those phenomena, or none, should be accompanied with the belief of causation. Unless he have previously taken for granted a distinction of certain objects only as causes and effects, his attempted explanation must be un- intelligible ; and, if he have previously taken it for granted^ his attempted explanation is useles^. The truth is, that .every en- deavour to explain what is- allowed to be intuitive is a species of 190 ON THE RELATION • trifling, which may assume the semblahpe of philosophical analy- sis, but which never can be philosophy. ' A simple statement is all which is allowable in such a case ; and, though Mr Hume's la- boured " Solution" were as true as it is false, the same difiiculty, which his acuteness before pointed out, would follow his reason- ing through all its steps : for, whether the ideas be faint or vivid, the resemblance of the future to the past, the great and only cir- cumstance which perplexes us, must still be assumed, not inferred from preceding phenomena. Against the possibility of such a theory as that which makes the belief of Power to depend on mere vividness of conception, Nature seemed to have suflSciently guarded, by giving us, with- out any reference to causation involved in them, successions of trains of ideas,- of every variety of liveliness, fro^ the full force of vivid perception, to the faintest shadowings of remembrance. What innumerable images arise every hour to the most unpoetic fancy -y and how small a part of life is composed of the actual perceptions of external objects ! Resemblances, contrasts, a thou- I sand circumstances of analogy, or of the events of other hours and other places, are perpetiJally calling us away from the objects that would arrest our senses, to that ideal universe within. In which the past the present and the future mingle without distinc- tion of time and place, or fade and rise again to exist as they ex- isted before. But, while we wander, as if led along by some in- tellectual enchantment, in this fairy world of thought, we are not always philosophizing, and fixing every new idea, as the effect of a preceding one. The brightness with which they rise, far from involving such a constant exercise of speculative precision, serves only to make our reverie longer, and the illusion, while it contin- ues, more painful, or more delightful. How, then, it will perhaps be Said, w'as Mr Hume able to de- ceive even himself? The question is a natural one, with respect to an error so obvious ; and yet, if we attend sufficiently to the sources of self-illusion in the mind, we may find it to be a very probable inference, that the greatness of the error was the very circumstance which- prevented the error itself from being per- ceived by him. If the belief of iy)wer had been less universally and irresistibly impressive, he would have perceived more clear- OP CAUSE AND EFFECT. 191 ly the insufficiency of bis explanation of it. But the feeling of the relation is so immediate, and so little in need of any compli- cated circumstances, to evolve it, that, having always "in his own mind a clear intuitive notion of it, he did not feel how inadequate the circumstances in his own statement were, to account for the original production of a belief, which, as never absent from his thought, admitted therefore of easier extension to any circumstan- ces in which he might consider himself as finding it. It may be concluded, then, that firmness and liveliness of con- ception ought not to form any part of a theory of the belief of causation. The consideration of' events, as immediately prior- and subsequent, is all which is necessary to the belief, that, in the sane circumstances in future, the priority and subsequence of the phenomena observed by us will uniformly be the same. Such, at least, was probably the original state of the mind ; and such it would have continued, had only one event succeeded one event. The mode in which this original tendency to belief of the uni- formity of- particular sequences is weakened, was stated in a former Section, in which I explained, how Mr Hume had erred, by confining his attention exclusively to the secondary opera- tion of experience. It was then shewn, that the effect of the increase of knowledge which experience gives, is different in different stages: that its first tendency is to diminish the belief of future similarity of the order of the events observed, by giving us reason to suspect, that we may have observed, in apparent sequence, parts of different co-existing trains ; that, however, even the doubt which follows, is not, whether an event be an effect of o preceding one, but merely, of what preceding event ■ it is the effect ; that to aid our determination, in this respect, is the secondary operation of experience, which informs us, in what particular cases we have not been disappointed in our original expectation ; and that, with' the frequent renewal of this confirmation, our doubt or suspense is gradually lessened, and at I^st, perhaps, wholly removed. The belief becomes then what it would primarily have been, if there had been no complication of phenomena in nature, but the simple sequence of one phenomenon after anbther phenomenon ; the effect of this complex experience having been only to free the raind 192 ON THE RELATION from the supposition of possibilities of mistake which never could have been suspected, even as possibilities, but for experieute itself, that corrects, in one stage of observation,, the erring con- jectures, to which, in another stage, it had given birth. eP CAUSE AND EFTECT. I93 SECTION VI. In the preceding statement of Mr Hume's theory of Power, and the endeavour to discriminate those parts of it which alone deserve our approbation, the office of philosophic criticism might seem to be fulfilled. But it is not enough, to have shewn what his theory is : the universal misconception of it renders it neces- sary, to shew also what it is not. The author of the Essay, " oa the idea of necessary connexion," has been uniformly represent- ed, as denying the existence of the very idea of necessary connex- ion ; and though so many years have elapsed, since the publica- tion of the work which contained his inquiry into the origin of the idea of power, it is still necessary to shew, that the word power is not considered by him as altogether without meaning. That he does maintain it to be a word altogether without meaning, is the positive assertion of Dr Reid, and of the other philosophers by whom the doctrine was originally opposed ; and this opinion, un- der the authority of respectable names, has become in our Schools of Metaphysics a sort of traditionary article of faith, and of won- der at the possible extent of human scepticism, so as to preclude even that very slight examination, which alone seems necessary to confute it. That we have no idea of power whatever, which can enable us to form any distinction of the sequences of events, as casual or invariable, is, indeed, so completely opposite to the feelings of ■ 2S 194 ON THE RELATION which every mind is at almost every moment conscious, that the presumption is very strong, against the possibility of such an opin- ion. In the case of Mr Hume, this presumption is verified. He does not deny, that we have an idea o( power or of invariable pri- ority in sequences : he denies only that we can perceive or infer it, as inherent in the subjects of a sequence. All onr ideas, I have already frequently said, are considered by him, as copies of impressions. A very simple syllogism has there- fore been formed for him, to express briefly the result of his in- quiry : We have no idea which is not a copy of some impression ; we have no impression of power ; we therefore have no idea of power. The major proposition of this ^syllogism is unquestionably main- tained by him : and by those, who know nothing more of Mr Hume's doctrine, than that he held that proposition, and had also some peculiar sceptical opinions on the subject of power, the remaining propositions of the syllogism may be readily supposed to have formed a part of his theory. But, when the mind has not beeii prepossessed by such an inference, it seems scarcely possible to read with ordinary attention the Essays on the subject, without perceiving, that the minor and the conclusion should be reversed. The syllogism, which is truly involved in the reasoning of those Essays, is the following : We have no. idea which is not a copy of some impression; but we have an idea of power; there must therefore be some impression, from which that' idea is derived. The major proposition, as we have seen, is drawn from too narrow an induc- tion, or is founded on a vague and very fallacious definition of the word Idea : but the mode, in which it has rendered his subsequent reasoning inaccurate, is very different from what has been suppos- ed. It has not led him to deny the idea of power, or the belief itselfj as a feehng of the mind ; but it has led him,, from the ne- cessity of finding its corresponding " impression," to satisfy him- self with a very erroneous theory of the "idea," and to imagine, that he had discovered its real prototype, where, but for the sup- posed necessity of finding a prototype of some sort, he could not have imagined that he had discovered the similarity that is stat- ed by him. In his Essays on the subject, Mr Hume advances first his " Scep- tical Doubts," in which he establishes (he impossibility of per- ceiving or inferring any necessary connection in the parts of a se- OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 195 quence, — an impossibility, which seems to render power a word without meaning. He then offers his " Sceptical Solution of these Doubts," in which he argues that power is not a word with- out meaning, since we have an impression, from which it may be supposed to be copied, in the feeling of a customary connection of ideas, by which, after the experience of the sequence of two events, the mind passes readily from the idea of oiie to the idea of the other. That the Sceptical Solution^ which asserts the actual existence of the idea of power is, by being the subject of a new Section, separated from the Meptical Doubts^ which assert the seeming non-existence of the idea of power, cannot, surely disqual- ify it from being considered as a part of the theory, which is com- posed of both ; and indeed, in the single Section " Of the idea of necessary connection," they are recapitulated, in one continuous argument. Yet, by an oversight that is altogether unaccountable, Dr ReId, and the other writers who have considered Mr Hume's theory, neglect the solution of the doubts, as if it formed no part of the theory, and thus gain an easy triumph over a scepticism, which its author himself had been the first to overthrow. It is surely no very uncommon mode of analytic disquisition, to proceed, step by step, in search of a particular elementj supposed to be present ; to remark at intervals, that there as yet seems to be no such element, but that in our remaining progress we shall perhaps discover it ; and afterwards, when some new circumstan- ces evolve it to us to conclude with remarking, that we have now discovered the element which we sought : yet, in all such cases, if a part of the analysis were considered alone, when the impor- tant discovery had not yet been made, the indisputable inference would be, that the existence of the supposed elemenJ was denied by the sceptical inquirer. The mode of investigation described is exactly that which Mr Hume has pursued. His inquiry is into the source of the universal belief of caiisation.