Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/563

SEPAEATION OF QUESTIONS IN PHILOSOPHY. the principle of Causality and the (teleological) principle of Design ? Is the latter merely a particular application of the former ; and, if so, may not the mode of expressing the one suggest the correct form of expression for the other? If "Design implies a designer " is adequate for the teleologist, is there any- thing inadequate in the corresponding form for the metaphysician, " Effect implies a Cause " ? If the nexus in the first case is acknowledged to be that of implication, need we suppose it to be anything different in the second ? But now, fourthly, conies up the question of genesis. The points involved are similar to those noted under the origin of the notion, but with a difference ; and it is this circumstance of a difference that necessitates our sundering the problems. We have here, of course, the alternative of Experience or Intuition ; but if we accept the first of these alternatives, we have not only to account for men's firm belief in the uniformity of Causation, we have also to show whether this belief is legitimate or illegi- timate. Hume, as is well known, found the key in Custom ; but he thought the very fact of this discovery proved the illegiti- macy of the product. The non-sennit r has not escaped the notice of his successors ; and there are few truths more worth insisting upon than this that an experiential origin to knowledge does not necessarily imply uncertainty and error, much less treachery and deceit. At this point also comes up consideration of proof. What is the evidence for the principle '? how best may it be established ? If we have here a "first principle," then Intuition will be suffi- cient criterion, and both the possibility and the need of proof will be denied. But if, in face of the circumstance that there is no unanimity among philosophers either as to the correct expres- sion of the formula or as to the range of its application or indeed as to any other point connected with it, we have difficulty in accepting this solution of the problem, then, proof of some sort is imperative, and to refuse to meet this requirement is tanta- mount to a confession of impotence. The fifth point confronts us with the range of Causation. Does it hold simply in the external world, among the objects and events of Nature ; or does its sway embrace the region of Mind as well? Is the whole of nature and the whole of mind included; or is a portion of both or of either to be exempted from its opera- tion? We now inevitably touch the subject of miracles and of free-will : but, whatever be the range we allow the principle, the point to be particularly observed is, that our decision need not affect either our statement of the law or our view of the notion. The law may hold and be valid in the physical world, and we may regulate our lives in accordance with it, whatever be our belief as to the miraculous and the supernatural ; and philosophers who trace their conception of Cause to Will are precisely those who are most Likely to deny the strict operation