"When any natural object or event is presented, it is impossible
for us, by any sagacity or penetration, to discover, or even
conjecture, without experience, what event will result from it, or
to carry our foresight beyond that object, which is immediately
present to the memory and senses. Even after one instance or
experiment, where we have observed a particular event to follow
upon another, we are not entitled to form a general rule, or
foretell what will happen in like cases; it being justly esteemed
an unpardonable temerity to judge of the whole course of nature
from one single experiment, however accurate or certain. But when
one particular species of events has always, in all instances, been
conjoined with another, we make no longer any scruple of
foretelling one upon the appearance of the other, and of employing
that reasoning which can alone assure us of any matter of fact or
existence. We then call the one object _Cause_, the other _Effect_.
We suppose that there is some connexion between them: some power in
the one, by which it infallibly produces the other, and operates
with the greatest certainty and strongest necessity.... But there
is nothing in a number of instances, different from every single
instance, which is supposed to be exactly similar; except only,
that after a repetition 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.
Pages:
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148