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The phrases in their context!

Extract from A TREATISE OF HUMAN NATURE:

When I consider their relations, I can find none but those of contiguity and succession; which I have already regarded as imperfect and unsatisfactory.
Shall the despair of success make me assert, that I am here possest of an idea, which is not preceded by any similar impression? This would be too strong a proof of levity and inconstancy; since the contrary principle has been already so firmly established, as to admit of no farther doubt; at least, till we have more fully examined the present difficulty.
We must, therefore, proceed like those, who being in search of any thing, that lies concealed from them, and not finding it in the place they expected, beat about all the neighbouring fields, without any certain view or design, in hopes their good fortune will at last guide them to what they search for.
It is necessary for us to leave the direct survey of this question concerning the nature of that necessary connexion, which enters into our idea of cause and effect; and endeavour to find some other questions, the examination of which will perhaps afford a hint, that may serve to clear up the present difficulty.
Of these questions there occur two, which I shall proceed to examine, viz.
First, For what reason we pronounce it necessary, that every thing whose existence has a beginning, should also have a cause.
Secondly, Why we conclude, that such particular causes must necessarily have such particular effects; and what is the nature of that inference we draw from the one to the other, and of the belief we repose in it?
I shall only observe before I proceed any farther, that though the ideas of cause and effect be derived from the impressions of reflection as well as from those of sensation, yet for brevity's sake, I commonly mention only the latter as the origin of these ideas; though I desire that whatever I say of them may also extend to the former.
Passions are connected with their objects and with one another; no less than external bodies are connected together.
The same relation, then, of cause and effect, which belongs to one, must be common to all of them.
SECT. III. WHY A CAUSE IS ALWAYS NECESSARY.
To begin with the first question concerning the necessity of a cause: It is a general maxim in philosophy, that whatever begins to exist, must have a cause of existence.
This is commonly taken for granted in all reasonings, without any proof given or demanded.
It is supposed to be founded on intuition, and to be one of those maxims, which though they may be denyed with the lips, it is impossible for men in their hearts really to doubt of.
But if we examine this maxim by the idea of knowledge above-explained, we shall discover in it no mark of any such intuitive certainty; but on the contrary shall find, that it is of a nature quite foreign to that species of conviction.
All certainty arises from the comparison of ideas, and from the discovery of such relations as are unalterable, so long as the ideas continue the same.
These relations are RESEMBLANCE, PROPORTIONS IN QUANTITY AND NUMBER, DEGREES OF ANY QUALITY, and CONTRARIETY; none of which are implyed in this proposition, Whatever has a beginning has also a cause of existence.
That proposition therefore is not intuitively certain.
At least any one, who would assert it to be intuitively certain, must deny these to be the only infallible relations, and must find some other relation of that kind to be implyed in it; which it will then be time enough to examine.
But here is an argument, which proves at once, that the foregoing proposition is neither intuitively nor demonstrably certain.
We can never demonstrate the necessity of a cause to every new existence, or new modification of existence, without shewing at the same time the impossibility there is, that any thing can ever begin to exist without some productive principle; and where the latter proposition cannot be proved, we must despair of ever being able to prove the former.