Si
I"
INQUIRY
INTO
THE RELATION
OF
CAUSE AND EFFECT.
BY
THOMAS BROWN, M.D. F.R.S. EDIN. & c .
PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY
OF EDINBURGH.
FOURTH EDITION.
LONDON :
HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN ;
W. TAIT, EDINBURGH; W. WAKEMAN, DUBLIN.
MDCCCXXXV.
_600130
14. i.
PREFACE
THIRD EDITION,
THE Essay which follows is now presented
to the lovers of Metaphysical Disquisition
in a form so much enlarged and altered, as
to constitute almost a New Work. When
originally written, with the view of giving
some satisfaction to the public mind, on a
subject of obscure and difficult controversy,
to which peculiar 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
Vi PREFACE.
to take a wider range, and to add such rea
sonings and reflections, as seemed necessary
to elucidate some of the questions of greatest
difficulty, in the philosophy of Cause and
Effect. At the same time, however, many
questions relating to that most comprehen
sive of subjects, were left wholly unexamined,
and some others only briefly noticed, which
deserved a much fuller discussion, 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 deficiencies; and, with the
hope of rendering more easily intelligible
what has appeared intricate, as I conceive,
chiefly because it has been long perplexed
in the Schools, by a mysterious phraseology
and the verbal inconsistencies of contending
theorists, I have separated the view of the
PREFACE. Vll
Philosophy of Causation, as a statement 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 opinions on the
subject, as partly just and partly erroneous,
the exposition of the abstract philosophy itself,
which was treated before with constant refer
ence 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 criticism
on his metaphysical style be less favourable,
than the general opinion with respect to it,
that has stamped it with a character of ex
cellence, the justness of which it may now
Vlll PREFACE.
seem almost presumptuous in a single indi
vidual to question, I trust it will not be sup
posed to have arisen from any wish of
detracting from the reputation of that emi
nent philosopher. The talents which he un
doubtedly possessed, were of so high a rank,
that he may well bear to be estimated accord
ing to his real merit ; and it would be as
absurd to deny his acuteness and subtlety,
and often, too, the easy graces of his com
position, as it is unnecessary for his fame,
to assert, 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 results of his inquiry.
It is, indeed, scarcely possible to imagine a
more convincing proof of that want of preci
sion, which I have ventured to censure, in his
method of analysis and in his metaphysical
language, than the fact, if, on examination,
PREFACE. IX
it be found to be a fact, -that from the first
appearance of his Inquiries on this subject
till now, he has been universally believed to
maintain a negative theory of Power, which is
not merely altogether different from the real
doctrine of his work, but is in direct con
tradiction to the great argument which per
vades it.
In the theory of our notion of the rela
tion of Cause and Effect, which the follow
ing pages are intended to develope, I am
aware, that to minds unaccustomed to philo
sophical analysis, and particularly to those
who have been in the habit of attaching im
portance to some mysterious but insignificant
phrases, the simple doctrine itself, and its
equally simple phraseology, may appear an
unwarrantable innovation on the received
opinions, and language. But I flatter my
self, that, after reflecting on what is truly
X PREFACE.
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
value, 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 it
self, in which we are accustomed to think
of the abstract relations of things, is, as it
appears to me, one of the most important
contributions which metaphysical analysis is
occasionally able to make to the Philosophy
of Physical Inquiry, that highest and noblest
logic, which, comprehending at once our in
tellectual nature and every thing which is
known to exist, considers the mind in all
PREFACE. XI
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 distinction of Efficient and Physical
Causes, for example, is one which has con
fused the notions of philosophers of every
Age : and, if I succeed in making intelli
gible the illusion on which this distinction
has been founded, though I should succeed
in nothing more, I may still venture to
flatter myself, that my Work will not be
without influence on the progress of future
inquiry.
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
Xli PREFACE.
truly exists within these boundaries, and what
it is which is only fabled to exist. As long
as any mysterious connexion is supposed
between the phenomena, that are taking place
at every moment before us, the mind must,
from its very nature, be curious to investi
gate that ever-present though mysterious tie ;
nor will the simple assurance, that the dis
covery is impossible, be sufficient to destroy
the curiosity, and thus to prevent the inves
tigation 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 only es
sential circumstance of causation ; that in the
sequences of events, we are not merely igno
rant of any thing intermediate, but have in
truth no reason to suppose it as really exist
ing, or, if any thing intermediate exist, no
PREPACK. Xlll
reason to consider it but as itself another
physical antecedent of the consequent which
we knew before ; 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
between 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.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION ......... 1
PART FIRST.
ON THE REAL IMPORT OF THE RELATION OF CAUSE
AND EFFECT.
SECTION 1 7
2 24
3 32
4 63
5 77
PART SECOND.
ON THE SOURCES OF ILLUSION WITH RESPECT TO
THE RELATION.
SUCTION 1 107
2. 117
3 127
4. 146
XVI CON TK NTS.
PART THIRD.
ON THE CIRCUMSTANCES, IN WHICH THE BELIEF OF THE
RELATION ARISES.
PAGE
SECTION 1 159
2 162
3 175
4 183
5 241
PART FOURTH.
ON MR. HUME S THEORY OF OUR BELIEF OF THE
RELATION.
SECTION 1 253
2 266
3 276
4 305
5. 328
6 344
7 366
NOTES. .... 387
I N a U I R Y,
INTRODUCTION.
IN every inquiry into the successions of pheno
mena, whether 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 effects; and since the
sole object of every physical investigation of
the changes which nature exhibits, is the ascer
tainment of the particular phenomena which
admit of being thus ranked together, it is
surely of the utmost consequence, for precision
Z INTRODUCTION.
of inquiry, that he who is to prosecute it should
have clear notions of the relation itself 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 which 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 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 Effect; in the second place, to
examine the sources of various illusions, which
have led philosophers to consider it as some
thing more mysterious; and, in the third
INTRODUCTION. 6
place, to ascertain the circumstances 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 be com
prised ; but, in consequence of the very impor
tant lights which some of Mr. HUME S specu
lations have thrown on it, and, still more on
account of the misconceptions which have uni
versally 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 different doctrine.
PART FIRST.
OF THE REAL IMPORT OF THE RELATION OF
CAUSE AND EFFECT.
1
PART FIRST.
SECTION I.
THE philosophy which regards phenomena as
they are successive 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 masses, the atoms which compose
them, whatever is destitute of organization,
as much as the organized beings, that are vege
tating, or living, or dying, all are the sub
jects and exhibiters of unceasing variety. What
seems to our eyes to be rest, is continued
motion. There is not a particle of the planet
on which we dwell, that continues in the same
point of space during the instant in which we
strive most rapidly to think of it. Life and
8 ON THE RELATION
death, as far as the same identical mass is con
cerned, are dissolution alike ; or rather, in the
same space of time, there is a more varied
decomposition while we live, than when we
die. In the internal world, though the pheno
mena are of a different order, there is a varia
tion of them as perpetual. At every moment of
our consciousness, some sensation, or thought,
or emotion, is beginning in the mind, or ceas
ing, or growing more or 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
feeling.
The great character of all these changes,
however, is the regularity which they exhibit ;
a regularity, that enables us to accommodate
our plans, with perfect foresight, to circum
stances which may not yet have begun to
exist. We observe the varying phenomena, as
they are continually taking place around us
and within us, and the observation may seem
to be, and truly is, of a single moment ; but
the knowledge which it gives us is far more
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 9
extensive : 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 cir
cumstances observed, we believe to have taken
place as often as the circumstances before were
similar; and we believe also that it will con
tinue to take place as often as future circum
stances shall, in this respect, have an exact
resemblance to the present. What we thus
believe is always verified by subsequent obser
vation. 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 succession in the sub
stances which thus appear to be varied, but
only from the new circumstances in which the
substances themselves have been brought to
gether ; circumstances in which, if they had
existed before, we have no doubt that they
would have exhibited 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
10 ON THE RELATION
prophetic 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 moment, pour around us the riches of
her bounty, if we were to remain 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, unexisting. 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 sustenance, 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 object, we had no
other impression of relation than of a priority
and subsequence that were limited to that par
ticular 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
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 11
which had before been attended with the gra
tifying 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 them
selves, which required only a little voluntary
adaptation on our part, had been wholly with
held. 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 otherwise
might have seemed to pass away in the mo
ment in which we had chanced to be under
their influence.
It is not to science only, then, but to all
he practical arts of life, and consequently to
/the preservation of life itself, that the faith is
essential which converts the passing sequences
of phenomena into signs of future correspond
ing 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 history 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 antece-
12 ON THE RELATION
deuce, 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 applied. If events
had succeeded each other in perfect irregu
larity, such terms never would have been in
vented ; but when the successions 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 valuable dis
tinctions which we are physically able to make.
We give the name of cause to the object which
we believe to be the invariable antecedent of
a particular change; we give the name of effect,
reciprocally to that invariable consequent ; and
the relation itself, when considered abstractly,
we denominate power in the object that is the
invariable antecedent, susceptibility in the ob
ject that exhibits, in its change, the invariable
consequent. We say of fire, that it has the
power of melting metals, and of metals, that
they are susceptible of fusion by fire, that fire
is the cause of the fusion, and the fusion the
effect of the application of fire ; but in all this
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 13
variety of words, we mean nothing more than
our belief, that when a solid metal is subjected
for a certain time to the application of a strong
heat, it will begin afterwards to exist in that
different 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 metallic substances, with respect
to these two appearances, is all that is ex
pressed.
A cause, therefore, in the fullest definition
which it philosophically admits, may be said to
be* that which immediately precedes any change,
and which) existing at any time in similar cir
cumstances, has been always, and will be always,
immediately followed by a similar change.^ Pri
ority in the sequence observed, and invariable-
ness of antecedence in the past and future
sequences supposed, are the elements, and the
only elements, combined in the notion of a
* Note A. f Note B.
A3> J3/)
14 ON THE RELATION
cause. By a conversion of terms, we obtain a
definition of the correlative effect; and power,
as I have before said, is only another word for
expressing abstractly and briefly the antecedent
itself, and the invariableness of the relation.
The words property and quality admit of
exactly the same definition ; expressing only a
certain relation of invariable antecedence and
consequence, in changes that take place on the
presence 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, com
prehend both the powers and susceptibilities of
substances, the powers of producing changes,
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, indeed,
what LOCKE, and many other writers, before
and after him, have expressed by the phrase
passive power, in contradistinction from what
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 15
they term active power: but since Power, in
general language, is confined to the producer
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 imme
diately antecedent to a change in another sub
stance, and to employ the word Susceptibility
with reference to the 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 ot
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 expression
signify precisely the same thing, that, when
water is poured upon salt, the solid will take
the form of a liquid, and its particles be dif
fused 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
16 ON THE RELATION
we speak of all the powers of a body, we con
sider 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 nothing 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
circumstances that are exactly the same.
The powers, properties, or qualities of a sub
stance, 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 circum
stances. 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 introduction
of the particular substance of which we speak.
But it is of use, only as other general terms
are of use, such as Man, Quadruped, Animal ;
not because it denotes any new substance,
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 17
or new quality, distinct from the particular sub
stances or qualities already known and named,
which it comprehends and briefly expresses,
but because it does thus comprehend and briefly
express them. We might convey the same in
formation, 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 affords.
There is, however, one 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 abstrac
tions, and to regard them as significant of some
actual reality. The history of the errors, not
of the unreflecting multitude only, but of phi
losophers themselves, is, in a great measure, the
history of this very species of error, as diver
sified in a thousand forms of prejudice and
c
18 ON THE RELATION
superstition. But there is, perhaps, no form
of the error which has had so universal and
so fatal an influence in misdirecting inquiry,
even where sages have been the inquirers, as
that which relates to Power and its various
synonymes. The powers of a substance, which,
as I have said, are significant of nothing dis
tinct from the substance itself and the other
substances, in which its presence, in certain
circumstances, is the antecedent 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, not
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
prevailed with respect to Form, as something
distinct from Matter itself; of the co-existence
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 19
of whose parts, in seeming continuity, it is
merely the verbal expression. Nobody now
supposes,, that the forms of bodies are any
thing but the bodies themselves, considered in
the relation which their parts bear to each
other in space. But, for many ages, a sort of
mystery was supposed to hang over the phrase,
as if it were significant of some wonderful pro
perty of matter, that might account for all its
other properties. What substantial forms once
were, in general misconception, powers, pro
perties, qualities, now are. In the one case,
as much as in the other, a mere abstraction has
been converted into a reality ; and an impene
trable gloom has been supposed to hang over
Nature, which is only in the clouds and dark
ness of our own verbal reasoning.
The substances that 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 crea
tures. In the wide variety of these, there may
be a susceptibility of various changes in par
ticular circumstances, presenting sequences of
phenomena, regular or irregular ; but in the
sequences themselves, whether regular or irre-
c 2
20 ON THE RELATION
gular, there cannot be any thing more than
the substances that exist in them ; unless, by
a monstrous 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 order of succession ; and in what
ever manner 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 separate
parts, is believed to be uniform, of antece
dents and consequents. But, whatever sub
stances 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
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 21
will always have B for its invariable conse
quent, 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 existence of any thing which is
not itself either A, B, or C. The qualities of
substances, however we may seem verbally to
regard them as separate or separable, are truly
the substances themselves, considered by us
together with other substances, in which a
change of some sort is consequent on the in
troduction of them. There are not substances,
therefore, and also powers or qualities,* but
substances alone. We do not add greenness
to the emerald, or yellowness to gold, or blue-
ness to the bright vault of the sky, or darkness
to the vapoury masses that occasionally over
shadow it ; but the emerald, the gold, the sky,
the clouds, affect our vision in a certain man
ner. They are antecedents of sensations that
arise in us ; and we believe that in similar cir
cumstances they will always continue to be
antecedents of similar feelings. If no sensa
tions of this sort were excited in us, all which
* Note C.
22 ON THE RELATION
we term Colour in the objects would instantly
cease. The sensible qualities, therefore, what
ever they may be, and with whatever names
we may distinguish them, denote nothing more
than the uniform relation of antecedence of cer
tain 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 antecedents and consequents, I for
merly supposed to be present in a sequence
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 evident, that
what is not A, nor B, nor C, must be itself a
new portion 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,
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 23
nor C, we have only enlarged the number of
sequences, and have not produced any thing
different from parts of a sequence, antecedent
and consequent in a certain uniform order.
The substances that exist in a train of phe
nomena, are still, and must always be, the
whole constituents of the train. But B is, by
supposition, no longer the immediate conse
quent of A; it is the consequent of X, a new
antecedent interposed, which is itself a conse
quent 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 strive to
think of the phenomena of nature in every pos
sible light ; but, when we regard them as suc
cessive to each other, we can think of nothing
more than the multitude of substances which
constitute what we term Nature, presenting
indeed, in different circumstances, different ap
pearances, in an order which we believe to be
regular, but, in all that variety of appearances,
existing as one great whole, without addition
or diminution.
24 ON THE RELATION
SECTION II.
IN the view which has now been taken of the
successions of phenomena, it is of the utmost
importance, on account of the universal mis
conception of philosophers on the subject, to
have constantly in mind, that the sort of ante
cedence which is necessary to be understood
in our notion of power or causation, is not
mere priority, but invariable priority. We do
not give the name of cause to that which we
suppose to have once preceded a particular
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 future time,
followed, uniformly and immediately, by a
particular change, which we therefore deno
minate its effect.
In the unbounded field of nature, so many
co-existing series of phenomena are constantly
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 25
taking 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 innumerable phenomena,
the effects of the presence of other co-existing
objects. Each series of phenomena may be per
fectly regular, if we consider its parts alone ;
but it does not therefore follow, that all the
series must themselves have a mutual con
nexion that is invariable. It is of the separate
series, accordingly, 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. Phenomenon after phenomenon is con
stantly passing before us ; but all which is pre
sented to us, and all which truly exists, in the
sequences of phenomena, is the series of ante
cedents 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
26 ON THE RELATION
from the objects themselves, which exhibit in
succession those diversities of appearance that
are termed by us the phenomena of nature,
but is only a word expressive of their order in
the sequences of phenomena, as uniformly ante
cedent and consequent, is a doctrine which,
I am aware, can scarcely fail to appear, when
first stated, an unwarrantable simplification :
for though an inquirer, under the influence of
former habits of thought, or rather of former
abuse of language, may never have clearly con
ceived in power any thing more than the imme
diate sequence of a certain change or event as
its uniform attendant ; it would indeed be won
derful, if the very habit of attaching to it many
phrases of mystery, should not have led him
to believe, that in the relation itself, indepen
dently of those phrases, there must be some
thing 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
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 27
follow again, as immediately, every recurrence
of the same antecedent, in the same circum
stances. When a spark falls upon gunpowder,
and kindles it into explosion, every one ascribes
to the spark the power of kindling the in
flammable mass. But when such a power is
ascribed, let any one ask himself, what it is
which he 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 explo
sion of gunpowder will be the immediate and
uniform consequence of the application of a
spark. The application of the spark is one
event ; the explosion of the gunpowder is
another; 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 habit of terming Events, by
the changes of appearance which they exhibit.
When we say to any one, that, if a lighted
match fall on a heap of gunpowder, the explo
sion of the heap will be sure to follow, our
meaning is sufficiently obvious ; and, if we
2S
ON THE RELATION
have perfect certainty that it is understood by
him, do we think that he would receive the
slightest additional information, in being told,
that the fall of a match, in such circumstances,
would not only be invariably followed by the
explosion of the gunpowder, but that the lighted
match itself would also, in such circumstances,
be found uniformly to have the power of ex
ploding gunpowder ? What we might consider
in this case, as new information, would verbally
indeed 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 infor
mation, 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 nature, and to believe, not merely that they
have once or repeatedly 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
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 29
will, which would be itself in that case a
new antecedent, the same consequents may be
always expected after the same antecedents,
whenever the future, in any of the circum
stances 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 sup
position, know every invariable consequent of
every antecedent, so as to be able to predict,
in their minutest circumstances, what events
would for ever 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 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 encouragement of virtue ; in short, we
might do, as individuals and citizens, whatever
we do at this moment, and with exactly the
same views ; and yet, on the supposition that
power is something different from that invariable
30 ON THE RELATION
antecedence which alone we are supposed to
know, we might, with all this unerring know
ledge of the future, and undoubting confidence
in the results which it was to continue to pre
sent, have no knowledge of a single power in
the universe, or of a single cause or effect. To
him who had previously 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 light into any sup
posed mystery of nature would be given, by
telling him, that the fire had the pow r er of boil
ing water ; that it was the cause of the boiling,
and the boiling its effect ? And, if no additional
information would in that case be communi
cated, then, according to the test of identity
of propositions before stated, to know events
as invariably antecedent and consequent, is to
know them as causes and effects ; and to know
all the powers of every substance, therefore,
would be only to know what changes or events
would, in all possible circumstances, ensue,
when preceded by certain other changes or
events. It is only from a confusion of casual
with uniform antecedence, that power can be
conceived to be something different from that
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 31
invariable relation ; for it is impossible to form
any conception of it whatever, except merely
as that which has been, and is, and will be con
stantly followed by a certain change. This be
lief of past, present, and future similarity of
sequence, we may express in many varieties
of phrase ; but it is our language only which
we can vary, and not the conception or notion
which we wish it to communicate.
32 ON THE RELATION
SECTION TIL
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 regularity
of sequence, in the changes which they exhibit.
When, for example, in any sequence of pheno
mena 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, will be
always followed by B. We speak not of mere
priority, in a single case, but of invariable pri
ority ; and believing that A never will be found
without the instant sequence of B, we can ima
gine nothing more, in all the verbal distinctions,
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 33
that are employed by us to denote that uniform
relation. We may say, that B is not merely
the invariable consequent of A, but also its
effect, that A is not merely the invariable
antecedent of B, but also its cause, and that
there is not merely a relation of invariable ante
cedence and consequence of one to the other,
but also 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 perhaps be maintained, that
there is a difference 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 a sequence of causes and effects, there can
not be any thing more than the antecedents
D
34 ON THE RELATION
and consequents themselves,, seem to me, in
deed, to be equally applicable to phenomena
of every class ; but, to obviate the supposed
objection, let us consider more particularly the
phenomena of that world from which it is
drawn.
It will be admitted, that, in mind as much
as in matter, 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 implied in the reference, it is
always supposed, that, in certain circumstances,
a change will take place, which would not take
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, from what
we have traced in the phenomena of the mate
rial world, when the antecedents and conse
quents were alike corporeal, will probably be
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 35
admitted, without hesitation, by all who admit
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 va
riously 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 muscles that are obedient
to our will. We 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 necessary 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 conscious of a difference of
power, or, to speak more accurately, we are
conscious of a different antecedent, when we
move our limbs spontaneously, and when we
merely blush or weep. But the difference is
D2
36 ON THE RELATION
in the nature of the prior feeling itself, and in
this alone ; not in the relation which it bears to
its consequent. The antecedent is certainly dif
ferent ; 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 endowed individuals with a more than or
dinary power of exquisite simulation, the mere
desire of exhibiting those graceful signs of
modesty or pity would be of little avail, if
there were no real shame, nor real grief, of
which feelings alone the blush and the tears
are consequents. They arise, when we have
had no foreknowledge that they were in the
instant about to arise. But when we volunta
rily move our hand, the antecedent is our will
or desire to move it ; and we have perfect fore
knowledge that the motion is immediately to
take place. If we analyse, however, with suf
ficient accuracy, 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 desire to move the hand. This
is one phenomenon. There is then the motion
of the hand, that is to say, the contraction
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 37
of certain muscles, which is another pheno
menon ; and we believe that, in similar circum
stances of health and freedom from constraint,
the motion of the hand will always be the con
sequent of the antecedent 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 uniformity, 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 bodily frame ; but
we are not examining in what manner the Divine
Author of our being has united substances that
may seem in themselves to be little congruous :
we are considering only the phenomena that
result from this union, as they are capable of
affording us a notion of power ; and, when we
consider them in this respect, in all their reci
procal antecedences and sequences, we discover
nothing that differs from the relation of uniform
proximity in time, which we have traced, or
felt, in the changes of the material world.
When I say that I have mentally the power
of moving my hand, I mean nothing more than
38 ON THE RELATION
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 certain state of the mind,
as invariably antecedent, and a certain state of
the body, as invariably consequent. If power
be more than this invariableness, let the test
be repeated which I used in a former case. Let
us suppose our only knowledge and belief, with
respect to the muscular contraction, to be, that
the motion of the hand has followed, does fol
low, and will uniformly follow, the will to move
it. In these circumstances, would our know
ledge of this particular phenomenon be less per
fect than now ; and should we learn any thing
new, by being told that the will would not
merely be invariably followed by the motion of
the hand, but that the will would also have the
power of moving 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 desire, implying, in what is termed Volition,
a sort of compound influence of desire, and of
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 39
something more mysteriously indefinable, has
probably aided in some measure the misconcep
tion, by which, in our mental command over
our bodily organs, we are supposed to exercise a
power that is different, not in species only, but
in kind, from the antecedences which we trace
in the external universe.
The number of desires of which the mind is
susceptible, are as various as the objects of sup
posed good unpossessed. Of these, however,
only a small number relate to immediate mo
tions of the body, which are performed, some
times as being directly agreeable in themselves,
but much more commonly as being instrumental
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 feet, in various exercises, sometimes 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 may not, in some way or other, be
rendered subservient. There is an agreeable-
ness, in many cases, in the motion itself; and
there is a secondary, but far more important,
40 ON THE RELATION
and more general agreeableness, which in the
greater number of cases it derives from its
tendency to further the attainment of some
other agreeable object. 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 of a
wish ; though, of course, if the motion itself be
instantly consequent, 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 imme
diately obeys, that is to say, on which certain
bodily movements are immediately consequent,
are commonly termed Volitions ; while the
more lasting wishes, which have no such direct
termination, are simply denominated 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 im
mediate attainableness, of the good, is thus the
sole difference ; but, as the words are at present
used, they have served to produce a belief,
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 41
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 feel
ings, a volition and a desire. Of this complex
mental process, however, we have no conscious
ness ; the desire of moving a limb, in the usual
circumstances of health and freedom, being
always directly followed by its motion, whatever
interval of opposition there may have been, in
the motives or desires of more distant good,
which preceded the desire of the particular mus
cular 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 equilibrium or
pause of motives is conceivable. The voluptuary
may balance his love of pleasure with his love of
health, and the ambitious man his love of power
with his love of ease and security, because the
desires of pleasure, and of health, and of power,
and of ease, may exist long, separately, or to
gether, having no immediate and invariable
42 ON THE RELATION
effect to terminate them, and suggesting, there
fore, occasionally, while they continue, different
objects of thought, according to the casual asso
ciations of ideas : but, in the free and healthy
state of the body, where there can be no las-
tingness 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,
considered 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 ex
ample, from the desire of power ; and if the
finger, which we wished to move, had not been
formed actually to move at our will, the ineffec
tual feeling itself would have been classed to
gether with our other insignificant desires. 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 cer
tain desires, and follow them instantly, that the
distinction of volitions and desires is founded :
as far at least as relates to our bodily move
ments ; and the particular volition, whatever
place it may deserve in the classification of our
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 43
feelings, precedes its particular muscular mo
tion 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 vo
litions, on which our bodily movements are con
sequent, are only short feelings of desirableness,
which necessarily are not lasting, because they
are immediately followed by the attainment of
their object, there are circumstances, which it is
not difficult to trace, that have led philosophers
to consider the two affections of mind as essen
tially distinct ; and some of these it may be of
importance to point out.
One of the chief circumstances is the confi
dence of instant sequence, which, in the case of
voluntary motion, is combined with the desire.
We desire wealth, but we do not on that ac
count believe that it will follow ; and the desire
without the belief may continue ungratified, for
years, and perhaps for all our life. We desire
the motion of our hand, and know that the
motion will follow ; and the motion does
instantly follow. The volition, therefore, may
be said to be a complex feeling, inasmuch as
it is desire combined with belief of immediate
44 ON THE RELATION
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
the desire has always been found to terminate in
the particular motion ; and in the case of sudden
palsy, in which no motion follows this compound
of desire and belief, the compound itself is ex
actly the same. The term will, in its applica
tion 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 imme
diately attainable, and therefore not accompa
nied with the belief of direct and immediate
attainment : but still it must not be forgotten,
that the mental part of the sequence, the mo
mentary feeling, which exists in our conscious
ness alone, and ceases almost as soon as it
arises, is a desire that differs not from our
other desires, more than those others mutually
differ.
The brief continuance of such wishes as are
terminated almost in the very instant by the
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 45
motion that is willed, of course prevents that
combination of other feelings, which seems to
give a different character to our other desires.
There is no deliberating pause, when as soon as
the wish or feeling of the desirableness of a
certain motion arises, the desired motion is the
immediate result, no choice of means, where
no means whatever are requisite. Our desires,
which are more lasting, because less speedily
gratified, are complicated with innumerable
images, that are incessantly mingling in them :
but our will to move our hand is simple, because
it is rapid ; and the very simplicity and rapidity,
in which it has little resemblance to our other
wishes, make it appear to us as if it were
scarcely of the same class of feelings.
Another circumstance, which has contributed
in a very important 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-existing with
the opposite desires, not simply as that desire,
which follows the comparison and the consequent
perception or belief of the greater good. We
46 ON THE RELATION
are hence often said, inaccurately, to will in
opposition to our desire, as if in the process
there were only two feelings 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
compelled to support a weight in his outstretched
arm, under fear of a more painful punishment if
he should draw it back, and experience, as in
that situation he must soon experience, a degree
of fatigue which is almost insupportable ; if he
still continue to keep his arm extended, he will
be said, in the common language of philoso
phers, to will the very pain which he cannot be
supposed to desire. But the direct object of his
desire is not the motion of his arm ; it is simply
relief from pain : and the direct object of his
continued 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
procured, 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 can alone preserve him from greater suf-
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 47
fering. If the direct object of his desire were
not relief from pain, but the actual muscular
motion which would bring down his weary arm,
there can be no doubt that the motion of his
arm would immediately ensue.
The chief error of philosophers who have
made this distinction, evidently consists, then,
in not analysing, with sufficient accuracy, the
separate sequences of events, in a complicated
process, and not considering, therefore, what
are the feelings which are truly opposed to
each other. " With regard to our actions," says
Dr. REID,* " 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 athirst has
a strong desire to drink, but for some particular
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 humanity or particular affection,
he desires that he should live. A man for
health may take a nauseous draught, for which
he has no desire but a great aversion. Desire,
therefore, even when its object is some action
* Essays on the Active Powers of Man, Essay II.
ch. i.
48 ON THE RELATION
of our own, is only an incitement to will, but
it is not volition. The determination of the
mind may be not to do what we desire to do."
In all these instances adduced by Dr. REID,
his mistake consists 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 not one of
the instances is there the smallest opposition
in that particular desire, on which the action
immediately depends, and which must, there
fore, according to his own system, be 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 that continuance of bad
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT.
49
health, 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.
REID would have preferred, the will to move
them, is a state of mind as different 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
circumstances has given birth, a desire, not
of pleasure in the draught, but of less evil, in
one of two unavoidable 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 action, which he is not desirous
of performing, whatever opposition there may
have been in those primary desires, of which
his secondary desire or will is not a part, but
only the consequence. He has a desire of
saving from death an unfortunate individual;
he has a desire of the public good, and 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
E
50 ON THE RELATION
dooms the criminal to death ; the final will to
utter the awful 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 contemplation of fame,
or any other desire from the contemplation of
its object.
That what is termed the will, in this case,
is a desire following 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 peculiar quality. The
indolent sensualist, for example, who knows
the extent of command over the various objects
of luxurious accommodation which wealth con
fers, 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 necessary for the
gratification of it, as instantly, as, when the
very delicacy which his appetite has sought 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
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 51
the rapid intermediate effort. Nor is it of the
slightest consequence to the distinction, that
when we will to move our limbs, the muscular
contractions, in which our volitions terminate,
are objects of trifling good in themselves, and
are desired chiefly, or only, as means of obtain
ing a more distant, but greater good : for this
circumstance, also, of relation to a good that
is not comprised in the direct object, our
volitions have in common with many of our
other desires. He is indeed a miser of no
vulgar proficiency in avarice, 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 num
ber of the objects of our apparently selfish and
luxurious 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-varying desire of elegance and comfort, as
if for our own personal enjoyment merely, are
valued by us, not so much for the little direct
enjoyment which we are to receive from them,
ns for the means, which they seem to offer, of
52 ON THE RELATION
gratifying a prouder wish, by increasing, at
however dear a cost, our estimation in the
respect and regard of the society in which we
live.
When we will certain motions, we will them,
surely, because it is directly or indirectly agree
able to us that the motions should take place.
We have a certain pleasing object in view ; and
our will, which, as I conceive, is only the desire
of that pleasing object, resembles in this respect
all our other desires, however much it may differ
from them in the rapidity of its instant grati
fication. But though, antecedently to the motion
of the hand, there were not simply that feeling
of the desirableness of the motion, which I sup
pose to be all that precedes it, but two distinct
feelings, a desire to move it, and a will to move
it, still, whatever the ultimate feeling may be,
and whatever name we may think necessary to
give to it, we must remember that it is only
another feeling in a train of feelings, and that,
when we arrive at the bodily motion, which is
its immediate consequent, we have a sequence
and nothing more, precisely as if the desire and
the will themselves were one. A certain feeling
has arisen in the mind ; a certain bodily change
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 53
is the consequence. We have a pair of pheno
mena, which we may believe to be uniform in
their order of succession ; but we discover
nothing in the regularity that marks it as more
uniform, or in any respect different from the
invariableness of the sequences of the pheno
mena in the material world.
The theory of Power, then, seems to receive
no additional light from a consideration of men
tal energy, as exhibited in the bodily movements
that depend upon the will ; for we find, as be
fore, only a sequence of two phenomena, that
are believed to be, in the same circumstances,
uniformly antecedent and consequent. But the
feelings of the mind are followed, not by bodily
movements only; they are followed, also, by
other feelings of the mind. We have antece
dents and consequents, where the whole train
is mental ; and these, perhaps, may evolve a
relation, that is closer, and more effective, than
mere antecedence, however uniform.
When thoughts succeed thoughts, without
any feeling of desire to modify them in accord
ance with it, no peculiarity of power is sup
posed in the sequence. It is supposed, only
in changes that are dependent on the will,
54 ON THE RELATION
that is to say, in changes which are subse
quent 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 de
sire combined with a deliberate preference, and
often, too, with expectation of a particular
result. We have previously considered different
forms of good or evil. Some good appears to
us greater upon the whole than others, or some
evil less. We desire, therefore, the greater good,
with the opinion that it is the greater good, or
the less evil, with the opinion that it is the
less evil ; and, having so weighed or pre
ferred, 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
submitting to it, we think that we can escape
an evil that is greater. But, whatever may be
the combination 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 follow
ing it, that we are to consider the connexion
which is supposed to be peculiarly effective. It
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 55
is effective indeed, in the only intelligible sense
of that word, because a certain change is its
consequent, which would not have taken place
if the antecedent had been different ; but, far
from discovering any peculiar efficacy, we per
ceive nothing more than two phenomena, ante
cedent and consequent, in an order 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 conceive it distinctly, a sort of
shadowy and indefinable empire has been as
signed to our volition, as if the whole train of
thought were, in some greater or less degree,
directly under its control. A full examination
of the errors of philosophers in this respect
would lead me into too wide a field, compre
hending, indeed, an analysis of all the intellec
tual functions ; which I reserve as the subject
of other works. In the mean time, however,
a few remarks on some of the simpler forms of
this mistake, may serve to illustrate the prin
ciple on which the general mistake is founded.
56 ON THE RELATION
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 pre
venting the rise of certain conceptions, 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 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 bid
ding. 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 we order them
to come before us. To will 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 ; 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 of mind to cease, which constitutes
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 57
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 banish 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 emotion, is
certainly not to render less, but more vivid,
whatever images 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 indi
rectly, by calling up other ideas, which we know
to be connected with them.
Thus, if I wish to remember a piece of news,
which was communicated to me by a friend, it
is admitted, that I cannot call up directly that
particular piece of news ; but I am said to have
the power of calling up ideas which I know
58 ON THE RELATION
to have been associated with it in place and
time, the idea of the person, of the spot, of
many little events that may have happened
while we were standing together, and of other
circumstances which were the subjects of con
versation. 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 person, or of the spot, with
out any idea of the person, or of the spot, im
plied in my volition, 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 volitions, and cannot there
fore be adduced with the view of getting rid of
any inconsistencies, which may be implied in
the direct 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 order of the asso
ciate ideas. I do not call up, for it is not in
my power so to produce, the ideas of the per
son, of the spot, of the events that took place
at the time, and of the various circumstances
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 59
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
continuance of this desire, the spot, the events,
and other circumstances, rise according to the
usual order of our spontaneous trains of thought.
The conception of these can scarcely fail, at
every moment, to suggest something which was
said at the time. If it suggest that particular
part of the conversation, of which I remember
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 recognize 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 before
me the images of the person and the place,
which may almost be said to be involved in
the desire itself, and allows other images, asso
ciated with these, to arise, till I either remem
ber what I wish, or the wish itself die away, in
the hopelessness of gratification, or in the oc
currence of new and more interesting objects.
In like manner, when we are supposed volun-
60
ON THE RELATION
tarily 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 associated with it, we may volun
tarily 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 capable of
this first step, in the will or effective desire,
which precedes the muscular actions necessary
for taking up a book, and fixing 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 sup
posed voluntary command over the train of
thought ; and, if the examination were extended
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 desire
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 61
of something, involves of course some concep
tion more or less shadowy or clear ; and, during
the continuance of this desire, a series of asso
ciate 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 pri
mary conception involved in it, are thus suffi
cient to induce by suggestion many accordant
images ; and may be accompanied, as they
usually are accompanied, with the belief, or
hope, that, in the course of the varied sug
gestion, such images may arise, as will be most
suitable for the object that was primarily and
lastingly in view.
In the empire of the will over our trains of
thought, when the complex feeling which we
term the will is thus analysed, there does not
seem to be any thing peculiarly mysterious.
But, even though all the mystery that is sup
posed were really to hang about it, still it must
be remembered, that, whether ideas be willed
directly or indirectly, or produced in any other
manner, for which it is possible to invent words;
when the state of mind, that is supposed to be
willed, does truly arise, there is in the process
62
ON THE RELATION
of volition only a sequence of feeling after
feeling. There is one feeling that is conse
quent, and there was another feeling that was
antecedent. In the sequence of these, we may
imagine the closest and most invariable prox
imity; but, assuredly, we do not discover a
proximity that is closer or more invariable,
than what is believed by us in the phenomena
of the world of matter.
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 63
SECTION IV.
IN our examination of the phenomena of the
mind as successive, we have considered its
feelings, both as they are antecedent to motions
of our bodily organs, and as, in trains more
purely mental, they are the immediate ante
cedents 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 relation of proximity, that is not
confined to the moment of any single sequence.
If the relation of uniform antecedence and
consequence, which we found to impress us
universally in the phenomena 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, but not to be
more peculiarly applicable to it than to objects
without; and if power be something more
64 ON THE RELATION
than this, we have not been able, in our exami
nation of the mental phenomena, to discover
what it is.
So different, however, has the nature of
succession been considered, in the phenomena
of mind and of matter, 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 con
sciousness of our own exertion, is afterwards
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 unifor
mity ; or if, in the changes that take place in
the mind itself, we were able to detect some
thing more than the antecedence of certain
feelings, and the subsequence of certain other
feelings, as in matter we perceive the antece
dence of one motion, and the subsequence of
another motion ; this theory might be allowed
to have at least some ground of possible truth.
But since we do not remember a time in
which the phenomena of matter did not impress
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 65
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 doctrine, even though there were no diffi
culty in the supposed transfer itself, would be
without the slightest ground in our experience.
