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it as a sort of bond or link ; something distinct both from the cause and the effect , which serves to unite or bind them together . According to another numerous class of metaphysical writers , we have in fact no idea or belief of power at all , even as an attribute
of our own minds . All we know is , that the cause precedes and the effect follows ; and , by accurate observation , we can trace certain laws according to which it appears that this succession of appearances is governed ;—but how this connexion takes place is to us a profound mystery . Even as an attribute of our own minds , it is denied by them that we have any conception or belief of power , which does not resolve itself into a new perception of the uniform and invariable order of antecedents and consequents . Whea one ball strikes against another , impulse precedes and motion follows ; in like manner , when we desire to move a limb , volition precedes and muscular contraction follows ; and this , say they , is all we know of the matter . This paradox appears to have arisen from their having erroneously taken it for granted that the idea of power is obtained merely by attending to the invariable order of succession in material objects . This invariable order , though it may imply the notion and belief of power , is far from constituting or completing them . The idea is derived , in the first instance , from our own consciousness ; and the attribute itself , when thus considered , belongs to the mind exclusively . It results in fact from the combined effect of a great variety of distinct impressions in very early life .
The above I conceive to be , in the main , a correct description of the manner in which this idea gradually arises in the human mind . It . is observable that , in the first , and perhaps also in the , last and most matured form in which it appears , it is referred exclusively to the mind itself ; and is only ascribed by analogy to those inanimate substances which are vulgarly believed to be the efficient causes of the various phenomena or changes which occur in nature . In all the varieties of its application , it appears to involve a tacit reference to volition , without which it seems impossible to conceive of any real energy or agency . To guard against misconception it may , however , be proper to remark before we proceed further , that though the idea of power appears to us to be thus acquired , and the belief in its existence as an attribute of created minds , thus generated , it does not therefore follow that this idea is correct , or this belief well grounded . It is , accordingly , a blundering together of these two very distinct things which has probably led to no small portion of the paradoxes that abound in this somewhat abstruse speculation . The belief may be erroneous ; but that we really have this conception and Relief of power as something in ourselves which renders us more than the mere ' occasions or antecedents / however uniform or invariable , of our voluntary actions , appears so evident that it is
Untitled Article
412 Thoughts on Power .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1832, page 412, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1814/page/52/
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