230.) In addition to the bare notion of necessary connexion between the cause and its effect, we undoubtedly find in our minds the idea of something resident in the cause which, as we say, produces the effect, and we call this something Force, Power, or Energy.

Hume explains Force and Power as the results of the association with inanimate causes of the feelings of endeavour or resistance which we experience, when our bodies give rise to, or resist, motion.
If I throw a ball, I have a sense of effort which ends when the ball leaves my hand; and if I catch a ball, I have a sense of resistance which comes to an end with the quiescence of the ball.

In the former case, there is a strong suggestion of something having gone from myself into the ball; in the latter, of something having been received from the ball.

Let any one hold a piece of iron near a strong magnet, and the feeling that the magnet endeavours to pull the iron one way in the same manner as he endeavours to pull it in the opposite direction, is very strong.
As Hume says:-- "No animal can put external bodies in motion without the sentiment of a _nisus_, or endeavour; and every animal has a sentiment or feeling from the stroke or blow of an external object that is in motion.

These sensations, which are merely animal, and from which we can, _a priori_, draw no inference, we are apt to transfer to inanimate objects, and to suppose that they have some such feelings whenever they transfer or receive motion."-- (IV.p.91, _note_.) It is obviously, however, an absurdity not less gross than that of supposing the sensation of warmth to exist in a fire, to imagine that the subjective sensation of effort or resistance in ourselves can be present in external objects, when they stand in the relation of causes to other objects.
To the argument, that we have a right to suppose the relation of cause and effect to contain something more than invariable succession, because, when we ourselves act as causes, or in volition, we are conscious of exerting power; Hume replies, that we know nothing of the feeling we call power except as effort or resistance; and that we have not the slightest means of knowing whether it has anything to do with the production of bodily motion or mental changes.