Is the total want of a foundation in our
experience, however, the only objection that
can be made to such a doctrine ? Let us con
sider, 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 subsequence
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
loadstone. In the nature of the subsequence
in the two cases there is no difference. We
have in each case two phenomena, reciprocally
antecedent and consequent, but we have no
more ; and the one antecedent is as little trans
ferable as the other; for we have no greater
i-
66 ON THE RELATION
reason to ascribe desire to the loadstone, than
to suppose the approach of a loadstone to have
preceded our muscular motion. To say that
we ascribe, not desire, but power, to the load
stone, is not merely to beg the question, by
assuming, without proof, that there is in the .
mental sequence a closeness of proximity, which
is different from the mere uniformity of ante
cedence that is to be found in the changing
phenomena of matter, arid which admits, there
fore, of being transferred to those phenomena ;
but it is also to say, that more is transferred,
than is really felt in the sequence : for power,
which has a relation to future 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 parti
cular exertion ; and, if from one sequence any
inference may be made, as to the recurrence
of sequences, it may be made as much from
the motion of iron, as from the motion of a
limb. If what we feel be transferred to the
magnetic phenomenon, it is evidently desire
which we feel. Till the muscular motion have
once taken place, it is desire alone; or if we
suppose, that, even before the first exertion,
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. G7
there is an instinctive expectation of the result,
it is only desire, combined with belief, that the
motion will follow: it is afterwards desire,
combined with the knowledge that a muscular
motion has been its consequence, and with
belief that it will again be followed by the
motion : but neither is the combination of belief
and desire transferred 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 expectation of it
as a future consequence. We do not believe
with greater 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 cases,
indeed, the inference as to future similarity of
event, is made from one general principle :
but it is a principle which is common 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
F 2
68 ON THE RELATION
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 animal nisus, which we expe
rience, enters* very much into the vulgar idea
of power. It seems to me, at least, equally
probable, that the feeling of this animal 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 peculiarly unaccountable ; as it
is impossible to attend to the common language
of the science of mind, without perceiving its
innumerable derivations from the analogies of
power in the mutual agencies of material sub
stances. The phenomena of mind succeed each
other in a certain order; the phenomena of
matter also have their peculiar order : but,
* " It must, however, be confessed, that the animal 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.
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 69
were we to judge by the language 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
conversation, 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 language only, but
the very abstractions and imaginations, of which
theories are made, we discover innumerable
attempts to materialize every operation of the
mind, but very few attempts to spiritualize 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 senso-
rium, of vibrations and vibratiuncles, of currents
of animal spirits, electricity, galvanism ! There
is scarcely a single new generalization of phe
nomena of matter which have been long familiar
to us, or a single power in matter inferred from
the observation of new phenomena, which has
not been immediately seized by philosophers,
70 ON THE RELATION
and applied to mind ; as if it were the great
business of metaphysical science, to systematize
the slight analogies which can be drawn from
the material world, and thus to convert the
metaphors, that might adorn our poetry, into
grave expositions 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 general belief of the immediate
agency of mind, in all the changes of the ex
ternal 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 po
pular mythology. In such cases, however, the
faith that is imagined 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 solemni-
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 71
ties, 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 embellishment, and involves
real belief of the operation of Mind, it is easy
to trace the source of the supposed mental
agency, in circumstances 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, like 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, when 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 occur,
and no visible cause is discerned, that the
immediate agency of Spirits is supposed. It is
a dignm vlndice nodus, and a God is, therefore,
introduced ; because mind, which is the only
power that is itself altogether invisible, furnishes
the only analogy to which recourse can be had.
72 ON THE RELATION
When sounds, therefore, are heard from the
mountain, 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 reasoning, 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 supposed 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, which would
ascribe a living power to the production of
every change. The Roman, who heard Jupiter
thundering in the sky, and acknowledged that
he reigned, saw and recognized an endless suc
cession 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
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 73
fell and rebounded 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, without
any influence from without, which our senses
are capable of detecting. The rock, which,
many ages ago, was swept from the mountain s
side, remains still in the same spot of the
valley that received it, and is scarcely distin
guishable from the fragments which the desola
tion of yesterday has spread around it : while
the locomotive power of animals, as exerted by
fits of longer or shorter duration, renders visible
to us the beginnings of motion from absolute
rest ; the whole train of vital changes being
composed, partly of motions which are visible,
and partly of feelings which are invisible, and
the invisible feelings being neglected by us, in
our consideration of the visible motions, which
74 ON THE RELATION
appear at intervals only, though, in reality, 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 capable only
of continuing changes, and to distinguish mind
as alone active, and capable of beginning
changes. But the assumption of this quality
is founded on the difference to which I have
alluded, of the continued visibility of the train
of changes 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, in both cases, become visible
to us, we should find, that no created mind is
capable of beginning spontaneously a series of
changes, more than any mass of created matter.
All is only a continuance of changes, and often
of mutual changes. If, without the intervention
of matter, thought arise after thought, and
passion after passion ; as often, without the
intervention of mind, does the motion of a
few small particles of matter produce in other
masses a long series of elemental motions. If
mind often act upon matter, as often does
matter act upon mind; and though matter
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 75
cannot begin a change of itself, when all the
preceding circumstances have continued the
same, as little, when all the preceding circum
stances 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 object
of desire. The truth is, that certain changes
of 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 certain changes of
matter invariably precede certain changes of
mind. To say that mind produces motion in
matter, while matter cannot produce motion in
mind, is but an abuse of language : for motion,
as an object of our perception, must be a state
of some material thing. It might, in like
manner, be said, that matter only is active, and
that mind is inert, because it cannot produce
in itself, or in other minds, that painful sensation
of heat, which is immediately produced by the
contact of a burning mass ; or that many of
the most powerful chemical solvents are inert,
while another solvent alone is active, because,
76 ON THE RELATION
from the use of that one solvent alone, a
particular product can be derived. Though
matter cannot produce motion in mind, it can
produce sensation in it; and though mind
cannot produce sensation in matter, it can pro
duce in it motion. The changes produced by
mind in matter, are, indeed, more obvious to
the perception of others, and more directly
measurable, than the changes produced by
matter in mind : but it is the simple production
of a change, not the nature of the change pro
duced, 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 smallest
indistinguishable element is modifying, by its
joint instrumentality, 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. 77
SECTION V.
THE successions of phenomena, whether spi
ritual or material, that have been as yet con
sidered 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 Energy itself, which, in our igno
rance how to offer it a due homage of admira
tion, we 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 ex
ternal things, that render the soul itself a bright
and ever- varying mirror of the universe 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
78 ON THE RELATION
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 was 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 distinguished from the works that image
his invisible sovereignty.
The definition which has been given of power,
then, it will perhaps be urged, however appli
cable it may seem to the phenomena of the
subordinate universe, might yet be inapplicable
to the mighty agency from which the phenomena
of the subordinate universe received their origin ;
and if there be any species of agency which it
is inadequate to express, it cannot justly be
received as a general definition.
Since every conception which we are physi
cally capable of forming of the nature of the
Deity, is drawn from the phenomena which are
more immediately present to our observation,
and chiefly from the analogy of our own mind,
his goodness, as conceived by us, being only
a transcendent degree of that goodness of which
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 79
we are internally conscious ; and the notion of
his designing power, as manifested in the beau
tiful order of the universe, being the result only
of an influence from that order which ourselves
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 capable of rising to the contempla
tion of that mightier change, in which every
thing that is not eternal had its origin.
The inquiry, however, still remains ; and it is
the most important 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 dig
nity, as relating to a Being, who is not more
truly the source of all power, 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, which becomes devotion before we
think of offering it in worship, and makes virtue
more dear to us, at the very moment at which
we feel, in the comparison, how faint is all to
which we can give the name of Virtue. It is
80
ON THE RELATION
not with a view to this best relation that we are
at present to enter on the inquiry. It is only
physically that we are to consider the Divine
Power ; and, even in this respect, as it relates to
all our other physical investigations, there is
none which can be regarded as of equal interest.
Indeed all the errors of philosophers 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 the
admission of any powers, however subordinate
to his primary will, in the things which he
created.
It is of so much importance, for the strength
ening of human weakness, 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 be perilous, which might seem to
loosen, however slightly, that tie of universal
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
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 81
best accordant with the phenomena, and most
suitable to the Divine Majesty. The power of
the Omnipotent 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 concep
tion, we run some risk of degrading the Excel
lence, 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 which we worship.
What the holiest views of God and the Uni
verse require of us to believe, is, that all things
are what they are, in consequence of that Divine
Will, to the fulfilment 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 vari
ously modify, the qualities which himself had
given, or be, in any other way, the direct ope
rator of extraordinary changes. We know God,
as a Creator, in the things which are really
82 ON THE RELATION
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 seems 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 contem
plation ; and therefore, since all things are sub
ject to his will, and no greater power seems
necessary to suspend any tendency of nature
than what originally produced it, if there
should be circumstances in which it would be
of greater advantage, upon the whole, that the
ordinary tendency should not continue, we see
no reason, a priori, for disbelieving, that a differ
ence of event may be directly produced by Him,
even without our knowledge, in those rare cases,
in which the temporary deviation would be for
the same gracious end as that which fixed the
general regularity.
But God the Creator, and God the Pro
vidential Governor of the world, are not,
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 83
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 wholly 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, expressive of the
accustomed order of the sequences of the phe
nomena of Nature. But though in this appli
cation, the word Law is not explanatory of any
thing, and expresses merely an order of succes
sion 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 imaginable circum
stances, no change can be expected as its imme
diate consequent, more than if it were not
existing, is an object that has no power, pro
perty, or quality whatever. That substance
has the quality of heat which excites in us, or
occasions in us, as a subsequent change, the
sensation of warmth ; that has the quality of
G 2
ON THE RELATION
greenness, the presence of which is the ante
cedent 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 equilibrium ; that has the quality of
elasticity, of which the parts, after being pressed
closer together, return, when the pressure is
withdrawn, in a direction opposite to the force
which compressed them. If matter be inca
pable 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 become known, what is
it of which, in such circumstances, we are enti
tled 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 antecedents and con
sequents, 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 entering into
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 85.
the gracious plan of Him who has surrounded
us every where with the countless multitude of
living and inanimate influences, which it is de
lightful to feel and to behold, and still more
delightful to trace to that primary Beneficence,
in which they all had their common origin.
Even while material objects are themselves
reciprocally productive, as well as susceptible,
of change., it may be said, therefore, and in one
sense of the word said justly, that God is the
Author of all the changes which take place ;
for it was in order that they might be the ante
cedents of the very changes which are conse
quent 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 God is the Author of them ;
and to suppose that he is himself the real ope
rator, and the only operator, of every change,
is to suppose, that the universe which he has
made exists for no purpose.
Philosophers, however, not perceiving that
the universal exclusive 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 consi
dered the Divine Being as what they term the
86 ON THE RELATION
Efficient Cause of every change that takes
place ; and have yet asserted the existence of
a system of material things, of which, in that
case, it would be impossible to discover the
slightest evidence, or the slightest utility.
This error, however, will require a little fuller
elucidation.
In the system of Occasional Causes, which
formed a part of the Cartesian philosophy, and
which was founded on the difficulty of imagining
any mutual agency of substances so little con
gruous 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. According 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 raise our arm, produces the
necessary contraction of the muscles. The
presence of light, in the one case, and Our
desire, in the other case, are the occasions,
indeed, on which the Omnipresent Power be
comes thus active; but they are instrumental
only as occasions ; and, but for the direct
interposition of the Almighty himself, in both
cases, there would be no vision, though light
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 87
were for ever present in the healthy eye, and no
contraction of the soundest muscles, though our
mind were wholly 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 far from losing its influence ; for
it only changed its denomination, and, under
another title, continued to prevail still more
extensively. It was* converted into the system
of physical and efficient causes ; and this doc
trine, which scarcely can be said to differ from
the other in any thing but in name, may at pre
sent be regarded as the universal faith of philo
sophers. The occasional cause of the one system
is the physical cause of the other ; for what is
termed a Physical Cause, is truly, in this doc
trine, the mere occasion, on the occurrence of
which, a mightier agency is exerted, that alone
is the producer of the subsequent change, and
alone, therefore, deserves to be denominated
efficient.
According to this doctrine of efficient and
physical causes, we are to believe, that there is
in the phenomena of nature a regular series of
* Note D.
88
ON THE RELATION
antecedents and consequents, a series so regu
lar, that, from the presence 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 ante
cedents, the physical causes of all the changes
that take place ; but they are thus antecedents
of particular phenomena, 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 con
nects each particular consequent with its parti
cular antecedent, or rather is, in every case, the
sole efficient of it.
Such is the doctrine. Let us consider, then,
what the doctrine implies.
In a former Section, I endeavoured to show
that we have no other notion of power, than as
that which is instantly and constantly followed by
a certain change. That which has been always
followed by a certain change, is immediately fol
lowed by it, and, as we believe, is to be in all future
time immediately followed by it, is the cause of
that change, in the only sense in which the word
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 89
cause seems to have any meaning. The phy
sical cause, then, which has been, is, and always
will be, followed by a certain change, is the
efficient cause of that change ; or if it be not
the efficient cause of it, it is necessary that a
definition of efficiency should be given us, which
involves more than the certainty of a particular
change, as consequent in instant sequence.
Causation is efficiency ; and a cause which is
not efficient, is truly no cause whatever. It
is possible, indeed, that what we may have
before considered as the physical or efficient
cause of a particular phenomenon, that is to
say, its immediate and constant antecedent,
may prove not to have been so ; for it is pos
sible, that a better analysis of a complex
phenomenon may show a series of changes,
where we had supposed only one. We before
considered A as the immediate antecedent of
D ; but we find afterwards, 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 physical
cause of D, and C its efficient cause. We
90 ON THE RELATION
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 consequent :
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 who make verbally the distinc
tions, to which we strive in vain to attach some
accurate notion.
If, indeed, the asserters of the difference of
physical and efficient causes had explained what
they meant by the difference asserted, and
proved that there is something more involved
in the notion of power than the invariableness
of a particular consequent, which may be ex
pected instantly, as often as the antecedent itself
recurs, their doctrine might have had some
claim to be admitted. But they have contented
themselves with asserting the distinction, with
out any very great effort, or rather, I may say,
without any effort whatever, to explain to us
in what the asserted difference consists.
If the distinction relate to a supposed differ-
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 91
ence of matter and mind ; and if the meaning
be, that matter is, in all circumstances, by its
very nature, essentially incapable of being the
direct antecedent of any changes, in other
masses of matter, or in mind, and that these
changes must, in every case, be produced by a
spiritual being, as the sole imaginable efficient ;
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 another name for efficiency of
change ; and, in the second place, by intro
ducing a spiritual operator in every change,
they only lengthen a sequence of physical phe
nomena, and do not produce any thing different
from a sequence of regular antecedents and
consequents. We before supposed, that the
approach of a loadstone to a piece of iron was
the immediate antecedent of the motion of the
iron. We have now, according to this view of
it, a more complex phenomenon ; in the first
place, the approach of the loadstone, in what
ever manner that may have been produced;
in the second place, the volition of the Deity,
or of some subordinate spirit ; and, in the
third place, the approach of the iron to the
92 ON THE RELATION
loadstone. But it is quite evident, that, in this
lengthened series, we have only obtained a new
antecedent ; and instead of supposing that the
introduction of a loadstone is followed, has
always been followed, and will always be fol
lowed, by the motion 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 voli
tion, and that of this volition, or spiritual energy,
whatever it may be, the motion of the iron, within
a certain degree of vicinity to the loadstone, is,
has been, and always will be, the consequent.
The asserters of the doctrine, then, even
when they suppose that they are contending
for a cause of a different species, under the
name of efficient, are in truth introducing into
the sequence observed by us, a new physical
cause ; and they are introducing it, as I have
before said, without any proof; for the causes,
which they term physical, they admit to be the
only causes that come under our observation.
They not merely introduce it without proof,
however, but they introduce what, if proved to
exist, would prove also the uselessness of almost
every thing which exists.
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 93
That the changes which take place, whether
in mind or in matter, are all ultimately resolv
able into the will of the Deity, who formed
alike the spiritual and material system of the
universe, making the earth a habitation worthy
of its noble inhabitant, and man an inhabitant
almost worthy of that scene of divine magnifi
cence 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
plish, God is himself the Author of the physical
changes which take place in it, is, then, most
true ; as it is most true, that the same Power,
which gave the universe its laws, can, for par
ticular purposes of his provident goodness and
wisdom,* suspend, if it be his pleasure, any
effect that would flow from these laws, and pro
duce, by his own immediate volition, a different
result. But, however deeply we may be im
pressed with these truths, we cannot find in
them any reason for supposing, that the objects
without us, which he has made surely for some
end, have, as made by him, no efficacy, no
* Notes E and F.
94 ON THE RELATION
power of being instrumental to his own great
purpose, merely because whatever power they
can be supposed to possess must have been
derived from the fountain of all power. We
have seen, indeed, that it is only as possessing
this power, that they are conceived by us to
exist ; and their powers, therefore, or efficien
cies, are, relatively to us, their whole 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 unsus
ceptible 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 the splendid home in which
it has called us to dwell, a home, that may
be splendid indeed, as planned by the Omni
potent who made it, but which must for ever
be invisible, and unknown to the very beings
for whom it was made. Such, reciprocally, is
the nature of our mind, and of light, that light
cannot be present, or at least the sensorial organ
cannot exist in a certain state in consequence
of its presence, without that instant sensation
which constitutes vision. If light have not this
power of affecting us, it is with respect to us
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 95
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
forming any conception of matter. The doc
trine of universal spiritual efficiency, then, in
the sequences of physical causes, seems to be
only an awkward and complicated modification
of the system of BERKELEY ; for as, in this view
of physical causes that are inefficient, the Deity,
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 inanimate
masses, which cannot affect us more than if
they were not in existence, must be as remem
brancers,* 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 particular species that
feeling is to be : as if the Omniscient could
* Note G.
96 ON THE RELATION
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 spiritual
agency. Matter, if we must still continue to
use that name, has no relations to us: all its
relations are to the presiding and operating
Spirit alone. The asserters of the doctrine, in
deed, seem to consider it as representing in a
more sublime light the Divine Omnipotence,
by exhibiting it to our conception, as the only
power in nature : but they might in like manner
affirm, that the creation of the infinity of worlds,
with all the life and happiness that are diffused
over them, rendered less, instead of more sub
lime, the existence of Him who till then was the
sole existence : for power that is derived dero
gates as little from the primary power, as de
rived existence derogates from the being from
whom it flows. Yet the believers of inefficient
physical causes, who conceive that light is
powerless in vision, are perfectly willing to
admit that light exists, or, rather, they are
strenuous affirmers of its existence, as essential
to the very distinction on which their doctrine
is founded ; and are anxious only to prove, in
their zeal for the glory of Him who made it,
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 97
and who makes nothing in vain, that this, and
all, 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 melody or fragrance ; but still it
exists. The production of so simple a state as
that of vision, or any other of the modes of
perception, with an apparatus which is s not
merely complicated, but, in all its complication,
absolutely without efficacy of any sort, is so far
from adding any sublimity to the Divine nature
in our conception, that it can scarcely be con
ceived by the mind, without lessening in some
degree the sublimity of the Author of the uni
verse, by lessening, or rather destroying, all the
sublimity of the universe which he has made.
What is that idle mass of matter, which cannot
affect us, or be known to us, or to any other
created being, more than if it were not ? If the
Deity produces, in every case, by his own im
mediate operation, all those feelings which we
term sensations or perceptions, he does not first
create a multitude of inert and cumbrous worlds,
invisible, and incapable of affecting any thing
whatever, that he may know when to operate,
H
98 ON THE RELATION
in the same manner as he would have operated,
though they did not exist. This strange process
may indeed have some resemblance to the igno
rance and feebleness of human power ; but it is
not the awful simplicity of that Omnipotence,
" Whose word leaps forth at once to its effect ;
Who calls for things that are not, and they come."
In those cases, however, in which the direct
agency of the Supreme Being is indubitably to
be believed, as in 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 consider that highest energy as differ
ent in nature, as well as in degree, 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 know
ledge and virtue of his creatures. But as we
know his wisdom and goodness only by know
ing what that human wisdom and goodness are,
which, with all their imperfection, he has yet
permitted to know and adore him ; so, it is only
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 99
by knowing created power, weak and limited as
it is, that we can rise to our feeble conception
of his Omnipotence. In contemplating it, we
consider only his will, as the direct antecedent
of those glorious effects which the universe dis
plays. The power of God is not any thing
different from God, but is the Almighty himself,
willing whatever seems to him good, and creat
ing, or altering, by his very will 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, and to know, therefore, that, without
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 us, or to
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 certainty that admits not of doubt, Intelligence
and Design that must have preceded the exist
ence of every thing which exists. Yet, when we
analyze those great but obscure conceptions,
* Note H.
H 2
100 ON THE RELATION
which rise in our mind while we attempt to
think of the creation 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 those earthly changes,
which fall beneath our view. We do not imagine
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 our imagination, and all nature
at the very moment rising around.
It is evident, that, in the case of the divine
agency, as in every other species of causation,
the introduction of any circumstance of sup
posed efficiency, as furnishing a closer bond of
connexion, would, in truth, furnish only a new
antecedent, to be itself connected. But, even
though it were possible to conceive the closer
connexion of such an additional circumstance,
as might be supposed to intervene, between the
will of the Creator, as antecedent, and the rise
of the universe, as consequent, it would dimi
nish indeed, but it certainly could not be sup
posed to elevate the majesty of the person and
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 101
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 the 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 representation
of instant sequence seems peculiarly suited, as if
it were more emphatically powerful.
In the works of man, if we consider only
the progressive changes, as they rise after each
other, each effect is equally the immediate con
sequent 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
distance, in his plan. Before this can arise, a
multitude of gradual changes may be necessary ;
and quick, therefore, as each sequence may be,
there is an appearance of slowness when we
consider the whole 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,
102 ON THE RELATION
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 pro
duce them in vain. But there is a Being, who
is omnipotent ; 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 ethe
real 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 mate
rial emanation of the divine glory, to connect it
afterwards with the grosser forms of earth. It
is by stating nothing more than the antecedent
and consequent, that the description is majes
tically simple. God speaks, and it is done. We
imagine nothing intermediate. In our highest
contemplation of his power, we believe only,
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 103
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, that 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 things, by miraculous appearances. The will
is the only necessary previous change ; and that
Being has almighty power, whose every will is
immediately and invariably follozved by the ex
istence of its object.
PART SECOND.
OF THE SOURCES OF ILLUSION WITH RESPECT
TO THE RELATION.
PART SECOND.
SECTION I.
IF, in the preceding analysis of the notion of
power, I have been successful in showing the
real import of the relation, according 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
108 ON THE RELATION
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 true of the
changes that take place in the phenomena of
the material world, is true of the reciprocal
influences 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
God, it is true also of those mighty 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 in
volved by scholastic phraseology. The verbal
distinctions which are made on this subject are
either fallacious or of little value. There is,
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 109
in strictness of language, but one cause, the
proximate event, or the proximate combina
tion of circumstances, in the order of priority :
though, as the proximate event has other cir
cumstances, which invariably precede it, the
term remote cause may be allowed for those
remote circumstances, when a single order of
events is considered abstractly, without regard
to any co-existing series. A, being the cause
of B, which is the cause of C, may itself be
termed 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 pheno
mena 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. It must be remembered>
however, that the term is allowed, not as
expressing any new and different species of
relation, for the only real causation is still that
of B by A, and of C by B ; but merely for the
sake of conciseness, to prevent the necessity of
naming every intermediate event in a train of
phenomena; and that, as there is a perpetual
interference of such orders of events, in the
variety of simultaneous changes which nature
110 ON THE RELATION
exhibits, by which the parts of one train mo
dify 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 cause
may be allowed, in like manner, for the con
venient expression of those circumstances of
longer continuance, and of immediate occurrence,
the combination of which is, in certain cases,
necessary for the production of a particular
effect : but still it must be remembered, that
these are not separate causes, distinct in nature.
They are only parts of one complex antece
dent ; 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 cir
cumstance, to keep alive the belief of some
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. Ill
mysterious intermediate existence between all
the pairs of events, distinct from the antecedents
and consequents that compose the sequence.
It is not necessary, as we found, to the purity
of theism, that we should suppose something
divine 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 beauty, as one great effect, 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 theory, which
supposes the very notion of power to be acquir-
able 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
112 ON THE RELATION
to be the physical or proximate cause, would
be only the remote cause, being thrown one
step back in the series of causation : or, if we
should suppose, that these circumstances 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 aggre
gate 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 or doubt, therefore, for those who,
without any warrant from observation or reason,
imagine that there may be a spiritual interpo
sition 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
direct antecedent which is the real physical
cause, or as to the exact nature and number
of the circumstances, which may perhaps com
bine in it.
The powers of substances are only the sub
stances themselves ; and hence, whatever mystery
may be supposed to attend the invariableness
OF CAUSE AN 7 D EFFECT. 113
of the changes that are consequent on their
presence, 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 defi
nition we may give of matter, must always be
the enumeration of those properties or qualities
which it exhibits ; and, if there were no powers,
there would truly be nothing to define.
If, then, we suppose, in the first place, that
we can know matter as having certain qualities ;
and, afterwards, find something very wonderful,
in the regularity of the changes that are con
sequent on its existence in certain circum
stances ; we have begun to wonder in the wrong
place : for, if we know matter as having quali
ties, that is to say, if we know matter at all,
we have already taken for granted, that, in
certain circumstances, 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,
i
114 ON THE RELATION
and if there were, at the same time, no regula
rity of the train of antecedents and consequents ;
for this would be to have certain qualities, and
yet to be at the same time destitute of every
quality.
All this regularity of succession, then, is
assumed in our very notion of substances, as
existing; and there is no power, different and
separate, or distinguishable from them. Innu
merable changes may be taking place in them
at every moment; and in all time, past and
future, these changes may have succeeded each
other, and may continue to succeed each other,
with a complication and variety to which our
imagination cannot fix any limit ; yet, however
varied, and unceasing, and complicated they
may be, the phenomena, in all their changes,
present us a series of antecedents and conse
quents, but present us nothing more.
So obvious, indeed, does it appear to me, but
for the strange misconceptions which have pre
vailed on the subject, that the substances which
exist in nature, the world of matter, its living
inhabitants, and the adorable Being who created
them, are all the real existences in nature, and
that, in the various changes which occur, there
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 115
can as little, therefore, be any powers or suscep
tibilities, 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 render 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 powers
of nature to be something more than the mere
antecedents and consequents themselves, is not
what we are entitled, without the fullest ex
amination, to consider as an illusion. In the
minute discussion to which it has now been
subjected, it has been made, I trust, sufficiently
apparent, that 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 sup
posed 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
i2
116 ON THE RELATION
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 deserve our inquiry,
what those circumstances have been, which have
so long obtained for it the assent, not of com
mon understandings merely, but of the quick-
sighted and the subtile. A truth is but half
revealed, when it makes us know only that we
have been in the wrong : the chief revelation
is that which 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. 117
SECTION II.
THE belief, that something more than mere
invariableness of precession, however regular
in the certainty and exact similarity of a parti
cular consequent, is implied in power, and in
all the synonymous expressions of agency, has
arisen from the joint influence of various circum
stances, some of which are to be found in the
nature of things, and others in the arbitrary
forms of language, 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 important, are yet
118 ON THE RELATION
of sufficient consequence to deserve to be pointed
out.
When I speak of these verbal influences,
however, as less important, I must be under
stood as speaking of the principles of error,
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
originally communicated, and perpetuated, by
conversation or writing. The more frequently,
for example, we may have been accustomed
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 secon
dary only, not primary ; and it is to its primary
influence alone that my present remarks are
confined.
Of these sources of primary error in lan
guage, I may remark, in the first place, the
effect produced by the various metaphorical
phrases which have been employed to express
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 119
the regularity of the antecedence and conse
quence of certain phenomena. We speak of
events as connected or conjoined ; and we speak
of their bond of connexion, 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 metaphor does not really express
the existence of any thing interposed, since the
very supposition of any such link would only
transfer an imaginary difficulty from one ob
served object to another object unobserved,
and leave, between the new hypothetical ante
cedent and its consequent, an invariableness
of sequence as inexplicable as before. It is,
in truth, not as expressing more than inva
riableness of sequence, but merely as being
the strongest figurative expression of inva
riableness of sequence, that bond, and its va
rious synonymes, are at all significant in the
philosophy of cause and effect. The meta
phor, considered as a mere metaphor, is a
very appropriate one. The principal circum
stance, in which two bodies, bound together,
differ from two similar bodies which are not
bound together, is, that in the former case, the
120 ON THE RELATION
appearance of one of the bodies is a mark of the
appearance of the other, in future 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, there
fore, that a circumstance so strongly indicative
of the sort of prophecy which we are disposed
constantly to make within ourselves as to future
proximities of the events that have once ap
peared to us to be proximate, should have been
borrowed from the ties and links of material
things, to express this regularity of order, in
which one object appears as closely and con
stantly 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 philosophy 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 gradually extended, which,
though true of the object from which the figure
was taken, may not be true of the object, to
which, on account perhaps of that single resem-
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT.
121
blance, it was originally applied. 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 independent as
that of either of the substances which it con
nects ; and in this separability and self-existence
it does not resemble causation. But still, how
ever simply and justly the metaphor may have
been employed originally, to express the mere
regularity of sequence of one event after another
event, it is a very natural 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 something which is
itself intermediate ; and when it thus becomes
the expression to us of something intermediate,
our very ignorance of any thing really inter
vening, 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
122 ON THE RELATION
other 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 sequences which are
invariable. There are innumerable substances,
capable of existing in various states ; and in
these changes of state they exhibit to us pheno
mena in co-existing series. At the same mo
ment, 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 antece
dents and consequents of the other trains. From
the circumstance of the mere co-existence 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 cause of B alone, which follows it, not
at that moment only, but uniformly. It is ne
cessary, therefore, that we should have terms to
express changes which are casually subsequent to
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 123
other changes, as well as those which are inva
riably 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
invariableness is meant to be strongly expressed,
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 succes
sions, therefore, may have been altogether
casual. Cause and sequence thus assume to our
mind an appearance 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 invariableness, we are obliged, as
we cannot use any of the single words which are
exactly tautologous, to revert to the use of the
term Sequence, and to qualify it by some appro
priate 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,
124
ON THE RELATION
we feel a sort of discrepancy 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 under
stand, indeed, in causation, is mere invariable-
ness 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 grammatical 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, be analytical ; evolving, in many succes
sive words, the complex feeling of a single mo
ment. When the analysis and distribution are
once made, the same terms are afterwards ex
tended to innumerable objects, and innumerable
relations of objects ; to express what may be
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 125
analogous, indeed, in all, but may yet differ in
many important respects. The most abstract
terms of relation may thus, in their widely ex
tended 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 cir
cumstance 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 the fish of a river, of a
park that has a large stock of deer, or of a town
that has a multitude of inhabitants ; we gra
dually learn to consider the power of a sub
stance, or the power which the substance
possesses, as something different from the sub
stance itself, inherent in it, indeed, but inherent
as something that may yet 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
126 ON THE RELATION
one now regards the figure 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 manner have
ceased, and given place to juster views ; if there
had not been in the very nature of things many
circumstances of still more powerful influence,
to favour the illusion in its origin, and foster and
perpetuate it.
These circumstances, therefore, will next de
serve our consideration.
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 127
SECTION III.
WE have already seen, in the forms of lan
guage, many circumstances that tend to pro
duce 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 changing 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 the mistake as to the seeming
latency of power, at times when it is said to be
unexerted, a mistake which philosophers have
partaken with the vulgar, because, like the vul
gar, they have been content, in the process of
causation, to admit as mysterious, what a more
analytical view of the process would have proved
to be very simple.
If I have rendered sufficiently clear the doc
trine of the preceding Sections, I have shown,
that Power is nothing latent in substances, but
128 ON THE RELATION
is only a name for the substance itself, in which
it is said to be latent, a name, that, as uni
formly expressive of a relation to some con
sequent change, is fairly applicable to the
substance as often as it exists in the circum
stances, in which some effect 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 im
mediate antecedent of some change, the relation,
to which we give the name of Power, does not
exist ; and, when we speak of the power as
remaining even in these circumstances in which
no change is consequent, it is allowable merely
for brevity of expression, and means only that
the substance of which we speak, however in
efficient it may seem, while every thing is re
maining unaltered, is one which, in certain
circumstances different from the present, is
always attended with a certain change, in itself,
or in some other substance. If this popular
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 of change ; since, in all
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 129
other circumstances, as there is no tendency
to any change, there is no relative antecedence
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 philosophic
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 circumstances, 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 occurred,
which are necessary to constitute the state of
efficiency, or aptness to be followed by a certain
change ; and, if these never were to occur, the
substance of which we speak would remain
for ever powerless. The power, in short, is
K
130 ON THE RELATION
wholly contingent on certain circumstances,
beginning with them, continuing with them,
ceasing with them. In the intervals of recur
rence of these circumstances, however, or, to
use the ordinary popular language, in the in
tervals of exertion of the supposed latent power
of a substance, we may think of the circum
stances in which its presence is productive of
change; and knowing that, as often as these
circumstances recur, the change, too, will recur,
we may transfer to the substance, as if perma
nent in it, what is truly permanent only in our
thought, which, in the absence of the circum
stances of efficiency, imagines them present.
But a very slight attention, surely, ought to
be enough to convince us, that it is by our
imagination only we thus invest the substance
with a character of continued 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 con-
tingence on certain circumstances ; since in
these circumstances, and only in these, the
presence of the substance is the direct ante
cedent of the change ; and that, as all which
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 131
truly exists in a sequence of changes is only
the antecedent itself, and the consequent 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 latency of
one or of the other, but both are completely
present and visible. Even if antecedence and
consequence did mean something distinguishable
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
immersed 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 for ever
in the closest proximity, without such a change ;
because the relation of antecedence and con
sequence, in the fusion, is not a mutual relation
of steel and fuel in all circumstances, but of
steel and fuel in certain circumstances. A very
K 2
132 ON THE RELATION
high temperature is necessary for the liquefac
tion ; 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 differ
ence 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 difference will tend to
show more clearly the principle of the mistake,
which leads to the reference that is falsely
made of power, as something which is con
stantly present, not co-extensive only with
the circumstances in which certain changes are
consequent, but with all the circumstances in
which the substance that is said 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
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT.
133
in some measure one ; because, however com
plex 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 various 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 semblance 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 becomes too striking
to be consistent with belief of that continued
unity of which I speak. When water, for ex
ample, is so much altered in appearance, as to
present to us a solid mass, in congelation, 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
the degrees of temperature which intervene
between these remarkable changes, we regard
it as the same identical substance, not perhaps
in strict philosophy, but in that popular view,
13 t ON THE RELATION
which is never wholly absent from the philo
sophic 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 changes of sensible
qualities, it may be supposed to be still more
remarkably the case, when there is in substances
no manifestation of any change whatever, that
is capable of directly impressing our senses.
A living human being, for instance, seems to
our eyes the same in every respect, at the very
moment when 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 differ
ence to strike the senses, at the instant of
beginning motion, so as to mark to us the par
ticular antecedent of the particular consequent,
we are very naturally led to consider the quality,
on which the motion depends, as a general pro
perty of the human being 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
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 135
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 distinguish
able from the mere existence of the seemingly
unaltered mass, something which rather resides
in it, than is a part of it. The same living body
is before us, at different 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 appear
ance when the change was in the very instant
about to follow, and when it was not produced
at all, it is regarded as a proof of something
more, of a power that is now exerted, and that
136
ON THE RELATION
was latent therefore in the antecedent itself, till
thus called into exercise.
Such is the vague sort of reasoning, with
respect to the continued existence of power in
circumstances in which it is not exercised, that
appears just, to all who are not in the habit of
making any very nice analyses, either of their
thoughts or of the complex things before them,
and who think, that what they have long been
accustomed to regard as one, has therefore a
real unity, of which all that is true at one
moment must be equally true at every other
moment. We have only to subject the sup
posed 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 substance, because
the surface which it presents to us is seemingly
continuous. Every organ is itself a multitude
of elements, that have no other unity, than as
co-existing in immediate vicinity, and are truly
the agents or subjects of innumerable changes,
many of which our senses are incapable of
perceiving ; while others, which we are capable
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 137
of perceiving, without being able to distinguish
the immediate circumstances on which they
depend, we ascribe, with a sort of vague re
ference, 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 muscles ; 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 of 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 power. It
is not man who has the power ; it is man
willing ; and, till the volition and the conse
quent nervous change, whatever it may be, it
may be said, with the air of a paradox 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 person at
a mile s distance. The real antecedent of the
muscular contraction, as far as we are yet
capable of judging physiologically, is a certain
138 ON THE RELATION
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 latent
during the time of rest : it is a relation of the
will, or of the nervous affection that follows
the will, to the muscular contraction ; and, when
there are no relative and correlative nervous
and muscular states, the power in those circum
stances is not latent, it is nothing.
I must remark, however, once more, to pre
vent the risk of misconception, that though,
in a philosophic discussion of the nature of
power, it is necessary to make this strict ana
lysis, and limit and determine the circumstances,
in which alone it can be said with physical truth,
that the relation subsists between a particular
antecedent and a particular consequent, I am
far from wishing that the more extensive popular
use of the phrase, which speaks of the powers
of substances as permanently existing in them,
should be given up. Such technical and strictly
OF CAUSK AND EFFECT. 139
logical nicety, in ordinary cases, would be as
inconvenient as absurd. There are many forms
of expression, which it is of great advantage to
retain on account of their brevity, though they
may not be perfectly accurate, if strictly inter
preted ; and all which is necessary is, that we
should be on our guard as to the real meaning,
that we may not lose or confound it in the freer
application. In the present instance, for ex
ample, 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 minutely, man in a par
ticular state of affection of certain nerves ; since
it is then only that the consequent motion of
the arm ensues ; but still, as this nervous affec
tion is in health always consequent on his will,
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 necessary, if we were to attempt to
convey accurately, at all times, the restricted
meaning, that limits the power to the particular
circumstances, in which alone the particular
140
ON THE RELATION
antecedence and consequence take place. It is
not the less useful, however, for the physical
inquirer, to have constantly in mind the precise
restriction, though not expressed in the words,
which, in compliance with popular use, he may
often find it convenient to employ.
