more on this theme | more from this thinker
Full Idea
The laws of nature are the rules according to which the effects are produced; but there must be a cause which operates according to these rules. The rules of navigation never navigated a ship.
Gist of Idea
Laws are rules for effects, but these need a cause; rules of navigation don't navigate
Source
Thomas Reid (Essays on Active Powers 1: Active power [1788], 6)
Book Ref
Reid,Thomas: 'Inquiry and Essays', ed/tr. Beanblossom /K.Lehrer [Hackett 1983], p.313
A Reaction
Very nice. No enquirer should be satisfied with merely discovering patterns; the point is to explain the patterns.
| 20051 | Reid said that agent causation is a unique type of causation [Reid, by Stout,R] |
| 8383 | Day and night are constantly conjoined, but they don't cause one another [Reid, by Crane] |
| 23664 | Powers are quite distinct and simple, and so cannot be defined [Reid] |
| 23666 | It is obvious that there could not be a power without a subject which possesses it [Reid] |
| 23665 | Consciousness is the power of mind to know itself, and minds are grounded in powers [Reid] |
| 23668 | Our own nature attributes free determinations to our own will [Reid] |
| 23667 | Regular events don't imply a cause, without an innate conviction of universal causation [Reid] |
| 23670 | Scientists don't know the cause of magnetism, and only discover its regulations [Reid] |
| 23671 | Laws are rules for effects, but these need a cause; rules of navigation don't navigate [Reid] |
| 23669 | Thinkers say that matter has intrinsic powers, but is also passive and acted upon [Reid] |