236 HUMANISM xm 



philosophic accounts of causation that he addresses his 

 triumphant challenges, when he &quot; desires to have pointed 

 out to him &quot; the impression from which the idea of 

 necessary connexion could possibly be derived. 



But after publishing the first volume of the Treatise, 

 Hume was bound to come across remonstrances based on 

 a primitively human view of causation which may fairly be 

 called the original philosophy of mankind. This is the 

 volitional theory of causation, which models itself on the 

 voluntary control of the bodily organs and accepts the 

 immediately experienced sequence of volition and motion 

 as all we need know of the inner nature of causation. 

 Upon this view the impression which gives rise to the 

 idea of causal efficacy would be simply the every-day 

 experience of voluntary motion, and this simple answer to 

 Hume s theory would be easily and obviously fatal to his 

 whole position. 



Hume, therefore, was bound, if possible, to invalidate 

 this theory, and nothing testifies more strikingly to his 

 supreme cleverness than the way in which he meets this 

 difficulty. He promptly inserted in the Appendix to the 

 Treatise a short passage, in which he points out, very 

 lucidly and consistently, that there is no reason why the 

 sequence of volition and motion should be treated (by 

 him) differently from any other, or regarded as more 

 intelligible. 1 But how seriously he took this volitional 

 theory is attested by the elaborate refutation bestowed on 

 it in the Enquiry? 



Its gist may be summed up as follows: (i) Hume 

 starts, as in the Appendix, from his own analysis of 

 causation as an established truth, and points out that 

 the supposed immediate experience of causal agency is 

 nothing more than a regular sequence, which must 

 accordingly engender the custom or expectation which 

 is the causal nexus. 



(2) He clearly states his presupposition that real 



1 Green and Grose barely mention the fact in their edition, but make no 

 comment. 



2 51-53 and note to 6o - 