Power, then, is not something latent in sub
stances, 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
expressive of the instant sequence of some
change, and as changes take place only in cer
tain circumstances, it is only in those circum
stances 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
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
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. HI
light into nature as this one ; and with which I
consider it, therefore, as so important to fami
liarize 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
eminent metaphysicians, will appear, what it
truly is, a tissue of distinctions merely verbal, as
frivolous as any of those which, in a darker age,
were the subjects of tumultuous and never-
ceasing contention, in 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. Active power, therefore,
is a quality in the cause, which enables it to
produce the effect; and the exertion of that
142 ON TUP: RELATION
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 power that is
not exerted produces no effect.
" All that is necessary to the production of
any effect, is power in an efficient cause to pro
duce 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 contradiction in terms." *
How many pages are there of such combina
tions of words, with the mere semblance of
reasoning, in the works of this philosopher,
and of many other philosophers, the labour of
* Essays on the Active Powers of Man, Essay IV. eh. ii.
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 143
reading which, and the labour of writing which,
would have been saved by a little more attention
to the real meaning of the word Exertion, as not
distinguishable in any way from the power itself,
which is said to be exerted, but significant only
of that very antecedence to some consequent
change, which power denotes, significant 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 eminence, cannot
be supposed to be made by the unreflecting
multitude. They know only, that, when they
will to move their arm, their arm moves accord
ingly. But they think that they are themselves
exactly the same, when they do not will to
move it, as when they are willing it ; and they
suppose, therefore, that power is something
which is always possessed by them, something,
which at all times, and in all circumstances
alike, whether exerted or unexerted, is still
present with them, like the pen or the pencil,
which has as real existence, and is as much
144 ON THE RELATION
theirs, when it is lying on the table before them,
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 neces
sary 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 imperfect analysis, which leads to
the belief of power, not as the relation of an
order of change in substances that are in certain
circumstances, but as something which, exerted
and unexerted, exists in them in all circum
stances, and therefore, when no changes are
taking place, as much as when there is the
most rapid succession of changes, might have
been sufficient to give rise to the mysterious
notions that are entertained of causation, as
implying, in addition to the antecedents and
consequents, in a train of events, something
which is in the train, and yet is not to be con
founded with the antecedents and consequents
themselves, that form the whole progressive
series ; which, therefore, even though we could
be supposed to know all the substances that
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 145
exist 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 illu
sion ; and one cause of such illusion, the re
marks now made on what is termed the Exercise
of Power, as distinguishable from power itself,
have, I trust, successfully pointed out.
146 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 ascribe to substances,
in all the changes of circumstances in which
they can be placed, and the consequent erro
neous belief, that what is justly referable to
them, in certain circumstances, must be equally
referable to them in all circumstances. The
powers, therefore, 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 with
out any consequent change ; and hence believing
that a word, which is expressive only of the re
lation of antecedence to some instant change,
must yet have some other meaning, with which
OF CAUSK AND EFFECT. 14?
it may be supposed to continue applicable in
all circumstances, even when there is no sub
sequent change whatever, we are necessarily
led to distinguish the power itself, which is not
the antecedent of any change, from the exercise
of power, when there is such actual antece
dence : and the process of causation, therefore,
appears to us very mysterious ; since it is re
garded as the development of something which
is for ever existing before us, latent and invi
sible, and which, even at the instant in which
it is supposed to be evolved, has 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 the nature of power. But there
is a source of illusion which we are next to
examine, that appears to me of much stronger
and more extensive and lasting influence.
This cause of error is to be traced ultimately
to the imperfection of our senses.
As our senses are at present constituted, we
know that they are too limited in their range
and acuteness, and too feeble even within their
narrow boundary, to enable us to distinguish
L2
148 ON THE RELATION
all the elements that co-exist in bodies; and
of elements, which are themselves unknown
to us, the minute changes which take place in
them must of course be unknown. We are
hence, from our incapacity of distinguishing
these elements by our imperfect senses, after
the minutest analysis which it is in our power
to make, incapable of observing the whole series
of internal changes that occur in them, the
whole progressive series of antecedents and
consequents in a phenomenon that appears to
our senses simple ; and since it is only between
immediate antecedents and consequents, that
we suppose any permanent relation, we are,
therefore, constantly on the watch, to detect,
in the more obvious changes that appear to
us in nature, some of those minuter elementary
changes which we suspect to intervene. These
minute invisible changes, when actually inter
vening, are truly what connect the obvious
antecedents with the obvious consequents ; and
the innumerable discoveries which we are con
stantly making of these, when some finer ana
lysis evolves and presents them to our search,
lead us habitually to suppose, that amid all the
visible changes perceived by us, there is some-
OK CAUSE AND EFFECT. 149
thing latent, which links them together, and,
though concealed from our view at present, may
be discovered, perhaps, by some analytic process,
that has not yet been employed.
He who, for the first time, hears a bell rung,
if he be ignorant 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, shews 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 direct cause of the sensa
tion of sound, but to the vibrating air ; nor
will even this be long considered by him as
the cause, if he turn his attention to the struc
ture of the organ of hearing. He will then
trace effect after effect, through a long series
of complex and very wonderful parts, till he
arrive at the auditory nerve, and the whole
mass of the brain, in some unknown state of
which he is at length forced to rest, as the
150 ON THU RELATION
cause or immediate antecedent of that altered
state of mind which constitutes the particular
sensation. All these phenomena were con
stantly taking place, around 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 unobserved. He
learns, however, that they do take place ; and,
extending his inquiry to other phenomena, learns
perhaps that in these, too, there are sequences
of changes before unknown to him, the latent
causes, progressively, of ultimate changes which
before appeared to him simple and immediate.
He suspects, therefore, that in phenomena the
most familiar to him, there may be, in like
manner, other changes that take place before
him unobserved, 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 be
fore unknown, thus found to intervene between
the more manifest sequences of phenomena,
should not, by the influence of some of the
most common principles of the mind, at length
associate almost indissolubly with the very
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 151
notion of change, as perceived by us, the notion
of something 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
intervene between the observed antecedent and
the observed consequent, being the more im
mediate 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 cause is hence supposed by us to be
something very mysterious ; since we give the
name, in our imagination, to something of the
nature of which we must be absolutely ignorant,
as we are, by supposition, ignorant of its very
existence. The parts of a series of changes,
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 unknown, as often as we think of discovering
a cause.
The expectation of discovering something in
termediate and unknown, between all known
152 ON THE RELATION
events, it thus appears, is very readily conver
tible 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 occasions in another ; and the
common answer, in all such cases, is nothing
more than the statement of some intervening
object or event, supposed to be unknown to the
asker, but as truly a mere antecedent in the
sequence, as the more obvious antecedent which
he is supposed 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 new antecedent appears to us a very
intelligible reason. And why do rays of light,
that fall in confusion from so many bodies within
our sphere of vision, on every point of the sur
face of the eye, give us distinct impressions of
all these different bodies ? Because the eye is
formed of such refracting power, that the rays of
light, which fall confusedly on its surface, con
verge within it, and form distinct images of the
objects from which they came, on that part of
the eye which is an expansion of the nerve of
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 153
sight. Again, we are told only of intervening
events, before unknown to us ; and again, we
consider the mere knowledge of these new ante
cedents, as a very intelligible explanation of the
event, which we knew before. This constant
statement of something intermediate, that is
supposed to be unknown to us, as the cause of
the phenomena which we perceive, whenever we
ask how or why they take place, continually
strengthens the illusion, which leads us to regard
the powers of objects as something different
from the perceived objects themselves. And
yet it is evident, that to state intervening changes
is only to state other antecedents, not any thing
different from mere antecedence ; and that, what
ever number of these intervening changes we
may discover between the antecedent and con
sequent which we at present know, we must at
length come to some ultimate change, which is
truly and immediately antecedent to the known
effect. We may say, that a gun, when fired,
excites the sensation of sound, because it excites
vibrations in the intervening air, that these
vibrations of air are the cause of sound, by com
municating vibration to parts of the ear, and
that the vibrations of these parts of the ear are
154 ON THE RELATION
the cause of the sound, by affecting, in a certain
manner, the nerve of hearing, and the brain in
general. But, when we come to the ultimate
affection of the sensorial organ, which imme
diately precedes the sensation, it is evident, that
we cannot say of it, that it is the cause of the
sound, by exciting any thing intermediate, since
it then could not itself be that ultimate 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 being the immediate
and invariable antecedent of the particular effect.
If, in our inability of assigning any thing inter
mediate, we were to say, that this last affection
of the sensorial organ occasioned the sound,
because it had the power of occasioning sound,
we should say nothing 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 circumstances 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 ;
OF CAUSK AND EFFECT. 155
and would have been equally manifest, if
their immediate proximity had been as evident
as that which we are obliged to admit in the
antecedent and consequent which are by suppo
sition the last, when, after imagining the longest
series of intervening changes, we feel that we
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 taking place in nature ; and 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 had 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 by 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, a cause, in our notion of it,
would have been very different from that myste
rious unintelligible something, between entity
and nonentity, which we now conceive it to be,
or rather, of which we vainly strive to form a
156 ON THE RELATION, &C.
conception : and we should then, probably,
have found as little difficulty in admitting it to
be, what it simply and truly is, only another
name for the immediate invariable antecedent of
an event, as we now find, in admitting the form
of a body to be only another name for the rela
tive position of the parts that constitute it.
PART THIRD.
OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES, IN WHICH THE
BELIEF OF THE RELATION ARISES.
PART THIRD.
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 effect,
and the sources of the general misconception
with respect to it.
If I have stated with accuracy the results of
the former of these inquiries, we have seen that
power, in every train of events, material or spiri
tual, is nothing distinguishable from the antece
dents and consequents themselves, of which, and
of which alone, every sequence must be com
posed. It is only a brief mode of expressing the
antecedent itself and its consequent, as appearing
in a certain order, and expected to appear uni
formly 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
160 ON THE RELATION
we endeavour to imagine, in a cause, more than
this uniformity of a certain consequent change,
we labour in vain, or we content ourselves with
repeating, in new forms of words, that have no
other difference than what is purely verbal, the
same unvaried proposition, That a cause is that
which has had, has, and will always have for its
immediate consequent some particular change of
which we speak.
Of this uniformity of order in sequence we
have a clear conception, 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 nature, there is something to be
distinguished from them, in every sequence,
which connects these antecedents and conse
quents in mysterious union : as if, at the moment
of creation, there had been thrown over nature,
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, we have seen, if really
existing, instead of presenting to us more than
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 161
antecedents and consequents, would be only a
complication and lengthening of the sequences
of events, by new antecedents interposed. To
trace the circumstances which seem most pro
bably 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 per
ceptive organs for discovering the complicated
elements in the system of things, and the imper
fection, on that account, 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 may be sufficient for
explaining satisfactorily the prevalent illusion.
It is not enough, however, to have a clear
notion of the import of power, as the relation of
immediate and uniform antecedence, in the past
and the future as well as the present. It is
necessary, also, that we should know, in what
circumstances this belief, which virtually extends
through remotest time the observation of a
moment, arises in the mind.
To the consideration of these circumstances,
accordingly, we have next to proceed.
M
162 ON THE RELATION
SECTION II.
POWER, as we have seen, is the relation of a
particular antecedent to a change which we
believe to be its uniform attendant.
It involves, therefore, necessarily, the expecta
tion of a future change of some sort, that is to
be exactly similar, as often as the preceding cir
cumstances are exactly similar.
Is this expectation the result of experience
only? Does it imply always, that the conse
quent has been known to us, as well as the ante
cedent; or is there, in the appearance of the
antecedent itself, before the attendant change
has even once been observed, 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 phenomena of magnetism, could we,
from the mere appearance of a loadstone and a
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 163
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 substances, antici
pate 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 capable of leading to this anticipa
tion, 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 hard mass of a
dusky colour ; and we are told that it is a load
stone. When we say, that it is hard, we mean
that it has been found to resist 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 affection to be attendant on its
presence. We speak of it as the antecedent of
consequents that are known to us ; and what we
term the appearance of the body, is therefore
itself only a short term for expressing certain
changes observed. The qualities of which we
speak, being only names expressive of effects
that are known to us, are exactly co-extensive,
M 2
164 ON THE RELATION
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 observed,
should necessarily be significant also of different
effects, that never have been observed, and
never were intended to be included 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 ; for the knowledge of
these very qualities would be the knowledge of
effects as yet unobserved ; and if one quality
could thus be known, other qualities, that is to
say, the relation of the same antecedent to other
consequent effects, might in like manner 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 obser
vation must be the limit of the qualities. The
appearance tells us of relations to our senses,
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 165
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 change of
which it speaks must already have taken place.
This negative argument, from the real mean
ing of what we term the appearance or manifest
physical character of substances, as always
limited to the expression of effects already
known, powerful as it seems to me, if fully
understood, may yet be too subtile to be readily
comprehended, and too obscure, therefore, to
produce general conviction.
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
166 ON THE RELATION
may be supposed 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, more than their motion
toward any other mass of any other colour.
Even now, with all our knowledge of this parti
cular fact, we could not venture to assign any
colour, as necessarily indicative of magnetic
influence, in every substance 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 discovering 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
qualities, or in all the other sensible qualities, of
the two masses. Till the happy chance, which
converted the loadstone into more than a dense
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 167
and dusky clod, we might have gazed on it for
ever, 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
quenched 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 whiz
zing and sparkling about his ears, has ever after
known more of this property of gunpowder,
than the most profound philosopher could have
learned from the most assiduous contemplation of
all its sensible qualities, if, before his contem
plation and accurate measurement of these, a phi
losopher could be supposed to be ignorant of this
remarkable property of a substance so familiar.
But these phenomena, it will perhaps be said,
are results of powers of a very peculiar kind ;
and though it may be necessary, for the produc
tion of such extraordinary effects, that they
should have been at some former time known to
us by experience, it does not therefore follow,
168 ON THE RELATION
that other phenomena, more general than these,
might not be within our power of physical divi
nation.
The mutual approach of a loadstone and iron,
and the rapid and violent disengagement of
elastic fluids in the inflammation of gunpowder,
are indeed, it will be allowed, phenomena of a
very extraordinary kind. But what is it which
this very distinction involves ? Is it merely,
that we have not been so much accustomed to
observe the phenomena of magnetism and explo
sion, as many other more common events of
nature ? The difference would be truly a very
important one, if experience were believed to be
necessary ; but it is of no importance to him
who denies that necessity. The present argu
ment supposes all phenomena to have been
equally unknown; and considers merely, whe
ther, in absolute ignorance of any former se
quences of the kind, we yet could have foreseen
them as future. The properties which, in con
sequence of frequent experience, we now regard
as the most common, were necessarily, in the
first instances of them that were observed by us,
as rare, at least relatively to us the observers, as
the phenomena of magnetism ; and if, therefore,
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 169
in the spirit of the distinction that is made, of
ordinary and extraordinary effects, it be asserted,
that we are incapable of predicting what is ex
traordinary, it must surely be allowed, that we
are incapable of predicting what is not merely
extraordinary but absolutely unknown ; as every
sequence must be, till it have been observed by
ourselves, or described to us by others.
But let this distinction, which really admits
the very point in dispute, be allowed to be of the
force supposed. Let the rarer species of pheno
mena be considered as unfit examples ; and let
the phenomena, which are to be taken as in
stances, be the most familiar that can be
chosen.
The most universal and familiar of all pheno
mena are those of gravitation. Do these, then,
when we consider them abstractedly from all
former knowledge, seem to admit of readier
prophecy, than the mutual tendencies of iron
and a magnet, which may be considered only as
gravitation of a different and less diffusive spe
cies ? If we imagine ourselves wholly ignorant
of the fall of bodies to the earth, do we perceive,
in the colour, or shape, or hardness of a ball
which we drop from our hand, any reason to
170 ON THE RELATION
predict, that it will move downward to our feet ?
It will be the same, whatever mass of matter we
may take, and whatever property of the mass we
may select for determining the question. What
is most familiar to us, is familiar only because it
has been frequently observed. It is experience,
therefore, which in every such case enables us to
be prophets. We discover, in the familiar sub
stance, as often as it recurs, certain qualities ;
but these qualities are tendencies only to the
very changes, with which the experience of pre
ceding similar changes had made us acquainted.
If our mere senses could enable us to predict
phenomena of a kind that had never been ob
served by us, all men would be philosophers,
with very little trouble of philosophising. But
the knowledge of the powers of nature is not
of such rapid and easy acquisition. There is
nothing, in the first appearance of any object,
which can lead us to predict with certainty the
appearance of a particular object, rather than of
any other, as immediately successive : in every
case the second phenomenon must have been
previously known ; and our knowledge therefore
is slow, because it does not depend on our
senses, which are quick, or on our wishes, which
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 171
are boundless, but on the order in which Nature
exhibits to us her phenomena, which we must
content ourselves with soliciting from her by
experiment, and analysing and arranging, as she
presents them spontaneously.
Experience, then, is necessary for anticipating
the phenomena of matter ; and it is not less
necessary for anticipating the successions which
may be expected, in the phenomena of mind.
In these, indeed, there may sometimes be an
appearance of foreknowledge of events, inde
pendent of the past ; when bodily motions are
made, in apparent adaptation to circumstances
that are about to follow, before the existence of
those circumstances can have been learned from
experience. By what complicated muscular
action, for example, is the first food of life ac
quired! Yet we have no reason to imagine,
that an infant, who is for the first time applied
to his mother s breast, has any foresight of the
milky stream that is to flow, when he forms his
little vacuum for its reception. The necessary
motions are the result of an instinct, unerring,
because it is not left to the capricious accidents
of human knowledge, and provident and perfect,
because it is arranged by the highest wisdom.
172 ON THE RELATION
In all our other instincts, in like manner, the
knowledge is not in us, but in the great Being
who formed us. Wherever knowledge is con
cerned, however, it follows the same laws, whe
ther the prediction be of phenomena of matter
or of mind. That the desire of moving his arm
will be followed by its motion, is not known to
the swaddled babe, till he have had experience
of the sequence ; and is believed by the impotent
paralytic, till his experience be reversed by new
trials. The pleasure, which the contemplation
of works of intellectual excellence inspires, has
never entered into the imagination of the illite
rate. The passions of love, ambition, avarice,
are felt by the lover, the hero, the miser ; by
others, if the passions have never formed a part
of their own consciousness, their nature is learned
from observation or description, in the same
manner as we acquire our knowledge of the
serpents and tigers of the East. It is by expe
rience alone we know, that the sight of wretch
edness, which causes in one breast no emotion,
will melt others into pity, that almost equals in
sorrow the grief which it deplores ; as it is by
experience alone, we know that a flame, which
kindles ether, would have been quenched in water.
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 173
Without that experience, we might, with equal
reason, have supposed that the flame, which was
quenched in the one fluid, would have been
quenched also in the other ; and that pain,
unfelt by ourselves, would have excited no emo
tion in us, or excited it originally in all mankind.
We think, indeed, that our knowledge of the
phenomena of mind is less dependent on expe
rience, than our knowledge of the phenomena of
matter, because, however diversified they may be
in complication and intensity, the great classes
of our feelings, and the circumstances which
usually induce them, are, in some degree, fami
liarized to us so early, that we have forgotten
the time when the experience was acquired : as
parts of ourselves too, they seem more particu
larly within the province of our internal foresight:
while the external world, distinct and indepen
dent of us, presents a never-ending series of new
objects, which at once, by their permanence,
keep our memory alive to the time when they
became known to us, and impress on us the
difficulty of discovery, by the complicated appa
ratus which, in many cases, they oblige us to
use. Yet, uniform as the mental phenomena in
most circumstances must be, how different, even
174 ON THE RELATION
as to many of these, would be the predictions of
individuals, of different ages and countries ! No
Roman, for example, would have scrupled to
foretel, that the combat of gladiators, which was
to be exhibited on the succeeding day, would be
witnessed with delight by the most gentle and
delicate of the virgins of Rome. To a Briton,
unacquainted with that mixture of barbarism
and civilization, such an assertion would seem
scarcely less absurd, than if it had predicted a
change in the well-known order of material phe
nomena. What is called knowledge of the
world, is knowledge of the human mind ; and,
when the address, and nice discrimination, of
one who has spent a long life in scenes of busi
ness, are contrasted with the artlessness of a
child, or even with the simplicity of a retired
philosopher, it is impossible for us not to feel,
that, like all other physical knowledge, that of
our intellectual and moral frame is dependent on
experience.
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 175
SECTION III.
IN considering the mode in which the belief
of power arises in the mind, we have as yet seen
only, that it is, in some way or other, dependent
on experience. We cannot predict the second
phenomenon in a sequence, till the first and
second have previously been observed by us in
that order.
But experience informs us only of the past ;
and the relation of power is one that compre
hends the past, the present, the future. It is
not in the mere appearance of a substance,
that is to say, in the qualities of the substance,
which directly impress our senses, that we dis
cover all the events which are afterwards to be
consequent on the introduction of it in new cir
cumstances. Yet, what is it that is superadded
to this mere appearance, by the observation of
any change, which its presence, in particular
176 ON THE RELATION
circumstances, has occasioned in some other
substance ? It is the knowledge of this simple
change itself, of a mere fact, which, however
frequently repeated, is limited, of course, to the
time, or times, at which our observation was
made. All which, in such a case, we can be
said to know, is already over ; and what is yet
to come, is as much invisible to us as if the past
had never existed. It is by a process of reason
ing, then, that we are enabled, if I may venture
so to speak, to see with our mind what is in
visible to our eyes, and thus to extend to the
unexisting future an order of succession which,
as future, is confessedly, at the time of our pre
diction, beyond the sphere of our observation ?
That we do believe the similarity of the future
to the past, in all the successions of its separate
pairs of phenomena, is not disputed, nor even
questioned. The only question relates to the
mode in which the belief arises ; and whatever
may be its source, it is evident that it is not the
result of reasoning in the sense in which that
word is commonly employed. He who affirms
that A has always been followed by B, and will
always be followed by B, asserts more than
he who affirms merely that A has always been
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 177
followed by B; and it is this addition of inva-
riableness of antecedence that forms the very
essence of the relation of cause and effect, into
the grounds of the belief of which we are in
quiring. When we witness any sequence of
phenomena, we believe certain matters of fact ;
when we think of their future similarity of se
quence, we believe also certain matters of fact,
contingent only on the recurrence of circum
stances like those which we have witnessed.
The past fact, and the future fact, however, are
not inclusive, the one of the other ; and as little
is the proposition which affirms the one, inclu
sive of the proposition which affirms the other.
There is no logical absurdity in supposing, that
the one proposition might be true, and the other
not true ; however difficult it may seem to us to
believe the one without believing the other ;
and, even while the opposite belief appears thus
difficult, we are sensible, that the difficulty does
not lie in the strength of an opposite inference
of reasoning ; for, in that case, we must under
stand the inference, of which we feel the strength,
and be capable of stating it as a ground of argu
ment. When we say, then, that B will follow
A to-morrow, because A was followed by B
N
178 ON THE RELATION
to-day, we do not prove that the future will
resemble the past, but we take for granted that
the future is to resemble the past. We have
only to ask ourselves, why we believe this simi
larity of sequence ; and our very inability^ of
stating any ground of inference may convince
us, that the belief, which it is impossible for us
not to feel, is the result of some other principle
than reasoning.
The forms of reasoning, indeed, it may still
be very easy for us to use in such a case ; and
we do truly use these forms very frequently in
such cases, because, in all of them, we tacitly,
as I have said, take for granted the belief of the
similarity of the future, as a general fact that is
common to our own mind, and all the minds we
can address. It is in the extension of this
assumed belief to particular cases, and not in
the logical establishment of it, that all the sem
blance of reasoning is to be found. When a
chemist shows us a vessel full of a certain gas,
and tells us, that the gas immediately quenched
a lighted taper which he had plunged in it, we
are not astonished, when, after lighting again
his taper, to show us the same fact, he prefaces
it by saying, that, as the gas had quenched it
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 179
before, it will therefore quench it now. The two
propositions, as to the past and the future, when
thus combined, seem to us a very fair logical
enthymeme ; but they have that appearance
only because there is a major proposition assumed
without proof, the general physical axiom, that
what has before taken place will in the same
circumstances take place again. If this tacit
assumption of invariableness in the order of se
quence, which virtually comprehends all that is
meant by the words power or causation, be dis
puted, it may, indeed, be absurd to attempt to
confute the sceptical disputant, because we
may be quite sure, that the belief itself is as
strong in the mind of the questioner as in the
mind of the asserter of it ; but if, instead of
being content with this certainty of equal inter
nal belief, we should strive still to prove, by
argument, what is only verbally denied, we shall
find, that, however strenuous and skilful we may
be in the use of the moods and figures of logic,
the triumph of reasoning will not be ours, and
that we have undertaken to do, what is not diffi
cult merely, but impossible.
The sensible qualities of objects, or at least
the denominations which we give to these, are
N 2
180 ON THE RELATION
themselves, as we have seen, only names for the
relation of the objects of which we speak to
feelings of the sentient mind, that are conse
quent on their presence ; and they are indica
tive of our belief, that, in the same circumstances,
these objects will affect our mind in the same
manner : but they are indicative of the belief
alone, and not of any process of reasoning in
which the belief may be supposed to have its
source. When we say of a rose, that it is red,
we mean, not only that its presence in light has
been the antecedent of a particular sensation in
us, but that it will be followed by that sensation
as often as we turn our eyes on it. The redness
of the rose is one of its sensible qualities, com
prehensive, in relation to our vision, of the
future, as well as of the present and the past.
But we must not think that words of our own
invention, convenient as they may be for ex
pressing what we believe, are at all explanatory
of the belief, which they merely designate. We
may say, indeed, that our vision will be affected
in a particular manner by a rose, because a rose
is red ; but though to a superficial thinker we
may seem to give a reason in this word, a
very little reflection will show, that we express
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 181
nothing more, in the two consecutive propositions,
than if, repeating one proposition in words
exactly the same, we had said, that our vision
will be affected in a particular manner by a rose,
because it will be affected by it in a particular
manner. We do not believe that a particular
sensation will arise in us, because we have termed
a certain object red ; but we term the object
red, because we believe, that, on its presence in
light, a particular sensation will arise in us. He
surely assigns no reason, who says, That grass
is green, because it is green ; and as little does
he give a reason for any other feeling, the rela
tion to which is expressed by the name of any
other sensible quality, who says, That the feeling
arises in our mind, because there is an object
without, which has that sensible quality. It is
the rise of these very feelings, as I have re
peatedly said, which the names of the sensible
qualities themselves were invented by us to
denote. They indicate our belief of the recur
rence of the sensations, on every recurrence of
the same external circumstances ; but they only
indicate the belief without explaining it.
If this be true of the sensible qualities of
objects, it is not less true of all the changes that
182 ON THE RELATION
are supposed by us to take place in nature.
When we say, that a loadstone will continue to
attract iron, because it is magnetical, we as little
assign a reason, as when we say that a rose, on
which we gaze in the sunshine, will excite in us
a particular visual sensation, because it is red.
What we term the magnetism of the iron is itself
only a name for our belief of the continuance of
its tendency to approach a loadstone ; as redness
is only a name for our belief of the continued
tendency of the eyes, and, indirectly, of the
mind also, to be affected in a certain manner, on
the presence of a rose, or of other similar ob
jects. We seem to assign a reason verbally ;
but what seems to be reasoning, is only a repe
tition of the belief itself, of which we give no
other account, than that it is truly felt by us.
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 183
SECTION IV.
THE relation of future antecedence and con
sequence of phenomena, which, as future, are
beyond the sphere of our immediate observation,
is one which I have endeavoured to show that
we are incapable of inferring, by any process of
reasoning, even after experience. If this be true
of the future sequences of phenomena with which
we have been most familiar in the past, it may
be supposed to be still more indubitably true, of
phenomena with which we are wholly unac
quainted. To the general inability of inferring
future events, however, it has been supposed,
that some limitations are to be made, and limi
tations that extend to classes of phenomena, as
much when they are wholly new to us, as when
they have been frequently observed.
This predictive power of physical inference, in
the cases to which I allude, has been asserted
18 i ON THE RELATION
chiefly by philosophers, who have been much
habituated to mathematical speculations, and
who, in the beautiful relations of proportion,
which their geometrical or algebraical reason
ings have evolved, and the equally beautiful
applications of these to the mechanism of the
universe, have not always been sufficiently care
ful to distinguish, in the mixed science, what is
mathematically new, as a measurement of force,
and what is physically known, or assumed, in
the existence of the force that is measured.
It has been contended, accordingly, by some
of the profoundest thinkers of this class, that,
however truly our knowledge of the greater
number of facts, in physics, may be said to be
derived from experience, so as not to have been
acquirable by reasoning a priori) there is a very
extensive class of facts which are altogether in
dependent of experience, and of the laws of
thought immediately connected with experience,
and which are, therefore, capable of being in
ferred, before observation, with complete and
independent certainty of the result.
The Inertia of Matter, and the phenomena of
the Composition of Forces, and of Equilibrium,
have been urged as instances of this kind.
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 185
Let us consider, then, with what accuracy
the truths relating to these physical phenomena
can be said to be wholly independent of expe
rience, and of the laws of thought immediately
connected with experience.
I must remark, in the first place, that, in the
determination of this point, all abstract reason
ing of pure mathematics is, by its very nature,
excluded. The mathematical sciences, strictly,
are confined to the relations of number and
quantity. They are in the highest degree use
ful for measurement ; but they always take for
granted the quantities, whatever they may be,
of which they are to develope the proportions.
Accordingly, the discoveries which they afford,
in the boundless field which they open to inven
tive genius, splendid as they may be, and worthy
of rewarding the noblest exertions of intellect,
are discoveries of proportion only, and imply, in
every physical application of them, the previous
knowledge of that which they measure, Masses
and Times, as measurable quantities, come fairly
within their sphere ; and, therefore, Velocity,
and that compound of Velocity and Mass, which
we term Momentum. But, though they measure
momentum, when the moving force is considered
186 ON THE RELATION
as existing, they do not give us our notion of it,
because they are wholly unable to give us any
notion of force itself. They proceed on the
previous knowledge, that bodies in motion com
municate motion to other bodies, in a certain
compound ratio of the mass and of the velocity :
and if this fact, strictly physical, were unknown,
there would truly be no momentum to which
the mathematician could apply his scale of intel
lectual measurement. Whatever is expressed
by the word Force, then, must be supposed,
before we can avail ourselves of geometry or
arithmetic, to compare one force with another.
If there be nothing to be measured, there is no
opportunity for mathematical reasoning ; and if
there be something to be measured, it is not to
the science of measurement that we owe our
knowledge of it, but to some other source.
The present question has no relation to the
measurement of forces previously recognized as
existing, but to our knowledge of forces or ten
dencies that are to be measured. It is not
whether, if we take for granted certain mutual
affections of bodies, we can compute their de
grees of incipient velocity, or the accelerations
or retardations of motion that may result from
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 187
them, but whether the mutual affections them
selves, that are the subjects of computation, can
be predicted, in any case, independently of
experience.
If mathematics be only another name for ab
stract measurement of quantity, the arguments,
which are supposed to enable us to make this
prediction, as to any change in bodies, and,
therefore, as to every force, which is a word
expressive only of antecedence to change, can
not be the developments of mere proportion,
but must be arguments more strictly physical
than mathematical.
I must remark, also, before entering on the
more minute inquiry, that the facts to which
the question relates, are physical facts, se
quences of events, not such as might be sup
posed, in a world constituted in any other
manner, or in a world of which all the condi
tions and possibilities of change were known to
us, but such as truly take place in the present
system of things, of which we never can be cer
tain that we know all the conditions, and know
only, that more and more of these, in the pro
gress of science, are continually revealing them
selves to our experience. It is not with abstract
188 ON THE RELATION
quantities, therefore, nor with physical points,
but with bodies, such as exist around us in
masses capable of affecting our senses, since
in these alone we are capable of perceiving
changes, that we are in the present argument
concerned ; and with respect to them, and them
only, we have to consider, whether any of the
phenomena that are supposed to form excep
tions to the general necessity of experience for
knowledge, are so truly exceptions, that the
phenomena, though wholly unknown to us be
fore, could have been predicted by us with
demonstrative or undoubting certainty. This
remark is the more necessary, because, without
such a careful limitation of the argument to the
phenomena of existing things, we might often
be in danger of confounding the abstractions of
mathematics with the physical realities, which
alone exhibit the appearances that are the sub
jects of our inquiry.
Let us consider, then, in the first place, the
phenomena that are comprehended under the
general term of the inertia of matter, the con
tinued rest, or the continued uniform motion
of bodies, when undisturbed by any foreign
force.
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 189
Continued rest, and continued uniform motion,
when all the previous circumstances have re
mained the same, are not more wonderful than
the uniformity of other phenomena of any other
kind, in unaltered circumstances. I have already
frequently stated, what seems to me to be
essential to our belief of causation of every
species, and to be all which is essential to it,
the indefinite extension of regularity of sequence,
by which we transfer to the unobserved future
the results of observations that are past. It is a
law of thought, in short, co-extensive with obser
vation itself in all its variety, that from similar
circumstances we expect similar results. In
this faith, which is itself wholly independent of
reasoning, the belief of the inertia of matter
may be said to be involved. It is only the
development, in relation to a particular set of
phenomena, of a general principle, which ex
tends to all the phenomena of nature. If, in
any attempted demonstration of the inertia, we
have already assumed this principle, the demon
stration itself must be superfluous, because it
must proceed on the truth of that very belief
which it professes by argument to establish ;
and if we make the attempt, without assuming
190 ON THE RELATION
it, the demonstration, as I conceive, will be
beyond our power.
That the assumption should be readily, and
almost unconsciously made, is the natural effect
of the universality of the principle. Before we
can know what is meant, by the tendency of a
body to remain at rest when undisturbed by a
foreign force, we must previously have observed
a body at rest : we suppose a certain condition
of the body ; and the supposition, which ex
cludes the disturbance by any foreign force,
takes for granted, that the condition continues
unaltered. If the circumstances, therefore, be
the same, as when rest w r as before observed,
it is not more wonderful, that we should ex
pect the next moment to exhibit to us, in the
quiescent body, the same rest, than that we
should believe an antecedent of any other kind,
as often as it recurs, to be followed by any
other phenomenon before observed as its con
sequent. There is nothing, in the continued
repose, to distinguish it from any other case of
physical uniformity, in which similar circum
stances are the result of similar circumstances.
To that universal principle, then, which is
co-extensive with our belief of causation in all
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 191
the physical succession of events, the belief of
the continued rest of bodies, as one of the innu
merable species of phenomena which it com
prehends, admits of being easily reduced ; and
a demonstration, which professes not to proceed
on it, will yet, very probably, be found to assume
it silently, and to derive from that silent assump
tion, or at least from the previous belief in the
mind of the reader or hearer, a force which its
own professed ground of argument would be
inadequate to give it.
Let us consider, for example, the principle
on which D ALEMBERT would found his demon
stration of it.
" A body at rest," he says, " must continue
in that state, till it be disturbed by some foreign
cause ; for it cannot determine itself to motion,
since there is no reason why the motion should
begin in one direction, rather than in an
other."*
In this application of the principle of the
Sufficient Reason, as in other physical applica
tions of the same principle, there is much more
* Traite de Dynamique. This argument, though I quote
it from D ALEMBERT, is the common argument of philosophers
who consider the inertia as physically demonstrable.
ON THE RELATION
assumed, than the philosophers who apply it are
entitled to take for granted.
Even as a general principle in physics, if we
consider it abstractly, without regard to any
particular application of it, the principle of the
Sufficient Reason seems to me, as far as it has
any force, to be only a partial statement of the
more general physical axioms. That every
change must have had a cause, and that circum
stances exactly similar have results exactly similar ;
axioms which comprehend, indeed, all the
sequences of events in the universe, but which,
though applicable to them all, do not give us
the slightest aid, for determining, independently
of experience, the nature of any change the
particular antecedent of any consequent, or the
particular consequent of any antecedent.
The cause of this inapplicability of the prin
ciple of the Sufficient Reason to the unknown
circumstances, to which it is falsely supposed
to be applicable, is expressed in the very words
which are employed in giving it a name ; since,
in every case, the condition of sufficiency, which
those words express, can be known to us only
by that experience, the necessity of which the
very argument that is founded on it is yet
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 193
strangely supposed to preclude. Unless we
take for granted, that we know all the condi
tions of existing things, with all their mutual
influences, there is no situation, in which we
can truly determine whether circumstances,
that appear to us equal, he in every physical
respect as truly so, as in our state of limited
knowledge they appear to us; and therefore,
whether a sufficient reason for any change what
ever be not actually existing, when we suppose
that there is none. What is, or is not, a suffi
cient reason, experience, and experience only,
can shew : and if we exclude the necessary
influence of experience, and suppose that, inde
pendently of it, we can make some physical
prediction, on the mere principle, that in the
various supposed possible conditions of change
every thing is perfectly equal, and that no one
of the changes supposed, therefore, can take
place, because there is no reason why it should
take place rather than any of the others, we
take for granted, in all the conditions of that
particular case, a real equality, and conse
quently the absence of a sufficient reason for
some one of them more than for the others,
which we have no means of knowing, but by
o
194 ON THE RELATION
the very experience that is excluded. We be
lieve, indeed, that a body will not quit its state
of rest, if all circumstances continue the same ;
for this, from the influence of that general law
of thought, which directs our physical anticipa
tions of every kind, it is impossible for us not
to believe ; but, if the irresistible force of this
general faith be laid wholly out of account, and
if, in affirming, that it cannot quit its state of
rest and move in one particular direction, our
only reason be, that we see no cause why the
body should not begin equally to move in some
other direction, we, in the very supposition that
the motion in the particular direction is without
a sufficient cause, beg the question, which we
yet profess to demonstrate. If we could sup
pose our only knowledge of nature to be, that
a certain body is at present at rest, and that
there are various causes of motion, of the
nature of which we are ignorant, which is the
state of mind that should be conceived by us,
when we think of the prediction of the inertia
as independent of experience, how can we
presume that we know, at any moment, what
physical circumstances may, or may not, be
about to determine some particular motion of
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 195
the body, since we are equally unacquainted
with the efficacy or inefficacy of all the circum
stances ? And if we suppose ourselves to know,
previously, the efficacy or sufficiency of some
of these circumstances, and the inefficacy or
insufficiency of the others, why, since we must
in that case know, before any reasoning from
the abstract principle, whether a change is or
is not to take place, do we ascribe to the result
of the subsequent reasoning the knowledge
which was essential for the understanding of its
very conditions or terms ?
