64 AS REGARDS PROTOPLASM, ETC. 



that even when just mentioning this, and remarking that " we 

 cannot penetrate into the reason of the conjunction " of cause 

 and effect, he knew and admitted that that " step " and that 

 " reason " lay in " a natural relation." 



In reality, the whole thing has been, on the part of Hume, 

 but a wicked riddle, the sly rogue (or the arch rogue if you will) 

 always speaking with such an air of innocent conviction, that 

 his allegation " no reason can be discovered " was taken at 

 once without a moment's misgiving quite as the matter of fact 

 for which it seemed to be taken by himself. 



But, suppose we ask now after all these years, and after all 

 that breadth of clamour is it matter of fact ? Can it possibly 

 be matter of fact 1 Must not the reason of the conjunction of 

 things, as cause and effect, lie, as Hume admits, in " a natural 

 relation f And must not that natural relation be discoverable ? 

 In other words, must not " the step of the mind," the " process 

 of the understanding," which Hume seemed to assume to fail, 

 actually not fail? and must it not be capable of being 

 demonstrated ? 



Let the reader fully realise to himself what the assertion 

 means, that the cause A is only an invariable first, and the effect 

 B only an invariable second. All, so, is evidently reduced to the 

 single character succession, and with the single predicate invari- 

 able, the explanation being added the invariability is only what 

 we may call a positive one. That is : so far as. we know yet, A 

 has been first, B has been second, but this invariable succession 

 so far as experience goes, must be seen to be what it is only 

 an invariable succession so far as experience goes. We have but 

 a fact before us, we know not how, or whence, or why ; we 

 have absolutely no reason whatever for the fact. The succession 

 is, has been, may be ; but it is a dry fact a dry fact of mere 

 succession. It is but a conjunction of abstracts ; it is no concrete 

 no concrete of two, the one from the other, and in the other, 

 and through the other. There is no reason in the very midst of the 

 succession, by virtue of which the one is only because the other 

 is. It is a fact that there is A now, and B then ; there is no 

 relation whatever between them but that of the order in time. 

 A is A, B is B ; each on its own side is for itself, and sui generis, 

 and independent. There is no community between them. 

 They are absolutely disparate heterogeneous. Each is foreign, 

 alien to the other. Different from, they are indifferent to, each 

 other. They are not inwardly in union ; they are but outwardly 

 beside each other. But for the order in time, they are not one 

 whit more connected, the one with the other, than this ink- 

 bottle and yonder coal-scuttle. 



Surely the statement itself is its own involuntary felo de se ! 

 To the humano capiti, shall we join then the ccrvicem equinam f 



