Thus, finding that in
that substance which we call wax, fluidity, which is a simple idea
that was not in it before, is constantly produced by the application
of a certain degree of heat we call the simple idea of heat, in
relation to fluidity in wax, the cause of it, and fluidity the effect.
So also, finding that the substance, wood, which is a certain
collection of simple ideas so called, by the application of fire, is
turned into another substance, called ashes; i.e., another complex
idea, consisting of a collection of simple ideas, quite different from
that complex idea which we call wood; we consider fire, in relation to
ashes, as cause, and the ashes, as effect. So that whatever is
considered by us to conduce or operate to the producing any particular
simple idea, or collection of simple ideas, whether substance or mode,
which did not before exist, hath thereby in our minds the relation
of a cause, and so is denominated by us.
2. Creation, generation, making, alteration. Having thus, from
what our senses are able to discover in the operations of bodies on
one another, got the notion of cause and effect, viz. that a cause
is that which makes any other thing, either simple idea, substance, or
mode, begin to be; and an effect is that which had its beginning
from some other thing; the mind finds no great difficulty to
distinguish the several originals of things into two sorts:-
First, When the thing is wholly made new, so that no part thereof
did ever exist before; as when a new particle of matter doth begin
to exist, in rerum natura, which had before no being, and this we call
creation.
Pages:
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468