When all the affections of matter are by
supposition unknown, all sufficiency, or insuffi
ciency, for the production of change, must be
unknown. We may err in affirming either ; we
may err in denying either : and as it is expe
rience only which can shew whether we have
erred, it is experience only which could have
entitled us to make with confidence the primary
affirmation or denial. The knowledge of a
single fact additional may shew that to be
powerful as a cause, which we before conceived
to be powerless. If we had been wholly unac
quainted with magnetism, we should probably,
or, I may say, certainly, on observing a load-
o 2
196 ON THE RELATION
stone carried near to a piece of iron which
had been remaining for hours or months at
rest, have denied that there was any sufficient
reason for the incipient motion of the iron,
which a few moments would soon shew us, and
which, having witnessed it as a fact, we then
could not fail to believe to have had an ade
quate cause. In a world of pure fancy, it is
easy to imagine conditions that are perfectly
equal, because the conditions themselves, in
that case, are whatever we may have chosen
to make them. But the physical influences,
which actually surround us, must reveal them
selves before we know them ; and, till they are
revealed in the changes which they produce,
the conditions that seem to us perfectly equal
may, as I have already said, have the utmost
inequality. Whatever probability, then, in any
new combination of circumstances, the principle
of the Sufficient Reason may seem to afford,
a probability increasing as our knowledge of the
general affections of matter increases, it never
can afford, in physics, a ground of demonstra
tive prediction, till we know all the causes which
have influence in nature ; and when we can sup
pose ourselves to have acquired this knowledge,
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 197
the application of the principle of the Sufficient
Reason must be superfluous, since we should
then be able in every case to predict, without it,
the very phenomena, with the future sequences
of which it is supposed to be necessary for
making us acquainted.
This argument appears to me of itself decisive,
as to the absolute inefficiency of the principle,
for any primary physical demonstration. If we
know all the physical influences that exist in
any case, we know already what the application
of the principle of the Sufficient Reason is sup
posed to reveal to us ; and if we do not know
all the physical influences that can operate in
the case, we do not know the equality or in
equality of the conditions, and consequently are
incapable of applying the principle.
But, even though the force of this argument,
which reduces the predictive inferences that are
founded on the supposed absence of a sufficient
reason, to mere assumptions of the very point
in question, were laid out of account ; and the
principle were admitted to be fairly available for
physical demonstration ; is there no other objec
tion that could be made to this particular appli
cation of it? Do the conditions, which are
198 ON THE RELATION
asserted to be equal, exhaust every possibility
of change, even as far as we at present know
those possibilities ; or is there not a state, differ
ent from that of rest, which is not included in
them, and to which the principle, therefore,
cannot be applied?
The argument, it will be remembered, relates
to bodies such as exist around us, and not to
points or mere abstractions of the mind. It
is not a mathematical, but a physical truth,
which we are considering; and the question
is, whether, of any of the bodily substances in
the universe, we could predict the continued
rest, by the argument of the Sufficient Reason
alone, without including in the demonstra
tion that more general principle, to which I
refer our belief of the inertia of matter, and
of every other similar result of similar circum
stances.
Every substance, to which we give the name
of a body, as existing before us, and capable of
exhibiting to us the phenomena of inertia, is a
substance extended and divisible. It is truly
what may be termed a mass, and not a mere
physical point, which, as it would be incapable
of affecting our senses, could not exhibit to us
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 199
either the reality or unreality of the inertia of
which we speak, nor be the object of physical
knowledge of any kind.
Such a body is supposed to be at rest before
us ; and it is affirmed that, but for the operation
of some external force, it must remain for ever
at rest, not because the circumstances are the
same, as when rest was observed before, and the
same antecedents are always followed by the
same consequents, which would indeed be a
valid reason, but because, if it begin to move,
it must move in some direction, and there is no
sufficient reason, or, in other words, no reason
whatever, to determine the motion in one direc
tion, rather than in any other.
This equality of all the circumstances of
change, and consequent exclusion of any parti
cular motion, might perhaps be true, if there
were no other possible conditions, than absolute
rest, or equal and uniform motion of the body
as a mass. But there is another possible form
of change, which the supposed demonstration
has neglected, and which renders the argument,
therefore, inapplicable to the physical system of
things, however applicable it might be to atoms
or mere points, the very existence of which, as
200 ON THE RELATION
mere points, or atoms, our senses are wholly
incapable of discovering.
It is not necessary, for the interruption of its
continued rest, that a body should move uni
formly forward, as one great mass : it is com
pounded of various elementary atoms, and those
atoms which compose it may tend outward,
equally and uniformly, from the centre. A
change, in short, may take place in the quiescent
mass, similar to what we term explosion, when
a mass of gunpowder, previously at rest, is
kindled. There is then no particular motion
of the gaseous particles, east, west, north, or
south, but motion in all these directions; and,
though there is no violation of the principle of
the Sufficient Reason, there is certainly as little
inertia, or continued rest, in the explosion, at
the moment at which the expansion or diver
gence begins to take place, as if the whole
mass of gunpowder had suddenly quitted its
state of repose, and rushed forward in the
direction, in which a few of its particles are
proceeding.
But a mass of gunpowder, it will perhaps be
said, does not explode, till it be kindled, and,
but for the spark which kindles it, might have
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 201
remained at rest for ever. The remark is a just
one, and might be of weight in the present case,
if the argument had related to the particular
cause of the explosion, or if it had been asserted,
that there is no inertia of matter, and that
changes from rest to motion may take place,
without a cause. This, however, is not the
point in dispute. I do not deny the inertia ; on
the contrary, it appears to me to be as indu
bitable, as any other instance of the regularity
of events. It is not the fact itself, as a part of
physical experience, but the justness of the
inference which is supposed to demonstrate the
future fact, independently of experience, that
is the subject Of argument. Whether there be,
or be not, a cause of the explosion of gun
powder, is of no consequence, then, to the
only point in question. The explosion itself,
or, in other words, the beginning motion of the
particles that were before quiescent, is all
which we have to consider ; and it shews satis
factorily, that all the possible changes of state
from that of rest are not exhausted by the
supposition of the various lines of direction in
which a body can move as a whole undivided
mass. To the rapid divergence of the gaseous
202 ON THE RELATION
particles, in the moment of the kindling, the
principle of the Sufficient Reason is not appli
cable, for precluding the possibility of incipient
motion ; because the motion is truly expansive
in all directions : and as little, therefore, would
it be applicable to the same incipient motion,
if it had taken place in any other way, with a
cause, or without one. In explosion, particles,
before at rest, begin instantly to move. That
this change takes place on the contact of a spark,
and would not have taken place, if a spark had
not fallen on the inflammable heap, are facts
which we learn from experience only, and which
the principle of the Sufficient Reason never
could have taught us. It is with the application
of tliis principle alone, that we are concerned.
We do not suppose that, if the circumstances
remain exactly the same, a body which has
remained at rest, however rapidly inflammable
in other circumstances, will explode of itself.
But the supposition of this sudden motion of
the particles appears to us absurd, not because
the principle of the Sufficient Reason excludes
the possibility of a change of state, by the
absence of a cause of motion in one direction
rather than in another, since, without any
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 203
violation of that principle, the diverging par
ticles might at the same moment begin to move
from the centre in all directions, but for the
more powerful general reason, already stated,
as applicable to phenomena of every species,
the belief, which it is impossible for us not to
feel, that, when the previous circumstances, in
any case, are exactly the same, the resulting
circumstances also will be the same.
Such, as it appears to me, is the principle,
to which we are to reduce the belief of the
inertia of bodies, as far as relates to the pheno
mena of their continued rest : and so inade
quate, I may add, is the argument, that would
endeavour to demonstrate it, without the assump
tion of that more general principle.
Let us next consider the belief,* as it relates
to the other case of inertia, in the continued
motion of bodies, with the same velocity and
in the same direction, when there is no disturb
ance by a foreign force.
With respect to the belief of this law of
bodies, there is a difference, with which every
one must have been struck, in the slowness of
* Note I.
204 ON THE RELATION
assent with which it is first received, compared
with the readiness with which the inertia of
quiescent bodies is admitted.
Of this difference the cause is sufficiently
evident. The continued rest of the masses
around us, till a force be applied to disturb it,
is obvious as it were to our very senses ; or, at
least, there is nothing apparently inconsistent
with it, in any of the phenomena which we
observe. But with the other species of inertia,
the observed phenomena, however really con
gruous, are apparently inconsistent ; the velocity
of bodies being continually retarded by friction
and atmospherical resistance, and the tendency
to rectilinear motion, when above the surface of
the earth, being continually changed by the
deflecting influence of gravitation. It hence
becomes difficult for us to decompose in our
imagination the mixed result of many concur
ring influences ; and, since it is of the concur
ring influences alone that we have uniformly
had experience, it is not wonderful that we
should sometimes err, in considering that as a
simple effect, which is truly compound. We
do not perceive the uniform motion, as we per
ceive the continued rest: and accordingly we
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 205
find, that those who readily assent to the pro
position, that a body at rest will for ever re
main at rest, unless put in motion by some force
applied, are very incredulous, when they hear,
for the first time, that it equally requires an
application of force, to prevent a body in motion
from retaining its velocity for ever.
Let us consider the doctrine itself, however,
without regard to this illusive difference.
The expectation of the continued motion of a
body may be considered differently, according
as we are supposed to know only a single instant
of the preceding motion, or several successive
instants.
In the latter of these cases, if we know that
the motion, in one direction, and with one velo
city, has been immediately followed by motion,
in the same direction, and with the same velo
city, during the successive instants, the case is
fairly reducible to that general principle, to
which I have already reduced our belief of the
other species of inertia. From circumstances
exactly similar, we, in every case, expect results
exactly similar ; and accordingly, in this parti
cular case, we expect continued motion in the
same direction, and with the same velocity, as
206 ON THE RELATION
long as no change of circumstances takes place.
We are supposed to have already had experience
of the antecedent motion and the consequent
motion ; and the antecedent being present, we
may well be supposed to expect the consequent,
as before.
But if motion, the very conception of which
implies always the conception of some time,
could be supposed to be known to us, as the
state of a body in a single instant, and if we
knew nothing more, than the space which the
body had in that instant traversed, without the
slightest knowledge of the moments preceding,
or of any physical facts whatever, except the
existence of the mass, and its passage in the
briefest conceivable interval of time, from one
point of space to another, it does not appear
to me, that the inertia could be demonstrated,
or that there would be even the slightest reason
for expecting it ; unless from the influence of
that general faith in the continuance of similar
results of similar circumstances, which would
imply, perhaps, a wider observation than so
brief an interval could give, and which, at any
rate, must be precluded, when the inference is
supposed to be wholly independent of experience.
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 207
Let the circumstances, however, be considered
by us a little more minutely.
Why should a body that has been one instant
in motion, not stop in the succeeding instant ;
and, if it continue to move, why should it
move with the same velocity, and in the same
direction ?
In the first place, Why should not the motion
of one instant give place to rest ?
There seems no reason whatever why this
should be disbelieved by us, unless when we
consider ourselves as looking back over a series
of instants ; when, of course, from our general
belief of the uniformity of antecedence and con
sequence, it appears to us physically absurd to
suppose, that the same antecedent motion which
we have observed should not have the same
consequent motion, which we have also ob
served. If we imagine a single instant only,
independently of all prior observation or other
means of knowledge, the state of a body in
motion seems as fit to be the antecedent, at
other moments, of the state of rest, as of the
state of motion ; that is to say, we are as much
ignorant of one fitness as of the other. If, at
the moment of supposed transition from rest to
208 ON THE RELATION
motion, without any foreign force, the argument
of the Sufficient Reason was supposed to be
necessary to demonstrate the impossibility of
the motion, and in this way to establish the
necessity of the consequent inertia, it must be
remembered, that, in the opposite transition,
which we are now considering, from a single
instant of motion to a succeeding instant of rest,
there is no room for the application of that
argument, even though it were allowed to be
admissible and valid in the other. There is, in
the change to a state of rest, no concurring
number of equal conditions, the equality of
which must be violated by a determination to
one of them. Rest has no opposite or varying
lines of direction, like motion. It is a single
state, which is, or is not, without any possible
variation. We do not believe, indeed, as I have
already said, that motion will suddenly cease,
without some foreign force to suspend it ; but
our only reason for the disbelief is to be found
in the law of thought, which I have already
stated ; a law which, far from excluding expe
rience, takes it uniformly for granted, and sup
poses, in this particular case, that the motion,
which we expect to be continued, has been
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 209
observed by us, in some former instant, as the
consequent of similar antecedent motion.
Let the possibility of a direct change from
motion to absolute rest, however, be forgotten ;
and let us consider the other questions, which
the continued motion admits.
In the first place, why should the motion be
continued with the same velocity ?
That, even after experience at least after
such experience as the complicated action of
things, in the motions with which we are most
familiar, affords, there does not appear to be
any primary absurdity, in the supposition of a
continued diminution of velocity, is shown by
the universal faith of the multitude in this
tendency to decay, as an essential property of
motion, a faith, which philosophers would
undoubtedly have shared with them, but for the
analyses, which have shown them the resisting
and retarding forces, that are not considered by
ordinary observers, who remark only, that every
motion, which it requires a considerable force
on their part to produce, seems to die away of
itself. There is nothing, then, which seems at
first view absurd in such a belief; and the ab
surdity, which appears on reflection, is nothing
p
210 ON THE RELATION
more than its inconsistency with facts observed
by us, in the motions of the great bodies that
are moving freely through space, and in the
resistances of friction and atmospherical reac
tion, to the various degrees of which we find
the loss of velocity, as greater or less, to be
proportional. It is a more extensive and minute
experience, but still it is experience only, which
shows the error of the popular belief ; and the
more abstract arguments, in disproof of the pos
sibility of a gradual decay of motion, are argu
ments that assume the very point which they
should prove, or, if they do not assume it, are
arguments that are founded upon nothing.
It is not necessary, for a change of state or
interruption of its inertia, that the velocity of a
body in motion should be suspended or retarded.
It may, on the contrary, be increased : and
what reason, independent of experience, can
prove this to be absolutely impossible ? It might
appear a very natural supposition, at least before
we reflect on it deeply, that as, in the fall of a
body to the earth, we have a continual increase
of velocity, from the addition, at every mo
ment, of the velocity previously acquired to that
which would flow as before from the original
OF CAUSE AN 7 D EFFECT. 211
force of gravitation, so, in impulse, or by any
other cause of incipient motion, a certain state
of tendency to motion might be induced, which
would be permanent itself, like the continued
gravitating influence, and receive accessions at
every moment, from the very velocity to which
itself had given rise. We know, indeed, from
experience, that this is not the case ; but if
experience had been different, our physical anti
cipation of the future would of course also have
been different. If the velocity had increased
directly as the times, or as the squares of the
times, or in any other ratio, we should probably
have found as little difficulty as now in accom
modating our general reasoning to the physical
facts.
I have said, that the supposed demonstrations,
a priori, of the continued uniform velocity of
moving bodies, are either without any founda
tion at all, or assume the very truth which they
should prove.
When D ALEMBERT* attempts to show, that
" the motion must be uniform, because a body
cannot accelerate nor retard its own motion,"
* Traite de Dynamique.
p 2
212 ON THE RELATION
he obviously takes for granted the very point in
dispute, if we strip the phrases which he uses
of their active sense, and, instead of saying that
a body cannot retard its own motion, say, more
intelligibly, that the velocity of a body cannot grow
less. His argument is truly nothing more than
that the motion cannot grow less, because it can
not grow less : for, though he professes to deduce
the impossibility of the retardation from the proof
which he considers himself to have before given
of the inertia of bodies at rest, it is not easy to
see, even though we were to admit the reasoning
in the one case to be just, how the truth of what
he states as a corollary, can be said to be in
volved in the truth of the primary demonstration.
That a body is not capable of beginning motion
of itself, is one proposition ; that, when put in
motion, it cannot return to its original state of
rest, is a very different proposition. The one
alone certainly does not prove the other ; for
the one might be true, and yet the other be
false : nay, perhaps, independently of experience,
the very sluggishness of matter, which renders
the application of a force necessary to give it
any motion, might seem, and to common
observers, who have not made the necessary
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 213
analysis, which shows the operation of external
retarding forces, has always seemed, a cause
rather for belief than disbelief, of a natural
tendency in bodies to return readily to the
same state of rest.
By EULER, two * demonstrations are given,
both founded, more or less directly, on the prin
ciple of the Sufficient Reason.
In the first place, he contends, that a body
in motion must continue to retain one uniform
velocity, because, if the velocity were to de
crease, it would tend ultimately to rest, which,
he thinks he has shewn to be impossible : and
if it were to increase, it must admit of being
traced backward to a state of rest, as the point
from which the progressive velocity began ;
which, he thinks, is not less absurd.
In the former of these suppositions, the proof
evidently depends on the force of the argument,
that a body, once put in motion, cannot of
itself subside into a state of rest. How then,
we may inquire, is this proved ? It is because,
if the gradual decay of motion were possible,
it could not be said of the body, when it had
arrived at the state of rest, that it had been
* Note K.
214 ON THE RELATION
before in a state of permanent rest, which must
be true of every quiescent body, that has been
free, during the time of which we speak, from
the action of any foreign force. And why must
this be true of every body in repose ? Because,
if it were not true, the body, before it stopped,
must have been proceeding in some direction ; and,
in the variety of possible lines of direction, there
is no reason why we should suppose it to have
come in one of these rather than in any other.
Such is the argument, when stripped of that
ppmp of mathematical phraseology, which often
throws a sort of venerable disguise over physical
error. The very words Theorem, Scholium,
Corollary, have been so constantly associated
with the feeling of abstract truth, that, even in
physics, by a very natural illusion, they seem to
extend the same feeling to facts which they
rather take for granted than prove. But, though
the argument may have all the decoration and
authority which these mighty words can give it,
it is, surely, not of a kind that can afford con
viction to any one, who thinks less of the mere
forms and phrases of demonstration than of
the real meaning which those forms and phrases
convey.
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 215
To say, that motion cannot gradually cease,
if nothing more were said, would be evidently
to beg the question. But to say, that it cannot
cease, because, if it were to cease, the body
could not have been at rest the moment before,
is equally to beg the question, though it is to do
this with the semblance of reasoning. If the
velocity of a body in motion be susceptible of
gradual diminution, till it ultimately subside into
repose, then it is not necessary that a body at
rest should have been equally at rest the mo
ment preceding ; and we must look elsewhere
for a proof of this necessity. Now, the only
proof, which EULER offers, is little more than a
number of words. The motion, which is sup
posed to terminate in rest, must indeed, as he
says, have been in some direction, and we may
be wholly ignorant of the cause which deter
mined the motion to be in that direction rather
than in any other ; but, if our only knowledge
were of the two phenomena, which the body is
supposed to exhibit, in its state of motion and
its subsequent state of rest, it would surely be a
very strange error in logic, to contend, that,
because we do not know any determining cause
of the motion, in the particular direction in
216 ON THE RELATION
which it came, there was, therefore, no motion
in that direction, or no sufficient cause to deter
mine it. To what is it that the theorem relates ?
It is strangely forgotten by EULER, that, in the
very case imagined, the objection which he states
must be wholly or conditionally abandoned, be
fore the terms of the proposition which he enun
ciates can be understood. The theorem, which
he endeavours to establish, is that in which a
certain absolute motion * is supposed, which
must, of course, be in some one direction, and
not at once in many directions, and must there
fore have had a cause to determine it in that
particular direction ; and the question relates
to the possible diminution of the velocity of the
motion thus existing, and therefore previously
determined. It is vain, then, to found a de
monstration of the impossibility of the decay of
motion, on an argument, which proceeds on
conditions completely different, on conditions
of such perfect equality in all the different
tendencies to motion, as would disprove the
possibility of the motion itself, which the very
theorem assumes. Unless we suppose a body
* Corpus absolutum habens motum sequabiliter perpetuo
movebitur, &c.
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 217
actually in motion, the theorem is not com
prehensive of the particular case ; and, if we
do suppose a body actually in motion, the prin
ciple, on which the demonstration ultimately
rests, is not applicable to the particular case.
The dilemma appears to me to be one which it
is not easy to obviate or elude. We may take
one view, or we may take the other view, of a
certain determinate existing motion, or of no
motion whatever ; but we cannot take both :
and, whichever of the two views we may prefer,
it is evident, that the supposed demonstration is
nugatory.
Such, then, is the defect of the argument,
as applied to the case of supposed retardation
of motion ; and, as applied to the opposite case
of supposed acceleration of motion, it has ex
actly the same defect. The velocity, it is said,
cannot increase ; because then it must have
sprung from absolute rest. The necessity of
that origin is surely not very evident; unless
every other source of motion, but absolute rest,
were excluded. The initial velocity of a body,
which may be of various degrees in various
circumstances, may be communicated by the
impulse of another body, or by some other
218 ON THE RELATION
cause equally powerful, that excludes the sup
posed absurdity of the beginning of motion, as
it were spontaneously, from absolute rest. Now,
it is exactly a case of this kind a case of
motion actually begun, and therefore not pro
ceeding from a cause which is said to be in
capable of producing motion that must be
considered by us, in the theorem: and unless
we suppose the motion as existing, and as having
had, therefore, a sufficient cause of its particular
velocity, it would be vain to think of the theorem
at all. It might be perfectly true, therefore,
that rest could not, in any circumstances, be
the immediate source of motion, and that hence
every motion, which it was demonstratively
necessary to trace back to absolute rest as its
cause, might justly be said to be impossible ;
and yet it might be true, that when motion was
induced by any adequate cause, the velocity
might proceed in a ratio of continual increase.
Whether there be or be not such a tendency in
bodies in motion, to an acceleration of their
velocity, is a matter of observation, not of
abstract reasoning. But if it be absurd to
suppose, that motion should begin from rest
as its source, it must always be remembered,
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 219
that this origin is excluded by the very terms
of the theorem, which, in supposing the body
to be in motion, supposes of course that the
motion has not had a cause which it would be
absurd to imagine, but an adequate cause ; and
that, even though the velocity were truly pro
gressive, it would be unreasonable, therefore,
to argue as if it were necessarily to be traced
still farther back, than to that incipient motion,
whether rapid or slow, which was primarily
communicated to the body ; since the conditions
of the theorem are far from requiring this, and,
if they required it, would demand what the
demonstration itself was to prove to be impos
sible. A case of existing motion is the case
supposed ; and that existing velocity, whether
produced by direct impulse or in any other way,
might be susceptible of continual increase, though
it were most satisfactorily demonstrated, that,
till the application of some force from without,
there could be no motion whatever.
The other demonstration, which EULER has
given, is not more satisfactory. The velocity of
a body, moving freely in infinite space, must, he
says, be uniform ; because, if we consider the
line of its motion, there is no reason why its
220 ON THE RELATION
velocity should be greater, in one part of the
line, than in any other part of it. This is truly
nothing more than to say, that the velocity of a
moving body is not greater in one part of its
course than in another part of it, because the
velocity of a moving body is not greater in one
part of its course than in another part of it. If
we primarily beg the question, that is to say,
if we take for granted, in the first step of the
reasoning, that the motion of a body in free
space must continue uniformly of the same
velocity, we surely do not need any argument
from the Sufficient Reason, founded on this very
assumption, to prove to us, in the second or
third step of it, what, in the first step, we must
already have assumed as indisputable : and if
we have not made this primary assumption,
then, it cannot be said positively, as a ground
of proof, that there is no reason why the velo
city of a body should be greater in one part
of its course than in another, since the very
tendency of motion to become progressively less
rapid, if that tendency were truly a physical
property of moving bodies, would be itself a
sufficient reason for the retardation supposed.
Whether there be such a tendency, experience
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 221
only can shew ; and, if we deny the necessity of
experience for shewing it, and think ourselves
entitled in our reasoning to proceed on positive
disbelief of the tendency, we surely cannot think
the reasoning, which proceeds on it, at all neces
sary to substantiate our previous disbelief. The
argument, I repeat, is superfluous, or worse
than superfluous, if we take for granted, as the
foundation of the argument, the very truth
which it is to prove ; and if we do not take the
truth for granted, then the very principle of
uniformity or equality, on which the whole
argument is founded, would itself stand in need
of proof, being truly only another form of the
physical fact, to which the whole question
relates.
It has been contended, in an argument in
some degree similar, that the velocity of a body
moving freely must be uniform, because, where
every foreign force is by supposition excluded,
there is no condition involved in the nature
of the case, that determines the progressive
change of velocity which is supposed, so as to
enable us to rank it as of any particular degree,
either of acceleration or retardation. But an
argument confessedly founded on our ignorance
222 ON THE RELATION
of the circumstances that determine the future,
is surely not an argument which seems well
fitted to convince us that we can predict the
future, and can predict it for the very reason,
that we are ignorant of its circumstances or
conditions. It will be admitted, indeed, that
there is no condition, involved in the case, that
enables us to submit to any calculus a change of
velocity, which, if real, is as yet unobserved :
but it must be admitted, also, that there is no
condition involved, which renders it necessary
to suppose the velocity to be uniform. It is not
the assertion of an actual change, but the asser
tion of the mere possibility of an actual change,
which the argument has to meet. We are
ignorant, before experience, whether the velo
city be or be not uniform ; and the difficulty of
the anticipation arises from this very ignorance.
It is not more logical, therefore, to contend,
that the velocity, of which, as altered or un
altered in the future, we are equally ignorant,
cannot become less, because we cannot state the
degree of retardation, than it would have been
to contend, before any experiments were made
on the solvent power of water at different tem
peratures, that at all temperatures it must be
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 223
capable of dissolving exactly the same quantity
of any salt, because the chemist who first doubted
of this uniformity was not able to state the pre
cise degree of increased or diminished power,
where, in his state of doubt rather than of belief
or disbelief, he was not certain that there was
any increase or diminution to be measured.
The course of nature does not depend on calcu
lations which we make ; but our calculations
must conform themselves to the facts which we
observe. If there really were, therefore, a ten
dency of motion to decay, it would not be either
more or less true, though we were never to
observe it ; and the rate of progressive retarda
tion might be perfectly determinate, though,
before experience, we might be incapable of ascer
taining and stating it, or even of imagining any
other physical condition, with which it might be
supposed to correspond.
The arguments, already considered, have re
lated to the uniformity of velocity. To demon
strate the uniformity of direction, the principle
of the Sufficient Reason has been in like manner
called in; and it has been maintained, that
the motion cannot deviate from a straight line,
because there is no reason why the deviation
224 ON THE RELATION
should be in one direction, rather than in any
other. <:
To this application of the Principle, the same
objection may be made, as to the application
of it, in the case of the inertia of bodies at
rest ; and a brief notice of it, therefore, may be
sufficient now. Without a perfect knowledge
of all the physical influences of things, which
we do not possess, and which, if we did possess
it, would render wholly superfluous the very
reasoning that is supposed to proceed on it,
it is impossible for us to tell, what influences
may or may not be sufficient, for the deflection
of a body in one direction rather than in any
other. It is not of what we see around us only,
that we are to think : for the deflecting influence
may be that of substances indistinguishable by
our senses ; as it may be that of substances in
which we have never suspected such an in
fluence. If a body, like one of the planets,
were moving freely through space, and a similar
orb were supposed suddenly to come within a
distance from it, like that of the sun from the
farthest planet of our system, it would appear
to us, if we were wholly ignorant of gravitation,
that the body, which we were first considering,
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 225
would still keep one uniform direction, because
the mere existence of a distant mass could not
be a sufficient reason for determining a change
of its course : yet how false, in that case, would
our reasoning be ! Of all the motions, which are
at any one instant taking place in the universe,
there perhaps is not one, which is completely
rectilinear, as resulting from a single influence.
Within our own solar system, at least, we have
every reason to suppose, that the deflection is
unceasing, and that every atom is modifying
the direction of every atom. Innumerable in
fluences, therefore, in all varieties of position
near and remote, are continually operating to
gether, the determination of which, with perfect
exactness, in relation to every change of every
species, is a problem of which the conditions
are beyond the reach of our limited faculties.
When we can imagine ourselves to have solved
this most comprehensive of all problems, we
may then indeed take for granted, that certain
motions supposed cannot have taken place, be
cause there was no sufficient reason for deter
mining them : but, till it be solved, we cannot
be permitted to argue as if we had truly solved
it. In every new case, though we may be
Q
226 ON THE RELATION
aware of many influences that appear to us
equal, we may yet be ignorant of others, of
which a single one may be sufficient to destroy
the equality that is supposed by us, and to
determine, therefore, a particular change, which
we had affirmed to be impossible, because we
had taken, as the sole measure of the powers of
nature, our own very limited knowledge of those
powers, and, in the pride of our ignorance, had
resolved, that there could not be any influence
which we were not capable of perceiving, and
therefore, that a reason which we were incapa
ble of predicting could not, physically, be a suffi
cient reason.
After this very full discussion of the doctrine
of the Inertia of Bodies, whether in motion or
at rest, as a property of matter, which might
be demonstrated, and therefore anticipated with
perfect confidence, independently of experience,
it will not be necessary to dwell so long on
the analogous cases, of the Composition of
Forces, and of Statics. A great part of the pre
ceding reasoning is equally applicable to these,
and therefore need not be repeated ; but there
is an additional objection of a different kind,
which, as it is not applicable to the mere inertia
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 227
of a single mass, will require to be stated and
illustrated now.
In treating of the inertia, we considered a
single body, as existing in circumstances that
appeared to be unaltered : in the composition
or equilibrium of forces, we consider more bodies
than one, and consider them as placed in new
circumstances of combination. It is this differ
ence of the novelty of the circumstances, that
affords room for the peculiar objection of which
I speak.
When, after having observed motion in the
same straight line communicated to a body at
rest by a moving body, we consider the possi
bility of two equal bodies moving in the same
plane, in directions that are at right angles, and
meeting at a third body, we are supposed to be
able to infer, a priori, the consequent diagonal
motion of the third body. Let us consider, then,
the supposed necessary truth of this inference.
Even the primary fact of simple impulse, as
it appears to me, we are wholly incapable of
divining, before observation ; since, if we were
absolutely unacquainted with the phenomena of
the communication of motion, there is no ima
ginable reason why we should not believe a
Q2
228 ON THE RELATION
body in motion to stop when it arrives at a
body which is at rest, or if any new motion
should ensue, to rebound simply from the op
posing mass, as much as that we should believe
that mass, which we know only as existing in a
state of rest, to quit the state in which we have
observed it, and to fly rapidly forward. Even
simple impulse, then, we could not have divined ;
and any complicated case of it cannot be more
independent of experience than the simple pri
mary fact.
But omitting this fundamental objection, and
proceeding on belief of the phenomena of simple
impulse, are we entitled, in this case of com
pound action, to consider the two bodies, when
they meet at the third, as existing in the same
circumstances, with tendencies in every respect
exactly the same as when, in some former obser
vation, the one was seen to impel the other ?
Three bodies, in a certain situation, may have
attractions, or repulsions, or relative tendencies,
with whatever name we are to express them,
altogether different from those which were ob
served to take place in two, in the different
situations in which they existed alone ; in the
same manner as, in chemistry, we know that a
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 229
small increase or diminution of the quantity of
oxygen, combined with azote, produces effects
which have no similarity to the past observed
action of the same particles differently combined.
Sulphuric acid burns animal matter ; potash
burns animal matter ; the two bodies in com
bination do not burn animal matter. The
change of the properties, or seeming properties,
of its compounds is, indeed, of the very essence
of chemistry ; which derives from these beautiful
transmutations, at once its dignity as a science,
and its value, as the director of many of the most
useful of arts.
It would be vain to urge, in the hope of ob
viating the force of the analogy of the chemical
facts, that in these instances, in which new
physical influences seem to be evolved in com
position, the bodies which evolve them are not
homogeneous : for, in the phenomena of com
mon motion, the homogeneous or heterogeneous
nature of the masses is never taken into account ;
and, if we were alike ignorant in both cases,
having had no experience of the general facts of
chemistry, and no experience of the composition
of forces, we should as readily infer, from the
separate action of sulphuric acid and of potash,
230 ON THE RELATION
a similarity of action in the compound, as we
should infer, from the phenomena of simple
impulse, the diagonal motion of a body, impelled
at once in different directions. The same expe
rience which informs us that the particles of
matter, by changing their place, in certain com
binations, receive or exhibit different tendencies,
informs us, that the solid masses of matter,
brought into various combinations, continue to
possess or to exhibit the same tendencies : but
still it is to experience only that we owe this
distinction ; and, without that experience, we
might as readily have inferred a variation in the
apparent qualities of the masses, on the intro
duction of a third mass, as of the particles, on
the admixture of new particles.
May we not proceed, however, a step further,
and inquire, whether there be indeed the dif
ference that is supposed, in the species of action
of masses and their elements ? Is it true that,
in all the circumstances in which bodies can be
placed, and in which a reciprocal action of some
sort takes place in them, there must either be
that elementary change, which distinguishes
chemistry, or a continued influence varying,
perhaps, in degree, but always similar in kind ?
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 231
Experience, if we attend to its minute inforr
mation, is far from justifying the belief of such
uniformity. Even homogeneous masses, acting
on each other, without decomposition, have
their mutual action varied by a slight difference
of place : and, though the difference, of which I
speak, occurs only in very close vicinity, it
might have been imagined, before experience,
to occur as readily at one distance as at another,
and to present, therefore, a continual variation
of phenomena, with every new position of every
mass.
To the vulgar, all bodies seem to fall, till they
come into actual contact with the earth : yet we
have every reason to believe, that no such
actual contact takes place, and that even two
homogeneous bodies, which, at all visible dis
tances, attract each other strongly, produce in
each other, by the change of a single invisible
line of distance, a tendency to motion, which is
altogether opposite. It is quite evident, that, if
the same force, by which atoms tend to atoms at
every visible distance, were of unceasing opera
tion, there could not be any compressibility of
matter; because that greater closeness, which
the compressing force induces, must have taken
232 ON THE RELATION
place long before the application of the pressure,
by that attractive influence alone : and the re
sistance to the compressing force,, increasing
with every degree of the pressure, marks of
itself, that the particles, in their different de
grees of approximation, have different degrees
of a tendency, the very opposite of that which
they exhibit in the distances that are measurable
by our senses. The same change of tendency,
in a slight difference of circumstances, is marked
in a still more striking manner in the pheno
mena of elasticity, and in every reaction of
bodies 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 circumstances, as to doubt of the reci
procal attraction of matter, in certain other cir
cumstances, when the ball was dropped from
our hand, and when the points of closeness to
the earth, at which 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 judgment were to be determined
by these alone, have appeared to be the same.
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 233
The difference of circumstances, in such a
case, it must be allowed, where there is no
new substance introduced, and no sensible
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 single line of distance, it is
surely not more wonderful, a 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 change
of tendency had been produced in both cases,
the only circumstance from which the diagonal
motion is supposed to be deducible, would have
been destroyed.
When two bodies meet, at a third, in direc
tions exactly opposite, 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
234 ON THE RELATION
such circumstances, suspend, or variously change
the repulsion, 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 various degrees of ve
locity ; or, if any other species of result can be
imagined, that result may equally take place.
To give the name of composition of forces to such
cases, is in truth to beg the question ; since it
takes for granted, that tlie forces remain, though
the situation of the bodies be different. The
real inquiry 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 certainty, 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 dif
ferent thing from the assumed composition of
forces ; since it still sends us to experience, to
determine, whether, in the new circumstances
of union, any forces exist.
It is unnecessary to repeat the argument in
its application to the phenomena of statics,
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 235
which, as implying the joint influence of oppo
site 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 rela
tion to the general doctrine of the Composition
of Forces.
It is indeed evident, that, in all cases of the
supposed inference of phenomena d priori, what
ever those cases may be, the very supposition of
inference implies, that the circumstances, in
which the bodies are imagined, are new ; and,
in new circumstances, we cannot have absolute
certainty that the qualities before observed in
different circumstances remain unaltered. There
is always, however, a tacit supposition, made by
those who assert the possibility of such infe
rences, that the bodies, in the new circum
stances in which they are imagined, are not to
have any tendencies 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 jus
tifies. That a very slight difference of the cir
cumstances of bodies often produces, or, which
is to us the same thing, renders apparent to our
senses tendencies altogether unlike those which
236
ON THE RELATION
they exhibited in other circumstances, is the
very peculiarity of physics, which renders expe
rience of such essential necessity : and therefore
to take for granted, in our enunciation of a phy
sical doctrine, that bodies in new circumstances
are not to have any new qualities, and after
wards to attempt, on the mere assumption, to
establish the possibility of inferring, a priori, the
phenomena which those bodies would exhibit, in
the new circumstances supposed, is an error
with respect to the general principles of physics,
as gross as would be the opposite error in mathe
matics, if it were asserted that the actual mea
surement of the angles of triangles of various
kinds, is necessary for our belief, that the three
angles of any rectilinear triangle 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 what
ever semblance of probability it may have, from
the assumption of the very circumstance, 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
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 23?
possess the same qualities : there are many
other situations in which they seem no longer
to possess the same qualities, and seem even to
possess qualities, as they certainly exhibit ten
dencies, which are opposite to the past. To
discriminate these situations is the work of ob
servation and experiment ; and, where the cir
cumstances of position or combination are new,
we are not entitled to infer the permanence of
any tendency, observed in different positions, or
in different combinations.
