Page:An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - Hume (1748).djvu/84

 a sudden into this World; he would, indeed, immediately observe a continual Succession of Objects, and one Event following another; but he would not be able to discover any thing farther. He would not, at first, by any Reasoning, be able to reach the Idea of Cause and Effect; since the particular Powers, by which all natural Operations are perform'd, never appear to the Senses; nor is it reasonable to conclude, merely because one Event, in one Instance, precedes another, that therefore the one is the Cause, and the other the Effect. Their Conjunction may be arbitrary and casual. There may be no Reason to infer the Existence of the one from the Appearance of the other. And in a word, such a Person, without more Experience, could never employ his Conjecture or Reasoning concerning any Matter of Fact, or be assur'd of any thing beyond what was immediately present to his Memory and Senses.

again, that he has acquir'd more Experience, and has liv'd so long in the World as to have observ'd similar Objects or Events to be constantly conjoin'd together; What is the Consequence of this Experience? He immediately infers the Existence or the one Object from the Appearance of the other. Yet he has not, by all his Experience, acquir'd any Idea or Knowledge of the secret Power, by which the one Object produces the other; nor is it, by any Pro-