| Similar instances are still the first source of our idea of power or necessity; at the same time that they have no influence by their similarity either on each other, or on any external object. |
| We must, therefore, turn ourselves to some other quarter to seek the origin of that idea. |
| Though the several resembling instances, which give rise to the idea of power, have no influence on each other, and can never produce any new quality in the object, which can be the model of that idea, yet the observation of this resemblance produces a new impression in the mind, which is its real model. |
| For after we have observed the resemblance in a sufficient number of instances, we immediately feel a determination of the mind to pass from one object to its usual attendant, and to conceive it in a stronger light upon account of that relation. |
| This determination is the only effect of the resemblance; and therefore must be the same with power or efficacy, whose idea is derived from the resemblance. |
| The several instances of resembling conjunctions lead us into the notion of power and necessity. |
| These instances are in themselves totally distinct from each other, and have no union but in the mind, which observes them, and collects their ideas. |
| Necessity, then, is the effect of this observation, and is nothing but an internal impression of. |
| the mind, or a determination to carry our thoughts from one object to another. |
| Without considering it in this view, we can never arrive at the most distant notion of it, or be able to attribute it either to external or internal objects, to spirit or body, to causes or effects. |
| The necessary connexion betwixt causes and effects is the foundation of our inference from one to the other. |
| The foundation of our inference is the transition arising from the accustomed union. |
| These are, therefore, the same. |
| The idea of necessity arises from some impression. |
| There is no impression conveyed by our senses, which can give rise to that idea. |
| It must, therefore, be derived from some internal impression, or impression of reflection. |
| There is no internal impression, which has any relation to the present business, but that propensity, which custom produces, to pass from an object to the idea of its usual attendant. |
| This therefore is the essence of necessity. |
| Upon the whole, necessity is something, that exists in the mind, not in objects; nor is it possible for us ever to form the most distant idea of it, considered as a quality in bodies. |
| Either we have no idea of necessity, or necessity is nothing but that determination of the thought to pass from causes to effects, and from effects to causes, according to their experienced union. |
| Thus as the necessity, which makes two times two equal to four, or three angles of a triangle equal to two right ones, lies only in the act of the understanding, by which we consider and compare these ideas; in like manner the necessity or power, which unites causes and effects, lies in the determination of the mind to pass from the one to the other. |