But though the opinion were not liable to
this objection, or to other objections of a similar
kind, it would still be liable to that primary fun
damental objection, which is common to every
case of physical causation ; and which is not
considered by me as of less irresistible force, be
cause, in the foregoing discussion, I have chosen,
in the first place, to consider the secondary
arguments that may be 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
238 ON THE RELATION
cannot be led to suppose it, with greater assu
rance, than that, with which we believe a repeti
tion of the rectilinear motion to be produced by
a repetition of the simple impulse : and our
belief of this future rectilinear impulse is not an
inference from any induction of the past, how
ever frequent our observation of cases exactly
similar may have been. Unless, in similar cir
cumstances, the future be exactly similar to the
past, there will be neither rectilinear motion,
from the impulse of one body, nor diagonal mo
tion, 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 of those events must be at least equally
beyond our power, as the demonstration of that
uniformity of the order of nature, which is
assumed in the prediction. Matter itself, as an
object of our knowledge, 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 argu
ment that originally convinces us of it. If the
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 239
continuance of gravitation, in all future time
before us, be not a necessary truth, it surely
cannot be said of any of the future unob
served phenomena of statics, which depend
on the continuance of gravitation, that they
are not contingent, but of absolute indepen
dent certainty : for we might thus infer the
certain existence of that which, for any rea
son 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. There is no pheno
menon whatever, of which the prediction is not
contingent, even after innumerable instances of
it, in past sequences, have been observed by us :
and, before it has been observed by us at all, the
uncertainty cannot in any instance be less, but
must, on the contrary, be much greater ; since,
even in the cases, in which alone the inference
is supposed to be possible, the reasoning pro
ceeds on an assumption which is contradicted
by our general physical knowledge, the as
sumption, that bodies, in new circumstances of
combination, always retain their former tenden
cies, and have no additional tendencies, similar
240 ON THE RELATION
or different, which can modify the phenomenon
that results from their joint action.
The cases which have now been considered,
of imagined inference 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 undoubting
belief of the future sequences of phenomena ;
and, even after experience, the relation of cause
and effect, as extending beyond the particular
facts observed, cannot be discovered by reason.
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 24 I
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 philosophers,
adopt them without the limitations that were
internally given to them by sager understand
ings, there can be no doubt, that while the
possibility of physical prediction, in any case,
was supposed to be wholly independent of ex
perience, this error must have tended, in a
considerable degree, to diffuse a false impression
of the nature of the connexion of physical
R
242 ON THE RELATION
events in general. If we think that, by mere
reasoning, in the same manner as we evolve
in our thought the mathematical relations of
form 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 inference in other cases,
in which, though the relation may be specifi
cally different, it is still only a relation of the
same kind. We may, in stating the doctrine
to others, and even speculatively in our own
silent thought, confine the possibility of such
an inference to the simplest cases of the mecha
nical affections of matter : but since, even in
the elementary changes of things, there may
be affections of this kind, too minute to be
distinguishable by us, yet similar to the im
pulses, and re-actions, and compositions and
balancings of forces, in the masses which we
are capable of perceiving, it is not easy to
determine, with absolute certainty, that any
change which is taking place before us, is not,
partly at least, in its principle mechanical ;
and we may conceive, therefore, that all which
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 243
would have been necessary, for enabling us to
anticipate, before experience, that particular
phenomenon, would have been a finer know
ledge of the internal mechanism, on which the
phenomenon is supposed to have depended.
A sort of additional obscurity is thus thrown
over the operations of nature, as if there were
influences 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 discover, 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, and 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 intellectual nature, is the readiness * with
which we are constantly disposed to extend to
* Note L.
R 2
244 ON THE RELATIOiNf
whole classes of phenomena, what is known,
with certainty, only of some of the particular
phenomena comprehended 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 sequences 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 wonderful, if those who believe
themselves capable of anticipating, before obser
vation, a number of these sequences, should
have only a vague and obscure belief of the
necessity of experience, for enabling them to
anticipate in like manner the others.
It can scarcely fail, then, to give greater pre
cision to the general notions on this subject,
that the physical inquirer should see distinctly
what, I flatter myself, the argument of the pre
ceding Section has shewn, that our knowledge
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 without any exception what
ever, dependent on experience ; that, as there
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 245
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 perception, there is
nothing also in reasoning which can evolve to
us any new physical relation. As often as we
think of new substances, in any circumstances,
or even of substances the most familiar to us,
in circumstances that are new, we lose that
prophetic power, by which we anticipated, with
undoubting belief, the future results of com
binations of circumstances with which we were
before acquainted. We may still, indeed, form
conjectures according to analogy ; but, even
when there are many concurring analogies,
some doubt is mingled in every conjecture ; and
the very probability, that is felt by us in such
a case, is a probability which is contingent
on that general regularity of nature, which we
assume as certain, without attempting to de
monstrate it.
Perception, Reasoning, Intuition, are the only
sources of belief; and if, even after experience,
for experience is in every case necessary,
when we believe the similarity of future sequences
246 ON THE RELATION
to the past which we have observed, it is riot
from perception, nor from reasoning, that our
confidence is derived, we must ascribe it to
the only other remaining source. We certainly
do not perceive power, in the objects around us,
or in any of our internal feelings ; for percep
tion, 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, independently of our irresistible
belief itself, there is no argument that can be
urged to shew, why the future should exactly
resemble the past, rather than be different from
it in any way. We believe the uniformity, in
short, not because we can demonstrate it to
others or to ourselves, but because it is impos
sible for us to disbelieve it. The belief is in
every instance intuitive ; 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 sensitive capacity of the mind,
that we perceive external things, than it is in
consequence of an original mental tendency of
a different species, that, on the perception of
the changes of external things, we believe those
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 247
changes to be invariable in their order of ante
cedence and consequence. The belief appears
to result as directly from the perception, as
the perception from the presence of the ex
ternal object ; and the rise of the one feeling
is not in itself more wonderful, as a phenome
non 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 material 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 presence 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 remember 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.
248 ON THE RELATION
When we 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 ob
servation of a certain antecedent and conse
quent, and the instant belief of invariableness of
the same sequence in the same circumstances.
There is nothing which we can discover, as
intervening in the process, between the obser
vation and the wider belief; and, therefore,
whatever it may be, which the ingenuity of
philosophers may strive to insert in it, we may
be certain, at least, that it is not in our con
sciousness 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 immediate result of obser
vation of change, appear to us so peculiarly won
derful that it should seem necessary to imagine
a little more complication in the process to re
concile 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 consequent, and
in the parts of the most complicated series, when
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 249
considered analytically, thereis nothing more. The
observation is one state of the mind ; the intui
tive 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 phenomena of
nature, any other state of any other substance
should succeed any other state of any other
substance.
That, with a providential view to the circum
stances in which we were to be placed, our
Divine Author has endowed us with certain in
stinctive tendencies, is as true, as that he has
endowed us with reason itself. We feel no
astonishment in considering these, when we dis
cover the manifest advantage that arises from
them ; and, of all the instincts with which we
could be endowed, there is none that seems, I
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, indeed,
for what is not wonderful ? that the internal
revelation which this belief involves, should be
250 ON THE RELATION, &C.
given to us, like a voice of ceaseless and uner
ring prophecy. But, when we consider WHO it
was that formed us, it would, in truth, have
been more wonderful, if the mind had been so
differently constituted, that the belief had not
arisen : because, in that case, the phenomena of
nature, however regularly arranged, would have
been arranged in vain ; and that Almighty Being,
who, by enabling us to anticipate the physical
events that are to ensue, has enabled us to pro
vide for them, would have left the creatures, for
whose happiness he has been so bounteously
provident, to perish, ignorant and irresolute,
amid elements that seemed waiting to obey
them, and victims of confusion, in the very
midst of all the harmonies of the Universe.
LSI
PART FOURTH.
ON MR. HUME S THEORY OF OUR BELIEF OF
THE RELATION.
PART FOURTH.
SECTION I.
THE inquiries into the real import of the rela
tion of Cause and Effect, into the sources of
the various illusions which have led to the con
sideration 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 abstract
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 expanded, of the same doctrine as to the
254 ON THE RELATION
conjunction rather than connexion of events, and
the consequent impossibility of discovering 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 phy
sical truth, as far at least as relates to the im
possibility of directly perceiving or inferring the
powers of nature, I have endeavoured to deve-
lope, with a more comprehensive and minute
analysis, and, as I flatter myself, with more pre
cision of thought and language, in the discus
sions 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 them
selves may more justly claim : while, at the
same time, it shows, as I cannot but think, that,
even in the Sceptical part of his theory, the in
genious questioner himself was imperfectly aware
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 255
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 pro
cess of the understanding," if the opinion is to
be termed Scepticism, is at least a scepticism
that requires no other Solution, than the cer
tainty 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 belief
of Power depends ; and it is not more wonder
ful 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
with respect to the origin of our ideas in gene
ral ; with a clearer view of which he would also
have had a clearer view of our notion of causa
tion itself. His general theory laid him under
the necessity of finding an " impression," from
which the " idea of a cause might be derived :
and hence, it is not wonderful, that, feeling this
necessity, he more readily acquiesced in that
very erroneous theory which he has given us, of
256 ON THE RELATION
our belief of the relation of Cause and Effect,
or, to use his own phrase, " of the idea of ne
cessary connexion." j_
Before entering on the examination of the
Theory itself, however, I may, perhaps, be in
dulged in a few remarks on the character 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 degree of clearness and
precision, as expository of doctrines whether
true or false.
That he was an acute thinker on those sub
jects to which the vague name of Metaphysics
is commonly given, there was, probably, 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 ad
mitted chiefly as a consequence of the former
praise, or from the remembrance of powers of
style, which, in many other respects, he unques
tionably possessed. We think of him, perhaps,
as an historian, while we are praising him as a
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 257
metaphysician ; or, in praising him as a meta
physician, we think of qualities, necessary indeed
for the detection of error, but different from
those which the development 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 the more necessary,
to remedy as much as possible, by regular pro
gressive inquiry, 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 I conceive, are far 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 harmonizing 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
s
258 ON THE RELATION
general results, from the necessity of recurring
to points of inquiry that had been negligently
abandoned, 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 of
thought and occasional 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 careful 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 continuous method, in some of the theore
tical parts of Mr. HUME S Metaphysical Essays,
in which we discover more easily what he
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 259
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 lasting passion of Mr. HUME S
mind to indulge. It was more in the detection
of fallacies in the 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 de
tection 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 truth, or to exact
ness 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 con
sidered 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 ;
s 2
260 ON THE RELATION
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,
therefore, 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 examines every principle, only to be sure
that inquiry has not terminated too soon, and
that which examines them, only to discover and
proclaim whatever apparent inconsistencies may
be found in them. Astonishment, indeed, is
thus produced ; and it must be confessed, that
there is a sort of triumphant delight in the pro
duction of astonishment, which it is not easy to
resist, especially at that early period of life,*
when the love of fame is little 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
discernment, by exercises of nice and unprofit-
* We are told by Mr. HUME, that his Treatise on Human
Nature was projected by him before lie had left College.
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 261
able subtlety, he has improved it at the expense
of those powers of patient investigation, which
give to dialectic subtlety its chief value.
The perpetual consideration of the insuffi
ciency of all inquiry, as deduced from incon
sistencies which may seem to be involved in
some of our principles of belief, is more encou
raging to indolence than to perseverance. By
representing to us error, as the necessary termi
nation 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 occu
pation which prefers a rapid succession of bril
liant paradoxes, to truths of more extensive and
lasting utility, but of more laborious search.
To show, that it is not from any logical
inference, or direct induction, we have derived
many of those opinions which, by the very con
stitution of our nature, it is impossible for us
not to hold, and which have been formed with
out any thought of their origin, requires indeed
superior perspicacity, but does not require any
process of long continued reasoning. The very
habit of ratiocination is thus apt to yield to a
love of briefer exercises of discursive subtlety ;
262 ON THE RELATION
and this tendency, when the scepticism relates
to moral and religious subjects, is still increased
by the popular odium attached to infidelity, in
those great articles of general belief, an odium,
which may naturally be supposed to induce the
necessity, 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 submit to the regularity of slow
disquisition. It may exhibit excellencies, 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 gathering and
combining analogies as it proceeds, arrives at
length at a system of harmonious truth. This
comprehensive energy is a quality to which
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 263
acuteness is necessary, but which is not itself
necessarily implied in acuteness ; or rather it
is a combination of qualities, 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 inves
tigation.
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 which it is wisdom to rest, and,
by flinging the same sort of doubtful 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 knowledge of
some of the strongest principles of the mind
might naturally 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
conspicuous, as in those which relate to the
subject that has been now under review. While
264 ON THE RELATION
he appears only as the combatant of error, in
exposing the inadequacy of perception or mere
reasoning, to afford us directly any notion of
the necessary connexion of events, it is impos
sible not to feel the force of the negative argu
ments which he urges, and equally impossible
not to admire the acuteness and vigour of intel
lect 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 observation or consciousness,
appear to his own mind worthy of the credit
which he expects to be given to them. It is
fortunate for his intellectual character, that it is
not as a dogmatist only, he has given us oppor
tunities of knowing him. The minor theories,
involved in his doctrine of the origin of the
notion of power, which we are about to con
sider, would certainly give a very unfavourable
impression of his talents as a metaphysical
inquirer, if his reputation as a metaphysician
were to be founded wholly on this or other
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 265
positive doctrines maintained by him, and not
on the acuteness with which, in many brilliant
exercises of sceptical subtlety, he has exhibited
what he wishes to be considered as errors in the
systems of popular and scientific faith.
266 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 uniformity 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, there
fore, is supposed by him to be derived from
some Impression.
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 rea
sonings," it is unnecessary, on the present
occasion, to dwell with such minuteness, as to
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 267
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 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 imme
diately 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 distinction, 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,
268 ON THE RELATION
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 other
wise be supposed to hang more particularly over
the word Idea. If we can errjn sjugposing a
meaning where there is nong,_jive may err in
supposing^ an idea^^rjbupression where there is
none; for the one error is exactly of thajsame
kind as the other. The doubtful term, con
cerning 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 impression of instant belief of invariable-
ness of sequence, which arises on our percep
tion of any change. If, therefore, we are
conscious of the belief, as conscious as we
could be of any idea or impression whatever,
we surely have not to seek for any impression still
earlier, to convince us that our belief is a ge
nuine feeling. It is enough, that the belief
itself is Telt by us, to justify our employment of
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 269
words which express that belief; and, if it do
not accord with any technical verbal classifica
tion that is presented to us, it is not the belief,
really felt, which we are to deny to be a pheno
menon of the mind, but the imperfect verbal
division, which we are to deny to be a faithful
classification of the mental phenomena.
There is no occasion, however, in the present
case, to reject this twofold division of our feel
ings as false : for, though it certainly does not
seem a very luminous arrangement of the pheno
mena of the mind, or capable of any practical
applications whatever, it is at least a very harm
less one, in the only sense in which it can be
understood : since, in that only intelligible sense,
in which Impressions signify our original feelings
of every sort, and Ideas our remembrances 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 Jeeling,_Jor^^
if not for the first time, have a copy of a former
feeling; and aTHeriraT^of a distinction of this
sort would be very like an assertion that the
same part of a sequence can be at the same
270 ON THE RELATION
time both first and second. But of what prac
tical value is this obvious and seemingly insig
nificant 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 mere vivid than the
greater number of the secondary, it is therefore
a distinguishing character of every original feel
ing to be more vivid than every secondary
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 suffi
ciently shews. We may have original feelings
that are faint, and remembrances that are far
more lively. Our notions of equality, differ
ence, proportion, for example, are not copies
of any former feelings ; they are new feelings
that arise in the mind on the contemplation
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 there
fore consider as themselves, in Mr. HUME S sense
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 271
of the word, Impressions, He who has recently
suffered a severe scald by the fall of boiling
water, Trmy-4hiok^of ....the pain which he -suffered ;
and his remembrance of that painftrl impression
will be what Mr. HUME terms an Idea ; it_ls
indeed less vivid than the original pain, but,
even as" a remembrance, it is still a very lively
feeling, andTs 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 other feelings ; and we
have as little reason to seek an Impression,
to which we may refer it, as to seek an Im
pression to which we 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 perception of change, than our love or
desire, on the contemplation of an agreeable
object : and the theory of Impressions and
272 ON THE RELATION
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 already
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
therefore 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, arid, 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 inquiry,
and to " banish all that jargon which had so
long taken possession of metaphysical reason
ings." Instead of searching for an Impression,
we should first have considered whether it be
necessary to seek for one. It matters little,
whether, in some technical arrangement, 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
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 273
feeling, and in what circumstances it arises.
That we do truly believe an uniformity of
sequence in the events of nature, our conscious
ness 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
belief, 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 metaphysical scholastic 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 argument and the determiner
of unprofitable speculation and controversy.
These further inquiries, accordingly, the con
sideration of which is next to engage us, are
all referable to that one mistake with respect 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 Impres
sion. In our immediate feelings of sense, when
T
274 ON THE RELATION
any event is perceived by us for the first time,
no such corresponding Impression is discover
able ; and as little is it discoverable, in any
inference which our reason makes. But, when
the same sequence has been frequently observed
by us, there is afterwards 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 liveliness 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 observa
tions of the same order of sequence of pheno
mena, is to be found, according to Mr. HUME,
the origin of our belief of Power or Causation :
it is the Impression from which the " Idea of
necessary connexion" is derived.
In examining this doctrine, 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 antecedence and consequence, arises in the
mind, not after simple experience of a change,
but only after frequent or customary experience
of it ; and, in the second place, what is the
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 275
peculiar nature 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.
T 2
276 ON THE RELATION
SECTION III.
IN a former Part of this Work, when I in
quired into the circumstances in which the
belief of the relation of Cause and Effect arises
in the mind, I thought it sufficient to appeal to
our consciousness, as the great source of evi
dence on the subject ; and I remarked, that, as
far back as our memory reaches to the earliest
events, that occupied us either actively or pas
sively in childhood, we do not remember a time
in which the belief of some permanent relation
of this kind was not immediate on the observa
tion 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 CAUSE AND EFFECT. 277
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 gratuitous assertion, it
is maintained, in opposition to the whole conti
nued evidence of observation and consciousness,
that the belief of the relation of Cause and
Effect is so far from being co-extensive with the
changes observed, that there is not a single
change which does not require the influence of
custom or frequent repetition to invest it with
that character of invariable relation, which it
seems to us to bear in the moment, or almost in
the very moment, in which the phenomenon is
perceived by us.
If Mr. HUME had been able to adduce a
single instance of that belief of casual subse
quence, 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 relation
of the change as an effect has arisen from cus
tomary observation of the same phenomenon in
the same circumstances, his doctrine, then,
278 ON THE RELATION
indeed, would not have been founded on a sup
position 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, however 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 supposi
tion as more accordant with the experience
which has so uniformly contradicted it.
Even if, by the supposition of a state of mind
in every case different from any of which me
mory or observation affords the slightest evi
dence, we could be supposed to free ourselves
from any peculiar mystery which might appear
to hang over the intuitive belief of causation,
the theory might have some claim to easier ad
mission. 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
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 279
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 thousand observations of
the same phenomenon, if we attempt to specu
late abstractly from the light of intuition itself,
are, relatively to the unexisting future, equally
incapable of affording us any discovery of that
unknown course of Nature which is still beyond
us, and independent of our thought. Expe
rience 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 ; 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 inde-
finiteness of extension the whole difficulty con
sists ; and Custom, which is of the past alone,
does not render the extension through futurity
less indefinite, nor the future itself a more dis
tinct 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
280 ON THE RELATION
that is between ; while it is Intuition only that
passes over the darkness which is impenetrable
to our vision, and speaks to us, as from another
world, of the things which are beyond.
If, as Mr. HUME himself maintains, no expe
rience of the past, however long and uniform,
entitle us to infer the similarity of the course of
nature in future, with any greater evidence to
our reason, than may be drawn from the first
single instance of sequence, there is no pre
sumption, 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
thousandth succession of the same events, the
belief itself must still, as I have said, be intui
tive ; for the propositions B has once succeeded
A, and B will for ever 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 for ever succeed A.
Why should the future resemble the past ? At
every stage of observation, this question may
be equally put ; and, at every stage, it is equally
unanswerable. If we can give any reason for
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 281
our belief of the similarity, we do not need cus- *\
torn to convince us of it ; and, if we cannot give )
any reason for it, it is surely vain to appeal to f
custom, which is only a portion of that very \
past, concerning which there is no difficulty^/
whatever, and not a portion of that unexisting
future, in the believed similarity of which is to
be found the only difficulty that perplexes us.
As far as we have yet seen, then, the asser
tion of Mr. HUME, with respect to the necessary
influence of custom or frequent observation of
the same change, before any belief of the rela
tion of Power can arise, is not warranted, in the
slightest degree, by the evidence of what we
remember to have felt in ourselves or observed
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 various terms of Power or Causation,
which are used by us to express that belief.
But if the observation of the sequences of
events and the belief of Power have been so
truly co-extensive, that we do not remember a
282 ON THE RELATION
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 philo
sopher, and especially by a philosopher of the
great talents of him whose opinions on the sub
ject we are examining ?
It is in his defective analysis of experience
itself, and of the circumstances in which it ope
rates, that the illusion, as I conceive, is chiefly
to be found. There is a compound influence of
experience ; or, rather, it has different influences
on our belief in different circumstances of our
knowledge : and in the speculations of Mr. HUME,
these primary and secondary influences were
not sufficiently distinguished.
When we consider the successive phenomena
that are constantly taking place around us, in
intermingled series, it will be allowed, that re
peated 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 ante
cedents and many consequents, the order in
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 283
which these are to be reciprocally paired. It is
not on a single experiment or observation, there
fore, that we now rely, when we have full con
fidence that we have discovered a cause ; but
our doubt and perplexity result from 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 pheno
menon 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
stances were of various kinds, some of which
might probably have no permanent relation to
the phenomenon, which alone we are consider
ing : 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 disappointment
therefore be felt, when the anticipations, made
284 ON THE RELATION
in consequence of such errors of reference, are
found not to be fulfilled. In such circum
stances, 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 con
nexions of each, withholds its complete trust or
assent, till the important confirmation of expe
rience 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 conti
nually increasing the number of customary con
nexions observed by us, there is no corresponding
increase of quickness to connect events as inva
riably antecedent and consequent. 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 instant succes
sion, loose and casual as the succession might
truly be ? The effect of greater knowledge is
evidently to lessen this tendency, by showing
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 285
us, that 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 supposing a
permanent connexion where there was none,
we, in like manner, may err again, in the rash
physical anticipations which we should other
wise be inclined to form.
This warning influence of experience, how
ever, as I have before said, relates to the deter
mination of particular causes, not to the belief
of causation of some sort, in the very pheno
mena which we are thus slow to rank in their
particular order as effects. When we mix two
substances, that have never been combined
before, and a peculiar product appears, what is
the state of our mind ? Do we consider the
mixture and the product as two loose pheno
mena, unconnected as completely as the ap
pearance of the new chemical substance in our
vessel, and the appearance of a friend, who
accidentally enters our apartment at the mo
ment ? 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
286 ON THE RELATION
mixture, or, if he have not absolute assurance of
it, the want of conviction arises only from the
doubts which are suggested by his past expe
rience. The accidental changes of temperature,
the impurity of the substances used, the pre
sence of light or of air, or of other foreign mat
ters in the vessel, and the peculiar affinities of
the vessel itself, by which he has known his
experiments to be affected before, occur to
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 rendered dif
ferent; but if he were certain that all these
circumstances 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, after one experiment, would be,
in every respect, as complete as after a thou
sand repetitions of it.
It is not necessary to be a practised experi
mentalist to have felt this confutation of Mr.
HUME S theory. The belief of regularity of se
quence is so much the result of an original
principle of the mind, that it arises constantly,
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 287
on the observation of change, whatever the ob
served antecedents and consequents may have
been, and requires the whole counteracting in
fluence 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 between our tendency to
conjoin events, as invariably consecutive, and
the past experience, which shows us that they
have no permanent 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 conviction,
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 whom we see approaching at the very
end of our telescope.
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
288 ON THE RELATION
case be unmingled with doubt of any kind ; but
we learn, from varied disappointment, that innu
merable 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 igno
rant to which of the trains the particular pheno
menon 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 anticipated. There is no sen
sation, perhaps, which is entirely simple. 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 presump
tion that Z, which once before succeeded C,
would succeed it again, more than X or Y,
which we had never before observed to succeed
C, it would be impossible, when A, B, C, were,
at one moment, producing X, Y, Z, to deter
mine of which part of the aggregate Z, thus re
newed, was the regular consecutive effect. The
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 289
analysis and distribution depend on the belief,
or presumption, 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 expe
rience 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 direct
affections of our organs of sense, where the
circumstances are usually of easy limitation,
with little chance of the admixture of foreign
bodies with those which we are particularly
considering. When a new fruit is presented to
us, and we apply it to our organ of taste,
though altogether deprived of the aid of custo
mary connexion, and therefore, if custom be
necessary for our belief of power, incapable of
any relative notion but that of casual sequence,
we have no scruple in ascribing the new sensa
tion to the new object, and we say instantly,
that it is sweet, or acid, or bitter. The epicure,
who relishes a new ragout, knows well, that the
source of his pleasure is in the particular dish
u
290 ON THE RELATION
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 slightest 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 application of the poison, be
fore he learn to fear it in future. Whether his
belief be consistent with reason is not the in
quiry. 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, arid with irresistible conviction.
Whether true or false, the belief is in these cases
felt, and it is felt without even the possibility
of a perceived customary conjunction of the
particular antecedent and the particular conse
quent. Would Mr. HUME himself have con
sidered the sequences as purely accidental ? He
owns, that, " when a child has felt the sensation
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 291
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 acquired an accurate knowledge of the
places of objects, and to be certain that it is the
candle which is burning him at that particular
moment, should, in such circumstances, if
custom were necessary for enabling him to ex
tend 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 con
sidered as decisive of the question. We often
see a phenomenon, for the first time, without
having attended to the particular circumstances
which preceded it. If it be the experience of
custom alone, then, which can give us that
belief of connexion, by which we denominate
a change an effect, we are, in this case, as
observers, not merely without a customary
sequence : we have not even a single case of
it ; since we know the consequent only, not the
antecedent, which was unmarked. Yet there
is no one, who does not believe the change
to be an effect, as completely as if he had
u2
292 ON THE RELATION
witnessed every preceding circumstance. On this
one point he is in no suspense, and waits, only to
discover what object, in the uniform and regular
order of succession, was its correlative cause.
In his earlier work on Human Nature,* the
force of the objection, arising from the belief
of causation after single sequences, seems to
have struck Mr. HUME himself. Instead of de
nying the fact, however, which indeed would
have been impossible, he admits it, and en
deavours to reconcile it with his system. " Tis
certain," he says, " that not only in philosophy,
but even in common 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 circumstances. " f He does not
* As this Work was not sanctioned by the later judgment
of its Author, who, in the advertisement to his ESSAYS, 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.
f Treatise on Human Nature, Vol. I. p. 156, of the original
Edition,
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 293
furnish us, however, with any mode of deter
mining what are the foreign and superfluous
circumstances. The truth is, that the super
fluous circumstances are merely those, of which
we have had contrary experience, having ob
served them before, without the succession of
the effect : and, when the complex 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 observation, provided it be made
with judgment, we can attain the knowledge of
a particular cause, we can attain it, only as
being led to believe causation, in the prior of
two events, where there is no contrary expe
rience, to require that discriminating aid ; and,
if we be led to believe it, in such circumstances,
the observation of sequence must have been
originally and immediately accompanied with
the belief of causation. It is not from the
experience of custom, that we form our con
clusion ; for all which that experience tells us
is not that A is the cause of X, which is the real
phenomenon considered, but merely that B and
C, which co-exist with A, are not the cause of
294 ON THE RELATION
X, but are foreign and superfluous circum
stances, since they have been often observed
before, without the succession of X.
The mode in which Mr. HUME, 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
popular reasonings of ordinary philosophers, is
far from being equally allowable in inquiries so
minute and rigorous as his, and is certainly very
little in harmony with the spirit of that nice and
subtle scepticism on which his own system is
founded. He acknowledges, that the connexion
of the ideas of the first and second objects of
a sequence, is not and cannot be felt as habitual,
after one experiment, but contends, that the
connexion is comprehended in another, which
has been previously acquired by habit. " The
difficulty," he observes, " will vanish, if we con
sider, that though we are here supposed to have
had only one experiment of a particular effect,
yet we have many millions to convince us of
this principle, that like objects, placed in like
circumstances, will always produce like effects;
~ and as this principle has established itself by a
sufficient custom, it bestows an evidence and
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 295
firmness on any opinion, to which it can be
applied." The sophistry of this argument, if
rigidly examined, consists in the different mean
ings, 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 experience. In the former
sense only, can it be said, that we have millions
of experiments to convince us of the truth of
the principle 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 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 ex
isted again, be reasonably expected to be again
296 ON THE RELATION
followed by X ; and, if the legitimacy of this in
ference be admitted, all the force of Mr. HUME S
scepticism, as to the inadequacy of reasoning to
afford 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 of 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 satisfac
tory proof, we might then be a little more will
ing to adopt, without very rigid scrutiny, an ex
planation, that, in the cases of immediate belief,
after single sequences, might free us from an
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 297
apparent inconsistency so perplexing. But,
when the inconsistency is only with a doctrine
that is wholly unsupported by evidence of any
kind, the simplest way of getting rid of the sup
posed difficulty is by getting rid of the previous
error, involved 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 relation of
future uniformity of sequence ; and if, in the
earliest actions of infancy, that could be indica
tive to us of any feelings whatever, we have not
discovered the slightest evidence of such belief,
there is no need to suppose that custom is
necessary, in any case, for giving rise to a belief
that must be intuitive, in whatever circum
stances it may originate ; and if we have no
reason to suppose custom to be necessary in
any case, it is idle to have recourse to it, in the
circuitous process supposed by Mr. HUME, for
the purpose of explaining what does not require
to be explained. We do not believe that N
will follow M, because X, Y, Z, have followed
A, B, C ; for N is as little involved in X, Y, Z,
as M was involved in their particular antece-
298 ON THE RELATION
dents : but we believe it, because we have ob
served 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 conse
quents of A, B, C ; and we only make in a new
case, by irresistible intuition, that extension of
the past to the future, which, by the same irre
sistible intuition, we had made in the other
cases.
What, then, is the result of the inquiry, of
which consciousness and observation, surely,
ought to furnish the primary evidence ? 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 in
stance 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 innu
merable trains of phenomena are taking place
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 299
together, and mingling in our observation, the
primary effect of experience has been, not to
increase, but to weaken, our belief of the con
nexion 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 showing us the customary suc
cessions of events, 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 particular phenomenon
belongs ; that, hence, in mature life, the belief
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 concur
ring trains, being immediate and undoubting,
where the new sequence is apparently simple,
and of longer suspense, where the sequence is
complex, but, in every case of doubt, having
300 ON THE RELATION
regard only to the uncertainty of the particular
antecedent which is to be coupled with the par
ticular 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 expectation
of future similarity, there is surely nothing in
the frequent recurrence of the succession, which
can reasonably be supposed to diminish the ex
pectation. 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 sequences that have been
often observed, a belief which is common to
them with all other sequences. Yet, by a sin
gular mistake, Mr. HUME has been censured by
his opponents, as if his affirmation had been too
large. Thus, it has been maintained by Dr. REID,
that there are cases of uniform succession, in
which the belief of causation is never felt ; since,
from the very commencement of our existence,
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 301
day has succeeded night in endless return,*
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 in
vented by us to express long series of pheno
mena. What various appearances of Nature,
from the freshness of the first morning beam, to
the last soft tint that fades into the twilight of
the evening sky, changing with the progress of
the Seasons, and dependent on the accidents of
temperature, and vapour, and wind, are included
in every day ! These are not one, because the
word which expresses them is one ; and it is
the believed relation of physical events, not the
arbitrary 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 shown, that,
notwithstanding the customary conjunction, we
* " The third argument is that what we call a cause, 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 Intel
lectual Powers , Essay VI. chap. 6.
302
ON THE RELATION
do not believe the relation of Cause and Effect
to exist, between the successive* pairs 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
philosophically, they are the series of positions
in relation to the sun, at which the earth arrives,
in the course of its diurnal revolution ; and, in
this view, there is surely no one who doubts
that the motion of the earth, immediately before
sunrise, 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 bodies. 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 subse
quent darkness. That darkness and light mu
tually produce each other they do not believe :
and if they did believe it, their belief, instead of
confirming the truth of Mr. HUME S theory,
* Note M.
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 303
would prove it to be false ; since it would prove
the relation of Cause and Effect to be supposed,
where there has been no customary connexion.
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 uneasiness, 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 light is per
ceived, and, as mingled with all our occupations
and pleasures, is perceived innumerable times
during the day, without having, for its imme
diate consequence, the sensation of darkness.
Can we then be said to have an uniform expe
rience 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
Accidental ? In the vulgar, therefore, as well
304 ON THE RELATION
as in the philosophic sense of the terms, the
regular alternate recurrence of day and night
furnishes no valid objection to that theory, 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 itself, and of a
kind which it seems scarcely possible to resist.
The general conclusion, accordingly, to which
we are led, on this part of Mr. HUME S doctrine,
is, that the experience of customary succession
is not, as he contends, necessary to the belief
of future similarity of sequence ; but that where,
from a supposed concurrence of many trains of
phenomena, any doubt is felt as to the parts of
each separate train, the influence of the expe
rience of customary succession is always to
diminish the doubt, till, by frequent 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.
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 305
SECTION IV.
THE examination of Mr. HUME S Theory of
* the Idea of Necessary 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 asserted 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 antecedents 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
x
306 ON THE RELATION
of phenomena, it is our director how to rank
most accurately each particular consequent with
its particular antecedent.
We are now, then, in the second inquiry that
remains, to consider the manner in which cus
tomary experience, if it were as necessary as
Mr. HUME conceived it to be for evolving the
intuitive notion of Power, is supposed by him
to influence our belief, by affording us our
knowledge of that most important of all phy
sical relations.
The mode of its development is stated by
him to be the following.
When two objects have been frequently
observed in succession, 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 effect between them ; the transition
in the mind itself, being the impression, from
which the idea of the necessary connexion of
the objects, as cause and effect, is derived.
Such is the sum of Mr. HUME S professed
Solution, as given by him in his Fifth and
Seventh Sections, a Solution, which, when
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 30?
examined narrowly, appears too absurd to have
satisfied even its author, 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 philo
sopher can speak lightly ; yet, though I feel all
the reverence which is due to his general acute-
ness, and to the admirable talents which in
many respects he possessed, I must confess, that
the Essays, in which, after having given his
Sceptical Doubts, he proceeds to explain the
origin of our belief of Causation, appear to me
in the impartial estimate which I should form
of that part of the theory, if it were to be con
sidered alone, so little worthy of the vigorous
intellect from which they proceeded, that I
should be disposed to rank them with our least
perfect specimens of metaphysical disquisition.
All is perplexity of language, and hypothesis,
which is at variance with almost every fact;
and if, at any time, we imagine that we have
discovered the acute ness, 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
x2
308 ON THE RELATION
our view, in the less ingenious 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 belief,"
he says, " lies in some sentiment or feeling,
which is annexed to the latter, not to the
former;" and he then, with some labour of
reasoning, demonstrates, that the sentiment thus
annexed to belief, and constituting 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,
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 309
conception of an object, than what the imagina
tion alone is ever able to attain. This variety
of terms/ he adds, " which may seem so un-
philosophical, is intended only to express that
act of the mind, which renders realities, or what
is taken for such, more present to us than fic
tions, 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 impos
sible that this faculty of imagination can ever,
of itself, reach belief, it is evident, that belief
consists not in the peculiar nature 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 qualities are essential to belief, the
phenomena of reverie and of dreaming suffi
ciently shew. But, omitting this slighter error
310 ON THE RELATION
of definition, can we acquiesce in a statement of
the essentials of belief, which has reference only
to a single class of realities ? Mr. HUME S doc
trine may, with a few exceptions, be perfectly
just, when it does not extend beyond the present
moment, and is confined 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 inde
pendent reality, only to the more vivid of the
two ; and in every case, except impassioned
reverie, sensations are the more vivid. But
belief of reality is not confined to the objects,
that are considered by us as actually present ;
it extends to objects of which we only think,
and which, in our thought, can be only what
he would himself term Conceptions, or Ideas
of Imagination. Almost all our knowledge, and
therefore almost every feeling which can be
termed Belief, is of this very kind ; the belief
itself being, in every such case, the effect of rea
soning, 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 disbelieve.
That it implies a peculiar " manner of con-
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 311
ception," and " feeling 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 belief, our con
ceptions of objects, as real, be more " vivid,
lively, forcible, firm, steady," than when we con
ceive them, as feigned ; and whether this supe
rior 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 for
gotten his exploits, without being informed of
a single feature of his face, or knowing even
whether he was tall or short, that ARMINIUS,
the asserter of the liberty of Germany, existed ;
and, when we acknowledge, as wholly feigned,
the existence of the heroine of a fashionable
novel, of whose exact stature, and proportions,
and graces, and dimples, and whiteness of teeth,
and languishing blueness of eyes, a brilliant
portraiture is given us, and whose mournful
adventures we are able to detail, in the very
succession in which their author has represented
them ; when the conviction is so different, do
312 ON THE RELATION
we believe, and disbelieve, because our concep
tion of the modern herione is less lively, than
that of the ancient hero ; or is it not from our
knowledge of the different species of writing,
that our judgment is formed ? Have we a less
firm conception 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 prototype, more steadily before us ?
How many are there, who, during a long life
spent in a foreign country, have lost, in their
pictures of remembrance, almost every trace of
the friends of their youth ! Yet the faint con-r
ceptions that arise are dear to them 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 cir
cumstances, 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 others
which were lost, and seem to restore to us ideally
the very lineaments of the person, in the cer
tainty that he is himself no longer in existence.
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 313
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 least the absence,
and relative unreality to us, of the good which is
its object: but it surely implies peculiar vivid
ness 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
the regret and mortification, which follow the
failure, as fixed a conception of the object, as
if his ambition 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 connexion with mere distinct
ness or indistinctness 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 interested 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
know, is in the delightful art of the poet, who
has raised unexisting castles, and multiplied
314 ON THE RELATION
incredible perils at his will, and all the reality
in the plain dwellings, which, without a single
thought of their dimensions and appearance, 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 veracity, do we assent to the truth
of events, which, in the brief moment of descrip
tion, are so obscurely present to our mind, that
it would be vain for us to endeavour distinctly
to image them : and, without a faith of this
sort in many physical changes and local appear
ances, how very limited would be our know
ledge ; since, if images " lively, forcible, firm
and steady," were in every case necessary for
belief, it must be confined, or nearly confined,
to the objects which have come under our
senses, excluding or scarcely comprehending
any of the infinity of objects that are distant
from us in place or time ! Greece, and Italy,
and Pharsalia, and its rival chiefs, the illus
trious of other ages, the illustrious of our own
age, whom we may never have had an oppor
tunity 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
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 315
the strongest of all belief, that which is accom
panied with conviction of the absurdity of any
opposite proposition, is conversant, not with
lively images of things, but with abstractions,
which are the least lively of our feelings. Who
is there, that can readily picture 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
mathematical lines and surfaces, or we could not
understand the properties of mathematical lines
and surfaces : but the generalizations themselves
are so little vivid, that in mere liveliness of feel
ing, 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 definition which is given
of that great elementary constituent of belief.
