ent' cause of
any phenomenon. In other words, we can never see a 'necessary
connection' between any two events. He collects passages from earlier
writers to show how Hume had been anticipated; and holds that Bacon's
inadequate view of this truth was a main defect in his theories.[177]
Hence we have a characteristic conclusion. He says, when discussing the
proofs of the existence of God,[178] that we have an 'irresistible
conviction of the _necessity_ of a cause' for every change. Hume,
however, has shown that this can never be a logical necessity. It must
then, argues Stewart, be either a 'prejudice' or an 'intuitive
judgment.' Since it is shown by 'universal consent' not to be a
prejudice, it must be an intuitive judgment. Thus Hume's facts are
accepted; but his inference denied. The actual causal nexus is
inscrutable. The conviction that there must be a connection between
events attributed by Hume to 'custom' is attributed by Stewart to
intuitive belief. Stewart infers that Hume's doctrine is really
favourable to theology. It implies that God gives us the conviction, and
perhaps, as Malebranche held, that God is 'the constantly operating
efficient Cause in the material world.'[179] Stewart's successor, Thomas
Brown, took up this argument on occasion of the once famous 'Leslie
controversy'; and Brown's teaching was endorsed by James Mill and by
John Stuart Mill.

According to J. S. Mill, James Mill and Stewart represented opposite
poles of philosophic thought. I shall have to consider this dictum
hereafter. On the points already noticed Stewart must be regarded as an
ally rather than an opponent of the Locke and Hume tradition. Like them
he appeals unhesitatingly to experience, and cannot find words strong
enough to express his contempt for 'ontological' and scholastic methods.
His 'intuitions' are so far very harmless things, which fall in with
common sense, and enable him to hold without further trouble the beliefs
which, as a matter of fact, are held by everybody. They are an excuse
for not seeking any ultimate explanation in reason. He is, indeed,
opposed to the school which claimed to be the legitimate successor to
Locke, but which evaded Hume's scepticism by diverging towards
materialism. The great representative of this doctrine in England had
been Hartley, and in Stewart's day Hartley's lead had been followed by
Priestley, who attacked Reid from a materialist point of view, by
Priestley's successor, Thomas Bel