surprises them, and which, they think, cannot be accounted for from the
common powers of nature. But philosophers, who carry their scrutiny a
little farther, immediately perceive that, even in the most familiar
events, the energy of the cause is as unintelligible as in the most
unusual, and that we only learn by experience the frequent _Conjunction_
of objects, without being ever able to comprehend anything like
_Connexion_ between them.

[13] [Greek: theos apo maechanaes.]

55. Here, then, many philosophers think themselves obliged by reason to
have recourse, on all occasions, to the same principle, which the vulgar
never appeal to but in cases that appear miraculous and supernatural.
They acknowledge mind and intelligence to be, not only the ultimate and
original cause of all things, but the immediate and sole cause of every
event which appears in nature. They pretend that those objects which are
commonly denominated _causes,_ are in reality nothing but _occasions;_
and that the true and direct principle of every effect is not any power
or force in nature, but a volition of the Supreme Being, who wills that
such particular objects should for ever be conjoined with each other.
Instead of saying that one billiard-ball moves another by a force which
it has derived from the author of nature, it is the Deity himself, they
say, who, by a particular volition, moves the second ball, being
determined to this operation by the impulse of the first ball, in
consequence of those general laws which he has laid down to himself in
the government of the universe. But philosophers advancing still in
their inquiries, discover that, as we are totally ignorant of the power
on which depends the mutual operation of bodies, we are no less ignorant
of that power on which depends the operation of mind on body, or of body
on mind; nor are we able, either from our senses or consciousness, to