" In our conception," says Mr. HUME, " we
can join the head of a man to the body of a
horse ; but it is not in our power to believe 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.
316 ON THE RELATION
We picture Bottom the weaver, as readily, after
his transmutation of head, as before it ; though
we may not be enamoured of him, after his
metamorphosis, like the fairy queen : and the
Centaurs of the ancient fable appear before us
as distinctly, in the combat, as the Lapithae who
are opposed to them. There are few, indeed,
who have not a more accurate idea 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 existence of every plant,
of which we had not a more distinct conception,
than of a tree, exactly similar in its foliage and
in the 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 various ob
jects are believed to exist ; in the multitude of
these, there is ONE, invisible, but still, however
faintly comprehensible, an object of universal
belief ; it is that Great Being, on whom, even
in our adoration of his goodness, we almost
tremble to fix our imagination.
Belief, then, arising often from testimony, in
events which we have never had an opportunity
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 317
of witnessing, or from the faint memory of
former conviction, or from the calm results of
abstract reasoning, is something very different
from a lively and firm conception of an object.
It is a sentiment which is attached rather to the
relations of things than to things themselves,
and is, therefore, as little vivid in any case as
the feeling of mere relation in which it is in
volved. It may be strong, or undoubting, where
the 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 ordinary combinations of
existing things.
From his theory of Belief, Mr. HUME deduces
a theory of Probability, which he holds to de
pend, not on the abstract knowledge 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
glimpses," he says, " imprints the idea more
318 ON THE RELATION
strongly on the imagination ; gives it superior
force and vigour ; renders its influence on the
passions and affections more sensible ; and, in
a word, begets that reliance or security 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 car
ried ? If it be unity, our choice should be reversed.
When we consider a thousand chances as having
greater probability of success than nine hundred
and ninety-nine, is the mind carried one thou
sand nine hundred and ninety-nine times to the
different ideas ? The comparison and the pre
ference are the work of a moment, or of little
more than a moment.
In his Treatise of Human Nature, indeed,
Mr. HUME endeavours to account for our pre
ference, in such cases, by the influence of gene
ral 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 pas-
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 319
sion, properly speaking, is not a simple emotion,
but a compounded one, of a great number of
weaker passions, derived from a view of each
part of the object. For otherwise twere impos
sible the passion shou d increase by the increase
of these parts. Thus a man who desires a thou
sand pound, has in reality a thousand or more
desires, which, uniting together, seem to make
only one passion ; tho the composition evi
dently betrays itself upon every alteration of the
object, by the preference he gives to the larger
number, if superior only by an unit. Yet nothing
can be more certain, than that so small a dif
ference wou d not be discernible in the passions,
nor cou d render them distinguishable from each
other. The difference, therefore, of our con
duct in preferring the greater, depends 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 aug
ments the passion, when the numbers are precise
and the difference sensible. The mind can per
ceive from its immediate feeling, that three
guineas produce a greater passion than two ;
and this it transfers to larger numbers, be
cause of the resemblance ; and by a general
320 ON THE RELATION
rule assigns to a thousand guineas a stronger
passion than to nine hundred and ninety-nine."*
The very circumstance which Mr. HUME thus
adduces in illustration of his hypothesis, is itself
a mere supposition, and an erroneous supposi
tion. When we desire a thousand pounds we
have not a thousand separate desires> but 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 are so many shillings, pence, and
farthings in a thousand pounds ; and that, the
exchangeable value of the whole sum remaining
the same, the desire of it would be converted
immediately 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 absolutely, exactly the
* Treatise, vol. i. p. 248.
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 321
same passion, being nothing more than the de
sire of that which will give him a great deal of
accommodation. To those who, for any parti
cular 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 inade
quacy. In like manner, when both sums are
offered together, to our choice, or to our imagi
nation, 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 general desire of the
power of accommodation, which is all that is
felt, when each sum is considered absolutely, is>
in the relative consideration, compounded with
the notion of greater and less power. The only
general rule, which is at all concerned, is the
very obvious 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
322 ON THE RELATION
two, because 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 human 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 imme
diate preference of the greater sum. The dif
ference of three and two is indeed an earlier
piece of arithmetic, in the same manner as the
letter 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
arbitrary priority. The 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 rendered the preference at all
more intelligible.
But, though it were conceded to him, that his
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 323
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
difficulty which it professes to remove. The
feeling of probability 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 assign the greater pro
bability, is not brightened by that concurrence
of glimpses which is the asserted cause of the
brightness in cases in which the number of
chances is on each side less. In the two com
parisons, indeed, as far as we can depend on
consciousness, there is no difference : the assent
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 circum
stance should be pointed out, as supplying, in
y 2
324
ON THE RELATION
the greater comparison, the place of those re
peated glimpses, to which, in the less, so much
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
theory is exclusively concerned, a source of this
particular accession must be found in every case
in which greater probability is supposed, or the
theory itself be abandoned. The greater num
ber of glimpses in one comparison, may have
rendered our conception of one object more
vivid than of another : but it cannot transfer the
superior liveliness which has resulted from these
successive or concurring views to dissimilar ob
jects, existing in a situation altogether different,
and of which no such repeated glimpses have
been taken. If the effect were transferable, it
might be communicated 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
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 325
number is the greater of the two, and is there
fore already felt as the brighter or more proba
ble, since it is felt to be peculiarly analogous
to that which was before ,felt as the brighter
or more probable. But, if the mere circum
stance 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 chances to two, in the
original comparison supposed, as for the sub
sequent preference of a thousand to nine hundred
and ninety-nine. In every calculation of pro-
balities, there is indeed nothing more, than the
simple preference of more to less. The very
supposition of more chances implies greater pro
bability, 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
belief 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 easy to be
understood before the complication than after it.
326
ON THE RELATION
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 com
paratively vivid. They are 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 concur
rence of glimpses supposed by Mr. HUME. He
who suffered severe pain yesterday from an
accidental burn, should not merely dread the
fire to-morrow, but, in imagining all the pos
sible 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 suffering. 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 account, 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
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 327
the crimson side would be the most lively, but
we should be miserable calculators of probabi
lities, if we were to think the chance of that
single side greater than the united chances of all
the others.
If, indeed, the feeling of probability, in any
case, depended on the mere repetition or con
currence of glimpses, it should be susceptible
of perpetual increase or diminution, though it
were known, that all the external circumstances
of the comparison remained the same. By
frequently suggesting one of the possible results,
without 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 brighter and brighter. Expectation would
thus soon be converted into certainty ; and de
spair itself would be lost in the continual con
templation and desire of the improbable good
which was its object.
328 ON THE RELATION
SECTION V.
THE general doctrine of belief, which we
have been considering, is introduced by Mr.
HUME, to illustrate the particular instance of
causation, as an object of belief. After two
events have been observed by us often to suc
ceed 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 transi
tion 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 ob
vious, 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 conception, on
which belief of reality is supposed to depend.
But the fact, as stated by Mr. HUME, has no
meaning : for how, by transition, can the mind
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 329
attain a steadier and stronger conception of an
object, than it otherwise would have been
able to attain, when the idea of an object,
to use his own sense of that term, can be
attained in no other way, than by such a transi
tion as that described. There is, therefore, no
possible ground of comparison. If it be 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 according to those very
principles of association or transition, which all,
it is contended, have the power of rendering our
ideas more vivid than they would have been, or,
in other words, 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. HUME S theory
of the influence of transition would be scarcely
less nugatory, and would be equally inconsistent
with other parts of his doctrine. Instead of a
* The cases of transition, or association of ideas, are by Mr.
HUME divided into three classes, of which one comprehends
those which are considered by him as reducible to the relation
of Cause and Effect.
330 ON THE RELATION
single order of associations of causes and effects,
all associate ideas would in that case be accom
panied with the belief of causation ; because all
would " carry 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 person who resembles our friend,
the sight of the place at which we parted from
our friend, the sight of the book which our friend
wrote, or of the landscape which he painted, all
agree in this respect, 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 sequence produces in us the
belief of causation, we should believe the relation
of cause and effect to exist, between our friend
and the person and the place, as much as between
our friend and the book and the landscape.
To suppose that any circumstance, which is
not common to all these cases, is necessary to
the belief, is to admit the inadequacy of the
theory which reduces the belief itself to the
vivifying influence of the mere transition ; and
to suppose that nothing more is necessary, is to
suppose that all the objects of our thought, in
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 331
our endless day-dreams of memory and imagi
nation, appear to us a series of effects, or of
causes. Whether they should appear to us
effects or causes is, indeed, on Mr. HUME S prin
ciples, impossible to be determined. The son
suggests the father, and the father the son ; the
artist suggests the picture, and the picture the
artist : 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 re
lated 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 picture ; the transi
tion 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 the cause,
is very true ; for the relation is one which is
known to us as well before the particular sug
gestion 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, being common to both suppo
sitions, could not afford us the slightest aid in
making the distinctive reference.
In the Treatise of Human Nature, the objec-
332 ON THE RELATION
tion that may be drawn from other cases of
association is anticipated, and an attempt is
made to obviate its force, by reasonings which
only assume, without establishing by the slightest
evidence, that difference in the mode of transi
tion, which it was necessary to show in the par
ticular associations of Cause and Effect, before
an influence so peculiar was ascribed to the transi
tion itself. The preliminary part of the argu
ment, which does nothing more, than repeat, in
many words, that there are relations of cause
and effect and of resemblance 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 be
tween the relations. " Where, upon the appear
ance of an impression, we not only feign another
object, but likewise arbitrarily, and of our mere
good will and pleasure, give it a particular rela
tion to the impression, this can have but a small
effect upon the mind ; nor is there any reason,
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 resembling
and contiguous objects ; and if it feigns such,
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 333
there is as little 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 fixed and unalterable. The im
pressions of the memory never change in any
considerable degree ; and each impression draws
along with it a precise idea, which takes its place
in the imagination, as something solid and real,
certain and invariable. The thought is always
determined to pass from the impression to the
idea, and from that particular impression to
that particular idea, without any choice or hesi
tation."*
It is obvious, that the distinction which is thus
attempted to be made, is wholly unwarranted
by any difference in the particular suggestions of
Cause and Effect : for, in the ideas themselves,
there is nothing that is peculiarly precise, and
solid, and 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 causation, than when they suggest
resemblance. The ideas suggested by resem
blance are not less vivid; nor is the mind,
* Vol. i. p. 193.
334 ON THE RELATION
in its associations, less influenced by that rela
tion, than by the relation of cause and effect.
There is, therefore, nothing which can distin
guish the cases of transition, unless we have a
knowledge of the difference, which is indepen
dent of the transition ; and if we have that pre
vious knowledge, the supposed influence of the
transition itself must be allowed to be unneces
sary. Mr. HUME, indeed, seems to think, that
there is a tendency in the mind, to pass uni
formly from cause to effect, or from effect to
cause, and not uniformly from resembling ob
jects to each other : but there is no such peculiar
tendency, as is supposed ; the sight of an object
suggesting sometimes its possible effects, some
times its cause, and, at least as often, suggesting
some similar object, or some event which was
once connected with it by mere 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. HUME S principles, can have any
influence on present belief, but merely the par
ticular transition and the particular existing idea :
and, whatever the species of suggestion may be,
there must alike be a transition from one idea to
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 335
another. When we believe causation, it will be
admitted, that we do not " arbitrarily, and of
our mere good will and pleasure, give a particu
lar relation to the impression," nor is there any
" choice and hesitation" in the mere transition :
but there is surely as little choice and hesitation,
when a picture in our possession suggests to us
the friend whom it resembles, as when it sug
gests to us the artist who painted it. In neither
case can we be said to feel a necessity of confin
ing ourselves to one object : for the picture
might have suggested many co-existing circum
stances of place and time, as well as the subject
or the artist. We believe undoubtedly, that the
artist alone, not any other person, was the cause
of the existence of the painting : but the reason
of our belief of this causation is not a proof that
Mr. HUME S theory is true, but a proof that it is
false ; the belief depending only on the known
immediate sequence of the labour of the artist
and the beautiful result, and being altogether
independent of any subsequent transition and
increased vividness of those particular ideas.
Even if the transition were peculiarly uniform
in the case of effects and causes, and in conse
quence of their uniformity, the "ideas" to which
836 ON THE RELATION
the transition is made were peculiarly steady
and bright, they would still, even when thus
vivified, be less bright and steady than our " im
pressions ;" and therefore, if vividness alone
were necessary to invest any new feeling, and
the feeling that preceded it, with the relation of
cause and effect, our external impressions, differ
ing from our ideas in nothing but greater liveli
ness, 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 external object.
Mr. HUME, indeed, very inconsistently finds
in the successions of ideas something more than
ideas which succeed. In considering them, he
loses all his unwillingness to discover connexion.
The transition itself, from one idea to another,
he supposes to be felt, as if it were a third thing,
and from this felt relation, 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
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 337
When many uniform instances
appear, and the same object is always 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 ima
gination between one object and its usual
attendant ; and this sentiment is the original
of that idea which we seek for." But it is
evident, that, though A may have suggested B a
thousand times, a customary connexion is no more
felt between these two ideas than between any
two events ; if the word connexion be used to
signify more than mere order in time. They
are still, to use Mr. HUME S language, only con
joined, as proximate in a sequence. We know
only that B has followed A a thousand times ;
and neither A nor B is " the idea of necessary
connexion." B may be suggested by A ; but we
are conscious only of A, and afterwards of B,
not of the suggestion, nor of any thing interme
diate. It is by reflection 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
z
338 ON 7 THE RELATION
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 impos
sible. There is an assumption to be found in
the belief, but not a copy. That, after the cus
tomary sequence of two objects, " 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 im
pression, is not power, 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 of
power either proceeds on the existence of the
idea of power in our previous belief, or sup
poses 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
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 339
events, or rather is involved in the belief, and is
only the feeling of invariable antecedence, at
tached to a particular object, in reference to
another object, as its invariable consequent.
It thus appears, that, as the circumstances
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 unintelligible ;
and, if he have previously taken it for granted,
his attempted explanation is useless. The truth
is, that every endeavour to explain what is
allowed to be intuitive is a species of trifling,
which may assume the semblance of philosophi
cal analysis, but which never can be philosophy.
A simple statement is all which is allowable in
such a case ; and, though Mr. HUME S laboured
" Solution" were as true as it is false, the same
difficulty which his acuteness before pointed out,
would follow his reasoning through all its steps :
for, whether the ideas be faint or vivid, the
z2
340 ON THE RELATION
resemblance of the future to the past, the great
and only circumstance 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 sufficiently guarded, by giving us, with
out any reference to causation involved in them,
successions of trains of ideas, of every variety of
liveliness, from the full force of vivid perception,
to the faintest shadowings of remembrance.
What innumerable images arise every hour to
the most unpoetic fancy ; and how small a part
of life is composed of the actual perceptions of
external objects ! Resemblances, contrasts, a
thousand circumstances of analogy, or of the
events of other hours and other places, are per
petually 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 distinction of time and
place, or fade and rise again to exist as they
existed before. But, while we wander, as if led
along by some intellectual enchantment, in this
fairy world of thought, we are not always
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 341
philosophizing, and fixing every new idea, as the
effect of a preceding one. The brightness with
which they rise, far from involving such a con
stant exercise of speculative precision, serves
only to make our reverie longer, and the illu
sion, while it continues, more painful, or more
delightful.
How, then, it will perhaps be said, was Mr.
HUME able to deceive even himself? The ques
tion 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 power had been
less universally and irresistibly impressive, he
would have perceived more clearly the insuffi
ciency of his explanation of it. But the feeling
of the relation is so immediate, and so little in
need of any complicated circumstances, to evolve
it, that, having always in his own mind a clear
intuitive notion of it, he did not feel how inade
quate the circumstances in his own statement
were, to account for the original production of
a belief, which, as never absent from his thought,
342 ON THE RELATION
admitted therefore of easier extension to any
circumstances in which he might consider him
self as finding it.
It may be concluded, then, that firmness and
liveliness of conception 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 same 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
uniformity of particular sequences is weakened,
was stated in a former Section, in which I
explained, how Mr. HUME had erred, by con
fining his attention exclusively to the secondary
operation 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 sus
pect, that we may have observed, in apparent
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 343
sequence, parts of different co-existing trains ;
that, however, even the doubt which follows, is
not, whether an event be an effect of a 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 ex
pectation ; and that, with the frequent renewal
of this confirmation, our doubt or suspense is
gradually lessened, and at last, 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
another phenomenon ; the effect of this com
plex experience having been only to free the
mind from the supposition of possibilities of
mistake which never could have been suspected,
even as possibilities, but for experience itself,
that corrects, in one stage of observation, the
erring conjectures, to which, in another stage, it
had given birth.
344
ON THE RELATION
i
SECTION VI.
IN the preceding statement of Mr. HUME S
theory of Power, and the endeavour to discrimi
nate 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 necessary to show
also what it is not. The author of the Essay,
" on the idea of necessary connexion/ has been
uniformly represented, as denying the existence
of the very idea of necessary connexion ; and
though so many years have elapsed since the
publication of the work which contained his
inquiry into the origin of the idea of power, it
is still necessary to show, 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
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 345
assertion of Dr. REID, and of the other philo
sophers by whom the doctrine was originally
opposed ; and this opinion, under the authority
of respectable names, has become in our Schools
of Metaphysics a sort of traditionary article of
faith, and of wonder 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 which every mind is at almost every moment
conscious, that the presumption is very strong
against the possibility of such an opinion. In
the case of Mr. HUME, this presumption is veri
fied. He does not deny, that we have an idea
of power or of invariable priority in sequences :
he denies only that we can perceive or infer it, as
inherent in the subjects of a sequence.
All our ideas, I have already frequently said,
are considered by him as copies of impressions.
A very simple syllogism has therefore been
formed for him, to express briefly the result of
his inquiry : We have no idea which is not a
346 ON THE RELATION
copy of some impression ; we have no impression
of power ; we therefore have no idea of power.
The major proposition of this syllogism is un
questionably maintained 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 been 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 im
pression, from which that idea is derived. The
major proposition, as we have seen, is drawn
from too narrow an induction, 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 supposed.
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 347
It has not led him to deny the idea of power, or
the belief itself, as a feeling of the mind ; but
it has led him, from the necessity of finding its
corresponding " impression," to satisfy himself
with a very erroneous theory of the " idea,"
and to imagine, that he had discovered its real
prototype, where, but for the supposed necessity
of finding a prototype of some sort, he could
not have imagined that he had discovered the
similarity that is stated by him.
In his Essays on the subject, Mr. HUME
advances first his " Sceptical Doubts," in which
he establishes the impossibility of perceiving or
inferring any necessary connexion in the parts
of a sequence, 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 without meaning, since we have an impres
sion, from which it may be supposed to be
copied, in the feeling of a customary connexion
of ideas, by which, after the experience of the
sequence of two events, the mind passes readily
from the idea of one to the idea of the other.
That the Sceptical Solution, which asserts the
actual existence of the idea of power is, by being
348 ON THE RELATION
the subject of a new Section, separated from the
Sceptical Doubts, which assert the seeming non-
existence of the idea of power, cannot surely
disqualify it from being considered as a part
of the theory, which is composed of both ; and
indeed, in the single Section " Of the idea of
necessary connexion," 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 scep
ticism, 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 element, 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
circumstances 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,
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 349
when the important discovery had not yet been
made, the indisputable inference would be, that
the existence of the supposed element was denied
by the sceptical inquirer. The mode of investi
gation described is exactly that which Mr. HUME
has pursued. His inquiry is into the source of
the universal belief of causation.* He first seeks
the source of the idea of necessary connexion,
in single instances of sequence : but in these he
observes only one event preceding another,
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 unexisting future is to
present, and therefore of affording us the notion
* " 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 connexion
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 arrive at the knowledge of cause and
effect." SCEPTICAL DOUBTS.
350 ON THE RELATION
of Power, which comprehends the future as well
as the past. \ * All events seem entirely loose
and separate. One event follows another ; but
we never can observe any tye 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 in
ward sentiment, the necessary 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 OF AVOID
ING THIS CONCLUSION, AND ONE SOURCE WHICH WE
HAVE NOT YET EXAMINED. When any natural
object or event is presented, it is impossible for
us, by any sagacity or penetration, to discover,
or even conjecture, without experience, what
event will result from it, or to carry our fore
sight beyond that object which is immediately
present to the memory and senses. Even after
one instance or experiment, where we have ob
served a particular event to follow upon another,
we are not entitled to form a general rule, or
foretel what will happen in like cases ; it being
justly esteemed an unpardonable temerity to
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 351
judge of the whole course of nature from one
single experiment, however accurate or certain.
But when one particular species of event has
always, in all instances, been conjoined with an
other, we make no longer any scruple of fore
telling one upon the appearance of the other > and
of employing that reasoning, which can alone as
sure 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
WHICH IT INFALLIBLY PRODUCES THE OTHER, AND
OPERATES WITH THE GREATEST CERTAINTY AND
STRONGEST NECESSITY. It appears, then, that
THIS IDEA OF A NECESSARY CONNEXION AMONG
EVENTS arises from a number 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 necessary
connexion arises, should be the very person who
is asserted and believed to deny, that we have
any idea of necessary connexion, which can thus
arise. He proceeds to point out more particu
larly the original impression, in that connexion
of the ideas of objects which he supposes to be
352 ON THE RELATION
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 impression FROM
WHICH WE FORM THE IDEA OF POWER OR NECESSARY
CONNEXION."
If it be still requisite to produce further evi
dence of his acknowledgment 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 rea
sonings 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 operation of bodies or
minds, there is nothing that produces any
impression, nor consequently can suggest any
idea of power or necessary 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 OF CAUSE AND CONNEXION. We then
feel a new sentiment or impression, to-wit, a
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 353
customary connexion in the thought or imagina
tion between one object and its usual attendant;
AND THIS SENTIMENT IS THE ORIGINAL OF THAT
IDEA WHICH WE SEEK FOR." The whole argument
is nothing more than an expansion of that syllo
gism, 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 deli
vered 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 the Treatise of Human Nature, we
shall find the doctrine to be the same in this
respect, implying the belief of the idea of
power, as a feeling to which the mind is in
certain circumstances necessarily determined,
and appearing sceptically, at certain" stages, to
doubt its existence, only because at certain
stages the supposed requisite prototype has not
A A
354 ON THE RELATION
been found. The Section " Of the idea of
necessary connexion" commences with the fol
lowing summary : " Having thus explained the
manner in which we reason beyond 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
observe, that as we have no idea, that is not
derived from an impression, we must find some
impression that gives rise to this idea of neces
sity, if we assert we have really such an idea.
In order to this, I consider in what objects
necessity is commonly supposed to be ; and
finding that it is always ascribed to causes and
effects, 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
effect. In no one instance can I go any farther,
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 355
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 succession.
At first sight this seems to serve but little to
my purpose. The reflection on several in
stances only repeats the same objects ; and there
fore can never give rise to a new idea. But
upon further inquiry I find, that the repetition is
not in every particular the same, but produces a
new impression; AND BY THAT MEANS THE IDEA
WHICH I AT PRESENT EXAMINE. For after a
frequent repetition, I find, that upon the ap
pearance of one of the objects, the mind is
determined by custom to consider its usual
attendant, and to consider it in a stronger light
upon account of its relation to the first object.
It is this impression, then, or determination,
WHICH AFFORDS ME THE IDEA OF NECESSITY.^ In
various other passages of the Treatise, the ex
istence of the idea of power or 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 of mystery which our
A A 2
356 ON THE RELATION
scholastic nomenclature has combined with the
expression of the simple fact of the belief of
invariableness of antecedence, 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 former
part of this work, altogether inaccurate and
inadmissible. The belief of power is an original
feeling, intuitive and immediate on the per
ception of change ; not borrowed from any
resemblance in the transitions of thought. But,
whether the theory of power advanced 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 ques
tion, and be as wrong as I conceive him to
be in the former. An error in the former
question does not necessarily involve any dan
gerous consequences ; for if we be irresistibly
determined, 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
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 357
any permanent relation, in the latter question,
however, would necessarily involve the most
dangerous consequences ; 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 future which
is necessary for the physical purposes of life,
and of all the consolation and peace, and hap
piness, and virtue, of a filial security in the
existence of the Father and Sovereign of the
Universe. It is, therefore, no common mis
representation of a theory, 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 misrepresentation.
The circumstances, which Dr. REID has urged,
in opposition to this almost inconceivable scep
ticism, which he ascribes 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 wonderful :
for, that we are determined irresistibly to the
belief of invariableness of antecedence, is allowed
by Mr. HUME, that our belief of power is
358 ON THE RELATION
intuitive, is the opinion of Dr. REID, and, how
ever opposite his language may be, invariableness
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 support of
its truth ; since it will appear, on examination,
that the belief of invariableness of antecedence is
all which is essentially comprised in those very
arguments, that are adduced as involving neces
sarily the existence of the idea of power. To
prove the one, is, indeed, to prove the other ;
but it is not to afford the slightest proof of any
thing additional.
For the purpose of examination, I copy from
Dr. REID the paragraph, in which he recapitu
lates his arguments.
" The arguments I have adduced, are taken
from these five topics : 1. That there are many
things that we can affirm or deny 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^
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 359
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 par
ticiples, and a different construction adapted to
these forms, of which diversity no account can
be given, but that it has been intended to distin
guish action from passion. 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
ourselves 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 argu
ments, without perceiving immediately, that
they confound loose and variable with invariable
sequences. If there be any bold sceptic, who
denies that we expect, in future, a similarity of
result, from circumstances 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
* Essays on the Active Powers, Ess. i. chap. 2.
360 ON THE RELATION
our mind, to expect, in all future time, from
similar circumstances, a similarity of result.
That there are " many things which we can
affirm or deny concerning power, with under
standing," is an evident consequence of this
principle. We may say, of a loadstone, that it
has the power of attracting iron, which gold has
not ; because we have observed the past diffe
rence of the sequence, when, after making the
experiment with gold, a loadstone was substi
tuted, and because 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 muscular 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 cir
cumstances ; but we do not expect, 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 CAUSE AND EFFECT. 361
of consciousness." This agrees completely with
what has been stated in Mr. HUME S Sceptical
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 con
ception, 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 only to say, that inva-
riableness 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 exer
tion 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
previous 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 because he has no desire of speaking, not
362 ON THE RELATION
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 utterance to be connected. A man,
who has no desire of speaking, has truly, if we
are to express ourselves with strict philosophic
precision, no power of speaking, as long as the
mind continues in that state ; since he has not
the circumstance, which, as always immediately
prior, is essential to speech, as much as any
other antecedent is essential to any other conse
quent; but, since he has that power, as soon
as the new circumstance of desire arises, and
since the presence or absence of the desire can
not be perceived but in its effects, 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, unquestionably, nothing
more is meant, in this more extensive reference,
than that the desire, when it exists, will be fol
lowed by the words which correspond with it.
" 5. There are some qualities that have a con
trary, others that have not ; Power is a quality
of the latter kind." This is a proposition of no
value, and has no relation to the general argument.
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 363
In all languages, there must be such words,
as action, passion, cause, effect, &c. if in all nations
the sequences of events be supposed to be inva
riable. 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 difference. But the deflagration of gun
powder will be expected from the contact of a
spark, with equal certainty, whether we say, that
a spark, in such circumstances, is always followed
by deflagration, 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 gun
powder : 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 circumstances will have simi
lar results. I resolve to walk with my friend ;
for I believe, that my desire of moving my limbs
364 ON THE RELATION
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 to volitions, and that the separate voli
tions or desires, which precede the separate mo
tions, will follow his general expressed intention,
in the same manner as they have usually fol
lowed it.
Ambition is the desire of power ; and ambi
tion 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
circumstances, we shall be obeyed by the multi
tude ; because we have observed the circum
stances which have led to obedience, and believe
that similar motives of fear and hope will con
tinue 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 am
bition, 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.
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 365
Such are the arguments of Dr. REID, which,
though they may be allowed to prove, if proof
were necessary, that we do not regard the suc
cessions of events as altogether irregular, cannot
surely be considered as establishing any relation,
which is not implied in the theory of Mr. HUME,
and in every theory which proceeds on an irre
sistible determination of the mind to the belief
of uniformity of order in the physical changes of
the universe. Power is only a shorter synony
mous expression of invar iableness of antecedence :
and the invariableness is not any thing separable
or distinguishable from the antecedents and con
sequents themselves. In all the changes which
the substances in nature undergo, the substances
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.
366 ON THE RELATION
SECTION VII.
THAT Mr. HUME, in regarding our belief of
power as intuitive, and yet considering " the
idea of necessary connexion," which is only that
belief itself, to be derived from another " im
pression," 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 antece
dent and consequent, allows truly every thing
that has been understood in the more mysterious
phrases of Efficiency employed by other writers,
is, I think, very evident, from the clearer ana
lysis which, as I flatter 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 determined irresistibly to a feeling of
the relation of Cause and Effect, is not less true
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 367
on account of the seeming want of exactness in
his terms, or in his conception of the circum
stances in which alone he supposes 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 super
ficial thinkers, such an objection may be sup
posed very readily to occur : but it will not be
the objection of a mind that has been accustomed
to philosophical inquiry, and that has attended
to the nature of the evidence on which all in
quiry ultimately rests. If the intuitive belief be
fallacious, it must be admitted, indeed, 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 imaginable truth, depen
dent, 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 another, to
368 ON THE RELATION
which exactly the same objection would not be
equally applicable ?
Let us suppose, that, instead of Mr. HUME S
negations, every proposition had been affirma
tive : let us first suppose him to have maintained
power to be discoverable a priori, in short, to
be perceived like light and sound ; would the
truth of this statement, even though it were to
be instantly admitted by every mind, be abso
lute and independent, or rather, would it not
still be dependent 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 per
ceived 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 conceivable proposition ;
and the only reason of our withholding our
assent is, that, from a principle of our very
nature, we find it impossible not to believe,
during the state of mind which is termed Per
ception, that we are perceiving realities, and
that the realities, which we perceive, exist as
we perceive them. In like manner, it is a
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 369
conceivable proposition, that, notwithstanding
the most frequent and uniform proximity in the
succession of two objects, the relation of cause
and effect, 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 uni
formity.
Let us next suppose, that Mr. HUME had
maintained the relation to be discoverable by a
process of reasoning, and that the truth of his
theory was admitted by us as logically demon
strated ; could we say of the truth, even then,
that it is in the strictest sense of the terms,
absolute and independent of all imaginable con
tingency, or must it not, in this case also, be
allowed to depend, in every stage of the reason
ing, 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 propositions between which
we think that we perceive the most exact agree
ment, so as to infer with certainty, that what is
true of the one must be equally true of the
B B
370 ON THE RELATION
other, may yet have differences unknown to us,
and incapable of being discovered by our limited
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 agree
ment of any other propositions ; for the belief of
these must have proceeded on the same assump
tion : 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 inevi
tably 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 phe
nomenon perceived by us is an effect of some
preceding change, than that the result of any of
our logical inferences from the appearances of
things is absolutely true ? It is conceivable,
without any difference of the sequence of the
mental phenomena which form the whole of our
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT 371
consciousness, that man might have been created
capable of perceiving, or rather of imagining
that he perceived, 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
primary and independent of argument. What,
then, are we to say of the danger of negations,
which remains exactly the same when the nega
tions 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, there
fore, if the belief of power were supposed to
arise from a process of ratiocination, not from
an immediate and irresistible determination 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 also, of the demonstra
tions of reasoning, that, in addition to the
general principle that determines to the belief
B B 2
372 ON THE RELATION
of the agreement of the separate propositions,
there is always some primary proposition, of
which the truth is as much assumed as that
of causation, which serves as the basis of the
propositions that follow ; and without the as
sumption 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 appears then, is, if the intuition
be real, to fix it on the firmest possible founda
tion. Whatever may be thought of the truth
of such a reference, it is surely not to be con
founded 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 opponents of Mr. HUME, who uniformly
argue, as if, not content with denying the possi
bility 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
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 373
misconception of this part of his doctrine has
been already, however, pointed out. The uni
versality of the intuition, and the irresistible in
fluence 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, he
labours to solve.
It would not be easy, indeed, to imagine
language on the subject, 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, which no reason
ing or process of the thought and understanding
is able, either to produce or to prevent."*
On whatever principle the force of expe
rience depend, " none but a fool or a madman,"
he says, " will ever pretend to dispute the
* Essays, Sect. V. Part I.
374 ON THE RELATION
authority of experience, or to reject that great
guide of human life." His scepticism, therefore, as
to the relation of cause and effect, if the sus
picious name of scepticism must be given to a
question of the justest philosophic analysis,
consists, not in denying any one of our first
principles, but in tracing to one of them, as its
ultimate source, the force of our various reason
ings 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 dan
gerous consequences might have been supposed
to flow from the denial ! How absurd, it might
be said, did all social virtue become, to man,
who was to be for ever in a state of solitude ;
and what magnificent arguments for the exist
ence of a Deity were annihilated in the general
desolation produced by a few propositions!
These desolating propositions it is not easy
for mere logic to confute : yet no evil conse
quence can flow from them ; because they are
opposed by feelings akin to those which are
the ultimate source of all conviction, and para
mount to demonstration itself. The principle
by which, in the state of mind that is termed
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 375
perception, we consider our sensations as marks
of the existence of an external world, has a force
too powerful to be weakened by any theory ;
and even the celebrated sceptic who opposed
it, inconsistently but amiably pious and bene
volent, was, at the time of his opposition, so
completely under its influence, as to deliver 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 specu-
latively 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 address the vulgar, that he will be moved
by the reasonings which are founded on the
belief of external things ; because it is his belief
alone, not the source of it, which we address.
If that belief be the same, whether it be in
tuitive or demonstrative, his judgments, and
emotions, and actions, will be the same. He
will approve and disapprove, and hate, and fear,
and despise, and love, alike in either case. In
the same manner, if a philosopher believe the
376 ON THE RELATION
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 irre
sistible force, be intuitive or demonstrative ; and
we have exactly the same reason to fear, that
the common duties of social life will be alto
gether omitted by him, because he regards as
intuitive 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 un
answerably, 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
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 377
conclusion be logically irresistible, it is a conclu
sion, at which we smile only, v/ithout admitting
it ; and we certainly should be astonished at the
zeal of any devout theologian, who should be
shocked with the dangerous consequences of the
doctrine of the infinite divisibility of matter,
because it might be shown from it, that the
Children of Israel must have spent a whole
eternity, before they could have passed through
the wilderness, or even through the Red Sea.
There are principles independent of reasoning,
in the mind, which save it from the occasional
follies of its own ratiocinations. By these, we
can believe, where there is no argument, and
can disbelieve, where there is argument, with
out 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 reasoning, there
could be no reasoning whatever, and Demon
stration itself 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 suppose our belief of
an external world, and even of our own identity,
378 ON THE RELATION
to rest. What daring atheist is he, who has ever
truly disbelieved the existence of himself and
others ? For it is he alone, who can say, with
corresponding argument, that he is an atheist,
because there is no relation of cause and effect.
The doctrine of the intuitive belief of that rela
tion may, indeed, have been dangerous 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 to an individual so unlike all the
human beings around us, that the doctrine
can have had any evil consequence ; for he who
performs a single action of daily life, in reliance
on the similarity of the future 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 prin
ciple. The theism which flows from it, will
therefore be as much believed by him, as the
simple proposition, which also flows from it, that
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 379
fire will warm him to-morrow ; or, if he affect
to disbelieve the theism, he will state as the
reason of his disbelief, some supposed inconsis
tency 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
row. " Nature/ as Mr. HUME has well observed,
" will always maintain her rights, and prevail in
the end, over any abstract reasoning 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 argument or process of the understand
ing ; there is no danger, that these reasonings,
on which almost all knowledge depends, will ever
be affected 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."
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
380 ON THE RELATION
on false and extravagant 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 prevent us, if the theological
argument be well stated, from having as much
belief in the existence of God, as we have in our
own continued existence, or in the existence of
the friend who may be sitting 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
suspicion attached to his doctrine with respect to
it, must have arisen from the general character
of his writings, not from attention to this parti
cular part of them ; for, since all are able to
understand the words of praise or censure, in
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 381
which a general character may be conveyed, and
few are able to weigh and appreciate the works
from which that character has arisen, there are
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 necessary connexion," many errors are
intermixed with his assertion 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
Doubts, the general proposition, " that in all rea
sonings from experience, there is a step taken by
the mind, which is hot supported by any argu
ment or process of the understanding," he asserts
nothing more in this doctrine than his opponents
themselves assert. The followers of Dr. REID,
and the followers of Mr. HUME, are in this
respect in perfect harmony. The only remark-
382 ON THE RELATION
able circumstance is, that while Dr. REID* admits
our belief of uniformity of order in the sequences
of events in Nature to be the belief of " a con
tingent 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 asserting most
strenuously the force of that instinctive belief of
power, of the irresistible force of which Mr.
HUME is himself an equally strenuous asserter.
The just analysis, then, which reduces our
expectation of similarity in the future trains of
events to intuition, we may safely adopt without
any fear of losing a single argument for the
existence of God, or for the existence of any of
the humbler causes, that are continually opera
ting around us ; till it be shown, that physical
* " As this belief is universal among mankind, and is not
grounded upon any antecedent reasoning, but upon the con
stitution of the mind itself, it must be acknowledged to be a
first principle, in the sense in which 1 understand that word."
Essays on the Intellectual Powers, Essay VI. chap. v.
On the First Principles of Contingent Truths.
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 383
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 de
pended, not on an immediate and irresistible
determination of the mind, but on reason, it
would have rested on a principle of surer
evidence.
NOTES
c c
NOTES.
NOTE A. Page 13.
" SIMILAR objects," says Mr. HUME, " are always con
joined with similar. Of this we have experience.
