oo monstrous for even metaphysics to be equal to. But
although necessarily conscious of these volitions, the mind is only
momentarily conscious. It pays them barely an instant's attention, and
therefore instantaneously forgets them, retaining no more trace of them
than if they had never been.

The doctrine of Hume's which next confronts us is his famous one
concerning Cause and Effect. He commences it by explaining that all
objects of human enquiry are divisible into two kinds--1. Relations of
Ideas, like those of which geometry, algebra, and arithmetic treat, and
which are either intuitively certain, or 'discoverable by the mere
operation of thought, without dependence on what is anywhere existent in
the universe,' as, for example, the truths demonstrated by Euclid, which
would be equally incontestable even 'though there were never a circle or
a triangle in nature:' 2. Matters of Fact, as, for example, the sun's
rising and setting, or the emission of light and heat by fire, which are
never discoverable by unassisted reason, because of no one of them would
the opposite imply a contradiction or be consequently inconceivable; and
in our knowledge of any one of which we can never 'go beyond the
evidence of our memory and senses,' except by means of reasons derived
from experience of some fact or facts connected in some way or other
with the particular matter of fact we are considering.

So far, all is comparatively plain sailing, but Hume now propounds a
difficulty which he at first presents as seemingly insurmountable, but
which I cannot help thinking to be mainly of his own creation, and which
he himself, almost immediately afterwards, suggests a mode, though a
very inadequate mode, of overcoming. His language here is not marked by
his usual perspicuity, or rather--to speak without respect of
persons--it contradicts itself in most astounding fashion; but his
meaning is not the less certainly the following, for there is no other
construction which his words will bear.

'What,' he asks, 'is the foundation of all conclusions from experience?'
Why is it that, having found that such an object has always been
attended with such an effect, we infer that similar objects will always
be attended with similar effects? The proposition that a certain
antecedent has always been followed by a certain consequent, and the
proposition that the same antecedent will be followed by the same
consequent, are not identical. What, then, is the