It is there shown, at large, that "every demonstration which has been
produced for the necessity of a cause is fallacious and sophistical" (I.
p. 111); it is affirmed, that "there is no absolute nor metaphysical
necessity that every beginning of existence should be attended with such
an object" [as a cause] (I. p. 227); and it is roundly asserted, that it
is "easy for us to conceive any object to be non-existent this moment
and existent the next, without conjoining to it the distinct idea of a
cause or productive principle" (I. p. 111). So far from the axiom, that
whatever begins to exist must have a cause of existence, being
"self-evident," as Philo calls it, Hume spends the greatest care in
showing that it is nothing but the product of custom, or experience.
And the doubt thus forced upon one, whether Philo ought to be taken as
even, so far, Hume's mouth-piece, is increased when we reflect that we
are dealing with an acute reasoner; and that there is no difficulty in
drawing the deduction from Hume's own definition of a cause, that the
very phrase, a "first cause," involves a contradiction in terms. He lays
down that,--
"'Tis an established axiom both in natural and moral philosophy,
that an object, which exists for any time in its full perfection
without producing another, is not its sole cause; but is assisted
by some other principle which pushes it from its state of
inactivity, and makes it exert that energy, of which it was
secretly possessed.
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