Philosophical and literary essays Author:James Gregory Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ESSAY, SECT. I. Remarks on the Jinking Jimilarity', and the generally fuppofed difference, between the relation of Motive and that ofPhyfical Caufe; —on Mr... more » Hume'j doctrine of their perfe£l Identity; — on his juft and important dif- tinftion between NeceJJary Connection and only Conftant Conjunction;—on his attempt to account for the popular perjuafion of the Liberty of human Actions, on his own prin- ciples. AMONG all the various relations that have engaged the attention either of philolbphers or of mankind in general, there is none which has commonly been thought to bear a clofer and more finkmg refemblance and affinity to that of A caufecaufe and effect in phyfics, than the familiar and well-known relation between the ordinary voluntary determinations and actions of men, and the motives or principles of action to which they are referred, and from which they are conceived in fome meafure to proceed: yet there are none which the vulgar diftinguifh more readily and uniformly, in point of thought at leaft, however they may exprefs them in words; nor any which philofophers have more induftrioufly or more luccclbf ully la boured to confound. The popular perfuafion of what is called the Liberty of human actions implies a conviction, that there is an important and well-underftood difference between thofe two relations. The philofophical doctrine of Neceffity implies and confifts in the perfuafion, that the two relations in queflion are either pre- cifely or very nearly the fame. The former by no means confifts in the belief, that there is no relation between motives motives and the determinations and actions of men, which is the notion of it that many philofophers have unluckily adopted, and imputed to the vulgar, and employed much labour and ingenuity in refutin...« less