BOOK I PART III
plies the place of this reflection, and is so accus-
tomed to pass from the word to the idea, that
it interposes not a moment’s delay betwixt the
hearing of the one, and the conception of the
other.
But though I acknowledge this to be a true
principle of association among ideas, I assert
it to be the very same with that betwixt the
ideas of cause and effects and to be an essen-
tial part in all our reasonings from that rela-
tion. We have no other notion of cause and
effect, but that of certain objects, which have
been always conjoined together, and which in
all past instances have been found inseparable.
We cannot penetrate into the reason of the con-
junction. We only observe the thing itself, and
always find that from the constant conjunction
the objects acquire an union in the imagination.