TNH 1.3.06.07

The only connection or relation of objects that can lead us beyond the immediate impressions of our memory and senses is that of cause and effect, because it is the only one on which we can base a sound inference from one object to another. The idea of cause and effect is derived from experience, which informs us that certain specific ·kinds of· objects have always been constantly conjoined with each other; and as an object of one of these kinds is supposed to be immediately present through an impression of it, we on that basis expect there to be an object of the other kind. According to this account of things—which I think is entirely unquestionable—•probability is based on •the presumption that the objects of which we have had experience resemble those of which we have had none; so •this presumption can’t possibly arise from •probability. One principle can’t be both the cause and the effect of another. This may be the only proposition about the causal relation that is either intuitively or demonstratively certain!

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