A Treatise of Human Nature

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BOOK I PART IV


never discover a reason, why any object may
or may not be the cause of any other, how-
ever great, or however little the resemblance
may be betwixt them. This evidently destroys
the precedent reasoning concerning the cause
of thought or perception. For though there ap-
pear no manner of connexion betwixt motion
or thought, the case is the same with all other
causes and effects. Place one body of a pound
weight on one end of a lever, and another
body of the same weight on another end; you
will never find in these bodies any principle
of motion dependent on their distances from
the center, more than of thought and percep-
tion. If you pretend, therefore, to provea priori,
that such a position of bodies can never cause
thought; because turn it which way you will, it
is nothing but a position of bodies; you must
by the same course of reasoning conclude, that

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