nt of the true
and unknown cause, which might allowably be present or be absent.
This, then, is the startling and mysterious phenomenon of the human
understanding--that, in a certain notion, which is indispensable to
the coherency of our whole experience, indispensable to the
establishing any _nexus_ between the different parts and successions
of our whole train of notices, we include an accessary notion of
necessity, which yet has no justification or warrant, no assignable
derivation from any known or possible case of human experience. We
have one idea at least--viz. the idea of causation--which transcends
our possible experience by one important element, the element of
_necessity_, that never can have been derived from the only source of
ideas recognised by the philosophy of this day. A Lockian never can
find his way out of this dilemma. The experience (whether it be the
experience of sensation or the experience of reflection) which he
adopts for his master-key, never will unlock this case; for the sum
total of human experience, collected from all ages, can avail only to
tell us what _is_, but never what _must be_. The idea of necessity is
absolutely transcendant to experience, _per se_, and must be derived
from some other source. From what source? Could Hume tell us? No: he,
who had started the game so acutely (for with every allowance for the
detection made in Thomas Aquinas, of the original suggestion, as
recorded in the _Biographia Literaria_ of Coleridge, we must still
allow great merit of a secondary kind to Hume for his modern revival
and restatement of the doctrine), this same acute philosopher broke
down confessedly in his attempt to hunt the game down. His solution is
worthless.

Kant, however, having caught the original scent from Hume, was more
fortunate. He saw, at a glance, that here was a test applied to the
Lockian philosophy, which showed, at the very least, its
_insufficiency_. If it were good even for so much as it
explained--which Burke is disposed to receive as a sufficient warrant
for the favourable reception of a new hypothesis--at any rate, it now
appeared that there was something which it could _not_ explain. But
next, Kant took a large step in advance _proprio morte_. Reflecting
upon the one idea adduced by Hume, as transcending the ordinary
source of ideas, he began to ask himself, whether it were likely that
this idea should stand alone? Were there not other ideas in the same
predicament;