224 HUME x 



consequences of the doctrine of necessity, premis- 

 ing the weighty observation that 



" When any opinion leads to absurdity, it is certainly 

 false ; but it is not certain that an opinion is false because 

 it is of dangerous consequence." (IV. p. 112.) 



And, therefore, that the attempt to refute an 

 opinion by a picture of its dangerous consequences 

 to religion and morality, is as illogical as it is 

 reprehensible. 



It is said, in the first place, that necessity de- 

 stroys responsibility; that, as it is usually put, we 

 have no right to praise or blame actions that can- 

 not be helped. Hume's reply amounts to this, 

 that the very idea of responsibility implies the 

 belief in the necessary connexion of certain actions 

 with certain states of the mind. A person is held 

 responsible only for those acts which are preceded 

 by a certain intention; and, as we cannot see, or 

 hear, or feel, an intention, we can only reason out 

 its existence on the principle that like effects have 

 like causes. 



If a man is found by the police busy with 

 " jemmy " and dark lantern at a jeweller's shop 

 door over night, the magistrate before whom he is 

 brought the next morning, reasons from those 

 effects to their causes in the fellow's burglarious 

 ideas and volitions, with perfect confidence, and 

 punishes him accordingly. And it is quite clear 

 that such a proceeding would be grossly unjust, if 

 the links of the logical process were other than 