Suitably to this experience, therefore, we may define a
cause to be, An object followed by another, and
where all the objects^ similar to the first, are followed
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 physical 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 uniform 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,
c c 2
388 NOTES.
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, there
fore, must be erroneous, that excludes the possible
agency of co-existing objects, which, separately, might
have been sufficient to produce the particular pheno
menon, that is referred to any one 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 ap
proached it. In this case, it is evident, 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 addition
of this circumstance is, however, of no essential con
sequence to the theory of causation, which depends
only on the believed invariableness of the sequence, in
past, present, and future time, and does not require of us
to take 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 inaccurate, 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
NOTES. 389
only one substance, the changes of which are recipro
cally antecedent and consequent ; as, in other cases, the
changes to which we give the name of Effects, are pro
duced in one substance, on the presence of another.
Such is the species of causation, in a very large pro
portion of the affections of the mind, that do not result
from the direct influence of external things, but from
previous feelings of the mind itself. The contemplation
of some distant good, which is one state of the mind,
is followed by the desire of that good, which is a dif
ferent state of the same mind ; and the one feeling is the
ause 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 dispersion 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 im
pelling 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
effect, therefore, in a sequence of changes, are not
necessarily different substances; they may be only the
same substance, in successive states, either different or
similar.
Still, however, whether the cause and effect be dif
ferent substances, or different states of the same sub
stance, the cause must always be a substance existing
in a certain state, and the effect, too, a substance
existing in a certain state. We sometimes, indeed, in
speaking of cause and effect, apply the terms to objects,
390 NOTES.
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 objects that are
before us at the time of its occurrence. There are some
objects, the presence of which, in all circumstances, is
attended with a certain effect ; there are other objects,
of which the presence is only in certain circumstances
productive of change ; and it is in this latter case, that
we are accustomed 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 parti
cular 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
presence 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 hesitation 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 circumstances, 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 other-
NOTES. 391
wise 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 antecedent objects or real
causes, but to the explosion of the gunpowder; ex
pressing briefly, in a few syllables, what would require
many hard words, if we were to endeavour to express it
with chemical precision. Yet it is evident, that to con
sider an event, rather than an object, as the cause of any
change, is only to go back an additional step in our
reference, and to ascribe the effect, not to those circum
stances immediately preceding it, which in scholastic
language are termed the proximate cause, but to the
circumstances immediately preceding that proximate
cause.
NOTE B. p. 13.
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 subse
quent event. The final cause of any thing is the good
which follows it. Thus, since adversity rouses and exer
cises the magnanimity of the sufferer, and the benevolence
of those who are witnesses of his sufferings, a philosophic
392 NOTES.
optimist considers the production and strengthening of
those noble qualities, 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 subse
quent. The two events observed by us are, in the
expression, placed for those circumstances, which we
suppose to have preceded them in the Divine Mind;
and we mean only, that the consideration of that virtue,
which adversity would tend to produce or cherish, was
the cause of that Divine purpose or volition, in conse
quence 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 precedes 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. 21.
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;
NOTES. 393
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, pellucidity,
weight, and other qualities combined with these, are,
when united in the single reference that combines them
as co-existing, the ice itself; while they continue, there
fore, it continues ; 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. 87.
When I speak of the doctrine of physical and efficient
causes, as representing, under another name, the Carte
sian doctrine of occasional causes, I speak of its similarity
only, and not of the period 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 philosophy,
ancient as well as modern, that regarded the powers of
nature, as something different from the physical antece-
394
NOTES.
dents themselves. It was impossible for the inquirer
into nature, even in 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 expressed in words, must have involved the very
distinction of physical and efficient causes, which those
phrases are now employed technically to denote.
NOTE E. p. 93.
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 esti
mate 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
benevolent motives which we must suppose to have
influenced the Divine Mind, in the original act of crea
tion 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 efficient cause of every phenomenon.
The will of the Deity, whether displayed in those
NOTES. 395
obvious variations 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 affirmer 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
naturally 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 phenomena of the universe, a new circumstance of
physical causation, that every valid answer to the ab
stract argument of Mr. HUME 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 him,
that, whatever be the source of our early faith in testi
mony, the rational credit, which we afterwards give to it,
in any case, depends on our belief of the less improbabi
lity of the facts reported, than of the ignorance or 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 have been unacquainted with the real circum
stances, or desirous of deceiving us, it matters little
from what principle our faith in testimony may primarily
have flowed : for there is surely no one, who will contend,
396 NOTES.
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
being 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
testimony 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 tes
timony, is of no consequence then to our belief, in the
years in which we are called to be the judges 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 capable of wishing to deceive us.
Before giving our complete assent to any marvellous tale,
we always weigh probability against probability ; 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, in the manner reported, we should
not think ourselves, in the slightest degree, more bound
to admit the accuracy of the narrative, though a thousand
arguments were urged, far more convincing than any
which have yet been offered to persuade us that there is
an original tendency in the mind, before experience, to
believe whatever is related, without even the slightest
feeling of doubt, and consequently, without any attempt
to form an estimate of its degree of probability.
NOTES. 397
It is not in any miscalculation, then, 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 con
ceive, peculiarly dangerous ; because, while it makes it
essential to the reality of a miracle, that the very principle
of continued uniformity of sequence 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 philo
sophically a just one, Mr. HUME must be allowed to
have urged very powerfully against them.
In mere philosophy, however, the definition, though
we were to consider it, without any theological view,
simply as the expression of certain phenomena of a very
peculiar kind, is far from being just. The laws of Na
ture, 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,
398
NOTES.
as long as it is a part of our very constitution, to be
impressed with an irresistible belief of the uniformity of
the order of Nature, may be said to involve, relatively to
this belief, a physical contradiction, were necessarily
implied in a miracle, I do not see how the testimony of
any number of witnesses, the wisest, and most honour
able, 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
statements might, perhaps, be sufficient to justify a sus
pension of judgment between belief and disbelief; but
this suspension is the utmost, which the evidence of a
fact so monstrous, as the sequence of a different conse
quent 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 disbe
lieve, as to the successions of events ; since we must, in
that case, have abandoned for the time the only principle
on which the relation of cause and effect is founded:
and, however constant the connexion of truth with testi
mony, 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 cha
racter, to state to us a fact, with which he had every
NOTES. 399
opportunity of being 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 allowed, that it is
in the highest degree improbable, that his statement
should be false. To express this improbability, in the
strongest possible manner, let us admit that the falsehood
of his statement, 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 interest 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 sequence of an unaccustomed effect after an accus
tomed cause ; and if we must believe 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 notion of physical probabilities at all, any ground of
preference of one of these violations to the other.
Though w r e were to admit, then, to testimony in ge
neral all the force, for which Dr. CAMPBELL and other
writers have so laboriously, and, as I conceive, in relation
to the present argument, so vainly contended, and
though we were to imagine every possible circumstance
400 NOTES.
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 violation of a law of nature, concerning
which the testimony is offered, and if, beyond the uni
formity of antecedence and consequence in the events
of the universe, we cannot form a notion of any power
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 prin
ciple on which our whole system of physical belief is
founded, is all which the propounder of a miracle, in this
view of it, can be supposed reasonably to demand.
It would be vain, in such a case of supposed opposite
miracles, to endeavour to multiply the improbabilities on
one side, and thus to obtain a preference, by counting
the number of separate witnesses, all wise, all possessing
the means of accurate information, 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 pro
bability of the statement, which, if once we have admitted
the falsehood of it to be miraculous, is already as great
as it is possible to be. It is a miracle, that one witness,
who has had perfect opportunities of accurate observation,
and every motive of personal interest to give a true repre
sentation of an event, should yet, in opposition to his own
NOTES. 401
interest, prefer to give a false account of it. That a hun
dred, or a thousand, or a hundred thousand 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, from 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
into wine at the marriage-feast in Galilee, would have
been a greater miracle, if the quantity of transmuted
water had been doubled ; and a commentator would surely
render himself a little ridiculous, who, in descanting on
the passage 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 ren
dering more miraculous the passage itself, than if the
number of drops had been less by a few scores or hun
dreds. But, if this numerical calculation would be absurd
in the one case, when applied to a number of particles of
matter, each of which, individually, may be considered
as exhibiting the influence of a miraculous interposition
of a Power surpassing the ordinary powers of nature, it
is surely not less absurd, when applied to a number of
minds, in each of which, in like manner, 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
miracle, 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
D D
402 NOTES.
utter a falsehood, should yet, with great peril to himself,
prefer to be an impostor : it is a miracle, that a thousand
witnesses, with the same motives, should concur, at the
same risk, in the same strange preference. In miracles,
there are truly, as I have said, no degrees. The Deity
either must act or not act, or, according to the false
definition which I am opposing, a law of Nature must
either be violated or not violated. There may be less
than a miracle ; but there cannot be more than a miracle.
As long 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 abandonment, for the time, of the only prin
ciple 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
definition, be as improbable as false testimony can be in
any circumstances. 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 man
kind, 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 falsehood of the testimony which reports it to us, in
these or in any circumstances, itself could be.
With Mr. HUME S view of the nature of a miracle,
then, if we rashly give our assent to his definition, it
NOTES. 403
seems to me not very easy to get the better of his scep
tical argument. The very assertion of a violation of a law
of Nature is, as we have seen, the assertion 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 the
best means of knowledge, and no motives of interest that
could lead them to wish to deceive, we may perhaps suc
ceed in bringing 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
views of the sequences of events, that the reported
miracle should have happened, than that the sage, and
amiable, and disinterested reporters, should, knowingly
and intentionally, have laboured to deceive us.
The definition, however, which asserts this apparent
inconsistency with our experience, is not a just one. A
miracle is not a violation of any law of Nature. It in
volves, therefore, primarily, no contradiction, nor physi
cal absurdity. It has nothing in it which is inconsistent
with our belief of the most undeviating uniformity 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
D D 2
404 NOTES.
not wonderful, therefore, that the consequent also should
be different.
While every miracle is to be considered as the result
of an extraordinary 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 circumstances
can be said to be contrary to the course of events, to
which, from the absolute novelty of the circumstances, it
has truly no relation whatever, either of agreement or
disagreement. If we suppose any one who is absolutely
unacquainted with electrical apparatus and the strange
phenomenon 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 sensation
may be different from any to which he had been accus
tomed, 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, no
thing more is to be supposed. It is the Divine Will,
that, preceding it immediately, is the cause of the extra
ordinary effect which we term miraculous ; and, what
ever may be the new consequent of the new antecedent,
the course of nature is as little violated by it as it was
NOTES. 405
violated by the electrician who for the first time drew
lightning from the clouds, or by the aeronaut who first
ascended to a region of the air of more ethereal purity
than that which allows the gross substance of a cloud to
float in it.
The Highest of all Powers, of whose mighty agency
the universe 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 subordination to his Omnipotence.
He is the greatest of all the Powers of nature ; but he 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 ap
pearances, 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
believe, that the Deity has, for any particular purpose,
condescended 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 physical con
sequents of his will to produce them, it would evidently
be absurd for us to speak of any phenomenon that is said
406 NOTES.
to be consequent on his will, as a violation of the natural
order of the phenomena that might be expected to flow
from an energy, of the transcendent extent of whose ope
ration we are ignorant, and know only, that it is worthy
of a reverent arid grateful admiration, 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 require a peculiar combination of the
circumstances that physically precede them. What these
circumstances are, the witnesses of the resulting pheno
mena may be wholly unable to state ; but as they have
been witnesses of the 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, happened, the previous
circumstances were the same as at other times, when no
such event was consequent; any more than a meteoro
logist contends, that, when stones fall from the air, the
previous circumstances, however much their difference
may have been beyond his power of observation, were
absolutely the same 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 evidence of
NOTES. 407
their senses, or of indubitable testimony, in the same way
as the truth of any other rare phenomenon is established,
implies an extraordinary cause ; and since all the cir
cumstances of which the mere senses could judge, pre
viously 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 circumstances 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 dust on which we tread, should suddenly turn into a
force of the most destructive kind, all the previous cir^
cumstances continuing exactly the same, would be indeed
contrary to the course of Nature, but it would not be
contrary to it, if the change were preceded by the appli
cation of a spark. It would not be more so, if the ante
cedent 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 existence of the explosive mass
itself, and of all the surrounding bodies on which it
operates, and who has not a less powerful empire 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
408
NOTES.
gunpowder, to which our humble skill is adequate, is not
more easy, than any of 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 acknowledged 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 consequence of the power from which it flows, as
any other phenomenon to be regarded as the natural con
sequence of its particular antecedent. In the assertion of
a miracle, therefore, whatever other reasons of doubt
there may or may not be in any particular 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 Nature, or of
the asserted agency of a particular Power, as marked by
a breach of that very order the uniformity of which is all
that constitutes our very notion of Power itself. Every
law of Nature continues as it was ; for every antecedent
has its ordinary effect. We have only physical proba
bilities to be weighed with physical probabilities, precisely
as in any other case, in which any very extraordinary
event is related to us ; and according as the difference of
these is greater or less, our doubt or belief or disbelief
is to be the result.
The argument of Mr. HUME, in the only part of his
Essay that is of importance in the philosophy of general
belief, is an abstract one ; and it is not the object of the
NOTES. 409
present Note to enter into an historical and logical review
of the probability or improbability of any particular
miracles, but only to consider that abstract argument, in
the universal application, which its ingenious Author was
inclined to make of it, as sufficient, of itself, to preclude
the necessity of examining the evidence of any miracle
whatever, even in circumstances, which, if the event
related had been of any other kind, would have been
regarded as in the highest degree favourable to the
veracity of the reporters.
The asserter of a Miracle, according to the view
which I have taken of it, and which it seems to me
impossible not to take of it, if the phenomenon to which
that name is given be minutely analysed, is not the
asserter of a violation of any law of Nature. What he
asserts is the operation of a Power that must be allowed
to have existed truly at the moment of the alleged mira
culous event, whether we admit, or do not admit that
particular operation, the greatest of all existing Powers,
since it is by it alone that every other power of nature is
what it is and of which, as of not less irresistible do
minion now, than it was in the moment of the original
Creative Will, what we term the Laws of Nature are
nothing more than the continued manifestation.
If, indeed, the asserter of a miracle had to combat
with an atheist, it will be allowed, that the conditions of
the reasoning would be changed, and that it would be
impossible for him to obviate the force of the abstract
negative argument, till he had previously established the
410 NOTES.
truth of the first principles of theism ; as little possible,
as it would be to prove lightning to be an electrical
phenomenon to one who persisted in the denial of such a
power as electricity. A miracle is stated to be the result
of the operation of one of the Powers of Nature, whose
very existence is denied by the atheist ; and if the exist
ence of the Power itself be denied, the operation of that
Power in any case must also be denied. To the concep
tion of an atheist, therefore, every miracle would be truly
a violation of a law of Nature, in the strictest sense of
that phrase, and would of course involve all the physical
absurdity that is implied in such a violation : the antece
dent would seem to him the same, while the consequent
was asserted to be different ; because in his denial of
the existence of any superhuman power is involved the
denial of that new antecedent from which the miracle,
as itself a new consequent, is supposed physically to
flow, like any other physical consequent of any other
antecedent.
If, however, the existence of the Deity be admitted,
and, with his existence, the possibility of his agency, in
circumstances in which it would be more for the advan
tage of his creatures that he should operate, than that he
should abstain from operating, the possible occurrence
of which circumstances can be denied only by those who
profess that they are capable of comprehending the infinite
relations of events, and thus of ascertaining exactly, in
every case, what would be more or less for the happiness
of the Universe, then is the evidence of his asserted
NOTES. 411
agency to be regarded in the same manner, as the evi
dence of any other extraordinary event, that is supposed
to have resulted from any other new combination of
physical circumstances. It is to be met, not with a posi
tive denial, nor with a refusal to examine it, but with a
cautious slowness of assent, proportioned to the extraor-
dinariness of the marvellous phenomenon. Strong, and
closely bordering on disbelief, as our first feeling of doubt
may be, it is still necessary, before we think ourselves
authorized to disbelieve, that we should examine what,
even though at first it may seem to us little worthy of
being credited, may not on that account be positively
false ; and if, on examination, we find the evidence to be
such, that we could not hesitate in admitting it, if it had
related to any other species of extraordinary event, the
result of any other combination of physical circumstances,
so rare as never before to have been recorded by any
observer, we surely cannot think ourselves justified in re
jecting it altogether, because the physical Power, to
whose agency it is supposed to bear witness, is the
greatest of all the Powers of Nature.
In this discussion, we are never to forget, what I have
already frequently repeated, that a miracle, if it truly take
place, far from violating any physical law, is, in the pecu
liar circumstances in which it takes place, the natural
result of the operation of a physical Power, as much as
any other rare phenomenon ; and we may, therefore,
derive some light, in our inquiry, from the consideration
of the frame of mind, with which we receive the narrative
412
NOTES.
of any other physical event, so extraordinary, as to be
altogether new to our experience.
When we first heard of the fall of stones from the
sky, there was considerable slowness to admit the fact ;
and this slowness, in such circumstances, it will be allowed,
was accordant with the spirit of sound philosophy. But
after the concurring reports of many creditable witnesses,
have we remained incredulous, because a meteor so very
strange may never have come under our own observation ;
though for year after year, in every season, and in every
seeming variety of heat and light and moisture, we may
have been most watchful observers of all the changes of
the atmosphere ? There is not a philosopher, whatever
theory he may have formed of their origin, who is not
now convinced, that such bodies have truly fallen on the
surface of our earth : and why is he convinced ? It is
because the extraordinary fact, which has probably never
come under his own observation, has been attested by
many witnesses, able to form a judgment of it, and having
no motive of interest to give a false report. But the
Power that is capable of working miracles is a Power
that must be believed to exist, as truly as the power, or
combination of powers, in the upper regions of the atmo
sphere, or above our atmosphere, by which we suppose
the aerolite to be produced. The event which we term
miraculous, if there truly be such an event, is as natural
a result of his operation in particular circumstances, as
the aerolite of the rare combination of circumstances in
which that peculiar atmospherical phenomenon has its.
NOTES. 413
origin. If the testimony of many sage and disinterested
witnesses be capable of proving the one, it is equally
capable of proving the other. The extraordinariness of
the event, in both cases, should indeed, as I before said,
make us peculiarly cautious in examining the evidence on
which it is asserted ; it affords, in the first statement of
the fact, a presumptive improbability ; and if this strong
primary doubt, which, without amounting to disbelief,
might in various circumstances approximate to it, were
all for which Mr. HUME S argument had contended, there
would have been little reason to dissent from his doctrine.
But the extraordinariness, though demanding greater
caution, does not, of itself, furnish counter-evidence.
Above all, it does not entitle us to say at once, that
whatever evidence can be offered on the subject is un
worthy of our examination. We have still to examine
the evidence of the extraordinary physical facts that are
termed miracles, as we have to examine the evidence of
any other extraordinary physical facts, that are reported
to us under any other name.
He who was able to form the Universe as it is, and to
give life to man and every thing which lives, may be pre
sumed, if such be his pleasure, to be capable of giving
life to a body, that lies before us in death, inert and
insensible indeed at present, but not more inert and
insensible, than the mass which was first animated with
a living soul. GOD exists, then ; his power is ever pre
sent with us ; and it is capable of performing all which
we term miraculous. We may be assured indeed, for
414 NOTES.
this the regularity of the apparent sequences of pheno
mena justifies us in believing, that he will not himself
appear as the direct operator of any wonderful change,
unless for some gracious purpose, like that which led
him originally to the performance of the first miracle
that produced every thing which exists before us. But,
as he operated then, he may operate again ; from a similar
gracious purpose we may infer a similar result of benefit
to the World ; and it certainly would be a most unwar
rantable argument, which, on the acknowledged fact of
one great miracle of creation, would found a reason for
asserting, that no miracle is afterwards to be credited,
and, from the many provisions, for existing happiness
infer, that He, whose beneficence at one time operated
in the production of these, cannot be reasonably expected
at any other time, to do what, by supposition, it would
be for the happiness of the world that he should do.
It is essential, indeed, for our belief of any miraculous
event, that there should be the appearance of some gra
cious purpose, which the miracle may be supposed to
fulfil ; since all which we know of the operation of the
Divine Power in the Universe, indicates some previous
purpose of that kind. In our own nature, and in every
thing that exists around us, and that is capable of affecting
us in any way, there is proof of the existence of a Divine
operator, and of the connexion of a beneficent design
with his operation, as much as in any other physical se
quence of events, there is proof of a permanent relation
of any other antecedent to any other consequent. The
NOTES. 415
same principle, then, which leads us to expect the light
of another day from the rising of the morrow s sun above
the horizon, or, in a case more analogous because more
extraordinary, the fall of a stone from the sky, if the cir
cumstances should recur which are necessary for the
production of that rare meteor, would justify our expecta
tion of the still rarer phenomena which are termed
miracles, if we had reason to believe at any time, that
circumstances had occurred in which the happiness, that
was in the view of the Divine Mind, in the original
miracle of creation, would be promoted by a renewal of
his mighty agency. It will be acknowledged, indeed,
that from our ignorance of the wide relations of events,
we are very ill qualified to judge accurately of such cir
cumstances. But though we may be very likely to be
mistaken in determining them, it is not the less true, that
such circumstances may exist ; and that, in that case, the
denial of the probability of a miracle would itself be
inconsistent with belief of that very principle of uni
formity, from which the experience that is said to be
opposed to miracles derives its whole force, the prin
ciple according to which we believe, that in all similar
circumstances, what has been once, will be again.
If the creation of man was an act that was worthy of
the Divinity, it was worthy on account of its object ; and
if other miracles tend to the same great object, they surely
were not excluded by that primary miracle, with the
beneficent purpose of which they are in harmony. Is
there any reason which can be urged, a priori, to show ?
416 NOTES.
that a power which operated once, is therefore never to
operate again, and that it would be unworthy of Him who
surrounded his creatures with so many means of increas
ing happiness, and endowed them with faculties of pro
gressive advancement in knowledge, to give them, when
a portion of that progress was completed, a revelation of
truths of a higher order, by which they might become
still more wise and happy ? And if it would not be un
worthy of Him who loved mankind, to favour them with
such views of his moral government of the world, and
of the futurity that awaits them, as might have this salu
tary influence, it could not be unworthy of Him to sanc
tion his revelation, by displays of extraordinary power,
that might be sufficient to mark the high Author from
whom it came. GOD exists : that he has deigned to
operate, the whole Universe, which is the result of that
operation, shews ; and it shews, too, that when he did
thus deign to operate, in that greatest of all miracles,
which the sagest and most cautious deniers of every other
miracle admit, the antecedent volition was a will of good
to his creatures, in perfect analogy with that antecedent
graciousness of will, of which the asserters of other
miracles suppose them to be the consequents.
If, before stating his abstract argument, Mr. HUME
had established any one of the following propositions,
that there is no proof of any Power by which the Uni
verse was formed, or that the Power which formed the
Universe, and was the source of all the regularity which
we admire in nature, exists no longer, or that the race
NOTES. 417
of beings, for whom, still more than for any other of its
various races, our Earth appears to have been formed,
have now become wholly indifferent to the great Being,
who then, by his own immediate agency, provided for
them with so much care, or that it is inconsistent with
his wish for the happiness of his creatures, which that
early provision for them shows, that he should make to
them at any time such a revelation as would greatly in
crease their happiness, or that, if we should still sup^
pose him capable of making such a revelation, he could
not be expected to sanction it with the authority of such
events as those which we term miracles, then, indeed,
when either the Divine Power was excluded from the
number of the existing Powers of Nature, or His agency
in the particular case was excluded, and when nothing,
therefore, was left to be compared but the opposite pro
babilities or improbabilities of breaches of the familiar
sequences of events, the argument on which the Essayist
is disposed to found so much, might have been brought
forward with irresistible force. But if it be admitted,
that a Power exists, who wrought the great miracle of
creation with a gracious view to the happiness of man,
that there is no reason to believe this happiness to be less
an object of Divine Benevolence than it was originally,
that a revelation, of which the manifest tendency was to
increase this happiness, would not be inconsistent with
such Benevolence, and that, if a revelation were deigned
to man, a miracle, or series of miracles, might be regarded
as a very probable sanction of it : then, since a miracle
E E
418 NOTES.
would be only the natural result of an existing physical
power, in the peculiar and very rare circumstances in
which alone its mighty energy is revealed, the evidence
of its operation is to be examined, precisely like the evi
dence of any other extraordinary event. There is no
violation of a law of Nature, but there is a new conse
quent of a new antecedent. The extraordinary combina
tion of circumstances, of which a miracle is the physical
result has now taken place ; as, when an earthquake first
shook the hills, or a volcano first poured out its flood of
fire, after the earth itself had perhaps existed for many
ages, there was that combination of circumstances of a
different kind, of which earthquakes and volcanoes are
the natural results.
A miracle, I repeat, if it truly take place, is as little
contrary to any law of Nature, as any other phenomenon.
It is only an extraordinary event, the result of extraor
dinary circumstances ; an effect that indicates a Power
of a higher order, than the powers which we are accus
tomed directly to trace in phenomena more familiar to
us, but a Power, whose continued and ever-present
existence, it is atheism only that denies. The evidence
of a miracle, therefore, being the evidence, not of any
violation of a law of Nature, but of a fact that is reduci
ble, like every other fact, to the physical operation of
one of the powers of Nature, does not form a class apart,
but is to be considered exactly like the evidence of any
other extraordinary phenomenon, that depends on cir
cumstances over which we have no controul. It is to be
NOTES. 419
admitted or rejected, therefore, not simply as being evi
dence of a miracle, but as evidence which is, or is not,
of sufficient weight in itself to establish the reality of the
extraordinary phenomenon, in support of which it is ad
duced. It leaves the mind still free to examine, in every
particular case, the likelihood or unlikelihood of the
mighty agency which is asserted ; but in the freedom of
a philosophic mind, which knows that there truly exists
a Power capable of doing what is asserted to have been
done, it will find only such doubt, as leads to greater
caution of inquiry, and not instant disbelief or unex-
amining rejection.
I have already said, that it is not the object of this
Note to enter into an examination of the credibility of
any particular set of miracles : it is only to show that the
general abstract argument, with which Mr. HUME would
render unavailing the most powerful testimony that can
be imagined to be offered in support of asserted facts of
this kind, has not the overwhelming force which he con
ceived it to possess. By correcting the false definition
which has been generally given of miracles, with an ana
lysis of them which appears to me more philosophic, I
would reduce them to the rank of other physical facts,
and in this light would claim for them the same examina
tion which we give to the reports of other phenomena
that are wholly new to us, an examination that may be
accompanied with the strongest doubt, and may terminate
in disbelief, if the evidence be slight and scanty, but
which may terminate also in belief, and be accompanied
E E 2
420 NOTES.
with doubt progressively fainter and fainter, as the evi
dence in the course of inquiry appears to be of greater
force. This title to be examined, it might, perhaps, be
too much to claim for any miracle, if it were asserted to
be the actual violation of those laws of Nature, on the
belief of the uniformity of which our very examination of
its probability must proceed. But it is not too much to
claim for it, when it is shown not to involve the inconsis
tency that is implied in a violation of a law of Nature,
but to be only the physical operation of an existing
power, as little opposite to the regularity of Nature, in
the particular circumstances in which it is said to take
place, as any other new phenomena that result from new
combinations of physical circumstances. There is not a
phenomenon, however familiar now, which had not at
one time a beginning : and I may say even, that there is
not a phenomenon which was not originally, as flowing
from the Creative Will, an event of this very class.
Every thing has once been miraculous, if miraculous
mean only that which results from the direct operation
of a Divine Power ; and the most strenuous rejecter of all
miracles, therefore, if we trace him to his origin, through
the successive generations of mankind, is an exhibiter, in
his own person, of indubitable evidence of a miracle.
NOTE F. p. 93.
In strict philosophy, all events, which have resulted
from the direct operation of the Divine power, and would
NOTES. 421
not have been but for that operation, are to be
ranked as miraculous ; whether the events themselves
be beyond or within the sphere of our senses, and be
or be not of a kind, which, in other circumstances,
the ordinary powers of nature are capable of producing.
The name of miracle, however, is more commonly given
to such changes only, as are at once capable of impress
ing the senses, and obviously of a kind that marks the
mighty agency to which they are ascribed ; while many
other events, supposed to flow from the same agency, but
less obvious, and more akin to the ordinary phenomena
of Nature, are ascribed to the Providential interposition
of the Deity, without being, in common language at least,
denominated miraculous.
The doctrine of a particular Providence, in accordance
with the established truths of revelation, belongs to the
theologian : but it may be considered, too, as a question
of simple philosophy, abstractly from all revelation;
and it is only in this light, that the few following remarks
are offered, in a Work, which has for its sole object the
phenomena of Nature, and the Powers of which these
successive phenomena are indications.
That the Deity has providentially accommodated
the System of the Universe to the various capacities
and necessities of his living creatures, no one who
believes in him as a Creator, can be supposed to deny.
The belief of this primary and general Providence,
therefore, may be considered as co-extensive with theism
itself.
422 NOTES.
That, not content with this gracious provision in the
original formation of the Universe, he has afterwards,
for ends of the same gracious kind, operated in the pro
duction of certain effects, which would not otherwise
have taken place, however doubtful this may seem to
others, must be admitted at least by all who believe in
the genuineness of any miracles whatever ; since there is
no real physical distinction between miracles and any
other operations of the Divine Power.
It is abstractly, however, that the question is to be
considered by us, and not in relation to the belief or dis
belief of any particular system of miracles.
Have we reason, then, from the phenomena of Nature
alone, and the views which it gives us of the character
of its Divine Author, to believe that he occasionally
varies the apparent sequences of events, by adapting
them, in particular circumstances, to the wants of parti
cular individuals ?
I may remark, in the first place, that the assertion of
this particular Providence, whatever may be thought of
it in other respects, at least involves no contradiction.
It may be true, or it may be false ; but there is in it no
primary absurdity that precludes the necessity of exa
mining whether it be true or false.
It must be admitted, an asserter of it may justly say,
that the Deity, with a view to the good of mankind,
has, at one time, directly operated, since the race of
mankind, and all the objects which surround them, have
existed only by his creative will ; that there is no reason
NOTES. 423
to suppose the creatures, for whose happiness he at one
time operated, to be objects of less interest to him, at
one period, than at any other period ; that, if he love
mankind, he loves individuals, since mankind, which is
only a name for a number of individual living beings, is
nothing in itself, but as significant of the individuals
whom it comprehends ; that it was not for the letters
or syllables, therefore, which form the word mankind,
but for the living individuals denoted by it, that he pro
vided, by his own direct operation, this beautiful system
of things, which has been the home and rejoicing-place
of so many generations ; and that, if he truly love the
happiness of the individuals of mankind, he may, on
the very principle which we must suppose to have led to
the original act of creation, be expected to promote that
happiness which he loves, if circumstances should occur
in which more good would flow from a temporary change
of the seeming order of nature, than from a continuance
of the same apparent order.
In this progressive reasoning, if the question were to
be considered wholly d priori, there does not seem to be
any inconsistency. The only opposite argument, in such
a primary view of it, would be found in the good which
must be allowed to flow from continued uniformity of
order in the phenomena of nature, as enabling us to
calculate on their future sequences, to be the planners of
our own conduct, and in the lessons of experience to
derive wisdom from the very errors and evils of the past.
It is an advantage exactly of the same sort as that which
424 NOTES.
is to be found in a general system of wise legislative en
actments, in conformity with which the whole order of
our life may be arranged. If, without any such system
of law to direct them, there were only the discretionary
decision of judges, the most upright and equally wise as
the legislators supposed, there can be no doubt that
some decisions would be more equitable, in the particu
lar circumstances of the case, than if they had been
necessarily modified by general forms and rules of legal
construction ; but there can be as little doubt that the
advantage in these particular cases would be slight, if
compared with the evil that would be felt by the whole
community, in the want of a general standard for the
direction of their mutual dealings. Such, in its general
directing influence, and I may add, also, in the evils that
occasionally attend it in particular circumstances, is the
good that flows from the uniformity of nature, by which
the consequents that are known to us may be expected
by us after the antecedents which we know. But still it
is this good alone, which, in the balance of opposite
advantages, is opposed to the advantage of particular
interposition ; and if circumstances should occur in which
a variation of the ordinary sequence of events would be
productive of greater good upon the whole, than if the
accustomed sequence were permitted to take place, we
certainly should not be justified by our belief of the
good of a regular order of events, in rejecting, for that
reason alone, the possibility, or even the probability, of a
good that was by supposition still greater.
NOTES. 425
Such, as it appears to me, is the conclusion to which
we should naturally be led by reasoning a priori, on the
likelihood of providential interposition in particular cases ;
a conclusion certainly not decisive on either side, but
exclusive of positive disbelief, at least as much as of
positive undoubting belief, and perhaps, in the compari
son of probabilities, rather favourable than unfavourable.
But it is not a priori, it will be said, that such a
question should be decided. It must depend chiefly on
an examination of the real successions of phenomena ;
and it is only when this examination leaves us in doubt,
that we can be entitled to avail ourselves of any greater
probability on one side, which the primary abstract argu
ment may have afforded.
Unfortunately, however, the successive phenomena are
not so clearly known to us, in all their circumstances, as
to afford a satisfactory decision of the question. In the
mixed series of events in nature, every thing is so com
plicated with every thing, and the analysis is often so
much beyond our power, that in innumerable cases it is
impossible for us to predict the particular effect that may
be expected, and to determine the particular moment at
which it may be expected. We may know, for example,
when we look at some tottering wall, that the first great
hurricane will throw it down among the ruins which
have long been mouldering at its base ; but who is there
that can venture to predict the very instant, at which it
is to be overthrown? And if it should fall the very
moment after some wanderer whom it had been sheltering
426 NOTES.
had quitted it, who is there that can venture to say
with confidence, from his knowledge of the laws of
gravitation, and of the lateral force of currents of air,
that its fall was at the very moment which might have
been predicted, and, without any providential interference,
could not have taken place, while the wanderer was near
enough to be a sufferer ? Our experience of the order
of events may be sufficient, indeed, to render less pro
bable the Divine interpositions supposed ; but it certainly
is not sufficient to disprove what might or might not be,
while all which we know of the order of Nature had
continued exactly the same.
That the supposed agency of the Deity is not made
visible to us by extraordinary appearances, that, for
example, we do not see a falling wall suspended in the
air in its descent, till some individual have passed safely
beneath, is no proof, that the Divine interposition is
falsely supposed. If the interposition were to be equally
effective, as to its immediate object, in either way, there
can be no doubt that, in conformity with his own bene
volent view, the less obvious mode is that which the
Deity would prefer ; because, while it produced equally
the particular good intended, it would not seem to violate
the general uniformity of nature, and would thus leave
all the advantage of that general uniformity, in relation
to which every plan of conduct might be arranged, in the
same way as if the providential interposition itself had
not taken place.
With this view, therefore, ignorant as we are of the
NOTES. 427
many bearings of events upon each other, it appears to
me, that we are not entitled, in sound philosophy, to
affirm of any sequence, in which the antecedent and con
sequent are not exactly known to us in their fixed mutual
relation, that the Deity has not operated in this particu
lar case. It may be much more likely, indeed, that the
sequence is in conformity with the ordinary course of
events : but the absolute denial of providential agency,
as concerned in it, is not allowable; because such a
denial would imply, that we are capable of knowing all
the circumstances, of which many are confessed to be
beyond our power of observation.
But if it be too much to say, in any particular case,
that Providence has not interposed, it appears to me
equally, or, rather, far more unphilosophic, to pronounce
positively, in any particular case, that there has been
such interposition.
There is indeed a complication of events in nature,
which renders it impossible, in many cases, to predict
the result of their mingled influence. But, the more
attentively we observe the sequences, and the more
minutely we analyse them, the more exact do we find the
uniformity of the particular consequent which we trace
after the particular antecedent which we have traced ;
and the stronger, therefore, does the presumption become,
that, if we were able to analyse with still more discrimi
nating accuracy all the complex appearances of things,
we should discover a similar uniformity in the varieties
that are at present most perplexing to us. The effect of
428 NOTES.
the progress of science, in the increasing accuracy of the
analyses which it affords, is to lessen more and more the
seeming confusion of so many co-existing and opposite
influences, and to mark each effect more precisely as the
physical consequent of its particular antecedent ; though
it must be confessed, that, with all the accuracy which
we have yet attained in our discrimination of mixed
causes, sufficient obscurity is still left to be consistent
with many interpositions of Providence, unknown at the
time even to the individual who may have profited by
them.
When a house falls down a few moments after an
individual has quitted it, or a wave brings within the
reach of a shipwrecked mariner, who has almost ceased
to hope, and is resigning himself, after a long and weary
struggle, to the death that seems awaiting him, a plank,
or other floating body sufficient to bear him up, it is
impossible to trace all the series of physical causes which
retarded, till that particular moment, the fall of the house,
or brought the instrument of succour, at the very mo
ment of feebleness and despair, within the reach of that
arm which had strength only to grasp it. It is impos
sible, therefore, to say positively that the effects were not
the result of providential aid ; and it is a very pleasing
influence of gratitude to Heaven, that, after escape from
peril so imminent, leads, in the vividness of joy, to this
very supposition, as a reason for still increasing gratitude.
But, delightful and amiable as the feeling is, it may still,
in the particular case, be a fallacious one. To a common
NOTES. 429
observer, less interested in the escape, and therefore,
from the absence of lively emotion, better fitted to reason
calmly on probabilities and possibilities, it may appear,
that the house fell at that particular moment by the ordi
nary influence of gravitation, and, while all the ordinary
physical circumstances were the same, could not have fallen
a single moment sooner or later ; and that the wave
would have borne the same floating body to the same
place in the ocean, though no human being had been
near to derive benefit from it. He, therefore, who
affirms positively in any case, that an event, which is not
beyond the ordinary operation of the common powers of
nature, was not so produced, but was the result of Divine
agency, must, in this very affirmation, take for granted,
that he is acquainted with all the tendencies of things at
the time of which he speaks, since he is able to pronounce
on their inadequacy, and that, with this perfect know
ledge of every latent circumstance, as insufficient to pro
duce the phenomenon, he is far wiser than the wisest
observer that ever looked on Nature with the most inqui
sitive and discriminating eyes.
