Repetition Does Not Create Nor Discover Any Innate Power

[The inability of repetition to create an original idea is proven by:]

1. The repetition of like objects in like relations of succession and contiguity discovers nothing new in any one of them, since we cannot:

• draw any inference from it, nor
• make it a subject of our demonstrative or probable reasonings (Section 6).

If we could draw an inference, it would be of no consequence in the present case, since no kind of reasoning can create a new idea such as this idea of power.

Wherever we reason, we must antecedently have clear ideas, which may be the objects of our reasoning.

The conception always precedes the understanding.

Where the one is obscure, the other is uncertain.

Where the one fails, the other must fail also.

2. This repetition of similar objects in similar situations produces nothing new in these objects or in any external body.

The several instances we have of the conjunction of resembling causes and effects are in themselves entirely independent.

The communication of motion, which I see resulting from the shock of two billiard-balls, is totally distinct from the motion from the shock I saw a year ago.

These impulses have no influence on each other.

They are entirely divided by time and place.

One might have existed and communicated motion, though the other never had been in being.

There is then nothing new discovered or produced in any objects by:

• their constant conjunction, and
• the uninterrupted resemblance of their relations of succession and contiguity.

The ideas of necessity, power, and efficacy are derived from this resemblance.

These ideas, therefore, represent nothing that belongs or can belong to the objects constantly conjoined.

This argument is perfectly unanswerable.

Similar instances are still the first source of our idea of power or need in causes and effects.

They have no influence by their similarity either on each other, or on any external object.

We must, therefore, look elsewhere for the origin of that idea.

The several resembling instances, which give rise to the idea of power:

• have no influence on each other, and
• can never produce any new quality in the object, which can be the model of that idea.

Yet the observation of this resemblance produces a new impression in the mind, which is its real model.

For after we have observed the resemblance in a sufficient number of instances, we immediately feel the mind’s determination to:

• pass from one object to its usual attendant, and
• conceive it in a stronger light because of that relation.

This determination is the only effect of the resemblance.

It must be the same with power or effictiveness, whose idea is derived from the resemblance.

The several instances of resembling conjunctions lead us into the notion of power and necessity.

These instances are:

• totally distinct from each other, and
• only united in the mind, which observes them and collects their ideas.

The need to connect causes and effects, then, is:

• the effect of this observation,
• nothing but an internal impression of the mind, or
• a determination to carry our thoughts from one object to another.

Without considering it in this view, we can never:

• arrive at the most distant notion of it, or
• be able to attribute it to:
  • external or internal objects,
  • spirit or body, and
  • causes or effects.

The connection needed between causes and effects is the foundation of our inference from one to the other.

The foundation of our inference is the transition arising from the accustomed union.

Therefore, these are the same.

The idea of necessity or need between causes and effects arises from some impression.

Our senses cannot convey an impression which can create a need.

Therefore, the idea of a need must be derived from some:

• internal impression, or
• impression of reflection.

The only internal impression that has any relation to necessity is the propensity produced by habit to pass from an object to the idea of its usual attendant.

Therefore, this is the essence of necessity.

Necessity exists in the mind, not in objects.

It is impossible for us to ever create the most distant idea of necessity as a quality in bodies.

Either we have no idea of necessity, or necessity is nothing but the thought’s determination to pass from:

• causes to effects, and
• effects to causes, according to their experienced union.

The necessity which makes 2 * 2 = 4, or three angles of a triangle equal to two right ones, lies only in the act of the understanding which considers and compares these ideas.

Similarly, the necessity or power which unites causes and effects, lies in the mind’s determination to pass from the one to the other.

The effectiveness or energy of causes is not placed in:

• the causes themselves,
• the deity, nor
• the concurrence of these two principles.

It belongs entirely to the soul, which considers the union of objects in all past instances.

The real power of causes is placed in the soul along with their connection and necessity.

This is the most violent paradox that I have advanced in this treatise.

It is merely by dint of solid proof and reasoning that I can ever hope for this paradox to:

• be accepted, and
• overcome mankind’s long-established prejudices.

We must often repeat to ourselves that the simple view of any two objects or actions, however related, can never give us any idea of power or of a connection between them.

The idea of the power between objects arises from the repetition of their union.

The repetition does not discover nor cause anything in the objects.

It has an influence only on the mind, by that customary transition it produces.

Therefore, this customary transition is the same with the power and necessity which are:

• consequently qualities of perceptions, not of objects,
• internally felt by the soul, and
• not perceived externally in bodies.

There is commonly an astonishment attending everything extraordinary.

This astonishment changes immediately into esteem or contempt, as we approve or disapprove of the subject.

The foregoing reasoning is the shortest and most decisive imaginable.

But I am afraid that bias will prevail in most readers.

It will give them a prejudice against the present doctrine.

This contrary bias is easily accounted for.

The mind has a great propensity to:

• spread itself on external objects, and
• imbue in them any internal impressions which they trigger.

These internal impressions always appear at the same time that these objects discover themselves to the senses.

For example, if certain sounds and smells always attend certain visible objects, we naturally imagine a conjunction, even in place, between the objects and qualities, even if the qualities:

• do not allow such conjunction, and
• do not exist.

This is explained in Part 4, Section 5.