Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Elements of the philosophy of the human mind / by Dugald Stewart. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
87/608 (page 71)
![SECTION II. 0/ certain natural Prejudices, •which feem to have given rife to the common Theories of Perception^ IT feems now to be pretty generally agreed among philofophers, that there is no inftance in which we are able to perceive a neceflary connexion be- tween twq fucceffive events; or to comprehend in what manner the one proceeds from the other, as its caufe. From experience, indeed, we learn, that there are many events, which are conftantly conjoined, fo that the one invariably follows the other: but it is pofllble, for any thing we know to the contrary, that this connexion, though a conftant one, as far as our obfervation has reached, may not be a neceflary con- nexion ; nay, it is poflible, that there may be no ne- ceflary connexions among any of the phenomena we fee: and, if there are any fuch connexions exifting, we may reft aflured that we fliall never be able to dif- cover them*. I fliall endeavour to fliew, in another part of this work, that the doarine I have now ftated does not ead to thefe fceptical conclufions, concerning the ex- 1 ence of a Firft Caufe, which an author of great ingenuity has attempted to deduce from it.—At pre- ent, it is fufficient for my purpofe to remark, that tJie word caufe is ufed, both by philofophers and the * See Note [C], F4 vulgar^](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28041598_0087.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
