| Did we never see any but particular conjunctions of objects, entirely different from each other, we should never be able to form any such ideas. |
| But again; suppose we observe several instances, in which the same objects are always conjoined together, we immediately conceive a connexion betwixt them, and begin to draw an inference from one to another. |
| This multiplicity of resembling instances, therefore, constitutes the very essence of power or connexion, and is the source from which the idea of it arises. |
| In order, then, to understand the idea of power, we must consider that multiplicity; nor do I ask more to give a solution of that difficulty, which has so long perplexed us. |
| For thus I reason. |
| The repetition of perfectly similar instances can never alone give rise to an original idea, different from what is to be found in any particular instance, as has been observed, and as evidently follows from our fundamental principle, that all ideas are copyed from impressions. |
| Since therefore the idea of power is a new original idea, not to be found in any one instance, and which yet arises from the repetition of several instances, it follows, that the repetition alone has not that effect, but must either discover or produce something new, which is the source of that idea. |
| Did the repetition neither discover nor produce anything new, our ideas might be multiplyed by it, but would not be enlarged above what they are upon the observation of one single instance. |
| Every enlargement, therefore, (such as the idea of power or connexion) which arises from the multiplicity of similar instances, is copyed from some effects of the multiplicity, and will be perfectly understood by understanding these effects. |
| Wherever we find anything new to be discovered or produced by the repetition, there we must place the power, and must never look for it in any other object. |
| But it is evident, in the first place, that the repetition of like objects in like relations of succession and contiguity discovers nothing new in any one of them: since we can draw no inference from it, nor make it a subject either of our demonstrative or probable reasonings;[SECT. 6.] as has been already proved. |
| Nay suppose we coued draw an inference, it would be of no consequence in the present case; since no kind of reasoning can give rise to a new idea, such as this of power is; but wherever we reason, we must antecedently be possest of clear ideas, which may be the objects of our reasoning. |
| The conception always precedes the understanding; and where the one is obscure, the other is uncertain; where the one fails, the other must fail also. |
| Secondly, It is certain that this repetition of similar objects in similar situations produces nothing new either in these objects, or in any external body. |
| For it will readily be allowed, that the several instances we have of the conjunction of resembling causes and effects are in themselves entirely independent, and that the communication of motion, which I see result at present from the shock of two billiard-balls, is totally distinct from that which I saw result from such an impulse a twelve-month ago. |
| These impulses have no influence on each other. |
| They are entirely divided by time and place; and the one might have existed and communicated motion, though the other never had been in being. |
| There is, then, nothing new either discovered or produced in any objects by their constant conjunction, and by the uninterrupted resemblance of their relations of succession and contiguity. |
| But it is from this resemblance, that the ideas of necessity, of power, and of efficacy, are derived. |
| These ideas, therefore, represent not anything, that does or can belong to the objects, which are constantly conjoined. |
| This is an argument, which, in every view we can examine it, will be found perfectly unanswerable. |