Note 6 — Chapter I

For how should this be done? What object is it that we are to call up? If this question can be answered, the object is already in the mind, and there is no occasion to exert the power. If the question cannot be answered, I next demand, how it is possible that a voluntary power can be exerted without any view of an object to exert it upon? We cannot form a conception of such a thing. This argument appears to me satisfactory: if it need confirmation, I urge experience. Whoever makes a trial will find, that objects are linked together in the mind, forming a connected chain; and that we have not the command of any object independent of the chain.