antee the future. If we believe that a given consequent always will follow a given antecedent, there must be some other ground for that conviction than that it always has done so. Unless there be something in the nature of the antecedent to secure the sequence of the effect, there is no rational ground for the belief that the future must be like the past.
The Common Doctrine on the Subject.
The common doctrine on this subject includes the following points. (1.) A cause is something. It has a real existence. It is not merely a name for a certain relation. It is a real entity, a substance. This is plain because a nonentity cannot act. If that which does not exist can be a cause, then nothing can produce something, which is a contradiction. (2.) A cause must not only be something real, but it must have power or efficiency. There must be something in its nature to account for the effects which it produces. (3.) This efficiency must be adequate ; that is, suf- ficient and appropriate to the effect. That this is a true view of the nature of a cause is plain. (1.) From our own consciousness. We are causes. We can produce effects. And all three of the particulars above mentioned are included in our consciousness of ourselves as cause. We are real existences ; we have power ; we have power adequate to the effects which we produce. (2.) We can appeal to the universal consciousness of men. All men attach this meaning to the word cause in their ordinary language. All' men assume that every effect has an antecedent to whose efficiency it is due. They never regard mere antecedence, however uniform in the past, or however certain in the future, as constituting a causal relation. The succession of the seasons has been uniform in the past, and we are confident that it will continue uniform in the fu- ture ; yet no man says that winter is the cause of summer. Every one is conscious that cause expresses an entirely different relation fi'om that of mere antecedence. (3.) This view of the nature of causation is included in the universal and necessary belief, that every effect must have a cause. That belief is not that one thing must always go before another thing ; but that nothing can occur, that no change can be produced, without the exercise of power or effi- ciency somewhere ; otherwise something could come out of nothing.
This subject is discussed by all the metaphysicians from Aristotle downwards, and especially since the promulgation of the new doc- trine adopted by Hume.^ It is one of the great services rendered
1 See Reid's Intellectual Powers; Stewart's Philosophical Essays; Brown's Inquiry, and ▼OL. I. 14
210 PART I — THEOLOGY. [Ch. H. — Theism.
by Dr. McCosh to the cause of truth, that he has defended the authority of those primary behefs which he at the foundation of all knowledge.
Intuitive Conviction of the Necessity of a Cause.
But admitting a cause to be not merely an invariable antecedent, but that to whose power the effect is due, " Ens quod in se conti- net rationem, cur aliud existat," ^ as it is defined by Wolf, it remains to be asked. What is the foundation of the universal belief that every effect must have a cause? Hume says i^is founded on ex- perience, and therefore is limited by it. We see that every effect within the sphere of our observation is preceded by a cause, and we may reasonably expect that the same is true beyond the sphere . of our observation. But of this we know nothing. It would be presumptuous to determine from what takes place on our little globe, what must be the law of the universe. The fact that, as far as we see, every effect has a cause, gives us no right to assume that the universe must have had a cause. Kant says that the law of cause and effect is only in our minds. Men view things in that relation ; but they have no assurance that that relation holds in the world outside of themselves.
The common doctrine of the schools is, that it is an intuitive truth, a first, or self-evident principle. That is, that it is some- thing which all men do believe, and which all men must believe. There are no self-evident, intuitive ti'uths, if the fact that they have been denied by one or more speculative philosophers be con- sidered proof that they are not matters of universal and necessary belief. Personal identity, the real existence of the external world, the essential distinction between right and wrong, have all been denied. Nevertheless, all men do, and all men must believe these truths. The denial of them is forced and temporary. Whenever the mind reverts to its normal state, the belief returns. So the principle of causation has been denied ; yet every man is forced by the constitution of his nature to admit it, and constantly to act upon it. A man may believe that the universe is eternal ; but that it began to be without a cause — that it sprang out of nothing — it is impossible to believe.
We are reduced, therefore, to this alternative. The universe is. It therefore either has been from all eternity, or it owes its exist- ence to a cause out of itself, adequate to account for its being what it is. The theistical argument is, that the world is an effect ; that
Estay on Cause, and Effect; Sir William Hamilton's Works; Dr. McCosh's Intuitions Qfth4 Mind. 1 See his Ontologia, ii. iii. 2, § 881.