LAW OF CAUSATION. 887 



same cause) the coexistences of phenomena can in no case be 

 universal, unless the coexistences of the primeval causes to 

 which the effects are ultimately traceable, can be reduced to 

 an universal law : but we have seen that they cannot. There 

 are, accordingly, no original and independent, in other words 

 no unconditional, uniformities of coexistence, between effects 

 of different causes ; if they coexist, it is only because the 

 causes have casually coexisted. The only independent and 

 unconditional coexistences which are sufficiently invariable to 

 have any claim to the character of laws, are between different 

 and mutually independent effects of the same cause ; in other 

 words, between different properties of the same natural agent. 

 This portion of the Laws of Nature will be treated of in the 

 latter part of the present Book, under the name of the Specific 

 Properties of Kinds. 



9. It is proper in this place to advert to a rather 

 ancient doctrine respecting causation, which has been revived 

 during the last few years in many quarters, and at present 

 gives more signs of life than any other theory of causation at 

 variance with that set forth in the preceding pages. 



According to the theory in question, Mind, or, to speak 

 more precisely, Will, is the only cause of phenomena. The 

 type of Causation, as well as the exclusive source from which 

 we derive the idea, is our own voluntary agency. Here, and 

 here only (it is said) we have direct evidence of causation. 

 We know that we can move our bodies. Kespecting the 

 phenomena of inanimate nature, we have no other direct 

 knowledge than that of antecedence and sequence. But in 

 the case of our voluntary actions, it is affirmed that we are 

 conscious of power, before we have experience of results. An 

 act of volition, whether followed by an effect or not, is accom- 

 panied by a consciousness of effort, " of force exerted, of power 

 in action, which is necessarily causal, or causative." This 

 feeling of energy or force, inherent in an act of will, is know- 

 ledge a priori ; assurance, prior to experience, that we have 

 the power of causing effects. Volition, therefore, it is 

 asserted, is something more than an unconditional antecedent; 



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