* He first seeks the » " All reasonings concerning matter of fact, seem to be founded on the relation of Cause and Effect." " Here it is constantly supposed, that there is a connection between the present fact, and that which is inferred from it." " If we would satisfy ourselves, therefore, concerning the nature of that evidence, which assures us of matters of fact, we must inquire how we ar- rive at the knowledge of cause and effect."— Sceptical Doubts. 19(5 ON THE RELATION' source of the idea of necessary connection, in single instances of sequence : but in these he observes only one ev«nt preceding an-, other, without being able to perceive any circumstance, from ■which he can infer similarity of their future successions : and the doubts^ therefore, which arise at this stage of .the inquiry, may truly, at this stage of inquiry, be considered as well-founded ; since perception and reasoning are evidently as incapable as he states them to be, of Shewing us what the nnexisting future is to present, and therefore of aifording us the notion of Power, which compre- hends the future as well as the past. " All events seem entirely loose and separate. One event follqws another ; but we never can observe any tie between them. They seem conjoined, but never connected. And as we can have no idea of any thing, which never appeared to our outward sense or inward sentiment, the ne- cessary conclusion seems to be, that we have no idea of connexion or power at all, and that these words are absolutely without any meaning, when employed either in philosophical reasonings, or common life. But there still remains one method or. avoiding THIS CONCLUSION, AND ONE SOURCE WHICH WE HAVE KOT YET EXAMINED. When any natural object or event is presented, it is impossibly for us, by any sagacity or penetration, to discover, or even conjecture, ■without experience, what event will result from it, or to carry our foresight beyond that object which is immediately present, to the memory and senses. Even after one instance or experiment, ■where we have observed a particular event to follow upon an- other, we are not entitled to form a general rule, or foretel what ■will happen in like cases ; it being justly esteemed an unpardona- ble temerity to judge of the whole course of nature from one sin- gle experiment, however accurate or certain. But when one par- ticular species of event has alwaysi, in aU instances, been conjoined ■with another, we make no longer any scruple of foretelling one upon, the appearance of the other, and of employing, that reasoning, which can alone assure us of any matter of fact or existence. We then call the one object, cause ; the other, effect. We suppose, that there is SOME connexion BETWEEN THEM ; SOME POWER IN THE ONE, BY VTHICH IT infallibly PRODUCES THE OTHER, AND OPERATES WITH THE GREATEST CERTAINTY AND STRONGEST NECESSITY. It appears, then, that THIS IDEA OF A KfiCESSAKY CONNEXION AMoNp EVENTS arises from a number OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 197 of similar instances, which occur, of the constant conjunction of these events." It is indeed most strange, that he who thus endeavours to shew, how the idea of necessarjf connexion arises, should be the very persop who is asserted and believed to deny, that we have any idea of necessary connexion, which can thus arise. He pro- ceeds to point out more particularly the original impression, in that connexion of the ideas of objects which he supposes to be felt by the mind, after experience of their sequence, and remarks, in a passage already quoted : " This connexion therefore which we feel in the mind, this customary transition of the imagination from one object to its usual attendant, is the sentiment or impres- sion FROM WHICH WE FORM THE IDEA OF POWER OR NECESSARY CONNEX- ION." ^ If it be still requisite, to produce further evidence of his ac- knowledgment of the idea of power, it may be found, in the short summary of the whole doctrine, with which he concludes • the. Essay. " To recapitulate, therefore, the reasonings of this section ; every idea is copied from some preceding impression or sentiment ; and where we cannot find any impression, we may be certain that there is no idea. In all single instances of the opera- tion of bodies or minds, there is nothing that produces any impres- sion, nor consequently can suggest any idea, of power or necessa- ry connexion. But when many uniform instances appear, and the same object is always followed by the same event ; we then begin TO entertain the notion or cause and connexion. We then feel a new sentiment or impression, to-wit, a customary connexion in the thought or imagination between one object and its usual attend- ant ; AND THIS sentiment is the original of that idea which we seek for." The whole argument is nothing more, than an expan- sion of that syllogism, which I proposed, as the key to Mr Hume's speculations in his Essays on the subject : We have no idea which is not a copy of some impression ; we have an idea of power ; there is therefore an impression of it, to be .somewhere found. Since the doctrine was not originally delivered by Mr Hume, in the form, in which it now appears in his Essays, it may perhaps be thought, that some considerable change was made in it, and that, originally, it may have been such, as with reason to give rise to the opinion of it, which still prevails- But, if we examine 198 ON THE RELATION the Treatise of Human Nature, we shall find the doctrine to be the same in this respect, — implying the belief of the idea of pow- er, as a feeling to which the mind is in certain circumstances ne- cessarily determined, and appearing sceptically, at certain stages, to doubt its existence, only because at certain stages the suppo- sed requisite prototype has not been found. The Section " Of the idea of necessary connexion,''^ commences with the following summa- ry : " Having thus explained the manner, in whichwe reason beyoni our immediate impressions, and conclude that such particular causes must have such particular effects ; we must now return upon our footsteps to examine that question which first occurred to us, and which we dropped in our way, viz. what is our idea of necessity^ "when we say that two objects are necessarily connected together. Upon this head I repeat, what I have often had occasion to ob- serve, that as we have no idea, that is not derived from an im- pression, we must find some impression, that gives rise to this idea of necessity, if we assert we have really such an idea. In order to this, I consider, in what objects necessity is commonly suppo- se4 to be ; and finding that it is always ascribed to causes and ef- fects, I turn my eye to two objects supposed to be placed in that relation; and examine them in all the situations of which they are susceptible. I immediately perceive that they are contiguous in time and place, and that the object we call cause, precedes the other we call eifect. In no one instance can I. go any farther, nor is it possible for me to discover any third relation betwixt these objects. I therefore enlarge my view to comprehend several in- stances ; where I find like objects always existing in like relations of contiguity and successidn. It first sight this seems to serve but little to my purpose. The reflection on several instances only re- peats the same objects ; and therefore can never give rise to a new idea. But upon farther inquiry I find, that the repetition is not in every particular the same, bpt produces a new impression ; AND BY THAT MEANS TH^ IDEA, WHICH I AT PRESENT EXAMINE, ■ For af- ter a frequent repetition, I find, that upon the appearance of one of the objects, the mind is determined by custom to consider its usu- al attendant, and to consider it in a stronger light upon account of its relation to the first object. It is this impression, then, or deter' mination, which affords me the idea of necessity." In various other passages of the Treatise, the existence of the idea of power or OP CAUSE AND EFFECT. 199 necessary connexion is equally admitted ; and, even when doubts of its existence are expressed, they are qualified by phrases, that limit the application of the doubt to those mere words o'f mystery, which our scholastic nomenclature has combined with the expres- sion of the simple fact of the belief of invariableness of antece- dence, in the order of the phenomena of Nature. The history of the origin of the idea of power, which is thus delivered by Mr Hume, is as I have endeavoured to shew in a for- mer part of this work, altogether inaccurate and inadmissible. The belief of power is an original feeling, intuitive and immediate on the perception of change ; not borrowed from any resemblance in the transitions of thought. But, whether the theory nf power advan- ced by him be a just theory^ is one question : whether he deny that we have any idea of power, is another question. He may be right in the latter question, and be as wrong as I conceive him to be in the former. An error in the former question does not necessarily involve any dangerous consequences ; for, if we be irresistibly de- termined, as he allows, to ascribe to the antecedent in a sequence that invariableness of priority which constitutes power, we have all which is necessary for any physical or moral, or theological arguments, that are founded on the belief of power. The denial of the very idea of any permanent relation, in the latter question, however, would necessarily involve the most dangerous conse- quences ; for, if we could conceive it possible, that a doctrine so false to the first principles of our nature should be adopted by any one, it would immediately deprive him of that foresight of the fu- ture which is necessary for the physical purposes of life, and of all the consolation and