CAUSATION 



our own movements, as we admit it to be the 

 phenomenal cause, it would not follow that it 

 is the cause of anything else. As the passage 

 just cited from Hamilton shows, the only direct 

 effect which volition can be known to produce 

 is nervo-muscular action, — a very exceptional, 

 peculiarly animal phenomenon. And yet, "be- 

 cause this is the only cause of which we are 

 conscious, — being the only one of which in the 

 nature of the case we can be conscious, since it is 

 the only one which exists within ourselves," — 

 we are asked to assume, without further evi- 

 dence, that throughout the infinitely multitu- 

 dinous and heterogeneous phenomena of nature, 

 no other kind of cause exists ! A more amaz- 

 ing example of the audacity of the subjective 

 method could hardly be found. In Mr. Mill's 

 forcible language, " the supporters of the Voli- 

 tion Theory ask us to infer that volition causes 

 everything, for no reason except that it causes 

 one particular thing ; although that one phe- 

 nomenon, far from being a type of all natu- 

 ral phenomena, is eminently peculiar ; its laws 

 bearing scarcely any resemblance to those of 

 any other phenomenon, whether of inorganic 

 or of organic nature." 



Thus ends in signal failure the last of the 

 many attempts which have been made to invali- 

 date the principle of the Relativity of Know- 

 ledge. Start from what point we may, we must 



