es. We perceive clearly that
there must be a connection of some sort between antecedent and
consequent, without which the first certainly _would not_ and, we fancy,
_could not_ have followed the first. We perceive, in short, that the
second followed _because_ the first preceded. If fire were an animated
being, capable of forming and manifesting volitions; and if we observed
that whenever it wished to emit heat, heat was emitted; and that
whenever it wished to withhold heat, heat was withheld; and if we were
thereupon to say that fire has the power of emitting or withholding heat
at its pleasure, our words surely would not be destitute of
signification; they would certainly possess some meaning, and that a
very obvious one. And so they as certainly do when we say that the mind
has power over those bodily movements which we observe to take place and
to cease in constant conformity with its will. I am not saying that what
they mean is necessarily truth--we will come to that presently--all I
say as yet is, that they mean something, and that that something,
whether it be a real or only an imaginary perception, is perfectly
fitted to be the original of that idea of 'power' _connecting_ cause and
effect, or of 'connection' _between_ cause and effect, which Hume
maintains does not exist, because there is no original from which it
can have been copied. It matters not that we are quite ignorant of what
nature is the something from which our idea of power possessed by the
mind over the body is derived, and which, for aught we know, may reside,
not in the mind, but in the body, and may consist, not of any strength
inherent in the former, but of loyalty and docility inherent in the
latter. Just as the authority of a popular general over a
well-disciplined army is not the less real because the soldiers, every
one of whose lives is at the general's disposal, might, if so inclined,
mutiny _en masse_, so it can make no difference in the mind's power over
the body whether the mind be intrinsically able to enforce obedience, or
the limbs be so constituted as to be unable to disobey. As little does
it matter that we are also ignorant of the mode in which the mind's
behests are communicated to the members. It is not the less certain that
in some mode or other they are communicated. Neither does it signify
more that the mind does not communicate directly with the part of the
body which it desires to influence, and acts upon that part only by