23 



certain perception. Now in this stage remove all these things be- 

 fore mentioned, remove the horse, let also the modification of light 

 be absent, and with it let also the perception vanish ; the perception 

 has taken place: this effect has been produced, and another series 

 of causation is commenced. The perception is related with intel- 

 lectual faculties: the idea of the horse is at this time produced ; 

 this idea has its relations with other ideas, and if we want the horse 

 we perhaps look for a halter in order to catch him. All these 

 things originated from the horse, we say; true: and the horse, where 

 did he originate from? We may as well begin to date the origin 

 of our notion, of our idea, from thence ; because it is plain that 

 unless the horse had first been made, we could have had no concep- 

 tion of him. According then to the ordinary signification of the 

 word CAUSE, the blood which circulates in the horse's ears is the 

 cause of our idea of the horse, yea, and the chymical properties of 

 that blood ; and, to go higher still, the manure which produced the 

 grass from which that blood was made; and, to look still further, 

 the animal who excreted that manure, and all his causes for some 

 generations back, were all causes of our idea of the horse, since we 

 never should have seen the horse if these things had not been. 



34. But the remote existences and relations exhibited in the 

 above account do not agree with our definition of a cause; which 

 is, that without which the effect cannot exist. Now as the effect, 

 viz. the idea, can exist without all these things, and does exist when 

 they are all removed, we cannot say that the effect depends upon 

 them as causes, for the effect is when they are not, or are entirely 

 out of the way of influencing it. If we want a short expression for 

 convenience, we may call these " remote causes," of various degrees 

 of approximation to the effect. But if we desire to know what they 

 really are, we shall find them to be nothing more than a series of 

 changes, which lead to others by processes of true causation, 

 through many intermediate relations. Each of these changes is a 

 distinct act of causation. Each individual change exists inde- 

 pendently of all those which went before it (provided such is the 

 relation), and has no ability to maintain the existence (which is the 

 business of a cause) of any of those which might succeed to it; but 

 depends only on such causes as agree with our definition. 



35. It will be urged, an effect cannot take place without those 

 which are termed " remote causes." This is true: yet these 

 remote causes do not necessarily help to constitute the effect, the 

 effect takes place as the act of its immediate components; the 

 cause which brought them together was the effect also of its im- 

 mediate components. The difference between such a series of acts 

 of causation, and one single act, arises from the multiplicity of 

 related existences. Examined in this manner, there will be found 

 no example in opposition to our principle, viz. that there is no 

 cause which does not enter into, is present in, and combined with, 

 the other causes of the effect. If any such should be supposed, it 

 will be found upon closer scrutiny to be a connection, but not a 



