Inquiry Into the Relation of Cause and Effect

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A. Constable, 1818 - 569 páginas
 

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Página 475 - This belief is the necessary result of placing the mind in such circumstances. It is an operation of the soul, when we are so situated, as unavoidable as to feel the passion of love, when we receive benefits; or hatred, when we meet with injuries. All these operations are a species of natural instincts, which no rea- s8t soning or process of the thought and understanding is able, either to produce, or to prevent.
Página 448 - We then feel a new sentiment or impression, to wit, a customary connexion in the thought or imagination between one object and its usual attendant; and this sentiment is the original of that idea which we seek for.
Página 428 - ... is carried by habit, upon the appearance of one event, to expect its usual attendant, and to believe that it will exist. This connexion, therefore, which we feel in the mind, this customary transition of the imagination from one object to its usual attendant, is the sentiment or impression from which we form the idea of power or necessary connexion.
Página 444 - All reasonings concerning matter of fact seem to be founded on the relation of Cause and Effect. By means of that relation alone we can go beyond the evidence of our memory and senses.
Página 368 - ... from them. When a child has felt the sensation of pain from touching the flame of a candle, he will be careful not to put his hand near any candle, but will expect a similar effect from a cause which is similar in its sensible qualities and appearance.
Página 400 - We can, in our conception, join the head of a man to the body of a horse ; but it is not in our power to believe that such an animal has ever really existed.
Página 9 - The great character of all these changes, however, is the regularity which they exhibit ; a regularity, that enables us to accommodate our plans, with perfect foresight, to circumstances which may not yet have begun to exist. We observe the varying phenomena, as they are continually taking place around us and within us, and the observation may seem to be, and truly is, of a single moment; but the knowledge which it gives us is far more extensive : it is, virtually, information of the past and of...
Página 446 - When any natural object or event is presented, it is impossible for us, by any sagacity or penetration, to discover, or even conjecture, without experience, what event will result from it, or to carry our foresight beyond that object which is immediately present to the memory and senses. Even after one instance or experiment where we have observed a particular event to follow upon another, we are not entitled to form...
Página 338 - He tells us that when we suspect a philosophical term is used without any meaning or idea, " we need but inquire, from what Impression is that supposed idea derived ? and if it be impossible to assign any, this will serve to confirm our suspicion " that the term is meaningless.
Página 445 - One event follows another; but we never can observe any tie between them. They seem conjoined but never connected. And as we can have no idea of anything which never appeared to our outward sense or inward sentiment...

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