SECT. II.

Remarks on the commonly affumed principle, That nothing exifts, or that no event comes to pass, without a caufe.-Obfcurity and ambiguity of this principle, from the vague meaning of the term Caufe.-According to the extenfive, generic, metaphyfical fenfe of the term Caufe, it must be admitted as univerfally and neceffarily true;—but then it bears no relation to the question of Liberty and Neceffity. In the limited, fpecific, phyfical fenfe of the term Cause, it must not be admitted, ift, as being almost a begging of the question; 2dly, as being unfupported· by any evidence.-The queftion of the univerfality of Motives for every Action to be avoided, as requiring an appeal to confciousnefs.-Thofe Actions alone to be confidered, and compared with phyfical Effects, for which there are evident and acknowledged Motives.

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NOTHER argument urged by Mr HUME on this point appears to me to deferve particular attention; not as be

ing

ing new, or peculiar to him, but as being commonly infifted on by thofe philofophers who have efpoufed the fame fide of this question that he has done; which implies two things with refpect to it: 1f, That it has very generally appeared to philofophers plaufible at least, if not abfolutely fatisfactory and conclufive; 2dly, That no complete anfwer or refutation has yet been given to it by thofe men of more vulgar understandings, for whofe inftruction and conviction it was intended, and has often been urged, but in vain.

"It is univerfally admitted," fays Mr HUME," that nothing exifts without a caufe of its exiftence."

Before this propofition, which is faid to be univerfally admitted, can rationally be either admitted or denied, it is necellary that it be first clearly understood; which I will venture to fay it has not in general been, either by those who afferted, or by thole who admitted it.

It must be obferved, in the first place,

That,

That, whatever may be its most be its most proper and philofophical meaning, the most common and popular meaning of the word Caufe, that is to fay, the notion ufually denoted by it, and therefore most likely first to occur to any ordinary perfon to whom fuch an argument may be addreffed, does not relate to mere exiftence, as it is made to do in this argument or propofition, but to event; and hardly to every event, but only to change, not to the beginning or to the end of exiflence, that is, to creation or annihilation; nay, hardly to every kind of change, but to thofe changes only which come to pafs in beings that do not produce them in themfelves, and in whom they are conceived to come to pafs in confequence of the influence of fomething elfe, or of a certain relation between the fubject in which the change occurs, and fomething elfe, to which fomething elfe the name Caufe is ufually given, as that of effect is to the change proceeding from it.

This alteration, and the fubftitution of a new correlative to the term Caufe, implies

plies an alteration in the conception of the relation expreffed by it; of which an attentive and careful reafoner would probably be sensible, and might rationally fcruple to admit fuch a propofition, at leaft till he had it fully explained and illuftrated to him by proper definitions and examples. And if he found, which I prefume would be the cafe, that the usual meaning of the term Caufe was either extended, or limited, or perverted, in fome of thofe examples, or that it was different in the different examples; then, instead of either admitting or denying the propofition in question, he ought undoubtedly to require that thofe different meanings fhould be expressed distinctly and accurately in feparate propofitions, that he might know which of them, or whether of them, were to be either admitted or denied.

any

But as this impropriety of making the term and the notion of Caufe relate to mere existence, is no peculiar fault of Mr HUME, being common to him and many other philofophers, and as a complete difcuffion

cuffion of it would require a much longer investigation than would be proper in this place, I fhall not here infift any further on it.

Setting afide, therefore, that circumstance of incongruity between the notion of caufe and that of mere existence, and fuppofing Mr HUME, and those other philofophers who have efpoufed the fame fide of the queftion with him, to have meant to have faid only, "That it is univerfally admitted, "that there is no event, that is, no be

ginning of existence, no end of exift66 ence, no change of the state or mode of "existence, not even the action of a li66 ving fentient intelligent being, without

a caufe," which, from the general tenor of their reasonings, ought in candour to be regarded as their meaning; ftill there would be much need of an explana→ tion of the term Caufe, that is, a precife specification of the notion expreffed by it; and till fuch explanation were given of it, either by ftrict logical definition, or by very ample illuftration, and many examples, the propofition in question could not F

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