Page:Treatise of Human Nature (1888).djvu/677

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
653
A TREATISE OF HUMAN NATURE.

is constantly conjoined with thought and is different from it, and so may be, and actually is, the cause of thought and perception, 248; a dilemma, showing that we must be content to regard all constantly conjoined objects as causes and effects, otherwise there can be no such cause as God, 248-9 (cf. 149).

§ 13. In plants and animals we suppose 'a sympathy of parts to a common end,' and 'suppose that they bear each other the reciprocal relation of cause and effect,' 259; the mind a system of different perceptions which mutually produce, destroy, and influence one another, 261; the notion of causation or a chain of causes which gives rise to personal identity derived from memory, 261; but it is possible to extend the chain of causes beyond memory, 262.

§ 14. Will (v. Necessity), 400f.; will only a cause, and like other causes has no discoverable connexion with its eilects, 632; in case of actions we have often to suppose contrary and concealed causes, 404, 461 n (cf. 132); the necessity of any action is not a quality in the agent, but a determination of the mind of a spectator, 408 (cf. 166).

Ceremonies—their influence on imagination, 99.

Certainty (v. Probability, Cause, § 8); only four out of seven philosophical relations are objects of knowledge (q. v.) and certainty, 70 (cf. 81, 87, 104); results from experience in arguments from cause and effect, 124 (cf. 153); in particular points not to be denied himself by the sceptic, 273 (v. Scepticism).

Chance—(v. Cause, 5 8) excluded by constant conjunction, 4; and probability, 124 f.; the negation of cause and=total indifference: hence all chances equal, and probability consists in a superior number of equal chances, 125; this combination of chances implies a mixture of cause among the chances, 126; what is the effect of a superior combination of equal chances on the mind, so as to produce belief or assent? 127; each chance=an impulse of the mind, the original impulse being divided into as many impulses as there are chances, 129; probability of chances=the superior vivacity of any superior combination of these impulses, 130; what the vulgar call chance is nothing but a secret and concealed cause, 130; no medium between chance and necessity, 171; 'liberty of indifference'=chance, 407-8 (cf. 125); rules of stability of property depend largely on chance, 514.

Character—possibility of inferring actions from character, 400 f.; something durable and constant in man which gives his actions moral quality, 411 (cf. 477); only character and actions capable of exciting the peculiar pleasure which we call virtue, and that only when 'considered in general,' 472; actions only virtuous as the sign of some quality or character; it must depend on durable principles of the mind which extend over the whole conduct and enter into the personal character, 575 (cf. 349); it is the effect of the character of a