Part 10 (1/2)

In addition to the bare notion of necessary connexion between the cause and its effect, we undoubtedly find in ourresident in the cause which, as we say, produces the effect, and we call this soy Hume explains Force and Power as the results of the association with inanis of endeavour or resistance which we experience, when our bodies give rise to, or resist, motion

If I throw a ball, I have a sense of effort which ends when the ball leaves my hand; and if I catch a ball, I have a sense of resistance which comes to an end with the quiescence of the ball In the forone fro been received fronet, and the feeling that the net endeavours to pull the iron one way in the same manner as he endeavours to pull it in the opposite direction, is very strong

As Hume says:--

”No animal can put external bodies in motion without the sentiment of a _nisus_, or endeavour; and every ani from the stroke or blow of an external object that is in motion These sensations, which are merely animal, and from which we can, _a priori_, draw no inference, we are apt to transfer to inanis whenever they transfer or receive motion”--(IV p 91, _note_)

It is obviously, however, an absurdity not less gross than that of supposing the sensation of warine that the subjective sensation of effort or resistance in ourselves can be present in external objects, when they stand in the relation of causes to other objects

To the arguht to suppose the relation of cause and effect to contain so more than invariable succession, because, e ourselves act as causes, or in volition, we are conscious of exerting power; Hu we call power except as effort or resistance; and that we have not the slightestto do with the production of bodily es And he points out, as Descartes and Spinoza had done before him, that when voluntary motion takes place, that which ill is not the i which is separated fro chain of causes and effects If the will is the cause of the uard who gives the order to go on, is the cause of the transport of a train from one station to another

”We learn from anatomy, that the immediate object of power in voluntary motion is not the member itself which is moved, but certainstill h which the ated, ere it reach the member itself, whose motion is the immediate object of volition Can there be a more certain proof that the power by which the whole operation is perfor directly and fully known by an inward sentiree ible? Here the mind wills a certain event: Immediately another event, unknown to ourselves, and totally different from the one intended, is produced: This event produces another equally unknown: Till at last, through a long succession, the desired event is produced”--(IV p 78)

A still stronger argu an objective existence to force or power, on the strength of our supposed direct intuition of power in voluntary acts, ed from the unquestionable fact, that we do not know, and cannot know, that volition does cause corporeal reat deal to be said in favour of the view that it is no cause, but merely a concomitant of that motion But the nature of volition will be more fitly considered hereafter

FOOTNOTE:

[26] Hume, however, expressly includes the ”records of ourhis matters of fact--(IV p 33)

CHAPTER VII

THE ORDER OF NATURE: MIRACLES

If our beliefs of expectation are based on our beliefs of memory, and anticipation is only inverted recollection, it necessarily follows that every belief of expectation implies the belief that the future will have a certain resemblance to the past From the first hour of experience, onwards, this belief is constantly being verified, until old age is inclined to suspect that experience has nothing new to offer And when the experience of generation after generation is recorded, and a single book tells us more than Methuselah could have learned, had he spent every waking hour of his thousand years in learning; when apparent disorders are found to be only the recurrent pulses of a sloorking order, and the wonder of a year becomes the commonplace of a century; when repeated and minute examination never reveals a break in the chain of causes and effects; and the whole edifice of practical life is built upon our faith in its continuity; the belief that that chain has never been broken and will never be broken, becoest and most justifiable of human convictions And it must be admitted to be a reasonable request, if we ask those ould have us put faith in the actual occurrence of interruptions of that order, to produce evidence in favour of their view, not only equal, but superior, in weight to that which leads us to adopt ours

This is the essential argument of Hume's famous disquisition upon able But it must be admitted that Hume has surrounded the kernel of his essay with a shell of very doubtful value

The first step in this, as in all other discussions, is to co of the terumentation whether miracles are possible, and, if possible, credible, is reed what they mean by the word ”miracles”

Hume, with less than his usual perspicuity, but in accordance with a common practice of believers in the miraculous, defines a miracle as a ”violation of the laws of nature,” or as ”a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of soent”

There ainst every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation And as an uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is here a direct and full proof, froainst the existence of any miracle; nor can such a proof be destroyed or the miracle rendered credible but by an opposite proof which is superior”--(IV p

134)

Every one of these dicta appears to be open to serious objection

The word ”iti wonderful

Cicero applies it as readily to the fancies of philosophers, ”Portenta et ies of priests And the source of the wonder which a miracle excites is the belief, on the part of those itness it, that it transcends or contradicts ordinary experience

The definition of a miracle as a ”violation of the laws of nature” is, in reality, an ee which, on the face of the matter, cannot be justified For ”nature” means neither more nor less than that which is; the sum of phenomena presented to our experience; the totality of events past, present, and to come Every event must be taken to be a part of nature, until proof to the contrary is supplied And such proof is, from the nature of the case, impossible

Hume asks:--