It is notorious that, to the unthinking mass of mankind, nine-tenths of
the facts of fife do not suggest the relation of cause and effect; and
they practically deny the existence of any such relation by attributing
them to chance. Few gamblers but would stare if they were told that
the falling of a die on a particular face is as much the effect of a
definite cause as the fact of its falling; it is a proverb that "the
wind bloweth where it listeth"; and even thoughtful men usually receive
with surprise the suggestion, that the form of the crest of every wave
that breaks, wind-driven, on the sea-shore, and the direction of every
particle of foam that flies before the gale, are the exact effects of
definite causes; and, as such, must be capable of being determined,
deductively, from the laws of motion and the properties of air and
water. So again, there are large numbers of highly intelligent persons
who rather pride themselves on their fixed belief that our volitions
have no cause; or that the will causes itself, which is either the same
thing, or a contradiction in terms.