never give us any idea,
of power, or of a connexion betwixt them: that this idea arises from
the repetition of their union: that the repetition neither discovers nor
causes any thing in the objects, but has an influence only on the mind,
by that customary transition it produces: that this customary transition
is, therefore, the same with the power and necessity; which are
consequently qualities of perceptions, not of objects, and are
internally felt by the soul, and not perceivd externally in bodies?
There is commonly an astonishment attending every thing extraordinary;
and this astonishment changes immediately into the highest degree
of esteem or contempt, according as we approve or disapprove of the
subject. I am much afraid, that though the foregoing reasoning appears
to me the shortest and most decisive imaginable; yet with the generality
of readers the biass of the mind will prevail, and give them a prejudice
against the present doctrine.

This contrary biass is easily accounted for. It is a common observation,
that the mind has a great propensity to spread itself on external
objects, and to conjoin with them any internal impressions, which they
occasion, and which always make their appearance at the same time that
these objects discover themselves to the senses. Thus as certain sounds
and smells are always found to attend certain visible objects, we
naturally imagine a conjunction, even in place, betwixt the objects and
qualities, though the qualities be of such a nature as to admit of no
such conjunction, and really exist no where. But of this more fully
hereafter [Part IV, Sect. 5.]. Mean while it is sufficient to observe,
that the same propensity is the reason, why we suppose necessity and
power to lie in the objects we consider, not in our mind that considers
them; notwithstanding it is not possible for us to form the most distant
idea of that quality, when it is not taken for the determination of the
mind, to pass from the idea of an object to that of its usual attendant.

But though this be the only reasonable account we can give of necessity,
the contrary notion if; so riveted in the mind from the principles
above-mentioned, that I doubt not but my sentiments will be treated by
many as extravagant and ridiculous. What! the efficacy of causes lie
in the determination of the mind! As if causes did not operate entirely
independent of the mind, and would not continue their operation,
even though there was no m