peace, and happiness, and virtue, of a filial se- curity in the existence of the Father and Sovereign of the Uni- verse. Jt is, therefore, no common misrepresentation of a theo- ry, to ascribe to it falsely a denial of the idea of power ; and to ascribe it. to the theory of Mr Hume is assuredly a misrepresenta- tion. The circumstances, which Dr Reid has urged, in opposition to this almost inconceivable scepticism, which he ascxibes to Mr Hume, are, we shall accordingly find, equally consistent with the theory which he wished to overthrow, as with that which he has himself asserted. Nor is this harmony of the theories at all won- derful : for, that we are determined irresistibly to the belief of 200 ON THE RELATION invariabkness of antecedence, is allowed by Mr Htime, — that our be-' lief of poajer is intuitive, is the opinion of Dr Reid, — and, howev- |er opposite his language may be, inv'ariableness of antecedence is •the very power for which Dr Reid contends. His arguments for the existence of the' idea of power, therefore, instead of being, as he supposed, demonstrative of fallacy in the negative part of Mr Hume's reasoning, must be allowed to form a strong additional sup- port of its truth; since it will appear, on examination, that the be- lief of invariableness of antecedence is all which is essentially com- prised in those very arguments, that arfe adduced as involving necessarily the existence of the idea of power. To prove the one, is, indeed, to prove the other ; but it is not to aflford the slightest proof of any thing additional. For the purpose of examination, I copy from Dr Reid the par- agraph, in which he recapitulates his arguments. " The arguments 1 have adduced, are taken from these five topics : 1. That there are many things' that we can affirm or de- ny concerning power, with understanding. 2. That there are, in all languages, words signifying, not only power, but signifying many other things that imply power, such as action and passion, cause and effect, energy, operation, and others. 3. That in the structure of all languages, there is an active and passive form in verbs and participles, and a different construction adapted to these forms, of which diversity no account can be given, but that it has been intended to distinguish action from pas'sion. 4. That there are many operations of the human mind familiar to every man come to the use of reason, and necessary in the ordinary conduct of life, which imply a conviction of some degree of power in our- selves and in others. 5. That the desire of power is one of the strongest passions of human nature.*" It is scarcely possible to read these arguments, vrithout per- ceiving immediately, that they confound loose and variable with invariable sequences. If there be any bold sceptic, who denies that we fexpect, in future, a similarity of result, from circumstan- ces similar to the past, the force of the proof must be allowed to be irresistible : but it is of no force, when directed against that very different theory, which allows that we are determined, by the very nature of our mind, to expect, in all future time, ffom similar circumstances, a similarity of result. * Essays on the Active Powers, Ess. i. chap. 2. OP CAUSE AND EPFEeX. 201 That there are " many things which we can affirm or deny concerning power, with understanding," is an evident consequence of this principle. We may say of a loadstone, that it has the pow- er of attracting iron, which gold has not ; because we have ob- served the past difference of the sequence, when, after making the experiment with gold, a loadstone was substituted, and be- cause we believe, that the approach of a loadstone will continue to be followed by the motion of iron, which gold, as before, will suffer to remain at rest. In like manner we rely on the muscu- lar strength of one man, as greater than the strength of another, because we have seen the one to sink beneath a burthen, which the other sustained with ease. We expect again what we have before observed in the same circumstances ; but we do not ex- pect, in these circumstances, what we did not observe before. The minor observations on Power, included by Dr Reid in the reasonings of this primary argument, may perhaps be thought to deserve our attention. " 1. Power is not an object of any of our external senses, nor even an object of consciousness." This agrees completely with what has been stated in Mr Hume's Scep- tical Doubts. " 2. A second observation is, That as there are some things of which we have a direct, and others of which we have -only a relative conception,power belongs to the latter class. — Our conception of power is relative to its exertions, or effects. Power is one thing ; its exertion is another thing." This is on- ly to say, that invariableness of antecedence is one thing, and one single fact of antecedence is another thing. " 3. It is evident that power is a quality, and cannot exist without a subject to which it belongs." Assuredly there can be no invariableness of sequence, without antecedents and consequents. " 4. We cannot conclude the want of power from its not being exerted ; nor from the ex- ertion of a less degree of power, can we conclude that there is no greater degree in the subject." Invariableness of Sequence is supposed, when the preiiious circumstances are similar ; but we can- not predict events, when the circumstances are different. From the mere silence of any one, we cannot infer that he is dumb, in consequence of organic imperfection. He may be silent, only be- cause he has no desire of speaking, not because speech would not have followed his desire ; and it is not with the mere existence of any one, but with his desire of speaking, that we suppose utter- 26 202 ON THE RELATION ance to be connected. A nian, who has no desire of speaking, has truly, if we are to express ourselves with strict philosophic pre- cision, no power of speaking, as long as the mind continues in that state ; since he has not the circutnstance, which, as always imme- diately prior, is essential to speech,' as much as any other antece- dent is essential to any other consequent ; but, since he has that power, as soon as the new circumstance of desire arises, and since the presence or absence of the desire cannot be perceived but in its eflfects, there is no inconvenience in the common language, which ascribes the power of utterance as a faculty possessed at all times, and in all circumstances of the mind ; though, unques- tionably, nothing more is meant, in this more extensive reference, than that the desire, when it exists, will be followed by the words which correspond with it. " 5. There are some qualities that have a contrary, others that have not ; Power is a quality of the latter kind." This is a proposition of no value, and has no rela- tion to the general argument. In all languages, there must be such words as action^ passion, cause, effect. Sic. if in all nations the sequences of events be suppo- sed to be invariable. 'That, which existing is always, followed by a change, is very different from that of which the change always follows something prior ; and it; therefore, is not wonderful that different names should have been invented, to express the differ- ence. But^he deflagration of gunpowder will be expected from the contact of a spark, with equal certainty, whether we say, that aspark, in such circumstances, is always followed hy deflagra- tion, or, merely using different words, say, that the spark has an active power of deflagrating gunpowder. To the same principle are to be traced the different forms of verbs. A spark kindles gunpowder : gunpowder is kindled by a spark. It is as little wonderful, that there should be active and passive verbs, as that there should be such words, as before and after, first and second. We proceed on the belief of power, both in ourselves and others, because we proceed on the belief, that similar circumstan- ces will have similar results. I resolve to walk with my friend ; for I believe, that my desire of moving my limbs will be followed by their motion : I trust, that my friend will accompany me ; for I believe, that in him there will be a similar sequence of motions OP CAUSE AND. ErFECf . 203 to volitions, ^nd that the separate volitions or desires, which pre- cede the separate motions, will follow his general expressed in- tention, in the same manner as they have usually followed it. Ambition is the desire of power ; and ambition is a passion that is felt by us. But the desire of power is nothing; more than the desire of being obeyed : and we trust, that, in certain circum- stances, we shall be obeyed by the multitude ; because we have observed the circumstances which have led to obedience, and be- lieve that similar motives of fear and hope will continue to be followed, on their part, by similar actions. Since we are capable of anticipating those sequences of human conduct, it is not more wonderful, that power should be desired, and that there should thus be a passion of ambition, than that food should be desired by the hungry or by the luxurious, who expect from it the same relief from uneasiness, and the same pleasure, which they remember to have received from it before. Such are the arguments of Dr Reid, which, though they may be allowed to prove, if proof were necessary, that we do not re- gard the successions of events as altogether irregular, cannot sure- ly be considered, as establishing any relation, which is not impli- ed in the theory of Mr Hume, and in every theory, which proceeds on an irresistible determination of the mind to the belief of unifor- mity of order in the physical changes of the universe. Power is only a Shorter synonymous expression of invariableness of antece- dence : and the invariableness is not any thing separable or distin- guishable from the antecedents and consequents themselves. In all the changes which the substances in nature undergo, the sub- stances themselves alone have any real existence ; and what we , term Power, in the anticipation of any future change, is itself the antecedent substance, or it is nothing; 204 ON THE KELATION SECTION VII. That Mr Hume, in regarding ourbelief of power as intuitive, and yet considering " the idea pf necessary connexion," which is only that belief itself, to be derived from another " impression," had not fixed in his own mind with due precision the meaning of his terms, and was not aware how little reason there is to apply the term Sceptical to any theory of Causation, which, allowing the invariableness of events as antecedent and consequent, allows truly every thing that has been understood in the more mysteri- ous phrases of Efficiency emploj'ed by other writers,: — is, I think, very evident, from the clearer analysis which as I Halter myself. I have given, both of the belief itself, and of the circumstances which evolve it : but, that he does believe the mind to be deter- mined irresistibly to a feeling of the relation of Cause and Effect, is not less true on account of the seeming want of exactness in his terms, or in his conception of the circumstances in which alone he suppcfses the feeling to arise. If however, our belief of power be shewn to depend, not on perception, nor on reason, but on an instinctive determination of the mind, may not this statement, it will perhaps be objected, give rise to the denial of power, and may not atheism itself, with all its guilt and wretchedness, be made to flow from it ? To loose and superficial thinkers, such an objection may be supposed very OF CAUSE AND ErPECT. 