454 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book V. 



to fpeak of In this chapter, he gives as a difcovery of his own ; and a 

 moft wonderful dircovery it is, 1 know, thought to be by his follow- 

 ers. It is this, * That we have no idea o^ cauje and effeSi ;' ' for,* fays 

 he, * what we call a caufe^ is nothing more than an event, which, by 

 ' experience and obfervation, we have always found to precede another 



* that we call the effe^i ; but, that the one produces the other, that is, 



* is the caufe of the other, we have no knowledge at all. We perceive 



* that the two events are conjoined^ but not conneBed* From his rea- 

 fonings on this fubjedt, and the particular inftances to which he ap- 

 plies the general propofition *, we fhould imagine that he carried it 

 no farther than to fa<fls, and natural and human events. But, confi- 

 dered in this view, it is certa'niy no difcovery of Vlr Hume*s ; for 

 every philofopher kno\AS that we can onlv realon corc^ruing fuch e- 

 venrs from indudion ; and, that fuch realbning is not de onHrative, 

 for the caufe which I have afligned in the ch pter up )n the lubjcdt of 

 that fort of reafoning, but only probable. And this '^ r Hume ac- 

 knowledges. But,m the end of his diflertations upon th;.-^ fubjedl:, he 

 feems to have carried the matter further ; for he lias given us a gene- 

 ral definition oi caii/e and effedi^ which may comprehend cverv matter 

 of fcience f* And 1 know that feveral of his followers carry his doc- 

 trine fo far ; the confequence of which is, to overturn all fc cnce and 

 demonftration.. But this, 1 am perfuaded, was not intended by 

 Mr Hume, at leafl, not in this part of his work. And the prin- 

 cipal reafon, as appears to me, why he has infifted fo much 

 upon this notion of caufe and effed, is, that he might draw the 

 notable conclufion, which he draws in the end of one of his Ef- 

 fays J, viz. * that, as the produdion of the world by the Deity is a 



* iingle event, to which we, by experience, know nothing fimilar ; 



* there- 



• See vol. 3d of his EflTiys, § 4. and 5. 



f Vol. 3. fe<Sl 7- p. III. The definition is, ^ An ohje^l followed by another , and 

 ' where all the ohje&St fimilar I0 thejirji^ are followed by obje&s ftmilar to the fecond,'* 

 t Eflay upon a Providence and a Future State, vol. 3. p. 207. 



