customary connexion or transition of the imagination is the only
circumstance in which they differ. In every other particular they are
alike. The first instance which we saw of motion communicated by the
shock of two billiard balls (to return to this obvious illustration) is
exactly similar to any instance that may, at present, occur to us;
except only, that we could not, at first, _infer_ one event from the
other; which we are enabled to do at present, after so long a course of
uniform experience. I know not whether the reader will readily apprehend
this reasoning. I am afraid that, should I multiply words about it, or
throw it into a greater variety of lights, it would only become more
obscure and intricate. In all abstract reasonings there is one point of
view which, if we can happily hit, we shall go farther towards
illustrating the subject than by all the eloquence and copious
expression in the world. This point of view we should endeavour to
reach, and reserve the flowers of rhetoric for subjects which are more
adapted to them.



SECTION VIII.

OF LIBERTY AND NECESSITY.


PART I.


62. It might reasonably be expected in questions which have been
canvassed and disputed with great eagerness, since the first origin of
science and philosophy, that the meaning of all the terms, at least,