205 readily to occur : but it will not be the objection of a mind that has been accustomed to philosophical inquiry, and that has attend- ed to the nature of the evidence on which all inquiry ultimately rests. If the intuitive belief be fallacious, it must be admitted, in- deed, that there is then no power ; but, if such belief be falla- cious, is there power, whatever be our theory ? Is not the truth of our perception, the truth of our reasonings, and every imagina- ble truth, dependent, more or less directly, on some principle of the same kind ; — and is the supposed danger to be confined to one theory, if it be impossible, even for our imagination, to devise ano- ther, to which exactly the same objection would not be equally ap- plicable ? Let us suppose, that, instead of Mr Hume's negations, every proposition had been affirmative : let us first suppose him to have maintained power to be discoverable o priori, — in short, to be per- ceived like light and sound ; would the truth of this statement, even though it were to be instantly admitted by every mind, be absolute and independent, or rather, would it not still be depend- ent on a principle, involved in the very belief that is attached to perception ? Is it an absurd and unintelligible proposition, that the external substances, which we consider as perceived by us, do not exist ; or that, if there be substances without us, they may be different in every respect, from what we suppose them to be ? It is a proposition, I own, to which no one assents : but it is a con- ceivable proposition ; and the only reason of our withholding our assent is, that, from a principle of our very nature, we find it im- possible not to believe, during the state of mind which is termed Perception, that we are perceiving realities, and that the reali- ties, which we perceive, exist as we perceive them. In like man- ner, it is a conceivable proposition, that, notwithstanding the most frequent and uniform proximity in the succession of two objects, the relation of cause and eflfect, or of future invariable sequence, may not exist between them : but it is a proposition which, in like manner, we cannot believe ; and the only reason of our disbelief is, that, from a principle of our nature, we find it impossible, in such circumstances, not to believe the uniformity. Let us next suppose, that Mr Hume had maintained the rela- tion to be discoverable by a process of reasoning, and that the truth of his theory was admitted by us as logically demonstrated ; 206 ' ON THE RELATION Could we say of the truth, even then, that it is in the strictest sense of the terms, absolute and indeptndent of all imaginable coiitingeit- cy, or must it not, in this case also, be allowed to depend, in every stage of the reasoning", on the primary validity of some principle, which does not result from the argument, but gives the argument 'itself all the force which it possesses ? That the pro- positions between which we think that we perceive the most ex^ act agreement, so as to infer with certainty, that what is true of the one must be equally true of the other, may yet have differen- ces unknown to us, and incapable of being discovered by our lim- ited faculties, but sufficient to vitiate the conclusion, which, from our ignorance of those differences, we believe that we have drawn with perfect accuracy, is not an unintelligible proposition ; and why, in any particular instance, do we not assent to it ? It is not from the perceived agreement of any other propositions ; for the , belief of these must have proceeded on the same assumption : it is only because, by a principle of our nature, we find it impossible not to believe the absolute truth of that which we can know only^ as relative to the faculties which we possess. Is the principle of this belief less a principle of intuition, than that by which we are led inevitably to the belief of the relation of cause and effect? Is it alone universal, and the other partial ? Or, if there be degrees, have we not rather a more undoubting belief, that any phenome- non perceived by us is an effect of some preceding change, than that the result of any of our logical inferences from the appear- ances of things is absolutely true ? It is conceivable, without any difference of the sequence of the mental phenomena which form the whole of our consciousness, that man might have been created capable of perceiving, or rather of imagining that he per- ceiyed, external qualities, where there are none, — of inferring agreement where there is none, — of supposing causation, where there is none. He cannot think, that he was so created, in any one of these three cases ; but that he cannot, is, in all the three cases, and in all alike, owing to a principle of belief which is pri- mary and independent of argument. What, then, are we to say of the danger of negations, whicb remains exactly the same, when the negations are reversed? If, indeed, the ultimate evidence be of the same kind, the possibility of mistake is not diminished, but increased, by the number of consecutive propositions ; and, or CAUSE AND ErPECT. 207 therefore, if the belief of power were supposed to arise from a process of ratiocination, not from an immediate and irresistible de- termination of the mind, it would still be as dependent as now on some primary intuition, and would have no other difference, than that of being a little more liable to mistake. It may be remarked als'o, of the demonstrations of reasoning, that, in addition to the general principle that determines to the ' belief of the agreement of the separate propositions, there is al- ways some primary proposition, of which the truth is as much as- sumed as that of causation, which serves as the basis of the propo- sitions that follow ; and without the assumption of the truth of which, as independent of the argument that follows it, there must either be an infinite series of propositions, or no belief whatever. The. force of the objection is thus doubled, or more than doubled, when applied to any theory, which derives the belief of power from a process of reasoning. To ascribe the origin of the belief to a principle of intuition, it appeaas then, is, if the intuition be real, to fix it on the firmest possible foundation. Whatever may he thought of the truth of such a reference, it is surely not to be Confounded with that vain and frivolous scepticism, which would affect- to deny the reality of , the belief itself : and yet, it has been so confounded by the oppo- nents of Mr Hume, who uniformly argue, as if, not content with denying the possibility of perceiving, a priori, or of inferring by reason, the invariable future sequence of any two objects, he had denied also, that such a sequence is an object of our belief. The misconception of this part of his doctrine has been already, how- ever, pointed out. The universality of the intuition, and the ir- resistible influence on our reasoning and conduct, with which it is accompanied, are stated by him in the fullest and liveliest manner, and are, in truth, as has been shewn, the very difficulty, which inconsistently, but industriously, be labours to solve. It would not be easy indeed, to imagide language on the sub- ject, stronger and more explicit, than that of Mr Hume himself. " This belief," he observes, " is the necessary result of placing the mind in such circumstances. It is an operation of the soul, when we are so situated, as unavoidable as to feel the passion of love, when we receive benefits ; or hatred when we meet with injuries. All these operations are a species of natural instincts, 208 ON THE RELATION which no reasoning or process of the thovight and understanding is able, either to produce or to prevent."* On whatever principle the force of experience depend, " none but a fool or a madman," he says, " will ever pretend to dispute the authority of experience, or to reject that great guide of hu- man life." His scepticism, therefore, as to the relation of cause and effect, — if the suspicious name of scepticism must be given to a question of the justest philosophic analysis, — consists, not in de- nying any one of our first principles, but in tracing'to one of them, as its ultimate source, the force of our various reasonings on the uniformity of the order of Nature. When Berkeley, not content with hesitating as to the grounds of our belief in an external world, boldly denied its existence, what dangerous consequences might have been supposed to- flow from the denial ! How absurd, it might be said, did all social vir- tue become, to man, who was to be forever in a state of solitude ; aad what magnificent argumefits for the existence of a Deity were annihilated in the general desolation produced by a few proposi- tions ! These desolating propositions it is not easy for mere log- ic to confute : yet no evil consequence can flow from them ; be- cause they are opposed by feelings, akin to those which are the ultimate source of all conviction, and paramount to demonstration itself. The principle, by which, in the state of mind that is term- ed perception, we consider our sensations as marks of the exis- tence of an external world, has a force too powerful to be weak- ened by any theory ; and even the celebrated sceptic who oppos- ed it, inconsistently but amiably pious and benevolent, was, at the time of his opposition,, so completely under its influence, as to de- liver his theory, professedly for the confutation of those very freethinkers and atheists, whose actual existence his theory, if rigidly examined, might be considered almost as denying, or at least as rendering in the highest degree doubtful. When we address a philosopher, who speculatively has no doubt that it is to a principle of this kind alone our sensations are evidence of things external, we believe, as much as when we ad- dress the vulgar, that he will be moved by the reasonings which are founded on the belief of external things ; because it is his be- * Essays, Sect. v. Part I, OP CAUSE AND EFFECT. 