Nay suppose we coued draw an inference, it would be of no consequence in the present case; since no kind of reasoning can give rise to a new idea, such as this of power is; but wherever we reason, we must antecedently be possest of clear ideas, which may be the objects of our reasoning.

The conception always precedes the understanding; and where the one is obscure, the other is uncertain; where the one fails, the other must fail also.
Secondly, It is certain that this repetition of similar objects in similar situations produces nothing new either in these objects, or in any external body.

For it will readily be allowed, that the several instances we have of the conjunction of resembling causes and effects are in themselves entirely independent, and that the communication of motion, which I see result at present from the shock of two billiard-balls, is totally distinct from that which I saw result from such an impulse a twelve-month ago.

These impulses have no influence on each other.

They are entirely divided by time and place; and the one might have existed and communicated motion, though the other never had been in being.
There is, then, nothing new either discovered or produced in any objects by their constant conjunction, and by the uninterrupted resemblance of their relations of succession and contiguity.