l upon another, as was previously done by Hume, or in
the action of the hand upon the ball, or the primary muscles upon the
extremities, or even in the action of the will upon the muscles, as was
done by M. Maine de Biran, we shall find it in none of these cases, not
even in the last; for it is possible there should be a paralysis of the
muscles which deprives the will of power over them, makes it
unproductive, incapable of being a cause, and, consequently, of
suggesting the notion of one. But what no paralysis can prevent is the
action of the will upon itself, the production of a resolution; that is
to say, the act of causation entirely mental, the primitive type of all
causality, of which all external movements are only symbols more or less
imperfect. The first cause for us, is, therefore, the _will_, of which
the first effect is volition. This is at once the highest and the purest
source of the notion of cause, which thus becomes identical with that of
personality. And it is the taking possession, so to speak, of the cause,
as revealed in will and personality, which is the condition for us of
the ulterior or simultaneous conception of external, impersonal
causes."[250]

[Footnote 249: "It is our _immediate consciousness of effort_, when we
exert force to put matter in motion, or to oppose and neutralize force,
which gives us this internal conviction of _power_ and _causation_, so
far as it refers to the material world, and compels us to believe that
whenever we see material objects put in motion from a state of rest, or
deflected from their rectilinear paths and changed in their velocities
if already in motion, it is in consequence of such an _effort_ somehow
exerted."--Herschel's "Outlines of Astronomy," p. 234; see Mansel's
"Prolegomena," p. 133.]

[Footnote 250: "Philosophical Fragments," Preface to first edition.]

Thus much for the origin of the idea of cause. We have the same direct
intuitive knowledge of cause that we have of effect; but we have not yet
rendered a full and adequate account of the _principle of causality_. We
have simply attained the notion of our personal causality, and we can
not arbitrarily substitute our personal causality for all the causes of
the universe, and erect our own experience as a law of the entire
universe. We have, however, already seen (Chap. V.) that the belief in
exterior causation is _necessary_ and _universal_. When a change takes
place, when a new phenomenon presents it