 Just as Hume rejects the claim that it is absurd or contradictory to deny that there must be a cause for everything that comes into existence, he also denies that it is impossible for an effect to have perfections that its cause lacks. Contrary to this view, Hume maintains, “any thing may produce any thing” (T, 1.3.15.1/ 173; 1.4.5.30/247–8; EU, 12.29/ 164). All that there is to causation, as we experience and know it, is the constant conjunction or regular succession of resembling objects. In other words, to say X causes Y is to say that in our experience we discover that objects resembling X’s are always prior to and contiguous with objects resembling Y’s (T, 1.3.14.28–31/ 168–70). Our idea of causation as it exists in the world reaches no further than this. (See the entry on  the metaphysics of causation.)  On this basis Hume argues: