BOOK I PART III
ternal objects, and is not known to us any other
way than by experience. Now the nature and
effects of experience have been already suffi-
ciently examined and explained. It never gives
us any insight into the internal structure or op-
erating principle of objects, but only accustoms
the mind to pass from one to another.
It is now time to collect all the different
parts of this reasoning, and by joining them to-
gether form an exact definition of the relation
of cause and effect, which makes the subject of
the present enquiry. This order would not have
been excusable, of first examining our infer-
ence from the relation before we had explained
the relation itself, had it been possible to pro-
ceed in a different method. But as the nature
of the relation depends so much on that of the
inference, we have been obliged to advance in