matter, I think, may be accounted for after the following manner. If we
examine the operations of body, and the production of effects from their
causes, we shall find that all our faculties can never carry us farther
in our knowledge of this relation than barely to observe that particular
objects are _constantly conjoined_ together, and that the mind is
carried, by a _customary transition,_ from the appearance of one to the
belief of the other. But though this conclusion concerning human
ignorance be the result of the strictest scrutiny of this subject, men
still entertain a strong propensity to believe that they penetrate
farther into the powers of nature, and perceive something like a
necessary connexion between the cause and the effect. When again they
turn their reflections towards the operations of their own minds, and
_feel_ no such connexion of the motive and the action; they are thence
apt to suppose, that there is a difference between the effects which
result from material force, and those which arise from thought and
intelligence. But being once convinced that we know nothing farther of
causation of any kind than merely the _constant conjunction_ of objects,
and the consequent _inference_ of the mind from one to another, and
finding that these two circumstances are universally allowed to have
place in voluntary actions; we may be more easily led to own the same
necessity common to all causes. And though this reasoning may contradict
the systems of many philosophers, in ascribing necessity to the
determinations of the will, we shall find, upon reflection, that they
dissent from it in words only, not in their real sentiment. Necessity,
according to the sense in which it is here taken, has never yet been
rejected, nor can ever, I think, be rejected by any philosopher. It may
only, perhaps, be pretended that the mind can perceive, in the
operations of matter, some farther connexion between the cause and
effect; and connexion that has not place in voluntary actions of
intelligent beings. Now whether it be so or not, can only appear upon