174 HUME 



VIII 



it is " easy for us to conceive any object to be non- 

 existent this moment and existent the next, with- 

 out conjoining to it the distinct idea of a cause or 

 productive principle " (I. p. 111). So far from the 

 axiom, that whatever begins to exist must have a 

 cause of existence, being "self-evident," as Philo 

 calls it, Hume spends the greatest care in showing 

 that it is nothing but the product of custom, or 

 experience. 



And the doubt thus forced upon one, whether 

 Philo ought to be taken as Hume's mouthpiece 

 even so far, is increased when we reflect that we 

 are dealing with an acute reasoner ; and that 

 there is no difficulty in drawing the deduction 

 from Hume's own definition of a cause, that the 

 very phrase, a " first cause," involves a contradic- 

 tion in terms. He lays down that, 



" Tis an established axiom both in natural and moral phil- 

 osophy, that an object, which exists for any time in its full 

 perfection without producing another, is not its sole cause ; but 

 is assisted by some other principle which pushes it from its state 

 of inactivity, and makes it exert that energy, of which it was 

 secretly possessed." (I. p. 106.) 



Now the " first cause " is assumed to have ex- 

 isted from all eternity, up to the moment at which 

 the universe came into existence. Hence it cannot 

 be the sole cause of the universe ; in fact, it was 

 no cause at all until it was "assisted by some 

 other principle"; consequently the so-called 

 " first cause," so far as it produces the universe, 



