, are words which,
together with the thing they denominate, imply also something else
separate and exterior to the existence of that thing.
11. All relatives made up of simple ideas. Having laid down these
premises concerning relation in general, I shall now proceed to
show, in some instances, how all the ideas we have of relation are
made up, as the others are, only of simple ideas; and that they all,
how refined or remote from sense soever they seem, terminate at last
in simple ideas. I shall begin with the most comprehensive relation,
wherein all things that do, or can exist, are concerned, and that is
the relation of cause and effect: the idea whereof, how derived from
the two fountains of all our knowledge, sensation and reflection, I
shall in the next place consider.
Chapter XXVI
Of Cause and Effect, and other Relations
1. Whence the ideas of cause and effect got. In the notice that
our senses take of the constant vicissitude of things, we cannot but
observe that several particular, both qualities and substances,
begin to exist; and that they receive this their existence from the
due application and operation of some other being. From this
observation we get our ideas of cause and effect. That which
produces any simple or complex idea we denote by the general name,
cause, and that which is produced, effect.
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