209 lief alone, not the source of it, which we address. If that belief be the same, whether it be intuitiTe,or demonstrative, his judgments, and emotions and actions will be the same. He will approve and dis- approve, and hate, and fear, and despise, and love, alike in either case. In the same manner, if a philosopher believe'the relation of cause and effect, every reasoning founded on that belief will be the same, whether the evidence of the relation, as felt in its ir- resistible force, be intuitive or demonstrative ; and we have ex- _actlx the same reason to fear, that the common duties of social life will be altogether omitted by him, because he regards as intu- itive his belief of the external existence of the persons and places, and things to which his duties relate, as that he will deny any power whatever, because he regards as intuitive his belief of the relation of Cause and Effect. How many perplexities are involved, in the whole doctrine of infinities! Yet we do not less believe the doctrine of the infinite divisibility of matter, because the most ludicrous absurdities may be inferred from it. It may be proved unanswerably, as far as mere logic is concerned, that no portion of the earth's surface, , however small in appearance, can ever be traversed by a moving body, however rapid its motion may be : for, to pass from one ' point to another, some time, however small, is requisite ; and therefore,'Since the space supposed is infinitely divisible, to pass over an infinite number of parts must require an infinite number of times. Yet, though the conclusion be logically irresistible, it is a conclusion, at which we smile only, without admitting it ; and we certainly should be astonished at the zeal of any devout theolo- gian, who should be shocked with the dangerous consequences of the doctrine of the infinite divisibility of matter, because it might be shewn from it, that the Children of Israel must have spent a whole eternity, before they could have passed through the wilder- ness, or even through the Red Sea. There are principles inde- pendent of reasoning, in the mind, which save it from the occa- sional follies of its own ratiocinations. By these, we can believe, where there is no argument, and" can disbelieve, where there is argument, without a single demonstrative imperfection. It is from them, indeed, as we have, seen, that every argument derives its force; and therefore, if there were no belief without reason* ^27 210 ON THE RELATION inff there could be no reasoning whatever, and Demonstration it- self would be a word altogether meaningless. In ascribing the belief of efficiency to such a principle, we place it, then, on a foundation, as strong as that on which we sup- pose our belief of an external world, and even of our own identity, to rest. What daring atheist is he, who has ever truly disbeliev* ed the existence of himself and others ? For it is he alone, who can say, with corresponding argument, that he is an atheist, be- cause there is no relation of cause and effect. The doctrine of the intuitive belief of that relation may, indeed, have been dange- rous, to him who does not go to bed that he may sleep, nor rise that he may enjoy another day, nor stretch out his hand to grasp an object, nor eat that he may satisfy his hunger : but it is only tp an individual so unlike all the human beings around us, that the doctrine can have had any evij consequence ; for he who performs a single action of daily life, in reliance on the similarity of the fu- ture to the past, has already confessed the existence of God,— as far as the belief of the existence of God depends on the belief of mere causation. If, as Mr Hume confesses, " none but a fool or a madman" will deny the authority of that principle, he confesses that none but a fool or a madman will deny the just reasonings, which are founded on that principle. The theism which flows from it^ will, therefore^ be as much believed by him, as the sim- ple proposition, which also flows from it, that fire will warm him to-morrow ; or, if he afiect to disbelieve the theism, he will state, as the reason of his disbelief, some supposed inconsistency in parts of the ratiocination, not his doubt of that fundamental principle, by which alone, he can expect warmth from the fire of to-mor- Tfow. " Nature," as Mr Hume has well observed, " will always maintain her rights, and prevail in the end, over any abstract rea- soning whatsoever. Though we should conclude for instance, that, in all reasonings from experience, there is a step taken by the mind, which is not supported by any argumfent or process of the understanding ; there is no danger that these reasonings, on which almost all knowledge depends, will ever be afi"ected by such a discovery. • If the mind be not engaged by argument to make this step, it must be induced by some other principle, of equal weight and authority ; and that principle will preserve its influence as long as human nature remains the same." OP CAUSE AND EFFEBT. 2ll When we examine the systems of atheism, which have been given to the world, and which have produced any impression on the weak and unfortunate minds that have been subject to their influence, we find some, which are founded on false and extrava- gant analogies of productive powers in matter, or on narrow views of the Universe, and on an unwillingness to discover in it marks of creative design and goodness ; but we do not find any which are founded on a general disbelief, that prevents the expectation of warmth from fire, and of relief of hunger from food. Even he, who professes to discover no traces of the designs of a Creator, is himself a designer every moment ; and little reason is there, there- fore, to fear the atheistic effects of any doctrine, which does not pre- vent us if the theological argument be well stated, from having as much belief in the existence of God, as we have in our own con- tinued existence, or in the existenfce of the friend who may be sit- ting beside us, or in the warmth of fire, and the coldness of snow. While Mr Hume, then, admits, and expresses as strongly as any other philosopher, the force of that determination of the mind, by which we are led irresistibly to the belief of power ; the suspi- cion, attached to his doctrine with respect to it, must have arisen from the general character of his writings, not from attention to this particular part of them ; for, since all are able to understand the words of praise or censure, in which a general character may be conveyed, and few are able to weigh and appreciate the works frpm which that character has arisen, there ate many, who hate and dread a name, without knowing why it is that the name should be dreaded, and tremble at the consequences of opinions, which, if they knew what those opinions were, might seem to them as void of danger as their own, from which they have, perhaps, no other difference than of the mere phrases employed to express them. That, in Mr Hume's view of the origin '.' of the idea of neces- sary connexion," many errors are intermixed with his asser^on of the irresistible determination of the mind to the belief of power, I need not repeat, after the exposition of those errors in so many of the preceding pages. But, when he states, as the result of his Sceptical Dqjibts, the general proposiMon, " that in all reasonings from experience, there is a step taken by the mind, which is not 21$ OP CAUSE AND EFFECT. supported by any argument or process of the un^rstanding," be asserts nothing more in this doctrine than his opponents them- selves assert. The followers of Dr REib, and the followers of Mr Hume, are in this respect in perfect harmony, Th6 pnly remark- able circumstance is, that while Dr Reid* admits our belief of uni- formity of order in the sequences of events in Nature to be the helief of " a contingent truth," that is not susceptible of proof by reasoning as having itself the evidence of " a first principle," he still thinks that he is the asserter of a doctrine very different from that, with which he completely agrees, — attacking in Mr Hume a scepticism, which does not differ in any respect from his own, and as- serting most strenuously the force of that instinctive belief of pow- er, of the irresistible force of which Mr Hume is himself an equal- ly strenuous asserter. The just analysis, then, whitfh reduces our expectation of sim- ilarity in the future trains of events to intuition, we may safely adopt, without any fear of loosing a single argument for the exis- tence of God, or for the existence of any of the humbler causes, that are continually operating around us ; — till it be shewn, that physical demonstration itself is not dependent, for all its force, on some primary truth of the same order, and that, hence, if the belief of power had depended, not on an immediate and irresisti- ble determination of the mind, but on reason, it would have rested on a principle of surer evidence. * " As this belief is universal among mankind, and is not grounded upon any antecedent reasoning, but upon the constitution of the mind itself, it must be acknowledged to be a first principle, in the sense in which I understand that word." — Essays on the IirTELi,KCTiTAL Poweks, Essay vi. chap. 5. On the First Principles of Contingent Truths, NOTES. NOTES. Note A. Page 20. " Similar objects," says Mr Hume, " are always conjoined with similar. Of this we have experience. Suitably to this ex- perience, therefore, we may define a cause to be, An object folhw- ed by another, and where all the objects similar to the first, are follow- ed by objects similar to the second. Or, in other words, where, if the first object had not been, the second never had existed." This last circumstance, if very rigidly examined, 'is not admissible into a just definition of a cause, in circumstances like those of the physi- cal universe, in which there is at the same moment a concurrence- of many trains of phenomena : however just it might have been, if there had been only a series of antecedents and consequents in one simple train. Though there may be no permanent and uni- form relation of the concurring trains to each other, there is yet no improbability in the supposition, that there may often be such a relation of the antecedent in one of the trains to the phenomenon which is immediately consequent in another of the trains, that the ' change might have taken place, though the antecedent to which we refer it in that particular sequence, had been absent : and every definition, therefore, must be erroneous, that