What should we think of an author, who, in attempting to account for the original discovery of metals, proved that it was effected by the use of instruments framed from a material termed iron, drawn from the bowels of the earth?
In like manner there is a want of logical precision in referring all the principles which connect our ideas to three kinds of associations amongst them; of which causation is ranked as one; and then (in order to account for causation,) shew the power that lies in the associations of ideas. Such a notion ends in the formation of a mere identical proposition; viz. a certain association of ideas is causation; and causation consists in an association of ideas.
[Lady Mary Shepherd, An Essay upon the Relation of Cause and Effect, pp. 90-91.]
