_Locke's Derivation of Cause._--With regard to the origin of the idea of cause, there has been the greatest diversity of opinion. Locke derives it from sense; so do the philosophers of the sensationalist school. We perceive bodies modifying each other, and hence the notion of causality. _Theory of Hume and of Brown._--Hume denies the existence of what we call cause, or power of one object over another. He resolves it into succession or sequence of objects in regular order, and consequent association of them in our thoughts. Essentially the same is the theory of Brown, who resolves cause and effect into simple antecedence and sequence, beyond which we know nothing, and can affirm nothing. _Theory of Leibnitz._--The theory of Leibnitz verges upon the opposite extreme, and assigns the element of power or causal efficiency to every form of existence; every substance is a force, a cause, in itself. _Of Kant._--Kant and his school make cause a merely subjective notion, a law of the understanding, which it impresses upon outward things, a condition of our thought. We observe external phenomena, and, according to this law of our intelligence, are under the necessity of arranging them as cause and effect; but we do not know that, independent of our conception, there exists in reality any thing corresponding to this idea. The tendency of this theory, as well as that of Hume and Brown, to a thorough-going skepticism, is obvious at a glance. The theory of Maine de Biran has been already noticed. V. THE IDEA OF THE BEAUTIFUL, AND OF RIGHT. _These Ideas Intuitive._--- Among the primary ideas awakened in the mind by the faculty of original or intuitive conception, ideas of reason, as some writers would prefer to call them, must be included the notion of the _beautiful_, and also that of _right_--ideas more important in themselves, and in their bearing on human happiness, than almost any others which the mind entertains. That these ideas are to be traced, ultimately, to the originative or intuitive faculty, there can be little doubt. They are simple and primary ideas. They have the characteristics of universality and necessity. They are awakened intuitively and instantaneously in the mind, when the appropriate occasion is presented by sense. There are certain objects in nature and art, which, so soon as perceived, strike us as beautiful. There are certain traits of character and courses of conduct, which, so soon as observed, strike us as morally right and wrong. The ideas of the beautiful and the right are thus awakened in the mind on the perception of the corresponding objects. _Things to be considered respecting them._--Viewed as notions of the intuitive faculty, or original conceptions, it would be in place to consider more particularly the _circumstances_ under which each of these ideas originates, and the _characteristics_ of each; also what _constitutes_, in either case, the object, what constitutes the beautiful and the right.