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( Concluded from p . 551 . ) We have denied ourselves the pleasure ^ of a more extended notice of the first two Essays , from a desire to enlarge upon the contents of the third ( on the Uniformity of Causation ) , which forms by far the most important portion of the volume , as the positions it is intended to establish induce more momentous consequences than almost any others in the whole ranee of
human inquiry . It contains little that is new ; but the abstruse questions which formerly were debated among the learned alone are here presented in a manner likely to engage the attention of many who have hitherto been strangers to their attraction . As the influence of this Essay may therefore be powerful and extensive , it is of considerable consequence whether its reasonings are sound and its conclusions just . If not , the time will be welt bestowed which is employed in exposing their fallacy .
The two principal questions to the elucidation of which our author ' s reasonings tend are the doctrine of Philosophical Necessity , and the determination of the legitimate bounds of Testimony . The first chapter is " on the Assumption implied in all our expectations , that like Causes will produce like Effects , or of the future Uniformity of Causation . "
The first declaration that we meet with is , that the belief in the uniformity of causation is an instinctive principle . We doubt it . Have we any belief in the connexion of cause and effect antecedent to experiment ? And if the idea of such connexion is only suggested by experience , is not the prin ^ ciple of Association , which is at the same time the agent in a multitude of other processes , sufficient to account for the belief ? " A burned child dreads the fire , " not from an instinctive belief that fire always burns , but because the pain of the burn is associated in his mind with the sight of the fire . If he were assured that the same fire which hurts him would not
burn his nurse , he would be less incredulous on the subject than his nurse would be , if a similar assurance was made to her : and she , again , might be more easily induced to credit so extraordinary a declaration than the philosopher who understands the theory of combustion . Such degrees of persuasion , we conceive , could not exist , were the minds of these three persons actuated by an instinctive principle . It is unphilosophical to multiply principles unnecessarily ; and it appears to us that the belief in question is generated by association . All the circumstances of life tend so strongly to confirm it , that a very short experience is sufficient to establish it too firmly to be overthrown ; and the assumption of the uniformity of causation becomes the basis of all action , the essential principle of all expectation .
The author carefully points out to his readers the distinction between the physical truth that the same causes produce the same effects , and the mental fact that we assume , or take for granted , this uniformity in the operation of causes . In speaking of the former , he uses the phrase Uniformity of Causation : the latter , he terms an assumption of the uniformity of causation . We prefer the term Uniformity of Causation to that of Necessary Connexion , because our ignorance of the nature of the connexion forbids us to term it necessary or inevitable . Of the essences of substances we have no know-
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ESSA . YS ON THE PURSUIT OF TRUTH . *
* Essays on the Pursuit of Truth , the Progress of Knowledge , and on the Fundamental Principle of all Evidence and Expectation . By the Author of Essays on the Formation and Publication of Opinions . London : Hunter . 1829 .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1829, page 629, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2576/page/29/
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