Humphry Clinker Read Online Free PDF

of this as going on in infinite succession, or we must think that there is an ultimate cause whose existence is
necessary.
But there cannot be an infinite series of things each of which is caused to exist by its predecessor and causes its successor to exist. For, if we consider the infinite series as a whole, it too must have a cause for its existence. (There could have been nothing at all rather than the whole infinite series.)
Ex hypothesi
there is no external cause for the whole infinite series. Nothing which is a member of the series can cause the whole. Consequently, it has no cause for its existence, which contradicts the premiss that whatever exists has a cause for its existence. ‘We must, therefore, have recourse to a necessarily existent being who carries the
reason
of his existence in himself; and who cannot be supposed not to exist, without an express contradiction.’
    This time it is Cleanthes who refutes the argument, employing Hume’s principles. The essence of the refutation rests on the distinction between relations of ideas and matters of fact. Whether or not something exists is a matter of fact. Anything which is provable
a priori
is such that its negation is inconceivable. But whatever we think of as existing, we can equally think of as not existing. Therefore, there is nothing whose non-existence is inconceivable, and so nothing whose existence can be proved
a priori.
In fact, ‘the words… “necessary existence” haveno meaning’. What Cleanthes says here is derived from Book I, Part III , Section VII of the
Treatise.
There Hume says:
    â€˜Tis evident… that the idea of existence is nothing different from the idea of any object, and that when after the simple conception of any thing we wou’d conceive it as existent, we in reality make no addition to or alteration on our first idea. Thus when we affirm, that God is existent, we simply form the idea of such a being, as he is represented to us; nor is the existence, which we attribute to him, conceiv’d by a particular idea, which we join to the idea of his other qualities, and can again separate and distinguish from them. 18
    When we form the idea that 16 is the square of 4, we have a complex idea which contains the component ideas of 16 and the square of 4. By reflecting on this complex idea, we see that the components must stand in the relation they do. But, if Hume is right about existence, when we think of something, and when we think of it as existing, there is no additional component idea of existence which is related to the idea of the thing. Consequently, it cannot be that by reflection we see that the idea of existence
must
be connected with the idea of the thing, because there is no separable idea of existence. Hence the words ‘necessary existence’ cannot stand for an idea. They have no meaning. Whether or not something exists is a matter of whether there is in reality anything corresponding to our idea; it is not a matter of what the
content of our idea
is.
    The design argument given by Cleanthes is supposed to establish the existence of God, and something of his nature – that he possesses great wisdom, for example. The
a priori
argument given by Demea is also intended to prove the existence of a deity. But at the beginning of the
Dialogues
it is said that the existence of God is not in question; what will be discussed is the divine attributes, the nature of God. However, that there is no dispute about the existence of God is asserted initially by Pamphilus. Although all three characters are prepared to say that there is a God, they are not agreed about either what this means or whether it can be established by reason. Given Hume’s view about existence, onecould not believe that God exists without having an idea of God. So the distinction between questions about the existence and questions about the nature of God is shaky. Cleanthes holds that the design argument establishes