Page:An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - Hume (1748).djvu/66

 where we consult not Experience; so must we also esteem the suppos'd Tye or Connexion betwixt the Cause and Effect, which binds them together, and renders it impossible, that any other Effect could result from the Operation of that Cause. When I see, for Instance, a Billiard-ball moving in a strait Line towards another; even suppose Motion in the second Ball should by Accident be suggested to me, as the Result of their Contact or Impulse; might I not conceive, that a hundred other different Events might as well follow from that Cause? May not both these Balls remain at absolute Rest? May not the first Ball return in a strait Line, or leap off from the second in any Line or Direction? All these Suppositions are consistent and conceivable. Why then should we give the Preference to one, which is no more consistent nor conceivable than the rest? All our Reasonings a priori will never be able to shew us any Foundation for this Preference.

a word, then, every Effect is a distinct Event from its Cause. It could not, therefore, be discover'd in the Cause, and the first Invention or Conception of it, a priori, must be entirely arbitrary. And even after it is suggested, the Conjunction of it with the Cause must appear equally arbitrary; since there are always many other Effects, which, to Reason, must seem fully as consistent and natural. 'Twould,