tion of similar instances, the mind is carried by habit, upon the appearance of one event, to expect its usual attendant, and to believe that it will exist. This connection, therefore, which we feel in the mind, this customary transition of the imagination from one object to its usual attendant, is the sentiment or impression from which we form the idea of power or necessary connection. Nothing farther is in the case. Contemplate it on all sides, you will never find any other origin of that idea. This is the sole difference between one instance, from which we can never receive the idea of connection, and a number of similar instances by which it is suggested. The first time a man saw the communication of motion by impulse, as by the shock of two billiard balls, he could not pronounce that the one event was connected, but only that it was conjoined with the other. After he has observed several instances of this nature, he then pronounces them to be connected. What alteration has happened to give rise to this new idea of connection? Nothing, but that he now feels these events to be connected in his imagination, and can readily foretel the existence of one, from the appearance of the other. When we say, therefore, that one object is connected with another, we mean only that they have acquired a connection in our thought, and gave rise to this INFERENCE, by which they become proofs of each other's existence,

a conclusion which is somewhat extraordinary, but which seems founded on sufficient evidence."

INFERENCE! What inference? The inference by which they become proofs of each other's existence! Well may Mr. Hume call it a "somewhat extraordinary" inference. But if he allows us to infer at all, why not allow us at once to infer, that where there is a change, there must be power producing it. Or, does Mr. Hume mean only that anticipation of the one event, from the appearance of the other, which might arise from the uniform association of their ideas in our minds? This is all that is consistent with his views, but that this is not all he meant, the reader may be satisfied, by casting his eyes a little way back, where he says, "We then call the one object Cause, the other Effect. We suppose," (or infer, for the words are here synonimous), "that there is some connection between them; some power in the one, by which it infallibly produces the other, and operates with the greatest certainty and strongest necessity." We may be permitted to inquire whether this INFERENCE be an impression or an idea. An idea it could not be, for that, according to Mr. Hume, is always weaker than the impression from which it is derived: but this is stronger, infinitely stronger, than any, or all of the impressions from which it could possibly be copied. And if it be an impression, why endeavour

to trace its origin from a pack of impressions and ideas that could never give it birth?-it must be original and innate. But Mr. Hume never could have consented to this? it would have ruined some fine speculations. What, then, shall we do with this INFERENCE? Discard it, abolish it—away with such a notion from the earth, for it is utterly inconsistent with Mr. Hume's notions. If it be asked, why Mr. Hume tolerated it, the answer is plain it was to give his reasoning a greater air of plausibility, to render it less shocking to common sense, and so mislead the unwary reader-just as poison is more readily swallowed when mixed up with wholesome and ordinary food.

Mr. Hume's reasoning, therefore, if it proves anything, proves that we have no idea of power or necessary connection at all! The substance of may be stated in the following syllogism:

it

-We have no ideas but what are received by sensation or reflection.

-The idea of power, or necessary connection, is not received by either of these sources.

-Therefore, we have no such idea.

The first proposition in this syllogism is no ways self-evident, but had been proved by Mr. Locke: and how?-by shewing that our ideas of colour, sound, time, space, power, &c., which form the elements of all our more complicated ideas, are all derived either from sensation or reflection. Consequently we know the major premiss to be

true, only by admitting the minor to be false. If then Mr. Hume thought Mr. Locke's account of the origin of our idea of power unsatisfactory,—if he was convinced that that idea is not derived from sensation or reflection,--what ought to have been his conclusion? Why certainly, that Mr. Locke was premature in asserting his general proposition, that these are the only sources of our ideas. But this did not suit Mr. Hume's taste. He was unwilling, when reasoning men out of their ideas of body and spirit and every other irrational whimsy, to leave untouched so formidable an idea as that of power. I do not mean, in what I have said, to condemn Mr. Locke's views; on the contrary, I am only persuaded that Mr. Hume did not understand them. But, waving the discussion of this, I return to Mr. Hume.

Having thus denied us the idea of power or necessary connection, and asserted that we have no idea of any connection whatever between a cause and its effect, except what arises from the customary association of our own ideas of two objects or events, Mr. Hume defines a cause to be "An object followed by another, and where all the objects similar to the first are followed by objects similar to the second:" or "An object followed by another, and whose appearance always conveys the thought to that other." The first is, perhaps, sufficiently distinctive for the ordinary purposes of a definition :-the second is totally inadequate.

D

Dr. Reid set himself to refute Mr. Hume's opinions regarding power, and has made some good observations on the subject in his first essay on the active powers of man. Unhappily, Mr. Locke is involved by him in the same condemnation with Mr. Hume. But this only arises from Mr. Locke's meaning having been misunderstood. In so far, however, as Dr. Reid confines himself to Mr. Hume's ideas, his observations are fair and just. He complains of the hardship of being required to prove that we have the idea in question, and quotes an observation of Mr. Hume, that next to the ridicule of denying an evident truth, is that of taking much pains to prove it: yet, out of respect to that ingenious writer, he does endeavour to prove it. I fear that his arguments are not all conclusive against his adversaries, although they are all consistent with his own views, and, when we advert to the inconsistency of the arguments of his opponents, this is no little praise. But leaving these arguments to stand or fall as they may, I would advert to some excellent observations which follow concerning the phenomena of nature. When the reader has considered these, he will be able to appreciate the justice of some aspersions of a later writer.

"With regard to the phenomena of nature,"

Active Powers, Essay I. Chap. vi.