HUME ON CAUSATION

If we look for the origin of the idea of causation, Hume says, we find that it cannot be any particular inherent quality of objects; for objects of the most different kinds can be causes and effects. We must look instead for relationships between objects. We find, indeed, that causes and effects must be contiguous to each other, and that causes must be prior to their effects. But this is not enough: we feel that there must be a necessary connection between cause and effect, though the nature of this connection is difficult to establish.  Hume denies that whatever begins to exist must have a cause of existence.  As all distinct ideas are separable from each other, and as the ideas of cause and effect are evidently distinct, 'twill be easy for us to conceive any object to be non-existent this moment, and existent the next, without conjoining to it the distinct idea of a cause or productive principle.