excludes the possible agency of co-existing objects, which, separately, might have been sufiicient to produce the particular phenomenon, that is referred to anyone of them. A hand, for example, may hold a piece of iron, and may approach a loadstone with it, in exactly the same direction, and with exactly the same velocity, as that with which the iron, if free, would itself have approached it. In this 216 NOTES. case, it is eyident, that, whether we regard the motion of the iron as produced by- the hand, or by the loadstone, the first object might not have been, and yet the second might have existed. The ad- dition of this circumstance is, however, of no essential consequence to the theory of causation, which depends only on the believed in- variableness of the sequence, in past, present, and future time, and does not require of us to takg into account, what might, or might not, have been, in other situations, in which the antecedent was different from that of which, and of which alone, the relation to the particular consequent is felt by us. In the same spirit of rigid scrutiny, I may remark, that the phrase,^ in Mr Hume's definition of a cause, one object followed by another, is inaccuraite, if the word Object be used synonymously with Substance, and is not sufficiently precise, if it have any other meaning. There may be causation, where there is one substance, and only one substance,"the changes of which are reciprocally an- tecedent and consequent ; as, in other cases, the changes to which we give the name of Effects, are. produced in one substance, on the presence of another. Such is the species of causation, in a very large proportion of the affections of the mind, that do not re- sult from the direct influence of external things, but from pre- vious feelings of the mind itself. The contemplation of some dis- tant good, which is one state of the mind, is followed by the de- sire of that good, which is a different state of the same mind ; and the one feeling is the cause of the subsequent feeling, as much as the presence of a lens, on which a sun-beam falls, is the cause of the convergence or dispersipn of the rays. In like manner, when a body continues in motion, the cause of the motion at any one moment, is not the primary impelling force, which has ceased, but the state of the moving body itself, at the moment preceding that in which the motion is observed by us. The cause and ef- fect, therefore, in a sequence of changes, are not necessarily dif- ferent substances ; they may be only the same substance, in suc- cessive states, either different or similar. Still, however, whether the cause and effect be different sub- stances, or different states of the same suhstance, the cause must always be a substance existing in a certain state, and the effect to a substance existing in a bertain state. We sometimes, indeed, in speaking of cause and effect, apply the terms to objects, sometimes to events : but there is in this case no real difference. Events are objects beginning to exist in different circumstances : and the word has no meaning, but as significant of the objects themselves in these altered circumstances. When we say, then, that one event is the cause of another, we do not mean, that an event is any thing different from the objetts that are before us at the time of its oc- currence. There are some objects, the presence of which, in all circumstances, is attended with a certain effect ; there are other NOTES. 217 objects, of which the presence is only in certain circumstances productive of change ; and it is- in this latter case, that we are ac- customed to speak of an event, as the cause of a change : because the reference signifies, that the object, which is the real cause, has begun to exist in the particular circumstances, in which alone it has been formed by nature to be the antecedent of the particular change. When a certain change is the consequence of the pres- ence of an object in all circumstances, even the vulgar think only of the object itself, in their reference of causation. Thus, as the sun is never visible without an increase of heat, they have no hes- itation in saying, that the sun is a cause of heat. But, when it is only in certain circumstances, that an object is productive of change, we almost lose sight of the simple object itself, in our reference, and transfer the causation to that change of circumstan- ces, by which the object has begun to exist in the particular state of fitness. A single word is in this way, sufficient to express, what might otherwise require the paraphrastic use of many words. When gunpowder, which is inert, as long as it remains a dark mass before us, becomes a destructive force when kindled, we ascribe the violent concussion, in common language, not to the gaseous products in their state of high elasticity, which are the antece- dent objects or real causes, but to the explosion of the gunpowder ; expressing briefly, in a tew syllables, what would require many hard words, if we were to endeavour to express it with chemical precision. Yet it is evident, that to consider an event, rather than an objict, as the cause of any change, is only to go back an addi- tional step in our reference, and to ascribe the eifect, not to those circumstances immediately preceding it, which in scholastic lan- guage are termed the proximate cause, but to the circumstances immediately preceding that proximate cause. Note B. p. 20. To the universal priority of causes, there is in name, but in name only, one apparent exception, in the mode of considering the phenomena of the world, in relation to the supposed plans of the Supreme Being ; since the term is then applied, not to the prior, but to the subsequent event. The final cause of any thing is the good which follows it. Thus, since adversity rouses and exercises the magnanimity of the sufferer, and the benevolence of those who are witnesses of his sufferings, a philosophic optimist considers the production and strengthening of those noble quali- ties, as the final cause of every physical evil. But it is evident, that, even in this application of the term, the real implied cause is prior ; and it is only from a double metonymy, that it appears to be subsequent. The two events observed by us are, in the ex- pression, placed for those circumstances, which we suppose to 28 218 NOTES. have preceded them in the Divine Mind; and we mean only, that the consideration of that virtue, which adversity vyould tend to produce or cherish, was the cause of that Divine purpose or vo- lition, in consequence of which adversity exists. It is in relation to the Deity alone, that the phrase is at all intelligible ; and, in relation to his design, the consideration of that good which we term the final cause, and not the instrumental evil, which to our observation j)recedes it, was in truth the prior circumstance. He conceived the good; — he willed it; — and, willing it, willed also what was to produce it. Note C. p. 24. So little are the qualities of a substance distinguishable from the substance itself, that what we term a Substance is expressive only of the co-existence of certain qualities. By its qualities we know it; and if, in our conception, we endeavour to strip it of these, we leave nothing, that is capable of becoming known to us, as actually existing ; for it can be observed by us, only as being that of which the presence is the antecedent of certain changes, in us, the observers. We speak of ice, for example, as a sub- stance ; and we say, that it is of a certain weight, cold, pellucid, liquefiable at a certain temperature. But, if we examine what is meant in these words, we shall find, that what we thus ascribe as qualities to the ice, are only relations of antecedence to certain feelings excited . in us, either directly, or indirectly through the medium of other changes of external things. The coldness, pel- lucidity, weight, and other qualities combined with these, arp, when united in the single reference that combines them as co-ex- isting, the ice itself; while they continue, therefore, it contin- ues ; and, when they cease, whatever there may remain, which beings of a different order may be still capable of knowing, to us at least, there is nothing. Note D. p. 58. When I speak of the Doctrine of physical and efficient causes, as representing, under another name, the Cartesian doctrine of occasional causes, I speak of its similarity only, and not of the pe- riod in which it had its origin. I am aware that the same sort of distinction prevailed long before Descartes, as well as after him, and indeed may be considered as common to all the systems of phi- losophy, ancient as well as modern, that regarded the powers of nature, as something different from the physical antecedents them- selves. It was impossible for the inquirer into nature, even in NOTES. 219 the rudest age of philosophy, not to perceive, that certain objects were uniformly followed by certain other objects ; and therefore, if, to account for this uniformity of order, he believed that it was necessary to have recourse, in every sequence of events, to some mysterious agency, this belief itself, whether expressed or not ex- pressed in words, must have involved the very distinction of phys- ical and efficient causes, which those phrases are now employed technically to denote. Note E. p. 61. The possibility of the occasional direct operation of the Power which formed the World, in varying the usual course of its events, it would be in the highest degree unphilosophical to deny : nor can we presume to estimate the degree of its probability ; since, in many cases, of the wide bearings of which on human happiness we must be ignorant, it might be the result of the same benevo- lent motives which we must suppose to have influenced the Di- vine Mind, in the original act of creation itself. But the theory of the Divine government, which admits the possibility of such occasional agency, is very different from that which asserts the necessity of the perpetual and uniform operation of the Supreme Being, as the immediate or efiicient cause of every phenomenon. The will of the deity, whether displayed in those obvious varia- tions of events, which are termed Miracles, or inferred from those supposed secret and invisible changes, which are ascribed to his Providence, is itself, in all such cases, to be regarded by the af- firmer of it, as a new physical antecedent, from which, if it really form a part of the series of events, a difference of result may nat- urally be expected, on the same principle, as that on which we expect a change of product, from any other new combination of physical circumstances. It is on this view of the Divine