to the nature and origin of our idea of causation, he says, all we can know on the subject is that one object or event is contiguous and antecedent to another. This is all we perceive ; all of which we can have an " impression." We have no impression of power, efficacy, energy, force, or whatever equivalent term we may choose to use. Therefore, there is no such thing. There is no such thing as efficacy or power either in mind or matter. When we use such word; >v^ have, he says, "really no distinct meaning." ^ When We see events or changes in uniform sequence, we get the habit, or, as he says, " we feel the determination," ^ to expect the consequent when we see its accustomed antecedent. Necessity, force, power, efficacy, therefore, are nothing but " a determination to carry our thoughts from one object to another." ^ " The necessity of power, whicli unites causes and effects, lies in the determination of the mind to pass from the one to the other. The efficacy or energy of causes is neither placed in the causes themselves, nor in the Deity, nor in the concurrence of these two principles ; but belongs entirely to the soul, which considers the vinion of two or more objects in all past instances." * Hume was fully aware of the paradoxical char- acter of his view of causation and of its far-reaching consequences, althougli he insisted that his argument in its support was unanswer- able. In immediate connection with the preceding quotation, he says : " I am sensible, that of all the paradoxes which I have had, or shall hereafter have, occasion to advance in the course of this treatise, the present one is the most violent, and that 'tis merely by dint of solid proof and reasoning I can ever hope it will have admission, and overcome the inveterate prejudices of mankind."^ What he calls inveterate prejudices, are really laws of belief which God has impressed on our nature, and which all the sophistry of philosophers can never subvert.
The conclusions which* Hume draws from his doctrine show his appreciation of its importance. (1.) It follows, he says, from his principle that there is no diffiirence between causes as efficient, formal, material, exemplary, or final ; nor between cause and occa- fiion. (2.) " That the common distinction betwixt moral and physical necessity is without any foundation in nature." " The distinction which we often make betwixt power and the exercise of it, is equally without foundation." (3.) " That the necessity of a cause to every beginning of existence is not founded on any argu- ments either demonstrative or intuitive.' (4.) " We can never
I Treatise of Human Nature, vol. i. p. 216. 2 Page 219. » V&g^e 219.
* rage 220. 6 Page 220
214 PART I — THEOLOGY. [Ch. E. — Theism
have reason to believe that any object exists, of which we cannot form an idea." ^ By this fourth corollary, he has reference to such things as substance, from which we receive no impression, and con- sequently of which we can have no idea, and therefore cannot rationally believe to exist. The same may be said of God.
In the beginning of the following section,^ Hume with a bold- ness almost unparalleled says : " According to the precedent doc- trine, there are no objects which, by the mere survey, without consulting experience, we can determine to be the causes of any other ; and no objects which we can certainly determine in the same manner not to be causes. Anything may produce anything. Creation, annihilation, motion, reason, volition, all these may arise from one another, or from any other object we can imagine. Nor will this appear strange if we compare two principles explained above, that the constant conjunction of objects determines their causation ; and that, properly speaking, no objects are contrary to each other but existence and non-existence. Where objects are not contrary, nothing hinders them fi'om having that constant con- junction on which the relation of cause and effect totally depends."
If there be any such argument as the reductio ad absurdum^ surely this theory of Hume refutes itself. (1.) He admits the trustworthiness of consciousness so far as " impressions " are con- cerned ; then how can he reject the intuitions of sense, reason, and conscience ? (2.) If we have no knowledge which is not derived from impressions, and no right to believe in the existence of any- thing of which we have not an idea derived from an impression, then we cannot believe in substance, soul, or God. (3.) For the same reason we cannot believe that there is any such thing as power or efficiency, or any difference between efficient and final causes, i. e., between the expansive force of steam and the inten- tion of the mechanist who makes a steam-engine. (4.) In like manner, we must believe that something can come out of nothing, that there is no reason that what begins to be should have a cause, even an antecedent ; and, therefore, that " anything can produce anything," e. g., a human volition, the universe. (5.) He cannot even state his theoi'y without contradicting himself. He speaks of one thing "producing" another. But according to his doctrine there is no such thing as production, because he denies that there is any such thing as power or efficiency.
It is universallv admitted that we have no foundation for knowl* edge 01 faith, but the veracity of consciousness. This principle
1 Treatise of Human Nature, vol. i. pp. 226-228. 2 § 15.