  Cavendish’s criticism of those whose ambition clouds the way they think about self-motion does not apply to Malebranche, however. For, on his view, no created thing, human souls included, possesses the power to self-move. Given Malebranche’s combined rationalistic and theological commitments, none of this is surprising. The surprise, or at least irony, comes when Malebranche’s arguments that natural causes—even and especially human volitions—cannot be real causes cross the channel and are deployed by Hume. The radical empiricist account of causation that Hume gave in terms of constant conjunction is just Malebranche’s rationalist occasionalism without the role assigned to God. For Hume, Malebranche’s occasional causes are the only causes.