Will, — as itself, in every case in which it may be supposed to operate directly in the phenome- na of the universe, a new circumstance of physical causation, — that every valid answer to the abstract argument of Mr Home's Essay on Miracles must, as I conceive, be founded. The great mistake of that argument does not consist, as has been imagined, in a miscalculation of the force of testimony in general : for the principle of the calculation must be conceded to hinv, that, what- ever be the source of our early faith in testimony, the rational credit, which we afterwards give to it, in any case, depends on our belief of the less improbability of the facts reported, than of the ignorance oi fraud of the reporter. If the probabilities were reversed, — and if it appeared to us less probable, that any fact should have happened as stated, than that the reporter of it should 220 NOTES. have been unacquainted with the real circumstances, or desirous of deceiving us, — it matters little, from what principle oQr faith in testimony may primarily have flowed : for there is surely no one, who will contend, that, in such a case, we should be led by any principle of our nature to credit that which appeared to us, at the very time at which we gave it our assent, unworthy of be- ing credited, or, in other words, less likely to be true than to be false. Whether it be to experience that we owe our belief of testi- mony in general, or whether we owe to it only our knowledge of the possibilities of error or imposition, which makes us hesitate in admitting any particular testimony, is of no consequence then to our belief, in the years in which we are called to be the judg- es of the likelihood of any extraordinary event that is related to us. It is enough, that we know, as after a very few years of life we cannot fail to know, that it is possible for the reporter to be imperfectly acquainted with the truth of what he states, or capa- ble of wishing to deceive us. Before giving our complete assent to any marvellous tale, we always weigh probability against prob- ability ; and if, after weighing these, it appear to us more likely, on the whole, that the information is false, than that the event has really happened, iti the'manner reported, we should not think ourselves, in the slightest degree, more bound to admit the accu- racy of the narrative, though a thousand arguments were urged, far more convincing than any which have yet been oifered, to per- suade us, that there is an original tendency in the mind, before experience, to believe whatever is related, without even the slight- est feeling of doubt, and consequently, without any attempt to form an estimate of its degree of probability. It is not in any miscalculation, th6n, of the force of general testimony, whether original or derived, that the error of Mr , Hume's abstract argument consists. It lies far deeper, in the false definition of a miracle, which he has given, as "a violation of the laws of Nature;" — a definition, which is accordant, indeed, with the definitions that have been usually given of it by theologians, but is not on that account more accurate and precise, as a phi- losophic expression of the phenomena intended to be expressed by it. To the theologian himself it is, I conceive, peculiarly dan- gerous ; because, while it makes it essential to the reality of a miracle, that the very principle of continued uniformity of se- quence should be false, on which our whole belief of causation, and consequently of the Divine Being as an operator, is founded, it gives an air of inconsistency, and almost of absurdity, to the very assertion of a miracle, and at the same time deprives the doctrine of miracles of its principal support against an argument, which, if his definition of them were philosophically a just one, Mr Hume must be allowed to have urged very powerfully against them. NOTES. 221 In mere philosophy, however, the definition, though we were to Consider it, without any theological view, simply as the ex- pression df certain phenomena of a very pecuhar kind, is far from being just. The laws of Nature, surely, are not ■ violated, when a new antecedent is followed by a new consequent ; they are violated, only when, the antecedent being exactly the same, a different consequent is the result : and if such A violation, — which, as long as it is a part of our very constitution, to be im- pressed with an irresistible belief of the uniformity of the order of Nature, may be said to involve, relatively to this belief, a phys- ical contradiction, — were necessarily implied in a miracle, I do not see, how the testimony of any number of witnesses, the wis- est, and most honourable, and least interested from any personal motive in the truth of what they report, could afford evidence of a miracle that might amount to proof. The concurring state- ments might, perhaps, be sufficient to justifiy a suspension of judg- ment between belief and disbelief; but this suspension is the ut- most, which the evidence of a fact so monstrous, as the sequence of a different consequent when the antecedent had been exactly the same, could reasonably claim. When we have once brought our mind to believe in the "violation of the laws of Nature, we cannot know what we should either believe or disbelieve, as to the successions of events ; since we must, in that case, have aban- doned for the time the only principle on which the relation of cause and effect is founded : and, however constant the connex- ion of truth with testimony, in the most favourable circumstances, may be, it cannot be more, though it may be less, constant, than the connexion of any other physical phenomena, which have been, by supposition, unvaried in their order of sequence, till the ,very moment of that supposed violation of their order, in which the miracle is said to consist. Let us suppose a witness, of the most honourable character, to state to us a fact, with which he had every opportunity of be- ing perfectly acquainted, and in stating which he could not have any interest to deceive us, but might, on the contrary, subject himself to much injury, by the public declaration ; — it must be al- lowed, that it is in the highest degree improbable, that his state- ment should be false. To express this improbabihty, in the stron- gest possible manner, let us admits that the falsehood of his state- ment, in such circumstances, would be an absolute miracle, and therefore, according to the definition that is given of a miracle, would be a violation of a law of Nature. It would be a miracle, then, if, in opposition to his former veracity and to his own inter- est in the case supposed, he should wish to deceive us ; but, if it be a miracle, also, which he asserts to have taken place, we must equally, whether we credit or do not credit his report, believe that a law of Nature has been violated, by the sequenbe of an un- % 222 NOTES. accustbmed effect after an accustomed cause ; and if we must be- lieve such a change as constitutes an absolute violation of some law of Nature, in either case, it is impossible to discover, in the previous equal uniformity of Nature, in both cases, — without the belief of which regular order of sequence we cannot form the no- tion of physical probabilities at all, — any ground of preference of one of these violations to the other. Though we were to admit, then, to testimony in general all the force, for which Dr Campbell and other writers have so labo- riously, and, as I conceive, in relation to the present argument, so vainly contended,— and though we were to imagine every possi- ble circumstance favourable to the veracity of the reporter to be combined, — the utmost that can be implied in the admission is, that it would be a violation of a law of nature, if the testimony were false ; but, if, it would not be more so, than the alleged vio- lation of a law of Nature, concerning which the testimony is offer- ed, and if, beyond the uniformity of antecedence and consequence in the events of the universe, we cannot form a notion of any pow- er whatever, a suspension of judgment, and not positive belief, in a case, in which, before we can believe either of the violations, we must have abandoned the very principle on which our whole system of physical belief is founded, is all which the proppunder of a miracle, in this view of it, can be supposed reasonably to de- mand. It would be vain, in such a case of supposed opposite mira- cles, to endeavour to multiply the improbabilities on one side, and thus to obtain a preference, by counting the number of sepa- rate witnesses, all wise, all possessing the means of accurate in- formation, all honourable men, and all perfectly disinterested, or having personal motives, that, if* they were less honourable, would lead them rather to refrain from giving evidence ; since the only effect of this combination of evidence would be to add to the prob- ability of the statement, which, if once we have admitted the falsehood of it to be miraculous, is already as great as it is possi- ble to be. It is a miracle, that one witness, who has had perfect opportunities of accurate observation, and every motive of per- sonal interest to give a true representation of an event, should yet, in opposition to his own interest, prefer to give a false ac- . count of it. That a hundred, or a thousand, or a hundred thou- sand witnesses, should, in the same circumstances, concur in the same false account, would be a miracle indeed, but it would only be a miracle still. Of probability there are many degrees, froin that which is merely possible to that which is almost certain ; but the miraculous does not admit of gradation. Nobody thinks, that the conversion of water iato wine at the marriage-feast in Gali- lee, would have been a greater miracle, if the quantity of trans- muted water had been' doubled ; and a commentator would surely UOTES. 