This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1807 edition. Excerpt: ... fecondary caufes, it is the immediate, and not the remote caufe that is fought, as this alone conveys any new knowledge; this mif-take is generally made by ignorant, or obtruded by artful people, to evade th.e difco-very of the true caufe. 841. But the moft ufual miftake in philo-fophic difcuffions, confifts ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1807 edition. Excerpt: ... fecondary caufes, it is the immediate, and not the remote caufe that is fought, as this alone conveys any new knowledge; this mif-take is generally made by ignorant, or obtruded by artful people, to evade th.e difco-very of the true caufe. 841. But the moft ufual miftake in philo-fophic difcuffions, confifts in attributing in-difcriminately to preceding circumftances the efficacy of real caufes; whereas, they are often in truth onlyg.wj of the action of fome really efficient caufes; or in miftaking final caufes for efficient caufes. 842. To explain this matter clearly, it is neceffary to ftate the precife notion of a caufe: whatever contributes to the exiftence of a thing (or, more rigoroufly fpeaking, to the exiftence or defforuction of any thing) is called the the caufe of its exiftence or deftru&iori And as many things tend in different ways to produce the effe t, caufes are va-rioufly diftinguifhed from each other; only fix of thefe diftinctions need here be mentioned, namely the efficient, the occafional, the conditional, the final, the phyjical, and the moral. 843. An efficient caufe is that whofe adion is alone fufficient to produce the effed; this fufficiency is made known to us, either by the definition of the being that pofTeffes it, or by confcioufnefs; it is called power, 844. Hence there are but two efficient caufes naturally known to us, namely, Godt in whofe definition omnipotence is included, and the human foul, of whofe power to produce its own volitions we are confcious. All other phyjical or corporeal caufes, as they arc called, are nothing elfe but applications of the Divine will to the production of an effec t on certain occurrences, conftantly, univerfally, and uniformly, in the fame circumftances: thefe applications, ...
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