The real principle
We seem to see that in a single example of the action of various bodies, we cannot discover anything, though we examine it with great care; we can only find that various things appear one after another, but we cannot understand any power by which the cause proceeds, and any connection between the cause and its hypothetical result. The same difficulty arises in thinking of the action of the mind on the body - here too we see only the movement of the latter following the will of the former, but we cannot observe, nor conceive, the bond which unites that movement and that will, or the power by which the mind produces this result. Nor is the will in the least susceptible of understanding all its powers over its own faculties and ideas. Thus, in general, we see that there is not a single example of connection in all nature that we can imagine. All things seem to be completely loose and separate. One thing follows another, but we never see any link between them. They seem to be "joined" together, but not "connected" together. We can have no idea of anything that is not presented to our external or internal senses, so the necessary conclusion seems to be that we have no idea of "connection" or "capacity" at all, and that these terms, whether used in philosophical inference or in everyday inference, are absolutely meaningless. According to this experience, we can define cause as an object that is accompanied by something else, where we can say that everything that resembles the first object is necessarily accompanied by an object that resembles the second object. Or, in other words, if the first object did not exist, the second object need not have existed either. After the appearance of a cause, the mind is often shifted to the idea of "result" through a habitual transference. This layer is also what we have experienced. Therefore, we can also define cause according to this experience, saying that cause is an object that is accompanied by something else, and it will transfer the mind to that other object as soon as it appears.
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