223 render himself a little ridiculous, who, in descanting on the pas- sage of the Israelites through the Red Sea, should speak of the myriads of liquid particles of the mass that were prevented from following their usual course, as rendering more miraculous the passage itself, than if the number of drops had been less by a few scores or hundreds. But, if this numerical calculation would he absurd in the one case, when applied to a number of particles of matter, each of which, individually, may be considered as exhibit- ing the influence of a miraculous interposition o.f a Power surpas- sing the ordinary powers of nature, it is surely not less absurd, when applied to a number of minds, in each of which, in like man- ner, a violation of an accustomed law of nature is supposed. It is a miracle, that one drop of water should become wine : it is a mir- acle, that a thousand drops of water should be so changed. It is a miracle, that a single witness, with many motives to declare the truth, and not one motive to utter a falsehood, should yet, With great peril to himself prefer to be an impostor: it is a mir- acle, that a thousand witnesses, with the same motives, should concur, at the same risk, in the same strange preference. In mira- cles, there are truly, as I have said, no degrees. The Deity either must act or not, act — or, according to the false defini- tion which I am opposing, a law of Nature must either be vi- olated or not violated. There may be less than a miracle ; but there cannot be more than a miracle. As loiig as a miracle is defined to be a violation of the law of Nature, it is not wonderful, that it should shock our strongest principles of belief ; since it must require from us the abandon- ment, for the time, of the only principle by which we have been led to the belief of any power whatever, either in God himself, or in the things which he has created : — while, at the same time, it is defined to be that which must, by the very terms of the defi- nition, be as improbable as false testimony can be in any circum- stances. It may be less, but it cannot be more, worthy of the name of a miracle, that we should be deceived by the testimony of the best and wisest of mankind, as to a fact of which they had means of the most accurate knowledge, than that any other event should have happened, which is admitted by the reporters of it to be a violation of the order of Nature, as complete, as the false- hood of the testimony which reports it to us, in these or in any circumstances, itself could be. ^ With Mr Hume's yiew of the nature of a miracle, then,-^if we rashly give cur assent to his definition, — it seems to me not very easy to get the better of his sceptical argument. The very asser- tion of a violation of a law of Nature is, as we have seen, the as- sertiob of .something that is inconsistent with every principle of our physical faith : and, after giving all the weight which it is possible, to give to the evidence of concurring witnesses, with 224 NOTES. the best means of knowledge, and no motives of interest that could lead them to wish to deceive, we may perhaps succeed in bring- ing' one miracle against another, — the miracle of their falsehood against the physical miracle reported by them, — but we cannot do more than this : we cannot render it less a violation of a law of Nature, — and less inconsistent, therefore, with the principle, which, both speculatively and practically, has guided us in all our vievi-s of the sequences of events, — that the reported miracle should have happened, than that the sage, and amiable, and dis- interested reporters, should knowingly and intentionally, have la- boured to deceive us. The definition, however, which asserts this apparent inconsis- tency with our experience, is not a just one. A miracle is not a violation of any law of Nature. It involves, therefore, primarily, no contradiction, nor physical absurdity. It has nothing in it which is inconsistent with our belief of the most undeviating uni- formity of Nature : for it is not the sequence of a different event when the preceding circumstances have been the Same ; it is an effect that is new to our observation, because it is the result of new and peculiar circumstances. The antecedent has been, by supposition, different ; and it is not wonderful, therefore, that the consequent also should be different. While every miracle is to be considered as the result of anex- traordinafy antecedent, — since it flows directly from a higher Power, than is accustomed to operate, in the common trains of events which come beneath our view, — the sequence, which it displays, may be regarded, indeed, as out of the common course of Nature, but not as contrary to that course ; any more, than any other new result of new combinations of physical circumstan- ces can be said to be contrary to the course of events, to which, from the absolute novelty of the circumstances, it has truly no re- lation whatever, either of agreement or disagreement. If we suppose any one, who is absolutely unacquainted with electrical apparatus and the strange phenomena which that apparatus can be made to evolve, to put his hand accidentally near a charged conductor, so as to receive from it a slight shock, though his sen- sation may be different from any to which he had been accustom- ed, we do not believe that he will on that account consider it as a proof of a violation of a law of Nature, but only as the effect of something which was unknown to him before, and which he will conceive therefore to be of rare occurrence. In a miracle, in' like manner, nothing more is to be supposed. It is the Divine Will, that, preceding it immediately, is the cause of the extraor- dinary effect which -we term miraculous ; and whatever may be the new consequent of the new antecedent, the course of nature is as little violated by it, as it was violated by the electrician, who for the first time drew lightning from the clouds, or by the aeronaut NOTES. 225 who first ascended to a region of the air of more etherial purity than that which allows the gross substance pf a isloud to float in it. The Highest of all Powers, of whose mighty agency the uni- verse which sprung from it affords evidence so magnificent, has surely not ceased to be one of the Powers of Nature, because every other power is exercised only, in delegated and feeble-sub- ordination to his Omnipotence. He is the greatest of all the powers of nature ; but be is still one of the powers of nature, as much as any other power, whose hourly or momentary operation is most familiar to us : — and it must be a very false philosophy, indeed, which would exclude his Omnipotent Will from the number of Powers, or assert any extraordinary appearances, that may have flowed from his agency, to be violations of an order, in which the Ordinary sequences were different before, because the ordinary antecedents in all former time were different. There may be, or there may not be, reason, — for this is a different question, — to be- lieve, that the Deity has, for any particular purpose, condescend- ed to reveal himself as the direct producer of phenomena that are out of the usual course of nature; but, since we are wholly unacquainted with any limits to his power, and cannot form any notion, therefore, of events, as more or less fitted to be the physi- cal consequents of his will to produce them, it would evidently be absurd for us to speak of any phenomenon that is said to be conse- quent on his will, as a violation of the natural order of the phe- nomena that might be expected to flow from an energy, ofthe transcendent extent of whose operation we are ignorant, and know only, that it is worthy of a reverent and grateful a4piiration, far surpassing what our hearts, in the feebleness of their worship, are capable of- offering to it. The shock of an earthquake, and the descent of stones from the sky, are not regarded as violations of any law of Nature, though they are phenomena of very rare occurrence, which re- quire a peculiar combination of the circumstances that physically precede them. What these circumstances are, the witnesses of the resulting phenomena may be wholly unable to state ; but as they have been witnesses ofthe great results, they know at least, that the necessary combination, whatever it may have been, must previously have taken place. By the asserters of a miracle, the same necessity is always supposed. They do not contend, that, when the extraordinary event, which they term miraculous, hap- pened, the previous circumstances were the same as at other times, when no such event was consequent ; any more than a met- eorologist contends, that, when stones fall from the air, the pre- vious circumstances, however much their difference may have been beyond his power of observation-, were absolutely th« sama 29 226 NOTES. as in the fall of rain or snow, or in any other phenomenon of the atmosphere that is more familiar to us. On the contrary, they contend, that the difference of the effect, — as, proved by the evi- dence of their senses, or of indabitable testimony, in the same way as the truth of any other rare phenomenon is established, — im- plies an extraordinary cause : and since all the circumstances of which the mere senses could judge, previously to the miracle, were the same as had frequently existed before, without any such marvellous result, they suppose the difference to have been in something which was beyond the sphere of the perceptive organs, and have recourse to the Divine Volition, as a power of which the Universe itself marks the existence, and which, in all the cir- cumstances of the case, it seems most reasonable to consider as the antecedent of the extraordinary effect. That a quantity of gunpowder, apparently, as inert as the dnst on which we tread, should suddenly turn into a force of the most destructive kind, all the previous circumstances continuing exactly the same, would be indeed contrary to the course of Nature, hut it would not be contrary to it, if the change were preceded bylhe application of a spark. It would not be more so, if the antece- dent were any other existing Power, of equal efficacy; and the physical influence, which we ascribe to a single spark, it would surely not be too much to claim for that Being, to whom we have been led by the most convincing evidence to refer the very ex- istence of the explosive mass itself, and of all the surrounding bo- dies on which it operates, and who has not a less powerful em- pire over Nature now, than . he had at the very moment at which it arose, and was what he willed it to be. To that Almighty Power the kindling of a mass of gunpowder, to which our humble skill is adequate, is not more easy, than any ,ef the wonders which we term miraculous. Whatever he wills to exist flows naturally from that very will. Events of this kind, therefore, if truly taking place, would be only the operation of one of the acknowfedged Powers of Nature, producing indeed what no other power might be capable of producing, but what would deserve as much to be considered as the natural conse- quence of the power from which it flows, as any other phenome- non to be regarded as the natural consequence of its particular antecedent. In the assertion of a miracle, therefore, whatever other reasons of doubt there may or may not be in any partic- ular case, there is no longer the primary physical absurdity of a violation of a law of Nature to be brought against the physical ab- surdity of another violation of a law of Njiture, — or