A Treatise of Human Nature — David Hume — John Shaqi
A Treatise of Human Nature
David Hume · en
It will only be proper, before we leave this subject, to draw some
corrollaries from it, by which we may remove several prejudices and
popular errors, that have very much prevailed in philosophy. First, We
may learn from the foregoing, doctrine, that all causes are of the
same kind, and that in particular there is no foundation for that
distinction, which we sometimes make betwixt efficient causes and causes
sine qua non; or betwixt efficient causes, and formal, and material, and
exemplary, and final causes. For as our idea of efficiency is derived
from the constant conjunction of two objects, wherever this is observed,
the cause is efficient; and where it is not, there can never be a cause
of any kind. For the same reason we must reject the distinction betwixt
cause and occasion, when supposed to signify any thing essentially
different from each other. If constant conjunction be implyed in what we
call occasion, it is a real cause. If not, it is no relation at all, and
cannot give rise to any argument or reasoning.
Secondly, The same course of reasoning will make us conclude, that there
is but one kind of necessity, as there is but one kind of cause, and
that the common distinction betwixt moral and physical necessity
is without any foundation in nature. This clearly appears from the
precedent explication of necessity. It is the constant conjunction of
objects, along with the determination of the mind, which constitutes
a physical necessity: And the removal of these is the same thing with
chance. As objects must either be conjoined or not, and as the mind must
either be determined or not to pass from one object to another, it
is impossible to admit of any medium betwixt chance and an absolute
necessity. In weakening this conjunction and determination you do not
change the nature of the necessity; since even in the operation of
bodies, these have different degrees of constancy and force, without
producing a different species of that relation.
The distinction, which we often make betwixt POWER and the EXERCISE of
it, is equally without foundation.