Of those persons, who, perhaps from a mistaken feel
ing of devotion, are in the habit of ascribing to a parti
cular interposition of Providence every event that is
attended with advantage to any individual, it seems rea
sonable to ask, What they conceive the tendencies of
Nature, in the ordinary sequences of events, to be ? If,
but for the interposition which they suppose, no event
whatever, in the ordinary course of things, would be of
430 NOTES.
service to mankind ; if the physical laws of the Uni
verse have been so arranged, as to be productive only of
injury to the human race and to every living creature ; if
a wall, however loose on its foundation, were still under
some strange physical restraint, to " reserve its unlucky
fall," till the very moment at which some hapless traveller
was passing beneath it ; and, of all possible combinations
of things, none could ever take place that might seem to
happen opportunely for the advantage of any one, but
all for the disadvantage of some wretch or other, what
a view does this picture present to us of the works of
God, and how unworthy does such a strange system
appear of the Gracious Being, who has formed us with
so many capacities of enjoyment, and who, in fixing the
relative degrees of the qualities of external things, has
ministered with so exquisite an adaptation of them to the
relative sensibility which they were to affect. In our
praise of his particular bounty, in some momentary inter
position supposed, we must not detract from the still
greater glory of his general benevolence, by representing
him as the Author of a World of such evil, that every
happy event which takes place in it is to be ascribed to
his own endeavour to counteract a tendency, that of
itself would be uniformly injurious to mankind.
The gratitude which, in acknowledgment of blessings
received, looks to Heaven as the source from which they
have directly flowed, is a feeling that at once may in
crease devotion, and increase the very happiness which
leads to the grateful acknowledgment. But there are
NOTES. 431
many minds, perhaps the greater number, in which the
constant habit of ascribing every little beneficial event
to some interposition of the Divine power in their parti
cular favour, tends to cherish a sort of isolating selfish
ness, which, in its own peculiar relation to events that
are supposed to be out of the common course of things,
almost loses the comprehensive and far more important
relation of Nature to the whole human race. In the
wide and ceaseless variety of good, that flows from the
general laws of the universe, the Author of those laws
appears as the benevolent provider for all ; in particular
interpositions, though it may be truly the same universal
benevolence which prompts them, he appears as more
especially provident for some favoured individual : and
though it is the former of these characters which is
particularly Divine and worthy of the most affectionate
adoration, from those who delight in viewing themselves
as parts of a great community, and who consider the
good, therefore, which many partake with them as
greater than the good which they enjoy alone ; it is the
latter of these characters that may be supposed to
impress itself most strongly on an ordinary mind, that
values what it has itself exclusively received, as far more
precious, than a good which has flowed lavishly to all.
When we think of the local and national Divinity of the
Jews, and of the character in which, under a different
dispensation, he is believed to have revealed himself as
the God of all mankind, we surely cannot hesitate long
in determining on which of these characters we should
432 NOTES.
be more inclined to dwell, if we wished to elevate our
mind to the noblest conceptions of the Divine nature ;
and the same difference of impression must be in
some degree produced by the habit of considering the
Supreme Ruler of the World rather as a personal and
particular Providence, than as the Providence which,
in the beautiful arrangement of this system of things,
has made all Nature a ministration of general bounty.
It is of this general bounty, therefore, that even he
who believes most undoubtingly in the particular inter
positions of Heaven should accustom himself most
frequently to think. We cannot say positively of any
event, however opportune it may seem in relation to the
benefit which flows from it, that it is the result of pro
vidential agency; we cannot pronounce with absolute
certainty, that it has not been so produced. If, however,
we incline to the former of these opinions, and believe
that what has happened advantageously for us at any
time, has not happened in the ordinary course of events,
but by the direct volition of Him who rules the world,
let us bless him indeed for this act of his bounty ; but
while we are devoutly thankful for the personal good,
let us bless him still more for those general arrange
ments, from which the production of that personal good,
in harmony with the great end which they serve, was
only a momentary deviation, arrangements, that have
made the happiness of the world, and, in the equal and
uniform order of which he may be considered as exer
cising, at every moment, some act of providential
NOTES. 433
bounty, not to a single individual only, but to thousands
of our race, and perhaps to myriads of myriads of
rejoicing creatures.
NOTE G. p. 95.
If external objects be absolutely incapable of affecting
us in any way, and if, therefore, when we seem to be
affected by them, it is only by the operation of the
Deity, who on occasion of their presence, induces in us
the sensations which we refer to things without as their
causes ; the existence of matter, I have said, must be
evidently useless, except as a remembrancer to the
Deity, in what particular way, and at what particular
moment, he is thus to affect us. I might, without
any great subtlety, on the general principles of the
theory, have carried the denial of the use of matter
still farther: for, if it have no direct agency, how
is it to act, even as a remembrancer? If it be so
wholly destitute of power, as to be incapable of pro
ducing any change like sensation or perception in our
minds, why are we to suppose it capable of producing
feelings of this sort in a far mightier spirit? If it be
not perceived at all, it is, with respect to every other
being, as if it did not exist : and if it can occasion, in
any mind, a feeling that otherwise would not have
arisen, so as to be to it a remembrancer, it cannot have
that powerlessness relatively to mind, which is ascribed
F F
434 NOTES.
to it : and may, therefore, on the same principle, be the
immediate cause of sensation in us, without the inter
vening agency of any other being.
NOTE H. p. 99.
The belief, that every thing which begins to exist
must have had a cause of its existence, which has been
always considered as a separate and peculiar axiom, is
only another form of the more general axiom in which
all our notions of causation are involved. We believe
every change to be the invariable result of circumstances
immediately prior ; and this belief comprehends as
much the great event of beginning existence, as the
subsequent revolutions of existing things : for, when we
strive to think of the world, as beginning to exist, we,
in this very conception, obscure as it is, must have some
notion also of that prior time, when the universe of which
we think had no existence ; and we have hence the feeling
of a change. By a primary law of our nature, it is
impossible for us not to consider this change as
invariably conjoined with some preceding circumstance.
But with that prior nothing., which seems to offer itself
to our imagination, we know that the sudden existence
cannot be thus connected ; because, if such a connexion,
which it seems almost absurd to suppose, were possible,
there could not be any void in the universe, or in
space itself, the very infinity of which must, on that
supposition, have become immediately one infinite and
NOTES. 435
immovable mass. The beginning of existence is a
phenomenon, different from those phenomena which we
at present witness ; and the cause of it, therefore, if
similar antecedents have for their attendants similar
consequents, must have been, in like manner, something
different from the phenomena that come immediately
under our view. It must have been something, however,
which was adequate to the production of existing things ;
and, from the manifest appearances of order and design
in the universe, which, though infinitely greater, are
still analogous to our own, we infer that the creating
cause, productive of so much order, was the will of an
intelligent mind. In this reasoning, no circumstance of
axiomatic faith is implied, which is not common to all
our reasonings, on the more frequent and obvious
phenomena of causation: and we may therefore con
clude, that the proposition, Every thing which begins to
exist must have had a cause of its existence, is not
itself an independent axiom, but is reducible to this more
general law of thought, Every change has had a cause of
its existence, in some circumstance, or combination of
circumstances, immediately prior. We believe that it
must have had a cause, from that necessity in our own
nature, by which it is impossible for us, to conceive it
without one. We cannot consider any change of appear
ance, without regarding it as the sequence of something
prior ; and it surely is not wonderful, therefore, that we
cannot conceive, without something prior, that greatest
of all changes, which consists in the beginning existence
F F 2 .
436 NOTES,
of a world, where there was before only the Spirit that
existed from eternity.
NOTE I. p. 203.
It must always be remembered, that the question does
not relate to the truth of the inertia, as a fact which we
believe, but to our supposed power of predicting this
fact, independently of experience.
I repeat the caution, with the view of obviating the
force of any objection that may be made, from miscon
ception of the real object of doubt and inquiry. The
questions themselves are certainly very different,
whether the inertia be a property of matter, and
whether, before experience, we could have inferred it
with perfect certainty, by any process of reasoning.
The one question relates entirely to what takes place
without us ; the other to what takes place within us. It is
not the fact, or the physical property of inertia which I
consider as reducible to a particular law of thought,
for that would be indeed to confound phenomena, but
our belief of the fact ; a belief that differs as essentially
from the inertia itself, as any other phenomenon of mind
differs from any other phenomenon of matter. The
property of the corporeal mass, and all the facts which
result from it, may be, or rather truly are, independent
of our notions with respect to them. They are inde
pendent of our mind, but not so our belief itself, which
is a phenomenon purely mental, and which, on the same
NOTES. 437
principle of analogy that guides us in our arrangements
of every kind, I consider as reducible to the same class,
with our belief of the uniformity of every other physical
sequence.
Even as a mere fact, the inertia is not more truly
independent of our belief of it, than any other fact in
physics, which is confessed to be beyond our power of
anticipation a priori. The solubility of a salt in water,
the approach of a loadstone to a piece of iron, the
deflagration of gunpowder, are sequences of events,
which, in the same circumstances, we suppose, would
continually take place, though no human observer were
present ; but we do not, on that account, believe, that
we could have predicted them, independently of expe
rience, and as little therefore does the same argument
prove that independently of experience, we could have
predicted the inertia of the very masses, of which we
are unable to predict the solubility, the inflammability,
the magnetism.
NOTE K. p. 213.
" Si em m corpus motum celeritatem non conservaret
semper eandem, turn vel augeri deberet vel diminui ejus
celeritas. Hoc autem casu ad quietem inclinaret, quod
quia nunquam quietem consequi potest (62.) accidere
nequit. Illo casu vero ex quiete provenisse censendum
esset, quod aeque foret absurdum. Praeterea si hoc cor
pus in spatio infinito et vacuo positum concipiatur,
438 NOTES.
ejusque via, qua est ingressum et ingredietur, considere-
tur ; nulla est ratio, quare potius in hoc majorem mino-
remve habeat celeritatem, quam in illo loco, quocirca
perpetuo eadem mover! debebit celeritate. Q. E. D."
MECHANICA, Cap. Prim. De Motu in genere, Prop. 8.
The reference (62.) is to a corollary of the theorem
immediately preceding, which affirms the inertia of
bodies at rest, and endeavours to demonstrate it on the
principle of the Sufficient Reason.
The corollary itself, however, can be understood, only
when taken together with the two preceding corollaries
with which it is progressively connected. It is neces
sary therefore to quote them in their order.
" Corollarium 3.
Simili modo, quo evicimus corpus semel quiescens per
petuo quiescere debere, nisi a causa externa afficiatur,
potest ostendi, corpus, quod nunc quiescit absolute, an-
tehac semper quoque quievisse, siquidem sibi ipsi fuerit
relictum. Uti enim nulla est ratio, quare potius ex hac,
quam ilia plaga, in eum, quo nunc stat, locum pervenerit,
ita concludendum est etiam in eo loco antea semper
constitisse.
Corollarium 4.
Corpus igitur, quod semel quiescit, si ulla causa ex
terna in id neque agat, neque egerit, id non sol urn in
NOTES. 439
posterum quiescet semper, sed etiam ante perpetuo quie-
visse statuendum est.
Corollarium 5.
Sequitur ex hoc, corpus semel absolute motum inquie-
tern pervenire nunquam posse sibi relictum. Nam si
tandem quiesceret, idem oporteret antea quoque semper
quievisse, quod est contra hypothesin."
In this way, in many Works, of great mathematical
excellence, but defective in the spirit of general philoso
phical analysis, we often find that, by the progressive
assumption, in corollary after corollary, of some little
circumstance unincluded in the demonstration of the
primary theorem, the evidence of the primary theorem
itself is ultimately extended to conclusions that have
perhaps only a very faint analogy to the truth which was
demonstrated, and that are not less in need of proof after
the demonstration in which they are said to be virtually
included, than they were before it.
NOTE L. p. 243.
The tendency to pass rapidly from a general observa
tion to a conclusion more general still, is the result, in
part, of various other propensities of the mind, the in
fluence of which, in this, as in other respects, I may
perhaps have an opportunity of developing in future
Works. But, though it is an error to which many
causes contribute, it is in an especial manner, as I
440 NOTES.
conceive, the result of misconception of that relation of
efficiency, which is the subject of the present volume.
If I have succeeded in rendering sufficiently intel
ligible to my readers what appears to me to be the real
import of that relation, they will not be in danger of re
garding Power as any thing distinguishable from the
physical object itself, to which, in consequence of the
unavoidable paraphrastic forms of language, we refer it,
as if it were something separable, and rather inherent
in the substance, than constituent of it as an object
of our thought. In all the changes which Nature is
unceasingly exhibiting to us, there are not substances
and also powers, but substances only, which, in
certain situations, admit of the changes, that are
denominated by us phenomena, and admit of these in
a manner so uniform, that we conceive ourselves justi
fied in classing them as at all times antecedent and con
sequent in regular order. As often, therefore, as the
substances are the same, and their relative situations the
same, we anticipate a corresponding sameness of result.
But, when the substances, though similar in many re
spects, are different in some slight variety of elementary
composition, or when they are the same as separate
masses, but have their relative situation in any respect
varied, since in these new circumstances we have no
longer the same antecedent, we can no longer anticipate
with perfect confidence the same result, but have only a
presumptive expectation, that is stronger or weaker, as
the circumstances of analogy are more or less exactly
NOTES. 441
correspondent. It is a presumption, indicative rather of
what we ought to endeavour to ascertain by observation
or experiment, than of what we ought to take for granted
as certain : and, till the decisive confirmation of expe
rience be given, we should be aware, that it is a presump
tion only ; that the slightest difference of elementary
composition, or of the relative bearings of substances on
each other, may be sufficient to render the effect altoge
ther different ; and that we can be unerring prophets,
therefore, only when the substances of which we speak
are the same as were before observed by us, and the
situations in which they are supposed to recur are also
the same. It is truly not more wonderful, that, in dif
ferent relative situations, the same substances should
exhibit different phenomena, than that substances which
are themselves different should exhibit phenomena that
are different : for it is experience only which enables us
to anticipate either a sameness or difference of result in
any case ; and the same experience which shows us that
different substances exhibit different phenomena, shows us
also, that often, by a change of mere relative situation,
the same diversifying effect is produced, as by a change
of the substances themselves.
When power or efficiency, then, in all the sequences
of phenomena, is believed to be nothing different from
the physical antecedents and consequents themselves, an
inquirer, habituated to this just view of the philosophy
of Cause and Effect, may be expected more readily to
confine himself to his legitimate object, and to make the
442
NOTES.
limits of his observation the limits also of the general
physical truths which he asserts. But there is not the
same reason to expect this caution, where it is sup
posed, that, beside the antecedents and consequents
themselves, there is something to be distinguished
from them by the name of power, that exists as truly
as those substances exist, and is permanent as they
are permanent. When A and B, as antecedents, exist
ing together in certain circumstances, have for their con
sequent C, there is no difficulty in believing, that, in
other circumstances, they may be followed, not by C, but
by X ; because the power in A and B of producing C is
only a name for A and B themselves, in the particular
circumstances in which C is consequent, and is nothing,
when these particular circumstances have ceased. But, if
the power were supposed to be something different from A
and B, residing in them or inherent in them in any way,
some difficulty might very naturally be supposed to be
felt, in conceiving what is become of this power, when
there is either no effect produced, or an effect altogether
different. In the new circumstances, for example, in which
A and B produce X, an inquirer, who believes power to
be different from the antecedents themselves, must be a
little puzzled in conjecturing what is become of the
power that was inherent in them of producing C, and
when they produce C, in striving in like manner to con
ceive what is become of the power of producing X. In
short, when power is supposed to be itself something
real and different from the physical antecedent, but
NOTES. 443
inherent in it, it is not wonderful that it should be believed
to be wherever the substance is in which it is supposed
to be inherent, and that hence, since it is present in all
circumstances, and its very essence is to be effective,
what is physically true of a substance, in certain circum
stances observed, should be considered as equally true of
it in all circumstances.
Such, in its tendency to carry beyond the limited cir
cumstances of past observation the belief of the power
which the objects around us in those limited circum
stances have developed, is one of the unfortunate influ
ences of that distinction of Efficient and Physical Causes,
in which philosophers have so universally, and yet, as I
conceive, with so very little reason, acquiesced. Though
it seems abundantly evident, on reflection, that there
cannot be any thing more in nature than the substances
which exist in nature, and that the powers, properties,
qualities, of substances, by whatever variety of phrase
denoted, must either be those substances themselves or
nothing, even the very simple analysis, which this slight
reflection implies, has not been made ; and the mere
relation of antecedence and consequence, to which, in
our belief of its invariableness, we give the name of Effi
ciency, has been itself regarded as a sort of entity, dis
tinct from the gross physical substance in which it is
supposed to be mysteriously embodied. With this view,
then, of the distinct entity of power, since it is not easy
to imagine it to be annihilated and created again from
moment to moment, or to be less operative in circum-
444
NOTES.
stances unobserved, than in circumstances observed, the
error to which I have alluded seems scarcely avoidable.
If the great orbs of the planets tend toward the sun and
toward each other, because there is in them a power of
gravitation, which is something more than the masses
themselves, this gravitating power, if it be not abso-
solutely annihilated, must be conceived to be wherever
the masses are : and if, therefore, after a wide induction,
we were to assert, that matter is in all circumstances
reciprocally attracted and attractive, we should conceive
ourselves justified in this universal proposition, by the uni
versality of the gravitating power that is supposed to be in
herent in the masses and their elements. Yet, in this very
proposition, as the phenomena of compressibility, elas
ticity, and all the other phenomena indicative of repulsion
show, we should assert what is absolutely false ; since
the particles of matter, in certain circumstances, tend
from each other, as truly as in certain other circum
stances they have a tendency toward each other.
All the causes in Nature, whether spiritual or material,
as I have shown in an earlier part of this volume, are
physical Causes, the antecedents of the consequents of
which we speak under the name of Effects as often as
we wish to express not the mere sequence as a single
fact, but our belief of the uniformity of that constant order
of sequence ; and the causes which we term Efficient are
either the very causes previously termed by us Physical,
or they are other physical substances more proximately
antecedent. A cause must be a substance, and a sub-
NOTES. 445
stance antecedent in particular circumstances to the
change of which we speak. Whatever redundant phrases
we may think ourselves authorised by the accredited
tautology of philosophers to employ, there is no principle
of causation irija. cause, more than there is a principle of
being an effect in an effect, a massiness in a mass, or an
elementariness in an atom. These are only abstract
words, expressive of the mere existence of causes, effects,
masses, atoms, not of any thing different from causes,
effects, masses, atoms. There are substances, which,
in certain circumstances, exhibit certain changes, or are
antecedents of certain changes in other substances ; and
we give them the names of Effects and Causes, for this
very reason alone, that such changes are uniformly con
sequent, in the circumstances in which we give those
names.
That the belief of Efficiency, as something distinct in
itself, which, unless we suppose it to be absolutely an
nihilated, must be considered as still subsisting in the
objects around us in the situations in which we have not
had an opportunity of observing them, should lead us to
extend the application of a general physical truth, from
circumstances which we know, to circumstances which
we do not know, seems then a very natural effect of this
primary error : and the injurious tendency of this error,
so universal in its extent, both as to the minds on which
it operates, and the objects to which it relates, appears
to me to have been aggravated by a circumstance, which
the inconsiderate worshippers of great names, and even
446 NOTES.
many of the wisest of the admirers of the wise, who
judge before they offer their sager homage, would
regard as little likely to favour any false views of the
nature and objects of physical investigation.
This circumstance is the undistinguishing veneration,
with which philosophers have continued to receive the
whole physical logic of the Novum Organum> as if its
principles were in every respect the justest that could be
laid down, in conformity with the nature of the human
understanding, and the nature of the Universe, a vene
ration that cannot be too great, when we think only of
the mighty intellect, which, in an age when logic had so
little affinity to reason as to be unworthy in every
respect of its noble etymology, was capable of con
ceiving and accomplishing such a plan of legislation, for
all who were afterwards to dare to meditate on any one of
the glorious things of Nature in that world of marvels
and glories in which we are placed ; but that may yet be
more than is due, when we think, not of the Lawgiver,
but of the System itself, which he bequeathed as a per
petual code for the direction of inquirers in every age.
If the personal merit of the individual were alone to be
considered, veneration would scarcely be a word suffi
ciently strong for expressing that mixed sentiment
of wonder, and reverence, and gratitude, which the very
name of Lord BACON must excite in every mind that is
capable of appreciating a genius, as rich in the variety of
its excellence, as it was transcendent in each separate
endowment.
NOTES. 447
It must be admitted, however, that the time at which
his admirable Works were given to the World, though
not the best for rendering them faultless, was singularly
fortunate for their reputation. A great revolution in
science was already preparing, and in one of the noblest
departments of it, which regards the philosophy of the
heavenly bodies, had already begun, with a splendid
success, which could scarcely fail to spread its light
downward, to the inquirers whose search was limited to
the surface of our globe. The habitual deference of
the mind to ancient authority had been shaken, not
lightly, nor in opinions of faint and partial interest,
but, with almost convulsive force, in feelings which were
the liveliest of every mind, and which, from their wide
relation to truths and errors of every sort, had conse
crated in some degree almost all the prejudices, which
for many centuries had been retarding inquiry. New
worlds had been opened to adventure: commerce was
extending itself; and wealth and freedom, and the desire
of ampler information which wealth and freedom pro
duce, were spreading with it. Above all, the Art of
Printing, which afforded means of ready and accurate
communication of discoveries from kingdom to kingdom,
was presenting not merely accessions of knowledge, but
in the facility of the communication itself, a new object
to the ambition of men of science. The wider glory,
which every observation and experiment, that afforded a
striking result, could not fail to obtain from the multi
tude to whom the knowledge of the discovery, by the
448 NOTES.
medium of this happiest of arts, became easily accessible,
tended necessarily of itself to quicken the zeal of
observers and experimenters ; but it operated, perhaps,
as powerfully and as beneficially for science, in the way
which I have now mentioned, by changing one modifica
tion of ambition itself for another. It truly gave the
passion, as I have said, a new object. When inquirers
were thinly scattered over the wide surface of Europe,
with little intercourse of distant mind with mind, it was
a very natural effect of this state, that the fortunate
discoverer of some property of a substance unsuspected
before, should choose often to wrap himself up in
mysterious self-importance, as the possessor of a mar
vellous secret, which he was only to hint occasionally,
and not reveal; rather than, for the sake of a very
scanty celebrity, which he could have little opportunity
of knowing and enjoying, to run the risk of communi
cating his whole treasure, which might be plundered
from him, without any power on his part of reclaiming
it as his own. All then was favourable to a sort
of enigmatical obscurity; and all was enigmatical
obscurity. But, when the Art of Printing fixed the
date and the property of every discovery, and at once
spread glory wider, and brought it back more fully
to him who had deserved it, it was equally natural,
that mystery should vanish, before the love of that
which was felt to be of far greater value, that there
should hence be a closer and more frequent, and more
extensive concert of inquirer with inquirer, that new
NOTES. 449
observations and experiments, therefore, should be
made, that, with the new accessions which were thus
obtained to science, the value of observation and expe
riment should be more and more felt, and that even
though BACON had not existed, the very societies that
considered themselves as followers only of the plans
which he had pointed out, but that were truly following
still more the impulse of the age which was principally
the result of other causes, might have been instituted with
the same views, and borne as close a resemblance to "So
lomon s House," as when " the new Atlantis " had been
diligently studied by every member of the Association.
How far this would, or would not, have been the case,
it is impossible for us now to say with confidence. But
this, at least, we may say, to the glory of the Great
Master; that, powerful as the circumstances might be,
which were only beginning to urge forward more
sluggish minds, his mind was still in advance of them.
The waters, indeed, were rising; and the swell, which
was covering the waste of sands behind, was producing
also new currents in the deeper flood. But he was not
among the common rowers, whose skiffs or galleys the
current was carrying onward; he appeared in their
front, like some skilful and commanding pilot, who,
though the swell was new, was yet so well acquainted
with the channel, and with the banks and rocks, that he
could measure them with the increasing depth of the
stream, and determine where it would now be safe to
venture, and where the shoals might still be dangerous ;
G G
450 NOTES.
and could foresee and predict the very points of the course
at which new backward eddies might be expected, from
the resistance which higher points of land than the stream
had ever reached before, might give to its onward waters.
It was not the less, however, as I have said, in cir
cumstances the most favourable for his reputation, that
BACON communicated to the world his enlightened views
of science, and of the mode in which it might be culti
vated with surest prospect of success. The results of
observation and experiment, as they are the best eon-
futers of ancient error, are also the best demonstrators of
the value of observation and experiment ; and there can
be no doubt, that, in the circumstances of Europe, at
that period, these results must have been multiplied very
rapidly, and have afforded, accordingly, from year to
year, still clearer and clearer demonstrations of the ab
surdity of every system that was not founded on them,
and therefore of their own primary and essential import
ance, for the improvement of philosophy. At this auspi
cious time, when the dawn was already more than twilight,
and when day was soon to spread itself over the sky, the
Works of BACON appeared, Works, unquestionably, of
one of the greatest minds that have ever thrown glory on
our intellectual nature, impressive often by the sound
ness of their views, still more impressive, perhaps, by
the bold and original imagery, in which he loved to
embody his speculations even on subjects the most ab
stract, and which, unphilosophic and unfriendly to accu
racy of thought, as language so figurative may now seem,
NOTES. 451
was far better suited to attract interest, in that age, than
a style of greater simplicity and precision. It is possible,
indeed, from the union of the many circumstances which
I have stated as favourable at once to the diffusion of
knowledge, and to a spirit of more daring search, that
the better physics which followed might have been, with
out the previous formal didactic expression, in a better
logic, of the principles that should guide inquiry. But
the better logic was at least the precursor in time of the
increasing zeal and activity with which experimental
science was speedily cultivated : and as, where many
causes concur, the separate influence of which it is diffi
cult to trace, and one presents itself prominently to view,
the mind is apt to pass silently over the others, in its
reference of the mixed effect to this one prominent cause,
it is not wonderful that the industrious observers and
experimenters who followed BACON, should often have
ascribed to him effects, which were rather subsequent to his
Works than flowed from them ; and that, when his repu
tation as the founder of Experimental Science had been
thus established by common consent, there should be
transmitted, together with the admiration which was
justly due to him, a tendency of each successive race of
hereditary admirers, to ascribe to him, as if they were
truly his own, those juster notions of the objects and
nature of physical inquiry, which the progress of physical
inquiry itself had evolved.
In this way, as I conceive, what philosophers now pro
fess to regard as their ultimate object of search, in the
G G 2
452 NOTES.
Inductive Science of which they give the glory to BACON,
is not exactly the ultimate object which BACON himself
had in view. The notions which now prevail, or at least
the notions which are now professed, of the limits of the
faculties of the inquiring mind in its endeavours to ascer
tain the laws of the Universe, darkened as these notions
are by false conceptions of the real import of the relation
of Cause and Effect, are yet more humble in the expres
sion, and therefore verbally less remote from truth, than
those which are delivered in the original system with
which the philosophers who use them suppose them to
correspond. The varieties of that " efficiency" of which
they are in the habit of speaking, are indeed, in their
relation to the various phenomena of Nature, very like
the " forms" of which BACON speaks : but there is this
difference, in language at least, whatever little difference
there may perhaps be in the practical influence of the
language, that the efficiency is acknowledged by modern
Philosophers to be in every case beyond our power of
discovery ; while the Master whom they profess implicitly
to follow, seems to deride " the received and inveterate
opinion, that the inquisition of man is not competent to
find out essential forms or true differences," and asserts,
that " the invention of forms is of all other parts of
knowledge the worthiest to be sought."
The evil, then, which I have supposed to flow from the
mere distinction that is made of efficiency from the physi
cal cause, must flow equally, or still more, from the doc
trine of BACON as to the Essential Forms, on which he
NOTES. 453
believed all the changes of things to depend, and the in
vention or discovery of which he regarded as the worthiest
object of the mind. Both doctrines produce or favour a
tendency to the too extensive application of a general
truth ; the chief difference being, that the one leads to
this species of error, more especially with respect to new
situations of the same substances, and the other more
especially to new substances in a similar situation. In
believing power or efficiency to be something which
exists in a substance, we are very naturally led, as I
have shown, to suppose the power to exist wherever the
substance exists, in circumstances unobserved, as much
as in circumstances observed : in believing that all the
changes in Nature depend on certain " forms" or con
ditions, common to all the substances which exhibit these
phenomena, (" differentias veras, slve naturas natur antes,
sive fonles emanationis") conditions, which we have
only to superinduce in other substances, to be certain
of evolving from them also similar phenomena, we take
for granted, in this rash belief, that what is true of many
substances in certain circumstances, must be true of all
substances in these circumstances. The form, to use
BACON S phrase, may be truly a form) with respect to all
the bodies examined by us ; that is to say, we may have
found, in a thousand bodies, that, when a certain change
was produced in them, they exhibited afterwards another
appearance in uniform and immediate sequence, and, as
immediately and uniformly, ceased to exhibit this appear
ance, when the former condition was removed : yet, after
454 NOTES.
a thousand trials of a thousand substances, without a
single failure of the analogous effect, it does not follow,
that the next substance, in which we are to succeed in
producing the same condition, will exhibit afterwards the
same result; and it may happen, that, in it, that very
phenomenon, which has never been known by us to be
exhibited by any other body without that antecedent
condition, may be the result of other circumstances,
which in every other body, before observed by us, were
powerless to produce it.
It is this mistake as to the universality of certain forms
or essential principles, corresponding with all the variety
of changes in the phenomena of the Universe, and neces
sarily similar wherever the changes are similar, a mis
take which was very naturally accompanied with the
belief, that, by the communication of the supposed form,
any property might be superinduced on any substance,
that appears to me to constitute the great error of Lord
BACON S general view of physical science, and to have
been that which seduced him into some of those extrava
gant anticipations of an almost unlimited empire of man
over nature, in which his magnificent fancy delighted to
indulge. That all philosophy must begin in observation ;
that from the observation of many particulars, we may
rise to general propositions (axiomata), expressive of their
circumstances of agreement ; and that these general
truths are again applicable in our reasonings downward
to the whole number of particulars comprehended in
them ; all this is sound philosophy, and in many of the
NOTES. 455
aphorisms of the First Book of the Novum Organum, is
stated by the great logician in language as forcible as
the doctrine itself is physically just. But when, from the
mere " Interpretation of Nature," he passes, in the Se
cond Book, to that sovereignty (Regnum hominis), which
he supposes the Inductive System practically to confer,
he does not seem to be aware, as the more speculative
aphorisms might have led us to expect, that it is only
to the very particulars before comprehended in our ob
servation, that is to say, to the very substances before
observed, in the very circumstances before observed,
that we can with confidence apply the general axiom;
and that we cannot therefore convert any axiom, how
ever general, into an universal axiom, so as to arrive
at the knowledge of an universal or essential form, be
cause we never can be sure that an. untried substance,
with the same conditions superinduced, and in circum
stances the most exactly similar to those in which other
substances have been tried by us, will exhibit a result
like that which they exhibited.
To those who have a clear notion of the relation of
Cause and Effect, it may be almost superfluous to repeat
that there are no " forms," in the wide sense which Lord
BACON gives to that word, as one common operative
principle of all changes that are exactly similar. The
powers, properties, qualities, of a substance, do not de
pend on any thing in a substance. They are truly the
substance itself, considered in relation to certain other
substances, and nothing more. A number of substances
456 NOTES.
may agree in one respect, that they are all antecedents
of a similar change in some other substance : but it does
not therefore follow, that they are to have any other
agreement than in that very consequent change itself.
We never therefore can arrive at any thing which is so
truly commensurable or co-extensive with any species of
change, that, wherever it is, a certain change may be
expected in every substance ; for what we have found to
be true of a thousand substances in a certain situation,
may, as I before said, be found to be wholly inapplicable
to the next substance which we place in a situation the
most exactly similar.
If I were to endeavour to shew the radical error of
BACON S system, and its difference from that simple view
of nature which appears to me to be the only just view of
it, I could not select an example more striking than he
has himself offered, in the inquiry which he has recom
mended and begun into the form of gravity. In this,
as in every other inquiry of the same kind, he proceeds
on the belief, that, in addition to the common circum
stance in which phenomena, merely as phenomena, agree,
there must be some other common circumstance from
which that common circumstance itself is uniformly de
rived ; so truly co-extensive with it, that wherever it is,
the other is, and wherever it is not, the other is not. All
the " Comparisons" and " Exclusions," however, which
all the followers of Lord BACON could for ages propose
and execute, with the nicest attention to the infinitesimal
distinctions of " Instances" which the Novura Organum
NOTES. 457
has pointed out, would be insufficient to produce a. form
of that mere tendency to reciprocal approach, which we
term Gravitation, in masses or their elementary atoms :
and the reason of the impossibility of finding such a
Form, is, that there is truly no Form or general circum
stance of agreement, but that which is implied in the
simple fact itself. The planets tend to the sun; the
bodies on our Earth tend to its centre ; a stone, a piece
of gold, a feather, the air, what we term heavy and what
we term light, all press in some measure on the masses
below them. In this one respect they agree ; but this
one respect may be the only one in which they agree ;
and if we were to strive to think of some principle, from
which they derived, and with the continuance of which
alone they continued to exhibit their gravitating tendency,
we might indeed give a new form of words to the simple
fact of the reciprocal tendency of bodies to each other,
but we could do nothing more than repeat in new words
the very observation which we had previously made.
The common circumstance of all gravitating substances
is that they gravitate ; to say that they gravitate because
they have a gravitating power, or a principle of gravita
tion, is not to give a reason, but to state a fact ; and the
" form," if that word is still to be retained, is nothing
more than the simple tendency itself, which the common
circumstance of gravitation shews. The real object of
every sage physical inquiry, whatever the phenomena
may be that have engaged the attention, is to ascertain
what changes are exhibited by substances, and what are
458 NOTES.
the circumstances in which the changes take place. For
directing us, however, to particular observations and
experiments, we avail ourselves of the great principle of
analogy; but, though it is our great director, we must
not rely on it, on that account, as if it were capable,
even after the widest induction, of making us acquainted
with the " essential differences " of things. The resem
blances in other respects, which we frequently discover
in the antecedents of similar consequents, may indeed
justify a presumption that other substances, in which
the same resemblances are found, will also be found
to be productive of the same changes ; but they never
can afford us more than a presumption, which may or
may not be verified by subsequent observation. An
implicit follower of Lord BACON may hope to become
a master of the forms of qualities, and thus to be able
to superinduce them at pleasure on any substance; a
believer in efficiency, as an operating principle inherent
in a particular antecedent, may trust, that in whatever
new circumstances the antecedent can be placed by him,
he will be able to produce with it the effect which he
produced before ; but he who has juster views of the
philosophy of Cause and Effect, will never venture on
so proud an anticipation : he will consider every phy
sical truth to be in practice strictly applicable only to
the substances before observed, in the situations before
observed, and every thing beyond to be only conjec
tural ; though in estimating the probability of the con
jecture, he will conceive it to be greater or less, as the
NOTES. 459
circumstances of analogy are more or fewer, and will
permit them accordingly to guide his inquiry, while he
refuses to permit them to guide his belief.
NOTE M. p. 302.
The mistake of Dr. REID in considering Day and
Night as one simple sequence, is an instance of a species
of inaccuracy, perhaps the most common in the present
advanced state of science, and the least easy to be pre
vented by any rules which philosophic criticism can
prescribe. The generalizations of language are already
made for us before we have ourselves begun to generalize ;
and our mind receives the abstract phrases without any
definite analysis, almost as readily as it receives and
adopts the simple names of persons and things. The
separate co-existing phenomena, and the separate se
quences of a long succession of events, which it has been
found convenient to comprehend in a single word, are
hence, from the constant use of that single word, re
garded by the mind almost in the same manner as if
they were only one phenomenon, or one event : and
though it is unquestionably of the greatest advantage to
be able thus briefly to express a process which consists
of many sequences of phenomena, the verbal abbrevi
ation is not on that account less dangerous to our accu
racy of reasoning, by leading us often to consider as
common to all the parts of a long and complicated
460
NOTES.
process, the circumstances which belong only to par
ticular parts of it.
The most general form of this fallacy in the language
which we use, is when we ascribe to the prior sequences
of a long train that ultimate result, which belongs only
to the last sequence of the order : but, even throughout
the whole order, it leads us, by a similar mixture and
confusion of the parts, to suppose a physical relation in
many cases where there is none, and to neglect it as
often where it truly is. There is hence a cause of perpetual
retardation to the progress of science, existing in the
circumstances of the progress itself ; the very refine
ments of language to which it necessarily gives rise,
seducing us insensibly into an error of exactly the same
kind as that which is produced more obviously by the
rude and scanty observations with which science begins.
In both cases, though from very different causes, we pass
frequently from the most striking phenomena to other
striking phenomena, without regarding the phenomena
which intervene ; because these are, in the one case, not
observed by us at all, and, in the other case, form a
forgotten or neglected part of that whole, which our
general term expresses. There is scarcely a single con
troversy in the history of any one of the departments of
physics in which the confusion has not, in a great mea
sure, arisen from some very simple error of this kind, by
which that which was true, of a part of a process, was
false, when asserted of a whole process : and indeed we
find the contest to be not unfrequently an opposition of
NOTES. 461
errors rather than of truth and error ; the opponents
often agreeing in every thing else, and differing only in
the parts of the process, which they have falsely con
sidered as representing the whole.
A habit of constant and quick analysis of every com
plex word which we use, or read, or hear, is, in effect,
to borrow the very striking phrase which has been
applied to logic in general, like the acquisition by the
mind of a new organ. The generalizations of language
are thus made to answer the only useful purposes for
which they were devised ; that of conciseness in our
own silent reflections and in our communications to
others, and that of an artificial memory, suggesting to
us by association the phenomena comprehended in them.
To have thus completely under our command every term
of the daily nomenclature which we employ, however
slightly such a power might be estimated by superficial
thinkers, would be indeed to have a dominion of no
common kind : for it would be to have the mastery of
that which subjects in some degree even the most philo
sophic understandings, and which enslaves and fetters,
with innumerable prejudices, the less discriminating
multitudes of our race.
THE END.
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